The dispatch, with the documents of verification, was handed over to Mr. Seward for use in London, and a day or two afterward the warden of the Old Capitol Prison was directed to give the dispatch bearer an opportunity of escaping, with a proper show of attempted prevention. One afternoon the spy walked into my office. "Ah!" said I, "you have run away."
"Yes, sir," he answered.
"Did they shoot at you?"
"They did, and didn't hit me; but I didn't think that would answer the purpose. So I shot myself through the arm."
He showed me the wound. It was through the fleshy part of the forearm, and due care had been taken not to break any bones. A more deliberate and less dangerous wound could not be, and yet it did not look trivial.
He was ordered to get away to Canada as promptly as possible, so that he might explain the loss of his dispatch before it should become known there by any other means. An advertisement offering two thousand dollars for his recapture was at once inserted in the New York Herald, the Pittsburgh Journal, and the Chicago Tribune. No one ever appeared to claim the reward, but in about a week the escaped prisoner returned from Canada with new dispatches that had been entrusted to him. They contained nothing of importance, however. The wound in his arm had borne testimony in his favor, and the fact that he had hurried through to St. Catherine's without having it dressed was thought to afford conclusive evidence of his fidelity to the Confederate cause.
The war was ended soon after this adventure, and, as his services had been of very great value, a new place, with the assurance of lasting employment, was found for the young man in one of the bureaus of the War Department. He did not remain there very long, however, and I don't know what became of him. He was one of the cleverest creatures I ever saw. His style of patriotic lying was sublime; it amounted to genius.