L. P. Brockett, The camp, the battlefield, and the hospital: or, lights and shadows of the great rebellion

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[74] parties had failed. Newcomer had already acquired a high reputation as a shrewd and successful detective, and it was determined to set him at work upon the case. He was instructed to make the acquaintance of an old blacksmith, named Jesse Bowen, who cultivated also a small farm in the vicinity of Burton Square in that county. Bowen was notoriously a lawless, bad man, and had been for many years engaged in all manner of frauds and crimes, but had managed to escape detection and punishment. He was now seventy-eight years of age, a friendless, unsocial old villain, whose house was shunned by all who cared for their reputation or candor. Newcomer introduced himself to him as William H. Hall, an extensive manufacturer and dealer in counterfeit money. He had with him, as evidence of his belonging to the fraternity, considerable amounts of counterfeit bills on various banks, with which he had been abundantly supplied. After two or three interviews, by that sort of fascination with which he is so eminently endowed, he succeeded in winning completely the old man's confidence, and learned from him the names of all those who were connected with the gang of counterfeiters. He did more than this. Won by the apparent cordiality of Newcomer, who assisted him on his little farm, he unearthed his machinery and engaged with him in the manufacture of bogus coin, gave him the pass-word, and introduced him to all the members of the gang, with whom he was presently on the best of terms. In an excess of communicativeness, Bowen one day called young Newcomer into an orchard and revealed to him, in confidence, that he and his brother had, in early life, murdered their brother-in-law, in Vermont, and that