The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1866-11-17
COLUMBIA.
Saturday Morning, Nov. II, 1866.
Indictnnent OF "A Pcrjured witness.

of the principal conspirators who is
alleged to have been used by Judge
Advocate Holt in the infamous plot
to connect Jefferson Davis with the
ssassination of Lincoln-the Grand
Jury of the District of Columbia
having indicted the redoubtable San
ford Conover (alias Dunham) for per-
jury. As the New York Herald en-
phatically asserts, no one will regret
to see brought to justice such an III
famous character as this mru, who, if
he was not the concocter of the hor-
rihle charges against Mr.. Davis, was,
at least, the plant and willing tool of
persons in higher sphere, and the
principal agent in the disgraceful
transaction. Wherever the blame
rests for conceiving and working up
this conspiracy against the life and
reputation of the ex-President of the
so-called Confederacy, it is morally
certain that the man Conover did his
part of the business boldly and un-
scrupulously, l. agh the demouement
proves that he vas not quiteaas relia-
ole or as cunning as his employers
supposed.
The intimate connection of Judge
Holt with this outrage upon the cha
racter of defenceless prisoner, whose
reputation stands out in all the Inca
ments of perfect virtue, as compared
with that. of his traducers, has been
the subject..of much comment. The
authenticity of his letters to Conover,
which are in possession of the editor
of the Herald, was at first denied by
Judge Holt, but, upon comparing his
note of denial with the letters to
Conover, the handwriting is found
to be marvellously similar. Since
this fact has been made. public, no
attempt has been made to deny the
paternity of the Holt Conover letters
This man Conover, the Dispatch
thinks, was in Richmond during the
war-a achilom resident of the we'll
known Libby. He is the man, we
believe, who wrote, upon his return
to the North, 4 long letter, of some
three or four columns, narrating how
successfully he had fooled Jeb Stuart
and gained access to the Secretary of
War. His professed mission was to
obtain authority from the Confede-
rate Government to raise regiment
IN the Northern cities and bring them
through the lines, to enter the Con-
federate service under his leadership
as colonel in the Confederate army.
talingto attain his object in securing
the promise of commission. and
authority to recruit on behalf of the
Confederacy, he endeavored, during
raid upon Ashland, to reach the
forces of the enemy. Upon his ar
rest and the search of his person,
there were found sundry very suspi-
clous papers, and he was held for q
while as a suspected spy. Had the
Confederate authorities been pos
sessed of one-half the spirit of ven
geance and virulence which he and
his creatures sought to ascribe to them
IN their false swearing, his own base
life had been terminated upon a Con
federate gallows.
The effort to implicate Mr.. Davis
and high officials of the Confederate
Government in the assassination plot,
AZ to lmpute to them deliberate and
calculated cruelty to Federal prison
ers, was an injurious device to blacken
the reputation of the South. 1t was
not without good reason to expect
success, that the enemies of Mr.. Da-
Wis and the South endeavored, in the
military trials of last year, to identify
hum with Booth, and Payne, and
Wirz. The record of those trials.
and the action of judges and Judges
advocate, have yet to meet a critical
examination, and woe be the day to
the reputation of some men when it
does.