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of the 13th, when a spy informed him of the re-enforcement of
Fort Pickens.
That movement exasperated him, and he was deeply mortified by a sense of his own utter stupidity in allowing
Lieutenant Worden to visit the squadron.
To shield himself from the charge of such stupidity by his associates and superiors, he laid aside all honor as a man and a soldier, and accused the lieutenant with having practiced falsehood and deception in gaining permission to visit the
Sabine. He telegraphed this charge to the conspirators at
Montgomery, with a recommendation for his arrest.
Five officers were detailed for the service, one of whom had served with
Worden in the Navy.
They arrested him a short distance below
Montgomery, and, on their arrival at that city, placed him in the custody of
Cooper, the “
Adjutant-General of the
Confederacy.”
Cooper took from him unimportant dispatches for his Government, and on Monday, the 15th,
Worden was cast into the common jail.
Bragg's false charge made him an object of scorn to
Davis and his fellow-conspirators, and the citizens generally; and there, in that common jail, this gallant officer, whose conduct had been governed by the nicest sense of honor, suffered indignity until the 11th of November following, when he was paroled and ordered to report at
Richmond, where
Davis and his associates were then holding court.
Cooper sent him to
Norfolk, whence he was forwarded to the flag-ship of
Admiral Goldsborough, in
Hampton Roads,
when
Lieutenant Sharpe, of the insurgent navy, was exchanged for him.
1 Worden was the first prisoner of war held by the insurgents.
2
A few days after the re-enforcement of Fort Pickens, the Atlantic and Illinois arrived with several hundred troops, under the command of Colonel Harvey Brown, with an ample quantity of supplies and munitions of war. These Were taken into Fort Pickens, and within ten days after the arrival of Worden, there were about nine hundred troops in that fort.
Colonel Brown assumed the command, and Lieutenant Slemmer and his little band of brave men, worn down with fatigue, want of sleep, and insufficient food, were sent to Fort Hamilton, at the entrance to New York harbor, to rest.
They shared the plaudits of a grateful people with those equally gallant defenders of Fort Sumter. Lieutenant Slemmer was commissioned major of the Sixteenth Regiment of Infantry; and because of brave conduct subsequently