The blockade, which cut off the Rebel communication with the outer world, made these in great demand.

Many of the prisoners that came in from the Army of the Potomac repaid robbing equally well.

As a rule those from that Army were not searched so closely as those from the West, and not unfrequently they came in with all their belongings untouched, where Sherman's men, arriving the same day, would be stripped nearly to the buff.
The methods of the Raiders were various, ranging all the way from sneak thievery to highway robbery.

All the arts learned in the prisons and purlieus of New York were put into exercise.

Decoys, "bunko-steerers" at home, would be on the look-out for promising subjects as each crowd of fresh prisoners entered the gate, and by kindly offers to find them a sleeping place, lure them to where they could be easily despoiled during the night.