In Little Rock, Arkansas, seventeen year-old David Dodd is hanged as a spy on the grounds of his old school

David Owen Dodd was a seventeen year-old telegrapher from Little Rock, Arkansas working in Mississippi when Union sentries halted him on a rainy night just before New Year's. A search found sheets of Morse code hidden in his boots outlining Union troop dispositions. He was tried as a spy in a military court, found guilty, and sentenced to death.  He was hanged on the grounds of his old school in Little Rock in the afternoon. (By John Osborne)