OLD CAPITOL PRISON, WASHINGTON D. C., 1865
Among the unusual cases that often fell to me, was that of an elderly
man, who had at one time been a judge in New Jersey, but drink had
been his undoing. He was now serving a Civil Service sentence for
petty larceny in Old Capitol Prison. I saw at once that he was a
“bummer,” but that he had been a gentleman while sober. I did not
feel much interest in this man personally, but he showed me a letter
from his son, evidently educated, in which he begged his father to
come home, saying he would take care of him and they might live
together and be happy. The man had been a soldier for a short time,
but had been degraded and discharged, and was now a prisoner of Civil
Law. It was a difficult case, but for the sake of his faithful son I
undertook it. I went to Judge Carter, of that district, urging him to
let the man go.
“It is of no use, Miss Smith. The old fellow is a scamp and not to be
trusted for a moment,” was the reply. “He will steal anything, and if
I should let him go to-day he would be back here to-morrow on another
charge. He was arrested on the charge of stealing a wheel-barrow.”
“Why, Judge,” I said, laughing, “he did not know what he was doing.
He might as well have stolen a grindstone!”
This seemed greatly to amuse the judge, and he said directly: “Well,
that settles it; if you will see that he goes out of the city on the
train to his son, he may go. If he gets free he will be back here in
a week on another charge.”
Quite pleased with my success, I went to the Sanitary Commission,
still in Washington, secured a ticket to his home, and wrote to his
son to meet him; then I notified the old man to be ready at a certain
hour the next day when I would call for him.
When I went to the prison for him he began a round of deliberate
lying, and tried every subterfuge to evade me and get away, so that
he might remain in Washington. Finally I said: “You will go with me
to the train where I will put you in charge of the conductor, who
will deliver you to your son, and if you will not agree to this you
may remain where you are.”
At last we started on our way down Pennsylvania Avenue. He insisted
that the Government owed him money, so I took him to General Brice’s
office, where his clerks soon found a record of desertion, fraud,
and bounty-jumping. I lost no time in getting him to the train,
threatening to have him arrested if he attempted to give me the slip.
The conductor took him in charge and promised to deliver him to his
son, and I was glad to get the old sinner off my hands. A few days
after, I received a grateful letter from the faithful son.
Some months later I chanced to see a Jersey paper which stated that
my old scamp had been arrested for stealing photograph albums, and
that he had formerly been a reputable judge.
[Illustration: GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK]
On returning from the train I stopped at the War Department for
advice in some other cases. There I chanced to meet General Winfield
Hancock, who gave me his autograph, and, chatting easily, we walked
up Pennsylvania Avenue. And so it happened that I had walked down
Pennsylvania Avenue with a miserable old “prison bird” and had
walked up the Avenue with “the handsomest man in the army,” whose
appearance was greatly enhanced by a spotless, brilliant uniform.
At Army Square Hospital I met again my former patient of City Point,
who had captured his young rebel brother, the Captain. Their faithful
brother had, with much care and difficulty, succeeded in bringing
them to this hospital, but the cheerful young captain had died there
from gangrene,--perhaps due to carelessness. The Major, weaker than
when at City Point, unable to speak, motioned his brother to say that
he had not forgotten the Lincoln badge I had given him, and that he
would always cherish it. His devoted brother had struggled heroically
to reach their city, and the Major had at least his wish to die
at home. Thus ended another of the many tragedies of our unholy,
unnecessary war.
During my last weeks in Washington, I attended a session of the trial
of Wirz, a Swiss, formerly turnkey of Andersonville prison, who was
later found guilty of barbarous treatment of prisoners of war and
condemned to be hanged, with eight conspirators against the life of
President Lincoln, including Mrs. Surette. I believe, however, that
only four, including Mrs. Surette, were executed. These were the only
traitors that suffered ignominious death. Can any other victorious
nation show such Christian clemency?
Assisted by the Agency and Government Departments, I had great
success in difficult cases. After much travelling about from one
department to another in the interest of a convalescent soldier, I
collected for him fifty dollars,--which was long due, and which at
once enabled him to start for his home, greatly elated by his freedom.
[Illustration: CORDELIA ANDERSON]
An erratic, wild Irishman was made almost delirious by getting his
long delayed three hundred dollars, and insisted upon giving me fifty
dollars of it, but I informed him that I did not work for pay. He
wrote me from New York later, on a double sheet of cap, in letters
an inch long, with “God bless you!” scrawled all over the page.
Having left Doctor Painter’s hospitable home, I was now boarding on
K Street, where I met a most charming blonde Scotch girl--Cordelia
Anderson, holding a responsible position in the Treasury Department.
She made my evenings delightful, as had my friend Annie Bain in our
field tent at City Point, after the strain, the work and indignation
of almost every day. A few years later, this rare young woman,
still in Washington in July of ’67, sent for me to come to her on
my way north on my vacation from Norfolk, Virginia, where I was
Superintendent of Colored Schools. She was very ill with typhoid. I
nursed her till the doctor insisted that for my own health I must
leave her, when a kindly old Auntie took charge until her recovery.
The intolerable heat of Washington at that season was unusual. The
streets were not paved, and a fine impalpable dust, continually
rising, was suffocating. At the boarding house where we were, I saw
the most astonishing rats, as large as small cats; and at night when
I went down-stairs to get ice for the sick girl, they ran up-stairs
ahead of me, and coolly sat upon their haunches, blinking at me with
their vicious black eyes.