Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman / With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War

by James Harvey Kidd

On page 108, volume 2, appears the following:

"A man named Lomas, who claimed to be a Marylander, offered me his services as a spy, and coming highly recommended from Mr. Stanton, who had made use of him in that capacity, I employed him. He made many pretensions, was more than ordinarily intelligent, but my confidence in him was by no means unlimited. I often found what he reported corroborated by Young's men, but generally, there were discrepancies in his tales which led me to suspect that he was employed by the enemy as well as by me. I felt however, that with good watching, he could do me very little harm and, if my suspicions were incorrect, he might be very useful, so I held on to him.

"Early in February Lomas was very solicitous for me to employ a man, who, he said, had been with Mosby, but on account of some quarrel had abandoned that leader. Thinking that with two of them I might destroy the railroad bridge east of Lynchburg, I concluded after the Mosby man had been brought to my headquarters, by Lomas about 12 o'clock one night, to give him employment at the same time informing Colonel Young that I suspected their fidelity and that he must test it by shadowing their every movement. When Lomas's companion entered my room he was completely disguised but on discarding the various contrivances by which his identity was concealed he proved to be a rather slender, dark-complexioned, handsome young man, of easy address and captivating manners. He gave his name as "Renfrew," answered all questions satisfactorily, and went into details about Mosby and his men which showed an intimacy with them at some time. I explained the work I had laid out for them, * * * * * They assented and it was arranged that they should start the following night. Meantime Young had selected his men to shadow them and, two days later, they reported my spies as being concealed in Strasburg without making the slightest effort to continue on their mission. On the 16th of February, they returned and reported their failure, telling so many lies as to remove all doubt as to their double-dealing. Unquestionably, they were spies, but it struck me that through them I might deceive Early as to the time of opening the spring campaign. I therefore, retained the men without even a suggestion of my knowledge of their true character. Young, meantime, kept close watch over all their doings."

General Sheridan then, after giving a summary of the scattered locations of the various portions of Early's army continues as follows:

"It was my aim to get well on the road before Early could collect these scattered forces and as the officers had been in the habit of amusing themselves during the winter by fox-hunting, I decided to use the hunt as an expedient for stealing a march on the enemy and had it given out that a grand fox-chase would take place on the 29th of February. Knowing that Lomas and Renfrew would spread the announcement south they were permitted to see several red foxes as well as a pack of hounds which had been secured for the spurt and were then started on a second expedition to burn the bridges. Of course, they were shadowed, and two days later were arrested in Newtown. On the way north, they escaped from their guards when passing through Baltimore, and I never heard of them again, though I learned that, after the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, Secretary Stanton strongly suspected his friend Lomas of being associated with the conspirators and it then occurred to me that the good-looking Renfrew may have been Wilkes Booth, for he certainly bore a strong resemblance to Booth's pictures."

There is no doubt that "Lemoss," the witness, and the "Lomas" of General Sheridan's narrative, were one and the same person. When he wrote the account from which the foregoing is an extract, General Sheridan had, probably, forgotten about leaving the spies in Winchester under guard where they remained until he was well on his way towards Appomattox. After giving his testimony, Lomas and Renfrew were sent north under guard by General Hancock, Sheridan's successor as commander of the Middle Military Division, and making their escape as explained in Sheridan's narrative, Wilkes Booth, alias Renfrew, was able to carry out his part of the plot. It is, also, quite probable that Lomas's part in the conspiracy was to assassinate either General Sheridan or Secretary Stanton, but, that the scheme was interrupted by the detention of the two spies in Winchester coupled with the unexpected opening of the spring campaign. It is likely that the arrest of the two conspirators led to a postponement of the date of the assassination and that the scope of the plot as originally conceived in the fertile brain of Booth, was very much abridged. There was never in my own mind a particle of doubt, from the moment we heard the news of the president's death, that the man Lomas or Lemoss had something to do with it. The fact that he was on terms of intimacy with Secretary Stanton and contrived to be stationed at Sheridan's headquarters, seems to point conclusively to the part he was to play in the tragedy. At that time, Sheridan was considered, perhaps, the most dangerous enemy the confederacy had to fear and his name must have been high up in the list of those marked by the conspirators for assassination.

An amusing incident occurred as this trial neared its close. The defense asked to have William Prescott Smith, master of transportation of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, summoned as a witness. His residence was Baltimore and he was summoned by wire, the telegram bearing the name of General Hancock, commander of the department. Mr. Smith did not want to come to Winchester and urged the commission to go to Baltimore. Failing to secure acquiescence in that proposition, he suggested as a compromise, that the commission meet him half-way by going to Harper's Ferry. This was agreed to and on the appointed day, the commission took passage on a special train consisting of a locomotive and one passenger coach taking along the prisoner and a guard. Harper's Ferry was reached a little after dark and a messenger from Mr. Smith met us with the compliments of that gentleman and a request that we proceed to his private car. The invitation was accepted and the party was received by the railroad magnate with every manifestation of welcome and a courtesy that seemed to be entirely unaffected. It was found that the most generous and thoughtful provision had been made for our comfort. The colored chef prepared a dinner which would have tickled the palate of an epicure, much more those of a quartet of hungry officers directly from the front. There were champagne and cigars in abundance of a quality such as would have been good enough had General Hancock himself been the guest. The host was courtesy itself, an excellent raconteur, a good fellow, and a gentleman. He could not have treated the president and his cabinet with more distinguished consideration that that with which he honored that little party of volunteer officers.

Late in the evening his testimony was taken and he gave the prisoner a very good character. We slept in his car and in the morning had a breakfast that suitably supplemented the elegant dinner. Some more choice cigars, and then Mr. Smith's private car was attached to an ingoing train and he departed for Baltimore. At the very last moment before his train started, Mr. Smith said:

"Pardon me, gentlemen, but it is too good a joke to keep and I am sure that you will appreciate it now better than you would have done last night. When you wired me to come, you know, General Hancock's name was signed to the telegram. I supposed I was to entertain him and don't mind telling you, frankly, that the dinner was provided with especial reference to his supposed partiality for the good things of life. I don't mean to say I would not have done the same thing for you. I certainly would now that I know you, but, all the same, please say to the general that I expected him and regret much that he was not one of the party so that I might have had the pleasure of entertaining him as well as yourselves. And, by the way, he continued, when I urged you to come to Baltimore it had been arranged that the mayor and a large number of prominent citizens of the city were to meet you at a banquet to have been given at the Eutaw House in honor of General Hancock."

The refined courtesy of the gentleman was something that has been rarely surpassed.