Between the Lines: Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After

by Henry Bascom Smith

Headquarters,
Middle Military Department,
Office Provost Marshal General,
Baltimore, Sept. 22, 1865.

Special Order No. 117.

II. H. B. Smith, Chief of Detective Corps, Middle Military Department, and one man as guard, will proceed to Washington, D. C., in charge of the following named horse thieves:

Wm. H. Smith and R. B. Franklin, alias Robert Nelson. On arrival he will deliver the prisoners with accompanying papers to Capt. Geo. B. Russell, Acting Provost Marshal General, Defences North of Potomac, receive receipt for same and report at these headquarters without delay.

Quartermaster's Department will furnish transportation.

By command of Major General Hancock.

John Woolley,
Lt. Col. & Provost Marshal General.

FILE XLVII.

Captain Beckwith convicted—Gambling—Order to take Beckwith to Albany penitentiary.

Along about August and September, 1865, the Government ordered surveillance of all gambling houses, to discover if disbursing officers were gambling. This was my first experience in the art. It was a free school, for the tuition was on Uncle Sam. The lessons have served me all my life, and I have never wanted to go to that school since.