rder of
Gordon, on the 16th of March, in the Auburn State Prison, had confessed
to him that he had lived a gambler several years in the south and west,
and he would like I should call upon him. I accompanied him to the cell
of the murderer. The door was thrown open upon its grating hinges, when
the reverend gentleman introduced me as an acquaintance of his who had
travelled south several years, and thought that he (Wyatt) would be glad
to converse with him. He said he was happy to see me, and asked me to be
seated. After a short discourse, relative to the different classes of
men then in confinement, I asked him what he followed in his travels
through the south. He told me gambling. I asked him how long he had been
engaged in that nefarious business. He said twelve or thirteen years. I
asked him if he knew many gamblers? He said he did. I asked him if he
ever knew one by the name of Green? He said he did. I asked his name? He
answered, "John;" said he knew him in 1832, 1833, 1834, and 1835, and
saw him in 1842 in St. Louis. I asked him if he was intimate with Green?
He said he knew him as one gambler knew another. I asked if I favoured
him? He said if I would stand in the light he would tell me. I did so.
He said I looked like the man. I told him I was the man, but that I
never knew him by the name of Wyatt. He said I did not; that Wyatt was
not his real name. He then told me another, which was not his real name,
and asked me if I did not hear of a man being murdered near St. Louis in
the year 1841, and of two men being arrested, both tried and convicted,
one having a new trial granted him, the other being hung. I told him
that I thought I had. He said he was the man that had the new trial
granted, and was acquitted; "and," said he, "they hung the wrong man; he
was innocent; I am the guilty man; but they hung him and cleared me."
"But," says I, "you were under a different name still, at that time." He
said, "Yes, by none of those names do you know me, but my real name you
are familiar with. Your name," said he, "I knew in the year 1832; the
gamblers called you John, but Jonathan is your real name." My curiosity
was highly excited at the strange management of the murderer. But you
may imagine the increase of it when he told me his real name. I looked
at the murderer, and could scarcely believe my own eyes; yet he stood
before me a living marvel. I have pledged secresy as to his real name
until after his execution. I interr