Selling furloughs and altering passports.
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W. T. Balley was examined by C. S.
Commissioner A. H. Sands, on Monday last, upon the charge of altering a passport and with selling furloughs, details, and passports, to soldiers.
Lieut, Seat testified that the passport in question was a forgery, it having been granted to one
Mrs. E. Bailey, on the 29th January, to visit
Weldon, N. C. The passport had been altered to Wm.
E. Bailey to visit
Weldon, N. C. were also produced before the
Commissioner, being endorsed by
Col. W. L. Brown, both of which, as well as the endorsements and signatures of
Col. W. L. Brown, were pronounced by
Lieut. Scab to be forgeries.
Several witnesses were examined, who stated that
Bailey had confessed to them he would furnish passports from one to sixty days. His charges were $150 for a furlough; $1,500 to $2,000 for a discharge; that he had blanks at home, and would all them up if an old discharge was shown him; that he could counterfeit any hand writing after an hour's practice.
E. O. Person testified that he knew the accused,
Bailey; that he sold him a passport to go to
Weldon, N. C.; a detail for seven days, and a furlough to go to
Weldon, N. C. on the 8th of December last, for all of which he paid him $50; that when witness returned to his regiment he informed
Adjutant Moore about the matter; that he afterwards had a conversation with
Bailey and asked him how he got these discharges and passports, and he said he had some blank discharges, "c., at his house, and
that he bought the passports; said that he had given $700 for one for a man to go away on to
North Carolina, but that the man was taken up and brought back to Castle Thunder.
From information furnished by this witness who is a private in Co. C, 4th N. C., Cavalry, to
Gen. Winder, the detectives were placed up on the track of
Bailey, and eventually succeeded in entrapping him.
Upon his arrest,
Bailey confessed that the papers which he had prepared in compliance with an agreement to furnish the detective, (whom he did not at the time suspect) were all filled out by himself.
At the close of the examination the
Commissioner remanded the accused for indictment in three cases by the
Grand Jury, on the 10th day of February next, and admitted him to bail in the sum of $2,000 in each case for his appearance.
