From the Richmond Enquirer, 2/22/1862
TOOK THE OATH. – A party of twenty-five or thirty workmen employed in the Government Laboratory, and who had refused the oath of allegiance to the Confederate States Government, were yesterday arrested at the work-shops by a detachment of the Seventh Virginia Regiment, under command of Capt. John C. Porter, and conveyed before Gen. Winder, who examined the cause of the refusal, and ascertaining that the men – all of whom were unnaturalized foreigners – believed that by taking the required oath they would be renouncing their allegiance to their own government. The matter was explained, and the recusants then took the oath, and were discharged from custody.