For some time past (but since the battle at Manassas) quite a
number of Northern and Baltimore policemen have made their appearance in
Richmond. Some of these, if not indeed all of them, have been employed by Gen.
Winder. These men, by their own confessions, have been heretofore in Baltimore,
Philadelphia, and New York, merely petty larceny detectives, dwelling in
bar-rooms, ten-pin alleys, and such places. How can they detect political
offenders, when they are too ignorant to comprehend what constitutes a political
offense? They are illiterate men, of low instincts and desperate characters.
But their low cunning will serve them here among unsuspecting men. They will,
if necessary, give information to the enemy themselves, for the purpose of convincing
the authorities that a detective police is indispensable; and it is probable a number
of them will be, all the time, on the pay-rolls of Lincoln.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 71
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