A MYSTERIOUS WITNESS

In the latter part of the winter of 1864-65 I was detailed as president of a military commission, called to meet in Winchester to try a man charged with being a spy, a guerrilla, a dealer in contraband goods, and a bad and dangerous man. The specifications recited that the accused had been a member of the notorious Harry Gilmor's band of partisans; that he had been caught wearing citizen's clothes inside the union lines; and that he was in the habit of conveying quinine and other medical supplies into the confederacy. He was a mild mannered, inoffensive appearing person who had been an employe of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad company. He appeared under guard, before the commission, at its daily sessions, accompanied by his counsel, a leading attorney of Winchester, whose learning and ability were not less pronounced than was the quality of his whisky, samples of which he, at irregular intervals, brought in for the solace, if not for the seduction of the court. It was no more like the article commonly called whisky than Mumm's extra dry is like the pink lemonade of circus time. It had an oily appearance, an aromatic flavor, and the lawyer averred that there was not a headache in a barrel of it, though he was the only one who ever had an opportunity to test the truth of the statement and there is no doubt that he knew.

The prisoner exhibited a surprising degree of sang froid considering the grave crimes with which he was charged, the penalty of conviction for any one of which was death. This attitude of the accused puzzled the commission not a little, for he acted like either a very hardened criminal, or a man who was both conscious of innocence and confident of acquittal, and he did not look like "a very bad man."

The case was on trial when the army moved. General Sheridan seemed to lay much stress on the matter for he refused the request of the president of the commission to be relieved in order to rejoin his regiment. A personal letter from General Merritt to General Forsythe, chief-of-staff, making the same request was negatived and an order issued directing the commission to remain in session until that particular case was disposed of and providing that such members as should then desire it, be relieved and their places filled by others.

During the progress of the trial the commission was informed that a very important witness had been detained under guard, by order of General Sheridan, in order that his testimony might be taken. On the witness's first appearance it was noticed that the guard detail was very careful to give him no opportunity to escape. He proved to be a person of most noticeable appearance. Rather above than under six feet, well-built, straight, athletic, with coal-black hair worn rather long, a keen, restless black eye, prominent features, well-dressed, and with a confident, devil-may-care bearing, he was altogether, a most striking figure. His name was Lemoss; his testimony to the point and unequivocal. He acknowledged having been a guerrilla, himself. He had, he said, been a member of Gilmor's band and of other equally notorious commands. He had deserted and tendered his services as a scout and they had been accepted by General Sheridan. He swore that he knew the prisoner; had seen him serving with Gilmor; and knew that he had been engaged in the practices charged.

After this witness had given his testimony the court saw no more of him, but he left a very bad impression on the minds of the members and there was not one of them who did not feel, and give voice to the suspicion that there was something mysterious about him which was not disclosed at the trial. When news of the assassination of the president came to Winchester, all wondered if he did not have something to do with it and the name "Lemoss" was instantly on the lips of every one of us. He had, in the meantime disappeared.

When I met General Sheridan in Petersburg, after the surrender, and he inquired what disposition had been made of that case I told him of the distrust of the principal witness and that it was the unanimous opinion of the commission that the witness was a much more dangerous man than the prisoner. The general smiled and remarked, rather significantly I thought, that he kept Early's spies at his headquarters all winter, letting them suppose that they were deceiving him, and that before the army moved he had sent them off on false scents. The inference I drew from the conversation was that Lemoss was one of those spies and that the trial was a blind for the purpose of keeping him where he could do no harm, without letting him know that he was under suspicion. Nothing more was said about the matter, and I presume that, at the time, General Sheridan did not know what had become of Lemoss.

Soon after the grand review, my regiment was ordered to the west and, while en route to Leavenworth, Kansas, I stopped over night in St. Louis. When reading the morning paper at the breakfast table, I came upon an item which was dated in some New England city, Hartford or New Haven, I think, stating that a man by the name of Lemoss, who had been a scout at Sheridan's headquarters in the Shenandoah valley, had been arrested by the police in the city in question and papers found on his person tending to show that he had been in some way implicated in the plot to assassinate President Lincoln. This recalled to my mind the surmises in Winchester on the day of the event and also the hint thrown out by General Sheridan in reply to my question in Petersburg. I cut the slip out, intending to keep it, but before my return to the states a long time afterwards, had both lost it and temporarily forgotten the circumstance. It was not until many years had elapsed and I began to think of putting my recollections of the war into form for preservation, that all these things came back to my mind. I have often told the story to comrades at regimental or army reunions. The conjectures of the members of the military commission; the suggestion of General Sheridan that Lemoss was a confederate spy; and the newspaper clipping in St. Louis; all seemed so coincident as to form a pretty conclusive chain of evidence connecting the Winchester witness with the conspiracy. I never learned what was done with him after the arrest in New England.

Recently, when consulting Sheridan's memoirs to verify my own remembrance of the dates of certain events in the Shenandoah campaign, what was my surprise to find that the purport of a passage bearing directly upon this subject had entirely escaped my attention on the occasion of a first reading soon after the book appeared.

On page 108, volume 2, appears the following:

"A man named Lomas, who claimed to be a Marylander, offered me his services as a spy, and coming highly recommended from Mr. Stanton, who had made use of him in that capacity, I employed him. He made many pretensions, was more than ordinarily intelligent, but my confidence in him was by no means unlimited. I often found what he reported corroborated by Young's men, but generally, there were discrepancies in his tales which led me to suspect that he was employed by the enemy as well as by me. I felt however, that with good watching, he could do me very little harm and, if my suspicions were incorrect, he might be very useful, so I held on to him.

"Early in February Lomas was very solicitous for me to employ a man, who, he said, had been with Mosby, but on account of some quarrel had abandoned that leader. Thinking that with two of them I might destroy the railroad bridge east of Lynchburg, I concluded after the Mosby man had been brought to my headquarters, by Lomas about 12 o'clock one night, to give him employment at the same time informing Colonel Young that I suspected their fidelity and that he must test it by shadowing their every movement. When Lomas's companion entered my room he was completely disguised but on discarding the various contrivances by which his identity was concealed he proved to be a rather slender, dark-complexioned, handsome young man, of easy address and captivating manners. He gave his name as "Renfrew," answered all questions satisfactorily, and went into details about Mosby and his men which showed an intimacy with them at some time. I explained the work I had laid out for them, * * * * * They assented and it was arranged that they should start the following night. Meantime Young had selected his men to shadow them and, two days later, they reported my spies as being concealed in Strasburg without making the slightest effort to continue on their mission. On the 16th of February, they returned and reported their failure, telling so many lies as to remove all doubt as to their double-dealing. Unquestionably, they were spies, but it struck me that through them I might deceive Early as to the time of opening the spring campaign. I therefore, retained the men without even a suggestion of my knowledge of their true character. Young, meantime, kept close watch over all their doings."