He extensively covered the United States presidential election of 1860 and, the following year, he wrote a false story claiming that Abraham Lincoln had traveled through Baltimore disguised in "a Scotch cap and long military cloak" while on his way to Washington, D.C. for his official inauguration Upon the outbreak of the American Civil War, became a war correspondent and was present at the battles of Bull Run and Ball's Bluff. He also played a series of practical jokes such as holding open the paper's lines to telegraph the genealogy of Jesus and, in September 1862, he violated an order prohibiting journalists from attending the funeral of Brigadier General Philip Kearny by sneaking in dressed in clerical robes. This incident caused his editors to remove him as a regular columnist and he was forced to become a freelance reporter. He did continue to remain with "The Times" on and off for another eight years and was also a regular contributor to "The Independent", "The Atlantic Monthly", "The Leader", "Noah's Sunday Times" and other newspapers. Near the end of the war, he was also briefly the city editor of the "Brooklyn Eagle" and the "New York Sunday Mercury".