The news spread quickly on Sept. 27, 1861, that James Wall, 42, a former mayor of Burlington, N.J., had been released from his cell at Fort Lafayette, in New York Harbor. Wall had been held at the fort more than two weeks without being charged, but most people suspected it was because he had spoken out and written in newspapers a criticism of Abraham Lincoln’s actions at silencing critics in the press, which Wall argued was unconstitutional.