From the Richmond Dispatch, 8/1/1864, p.1, c 5

Charged with Feloniously Obtaining Money. Some two weeks since a man named John Head, keeper of a livery stable in this city, was committed to Castle Thunder on the charge of feloniously obtaining money from persons whom he had engaged to take across the lines. Upon a representation of the facts before General Gardner, that officer considered the matter an offence against the laws of the Commonwealth, and therefore referred it to the Mayor, who on Saturday last had Head brought before him for a hearing, when the following testimony was elicited:

Mrs. Lina Chastleberger, upon whose complaint the prisoner was arrested, testified that about the 14h of July, 1864, herself and Carolina Niedmeyer, F. Marsch, M. Sumit, and Kunigude Deqeuhardt, made an arrangement with Head to take them across the Potomac for $3,000, one half to be paid in advance, the other at the end of the journey. On going with him to the office to procure passports, he was refused one for himself, but afterwards found a man named Wilson, a horse doctor, who succeeded in obtaining one, and who was to take them in H’s place. The first payment of the money was then made, and the parties separated to make their arrangements for an early start nest morning. When morning came, two negroes drove up to the place appointed to take them and their baggage; but instead of Wilson or Head being the drivers, they had sent two negroes and a white man named George Brown to drive the wagons, whereupon they objected to going, as they had previously had positive instructions from Capt. Thomas W. Doswell, Assistant Provost Marshal, that only those could succeed in passing our pickets who were specially specified in the passport. Previous to urging their objection to going without the prisoner or Wilson, Head demanded the payment of the other half of the three thousand dollars, and upon their refusal to pay it over he would neither agree to take them or return the money which had already been paid down. It was in consequence of these facts that the witness (Mrs. Castleberger) laid her complaints before the Confederate authorities.

Captain Doswell stated that Head could not obtain a passport, but that he afterwards brought to his office one Dr. Wilson, a horse doctor, who produced recommendations from parties entitling him to respectability, and upon which he was permitted to have a passport. It was fully understood by Head that unless Wilson accompanied the ladies who were going North, as a driver, the passport was insufficient to pass them through, and he also knew that no other persons could accompany them without their names were included in the same passport that the others were on. Captain Doswell stated that all passports of this character had to be returned to the office to be cancelled, in order to prevent their being used more than once, and it was therefore that the names of particular parties, going by one conveyance, were obliged to be embraced in one and the same paper. Upon hearing the statement of the ladies who had intended going, he endorsed the course which they had pursued in the refusal to be driven by outsiders, and accordingly felt it his duty to send Head to Castle Thunder.

The defense contended that the only reason why the parties in question did not go in the wagons which called for them was because they were unwilling to pay the whole amount in advance, and Head would not agree that they should be taken without they would do so. One of the wagons they claimed belonged to a man named Taylor, who lived in the neighborhood of the Potomac, and he had a passport entitling him to go home. In order to procure the attendance of this man, the Mayor adjourned the matter till next Saturday, and in the meantime admitted the prisoner to bail for his appearance.

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