vteu 
 
 THE CAPTURE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 
 
 AN EXTRACT FROM A NARRATIVE, WRITTEN NOT FOR PUBLICATION, BUT FOR THE 
 ENTERTAINMENT OF MY CHILDREN ONLY. 
 
 In anticipation of the capture of Richmond, 
 the President had decided to remove his 
 family to a place of probable security. He 
 desired, however, to keep them as near as 
 might be to the position General Lee intended 
 to occupy when obliged to withdraw from 
 "\the lines around Richmond and Petersburg. 
 Charlotte, North Carolina, was selected for 
 the purpose ; and I was requested to accom- 
 pany Mrs. Davis and the children on their 
 journey. 
 
 We started from Richmond in the evening 
 of the Friday before the city was evacuated. 
 The President accompanied us to the cars ; 
 and after the ladies had taken their seats, but 
 while we were still at the station of the Dan- 
 ville railroad, awaiting the signal for the train 
 to move, he walked a short distance aside 
 with me, and gave his final instructions in 
 nearly or quite these words : 
 
 " My latest information from General Lee 
 is, that Sheridan has been ordered to move 
 with his cavalry to our right flank and to 
 tear up the railroad ; he is to remain there> 
 destroying as much of the railroad as he can, 
 until driven off by Hampton or by the lack of 
 supplies ; he is then to rejoin Grant in front of 
 Petersburg if possible ; otherwise, to go to 
 Sherman in North Carolina. After establish- 
 ing Mrs. Davis at Charlotte, you will return 
 to Richmond as soon as you can." 
 
 I may here remark that, when a prisoner 
 in Washington, in the following July, I one 
 day got possession of a piece of a newspaper 
 containing a part of the report, made by 
 General Sheridan, of the operations under 
 his command known as the " Battle of Five 
 Forks." I remember the impression it gave 
 me of the accuracy and freshness of Gen- 
 eral Lee's intelligence from General- Grant's 
 head-quarters, when I read, that day in 
 prison, Sheridan's own statement showing 
 that his orders were to move with cavalry 
 only, to make a raid on the railroad on 
 General Lee's right flank, and, when driven 
 off, to return to Petersburg if he could, other- 
 wise to join Sherman ; and that it was during 
 the night, when he was about to move with 
 the cavalry only, that General Grant notified 
 him of a change of plan, afterward giving 
 him the corps of infantry with which the 
 battle was actually fought. 
 
 
 Bidding good-bye to the President, we got 
 away from Richmond about ten o'clock. It was 
 a special train. Our party consisted of Mrs. 
 Davis, Miss Howell (her sister), the four chil- 
 dren, Ellen (the mulatto maid-servant), and 
 James Jones (the mulatto coachman). VVith 
 us were also the daughters of Mr. Tren- 
 holm, the Secretaiy of the Treasury, on their 
 way to South Carolina, under the escort of 
 midshipman James M. Morgan. That young 
 gentleman was then engaged to Miss Tren- 
 holm, and afterward married her. There were 
 no other passengers, and the train consisted 
 of only two or three cars. In one of them, 
 the coachman had the two carriage horses 
 recently presented to Mrs. Davis by several 
 gentlemen of Richmond. She had owned and 
 used them for several years ; but during the 
 preceding winter the President's household 
 had felt the pressure of the "hard times" even 
 more than before; he had sold all his own 
 horses except the one he usually rode; and, 
 being in need of the money these would 
 fetch, Mrs. Davis had, some time afterward, 
 sold them also through a dealer. The after- 
 noon of the sale, however, they were returned 
 to the stable with a kind letter to her from Mr. 
 James Lyons and a number of other promi- 
 nent gentlemen, the purchasers, begging her 
 to accept the horses as a gift in token of 
 their regard. The price they had paid for the 
 pair was, I think, twelve thousand dollars — a 
 sum which dwindles somewhat when stated 
 to have been in Confederate currency (worth, 
 at that time, only some fifty for one in gold), 
 and representing about two hundred and forty 
 dollars in good money. 
 
 It illustrates the then condition of the rail- 
 ways and means of transportation in the Con- 
 federate States, that, after proceeding twelve 
 or fifteen miles, our locomotive proved un- 
 able to take us over a slight up-grade. We 
 came to a dead halt, and remained there all 
 night. The next day was well advanced when 
 Burksville Junction was reached; and I there 
 telegraphed to the President the accounts 
 received from the battle between Sheridan 
 and Pickett. 
 
 It was Sunday morning before we arrived 
 at Danville. While preparations were making 
 there to send on our train toward Charlotte, 
 Morgan and I took a walk through the town 
 and made a visit to the residence of Maior 
 
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 http://archive.org/details/captureofjeffersOOharr 
 
THE CAPTURE OF JEFFERSON DA VIS. 
 
 131 
 
 Sutherlin, the most conspicuous house in 
 Danville. The train got off again by midday, 
 but did not reach Charlotte until Tuesday. 
 At Charlotte, we were courteously entertained 
 for a day or two by Mr. Weil, an Israelite, a 
 merchant of the town. 
 
 Communication had been so interrupted 
 that we did not hear of the evacuation of 
 Richmond until Mrs. Davis received a tele- 
 gram, on Wednesday, from the President at 
 Danville, merely announcing that he was 
 there. 
 
 As soon as I could do so, and when we 
 had comfortably established Mrs. Davis and 
 her family in the house provided for them, I 
 returned to Danville and joined the President. 
 With several members of his cabinet, he was 
 a guest at Major Sutherlin's house, where I 
 arrived late in the evening, and spent the 
 night. 
 
 A report coming in that the enemy's cavalry 
 was approaching from the westward, the 
 hills around Danville, where earth-works had 
 already been thrown up, were manned by 
 the officers and men that had constituted the 
 Confederate navy in and near Richmond ; 
 and command of the force was given to 
 Admiral Semmes (of the Alabatna), who was 
 made a brigadier-general for the nonce. 
 
 The several bureaus of the War Depart- 
 ment, and perhaps several of the other depart- 
 ments, had arranged quarters for themselves 
 in the town, and were organizing for regular 
 work. A separate and commodious house had 
 been provided (I think by the town authorities) 
 as a head-quarters for the President and his 
 personal staff; and Mr. M. H. Clark, our 
 chief clerk, had already established himself 
 there and was getting things in order. It was 
 only the next afternoon, however, after my 
 return to Danville, that the President re- 
 ceived a communication informing him of 
 the surrender by General Lee of the army 
 of Northern Virginia, and gave orders for an 
 immediate withdrawal into North Carolina. 
 Under his directions, we set to work at once 
 to arrange for a railway train to convey the 
 more important officers of the Government 
 asd such others as could be got aboard, with 
 our luggage and as much material as it was 
 desired to carry along, including the boxes 
 of papers that had belonged to the executive 
 office in Richmond. With the cooperation of 
 the officers of the Quartermaster's Depart- 
 ment, the train was, with difficulty, got ready; 
 and the guards I placed upon it excluded 
 all persons and material not specially author- 
 ized by me to go aboard. Of course, a multi- 
 tude was anxious to embark, and the guards 
 were kept busy in repelling them. 
 
 As I stood in front of our head-quarters, 
 
 superintending the removal of luggage and 
 boxes to the train, two officers rode up, 
 their horses spattered with mud, and asked 
 for the news. I told them of the surrender 
 of General Lee's army, and inquired who 
 they were and whence they had come. They 
 had ridden from Richmond, and were just 
 arrived, having made a wide detour from 
 the direct road, to avoid capture by the 
 enemy. One of them was a colonel from 
 Tennessee. He expressed great eagerness to 
 get on as rapidly as possible toward home. 
 I remarked upon the freshness and spirit of 
 his horse, and asked where he had got so 
 good a steed. He said the horse belonged 
 to a gentleman in Richmond, whose name 
 he did not recollect, but who had asked 
 him, in the confusion of the evacuation, to 
 take the horse out to his son — then serving 
 on General E well's staff. He added that, as 
 General Ewell and staff had all been captured, 
 he did not know what to do with the horse, 
 and should be glad to turn him over to 
 some responsible person — exacting an obli- 
 gation to account to the owner. I said I 
 should be glad to have the horse, and would 
 cheerfully assume all responsibilities. The 
 colonel rode off, but returned in a short 
 time. He had tried to get on the railway 
 train, but found he couldn't do it without an 
 order from me ; whereby he remarked that, 
 if I would furnish such an order, he would 
 accept my proposition about the horse. 
 The arrangement was made immediately, 
 and the colonel became a passenger on 
 the train, which also conveyed my horse, 
 with others belonging to the President and 
 his staff. 
 
 That horse did me noble service, and I be- 
 came very much attached to him. Further 
 on, I shall tell the sad fate that befell him. 
 Long afterward, I ascertained the owner 
 was Mr. Edmond, of Richmond, with whom 
 I had a conversation on the subject, when I 
 was there attending upon the proceedings in 
 the United States Court for the release of 
 Mr. Davis from prison upon bail. I related 
 the adventures of his steed, and offered to 
 pay for him ; but Mr. Edmond promptly 
 and very generously said he could not think 
 of taking pay for the horse ; that the loss 
 was but an incident of the loss of every- 
 thing else we had all suffered in the result 
 of the war, and that his inquiries had been 
 made only because the animal was a great 
 pet with the children, and they were all 
 anxious to know his fate. 
 
 Among the people who besieged me for 
 
 permits to enter the train was General R , 
 
 with several daughters and one or more 
 of his staff officers. He had been on duty 
 
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132 
 
 THE CAPTURE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 
 
 in the " torpedo bureau," and had with him 
 what he considered a valuable collection 
 of fuses and other explosives. I distrusted 
 such luggage as that, though the General 
 confidently asserted it was quite harmless. 
 I told him he couldn't go with us — there 
 was no room for him. He succeeded at 
 last, however, in getting access to the Presi- 
 dent, who had served with him, long years 
 before, in the army ; in kindness to an old 
 friend, Mr. Davis finally said I had better 
 make room for the General, and he himself 
 took one of the daughters to share his own 
 seat. That young lady was of a loquacity 
 irrepressible ; she plied her neighbor dili- 
 gently — about the weather, and upon every 
 other topic of common interest — asking him, 
 too, a thousand trivial questions. The train 
 could not yet be got to move ; the fires in the 
 locomotive wouldn't burn well, or some other 
 difficulty delayed us ; and there we all were, 
 in our seats, crowded together, waiting to 
 be off, full of gloom at the situation,- won- 
 dering what would happen next, and all as 
 silent as mourners at a funeral ; all except, 
 indeed, the General's daughter, who prattled 
 on in a voice everybody heard. She seemed 
 quite unconscious of the impatience Mr. Davis 
 evidently to everybody else, felt for her and 
 her conversation. In the midst of it all, a sharp 
 explosion occurred very near the President, 
 and a young man was seen to bounce into 
 the air, clapping both hands to the seat of his 
 trowsers. We all sprang to our feet in alarm, 
 but presently found that it was only an 
 
 officer of General R 's staff, who had sat 
 
 down rather abruptly upon the flat top of a 
 stove (still standing in the car, but without 
 a fire), and that the explosion was made by 
 one of the torpedo appliances he was carrying 
 in his coat-tail pocket. 
 
 Among the servants at the President's 
 house in Richmond had been one called 
 Spencer. He was the slave of somebody in 
 the town, but made himself a member of our 
 household, and couldn't be got rid of. Spen- 
 cer was inefficient, unsightly, and unclean, — a 
 black Caliban, — and had the manners of 
 a corn-field darky. He always called Mr. 
 Davis " Marse Jeff," and was the only one of 
 the domestics who used that style of address. 
 I fancy the amusement Mr. Davis felt at that 
 was the real explanation of the continued 
 sufferance extended to the fellow by the fam- 
 ily for a year or more. Spencer would often 
 go to the door to answer the bell, and almost 
 invariably denied that Mr. Davis was at 
 home. The visitor sometimes entered the 
 hall, notwithstanding, and asked to have his 
 name sent up ; whereupon Spencer generally 
 lost his temper and remarked, " I tell you, 
 
 sir, Marse Jeff 'clines to see you"; and unless 
 somebody came to the rescue, the intruder 
 rarely got any further. This Spencer had ac- 
 companied the party from Richmond to 
 Danville, but had made the journey in a 
 box-car with a drunken officer, who beat 
 him. The African was overwhelmed with 
 disgust at such treatment, and announced 
 in Danville that he should go no further if 
 
 was to be of the party. When he had 
 
 learned, however, that his enemy (being 
 in a delirium and unable to be moved) was 
 to be left behind at Danville, Spencer cheer- 
 fully reported at the train, and asked for 
 transportation. I assigned him to a box-car 
 with the parcels of fuses, etc., put aboard 
 
 by General R ; and he had not yet made 
 
 himself comfortable there, when somebody 
 mischievously told him those things would 
 certainly explode and blow him to "king- 
 dom come." The darky fled immediately, 
 and demanded of me other quarters. I 
 told him he couldn't travel in any other 
 car; and that, happily, relieved us of 
 his company. Mournfully remarking, " Den 
 Marse Jeff '11 have to take keer of hisself," 
 Spencer, the valiant and faithful, bade me 
 good-bye, and said he should return to Rich- 
 mond ! 
 
 We halted for several days at Greensboro' 
 for consultation with General j'oseph E. 
 Johnston, whose army was then confronting 
 Sherman. The people in that part of North 
 Carolina had not been zealous supporters 
 of the Confederate Government ; and, so long 
 as we remained in the State, we observed 
 their indifference to what should become of 
 us. It was rarely that anybody asked one of 
 us to his house; and but few of them had 
 the grace even to explain their fear that, 
 if they entertained us, their houses would be 
 burned by the enemy, when his cavalry should 
 get there. 
 
 During the halt at Greensboro' most of 
 us lodged day and night in the very un- 
 comfortable railway cars we had arrived 
 in. The possessor of a large house in the 
 town, and perhaps the richest and most con- 
 spicuous of the residents, came indeed effu- 
 sively to the train, but carried off only Mr. 
 Trenholm, the Secretary of the Treasury. 
 This hospitality was explained by the infor- 
 mation that the host was the alarmed owner 
 of many of the bonds, and of much of the 
 currency, of the Confederate States, and that 
 he hoped to cajole the Secretary into 
 exchanging a part of the "Treasury gold" 
 for some of those securities. It appeared 
 that we were reputed to have many millions 
 of gold with us. Mr. Trenholm was ill during 
 most or all of the time at the house of his 
 
THE CAPTURE OF JEFFERSON DA VIS. 
 
 J 33 
 
 warm-hearted host, and the symptoms were 
 said to be greatly aggravated, if not caused, 
 by importunities with regard to that gold. 
 
 Colonel John Taylor Wood, of our staff, 
 had, some time before, removed his family to 
 Greensboro' from Richmond, and took the 
 President (who would otherwise have prob- 
 ably been left with us in the cars) to share his 
 quarters near by. The Woods were boarding, 
 and their rooms were few and small. The 
 entertainment they were able 'to offer their 
 guest was meager, and was distinguished by 
 very little comfort either to him or to them, 
 the people of the house continually and vig- 
 orously insisting to the colonel and his wife, 
 the while, that Mr. Davis must go away, say- 
 ing they were unwilling to have the ven- 
 geance of Stoneman's cavalry brought upon 
 them by his presence in their house. 
 
 The alarm of these good people was not 
 allayed when they ascertained, one day, that 
 General Joseph E. Johnston, with General 
 Breckinridge (Secretary of War), General 
 Beauregard, Mr. Benjamin (Secretary of 
 State), Mr. Mallory (Secretary of the Navy), 
 Mr. Reagan (Postmaster-General), and per- 
 haps one or two other members of the cab- 
 inet and officers of the army, were with the 
 President, in Colonel Wood's rooms, hold- 
 ing a council of war. 
 
 That route through North Carolina had 
 been for some time the only line of commu- 
 nication between Virginia and Georgia and 
 the Gulf States. The roads and towns were 
 full of officers and privates from those South- 
 ern States, belonging to the Army of North- 
 ern Virginia. Many of them had been home 
 on furlough, and were returning to the army 
 when met by the news of General Lee's 
 surrender ; others were stragglers from their 
 commands. All were now going home, and, 
 as some of the bridges south of Greensboro' 
 had been burned by the enemy's cavalry, and 
 the railways throughout the southern country 
 generally were interrupted, of course every- 
 body wanted the assistance of a horse or 
 mule on his journey. Few had any scruples 
 as to how to get one. 
 
 T remember that a band of eight or ten 
 young Mississippians, at least one of them 
 an officer (now a prominent lawyer in New 
 Orleans), and several of them personally 
 known to me, offered themselves at Greens- 
 boro' as an escort for the President. Until 
 something definite should be known, how- 
 ever, as to our future movements, I was 
 unable to say whether they could be of ser- 
 vice in that capacity. After several days 
 of waiting, they decided for themselves. 
 Arousing me in the small hours of the 
 night, their self-constituted commander said 
 
 if I had any orders or suggestions to give 
 they should be glad to have them on the 
 spot, as, otherwise, it had become expedient 
 to move on immediately. I asked what had 
 happened. He showed me the horses they 
 had that night secured by " pressing " them 
 from neighboring farmers, and particularly 
 his own mount, a large and handsome dap- 
 ple-gray stallion, in excellent condition. I 
 congratulated him on his thrift, and in an 
 instant they were off in a gallop through the 
 mud. The President's horses, my own, and 
 those belonging to the other gentlemen of our 
 immediate party, were tied within a secure 
 inclosure while we remained at Greensboro', 
 and were guarded by the men (about a dozen) 
 who, having received wounds disabling them 
 for further service in the field, had acted as 
 sentinels during the last year at the President's 
 house in Richmond, under the command of 
 a gallant young officer who had lost an arm. 
 
 The utmost vigilance was necessary, from 
 this time on, in keeping possession of a good 
 horse. I remember that at Charlotte, some 
 days later, Colonel Burnett, senator from Ken- 
 tucky, told me he had just come very near 
 losing his mare. He had left her for a 
 little while at a large stable where there were 
 many other horses. Going back after a short 
 absence, Burnett noticed a rakish-looking fel- 
 low walking along the stalls, and carefully ob- 
 serving the various horses until he came to 
 the mare, when, after a moment's considera- 
 tion, he called out to a negro rubbing down 
 a neighboring horse : " Boy, saddle my mare 
 here; and be quick about it." The negro an- 
 swered, " Aye, aye, sir," and was about to 
 obey, when the senator stepped up, saying : 
 " My friend, you are evidently a judge of 
 horseflesh ; and I feel rather complimented 
 that, after looking through the whole lot, you 
 have selected my mare ! " The chap coolly 
 replied, " Oh ! is that your mare, Colonel ? " 
 and walked off. When we had laughed 
 over the story, I asked Burnett, " Well, and 
 where is she now ? " " Oh," said he, " I 
 sha'n't trust her out of my sight again; and 
 Gus Henry is holding her for me down at 
 the corner until I can get back there." The 
 person thus familiarly spoken of as " Gus " 
 Henry, then acting as a hostler for his friend, 
 was the venerable and distinguished senator 
 from Tennessee, with all of the stateliness 
 and much of the eloquence of his kinsman, 
 Patrick Henry, the great orator of Virginia. 
 
 At Greensboro' were large stores of .sup- 
 plies belonging to the quartermaster and 
 commissary departments. These were to be 
 kept together until it could be ascertained 
 whether General Johnston's army would need 
 them. I recollect, as one of the incidents of 
 
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134 
 
 THE CAPTURE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 
 
 our sojourn there, that, after many threats 
 during several days to do so, a formidable 
 attack was made by men belonging to a cav- 
 alry regiment upon one of the depots where 
 woolen cloths (I think) were stored. They 
 charged down the road in considerable force, 
 with yells and an occasional shot; but the 
 '• Home Guards," stationed at the store-house, 
 stood firm, and received the attack with a 
 well directed volley. I saw a number of sad- 
 dles emptied, and the cavalry retreat in con- 
 fusion. Notwithstanding the utmost vigilance 
 of the officers, however, pilfering from the 
 stores went on briskly all the time ; and I 
 fancy that, immediately after we left, there was 
 a general scramble for what remained of the 
 supplies. 
 
 From Greensboro', at this time, a railway 
 train was dispatched toward Raleigh with 
 a number of prisoners, to be exchanged, if 
 possible, for some of our own men then in 
 General Sherman's hands. They were in 
 charge of Major William H. Norris, of Balti- 
 more (Chief of the Signal Corps), and Major 
 W. D. Hennen. The latter had, before the 
 v ar, been a distinguished member of the 
 New Orleans bar, and has since been at the 
 bar in New York. Those two officers were 
 at Yale College together in their youth, 
 and had shared in many a frolic in Paris 
 and other gay places. They evidently re- 
 garded this expedition with the prisoners as 
 a huge " lark." The train moved off with a 
 flag of truce flying from the locomotive. 
 When, a day or two afterward, they ap- 
 proached the enemy's lines, the prisoners all 
 got out of the cars and ran off to their friends, 
 and Norris and Hennen were themselves 
 made prisoners ! Indignant at such treatment, 
 they addressed a communication to the com- 
 manding officer (Schofield, I think), demand- 
 ing to know why they were treated as pris- 
 oners, and why their flag had not been re- 
 spected. Schofield considered the Confed- 
 erate Government was now no more, and 
 asked what flag they referred to. This gave 
 Hennen a great opportunity, and he over- 
 powered the enemy with a reply full of his 
 most fervid eloquence r' <r What~tra§^ The 
 flag before which the ' star--spangledT3aTnrer ! , 
 has been ignominiously trailed in the dust of 
 a thousand battle-fields ! The flag that has 
 driven from the ocean the commerce of the 
 United States ! The flag which will live in 
 history as long as the heroic achievements of 
 patriotic men are spoken of among the na- 
 tions ! The glorious, victorious, and immor- 
 tal flag of the Confederate States of America! " 
 
 We moved southward on, I think, the day- 
 following the council of war held with Gen- 
 eral Johnston, starting from Greensboro' in 
 
 the afternoon. The President, those of us 
 who constituted his immediate staff, and 
 some members of the cabinet, were mounted. 
 Others rode in ambulances, army wagons, or 
 such conveyances as could be got. Almost 
 at the last minute I was told I must provide 
 an ambulance for Mr. Judah P. Benjamin, 
 Secretary of State. His figure was not well 
 adapted for protracted riding, and he had 
 firmly announced that he should not mount 
 a horse until obliged to.* 
 
 By good fortune, I was able to secure an 
 ambulance ; but the horses were old and 
 broken down, of a dirty gray color, and with 
 spots like fly-bites all over them, — and the 
 harness was not good. There was no choice, 
 however, and into that ambulance got Mr. 
 Benjamin, General Samuel Cooper (Adjutant 
 General, and ranking officer of the whole 
 army), Mr. George Davis (of North Carolina, 
 Attorney-General), and Mr. Jules St. Martin, 
 Benjamin's brother-in-law. 
 
 By the time they got off, the front of our 
 column had been some time in motion, and 
 the President had ridden down the road. 
 Heavy rains had recently fallen, the earth 
 was saturated with water, the soil was a sticky 
 red clay, the mud was awful, and the road, 
 in places, almost impracticable. The wheeled 
 vehicles could move but slowly ; and it was 
 only by sometimes turning into the fields and 
 having St. Martin and the Attorney-General 
 get out to help the horses with an occasional 
 fence-rail under the axles, that their party got 
 along at all — so difficult was the road because 
 of the mud, and so formidable were the holes 
 made during the winter, and deepened by the 
 artillery and heavy wagons that day. I was 
 near them from time to time, and rendered 
 what assistance I could. Darkness came on 
 after awhile, and nearly or quite everybody in 
 the column passed ahead of that ambulance. 
 Having been kept latterly in the rear by 
 something detaining me, I observed, as I rode 
 
 * That he could handle a steed in an emergency 
 was very well known, and was afterward shown when 
 he dexterously got himself into the saddle upon a tall 
 horse, and, with short legs hanging but an inconsider- 
 able distance toward the ground, rode gayly off with 
 the others of the President's following until, after their 
 night march from Abbeville, South Carolina, across 
 the Savannah River, sniffing the danger of longer con- 
 tinuance with so large a party, he set out alone for the 
 sea-coast, whence he escaped (to Bermuda and Havana, 
 I think, and finally) to England. I am told that in his 
 pocket, when he started, was a document from one of 
 the assistants to the adjutant-general of the army, cer- 
 tifying the bearer to be a French citizen, entitled to 
 travel without hinderance, and ordering all Confederate 
 officers and pickets to let him pass freely ; and that it 
 was understood that if he should encounter inquisitive 
 detachments of the United States forces, he was to be 
 unable to talk any other language than French, which 
 he speaks like a native. So long as he remained 
 with us his cheery good humor, and readiness to adapt 
 
 / 
 
THE CAPTURE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 
 
 *3S 
 
 forward, the tilted hind-part of an ambulance 
 stuck in the mud in the middle of the road, 
 and recognized the voices inside, as I drew 
 rein for a moment to chuckle at their mis- 
 fortunes. The horses were blowing like two 
 rusty fog-horns ; Benjamin was scolding the 
 driver for not going on; that functionary 
 was stoically insisting they could proceed no 
 whit further, because the horses were broken 
 down ; and General Cooper (faithful old gen- 
 tleman, he had been in Richmond through- 
 out our war, and had not known since the 
 Seminole war what it is to " rough it ") 
 was grumbling about the impudence of a 
 subordinate officer (" only a brigadier-gen- 
 eral, sir "). It seems the offender had thrust 
 himself into the seat in another ambulance 
 drawn by good horses, that was intended for 
 the Adjutant-General. Getting alongside, I 
 could see the front wheels were over the hubs 
 in a hole ; the hind legs of the horses were in 
 the same hole, up to the hocks ; and the feet 
 of the driver hung down almost into the 
 mud. Mud and water were deep all around 
 them, and their plight was pitiful indeed ! 
 They plucked up their spirits only when I 
 offered to get somebody to pull them out. 
 Riding forward, I found an artillery camp, 
 where some of the men volunteered to go 
 back with horses and haul the ambulance up 
 the hill ; and, returning to • them again, I 
 could see from afar the occasional bright 
 glow of Benjamin's cheerful cigar. While the 
 others of the party were perfectly silent, Benja- 
 min's silvery voice was presently heard as he 
 rhythmically intoned, for their comfort, verse 
 after verse of Tennyson's ode on the death of 
 the Duke of Wellington ! The laureate would 
 have enjoyed the situation could he have 
 heard the appreciative rendering of his no- 
 ble poem — under the circumstances of that 
 moment ! 
 
 Reaching the house at the top of the hill, 
 we halted on hearing that the President 
 
 himself to the requirements of all emergencies, made 
 him a most agreeable comrade. He is now a Queen's 
 Counsel in London, and has just retired from the active 
 work of a great and lucrative practice in all the courts 
 there, after a career of singular interest. He was born, 
 in 1812, in one of the BritJsh West India possessions, 
 the ship, conveying his parents to this country from 
 England, having put in there on learning at sea of 
 the declaration of war by the United States. At Yale 
 College when a boy ; at the bar in New Orleans ; in the 
 Senate of the United States, from Louisiana ; at first 
 attorney-general, next secretary of war, and finally 
 secretary of state of the Confederate States, at Rich- 
 mond. When he was recently entertained at dinner, 
 in the beautiful Inner Temple Hall (surrounded by 
 the portraits of the most illustrious of those who have 
 given dignity to the profession in the past), the bench 
 and bar of the United Kingdom were assembled to do 
 him special honor; about two hundred sat at the 
 table ; the Attorney-General presided, as leader of the 
 bar of England; the Lord Chancellor and the Lord 
 
 and his party, including General Breckin- 
 ridge, were the guests of the hospitable 
 owner, and that we were expected to join 
 them. There we had the first good meal 
 encountered since leaving A^irginia, and when 
 bed-time came a great bustling was made to 
 enable us all to sleep within doors, though 
 the house was too small to afford many beds. 
 A big negro man, with a candle in hand, then 
 came into the room where we were gather- 
 ed about a huge fire. Looking us over, he 
 solemnly selected General Cooper, and, with 
 much deference, escorted him into the 
 " guest-chamber " through a door opening 
 from the room we occupied. We could see the 
 great soft bed and snowy white linen the old 
 gentleman was to enjoy, and all rejoiced in the 
 comfort they promised to aged bones, that for 
 a week had been racked in the cars. The ne- 
 gro gravely shut the door upon his guest, and, 
 walking through our company, disappeared. 
 He came back after awhile with wood for 
 our fire ; and one of us asked him, " Aren't 
 you going to give the President a room ? " 
 " Yes, sir, I done put him in thar," pointing to 
 the " guest-chamber," where General Cooper 
 was luxuriating in delights procured for him 
 by the mistaken notion of the darky that he 
 was Mr. Davis ! The President and one or 
 two others were presently provided for else- 
 where, and the rest of us bestowed ourselves 
 to slumber on the floor, before the roaring fire. 
 ■* A better team for Benjamin's party was fur- 
 nished next morning ; and, just as we were 
 about to start, our host generously insisted 
 upon presenting to Mr. Davis a filly, already 
 broken to saddle. She was a beauty, and the 
 owner had kept her locked for several days in 
 the cellar, the only place he considered safe 
 against horse-thieves. 
 
 The next night we bivouacked in a pine 
 grove near Lexington, and were overtaken 
 there by dispatches from General Joseph E. 
 Johnston, with information of his arrange- 
 Chief Justice were among those who spoke to toasts, 
 and if there was any speech more graceful and 
 striking than those made by them, it was the reply 
 of Mr. Benjamin himself, with singular modesty and 
 felicity, to the words of praise he had just heard from 
 the eloquent Attorney-General. Lord Chancellor Sel- 
 borne then said of him : " If I had to speak of 
 Mr. Benjamin only as' an English barrister, as I 
 have known him from the bench, I should say that 
 no man, within my recollection, has possessed 
 greater learning, or displayed greater shrewdness 
 or ability, or greater zeal for the interests intrusted 
 to him, than he has exhibited. (Cheers.) To these 
 high qualities he has united one still higher — the 
 highest sense of honor, united with the greatest 
 kindness and generosity (cheers), and the greatest 
 geniality in his intercourse with all the branches of 
 the profession. (Loud cheers.) That we should no 
 longer have the benefit of his assistance and the 
 light of his example, is a loss to us all. (Cheers.) " 
 
 \ 
 
i3 6 
 
 THE CAPTURE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 
 
 ment for negotiations with General Sherman. 
 General Breckinridge and Mr. Reagan (the 
 Postmaster-General) were thereupon directed 
 by the President to proceed immediately to 
 General Johnston's head-quarters for con- 
 sultation with that officer, and with large 
 discretion as to what should be agreed to. 
 They set off instantly. 
 
 In Lexington and in Salisbury we experi- 
 enced the same cold indifference on the part 
 of the people, first encountered at Greens- 
 boro', except that at Salisbury Mr. Davis 
 was invited to the house of a clergyman, 
 where he slept. Salisbury had been entered 
 a few days before by a column of the enemy's 
 cavalry (said to be Stoneman's), and the streets 
 showed many evidences of the havoc they 
 had wrought. With one or two others, I 
 passed the night on the clergyman's front 
 piazza as a guard for the President. 
 
 During all this march Mr. Davis was 
 singularly equable and cheerful; he seemed 
 to have had a great load taken from his 
 mind, to feel relieved of responsibilities, and 
 his conversation was bright and agreeable. 
 He talked of men and of books, particularly 
 of Walter Scott and Byron ; of horses and 
 dogs and sports ; of the woods and the fields ; 
 of trees and many plants ; of roads, and how 
 to make them ; of the habits of birds, and of 
 a variety of other topics. His familiarity with, 
 and correct taste in, the English literature of 
 the last generation, his varied experiences in 
 life, his habits of close observation, and his 
 extraordinary memory, made him a charming 
 companion when disposed to talk. 
 
 Indeed, like Mark Tapley, we were all in 
 good spirits under adverse circumstances; and 
 I particularly remember the entertaining con- 
 versation of Mr. Mallory, the Secretary of the 
 Navy. 
 
 Not far from Charlotte, I sent forward a 
 courier with a letter to Major Echols, the 
 quartermaster of that post, asking him to 
 inform Mrs. Davis of our approach, and to pro- 
 vide quarters for as many of us as possible. The 
 major rode out to the outskirts of the town, and 
 there met us with the information that Mrs. 
 Davis and her family had hastily proceeded 
 toward South Carolina several days before. 
 He didn't knowwhere she was to be found; but 
 said she had fled when the railway south of 
 Greensboro' had been cut by the enemy's 
 cavalry. The major then took me aside and 
 explained that, though quarters could be fur- 
 nished for the rest of us, he had as yet been 
 able to find only one person willing to receive 
 Mr. Davis, saying the people generally were 
 afraid that whoever entertained him would 
 have his house burned by the enemy; that, 
 indeed, it was understood threats to that effect 
 
 had been made everywhere by Stoneman's 
 cavalry. 
 
 There seemed to be nothing to do but to 
 go to the one domicile offered. It was on the 
 main street of the town, and was occupied 
 by Mr. Bates, a man said to be of northern 
 birth, a bachelor of convivial habits, the local 
 agent of the Southern Express Company, 
 apparently living alone with his negro serv- 
 ants, and keeping a sort of " open house," 
 where a broad, well equipped sideboard was 
 the most conspicuous feature of the situation 
 — not at all a seemly place for Mr. Davis. 
 
 Just as we had entered the house, Mr. 
 Davis received by courier from General 
 Breckinridge, at General Sherman's head- 
 quarters, the intelligence that President Lin- 
 coln had been assassinated ; and, when he 
 communicated it to us, everybody's remark 
 was that, in Lincoln, the Southern States had 
 lost their only refuge in their then emergency. 
 There was no expression other than of sur- 
 prise and regret. As yet, we knew none of 
 the particulars of the crime. 
 
 Presently, the street was filled by a column 
 of cavalry (the command, I think, of General 
 Basil Duke, of Kentucky) just entering the 
 town. As they rode past the house, the men 
 waved their flags and hurrahed for " Jefferson 
 Davis." Many of them halted before the 
 door, and, in dust and uproar, called loudly 
 for a speech from him. I was in the crowd, 
 gathered thick about the steps, and not more 
 than ten feet from the door. Mr. Davis 
 stood on the threshold and made a very 
 brief reply to their calls for a speech. I dis- 
 tinctly heard every word he said. He merely 
 thanked the soldiers for their cordial greet- 
 ings ; paid a high compliment to the gallantry 
 and efficiency of the cavalry from the State 
 in which the regiment before him had been re- 
 cruited ; expressed his own determination not 
 to despair of the Confederacy, but to remain 
 with the last organized band upholding the 
 flag; and then excused himself from further 
 remarks, pleading the fatigue of travel. He 
 said nothing more. Somebody else (Mr. John- 
 son, I think, a prominent resident there) read 
 aloud the dispatch from General Breckinridge 
 about the assassination of President Lincoln, 
 but no reference was made to it in Mr. Davis's 
 speech. There was no other speech, and the 
 crowd soon dispersed.* 
 
 Colonel John Taylor Wood, Colonel Will- 
 
 * In pursuance of the scheme of Stanton and Holt 
 to fasten upon Mr. Davis charges of a guilty fore- 
 knowledge of, if not participation in, the murder of 
 Mr. Lincoln, Bates was afterward carried to Wash- 
 ington and made to testify (before the military tribunal, 
 I believe, where- the murderers were on trial) to some- 
 thing about that speech. 
 
 As I recollect the reports of the testimony, published 
 
 / 
 
 I 
 
THE CAPTURE OF JEFFERSON DA VIS. 
 
 1 37 
 
 iam Preston Johnston, and Colonel Frank 
 R. Lubbock, staff officers, remained in Bates's 
 house with the President. There was no room 
 for more. I was carried off by my Hebrew 
 friend Weil and most kindly entertained, with 
 Mr. Benjamin and St. Martin, at his residence. 
 
 On Sunday (the next day, I think), a num- 
 ber of us attended service at the Episcopal 
 Church, and heard the rector preach vigor- 
 ously about the sad condition of the country, 
 and in reprobation of the folly and wicked- 
 ness of the assassination of President Lincoln. 
 As Mr. Davis walked away, after the sermon, 
 with Colonel Johnston and me, he said, with 
 a smile, " I think the preacher directed his 
 remarks at me; and he really seems to fancy 
 I had something to do with the assassination." 
 The suggestion was absurd. No man ever 
 participated in a great war of revolution 
 with less of disturbance of the nicest sense 
 of perfect rectitude in conduct or opinion ; 
 his every utterance, act, and sentiment was 
 with the strictest regard for all the moralities, 
 throughout that troubled time when the pas- 
 sions of many people made them reckless or 
 defiant of the opinions of mankind. 
 
 His cheerfulness continued in Charlotte, 
 and I remember his there saying to me, " I 
 cannot feel like a beaten man ! " The halt 
 at Charlotte was to await information from 
 the army of General Johnston. After a few 
 days, the President became nervously anxious 
 about his wife and family. He had as yet 
 heard nothing of their whereabouts, but asked 
 me to proceed into South Carolina in search 
 of them, suggesting that I should probably 
 find them at Abbeville. He told me I must 
 rely on my own judgment as to what course 
 to pursue from there; that, for himself, he 
 should make his way as rapidly as possible 
 to the Trans-Mississippi Department, to join 
 the army under Kirby Smith. 
 
 I started at once, taking my horse on 
 the railway train to Chester. On the train 
 chanced to be Captain Lingan, an officer 
 from New Orleans, recently serving at Rich- 
 mond as an assistant to the commissioner for 
 the exchange of prisoners. He had his horse 
 with him, and from Chester we rode together 
 
 at the time, they made the witness say that Mr. Davis 
 had approved of the assassination, either explicitly 
 or by necessary implication ; and that he had added, 
 " If it was to be done, it is well it was done quickly," 
 or words to that effect. If any such testimony was 
 given, it is false and without foundation ; no com- 
 ment upon or reference to the assassination was made 
 in that speech. I have been told the witness has 
 always stoutly insisted he never testified to anything 
 of the kind, but that what he said was altogether 
 perverted in the publication made by rascals in Wash- 
 ington. Colonel William Preston Johnston tells me 
 he has seen another version of the story, and thinks 
 Bates is understood to have fathered it in a publication 
 
 across the country- to Newberry, there to take 
 the train again for Abbeville. In Chester 
 the night was spent in the car that brought 
 us there. On the march to Newberry we 
 bivouacked. The weather was fine, and the 
 houses surrounded by jessamines and other 
 flowers. The people were very hospitable, 
 and we fain to rely upon them. Nothing could 
 be bought, because we had no money. Our 
 Confederate currency was of no value now, 
 and there was no other. Riding through a 
 street of Newberry in search of the quarter- 
 master's stable, Lingan and I were saluted 
 by a lady, mquiring eagerly whence we had 
 come, what the news was, and whether we 
 knew anything of Mr. Trenholm, adding she 
 had heard he was ill. The town was lovely, 
 and this the most attractive house we had 
 seen there. It had a broad piazza, with 
 posts beautifully overgrown by vines and 
 rose-bushes, and the grounds around were 
 full of flowers. I replied I had just left 
 Mr. Trenholm in Charlotte ; that he had 
 somewhat recovered ; and that, if she would 
 allow us to do so, we should be happy to 
 return, after providing for our horses, and 
 tell her the latest news. As we rode off, 
 Lingan laughingly said, " Well, that secures 
 us ' hospitable entertainment.' " And, sure 
 enough, when we went back and introduced 
 ourselves, we were cordially received by the 
 mistress of the house, who invited us to dine. 
 The lady we had seen on the piazza was only 
 a visitor there for the moment. It was the resi- 
 dence of Mr. Boyd, the president of a bank, 
 and when that gentleman presently came in 
 he courteously insisted upon our making his 
 house our home. An excellent dinner was 
 served, and I was given what seemed to me 
 the most delightful bed ever slept in. After a 
 delicious breakfast next morning, Mrs. Boyd 
 dispatched us to the train with a haversack 
 full of bounties for the rest of the journey. 
 
 At Abbeville, Mrs. Davis and her family 
 were the guests of the President's esteemed 
 friends, Colonel and Mrs. Burt; and there, 
 too, were the daughters of Mr. Trenholm, at 
 the house of their brother. Abbeville was a 
 beautiful place, on high ground; and the 
 
 made in some newspaper after his visit to Washing- 
 ton ; it represents Bates as saying that the words above 
 mentioned as imputed to Mr. Dans were used by 
 him, not, indeed, in the speech I have described, but 
 in a conversation with Johnston at Bates's house. 
 Johnston assures me that, in that shape, too, the story 
 is false — that Mr. Davis never used such words in Ins 
 presence, or any words at all like them. He adds that 
 Mr. Davis remarked to him, at Bates's house, with 
 reference to the assassination, that Mr. Lincoln would 
 have been much more useful to the Southern States 
 than Andrew Johnson, the successor, was likely to be; 
 and I myself heard Mr. Davis express the same 
 opinion at that period. 
 
 \ 
 
138 
 
 THE CAPTURE OE JEFFERSON DA VIS. 
 
 people lived in great comfort, their houses 
 embowered in vines and roses, with many 
 other flowers everywhere. We had now en- 
 tered the " sunny South." 
 
 Mrs. Davis insisted upon starting without 
 delay for the sea-coast, to get out of the reach 
 of capture. She and her sister had heard 
 dreadful stories of the treatment ladies had 
 been subjected to in Georgia and the Caro- 
 linas by men in Sherman's army, and thought 
 with terror of the possibility of falling into 
 the hands of the enemy ; indeed, she under- 
 stood it to be the President's wish that she 
 should hasten to seek safety in a foreign coun- 
 try. I explained to her the difficulties and 
 hardships of the journey to the sea-coast, 
 and suggestefl that we might be captured 
 on the road, urging her to remain where 
 she was until the place should be quietly 
 occupied by United States troops, assuring 
 her that some officer would take care that no 
 harm should befall her, and adding that she 
 would then be able to rejoin her friends. 
 Colonel and Mrs. Burt (a niece of John C. 
 Calhoun) added their entreaties to mine ; 
 and to her expression of unwillingness to 
 subject them to the danger of having their 
 house burned for sheltering her, Colonel Burt 
 magnanimously replied that there was no 
 better use to which his house could be put 
 than to have it burned for giving shelter to 
 the wife and family of his friend. But she 
 persisted in her purpose, and begged me to 
 be off immediately. It was finally decided 
 to make our way to the neighborhood of 
 Madison, Florida, as fast as possible, there to 
 determine how best to get to sea. 
 
 We had no conveyance for the ladies, how- 
 ever, and were at a loss how to get one, until 
 somebody told me that General John S. 
 Williams, of Kentucky (now United States 
 Senator from that State) was but a few 
 miles from the town recruiting his health, and 
 that he had a large and strong vehicle well 
 adapted to the purpose. I rode out in 
 the direction indicated, and discovered that 
 officer at the house of a man called, queerly 
 enough, " Jeff" Davis. General Williams evi- 
 dently perceived that, if he allowed his wagon 
 and horses (a fortune in those times) to go 
 beyond his own reach, he would never see 
 them again, such was the disorder through- 
 out the country. But he gallantly devoted 
 them to Mrs. Davis, putting his property at 
 her service as far as Washington, Georgia, 
 and designating the man to bring the wagon 
 and horses back from there, if possible, to 
 him at Abbeville. Whether he ever recovered 
 them I have not learned ; but they started back 
 promptly after we had reached AVashington. 
 
 Among the " refugees " in Abbeville was 
 
 the family of Judge Monroe, of Kentucky. 
 At their house were Lieutenant Hathaway, 
 Mr. Monroe, and Mr. Messick, — Kentuck- 
 ians all, and then absent from their command 
 in the cavalry, on sick leave, I think. These 
 three young gentlemen were well mounted, 
 and volunteered to serve as an escort for Mrs. 
 Davis. 
 
 We started the morning of the second day 
 after I arrived at Abbeville, and had not 
 reached the Savannah River when it was re- 
 ported that small-pox prevailed in the coun- 
 try. All the party had been vaccinated except 
 one of the President's children. Halting at a 
 house near the road, Mrs. Davis had the 
 operation performed by the planter, who got 
 a fresh scab from the arm of a little negro 
 called up for the purpose. 
 
 At Washington, we halted for two nights 
 and the intervening day. Mrs. Davis and her 
 family were comfortably lodged in the town. 
 I was the guest of Dr. Robertson, the cashier 
 of a bank, and living under the same roof 
 with the offices of that institution. Here, too, 
 was my friend Major Thomas W. Hall (now 
 a busy and eminent member of the Baltimore 
 bar), talking rather despondingly of the future, 
 and saying he did not know what he should 
 do with himself. After we had discussed the 
 situation, however, he brightened up, with 
 the remark that he thought he should write a 
 book about the war. I comforted him with 
 the observation that that would be just the 
 thing; and that, as we ought all to have a 
 steady occupation in life, if he would write a 
 book, I should try to read it ! 
 
 Near the town was a quartermaster's camp, 
 where I selected three or four army wagons, 
 each with a team of four good mules, and 
 the best harness to be got. A driver for each 
 team, and several supernumeraries, friends of 
 theirs, were recruited there, with the prom- 
 ise, on my part, that the wagons and mules 
 should be divided between them when at our 
 journey's end. These men were all, I believe, 
 from southern Mississippi, and, by volunteer- 
 ing with us, were not going far out of their 
 own way home. 
 
 It was night-fall when these arrangements 
 were completed, and I immediately moved 
 my teams and wagons to a separate bivouac 
 in the woods, apart; a wise precaution, for, 
 during the night, some men, on the way to 
 their homes in the far South-west, " raided " 
 the quartermaster's camp and carried off all 
 the best mules found there. Senator Wigfall, 
 of Texas, had allowed to remain in the camp 
 some mules he intended for his own use ; the 
 next day they were all missing.* 
 
 * A story told afterward well illustrates Wigfall's 
 audacity, resources, and wit. It seems that he made 
 
 / 
 
THE CAPTURE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 
 
 J 39 
 
 Into the wagons, next morning, we put 
 Mrs. Davis's luggage, a few muskets with 
 ammunition, two light tents for the ladies 
 and children, and utensils for cooking, with 
 supplies for ourselves and feed for the animals 
 supposed to be sufficient to take us to Madi- 
 son. As most of the country we were to pass 
 through had been recently devastated by 
 Sherman's army, or was pine woods, sparsely 
 inhabited, these things were necessary. 
 
 We had expected to leave Washington 
 with only the party we arrived with, con- 
 sisting of Mrs. Davis, Miss Howell, the four 
 children, Ellen, James Jones with the two 
 carriage horses, the three Kentuckians, and 
 myself, — adding only the teamsters. But, at 
 Washington we were acceptably reenforced 
 by Captain Moody, of Port Gibson, Missis- 
 sippi, and Major Victor Maurin, of Louisiana. 
 Both had served with the artillery in Virginia, 
 had been home on leave, and had reached 
 Augusta, Georgia, on their return to duty. 
 Hearing there of the surrender of the army, 
 they set out for home together, and met us 
 at Washington, where Captain Moody kindly 
 placed his light, covered wagon at the service 
 of Mrs. Davis; and he and Major Maurin 
 joined our party as an additional escort for 
 her. Captain Moody had with him, I think, 
 a negro servant. 
 
 In Washington, at that time, were Judge 
 Crump, of Richmond (Assistant Secretary of 
 the Treasury), and several of his clerks. They 
 had been sent by Mr. Trenholm in advance, 
 with some of the (not very large amount of) 
 gold brought out of Richmond. The specie 
 was in the vaults of the bank at Washington, 
 and I did not hear of it until late at night. 
 We were to start in the morning; and, as 
 nobody in our party had a penny of the 
 money needed to prosecute the intended exit 
 from the country, I was determined to get 
 some of that gold. 
 
 One of the Treasury clerks went with me 
 to the house where Judge Crump was; we 
 got him out of bed ; and, after a long argu- 
 ment and much entreaty, the Assistant Sec- 
 retary gave me an order for a few hundred 
 
 his way as best he could to Vicksburg, and there, 
 mingling with a large number of paroled soldiers 
 returning to the Trans-Mississippi, and having in his 
 pocket a borrowed "parole paper," certifying the 
 "bearer to be " Private Smith," availed himself of the 
 transportation furnished by the United States quarter- 
 master to such prisoners, by steam-boat, I think, to 
 Shreveport. On the voyage he had a discussion with 
 some of the guard as to what should be done by the 
 Government with the secession leaders. " And as to 
 Wigfall," said one of the men, in excitement, "if we 
 catch him, we shall hang him immediately." "There 
 I agree with you," remarked Private Smith, " 'twould 
 serve him right ; and, if I were there, I should be 
 pulling at the end of that rope myself! " 
 
 dollars in gold for Mrs. Davis, and one hun- 
 dred and ten dollars for myself. The amounts 
 were to be charged to the President and me, 
 as upon account of our official salaries. 
 Armed with the order, my friend the clerk 
 got the money for us that night. 
 
 The last two people I talked to in Wash- 
 ington were General Robert Toombs, who 
 resides there, and General Humphrey Mar- 
 shall, of Kentucky. 
 
 The latter was enormously fat. He had 
 been in public life for many years, and was 
 one of the notables of his State. As I waited 
 while my horse was shod, he sat down beside 
 me in a door-way on the Square, and, though 
 I was but a slender youth, almost squeezed 
 the breath out of my body in doing so. 
 He discussed the situation, and ended with, 
 " Well, Harrison, in all my days I never 
 knew a government to go to pieces in this 
 way," emphasizing the words as though his 
 pathway through life had been strewed with 
 the wrecks of empires, comminuted indeed, 
 but nothing like this ! The next time I 
 saw him, we were in New Orleans, in 
 March, 1866. He told me of his adventures 
 in escaping from Georgia across the Missis- 
 sippi River. The waters were in overflow, 
 and made the distance to be rowed, where he 
 crossed, a number of miles. He said he was 
 in a " dug-out " (a boat made of a single 
 large log, with a cylindrical bottom and 
 easily upset), and that the boatman made 
 him lie down, for fear they might be seen by 
 the enemy and he recognized by his great size, 
 and so captured. All went well until the mos- 
 quitoes swarmed on him, and nearly devoured 
 him in his fear of capsizing if he ventured 
 to adopt effective measures to beat them off! 
 In this connection, I remember that, when 
 Marshal] commanded a brigade in the mount- 
 ains of East Tennessee and Kentucky, he 
 was warned that the mountaineers, Union 
 men, all knew him because of his size, and 
 that some sharp-shooter would be sure to 
 single him out and pick him off. He replied : 
 " Ah ! but I have taken precautions against 
 that. I have a fat staff! There be six Rich- 
 monds in the field ! " 
 
 As I rode out of Washington to overtake 
 my wagons, then already started, I saw Gen- 
 eral Toombs, and sung out " Good-bye " to 
 him. He was dressed in an ill-cut black 
 Websterian coat, the worse for wear, and had 
 on a broad-brimmed shabby hat. Standing 
 beside an old buggy, drawn by two ancient 
 gray horses, he told me he was going to 
 Crawfordsville to have a talk with "Aleck" 
 Stephens (the Vice-President) ; and, as I left, 
 the atmosphere was murky with blasphemies 
 and with denunciations of the Yankees ! He 
 
 \ 
 
14° 
 
 THE CAPTURE OF JEFFERSON DA VIS. 
 
 had been informed of a detachment of the 
 enemy's cavalry said to be already on the way 
 to capture him, and was about to start for the 
 sea-coast. The next time I saw him, he was at 
 the " Theatre du Chatelet," in Paris, in August 
 or September, 1866. The spectacle was one 
 of the most splendid ever put upon the stage 
 there, and the French people were in raptures 
 over the dazzling beauty of the scene. Toombs, 
 fashionably dressed, sat in an orchestra chair, 
 regarding it all with the stolid composure of 
 an Indian, and with an expression of coun- 
 tenance suggesting that he had a thousand 
 times seen spectacles more brilliant in Wash- 
 ington, Georgia. 
 
 From Washington we went along the -road 
 running due south. We had told nobody our 
 plans; though, starting as we did, in the 
 broad light of the forenoon, everybody saw, 
 of course, the direction taken. Our team- 
 sters were instructed not to say anything, to 
 anybody whatever, as to who we were or 
 whence we came or whither we were going. 
 They were all old soldiers and obeyed orders. 
 It frequently amused me to hear their replies 
 to the country people, during the next few 
 days, when questioned on these matters. 
 
 " Who is that lady ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Jones." 
 
 " Where did you come from ? " 
 
 " Up the road." 
 
 " Where are you going to ? " 
 
 " Down the road a bit," etc., etc. 
 
 We had not proceeded far when a gentle- 
 man of the town, riding rapidly, overtook us 
 with a letter from the President to his wife. 
 It had been written at York, South Carolina, 
 I think ; was forwarded by courier to overtake 
 us at Abbeville, and had reached Washing- 
 ton just after we started. It merely informed 
 us that he and his immediate party were well, 
 and that he should probably ride south from 
 Washington to cross the Mississippi, if pos- 
 sible. I think no reply was made by Mrs. 
 Davis to the letter ; and, if my memory serves 
 me, we left behind us nothing to advise the 
 President as to where we were going. 
 
 That afternoon I was overcome with dys- 
 entery and a low fever, and dropped behind 
 for a time, to lie down. When I overtook 
 the party, they had already gone into camp ; 
 and, after giving my horse to one of the 
 men, I had hardly strength enough to climb 
 into a wagon, there to pass the night. 
 
 The next day we made a long march, and had 
 halted for the night in a pine grove, just after 
 crossing a railway track, when several visitors 
 sauntered into our camp. Presently, one of 
 the teamsters informed me that, while water- 
 ing his mules near by, he had been told an 
 attempt would be made during the night to 
 
 , 
 
 carry off our mules and wagons, and that the 
 visitors were of the party to make the attack. 
 A council of war was held immediately, and 
 we were discussing measures of resistance, 
 when Captain Moody went off for a personal 
 parley with the enemy. He returned to me 
 with the news that the leader of the party 
 was a fellow-Freemason, a Mississippian, and 
 apparently not a bad sort of person. We 
 agreed he had better be informed who we 
 were, relying upon him not to allow an attack 
 upon us after learning that Mrs. Davis and 
 her children were of the party. Captain 
 Moody made that communication in the con- 
 fidence of Freemasonry, and the gallant 
 Robin Hood immediately approached Mrs. 
 Davis in all courtesy, apologized for having 
 caused her any alarm, assured her she should 
 not be disturbed, and said the raid had been 
 arranged only because it had been supposed 
 we were the party of some quartermasters from 
 Milledgeville, making off with wagons and 
 mules to which he and his men considered 
 their own title as good as that of anybody else. 
 He then left our camp, remarking, however, 
 that, to intercept any attempt at escape dur- 
 ing the night, he had already dispatched 
 some of his men to the cross-roads, some dis- 
 tance below, and that we might be halted by 
 them there in the morning ; but, to provide 
 for that emergency, he wrote and delivered 
 to Captain Moody a formal " order," entit- 
 ling us to " pass " his outposts at the cross- 
 roads ! The next morning, when we reached 
 the cross-roads, some men were there, evident- 
 ly intending to intercept us ; but — as all the 
 gentlemen of our party were in the saddle, 
 and we appeared to be ready for them — there 
 was no challenge, and we got by without 
 recourse to Robin Hood's " pass." 
 
 About the second or third day after that, 
 we were pursued by another party ; and one 
 of our teamsters, riding a short distance in 
 the rear of the wagons on the horse of one 
 of the Kentuckians, — the owner having ex- 
 changed temporarily for one of the carriage 
 horses, I think, — was attacked, made to dis- 
 mount, and robbed of his horse, with the in- 
 formation that all the other horses and the 
 mules would be taken during the night. By 
 running a mile or two, the teamster overtook 
 us. It was decided, of course, to prepare for 
 an effective defense. As night came on, we 
 turned off into a side road, and reaching a 
 piece of high ground in the open pine woods, 
 well adapted for our needs, halted — corral- 
 ling the animals within a space inclosed by 
 the wagons (arranged with the tongue of 
 one wagon fastened by chains or ropes to 
 the tail of another) and placing pickets. 
 About the middle of the night, I, with two 
 
 / 
 
THE CAPTURE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 
 
 141 
 
 teamsters, constituted the picket on the road 
 running north. After awhile we heard the 
 soft tread of horses in the darkness approach- 
 ing over the light, sandy soil of the road. 
 The teamsters immediately ran off to arouse 
 the camp, having no doubt the attack was 
 about to begin. I placed myself in the road 
 to detain the enemy as long as possible, and, 
 when the advancing horsemen came near 
 enough to hear me, called " Halt." They drew 
 rein instantly. I demanded " Who comes 
 there ? " The foremost of the horsemen re- 
 plied " Friends," in a voice I was astonished 
 to recognize as that of President Davis, not 
 suspecting he was anywhere near us. 
 
 His party then consisted of Colonel Will- 
 iam Preston Johnston, Colonel John Taylor 
 Wood, Colonel Frank R. Lubbock, Mr. Rea- 
 gan, Colonel Charles E. Thorburn (the latter, 
 with a negro servant, had joined them at 
 Greensboro', North Carolina), and Robert 
 (Mr. Davis's own servant). Some scouts were 
 scattered through the country, and were re- 
 porting to the President from time to time ; 
 but I don't recollect that either of them was 
 with him on the occasion now referred to. 
 
 He had happened to join us at all only be- 
 cause some of his staff had heard in the af- 
 ternoon, from a man on the road-side, that an 
 attempt was to be made in the night to capt- 
 ure the wagons, horses, and mules of a party 
 said to be going south on a road to the east- 
 ward. The man spoke of the party to be at- 
 tacked in terms that seemed to identify us, 
 as we had been described in Washington. 
 The President immediately resolved to find 
 us, and, turning to the east from his own route, 
 rode until after midnight before he overtook us. 
 He explained to us, at the time, how he had 
 tried several roads in the search, and had rid- 
 den an estimated distance of sixty miles since 
 mounting in the morning ; and said he came 
 to assist in beating off the persons threatening 
 the attack. As we had camped some distance 
 from the main road, he would have passed to 
 the westward of our position, and would prob- 
 ably have had no communication with us and 
 no tidings whatever of us, but for the chance 
 remark about the threatened raid upon our 
 animals. The expected attack was not made. 
 
 The President remained with us the rest 
 of that night, rode with us the next day, 
 camped with us the following night, and, after 
 breakfast the day after that, bade us good- 
 bye and rode forward with his own party, 
 leaving us, in deference to our earnest solic- 
 itations, to pursue our journey as best we 
 might with our wagons and incumbrances. 
 
 He camped that night with his own party 
 at Abbeville, Georgia, personally occupying 
 a deserted house in the outskirts of the village. 
 
 As they had reached that place after dark, and 
 a furious rain was falling, but few of the people 
 were aware of his presence, and nobody in the 
 village had had opportunity to identify him. 
 
 I halted my party on the western bank of 
 the Ocmulgee River as the darkness came 
 on, immediately after getting the wagons 
 through the difficult bottom-lands on the east- 
 ern side, and after crossing the ferry. About 
 the middle of the night I was aroused by 
 a courier sent back by the President with 
 the report that the enemy was at or near 
 Hawkinsville (about twenty-five miles to the 
 north of us), and the advice that I had 
 better move on at once to the southward, 
 though, it was added, the enemy at Hawkins 
 ville seemed to be only intent upon appropri- 
 ating the quartermaster's supplies supposed 
 to be there. I started my party promptly, 
 in the midst of a terrible storm of thunder, 
 lightning, and rain. As we passed through 
 the village of Abbeville, I dismounted and 
 had a conversation with the President in the 
 old house, where he was lying on the floor 
 wrapped in a blanket. He urged me to move 
 on, and said he should overtake us during 
 the night, after his horses had had more rest. 
 We kept to the southward all night, the 
 rain pouring in torrents most of the time, and 
 the darkness such that, as we went through 
 the woods where the road was not well marked, 
 in a light, sandy soil, but wound about to ac- 
 commodate the great pines left standing, the 
 wagons were frequently stopped by fallen trees 
 and other obstructions. In such a situation, 
 we were obliged to wait until a flash of light- 
 ning enabled the drivers to see the way. 
 
 In the midst of that storm and darkness 
 the President overtook us. He was still with 
 us when, about five o'clock in the afternoon 
 (not having stopped since leaving Abbeville, 
 except for the short time, about sunrise, re- 
 quired to cook breakfast), I halted my party 
 for the night, immediately after crossing the 
 little creek just north of Irwinville, and went 
 into camp. My teams were sadly in need of 
 rest, and having now about fifty miles be- 
 tween us and Hawkinsville, where the enemy 
 had been reported to be, and our information 
 being, as stated, that they did not seem to be 
 on the march or likely to move after us, we 
 apprehended no immediate danger. That 
 country is sparsely inhabited, and I do not 
 recollect that we had seen a human being 
 after leaving Abbeville. Colonel Johnston 
 says that he rode on in advance as far as 
 Irwinville, and there found somebody from 
 whom he bought some eggs. 
 
 Colonel Thorburn had been, before the war, 
 in the United States navy, and was, I think, 
 a classmate of Colonel Wood in the Naval 
 
 \ 
 
142 
 
 THE CAPTURE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 
 
 Academy at Annapolis. During the first year 
 or two of the war he had served in the army ; 
 he afterward became engaged in running the 
 blockade, bringing supplies into the Confed- 
 erate States. He says he had a small but 
 seaworthy vessel then lying in Indian River, 
 Florida; that his object in joining the party 
 had been to take the President aboard that 
 vessel and convey him thence around to 
 Texas, in case the attempt to get across the 
 Mississippi should for any reason fail or seem 
 unadvisable; and that Colonel Wood and he 
 had arranged that he should, at the proper 
 time, ride on in advance, make all the neces- 
 sary arrangements for the voyage, and return 
 to Madison, Florida, to await the President 
 there and conduct him aboard the vessel, if 
 necessary. We had all now agreed that, if 
 the President was to attempt to reach the 
 Trans-Mississippi at all, by whatever route, he 
 should move on at once, independent of the 
 ladies and wagons. And when we halted he 
 positively promised me (and Wood and Thor- 
 burn tell me he made the same promise to 
 them) that, as soon as something to eat could 
 be cooked, he would say farewell, for the last 
 time, and ride on with his own party, at least 
 ten miles farther before stopping for the night, 
 consenting to leave me and my party to go 
 on our own way as fast as was possible with 
 the now weary mules. 
 
 After getting that promise from the Presi- 
 dent, and arranging the tents and wagons for 
 the night, and without waiting for anything 
 to eat (being still the worse for my dysentery 
 and fever), I lay down upon the ground and 
 fell into a profound sleep. Captain Moody 
 afterward kindly stretched a canvas as a roof 
 over my head, and laid down beside me, 
 though I knew nothing of that until the next 
 day. I was awakened by the coachman, 
 James Jones, running to me about day-break 
 with the announcement that the enemy was 
 at hand ! I sprang to my feet, and in an 
 instant a rattling fire of musketry commenced 
 on the north side of the creek. Almost at the 
 same moment Colonel Pritchard and his 
 regiment charged up the road from the south 
 upon us. As soon as one of them came with- 
 in range, I covered him with my revolver and 
 was about to fire, but lowered the weapon 
 when I perceived the attacking column was 
 so strong as to make resistance useless, and 
 reflected that, by killing the man, I should 
 certainly not be helping ourselves, and might 
 only provoke a general firing upon the mem- 
 bers of our party in sight. We were taken by 
 surprise, and not one of us exchanged a shot 
 with the enemy. Colonel Johnston tells me he 
 was the first prisoner taken. In a moment, 
 Colonel Pritchard rode directly to me and, 
 
 pointing across the creek, said, " What does 
 that mean ? Have you any men with you ? " 
 Supposing the firing was done by our team- 
 sters, I replied, " Of course we have — don't 
 you hear the firing ? " He seemed to be 
 nettled at the reply, gave the order, " Charge," 
 and boldly led the way himself across the 
 creek, nearly every man in his command fol- 
 lowing. Our camp was thus left deserted for 
 a few minutes, except by one mounted soldier 
 near Mrs. Davis's tent (who was afterward 
 said to have been stationed there by Colonel 
 Pritchard in passing) and by the few troopers 
 who stopped to plunder our wagons. I had 
 been sleeping upon the same side of the road 
 with the tent occupied by Mrs. Davis, and 
 was then standing very near it. Looking there, 
 I saw her come out and heard her say some- 
 thing to the soldier mentioned ; perceiving she 
 wanted him to move off, I approached and ac- 
 tually persuaded the fellow to ride away. As 
 the soldier moved into the road, and I walked 
 beside his horse, the President emerged for 
 the first time from the tent, at the side farther 
 from us, and walked away into the woods to 
 the eastward, and at right angles to the road. 
 
 Presently, looking around and observing 
 somebody had come out of the tent, the 
 soldier turned his horse's head and, reaching 
 the spot he had first occupied, was again ap- 
 proached by Mrs. Davis, who engaged him 
 in conversation. In a minute, this trooper was 
 joined by one or perhaps two of his comrades, 
 who either had lagged behind the column and 
 were just coming up the road, or had at that 
 moment crossed over from the other (the 
 west) side, where a few of them had fallen to 
 plundering, as I have stated, instead of charg- 
 ing over the creek. They remained on horse- 
 back and soon became violent in their language 
 with Mrs. Davis. The order to "halt" was called 
 out by one of them to the President. It was 
 not obeyed, and was quickly repeated in a 
 loud voice several times. At least one of 
 the men then threatened to fire, and point- 
 ed a carbine at the President. Thereupon, 
 Mrs. Davis, overcome with terror, cried out 
 in apprehension, and the President (who 
 had now walked sixty or eighty paces away 
 into the unobstructed woods) turned around 
 and came back rapidly to his wife near the tent. 
 At least one of the soldiers continued his 
 violent language to Mrs. Davis, and the 
 President reproached him for such conduct 
 to her, when one of them, seeing the face of 
 the President,as he stood near and was talking, 
 said, " Mr. Davis, surrender ! I recognize you, 
 sir." Pictures of the President were so common 
 that nearly or quite every man in both armies 
 knew his face. 
 
 It was, as yet, scarcely daylight. 
 
 / 
 
THE CAPTURE OF JEFFERSON DA VIS. 
 
 T 43 
 
 The President had on a water-proof cloak. 
 He had used it, when riding, as a protection 
 against the rain during the night and morning 
 preceding that last halt ; and he had probably 
 been sleeping in that cloak, at the moment 
 when the camp was attacked. 
 
 While all these things were happening, Miss 
 Howell and the children remained within the 
 other tent. The gentlemen of our party had, 
 with the single exception of Captain Moody, 
 all slept on the west side of the road and in 
 or near the wagons. They were, so far as I 
 know, paying no attention to what was going 
 on at the tents. I have since talked with 
 Johnston, Wood, and Lubbock, and with 
 others, about these matters ; and I have not 
 found there was any one except Mrs. Davis, 
 the single trooper at her tent, and myself, 
 who saw all that occurred and heard all that 
 was said at the time. Any one else who gives 
 an account of it has had to rely upon hearsay 
 or his own imagination for his story. 
 
 In a short time after the soldier had recog- 
 nized the President, Colonel Pritchard and 
 his men returned from across the creek — the 
 battle there ending with the capture by one 
 party of a man belonging to the other, and 
 by the recognition which followed. 
 
 They told us that the column, consisting of a 
 detachment of Wisconsin cavalry and another 
 of Michigan cavalry, had been dispatched 
 from Macon in pursuit of us, under the com- 
 mand of Colonel Harnden, of Wisconsin ; that 
 when they reached Abbeville, they heard a 
 party of mounted men, with wagons, had 
 crossed the river near there, the night before; 
 that they immediately suspected the identity 
 of the party, and decided to follow it ; but 
 that, to make sure of catching us if we had 
 not already crossed the river, Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Pritchard had been posted at the 
 ferry with orders to remain there and capture 
 anybody attempting to pass; that Colonel 
 Harnden, with his Wisconsin men, marched 
 down the direct road we had ourselves taken, 
 and, coming upon us in the night, had halted 
 on the north side of the creek to wait for 
 daylight before making the attack, lest some 
 might escape in the darkness ; that Lieuten- 
 ant-Colonel Pritchard had satisfied himself, 
 by further conversation with the ferry-man, 
 that it was indeed Mr. Davis who had crossed 
 there, and, deciding to be in, if possible, at 
 the capture, had marched as rapidly as he 
 could along the road nearer the river, to the 
 east of and for most of the distance nearly- 
 parallel with the route taken by Colonel 
 Harnden ; that he reached the cross-roads 
 (Irvvinville) in the night, ascertained nobody 
 had passed there for several days, turned 
 north, and found us only a mile and a half up 
 
 the road ; that, to intercept any attempt at 
 escape, he had dismounted some of his men, 
 and sent them to cross the creek to the west- 
 ward of us and to post themselves in the road 
 north of our camp ; that, as these dismounted 
 men crossed the creek and approached the 
 road, they came upon the Wisconsin troopers, 
 and not being able, in the insufficient light, 
 to distinguish their uniforms, and supposing 
 them to be our escort, opened a brisk fire 
 which was immediately returned; and that, 
 on that signal, Colonel Pritchard and his 
 column charged up the road into our camp, 
 and thence into the thick of the fight. They 
 said that, in the rencontre, a man and, I think, 
 a horse or two were killed, and that an officer 
 and perhaps one or two men were wounded. 
 
 During the confusion of the next few min- 
 utes, Colonel John Taylor Wood escaped, 
 first inducing the soldier who halted him to 
 go aside into the bushes on the bank of the 
 creek, and there bribing the fellow with some 
 gold to let him get away altogether. As 
 Wood was an officer of the navy, as well as 
 an officer of the army, had commanded 
 cruisers along the Atlantic coast, had capt- 
 ured and sunk a number of New York and 
 New England vessels, and was generally 
 spoken of in the Northern newspapers as a 
 " pirate," he not unnaturally apprehended 
 that, if he remained in the enemy's hands, he 
 would be treated with special severity. 
 
 He made his way to Florida, and there met 
 General Breckinridge, with whom (and per- 
 haps one or two others) he sailed down the 
 east coast of the State in a small open boat, 
 and escaped to Cuba. When in London, in 
 September, 1866, I dined with Breckinridge, 
 and had from him the story of their advent- 
 ures. He said they kept close alongshore, and, 
 frequently landing, subsisted on turtles' eggs 
 found in the sand. When nearing the south- 
 erly end of the coast, they one day perceived 
 a boat coming to meet them and were at first 
 afraid of capture; but presently, observing 
 that the other boat was so changing its course 
 as to avoid them, they shrewdly suspected it 
 to contain deserters or escaped convicts from 
 the Dry Tortugas, or some such people, who 
 were probably themselves apprehensive of 
 trouble if caught. Wood therefore gave 
 chase immediately, and, having the swifter 
 boat, soon overhauled the other one. The 
 unsatisfactory account the men aboard gave 
 of themselves seemed to confirm the suspicion 
 with regard to their character. The new boat 
 was a better sea-craft than the one our voya- 
 gers had, though not so fast a sailer. They 
 were afraid theirs would not take them across 
 the Gulf to Cuba, and so determined to appro- 
 priate the other. Turning pirates for the 
 
144 
 
 THE CAPTURE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 
 
 occasion, they showed their side-arms, put on 
 a bold air, and threatened the rascals with all 
 manner of dreadful things; but finally relented 
 so far as to offer to let them off with an ex- 
 change of boats ! The victims were delighted 
 with this clemency, and gladly went through 
 what President Lincoln called the dangerous 
 process of " swapping horses while crossing a 
 stream." Each party went on its way rejoicing, 
 and our friends finally, as I have said, reached 
 the coast of Cuba, though almost famished. 
 Indeed, Breckinridge said they were kept 
 alive at all only by a loaf or two of bread 
 kindly given them by a Yankee skipper as 
 they sailed under the stern of his vessel at 
 day-break of the last day of their voyage. 
 
 All of the other members of the President's 
 party, except Colonel Thorburn, and all those 
 of my own party, remained as prisoners — 
 unless, indeed, one or two of the teamsters 
 escaped, as to which I do not recollect. 
 
 I had been astonished to discover the 
 President still in camp when the attack was 
 made. What I learned afterward explained 
 the mystery. Wood and Thorburn tell me 
 that, after the President had eaten supper 
 with his wife, he told them he should ride on 
 when Mrs. Davis was ready to go to sleep ; 
 but that, when bed-time came, he finally said 
 he would ride on in the morning — and so 
 spent the night in the tent. He seemed to be 
 entirely unable to apprehend the danger of 
 capture. Everybody was disturbed at this 
 change of his plan to ride ten miles farther, 
 but he could not be got to move. 
 
 Colonel Thorburn decided to start during 
 the night, to accomplish as soon as possible 
 his share of the arrangement for the escape 
 of the party from the sea-coast; and, with 
 his negro boy, he set out alone before day- 
 break. He tells me that, at Irwinville, they 
 ran into the enemy in the darkness, and were 
 fired upon ; and that the negro leveled him- 
 self on his horse's back, and galloped away 
 like a good fellow into the woods to the east. 
 Thorburn says he turned in the saddle for a 
 moment, shot the foremost of the pursuers, saw 
 him tumble from his horse, and then kept on 
 after the negro. They were chased into the 
 woods, but their horses were fresher than those 
 of the enemy and easily distanced pursuit. 
 Thorburn says he went on to Florida, found 
 his friend Captain Coxsetter at Lake City, 
 ascertained that the vessel was, as expected, in 
 the Indian River and in good condition for the 
 voyage to Texas, arranged with the captain 
 to get her ready for sailing, and then returned 
 to Madison for the rendezvous. There, he 
 says, he learned of Mr. Davis's capture, and, 
 having no further use for the vessel, sent back 
 orders to destroy her. 
 
 The business of plundering commenced 
 immediately after the capture ; and we were 
 soon left with only what we had on and 
 what we had in our pockets. Several of us 
 rejoiced in some gold ; mine was only the one 
 hundred and ten dollars I have mentioned, 
 but Colonel Lubbock and Colonel Johnston 
 had about fifteen hundred dollars each. Lub- 
 bock held on to nearly or quite all of his. 
 But Johnston had found the coins an uncomfort- 
 able burden when carried otherwise, and had 
 been riding with them in his holsters. There 
 his precious gold was found, and thence it 
 was eagerly taken, by one or more of our cap- 
 tors. His horse and his saddle, with the 
 trappings and pistols, were those his father, 
 General Albert Sydney Johnston, had used 
 at the battle of Shiloh, and were greatly 
 prized. They and all our horses were 
 promptly appropriated by the officers of Col. 
 Pritchard's command ; the colonel himself 
 claimed and took the lion's share, includ- 
 ing the two carriage-horses, which, as he was 
 told at the time, were the property of Mrs. 
 Davis, having been bought and presented 
 to her by the gentlemen in Richmond upon 
 the occasion already mentioned. Colonel 
 Pritchard also asserted a claim to the horse I 
 had myself ridden, which had stood the march 
 admirably and was fresher and in better con- 
 dition than the other animals. The colonel's 
 claim to him, however, was disputed by the 
 adjutant, who insisted on the right of first 
 appropriation, and there was a quarrel be- 
 tween those officers on the spot. 
 
 While it was going on, I emptied the con- 
 tents of my haversack into a fire where 
 some of the enemy were cooking breakfast, 
 and there saw the papers burn. They were 
 chiefly love-letters, with a photograph of my 
 sweetheart, — though with them chanced to 
 be a few telegrams and perhaps some letters 
 relating to public affairs, of no special interest. 
 
 After we had had breakfast, it was arranged 
 that each of the prisoners should ride his 
 own horse to Macon, the captors kindly 
 consenting to waive right of possession mean- 
 time; and that arrangement was carried out, 
 except that Mr. Davis traveled in one of the 
 ambulances. 
 
 We marched in a column of twos, and Major 
 Maurin and I rode together. He was very 
 taciturn ; but when, on the second or third 
 day, we came upon a cavalry camp where a 
 brass-band, in a large wagon drawn by hand- 
 some horses, was stationed by the road-side, 
 and suddenly struck up " Yankee Doodle " 
 as the ambulance containing Mr. Davis came 
 abreast of it, the silent old Creole was moved 
 to speech. The startling burst of music set 
 our horses to prancing. When Major Maurin 
 
had composed his steed, he turned to me 
 with a broad smile and revenged himself 
 with: "I remember the last time I heard that 
 tune ; it was at the battle of Fredericksburg, 
 when a brass-band came across the pontoon 
 bridge with the column and occupied a house 
 within range of my guns, where they began 
 ' Yankee Doodle.' I myself sighted a field- 
 piece at the house, missed it with the first 
 shot, but next time hit it straight. In all your 
 life you never heard ' Yankee Doodle ' stop 
 so short as it did then ! " 
 
 It was at that cavalry camp we first heard 
 of the proclamation offering a reward of 
 $100,000 for the capture of Mr. Davis, upon 
 the charge, invented by Stanton and Holt, 
 of participation in the plot to murder Mr. 
 Lincoln. Colonel Pritchard had himself 
 just received it, and considerately handed a 
 printed copy of the proclamation to Mr. 
 Davis, who read it with a composure unruf- 
 fled by any feeling other than scorn. The 
 money was, several years later, paid to the 
 captors. Stanton and Holt, lawyers both, 
 very well knew that Mr. Davis could never 
 be convicted upon an indictment for treason, 
 but were determined to hang him anyhow, 
 and were in search of a pretext for doing so. 
 
 The march to Macon took four days. As 
 we rode up to the head-quarters of General 
 Wilson there, an orderly (acting, as he said, 
 under directions of the adjutant) seized my 
 rein before I had dismounted, and led off my 
 horse the moment I was out of the saddle. 
 When, that afternoon, we were sent to the 
 station to take the railway train arranged to 
 convey the prisoners to Augusta, on our way 
 to Fortress Monroe, the horses of all or most 
 of the officers of our party were standing in 
 front of the hotel, and the several ex-owners 
 rode them to the station. My horse was not 
 there, and I had to go to the station afoot. 
 
 Several years afterward, on the grand stand 
 at the Jerome Park race-course, in New 
 
 York, I met Colonel , from whom, in 
 
 Danville, Virginia, I had got the horse under 
 the circumstances narrated. He told me he 
 was in that part of Georgia shortly after 
 our capture, and said the quarrel between 
 Colonel Pritchard and his adjutant, as to 
 
 who should have my horse, waxed so hot at 
 Macon that the adjutant, fearing he would 
 not be able to keep the horse himself, and 
 determined Colonel Pritchard should not 
 have him, ended the dispute by drawing his 
 revolver and shooting the gallant steed dead. 
 At General Wilson's head-quarters in Ma- 
 con, I met General Croxton, of Kentucky, 
 one of Wilson's brigadiers, who had been 
 two classes ahead of me at Yale College. 
 He received me with expressions of great 
 friendship ; said he should have a special 
 outlook for my comfort while a prisoner ; and 
 told me that it was at his suggestion that 
 Harnden and Pritchard had been dispatched 
 to intercept Mr. Davis at the crossing of the 
 Ocmulgee River at Abbeville — having heard 
 from some of the Confederate cavalry who 
 had been disbanded at Washington, Georgia, 
 each with a few dollars in silver in his pocket, 
 that the President had ridden south from 
 that place. 
 
 Had Mr. Davis continued his journey, 
 without reference to us, after crossing the 
 Ocmulgee River, or had he ridden on after 
 getting supper with our party the night we 
 halted for the last time ; had he gone but 
 five miles beyond Irwinville, passing through 
 that village at night, and so avoiding observa- 
 tion, there is every reason to suppose that 
 he and his party would have escaped 
 either across the Mississippi or through 
 Florida to the sea-coast, as Mr. Benjamin 
 escaped, as General Breckinridge escaped, 
 and as others did. It was the apprehension 
 he felt for the safety of his wife and 
 children which brought about his capture. 
 And, looking back now, it must be thought 
 by everybody to have been best that he did 
 not then escape from the country. 
 
 To have been a prisoner in the hands of 
 the Government of the United States, and 
 not to have been brought to trial upon any 
 of the charges against him, is sufficient refu- 
 tation of them all. It indicates that the people 
 in Washington knewthe accusations could not 
 be sustained. **»#*#*#* 
 
 Burton N. Harrison. 
 
OPEN LETTERS. 477 
 
 Jefferson Davis and General Holt. 
 
 In The Century for November is an article, " The 
 Capture of Jefferson Davis," by Mr. Burton N. Har- 
 rison. The following phrases and sentences are to 
 be found -in this article : In a note by the author, on 
 page 136 of the magazine : " * * * The scheme 
 , of Stanton and Holt to fasten upon Mr. Davis charges 
 of a guilty foreknowledge of, if not participation in, 
 the murder of Mr. Lincoln." And in the text, on 
 page 145: "Stanton and Holt, lawyers both, very 
 well knew that Mr. Davis could never be convicted 
 on an indictment for treason, but were determined 
 to hang him anyhow, and were in search of a pre- 
 text for doing so. * * * To have been a pris- 
 oner in the hands of the Government of the United 
 States, and not to have been brought to trial upon any 
 of the charges against him, is sufficient refutation of 
 them all. It indicates that the people in Washington 
 knew the accusations could not be sustained." 
 
 Now, I can safely leave the defense of Secretary 
 Stanton to abler pens than mine. But I hold — con- 
 trary, I know, to the usual opinion — that the dead, 
 whose time of action is past, stand less in need of 
 vindication than the living. Therefore, I wish to 
 speak as to the charges made by Mr. Harrison 
 against General Holt; yet not with my own mouth; 
 for it strikes me that the fitting answer to them is 
 found in General Holt's own statement concerning 
 another matter, published within the month, but be- 
 fore Mr. Harrison's paper was given to the public. 
 
 General Holt, in this statement (a reply, in the form 
 of a letter published in the "Philadelphia Press," under 
 the date of October 8th, to an attack upon him by the 
 ex-conspirator, Mr. Jacob Thompson), speaks as fol- 
 lows concerning the actions of a certain San ford Con- 
 over, first known to the General and the public as a 
 witness in the trial of the assassins of President Lin- 
 coln (though Conover's testimony concerned not 
 those conspirators executed for that crime, but others 
 who were never brought to trial) : 
 
 " In July, after the trial, Conover addressed a 
 written communication to me from New York, of 
 which the following is the opening paragraph: 
 
 " 'New- York, July 26, 1865. 
 "'Brig. -Gen. Holt: 
 
 "'Dear Sir: Believing that I can procure witnesses 
 and documentary evidence sufficient to convict Jeff. 
 Davis and C. C. Clay of complicity in the assassination 
 of the President, and that I can also find and secure 
 John H. Surratt, I beg leave to tender the Government, 
 through you, my services for these purposes. * * * ' 
 
 " On the second of August following," General 
 Holt continues, "another letter to the same effect, 
 but more urgent, was received from him [Con- 
 over], and, after a conference with the Secretary 
 of War, with his full approval the proposal was 
 accepted, and Conover entered on the fulfillment of 
 his engagement. Some six or seven months were 
 occupied in this, and after all the witnesses produced 
 by him — none of whom were known to me — had 
 been examined, and their depositions filed in the Bureau 
 of Military Justice, Conover, under the supervision of 
 the Secretary of War, was allowed a compensation, 
 which, with what he had previously received, was 
 deemed just, and no more, for his services, — such 
 sums as were required for the attendance of the wit- 
 M nesses themselves having been before paid out from 
 
1 
 
 478 
 
 OPEN LETTERS. 
 
 time to time. Conover himself gave no deposition. 
 In this there was no departure from the course 
 habitually pursued by all the departments of the 
 Government. * * * At this time, nothing had 
 occurred to excite the slightest suspicion of Conover's 
 integrity in all that he had done, or in the credibility 
 of his witnesses. Some time afterward, two of these 
 witnesses, conscience-stricken, came and confessed 
 that they had sworn falsely, having been suborned to 
 do so by Conover. Investigation satisfied me that 
 they were sincere in their avowals, and without delay 
 appropriate action was taken. A prosecution was set 
 on foot against Conover, and he was convicted and 
 sent to the penitentiary for perjury and subornation 
 of perjury, and on the margin of all the reports made 
 by me on the depositions of the witnesses he had pro- 
 duced, an indorsement was made, stating that the 
 depositions were withdrawn and had been discredited. 
 * * * Fortunately, this most guilty deception was 
 discovered so soon that neither the reputation nor the 
 sensibilities of anybody had suffered by the temporary 
 credit given to it." 
 
 Had General Holt been maliciously determined to 
 have the life of any one, would he have acted thus ? 
 Of course not. He showed himself in this affair, 
 as always, a most honorable, high-minded, and just 
 man. 
 
 The Secessionists will never forgive him, because, 
 being a " Border man," — a Kentuckian by birth, — he 
 chose rather to remain true to the Union than to 
 join them. But no loyal person will make this a 
 ground of complaint against him. 
 
 Loyalist. 
 
 The Influence of Christ.* 
 
 Who, after the Evangelists, will venture to write 
 the Life of Jesus? This deprecatory question of Les- 
 sing has not prevented, during the last three or four 
 decades, the composition of numerous biographies of 
 him whose career is depicted inimitably by the Four 
 Evangelists. Germany has been most prolific of these 
 works. France has produced one excellent book of 
 this class, "The Life of Jesus," by Pressense, and 
 another famous writing, of a critical and distinctive 
 cast, the "Vie de Jesus " of M. Renan. Even Scot- 
 land, where the abstract discussions of theology have 
 still the strongest fascination, has made its contribu- 
 tions to this species of biographic writing. It is easy 
 to see how the minds of men are drawn away from 
 the problems of dogmatic theology, such as predes- 
 tination and free will, and fastened on the wonderful 
 personality of the Founder. The attention is drawn 
 away from the circumference to the center. It is re- 
 markable that this vivid interest in the question, 
 " What think ye of Christ ? " — this concentration of 
 thought on the Person who gives to Christianity its 
 being, — is simultaneous with a widespread tendency, 
 rife in all the empirical schools, to make little of per- 
 sonality and personal force, and to make everything 
 of general causes and impersonal forces as determining 
 the current of history. The one-sided character of this 
 
 * Gesta Christi ; or, A History of Human Progress under Chris- 
 tianity. By Charles Loring Brace. New York: A.C.Armstrong. 
 
 last tendency, in its undervaluing of the significance 
 of persons, and of the mysterious personal agency 
 which is not to be resolved into anything merely phys- 
 ical or distinct from itself, is specially manifest when 
 the attempt is made to explain the origin of the Chris- 
 tian religion. Here the great originating cause is a 
 Person. Nothing in his environment suffices to ex- 
 plain him. Nothing in his antecedents or circum- 
 stances accounts for the appearance, then and there, 
 of an individual so transcendently gifted, and predes- 
 tined to exert so transforming an influence on human 
 society. 
 
 Akin to the tendency which leads men to dwell on 
 the history of Jesus, and to gather up all that can be 
 ascertained respecting him, is the disposition to trace 
 the stream of consequences which have flowed from 
 his life, teaching, and death. In the mist of critical 
 conjecture which is thrown over certain portions of 
 the EvangeUcal narratives, and the doubts which af- 
 flict many minds, it is a relief to contemplate the veri- 
 fiable results of the work of Jesus among men. Not a 
 few derive their profoundest impressions of his inef- 
 fable power and excellence from a close survey of the 
 history of Christendom. The growth of the grain of 
 mustard-seed, the spread of the leaven, have a reality 
 and impressiveness which the most skeptical minds 
 are capable of recognizing. It is one of the best serv- 
 ices which a work like the " Gesta Christi " of Mr. 
 Brace renders that it gives the reader a fresh idea of 
 the energy, the beneficent energy, that resides in the 
 religion of Christ, and emanates from him, account 
 for it as one may. Mr. Brace's work confines itself to 
 the various forms of philanthropy in which the influ- 
 ence of Christ is directly traceable. He dwells on the 
 mitigation of the excessive paternal authority which 
 prevailed in the ancient world ; the elevation of woman 
 under the benign and pure teaching of the Gospel ; the 
 sanctity thrown around marriage and the domestic 
 hearthstone; the melting of the chains of the bond- 
 man ; the abolition of cruel and brutal sports, like the 
 contests of the arena; the increased tenderness for 
 children, compared with the practice and spirit of an- 
 tiquity ; the abandonment of the private wars which 
 prevailed in the feudal ages ; the discarding of torture 
 and the reform of criminal jurisprudence ; the substi- 
 tution of arbitration for war, and the astonishing mit^ 
 igation of the horrors of war which the spirit of human-, 
 ity in modern times has introduced, etc. The effect of 
 such a discussion depends, of course, on the interest 
 that belongs to the illustrative facts. One sees from 
 such a broad survey that there has been steadily 
 operating a subtle and powerful influence which, when 
 followed back, leads to the Cross of Christ. The truth 
 of the sacredness of humanity, of the dignity and worth 
 of every human soul, be its outward condition never 
 so humble, obtained then a permanent lodgment in 
 the human heart. There it has been living and acting ) 
 with an increasing efficiency. Thus human societ; I 
 becomes more and more Christian. Christ is seen, no i 
 in visible form, but in his spirit, incorporated in 
 men's thoughts and lives. 
 
 George P. Fisher.