This sudden and unexpected appearance was a crushing blow to their hopes. They submitted without a word; and although bowed to the ground with disappointment, they experienced a sensation almost amounting to relief, at the prospect of receiving the care and attention which even enemies would give to those in such distress as were these poor fugitives.
Limping along, they were marched to an out-building, connected with a farm-house near by, when, to their surprise, they saw the remainder of their party, who had been captured by another band of soldiers, huddled together in one corner of the room.
The soldiers were touched with pity, as they beheld the forlorn condition of the men whom they had secured, and in a short time they had provided them with a repast, which the famished fugitives devoured with a rapidity which gave ample testimony of their long and painful abstinence.
After dispatching this meal they were conveyed directly back to Richmond, and returned to their old quarters in Henrico jail. On their arrival each man was placed in a separate cell, and doubly ironed, to prevent a repetition of their efforts to escape.
The prisoners re-captured. P 522
While Price Lewis had been engaged in this unsuccessful attempt to gain his liberty, John Scully had been undergoing a far different experience. A court-martial had been hurriedly convened, where he was fully identified by every member of the Morton family as the man who had searched their premises in the city of Washington, and had, after a very summary trial, been convicted and remanded back to prison to await his sentence.
On the second day after the return of Price Lewis he was conducted before a court-martial, and in a remarkably short space of time was accorded a trial, if trial it could be called, and his conviction followed as quickly as did that of John Scully.
They had been charged with being alien enemies, and at one time acting in the service of the Federal government in Washington. In addition to this, they were charged with loitering around the fortifications at Richmond and taking plans of the same. Notwithstanding the fact that no witness could be procured who would swear to having seen them in such localities, or engaged in any such occupation, the members of the court-martial, with singular unanimity, found them guilty of the second charge, with as much haste, and as manifest an air of solemnity, as they did of the first.