by Thomas Dixon
CHAPTER XLIV
PRISON BARS
The ship which bore the distinguished prisoner from Savannah did notproceed to Washington, but anchored in Hampton Roads at Fortress Monroe.
A little tug puffed up and drew alongside the steamer. She took offAlexander H. Stephens, General Joseph Wheeler and Burton Harrison.Stephens and Wheeler were sent to Fort Warren in Boston Harbor.
The next, day the tug returned.
Little Jeff ran to his mother trembling and sobbing:
"They say they've come for father--beg them to let us go with him!"
Davis stepped quickly forward and returned with an officer.
"It's true," he whispered. "They have come for Clay and me. Try not toweep. These people will gloat over your grief."
Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Clay stood close holding each other's hands insilent sympathy and grim determination to control their emotions. Theyparted with their husbands in dumb anguish.
As the tug bore the fallen Chieftain from the ship, he bared his head,drew his tall figure to its full height, and, standing between the filesof soldiers, gazed on his wife and weeping children until the mists drewtheir curtain over the solemn scene.
Mrs. Davis' stateroom was entered now by a raiding party headed byCaptain Hudson. Her trunks were again forced open and everything takenwhich the Captain or his men desired--among them all her children'sclothes. Jeff seized his little soldier uniform of Confederate gray andran with it. He managed to hide and save it.
Captain Hudson then demanded the shawl which Davis had thrown over hisshoulders on the damp morning when he was captured.
"You have no right to steal my property," his wife replied indignantly."Peace has been declared. The war is over. This is plain robbery."
Hudson called in another file of soldiers.
"Hand out that shawl or I'll take the last rag you have on earth. I'llpay you for it, if you wish. But I'm going to have it."
Mrs. Davis took the shawl from Mrs. Clay's shoulders and handed it tothe brute.
"At least I may get rid of your odious presence," she cried, "bycomplying with your demand."
Hudson took the shawl with a grin and led his men away. Two of hisofficers returned in a few minutes and thrust their heads in thestateroom of Mrs. Davis' sister with whom Mrs. Clay was sitting.
"Gentlemen, this is a ladies' stateroom," said the Senator's wife.
One of them threw the door open violently and growled:
"There are no ladies here!"
"I am quite sure," was the sweet reply, "that there are no gentlemenpresent!"
With an oath they passed on. Little tugs filled with vulgar sightseerssteamed around the ship and shouted a continuous stream of insults whenone of the Davis party could be seen.
General Nelson A. Miles, the young officer who had been appointed jailerof Jefferson Davis and Clement C. Clay boarded the ship and proceededwithout ceremony to give his orders to their wives.
"Will you tell me, General," Mrs. Davis asked, "where my husband isimprisoned and what his treatment is to be?"
"Not a word," was the short reply.
His manner was so abrupt and boorish she did not press for further news.
Miles ventured some on his own account.
"Jeff Davis announced the assassination of Abraham Lincoln the daybefore it happened. I guess he knew all about it--"
The wife bit her lips and suppressed a sharp answer. Her husband's lifewas now in this man's hands.
"You are forbidden to buy or read a newspaper," he added curtly, "andyour ship will leave this port under sealed orders."
In vain Davis pleaded that his wife and children might be allowed to goto Washington or Richmond where they had acquaintances and friends.
"They will return to Savannah," Miles answered, "by the same ship inwhich they came and remain in Savannah under military guard."
Jefferson Davis was imprisoned in a casemate of Fortress Monroe, theembrasure of which was closed with a heavy iron grating. The two doorswhich communicated with the gunner's room were closed with heavy doubleshutters fastened with crossbars and padlocks. The side openings weresealed with fresh masonry.
Two sentinels with loaded muskets paced the floor without a moment'spause day or night. Two other sentinels and a commissioned officeroccupied the gunner's room, the door and window of which were securelyfastened. Sentinels were stationed on the parapet overhead whose steadytramp day and night made sleep impossible.
The embrasure opened on the big ditch which surrounds the fort--sixtyfeet wide and ten feet deep in salt water. Beyond the ditch, on theglacis, was a double line of sentinels and in the casemate rooms oneither side of his prison were quartered that part of the guard whichwas not on post.
To render rest or comfort impossible a lighted lamp was placed withinthree feet of the prisoner's eyes and kept burning brightly all night.His jailer knew he had but one eye whose sight remained and that he wasa chronic sufferer from neuralgia.
His escape from Fortress Monroe was a physical impossibility without oneof the extraordinary precautions taken. The purpose of thesearrangements could have only been to inflict pain, humiliation andpossibly to take his life. He had never been robust since the breakdownof his health on the Western plains. Worn by privation and exposure,approaching sixty years of age, he was in no condition physically toresist disease.
The damp walls, the coarse food, the loss of sleep caused by the trampof sentinels inside his room, outside and on the roof over his head andthe steady blaze of a lamp in his eyes at night within forty-eight hourshad completed his prostration.
But his jailers were not content.
On May twenty-third, Captain Titlow entered his cell with twoblacksmiths bearing a pair of heavy leg irons coupled together by aponderous chain.
"I am sorry to inform you, sir," the polite young officer began, "that Ihave been ordered to put you in irons."
"Has General Miles given that order?"
"He has."
"I wish to see him at once, please."
"General Miles has just left the fort, sir."
"You can postpone the execution of your order until I see him?"
"I have been warned against delay."
"No soldier ever gave such an order," was the stern reply; "no soldiershould receive or execute it--"
"His orders are from Washington--mine are from him."
"But he can telegraph--there must be some mistake--no such outrage is onrecord in the history of nations--"
"My orders are peremptory."
"You shall not inflict on me and on my people through me this insultworse than death. I will not submit to it!"
"I sincerely trust, sir," the Captain urged kindly, "that you will notcompel me to use force."
"I am a gentleman and a soldier, Captain Titlow," was the stern answer."I know how to die--" he paused and pointed to the sentinel who stoodready. "Let your men shoot me at once--I will not submit to thisoutrage!"
The prisoner backed away with his hand on a chair and stood waiting.
The Captain turned to his blacksmiths:
"Do your duty--put them on him!"
"'Do your duty--put them on him'"]
As the workman bent with his chain Davis hurled him to the other side ofthe cell and lifted his chair.
The sentinel cocked and lowered his musket advancing on the prisoner whomet him defiantly with bared breast.
The Captain sprang between them:
"Put down your gun. I'll give you orders to fire when necessary."
He turned to the officer at the door:
"Bring in four of your strongest men--unarmed--you understand?"
"Yes, sir--"
The men entered, sprang on their helpless victim, bore him to the floor,pinned him down with their heavy bodies and held him securely while theblacksmiths riveted the chains on one leg and fastened the clasp on theother with a heavy padlock.
He had resented this cowardly insult for himself and his people. He hadresiste
d with the hope that he might be killed before it wasaccomplished. He saw now with clear vision that the purpose of hisjailer was to torture him to death. His proud spirit rose in fiercerebellion. He would cheat them of their prey. They might take his lifebut it should be done under the forms of law in open day. He would live.His will would defy death. He would learn to sleep with the tramp ofthree sets of sentinels in his ears. He would eat their coarse food atwhatever cost to his feelings. He would learn to bury his face in hisbedding to avoid the rays of the lamp with which they were trying toblind him.
He had need of all his fierce resolution.
He had resolved to ask no favors, but his suffering had been so acute,his determination melted at the doctor's kind expressions.
The physician found him stretched on his pallet, horribly emaciated andbreathing with difficulty, his whole body a mere fascine of raw andtremulous nerves, his eyes restless and fevered, his head continuallyshifting from side to side searching instinctively for a cool spot onthe hot coarse hair pillow.
"Tell me," Dr. Craven said kindly, "what I can do to add to yourcomfort?"
The question was asked with such genuine sympathy it was impossible toresist it.
A smile flickered about his thin mouth, "This camp mattress, Doctor," heslowly replied, "I find a little thin. The slats beneath chafe my poorbones. I've a frail body--though in my youth and young manhood, whilesoldiering in the West, I have done some rough camping and campaigning.There was flesh then to cover my nerves and bones."
The doctor called an attendant:
"Bring this prisoner another mattress and a softer pillow."
"Thank you," Davis responded cordially.
"You are a smoker?" the doctor asked.
"I have been all my life, until General Miles took my pipe and tobacco."
The doctor wrote to the Adjutant General and asked that his patient begiven the use of his pipe.
On his visit two days later the doctor said:
"You must spend as little time in bed as possible. Exercise will be yourbest medicine."
The prisoner drew back the cover and showed the lacerated ankles.
"Impossible you see--the pain is so intense I can't stand erect. Theseshackles are very heavy. If I stand, the weight of them cuts into myflesh--they have already torn broad patches of skin from the places theytouch. If you can pad a cushion there, I will gladly try to drag themabout--"
Dr. Craven sought the jailer:
"General Miles," he began respectfully, "in my opinion the condition ofstate-prisoner Davis requires the removal of those shackles until suchtime as his health shall be established on a firmer basis. Exercise hemust have."
"You believe that is a medical necessity?"
"I do, most earnestly."
About the same time General Miles had heard from the country. Theincident had already aroused sharp criticism of the Government. Stantonhad come down to Fortress Monroe and peeped through the bars at thevictim he was torturing, and had extracted all the comfort possible fromthe incident. The shackles were removed.
His jailer persisted in denying him the most innocent books to read. Heasked the doctor to get for him if possible the geology or the botany ofthe South. General Miles thought them dangerous subjects. At least thenames sounded treasonable. He denied the request.
The prisoner asked for his trunk and clothes. Miles decided to keep themin his own office and dole out the linen by his own standards of need.
Davis turned to his physician with a flash of anger.
"It's contemptible that they should thus dole out my clothes as if Iwere a convict in some penitentiary. They mean to degrade me. It can'tbe done. No man can be degraded by unmerited insult heaped upon thehelpless. Such acts can only degrade their perpetrators. The day willcome when the people will blush at the memory of such treatment--"
At last the loss of sleep proved beyond his endurance. He had tried tofight it out but gave up in a burst of passionate protest to Dr. Craven.The sight of his eye was failing. The horror of blindness chilled hissoul.
"My treatment here," he began with an effort at restraint, "is killingme by inches. Let them make shorter work of it. I can't sleep. No mancan live without sleep. My jailers know this. I am never alone amoment--always the eye of a guard staring at me day and night. If I dozea feverish moment the noise of the relieving guard each two hours wakesme and the blazing lamp pours its glare into my aching throbbing eyes.There must be a change or I shall go mad or blind or both."
He paused a moment and lifted his hollow face to the physicianpathetically.
"Have you ever been conscious of being watched? Of having an eye fixedon you every moment, scrutinizing your smallest act, the change of themuscles of your face or the pose of your body? To have a human eyeriveted on you every moment, waking, sleeping, sitting, walking, is arefinement of torture never dreamed of by a Comanche Indian--it is theeye of a spy or an enemy gloating over the pain and humiliation which itcreates. The lamp burning in my eyes is a form of torment devised bysomeone who knew my habit of life never to sleep except in totaldarkness. When I took old Black Hawk the Indian Chief a captive to ourbarracks at St. Louis I shielded him from the vulgar gaze of thecurious. I have lived too long in the woods to be frightened by an owland I've seen Death too often to flinch at any form of pain--but thistorture of being forever watched is beginning to prey on my reason."
The doctor's report that day was written in plain English:
"I find Mr. Davis in a very critical state, his nervous debilityextreme, his mind despondent, his appetite gone, complexion livid, andpulse denoting deep prostration of all vital energies. I am alarmed andanxious over the responsibility of my position. If he should die inprison without trial, subject to such severities as have been inflictedon his attenuated frame the world will form conclusions and with enoughcolor to pass them into history."
Dr. Craven was getting too troublesome. General Miles dismissed him, andcalled in Dr. George Cooper, a physician whose political opinions weresupposed to be sounder.