Sworn and subscribed to, before me, this 10th day of March, 1865.
H. B. Smith,
Lt. & Chief.
Paine was a sullen, dumb looking, overgrown young person. To get anything out of him I alternately prodded and fondled; he was a cross between a big booby and a sullen animal.
His statement is disjointed. Between the joints you must imagine my questions, eliciting his words; for instance, "I am eighteen and a half years old," was in reply to my query about his pretensions to never having been in the army. To my remarks about his new grey clothes, certainly pointing their use, where grey was worn, he tried to explain his innocence, etc, etc.
While in the midst of his examination, Miss Branson, accompanied by a Mr. Shriver, came in. Miss Branson pressed right up to my desk, enquiring what charge was against Mr. Paine. She said he was her cousin, and that she knew he had never been north before, etc.
I informed her that her word on such matters was not valuable, since I had her history for disloyalty in my cabinet. I said to Mr. Shriver, whom I knew to be reckoned as a loyal man, that he should not have lent his presence.
I was not in good humor because persons who had promised to testify that Paine had been in Baltimore before had failed to respond. I felt in my bones he was a spy, but could not prove it, and therefore could not hold him, hence my recommendation for his release. Finally, on the 12th, he took the oath of allegiance, before me, and I paroled him, inserting in the parole, "to go north of Philadelphia and remain during the war."
After the assassination, this paper was found on Paine, but he had obliterated the restriction "to go north of Philadelphia," etc.
I took from him his pass and parole, issued at Alexandria, Virginia, January 13th, 1865. In it he was described as of dark complexion, black hair, blue eyes, height six feet one and a half inches.
I will now leave Paine until after the assassination, which was just one month later, April 14th, 1865.