From the Richmond Dispatch, 10/8/1861, p. 2, c. 4

Suicide. – An Alabama soldier, named Geo. Sheridan, who had been under medical treatment in one of the hospitals on 4th street, south of Main, yesterday, while laboring under mental aberration, escaped from his attendants, and dressed only in his under clothes, made his way to the canal, at the Armory Bridge, jumped in, striking his head against a stone wall as he descended, and drowned himself. He was pursued from the hospital, and when on the bridge was stopped by some one in front of him. But the pursuer could not overtake him, and when his way was impeded, he at once leaped over the balustrade, and succeeded in killing himself. The body will be sent to Alabama for interment.

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