From the Richmond Dispatch, 1/19/1863, p. 1, c. 6

Prison Items. – The following arrivals were booked at Castle Thunder on yesterday: Twenty-five straggling soldiers sent from Camp Holmes, N C, to be returned to their regiments; J H Halley, co D, 45th Va, desertion; W S Alexander, 1st Tenn, desertion and forgery; Jerry Coleman, 11th Ga, drawing money on false papers; Patrick Fagan, Whittington Artillery, desertion; C D Lucas and H M Sharp, Palmetto sharpshooters, desertion. On yesterday two desperadoes, named Erastus Cutlip, company F, 2d Va (Abolition) regiment, and Wm. J. McMillian, of the 11th Ohio, were brought to Richmond and lodged in Castle Thunder for trial by the civil authorities. These men were recently arrested by the Provost Marshal of Pocahontas county. They belong to a gang of Union men who have been a terror to the people of the lower end of Pocahontas and upper end of Greenbrier counties, and for months past have been committing every kind of outrage on the persons and property of the people residing in that section of the country. One of their more recent exploits was the destruction of the saltpeter cave in Pocahontas county, which was being worked for the Government. The prisoners would have been imprisoned in Pocahontas county but for the fact that their Abolition cronies would thereby have been afforded an opportunity to turn them loose on the community again. Before the war McMillian had been indicted in Pocahontas county for grand larceny, but had escaped.

Go to top