Sequachee Valley news. (Sequachee [Sequatchie], Tenn.) 1896-1952, 1898-10-13
CHAPTER XIX


The regiment left Jersey City at half
past three with eight hundred and
seventy-ive 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 secluded spot, and
here twenty-five mere men were
dropped. The train was then run with
q 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 were 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 disintegration. The popular
Imagination planted an armed force
in the field somewhere and added I'M.
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 a 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 haC
been entirely led astray by these
events. 1t had quietly arrested siy
men whom its sharp-eyed detectives
had recognized as being in the ranks
of the visiting regiment, and on one o.
them was found five hundred dollars
in gold The superintendent, who saw
underneath the surface what he con
ceived to be a vast and brainy con
spiracy, summoned his best men; pu
himself in communication with th'
secret service bureau at Washington
and very soon began to formulate som,
of the inevitable deductions In thi
he was fortunately aided by one or TIVE
circumstances. He obtained from tht
Washington bureau the photographs o
the men who had boarded the COrin
THAN, which photographs had beer
forwarded from England. One of th'
persons in the group was discovered t,
be Fenning. The other circumstanc,
was that the Washington bureau ha,
sent two men west on his trail an,
they had disappeared in Tennessee
With these facts before him, it did no
take the superintendent very long t,
focus his suspicious upon western
| Tennessee