"In late April, for security reasons, he(Lincoln) authorized simultaneous raids on every telegraph office in the Northern States, seizing the originals and copies of all telegrams sent or recieved during the past year. As a result of this and other measures, sometimes on no stronger evidence than suspicion of an informer nursing a grudge, men were taken from their homes in the dead of night, thrown into dungeons and held without explanation or communication with the outside world."