Coming back with the President to New York for supplies he was arrested and placed at Fort Lafayette accused of being a spy for the Confederate States of America.

[8] Talcott was considered for the post of Superintendent of the Coast Survey which was subsequently filled by Alexander Bache in 1843, but he went on to supervise construction of the Richmond and Danville Railroad in 1849, where he was later appointed general manager.

Talcott became chief engineer and superintendent of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad and later appeared as a consultant at the Coroner's jury for the Desjardins Canal disaster, Hamilton, Ontario, 1857.

[9] He was engaged as an engineer late in 1857 by A. Escandon who, with English financing, planned to connect Veracruz with Mexico City by rail via Cordova and Orizaba, supervising W. W. Finney of the Pony Express.

When Escandon purchased the fourth concession from Mosso brothers in 1856, two routes were considered and Talcott was assigned the far more difficult southern passage probably due financial stakes held near Orizaba by the project's investors.

[14] He returned to a French-reorganized Mexican project in the late 1860s under a new concession where he remained until Juárez defeated Maximilian's conservative regime in 1867.

As a co-claimant he filed an unsuccessful suit before the Supreme Court in 1853, regarding Florida land deeded to his father-in-law Richard S. Hackley by the Duke of Alagon in 1819.