The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government Volume II Part 41

Grant, and Secretary of State William H. Seward."

President Lincoln had been shot, and Secretary Seward was badly wounded with a knife. The others were uninjured.

The sentence of the commission was that David E. Harold, G. A.

Atzerott, Lewis Payne, and Mary E. Surratt, be hanged by the proper military authority, under the direction of the Secretary of War, on July 7, 1865. The others were sentenced to imprisonment at hard labor for a term of years or for life. With only one day's delay, the sentences were carried into execution. John H. Surratt escaped before trial. He was sought for by the spies of the War Department half round the world, and after a long time was found serving as a soldier in the corps of Papal Zouaves at Rome. He was brought back to Was.h.i.+ngton, tried, and acquitted.

The insertion of my name with those of others, honorable gentlemen, as "inciting and encouraging" these acts, served as an exhibition of the malignant spirit with which justice was administered by the authorities in Was.h.i.+ngton at that time. The case of Mrs. Surratt, at whose house some of these persons had boarded, awakened much sympathy. She was spoken of by her counsel, Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland, as "a devout Christian, ever kind, affectionate, and charitable," which was confirmed by evidence and uncontradicted. On the day of the execution, her daughter, who was quite a devoted and affectionate person, sought to obtain an audience with President Johnson to implore at least a brief suspension of the sentence of her mother. She was obstructed and prevented from seeing the President by ex-Senator Preston King, of New York, and Senator James H. Lane, of Kansas, who were reported to have been at the Executive Mansion to keep guard over President Johnson. Each of these Senators at a later period committed suicide.

The trial of Major Henry Wirz was the next in importance which came before a military commission. In April, 1865, President Johnson issued a proclamation, stating that, from evidence in possession of the "Bureau of Military Justice," it appeared that I, Jefferson Davis, was implicated in the a.s.sa.s.sination of President Lincoln, and for that reason he offered a reward of one hundred thousand dollars for my capture. That testimony was subsequently found to be entirely false, having been a mere fabrication. The manner in which this was done will be presently stated. Meantime, certain persons of influence and public position at that time, either aware of the fabricated character of this testimony or convinced of its insufficiency to secure my conviction on a trial, sought to find ample material to supply this deficiency, in the great mortality of the soldiers we had captured during the war and imprisoned at Andersonville.[92]

Orders were therefore issued by the authorities of the United States Government to arrest a subaltern officer, Captain Henry Wirz, a foreigner by birth, poor, friendless, and wounded, and held as a prisoner of war. He had been included in the surrender of General J.

E. Johnston. On May 7th he was placed in the "Old Capitol" Prison at Was.h.i.+ngton. The poor man was doomed before he was heard, and the permission to be heard according to law was denied him. Captain Wirz had been in command at the Confederate prison at Andersonville. The first charge alleged against him was that of conspiring with myself, Secretary Seddon, General Howell Cobb, General Winder, and others, to cause the death of thousands of the prisoners through cruelty, etc.

The second charge was alleged against himself for murder in violation of the laws and customs of war.

The military commission before which he was tried was convened by an order of President Johnson, of August 19th, directing the officers detailed for that purpose to meet as a special military commission on August 20th, for the trial of such prisoners as might be brought before it. The commission convened, and Wirz was arraigned on the charges above mentioned, and pleaded not guilty. At the suggestion of the Judge Advocate, Joseph Holt, he was remanded to prison and the court adjourned. The so-called trial afterward came on, and lasted for three months, but no evidence whatsoever was produced showing the existence of such a conspiracy as had been charged. Wirz was, however, p.r.o.nounced guilty, and, in accordance with the sentence of the commission, he was executed on November 10, 1865.

On April 4, 1867, Mr. Louis Schade, of Was.h.i.+ngton, and the attorney for Wirz on the trial, in compliance with the request of Wirz so to do, as soon as the times should be propitious, published a vindication of his character. The following is an extract from this publication:

"On the night previous to the execution of the prisoner, some parties came to the confessor of Wirz (Rev. Father Boyle) and also to me. One of them informed me that a high Cabinet officer wished to a.s.sure Wirz that, if he would implicate Jefferson Davis with the atrocities committed at Andersonville, his sentence should be commuted. He (the messenger, whoever he was) requested me to inform Wirz of this. In presence of Father Boyle, I told him next morning what had happened.

The Captain simply and quietly replied: 'Mr. Schade, you know that I have always told you that I do not know anything about Jefferson Davis. He had no connection with me as to what was done at Andersonville. If I knew anything of him, I would not become a traitor against him or anybody else to save my life.' Thus ended the attempt to suborn Captain Wirz against Jefferson Davis."

The following is an extract from a letter of Captain C. B. Winder to Mrs. Davis, dated Eastern Sh.o.r.e of Virginia, January 9, 1867:

"The door of the room which I occupied while in confinement at the Old Capitol Prison, Was.h.i.+ngton, was immediately opposite Captain Wirz's door--both of which were occasionally open. About two days before Captain Wirz's execution, I saw three or four men pa.s.s into his room, and, upon their coming out, Captain Wirz told me that they had given him a.s.surances that his life would be spared and his liberty given to him if he (Wirz) could give any testimony that would reflect upon Mr. Davis or implicate him directly or indirectly with the condition and treatment of prisoners of war, _as charged_ by the United States authorities; that he indignantly spurned these propositions, and a.s.sured them that, never having been acquainted with Mr. Davis, either officially, personally, or socially, it was utterly impossible that he should know anything against him, and that the offer of his life, dear as the boon might be, could not purchase him to treason and treachery to the South and his friend."

The following letter is from the Rev. Father F. E. Boyle, of Was.h.i.+ngton:

"WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D. C., _October 10, 1880._

"Hon. JEFFERSON DAVIS.

"DEAR SIR: ... I know that, on the evening before the day of the execution of Major Wirz, a man visited me, on the part of a Cabinet officer, to inform me that Major Wirz would be pardoned if he would implicate Jefferson Davis in the cruelties of Andersonville. No names were given by this messenger, and, upon my refusal to take any action in the matter, he went to Mr. Louis Schade, counsel for Major Wirz, with the same purpose and with a like result.

"When I visited Major Wirz the next morning, he told me that the same proposal had been made to him, and had been rejected with scorn. The Major was very indignant, and said that, while he was innocent of the cruel charges for which he was about to suffer death, he would not purchase his liberty by perjury and a crime, such as was made the condition of his freedom. I attended the Major to the scaffold, and he died in the peace of G.o.d, and praying for his enemies. I know he was indeed innocent of all the cruel charges on which his life was sworn away, and I was edified by the Christian spirit in which he submitted to his persecutors. Yours very truly,

"F. E. BOYLE."

In the other case of the fabrication of evidence by some of the authorities in Was.h.i.+ngton relative to myself, it will be sufficient here to present what others have said and done. The subject is noticed in these pages only to show the desperate extremities to which the agents of the Government of the United States proceeded in order to compa.s.s my ignominious death. Three princ.i.p.al measures were resorted to for the accomplishment of this object: the charge in the case of Wirz, above mentioned; the fabrications in the case now under consideration; and the cruel and inhuman treatment inflicted upon me while a prisoner in Fortress Monroe.

At the session of Congress of 1865-'66, a committee was appointed in the House of Representatives "to inquire into and report upon the alleged complicity of Jefferson Davis with the a.s.sa.s.sination of the late President Lincoln," or words to that effect. George S. Boutwell was chairman of the committee, and the majority of the members were extreme advocates of the war. The charge emanated from the "Bureau of Military Justice," as it was designated--a similar inst.i.tution to the "Secret Committee" of the French Revolution. Of this inst.i.tution Judge-Advocate Joseph Holt was the chief. After an investigation continuing through several months, a majority of the committee made their report to Congress.

"That report not only failed to establish the charge, but the committee were forced to confess in it that the witnesses, on whose testimony Holt had affected to rely, were wholly untrustworthy.

Shortly after this report was presented to the House, Mr. A. J.

Rogers, of the committee, a very respectable member from New Jersey, made a minority report. He a.s.serted that much of the evidence was altogether suppressed, and that the witnesses, who had received large sums of money from Holt for testifying to the criminality of Mr.

Davis, recanted their evidence before the committee, and acknowledged that they had perjured themselves by testifying to a ma.s.s of falsehoods; that they had been tutored to do so by one S. Conover; and that, from him down through all the miserable list, the very names under which these hired informers were known to the public were as false as the narratives to which they had sworn." [93]

Much more might be added to show the evil purpose of these men, together with the correspondence of Holt and his a.s.sociates, but it would be out of place if it was put in these pages.

Another case of this kind occurred in the State of Ohio, in April, 1863, in the arrest, trial, and banishment of Clement L.

Vallandigham. On April 13th Major-General Ambrose E. Burnside, commanding the Department, issued an order, declaring--

"That, hereafter, all persons found within our lines who commit acts for the benefit of the enemies of our country will be tried as spies or traitors, and, if convicted, will suffer death." (The different cla.s.ses of persons were then named in the order.) "The habit of declaring sympathies for the enemy will no longer be tolerated in this department. Persons committing such offenses will be at once arrested, with a view to being tried as above stated, or sent beyond our lines into the lines of their friends. It must be distinctly understood that treason, expressed or implied, will not be tolerated in this department."

Mr. Vallandigham commented upon this order, on May 1st, at a public meeting of citizens. Three days afterward a body of soldiers was sent by railroad from Cincinnati to Dayton, who, with violence, broke into his residence at three o'clock in the morning, seized, and hurried him to the cars before a rescue could be made, and departed for Cincinnati, where he was confined in a military prison. He was brought to trial before a military commission on May 6th. The specification made against him in the charge was that "he addressed a large meeting of citizens at Mount Vernon, and did utter sentiments in words, or in effect, as follows: declaring the present war 'a wicked, cruel, and unnecessary war'; a war not being waged for the preservation of the Union'; 'a war for the purpose of crus.h.i.+ng out liberty and creating a despotism'; 'a war for the freedom of the blacks and the enslavement of the whites'; stating that, 'if the Administration had so wished, the war could have been honorably terminated months ago'; characterizing the military order 'as a base usurpation of arbitrary authority'; declaring 'that he was at all times and upon all occasions resolved to do what he could to defeat the attempts now made to build up a monarchy upon the ruins of our free government.'" He was adjudged as guilty, and sentenced to confinement in Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, during the war. This sentence was changed by President Lincoln to banishment to the Confederate States. This military usurpation was spoken of by Governor Seymour, of New York, in a letter written at the time, in these words:

"The transaction involved a series of offenses against our most sacred rights. It interfered with the freedom of speech; it violated our rights to be secure in our homes against unreasonable searches and seizures; it p.r.o.nounced sentence without a trial, save one which was a mockery, which insulted as well as wronged. The perpetrators now seek to impose punishment, not for an offense against law, but for a disregard of an invalid order, put forth in utter violation of the principles of civil liberty. If this proceeding is approved by the Government and sanctioned by the people, it is not merely a step toward revolution, it is revolution; it will not only lead to military despotism, it establishes military despotism. If it is upheld, our liberties are overthrown. The safety of our persons, the security of our property, will hereafter depend upon the arbitrary wills of such military rulers as may be placed over us, while our const.i.tutional guarantees will be broken down. Even now the Governors and the courts of some of the great Western States have sunk into insignificance before the despotic powers claimed and exercised by military men who have been sent into their borders."

A large number of such arrests were made in Ohio, newspapers were suspended, and editors imprisoned. Like scenes were very numerous in Indiana and Illinois. In Pennsylvania arrests were made, newspapers suspended, editors imprisoned, and offices destroyed. In New Hamps.h.i.+re, Vermont, and Wisconsin many similar scenes occurred. The provost-marshal system was used as a weapon of vindictiveness against influential citizens of opposite political views throughout all the Northern States. No one of such persons knew when he was safe. A complaint of his neighbors, supported by affidavit of "disloyal"

words spoken or "disloyal" acts approved, received prompt attention from all marshals. Everything was brought into subjection to the will of the Government of the United States and its military officers.

In view of all the facts here presented relative to the Northern States, let the reader answer where the sovereignty _de facto_ resided. Most clearly in the Government of the United States. That presided over the ballot-box, held the keys of the prisons, arrested all citizens at its pleasure, suspended or suppressed newspapers, and did whatever it pleased under the declaration that the public welfare required it. But, under the principles of American liberty, the sovereignty is inherent in the people as an unalienable right; and, for the preservation and protection of this and other rights, the State governments were inst.i.tuted. If, therefore, the people have lost this inherent sovereignty, it is evident that the State governments have failed to afford that protection for which they were inst.i.tuted. If they have thus failed, it has been in consequence of their subversion and loss of power to fulfill the object for which they were established. This subversion was achieved when the General Government, under the pretext of preserving the Union, made war on its creators the States, thus changing the nature of the Federal Union, which could rightfully be done only by the sovereign, the people of the States, in like manner as it was originally formed. If they should permit their sovereignty to be usurped and themselves to be subjugated, individuals might remain, States could not. Of their wreck a nation might be built, but there could not be a Union, for that implies ent.i.ties united, and of a State which has lost its sovereignty there may only be written, "_It was_."

[Footnote 86: Article IV, amendment.]

[Footnote 87: Article V, amendment.]

[Footnote 88: Article V, amendment.]

[Footnote 89: Article VI, amendment.]

[Footnote 90: Article I, section 9.]

[Footnote 91: The first act of Congress providing for an enrollment and draft was pa.s.sed on March 8, 1363, three and a half months later than this order.]

[Footnote 92: See chapter on exchange of prisoners.]

[Footnote 93: Baltimore "Gazette," September 25, 1866.]

CHAPTER XLV.

Inactivity of the Army of Northern Virginia.--Expeditions of Custer, Kilpatrick, and Dahlgren for the Destruction of Railroads, the Burning of Richmond, and Killing the Officers of the Government.-- Repelled by Government Clerks.--Papers on Dahlgren's Body.--Repulse of Butler's Raid from Bermuda Hundred.--Advance of Sheridan repulsed at Richmond.--Stuart resists Sheridan.--Stuart's Death.--Remarks on Grant's Plan of Campaign.--Movement of General Butler.--Drury's Bluff.--Battle there.--Campaign of Grant in Virginia.

Both the Army of Northern Virginia and the army under General Meade remained in a state of comparative inaction during the months of January and February, 1864.

On February 26, 1864, while General Lee's headquarters were at Orange Court-House, two corps of the army of the enemy left their camp for Madison Court-House. The object was, by a formidable feint, to engage the attention of General Lee, and conceal from him their plans for a surprise and, if possible, capture of the city of Richmond. This was to be a concerted movement, in which General Butler, in command of the forces on the Peninsula, was to move up and make a demonstration upon Richmond on the east, while Generals Custer and Kilpatrick and Colonel Dahlgren were to attack it and enter on the west and north.

Two days later another army corps left for Madison Court-House, and other forces subsequently followed. At the same time General Custer, with two ten-inch Parrott guns and fifteen hundred picked men, marched for Charlottesville by the James City road. His purpose was to destroy the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, running by Charlottesville to Gordonsville, where the junction was made of the railroad running north from Lynchburg, with the Central running to Richmond. The capture of the army stores there, the destruction of the tracks running south, west, and east, and cutting the telegraph, would have severed the communication between Lee's army and Richmond by that route. This movement, with the destruction of railroads by General Kilpatrick, and of the Central Railroad and the James River and Kanawha Ca.n.a.l by Colonel Dahlgren, would have isolated that army from its base of supplies.

[Ill.u.s.tration: General Wade Hampton]

Three hours later, on the same day on which General Custer started, General Kilpatrick with five thousand picked cavalry and a light battery of six guns, left Stevensburg, near Culpeper Court-House, for the lower fords of the Rapidan. His object was to make a dash upon Richmond for the purpose of releasing the United States prisoners, and doing whatever injury might be possible. He moved rapidly, destroying railroads and depots, and plundering the country, but found no obstacle except in being closely hara.s.sed in his rear by Colonel Bradley T. Johnson with his sixty Marylanders, who, with extraordinary daring, activity, and skill, followed him until he reached the line of the defenses of Richmond. There, while attacked in the rear by Colonel Johnson and his pickets driven in, he was at the same time opposed in front by Colonel W. H. Stevens, who, with a detachment of engineer troops, manned a few sections of light artillery. After an engagement of thirty minutes, Kilpatrick's entire force began to retreat in the direction of the Meadow Bridge on the Central Railroad. At night his camp-fires were discovered by General Wade Hampton, who dismounted one hundred men to act as infantry, and, supported by the cavalry, opened his two-gun battery upon the enemy at short range. He then attacked the camp of Davies's and of a part of two other brigades. The camp was taken, and the whole force of Kilpatrick fled at a gallop, leaving one hundred and five prisoners and more than one hundred horses.

Colonel Dahlgren started with General Kilpatrick, but at Spottsylvania Court-House was dispatched with five hundred men to Frederickhall, a depot of the Central Railroad, where some eighty pieces of our reserve artillery had been parked. His orders were to destroy the artillery, the railroads, and telegraph-lines. Finding the artillery too well guarded, he proceeded to destroy the line of railroad as far as Hanover Junction. Thence he moved toward the James River and Kanawha Ca.n.a.l, which he reached twenty-two miles west of Richmond. Thence his command moved toward the city, pillaging and destroying dwelling-houses, out-buildings, mills, ca.n.a.l-boats, grain, and cattle, and cutting one lock on the ca.n.a.l. The first resistance met was by a battalion of General G. W. C. Lee's force, consisting of about two hundred and twenty of the armory-men, under command of their major, Ford. This small body was driven back until it joined a battalion of the Treasury Department clerks, who, in the absence of their major, Henly, were led by Captain McIlhenney. The officers and men were all clerks of the Treasury Department, and, like those of other departments and many citizens of Richmond, who were either too old or too young to be in the army, were enrolled and organized to defend the capital in the absence of troops. Captain McIlhenney, as soon as he saw the enemy, promptly arranged to attack. This was done with such impetuosity that Dahlgren and his men wore routed, leaving some eighteen killed, twenty to thirty wounded, and as many more prisoners. About a hundred horses, with equipments, a number of small-arms, and one three-inch Napoleon gun were captured. Our loss was one captain and two lieutenants killed, three lieutenants and seven privates wounded--one of the latter mortally. This feat of the Clerks' Battalion commanded the grateful admiration of the people, and the large concourse that attended the funeral of the fallen expressed the public lamentation.