The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-11-24

Shoals by his own route and, as many
strangers were coming and going, the
presence of our party provoked no I'M
usual comment.
During my absence Mrs. Roberts
had received two big mails and posted
one, and nothing had occurred to Gre
ate alarm. On the day after our ar
rival she came in with fifteen letters
and took out twenty nine. 1t was in
the evening and the four of us were on
the road to the Roberts cabin within
an hour. had seen the messenger
come and go by daylight, but that
might have been an exception. When
we reached the place we posted our
selves 30 that no one could approach
or leave without being seen, and though
the lights were out before eleven
o'clock we remained alert until broad
daylight. 1t was ten o'clock in the
forenoon before Roberts hung up the
sheepskin and 11:45 before the mes
seDger arrived. 1t was the same I'M
couth fellow had seen on the other
occasion, and he received the mail of
the night before and handed out a
packet of letters to be posted.
We had our plans all perfected. Two
of the force were left to arrest Roberts,
and the other two of us lay in ambush
down the road and arrested the mes
senger as he came up. He proved to
be the right sort of a man. He no
sooner found himself in custody than
he wanted to squeal on the rest of the
gang, and in half an hour we had all
the information he could give.
Roberts and his wife were of diff
ferent stuff, but when confronted with
the messenger and made to understand
that he had given the whole thing
away, they became quite anxious to
slip their necks out of the halter.
They were the agents of the gang, and
where do you suppose the gang had
its headquarters? On a house. boat
which moved up and down the Ohio
river, pretending to be in the service
of the government in locating obstruc-
tions, noting the changes in the chan
mel and recording depths. The money
was printed in LOUISVILLE, and this
headquarters boat supplied several
towns on the river. Nearly all the
"queer" was mailed to the soldiers, and
there was a regular system about it.
All the circulars sent to the army OF
the Tennessee referred would be pur-
chasers to an address at New Albany
The army of the Potomac was sup
piled from Shoals. The troops in the
southwest were supplied from Madi-
son.
The messenger stated that the boat
would be at certain point, about six
miles away, at ten o'clock that night
and we were on hand to board and
capture her. There were four men
aboard, one Of whom had charge OF
the correspondence. He had snug
little office fitted up, bought postage
stamps by the hundred and had about
him bushel of compromising docu-
ments. The receipts must have aver
aged three hundred dollars or more
per day, and among the letters order
ing the "queer" were epistles from
several captains and a major. The
messenger knew no one outside the
boat. Roberts and his wife knew only
the messenger. Man and wife got q reg
ular salary of fifteen dollars per week
while the messenger got twenty dol
lars. OF the four ON the boat not one
would betray his comrades, and 80 we
did not get the printer and engravers
at that haul. We got about thirty
thousand dollars in counterfeit money,
over one thousand dollars in good, and
a mass of evidence which raided the
armies and put decided stop to the
business which had so long flourished.
Several officers were ourt-martialed
and dismissed, and a number of sup
posed respectable citizens along the
river found it healthy to remove to
distant points.
Two years later, when a gang of
counterfeiters in Rhode Island was
broken up and two of the slickest cap
tnred, one of them, who went by the
name of "Frenchy," told me that he
printed all the money used along the
Ohio up to the date of my raid, and
that the printing was done within q
square OF tolice station in Louis
vile. He said that the gang included
at least seventy-five men, some OF
whom were city or county officials,
coal dealers, steamboat men and gro
Gers, and the profits of each one
amounted to at least fifty dollars per
week. Out of the pulled only two
were sent to prison, but it ended the
business at once along the river.