The Colonel had access to the departments.  He knew all the senators and representatives, and especially, the lobby.  He was consequently a great favorite in Newspaper Row, and was often lounging in the offices there, dropping bits of private, official information, which were immediately, caught up and telegraphed all over the country.  But it need to surprise even the Colonel when he read it, it was embellished to that degree that he hardly recognized it, and the hint was not lost on him.  He began to exaggerate his heretofore simple conversation to suit the newspaper demand.

People used to wonder in the winters of 187- and 187-, where the “Specials” got that remarkable information with which they every morning surprised the country, revealing the most secret intentions of the President and his cabinet, the private thoughts of political leaders, the hidden meaning of every movement.  This information was furnished by Col.  Sellers.

When he was asked, afterwards, about the stolen copy of the Alabama Treaty which got into the “New York Tribune,” he only looked mysterious, and said that neither he nor Senator Dilworthy knew anything about it.  But those whom he was in the habit of meeting occasionally felt almost certain that he did know.

It must not be supposed that the Colonel in his general patriotic labors neglected his own affairs.  The Columbus River Navigation Scheme absorbed only a part of his time, so he was enabled to throw quite a strong reserve force of energy into the Tennessee Land plan, a vast enterprise commensurate with his abilities, and in the prosecution of which he was greatly aided by Mr. Henry Brierly, who was buzzing about the capitol and the hotels day and night, and making capital for it in some mysterious way.

“We must create, a public opinion,” said Senator Dilworthy.  “My only interest in it is a public one, and if the country wants the institution, Congress will have to yield.”

It may have been after a conversation between the Colonel and Senator Dilworthy that the following special despatch was sent to a New York newspaper: 

“We understand that a philanthropic plan is on foot in relation to the colored race that will, if successful, revolutionize the whole character of southern industry.  An experimental institution is in contemplation in Tennessee which will do for that state what the Industrial School at Zurich did for Switzerland.  We learn that approaches have been made to the heirs of the late Hon. Silas Hawkins of Missouri, in reference to a lease of a portion of their valuable property in East Tennessee.  Senator Dilworthy, it is understood, is inflexibly opposed to any arrangement that will not give the government absolute control.  Private interests must give way to the public good.  It is to be hoped that Col.  Sellers, who represents the heirs, will be led to see the matter in this light.”

When Washington Hawkins read this despatch, he went to the Colonel in some anxiety.  He was for a lease, he didn’t want to surrender anything.  What did he think the government would offer?  Two millions?