NOTE. --On the same date F. M. Crow, H. G. Thurber, J. W. Griffith, J. T. McFeal, Joseph Back, J. W. Robards, William Grubbs, Anderson McDowell, S. H. Wooldridge and L. S. Holsclaw subscribed to the same oath.

Case of John C. Stovin.

This individual [John C. Stovin] is an Englishman by birth and the first that is known of him in this country he came to Cumberland, in the State of Maryland, to reside about the year 1854, where he married the daughter of Dr. George Lynn and settled as a permanent dependent of his said father-in law. He left Cumberland about the year 1856 and it is understood that he went to Illinois and was absent from Cumberland about two years, when he returned again to the house of his said farther-in-law and resumed his dependence upon him and continued the same until his death in 1860. From that time he remained a burden upon the widow and family of his dais deceased father-in-law until the time of his arrest as hereinafter stated. On the 16th day of July, 1859, this Stovin declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States and made oath renouncing forever his allegiance to Queen Victoria in the circuit court for Allegany County, in said State of Maryland, according to the form of the statute provided in the case of citizens or subjects of other countries desiring to become citizens of the United States. From the outbreak of the rebellion in December, 1860, he has been a secessionist and a sympathizer with the rebellion and his associations have been with persons of like sentiments, so that he incurred the dislike and suspicion of

all the loyal people of Cumberland. In the summer of 1861 when Colonel Wallace, of the Eleventh Indiana Volunteers, had his regiment stationed at Cumberland a detachment of said regiment u

under Captain Lyman was directed to perform some duty at the house of Josiah H. Gordon, a disloyal member of the house of delegates, and Stovin came there while he was engaged in such duty and interrupted the performance thereof and was arrested by the said Captain Lyman and detained for two or three hours, when he was discharged, and he thereafter boasted that he would make a claim through the British minister against the Government of the United States and recover a large amount of damages for said arrest by Captain Lyman. He also threatened to poison a spring from which the said Eleventh Indiana Volunteers used the water, and in frequent seditious conversations constantly justified the rebels of the insurrectionary States in their rebellion, during all which time the said town of Cumberland was threatened by the rebel forces and frequent alarms were spread among the inhabitants of immediate attacks, and great insecurity was felt owing to the presence in town of many sympathizers with the rebels of whom Stovin was notorious. Wherefore it was deemed judicious as a precautionary measure to take the said Stovin into custody, which was accordingtion of the Secretary of State on or about the 8th of October, 1861, and he was soon after placed in confinement at Fort McHenry. He immediately appealed to the British minister to interfere for his release but more especially to urge a claim in his behalf against the Government of the United States for damages by loss of property and interruptions of business by reason of his arrest and detention to a large amount, while the fact was that he never possessed property to the value of a dollar nor was ever engaged in any business

57 R R--SERIES II, VOL II