It is an unknown as to who was active for the Confederacy in New York beyond a few players. Anderson was unable to move out of his apartment without Pinkerton men being two steps behind him. The pharmacist in Greenwich Village, who supplied chemicals for the abortive attempt to burn hotels in the Wall Street area (mention of this operation below as extract from Terry's article) may have been part of a larger group than is known. There certainly were enough men of the working class embittered by the events in New York of July, 1863 to have committed this act, if indeed sabotage it was. Nobody laid claim to this act in memoirs, to my knowledge.

A letter, held in the collections of the Chicago Historical Society, and written by Confederate agent, Thomas Edgeworth Courtenay, dated at Mobile, Alabama, May 21st, 1864, includes the following confession: "My work is beginning to tell on the Yankees[.] A short time since[,] the "Chenango" U.S. Gun boat was blown up at Brooklyn by one of my coal torpedoes (as the Yankees call them) and I am now preparing to start for Canada & England to send parties from there to all parts of the West & North. You will soon hear of my success."