Always vigilant, and, everywhere that he was able, ready and prompt to
serve the government, it must have been a matter of proud satisfaction
to Officer McWatters when he made the first seizure of guns which
occurred at the North during the war, and which guns were intended by
their Northern consignors--sympathizers with the rebellion--to be used
by their Southern consignees to shoot down the patriot forces. This
seizure is thus recorded in the Tribune of May 12, 1861:--
"The vigilance of the police was yesterday evinced by the seizure of
four nine-pound Dahlgren guns by Officer McWatters, of the Steamboat
and Railroad Police, on Pier No. 3, North River."
It will be recollected by all who watched the current affairs of the
war, that it was in regard to this seizure by Officer McWatters, that
Fernando Wood, then Mayor of New York, so infamously and cowardly made
an unasked apology to Robert Toombs of Georgia. Communication with the
South was not at that time suspended, and he telegraphed to the
secessionist his regrets at the seizure, and added assurance that if he
had had control of the police the guns should be restored, or that he
would have forbidden the seizure. Such was the substance of his
telegram. But fortunately for the honor of the nation, as well as of
the city of New York, the control of the police had, before that time,
been taken from Mayor Wood. But his telegram sent a thrill of shame
through all patriotic hearts, and added a new lustre to the merit of
Officer McWatters' deed, by the contrast in which it placed the two
men,--the dutiful, freedom-loving police officer, and the poor creature
who, having escaped the issues of a criminal trial by pleading the
statute of limitations, had been borne on the shoulders of a "Sixth
Ward brigade" of repeating voters to the questionable height of the
Mayoralty of New York.
It is, perhaps, worthy of note here that the virtues of Fernando Wood
have since been duly rewarded by an appreciative constituency in New
York, who have sent him for several terms as their fit representative
to the Congress of the nation. It is seldom that the historiographer
has the opportunity of recording such a lofty expression of the
"gratitude of republics;" and the writer hereof takes especial pleasure
in fixing it here "in eternal types." Officer McWatters' due reproof
for the seizure is fitly found in the fact, that a noble constituency
like Wood's, would, if they could, have annihilated him for the deed.