Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 29.djvu/73

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based upon them reports to the President and the War Department full of the most vindictive adjectives.

Basing the opinion on the evidence of these witnesses alone, the Judge-Advocate General wrote to the Secretary of War, giving the result of his examination but withholding the names of his witnesses. (Id., 856.) The depositions on which Holt founded his charges against Clay and Davis are all set out in full in the i2ist volume of that invaluable memorial published by the Government, known as the " War of the Rebellion Official Records of the Union and Con- federate armies," the value of which in vindicating the truth of his- tory cannot be overestimated.

Holt's theories and charges, however, based as they were upon fraud, had to fall. Honest men of brains, who read his ravings and the wild romances contained in the depositions on which founded, were not satisfied, and finally Congress took up the matter and in- vestigations were ordered. The Judiciary Committee of the lower house was direcied to examine into the charges as to the complicity of Davis and others in the murder of Mr. Lincoln, and, fortunately for the cause of truth, Colonel L. C. Turner, of the Bureau of Mil- itary Justice, was detailed to aid them.

The witnesses to be examined were the same whose depositions Holt had secured Sanford Conover, John H. Patten, Joseph Sne- vel, Farnum B. Wright, John M. Gill, Miss Mary Knapp, Mrs. Sarah Douglass, and William Campbell. Turner, with great indus- try and skill, first went to work to search into the character of those upon whom he was to rely to establish so heinous a crime. His report of his work is very interesting. (Id., 921.) He finally proved, and many of the so-called witnesses confessed, the whole matter to be a conspiracy for the purpose of deceiving General Holt and obtaining money from the government. The investigation proved, and the report states, that

" Sanford Conover his true name is Dunham; lawyer by profes- sion, formerly lived at Croton, then in New York and Brooklyn; a very shrewd, bad, and dangerous man. William Campbell his true name is Joseph A. Hoare, a gas-fixer by trade; born in the' State of New York, and never south of Washington. Joseph Snevel his true name is WUliam H. Roberts, formerly ticket agent on Harlem railroad; then kept tavern at Yonkers, &c. ; was never South. Farnum B. Wright true name, John Waters; is lame in the knee; works in a brick-yard near Cold Spring, on Long Island,