Between the Lines: Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After

by Henry Bascom Smith

In the afternoon, nearly dark, we parted in the Howard House (then at the corner of Maiden Lane and Broadway) with the understanding that I was returning to Baltimore and Manahan, satisfied with his assurances.

My man (Mr. Kraft), who had been following me, to be handy if help was needed, and who had been watching for the signal to make the arrest, came to me hastily, thinking he might have missed the signal, but I assured him it was all right to let Martin go. I had a further purpose, I wanted to get the documents Martin had spoken of as being at his hotel.

Kraft and I dined at the old Lovejoy Hotel (then at the corner of Beekman Street and Park Row) and afterwards went up to the Gramercy Park Hotel, then quite a fashionable hostelry. We waited until Martin came out of the dining-room. He was in his dinner suit, and was quite a dude for such a raw-boned Southerner; he was surprised to see me again. I told him I wanted some further talk. I asked if we could not go to his room. After starting for up stairs I introduced my friend.

When in his room I informed him that my sole object was to obtain the information needed by the Government. Any man's face would be a study under such circumstances. Martin was game; his first question was: "Well, what is your name?" "Smith," I replied. "Oh, I mean your right name," he said. (There are some advantages in the name Smith, I really needed no alias.)

Martin thought a treat was "on him," and he paid it. I then invited him to show me the documents he had described when down town. I took possession of all. They gave a very good history of his doings on the Mississippi river, and his connection with the Confederate Treasury Department.

In answer to his question, I told him that I did not know what the government would do with him, but I was sure his proposed claim against the government would not be collectible, and perhaps he would be detained until the end of the war, to prevent a recurrence.

Pending my first call on Martin, I visited General Dix, commanding the Department of the East. He declined to endorse my order to make the arrest of Martin, unless I explained fully the case. Rather than do so, just at that time, I concluded to disregard courtesy and take my man away without his endorsement, which I did.

The "Gold Room" which was then more important than the Stock Exchange, was in Twenty-fourth Street, back of the Fifth Avenue Hotel; it was open evenings. I permitted Martin to send there for money, and to advise his friends that he would be away for a few days.

During the evening Mr. Martin said to me, "Last evening, when I was expecting you, waiting for you, I lay here reading Colonel Baker's book on the Secret Service. He had no case as slick as this. Smith, you were so frank and open, I would have told you anything you wanted to know."

I presume he was reading Baker's book to see how such cases as his were treated, not dreaming of an ocular demonstration so near at hand. At midnight we started for Baltimore.