The Victim: A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis Part 100

As the tug bore the fallen Chieftain from the s.h.i.+p, he bared his head, drew his tall figure to its full height, and, standing between the files of soldiers, gazed on his wife and weeping children until the mists drew their curtain over the solemn scene.

Mrs. Davis' stateroom was entered now by a raiding party headed by Captain Hudson. Her trunks were again forced open and everything taken which the Captain or his men desired--among them all her children's clothes. Jeff seized his little soldier uniform of Confederate gray and ran with it. He managed to hide and save it.

Captain Hudson then demanded the shawl which Davis had thrown over his shoulders 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'll pay 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 to the brute.

"At least I may get rid of your odious presence," she cried, "by complying with your demand."

Hudson took the shawl with a grin and led his men away. Two of his officers returned in a few minutes and thrust their heads in the stateroom 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 gentlemen present!"

With an oath they pa.s.sed on. Little tugs filled with vulgar sightseers steamed around the s.h.i.+p and shouted a continuous stream of insults when one of the Davis party could be seen.

General Nelson A. Miles, the young officer who had been appointed jailer of Jefferson Davis and Clement C. Clay boarded the s.h.i.+p and proceeded without ceremony to give his orders to their wives.

"Will you tell me, General," Mrs. Davis asked, "where my husband is imprisoned 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 a.s.sa.s.sination of Abraham Lincoln the day before it happened. I guess he knew all about it--"

The wife bit her lips and suppressed a sharp answer. Her husband's life was now in this man's hands.

"You are forbidden to buy or read a newspaper," he added curtly, "and your s.h.i.+p will leave this port under sealed orders."

In vain Davis pleaded that his wife and children might be allowed to go to Was.h.i.+ngton or Richmond where they had acquaintances and friends.

"They will return to Savannah," Miles answered, "by the same s.h.i.+p in which they came and remain in Savannah under military guard."

Jefferson Davis was imprisoned in a casemate of Fortress Monroe, the embrasure of which was closed with a heavy iron grating. The two doors which communicated with the gunner's room were closed with heavy double shutters fastened with crossbars and padlocks. The side openings were sealed with fresh masonry.

Two sentinels with loaded muskets paced the floor without a moment's pause day or night. Two other sentinels and a commissioned officer occupied the gunner's room, the door and window of which were securely fastened. Sentinels were stationed on the parapet overhead whose steady tramp day and night made sleep impossible.

The embrasure opened on the big ditch which surrounds the fort--sixty feet wide and ten feet deep in salt water. Beyond the ditch, on the glacis, was a double line of sentinels and in the casemate rooms on either side of his prison were quartered that part of the guard which was not on post.

To render rest or comfort impossible a lighted lamp was placed within three 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 was a chronic sufferer from neuralgia.

His escape from Fortress Monroe was a physical impossibility without one of the extraordinary precautions taken. The purpose of these arrangements could have only been to inflict pain, humiliation and possibly to take his life. He had never been robust since the breakdown of his health on the Western plains. Worn by privation and exposure, approaching sixty years of age, he was in no condition physically to resist disease.

The damp walls, the coa.r.s.e food, the loss of sleep caused by the tramp of sentinels inside his room, outside and on the roof over his head and the steady blaze of a lamp in his eyes at night within forty-eight hours had completed his prostration.

But his jailers were not content.

On May twenty-third, Captain t.i.tlow entered his cell with two blacksmiths bearing a pair of heavy leg irons coupled together by a ponderous chain.

"I am sorry to inform you, sir," the polite young officer began, "that I have 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 soldier should receive or execute it--"

"His orders are from Was.h.i.+ngton--mine are from him."

"But he can telegraph--there must be some mistake--no such outrage is on record in the history of nations--"

"My orders are peremptory."

"You shall not inflict on me and on my people through me this insult worse than death. I will not submit to it!"

"I sincerely trust, sir," the Captain urged kindly, "that you will not compel me to use force."

"I am a gentleman and a soldier, Captain t.i.tlow," was the stern answer.

"I know how to die--" he paused and pointed to the sentinel who stood ready. "Let your men shoot me at once--I will not submit to this outrage!"

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!"