The Delta independent., 1896-02-19
CHAPTER XIX.

The regiment left Jersey City at half
past three with eight hundred and
seventy-five men on board. 1t had not
crossed the Jersey flats when the en-
gineer was locked up in a closet and
the engine taken in charge by one OF
the generals own men. The first act
was to cut the telegraph wires when
ten miles out at a secluded spot, and
here twenty-five moro men were
dropped. The train was then run with
a view to land the men at the best
point and to keep ahead of the special
that it was believed would be on its
heels. Gen. Waterson's report leaves
us in no doubt as to how his plan dis
posed of the forces. Fifty got off at or
near Newark. Twenty-Five were
dropped at Waverly and twenty-five at
Elizabeth. Fifty were disposed of at
Railway and one hundred before reach
ing New brunswick. Between Deans
and Monmouth junction another hun
dred left and at Princeton Junction, at
the suburbs OF Trenton, four hundred
more disappeared. Fifteen miles out
of Bristol the remaining hundred
dropped from the cars. The engine
was then reversed and the train
started spinning backwards to meet
the special.
Most of these men adopted the plan
that had been tried at st. Mary's. They
started at once in diverging lines
and disappeared in the surrounding
country.
The excitement in New York over
the affair was widespread, and was
famed into a flame before evening by
the news that came from Philadelphia
that the United States mint had been
similarly robbed by another regiment
that had seized a train and gone to
Lancaster.
The next morning full details of the
two exploits we're printed, and there
was no doubt that they were both
parts Of one plan. But no one appears
to have suspected the exact method OF
the regiments or their plan of subse-
quent disintcgration. The popular
imagination planted an armed force
in the field somewhere and added un-
told resources of men out of its own
terrors. Something of this feeling was
reflected by the press and the action
of the secretary of the treasury, for all
the endeavors were directed to the in
Perception and capture of an armed
force which as the reader knows did
not exist. New York now recalled the
st. Mary's affair which it had formerly
treated as u western practical joke,
and the Louisville papers were rather
exultant at what they called an eastern
dose of the joke.
But it must not be supposed that the
central police-office at New York had
been entirely led astray by these
events. 1t had quietly arrested six
men whom its sharp-eyed detectives
had recognized as being in the ranks
of the visiting regiment, and on one Of
them was found five hundred dollars
in gold. The superintendent, who saw
underneath the surface what he con-
ceived to be vast and brainy con-
apiracy, summoned his best men; put
himself in communication with the
secret service bureau at Washington,
and very soon began to formulate some
Of the inevitable deductions. In this
he was fortunately aided by one or two
circumstances He obtained from the
Washington bureau the photographs Of
the men who had boarded the Corin-
THAN, which photographs had been
forwarded from England. One of the
persons in the group was discovered to
he Fenning. The other circumstance
was that the Washington bureau had