From the Richmond Whig, 3/10/1864, p. 1, c. 3

THE CASE OF DETECTIVE CASHMEYER. - Phillip Cashmeyer, arrested and committed to Castle Thunder for attempting to send documents to Yankee land by Yankee prisoner, was last evening still in durance vile. - There was a gentle flutter on the surface of society, produced by this arrest, which almost deserved the term of "excitement;" but very few people expressed surprise; on the contrary, almost everybody said "it was nothing more than they had expected." Yesterday, there were two very different reports afloat touching the degree of Cashmeyer's guilt. Some said they had learned, from Government officials, who had had under examination the papers given by Cashmeyer to the Yankee, that matters were a great deal worse than at first represented; that the letters (especially the German letter, which being generally unintelligible, was pronounced to the most abominably treasonable) contained the deepest, darkest treason, and the most of it! The other report was, that General Winder had handed the documents over to Marshal Kane for examination, and that that gentleman, after going through them thoroughly, had given it as his opinion that Cashmeyer had been guilty of no crime, but had simply made a consummate ass of himself. According to this report, the documents were a private letter, in German, to his friends in Baltimore, containing the various passports upon which he had been traveling about the Confederacy, and which he was anxious his friends in Baltimore should see, that they might understand what a great man he had grown to be down in this land of Dixie; and some papers belonging to a Yankee sutler named John Hooper, who had prevailed on him to get them sent North to facilitate the settlement of some business of the said Hooper. We cannot pretend to decide which, if either, of those reports is correct, and we cannot say that we shall ever know the truth of the matter. Officials are tried here by the military authorities on the charges of corruption, for selling passports, &c., &c., the whole thing is managed in secret; the officials are sent further south but the facts are never made public. We see no reason why a deviation from this rule of proceeding should be practiced in this case, unless indeed absolutely nothing can be brought home to the man. In that case we shall never be done hearing of it.

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Since writing the above we have positive information that an examination of the Cashmeyer papers disclose nothing treasonable and that they are made up of passports and other documents calculated to show the people of Baltimore what a very consequential personage Phillip Cashmeyer is in Rebeldom. It is said his conduct is regarded in official circles as a "grave indiscretion."

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