As it turned out, General Johnston preempted the Unionists by withdrawing from Maryland into Virginia. On March 12 the New York Times gloated of “the precipitate flight of the rebels … [they] retreated in a most excited and disorderly manner,” but in truth it was a far more disciplined extraction. Though Johnston’s men were forced to destroy or discard a quantity of supplies, they calmly pulled back forty miles, to just below Fredericksburg, and dug in on the southern side of the Rappahannock River, where they could better defend Richmond from the assault they knew was coming.
Hundreds of rebel troops continued south toward Richmond, arriving either by rail or on foot along the Mechanicsville Turnpike. On Saturday, March 15, the day before the jail break, John Beauchamp Jones noted in his diary that “for several days troops have been pouring through the city, marching down the [Virginia] Peninsula. The enemy are making demonstrations against Yorktown.” In fact Jones was misinformed about Yorktown, a strategically important port on the York River, seventy miles east of Richmond. It was still in Confederate hands, a fact which only exacerbated the chagrin of Abraham Lincoln.
The president, like his people, had been led to believe by McClellan that Johnston had nearly one hundred thousand soldiers at Manassas. When Northern troops took over the newly vacated defenses it soon became evident that the rebels had numbered half the figure, if that. On March 13 the correspondent for the New York Tribune described how a tour of the former Confederate positions had left him “utterly dispirited, ashamed and humiliated … their retreat is our defeat.” Lincoln reduced McClellan’s authority, so that he was no longer general in chief but responsible only for the Army of the Potomac. In addition, Lincoln—without prior discussion with McClellan—appointed four corps commanders to the Potomac army. Before the month was out, Lincoln had also instructed General John Frémont to head a new military department in West Virginia, and agreed that a division from McClellan’s Army of the Potomac should augment Frémont’s nascent force.
Despite his relegation, McClellan defied Lincoln’s recommendation to launch an overland attack on Virginia and continued with preparations to mount a waterborne offensive. Hundreds of vessels and artillery pieces were assembled, and thousands of men underwent training for the long-awaited push into Southern territory. Never far from McClellan’s side during this fraught period was Allan Pinkerton. He strove to aid his general as best he could, even while McClellan’s “secret enemies were endeavoring to prejudice the mind of the president against his chosen commander; when wily politicians were seeking to belittle him in the estimation of the people; and when jealous-minded officers were ignorantly criticizing his plans of campaign.” Pinkerton described his team as being “taxed to its utmost” as he and his operatives interrogated captured Confederate soldiers, Southern refugees and runaway slaves to try and ascertain the number, condition and location of the rebel army. Pinkerton also inquired of some of those he examined if they were familiar with the names Webster, Scully and Lewis. Perhaps they’d heard talk of these men during their wanderings.
Four weeks had passed since his two operatives set out south, and no news was forthcoming. The silence was a bad omen. Had Lewis and Scully been arrested on the way to Richmond? Or in Richmond? Or on their return journey? Perhaps they hadn’t been caught; perhaps they were inching their way north hiding from militia patrols and avoiding retreating soldiers. And what of Webster? Where was he? How was he? Not a day passed without Pinkerton being “tortured by the uncertainty of their fate.”
Tim Webster had hardly seen his wife in the past twelve months. His real wife. Hattie Lawton was the woman with whom he had shared his life since the start of 1861. The intensity of their existence, its precariousness, its pressure, had brought them together in a way Webster had never experienced with Mrs. Charlotte Webster. Hattie Lawton had acted the adoring wife well enough to fool everyone in Richmond.
The day after the arrest of Lewis and Scully, Samuel McCubbin knocked on the door of the Websters’ room in the Monumental Hotel. The greeting with Hattie Lawton was coolly cordial. He pulled up a chair alongside Webster and wondered at the strange events of the previous night. Webster told McCubbin he didn’t follow, so the detective, watching the sick man closely, explained how Lewis and Scully had been arrested on suspicion of spying.
Webster could hardly believe it. On what evidence? McCubbin couldn’t go into specifics, but he asked for the letter that they’d delivered. Of course, said Webster, by all means. He told his wife to look for it; it was somewhere in the room. Lawton found the letter and gave it to the detective, who tucked it into his pocket and left with a curt “good day.”
In the following days none of Winder’s men appeared at Webster’s door to make inquires about his health. Only polite Mr. Price still popped by. Webster knew the danger he was in; they were on to him, of course, but what was their proof? Pinkerton’s idea to send a letter had been crass and injudicious, but on its own it couldn’t damn him. Webster spent hours sitting up in bed, reviewing the past year, searching for lapses that might prove pivotal to his enemies, and fatal to him. While Webster agonized, Lawton acted the devoted companion, telling him to “trust for a favorable outcome.”
C H A P T E R E I G H T E E N
“We Have All Your Companions”
HALF AN HOUR AFTER SCALING the prison wall, Pryce Lewis and his eight companions “found ourselves on elevated ground outside the city. Here the earth was freshly dug in all directions and we knew we were on a line of fortifications … glancing about we saw the flare of hundreds of camp fires.”
Away to their left they saw Academy Hill silhouetted in the moonlight. They paused to let a sentry pass out of sight. Stanton crouched beside Lewis and whispered that Fort Johnson was ahead and to their right. There were also some artillery batteries, he warned, but he wasn’t sure of their exact location. They “moved cautiously on, passing at last beyond the earthworks whose irregular windings confused us considerably as to the direction we were taking.” Several times Stanton stopped to check his bearings before creeping forward into a mass of underbrush and felled trees which were penetrated with muttered curses.
By the time they’d fought their way through the worst of the foliage, one or two men were whining they would be better off back in jail. Others, Lewis included, drove the party forward into a copse. For the first time since the breakout the men had time to catch their breath. Some of the prisoners chewed at the lumps of corn bread they’d brought with them, and others licked the damp leaves to moisten their dry mouths. Someone asked Stanton if the Chickahominy was close. Not too far, he replied. Anyone know the time? Lewis looked at his watch. It was midnight. Suddenly they heard the “tramping of horses hoofs and men talking and we knew we were not far from the highway [the Mechanicsville Pike].”
They got to their feet and pressed on. Soon they felt the ground turn soggy, and every step required a greater effort than before. Their thighs burned as they squelched toward a flooded field of cornstalks. By now “the water was quite deep, in some places up to our waists, and very cold.” Seeds, the shortest of the men, plunged forward and disappeared up to his neck. He was pulled free, and someone made a quip about Seeds’s habit of getting stuck.
The joke raised the men’s spirits. So did the sight not long after of the Chickahominy. It wasn’t as broad as Lewis had feared,* and in among “the tall pines [that] grew along the banks … we found a spot where a tree trunk had fallen across.” They forded the river only to endure another demoralizing struggle through swampland on the northern banks. Finally the ground underfoot became firmer. Several of the men demanded that they rest a few minutes. Lewis said they must press on. A prisoner turned on Lewis. It was all right for him, he hissed, he’d only been a captive for a couple of weeks. But they’d been locked up for months. They must rest. Lewis relented, but more strong words were exchanged when someone proposed a campfire. Stanton and Lewis called it a foolish risk, but no one else cared what they thought.
The
y headed north for the rest of the night and at dawn hid under some heaps of brushwood. Lewis and Stanton hunkered down together, both frozen stiff, but nonetheless pleased with the first few hours of their escape. What awaits us? Lewis wanted to know. Stanton told him that the next big obstacle was the Pamunkey River to their north. They remained hidden for the rest of the day. Apart from the “beating of distant drums, reminding us that we were not many miles distant from a camp,” the prisoners passed an uneventful day. They dozed, ate the last of their soggy corn bread and giggled at the thought of Staples arriving at the jail to find them gone.
They were on the move at dusk, none of them much invigorated by the day’s rest. Soon the wind strengthened, and the rain arrived. The men went into camp and built another fire. Now everyone “crowded around it in a desperate mood, careless of consequences, if only we could get warm.” They carefully picked out every last crumb of corn bread from their pockets and savored the fleeting taste in their mouth. It seemed only to intensify their hunger. Lewis fell asleep and woke when he felt his feet on fire. The soles of his shoes were badly scorched but at least they no longer resembled blocks of ice.
The storm had passed by one o’clock on the morning of Tuesday, March 18. There was no relief. Lewis led them into “such a thick growth of underbrush that we could make little progress. We forced the twigs away from our faces [but] they seemed to be interlaced like a mat. We finally emerged from this labyrinth just before daylight.”
Up ahead, three hundred yards distant, was a large farmhouse and a scattering of outhouses. Noiselessly they approached the outhouses and searched them one by one for food. There was none. The weaker men were now flagging, saying they’d had enough and wanted to surrender. Lewis, Stanton and Twells insisted that they push on to a piece of timber, where they could camp for the day. Despite the enormous risk, they built a little fire, and the men removed their socks and warmed their numb feet. Suddenly they heard the sound of wood being chopped. The fire was stamped out, and the prisoners crouched down, listening, hardly daring to breathe. When the chopping continued, one of the men crept forward to investigate. Suddenly all was silent, then they heard the sound of horse’s hooves. A couple of minutes later their comrade reappeared with bad news. A black slave had been chopping wood when his master appeared and told him to saddle up his horse.
They agreed “at once that the white man had seen us and was mounting his horse to go and give an alarm.” The men staggered to their feet and hurried north into some woods. Half a mile later they saw a cluster of log cabins.
They discussed what to do. Should they avoid the cabins, or go begging for food? Fearing they’d already been detected, the prisoners decided to seek out some breakfast. Lewis and Stanton volunteered and stole noiselessly forward. As they emerged from the woods they saw a group of black and white children playing among the cabins. There didn’t appear to be a man in sight. Lewis knocked on the door of the first cabin. It was opened “by a white woman with a kindly face.” Lewis removed his felt hat and explained that they were detectives from General Winder’s office looking for deserters. Had she seen any suspicious characters in the past twenty-four hours? The woman said she hadn’t, but her husband might have. He was out in the fields, but she could go and fetch him.
Lewis said that wouldn’t be necessary. Then he asked if she had something to eat as tracking fugitives was hungry work. Of course, he would pay her for it. The woman told Lewis she didn’t have much but “gave us a cheek of bacon and filled my handkerchief with corn meal.” Lewis handed her two dollars in Maryland money and thanked her warmly.
When the pair returned to the woods they found no trace of their comrades. Had they come to the wrong spot? They looked around, agreeing that this was definitely where they’d left them. They surmised that their companions had scattered, perhaps alarmed at the sight of a passing farm laborer. Lewis and Stanton weren’t too bothered; in fact they were glad to get rid of one or two whiners. They sat down against a tree and ate their breakfast. With their morale replenished as well as their appetite, they felt confident in crossing the Pamunkey River and reaching Northern lines.
Soon they were up and off, moving far quicker as a pair than they had done as a group. It was midafternoon when they saw the river, in front of which “was a little red brick house lying in a little hollow.” Between them and the house was an upturned tree, its exposed roots resembling the hands of a clock. Underneath was a hollow that Stanton suggested would make a good place in which to rest till dusk.
As they walked toward the tree they heard a noise from the woods behind. Lewis turned and “saw not far off, three men, two with muskets on their shoulders, coming directly toward us.” The men weren’t in uniform, and for a moment Lewis thought they might be hunters. But he shuddered at their swaggering approach.
One of the men with a musket asked what they were doing. Lewis replied that they were looking for a place to rest. The man laughed and so did Lewis, though his was “a sort of laugh that relieves the nerves.” The man pointed the musket at the hollow and said that looked an ideal spot. Lewis and Stanton agreed. Then he asked where they intended to head once they’d rested. Fredericksburg, said Lewis. At this moment one of the other men lost patience and, raising his musket, told Lewis and Stanton that they knew who they were because “we have all your companions.” Lewis and Stanton were escorted through the woods until they reached a house. Inside they found their comrades sitting around an open fireplace and finishing the remains of a bountiful supper. One of the men joked that they’d missed a feast, and everyone found it funny. Lewis “joined in the laugh, a thoughtless, healthy, good-natured laugh, inspired by the blazing fire and signs of food.” More food was produced, and Lewis and Stanton ate until their whiskers glistened with pig fat. As the captured men gorged themselves, their captors commended them on their daring escape, telling them they were twenty miles from Richmond and headed in the right direction for Fredericksburg. They might have made it, they were told, were it not for their imprudence in lighting a fire.*
The next morning, Wednesday, March 19, Lewis and the eight escapees were loaded into two covered wagons and driven back to Richmond. When they arrived in the city there was quite a crowd to see the recaptured men. Boys and girls cowered behind their parents’ legs as the wagons approached, having “learned to dread and fear the Yankees above all tame or wild animals.” Stanton and Twells, seasoned escapees, enjoyed the attention and lapped up the notoriety, but Lewis didn’t. He dared not show his face in case “‘Old Wise’ or some of my West Virginia acquaintances might be in the crowd and recognize me.”
General Wise was indeed in Richmond at this time, having arrived in February after the fall of Roanoke Island in North Carolina, a defeat that cost the life of his son, Obadiah Jennings. He remained in the city until April 25, when he was ordered into the field. Also in Richmond was Colonel George Patton, who had been the beneficiary of a prisoner exchange with the Northern army. The shoulder wound he had suffered eight months earlier had all but healed, and he was looking forward to resuming command of his regiment.
*The men almost certainly crossed the Chickahominy at a point between Meadow Bridge and Mechanicsville Bridge. Farther east the river widened, although there were three fording places known to the rebel troops.
*The Baltimore Sun reported on April 9 that “among the prisoners were Tajem, Geming, said to be from Baltimore, and J.M. Seeds, of Ohio.” Tajem was in all probability a misspelling of Tatum as records fail to show any prisoner in Richmond by the name of Tajem. On May 15 Tatum, Twells, Seeds and Stanton were transferred from Castle Godwin to Salisbury Prison in North Carolina.
C H A P T E R N I N E T E E N
“Hanged by the Necks Until We Were Dead”
THE CONVOY OF WAGONS HALTED outside General Winder’s headquarters. This time there were no warm handshakes or polite greetings. The provost marshal general ordered every prisoner to be returned to jail and clapped in irons.
They arri
ved at Henrico to find a new door and new jailors. As the prisoners were kicked and shoved inside their cells they “learned that jailor Staples and keeper Thomas were both under arrest charged with conniving at the escape.” For two or three hours the escapees sat on the cold stone floor pondering their fate. They’d had no breakfast and still wore the damp, ragged clothes in which they’d escaped. Presently the outer iron door of their cell was opened, then the inner one, and a jailor appeared. He dragged out one of the prisoners, who reappeared a few minutes later wearing irons about his wrists.
Lewis’s turn came last. He was taken to the adjoining cell in which stood three or four men in with fixed bayonets. One of them swore at the “Yankee Abolitionist.” Sitting at the table were the sheriff, a blacksmith and his Negro assistant. In the middle of the table was a pile of rudely made handcuffs. The jailor forced Lewis’s wrists into the iron rings, and then the blacksmith riveted the rings together. Lewis turned to go, but the jailor told him General Winder’s orders were that he be cuffed hands and feet. When Lewis was pushed back inside his cell it was empty. Later the prisoner named Pitcher, the man who had stayed behind during the escape because of ill health, was put into the cell and instructed to help and feed Lewis.
Within a couple of days Lewis’s wrists and ankles had been rubbed raw by the shackles. Even the smallest movement was painful. He spent his time lying on the floor of this cell, pulling himself to his feet only when nature demanded. Pitcher collected his food and tended to him.
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