THE PRISONER OF FORTRESS MONROE
An extract from a letter by Mrs. Robert E. Lee to Miss Mason, from
Derwent, September 10, 1865, may interest my readers: "I have just
received, dear Miss Em, a long letter from Mrs. Davis in reply to one of
mine. She was in Augusta, Ga.; says she is confined to that State. She has
sent her children to kindred in Canada. Says she knows nothing whatever of
her husband, except what she has seen in the papers. Says any letter sent
her under care of Mr. Schley will reach her safely. She writes very sadly,
as she well may, for I know of no one so much to be pitied.... She
represents a most uncomfortable state of affairs in Augusta. No one, white
or black, can be out after ten o'clock at night without a pass.... We must
wait God's time to raise us up again. That will be the best time." In a
later letter, Mrs. Lee said: "I cannot help feeling uneasy about Mr.
Davis. May God protect him, and grant him deliverance!"
The whole South was anxious about Mr. Davis. Those who had come in close
touch with him felt a peculiar sympathy for him inspired by a side of his
character not generally recognized, as his manner often conveyed an
impression of coldness and sternness. Under his reserve, was an almost
feminine tenderness revealed in many stories his close friends tell. Thus:
One night, Judge Minor, to see the President on business of state, sat
with him in the room of the "White House" where the telegraph wire came in
at the window (now, Alabama Room in the Confederate Museum), when in
stumbles little Joe, in night-gown, saying: "Papa, I want to say my
prayers." The President, caressing his child, despatched a message,
answered Judge Minor's immediate question, and saying, "Excuse me a
moment," led his little one's devotions. He was of wide reading and
wonderful memory, yet was ignorant of "Mother Goose" until he heard his
children babbling the jingles. Mrs. Davis brought "Babes in the Wood" to
his notice. He suffered from insomnia after visits to the hospitals; his
wife would try to read him to sleep. One night she picked up the "Babes"
as the one thing at hand, and was astonished to find the poem unknown to
him; at the children's desertion he rose, exclaiming: "Was there no one to
help those poor tender babies? The thought is agonizing!" A part of his
childhood was spent in a Kentucky monastery, where the good monks did not
bethink themselves to teach him nursery rhymes.
There was the story of the soldier's widow, to answer whose call the
President left his breakfast unfinished. Mrs. Davis found him trying to
comfort and to induce her to partake of a tray of delicacies sent in by
his order. She was trying to find her husband's body, and feared that as
he was a poor private due aid might not be given her; she had been certain
that she would receive scant attention from the Chief Magistrate. But he
was telling her that the country's strength and protection lay in her
private soldier. "My father, Madam, was a private in the Revolution, and I
am more proud of what he did for his country than if he had been an
officer expecting the world's praise. Tell your sorrows to my wife. She
will take you in her carriage wherever you wish to go, and aid you all she
can."
Dr. Craven, Mr. Davis' Federal physician at Fortress Monroe, testifies in
his book to his patient's unusual depth and quickness of sympathy:
"Despite a certain exterior cynicism of manner, no patient ever crossed my
path who, suffering so much himself, appeared to feel so warmly and
tenderly for others." In Confederate hospitals, he had not limited pity to
wearers of the gray. A "White House" guest told me of his robbing his
scant table more than once for a sick Federal who had served with him in
Mexico. Another laughingly remarked: "I don't see how he managed to rob
his table of a delicacy. When I sat down to it, it had none to spare. Yet
certainly he might have kept a bountiful board, for Government stores were
accessible to Government officials, and the President might have had first
choice in purchasing blockade goods. But the simplicity of our White House
regime was an object-lesson. I recall seeing Mr. Davis in home-spun,
home-made clothes at State receptions. That required very positive
patriotism if one could do better! 'Do look at Mr. Davis!' Mrs. Davis
whispered, 'He _will_ wear those clothes, and they look lop-sided!' Their
deficiencies were more noticeable because he was so polished and elegant."
One of the faithful shows me in her scrap-book a dispatch, of May 25,
1865, in the "Philadelphia Inquirer": "Jeff does not pine in solitude. An
officer and two soldiers remain continually in the cell with him." And
then points to these words from the pen of Hugh McCulloch, Mr. Davis'
visitor from Washington: "He had the bearing of a brave and high-born
gentleman, who, knowing he would have been highly honoured if the Southern
States had achieved their independence, would not and could not demean
himself as a criminal because they had not." She tells how men who had
served under Mr. Davis in Mexico were among his guards at Fortress Monroe
and showed him respect and kindness; and how almost everybody there grew
to like him, he was so kind and courteous, and to the common soldier as to
the strapped and starred officer.
Our ladies sent articles for his comfort to Mr. Davis, but knew not if he
received them. Dr. Minnegerode's efforts to see him were for a weary while
without success. It seemed that his pastor, at least, might have had this
privilege without question, especially such as Dr. Minnegerode, a man of
signal peace and piety who had carried the consolations of religion and
such comforts as he could collect in an almost famine-stricken city to
Federals in prison. His first endeavour, a letter of request to President
Johnson, met no response. Finally, appeal was made through Rev. Dr. Hall,
Mr. Stanton's pastor; to the committee of ladies waiting on him, Dr. Hall
said he did not wish to read the petition, wished to have nothing to do
with the matter; they besought, he read, and secured privilege of
intercourse between pastor and prisoner.
For months, Mr. Davis was not allowed to correspond with his wife; was
allowed no book but the Bible; June 8, 1865, Stanton reproved General
Miles for permitting the prison chaplain to visit him. He was unprepared
for his pastor's coming, when Dr. Minnegerode, conducted by General Miles,
entered his cell. In a sermon in St. Paul's after Mr. Davis' death, Dr.
Minnegerode described this meeting. Mr. Davis had been removed (on medical
insistence) from the casemate, and was "in an end room on the second floor
of Carroll Hall, with a passage and windows on each side of the room, and
an anteroom in front, separated by an open grated door--a sentinel on each
passage and before the grated door of the anteroom; six eyes always
upon him, day and night." With these eyes looking on, the long-parted
friends, the pastor and the prisoner, met.
[Illustration: A VIEW OF FORTRESS MONROE
Showing section of casemates overlooking the moat. In a casemate of this
fort Mr. Davis was confined.
Photographed in 1890]
When the question of Holy Communion was broached, Mr. Davis hesitated. "He
was a pure and pious man, and felt the need and value of the means of
grace. But could he take the Sacrament in the proper spirit--in a
forgiving mind? He was too upright and conscientious to eat and drink
unworthily--that is, not at peace with God and man, as far as in him lay."
In the afternoon, General Miles took the pastor to the prisoner again. Mr.
Davis was ready to pray, "Father, forgive them!" "Then came the Communion.
It was night. The fortress was so still that you could hear a pin fall.
General Miles, with his back to us, leaned against the fire-place in the
anteroom, his head on his hands--not moving; sentinels stood like
statues."
Of Mr. Davis' treatment, Dr. Minnegerode said: "The officers were polite
and sympathetic; the common soldiers--not one adopted the practice of high
dignitaries who spoke sneeringly of him as 'Jeff.' Not one but spoke of
him in a subdued and kindly tone as 'Mr. Davis.' I went whenever I could,"
he adds, "to see my friend, and precious were the hours spent with that
lowly, patient, God-fearing soul. It was in these private interviews that
I learned to appreciate his noble, Christian character--'pure in heart,'
unselfish, without guile, and loyal unto death to his conscience and
convictions." The prisoner's health failed fast. Officers thought it would
be wise and humane to allow him more liberty; they knew that he not only
had no desire to escape, but could not be induced to do so. He was begging
for trial. The pastor, encouraged by Dr. Hall, called on Mr. Stanton. He
had hoped to find the man of iron softened by sorrow; Mr. Stanton had lost
a son; his remaining child was on his knees. His greeting was like ice--a
bow and nothing more. The pastor expressed thanks for permit to visit the
prisoner, and respectfully broaching the subject of Mr. Davis' health,
suggested that, as he neither would nor could escape, he be allowed the
liberty of the fort. Mr. Stanton broke his silence: "It makes no
difference what the state of Jeff Davis' health is. His trial will come
on, no doubt. Time enough till that settles it." "It settled it in my
leaving the presence of that man," said the pastor. "I realise," Dr.
Craven protested, "the painful responsibilities of my position. If Mr.
Davis were to die in prison, without trial, subject to such indignities as
have been visited upon his attenuated frame, the world would form unjust
conclusions, but conclusions with enough colour to pass them into
history." Arguments breathing similar appreciation of the situation began
to appear in the Northern press, while men of prominence, advocating the
application of the great principles of justice and humanity to his case,
called for his release or trial; such lawyers as William B. Reed, of
Philadelphia, and Charles O'Conor, of New York, tendered him free
services. Strong friends were gathering around his wife. The Northern
heart was waking. General Grant was one of those who used his influence to
mitigate the severity of Mr. Davis' imprisonment.
Again and again Mrs. Davis had implored permission to go to him. "I will
take any parole--do anything, if you will only let me see him! For the
love of God and His merciful Son, do not refuse me!" was her cry to the
War Department, January, 1866. No reply. Then, this telegram to Andrew
Johnson from Montreal, April 25, 1866: "I hear my husband's health is
failing rapidly. Can I come to see him? Can you refuse me? Varina Davis."
Stanton acquiesced in Johnson's consent. And the husband and wife were
reunited.
Official reports to Washington, changing their tone, referred to him as
"State Prisoner Davis" instead of merely "Jeff Davis." The "National
Republican," a Government organ, declared: "Something ought in justice to
be done about his case. By every principle of justice as guaranteed by the
Constitution, he ought to be released or brought to trial." It would have
simplified matters had he asked pardon of the National Government. But
this he never did, though friends, grieving over his sufferings, urged
him. He did not hold that the South had committed treason or that he, in
being her Chief Magistrate, was Arch-Traitor. Questions of difference
between the States had been tried in the court of arms; the South had
lost, had accepted conditions of defeat, would abide by them; that was all
there was to it. Northern men were coming to see the question in the same
light.
Through indignities visited upon him who had been our Chief Magistrate was
the South most deeply aggrieved and humiliated; through the action of
Horace Greeley and other Northern men coming to his rescue was the first
real balm of healing laid upon the wound that gaped between the sections.
That wound would have healed quickly, had not the most profound
humiliation of all, the negro ballot and white disfranchisement, been
forced upon us.
Among relics in the Confederate Museum is a mask which Mr. Davis wore at
Fortress Monroe. His wife sent it to him when she heard that the
everlasting light in his eyes and the everlasting eyes of guards upon him
were robbing him of sleep and threatening his eyesight and his reason.
Over a mantel is Jefferson Davis' bond in a frame; under his name are
those of his sureties, Horace Greeley's leading the signatures of
Cornelius Vanderbilt, Gerrit Smith, Benjamin Wood, and Augustus Schell,
all of New York; A. Welsh and D. K. Jackson, of Philadelphia; and Southern
sureties, W. H. McFarland, Richard Barton Haxall, Isaac Davenport, Abraham
Warwick, Gustavus A. Myers, W. Crump, James Lyons, John A. Meredith, W. H.
Lyons, John Minor Botts, Thomas W. Boswell, James Thomas. Thousands of
Southerners would have rejoiced to sign that bond; but it must be pleasing
now to visitors of both sections to see Northern and Southern names upon
it. The mask and the bond tell the story.
RECONSTRUCTION ORATORY