Special Order No. 43.
Lieut. H. B. Smith, 5th N. Y. Arty., will proceed to Washington with Mrs. Mary E. Sawyer, Rebel mail carrier, turn her over to Supt. of Old Capitol Prison, taking receipt for prisoner. Will then deliver to Hon. C. A. Dana, Asst. Secy. of War, all the papers in her case, after which he will report without delay at these headquarters.
Quartermasters will furnish transportation.
By command of Major General Lew Wallace.
John Woolley,
Col. and Provost Marshal.
Persons were not disturbed in the enjoyment of their opinions so long as they did not become actively disloyal, but it was my duty to learn who were disloyal for the purpose of keeping them under surveillance. The following report I put in to illustrate that character of work:
Headquarters, Middle Department,
8th Army Corps.
Office Provost Marshal,
Baltimore, Apl. 24, 1864.
H. B. Smith,
Lieut. and Chief:
I have the honor to report that I left Baltimore as per orders and proceeded to Reisterstown and stopped at a tavern and was accosted by a citizen who told me there were detectives in the house, and that he knew I was from the other side, and sent me to a woman named Mrs. Hofman, who keeps a hotel there. I went to her house and represented myself as a Rebel captain.
I had been there a short time when Mrs. Hofman took me upstairs in a bedroom that was in the back part of the house and told me if the detectives came upstairs, to get out of the back window and take a horse that she would have saddled ready for me; she said she did not care for the horse as the citizens would make it up to her.