The Chaining of Jefferson Davis

Strange and unreal seem those days. One President a fugitive, journeying slowly southward; the other dead, journeying slowly north and west. Aye, the hand of God was heavy on both our peoples. The cup of defeat could not be made more bitter than it was; and into the cup of triumph were gall and wormwood poured.

Hunters pursuing one chieftain with hoarse cries of “rebel!” and “traitor!” For the other, bells tolling, guns booming requiem, great cities hung with black, streets lined with weeping thousands, the catafalque a victor’s chariot before which children and maidens scattered flowers. Nearly a month that funeral march lasted—from Washington through Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Albany, Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, Chicago—it wound its stately way to Springfield. Wherever it passed, the public pulse beat hotter against the Southern chieftain and his people.

Yet the dead and the hunted were men of one country, born in the same State. Sharp contrasts in many ways, they were yet enough alike in personal appearance to have been brothers. Both were pure men, brave, patriotic; both kindly and true. The dead had said of the living: “Let Jeff escape.”

Johnson’s proclamation threw the entire South into a white rage and an anguish unutterable, when it charged the assassination to Mr. Davis and other representative men of the South. Swift on it came news that our President was captured, report being spread to cast ridicule upon him that, when caught, he was disguised in his wife’s garments. Caricatures, claiming to be truthful portraiture, displayed him in hoops and petticoats and a big poke bonnet, of such flaming contrasts as certainly could not have been found in Mrs. Davis’ wardrobe.

In 1904, I saw at a vaudeville entertainment in a New York department store, a stereopticon representation of the War of Secession. The climax was Mr. Davis in a pink skirt, red bonnet, yellow bodice, and parti-coloured shawl, struggling with several Federals, while other Federals were rushing to the attack, all armed to the teeth and pointing warlike weapons at this one fantastic figure of a feeble old man. The theatre was full of children. The attraction had been running some time and thousands of young Americans had doubtless accepted its travesties as history. The Northern friend with me was as indignant as myself.

When Mr. Davis’ capture was announced in theatres and other places of amusement in the North, people went crazy with joy, clapping their hands and cheering, while bands played “Yankee Doodle” and “Star-Spangled Banner.” Many were for having him hung at once. Wendell Phillips wanted him “left to the sting of his own conscience.”

Presently, we heard that the “Clyde” was bringing Mr. Davis, his family, General Wheeler, Governor Vance, and others, to Fortress Monroe. And then—will I ever forget how the South felt about that?—that Mr. Davis was a prisoner in a damp, casemated cell, that lights were kept burning in his face all night until he was in danger of blindness; that human eyes were fixed on him night and day, following his every movement; that his jailer would come and look at him contemptuously and call him “Jeff”; that sightseers would be brought to peer at him as if he were some strange wild beast; that his feeble limbs had been loaded with chains; that he was like to lose his life through hardships visited upon him! To us who knew the man personally, his sensitiveness, dignity, and refinement, the tale is harrowing as it could not be to those who knew him not thus. Yet to all Americans it must be a regrettable chapter in our history when it is remembered that this man was no common felon, but a prisoner of State, a distinguished Indian-fighter, a Mexican veteran, a man who had held a seat in Congress, who had been Secretary of War of the United States, and who for four years had stood at the head of the Confederate States.

When they came to put chains upon him, he protested, said it was an indignity to which as a soldier he would not submit, that the intention was to dishonour the South in him; stood with his back to the wall, bade them kill him at once, fought them off as long as he could—fought them until they held him down and the blacksmiths riveted the manacles upon his wasted limbs. Captain Titlow, who had the work in charge, did not like his cruel task, but he had no choice but to obey orders.[6]

And this was in Fortress Monroe, where of old the gates fell wide to welcome him when he came as Secretary of War, where guns thundered greeting, soldiers presented arms, and the highest officer was proud to do him honour! With bated breath we speak of Russian prisons. But how is this: “Davis is in prison; he is not allowed to say a word to any one nor is any one allowed to say a word to him. He is literally in a living tomb. His position is not much better than that of the Turkish Sultan, Bajazet, exposed by his captor, Tamerlane, in a portable iron cage.” (“New York Herald,” May 26, 1865.) The dispatch seemed positively to gloat over that poor man’s misery.

A new fad in feminine attire came into vogue; women wore long, large, and heavy black chains as decorations.

The military murder of Mrs. Surratt stirred us profoundly. Too lowly, simple, and obscure in herself to rank with heroic figures, her execution lifts her to the plane where stand all who fell victims to the troubled times. Suspicion of complicity in Mr. Lincoln’s murder, because of her son’s intimacy with Wilkes Booth, led to her death. They had her before a military tribunal in Washington, her feet linked with chains.

Several men were executed. Their prison-life and hers was another tale to give one the creeps. They were not allowed to speak to any one, nor was any one allowed to speak to them; they were compelled to wear masks of padded cloth over face and head, an opening at the mouth permitting space for breathing; pictures said to be drawn from life showed them in their cells where the only resting-places were not beds, but bare, rough benches; marched before judges with these same horrible hoods on, marched to the gallows with them on, hanging with them on.

One of the executed, Payne, had been guilty of the attack on Mr. Seward and his son; the others had been dominated and bribed by Booth, but had failed to play the parts assigned them in the awful drama his morbid brain wrought out.

OUR FRIENDS, THE ENEMY