Double Death
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78 “the landscape seemed more beautiful”: Ibid.
79 “At this juncture Col. Norton ordered”: Perrysburg Journal, August 8, 1861.
80 “front rank were ordered to fire”: Ibid.
80 “took off his cap and turning partly around”: Ibid.
81 “as was common with new troops”: Poland, The Glories of War, 350.
81 “From the time the enemy opened fire”: Perrysburg Journal, August 8, 1861.
81 “Cox checked on the Kanawha”: Poland, The Glories of War, 351.
82 “in a bullying manner”: The encounter between Pryce Lewis and the captain of the ferry is described in PLM, 37.
82 “Do you mean to say that you have been in Wise’s camp”: Lewis’s meeting with General Cox is described in ibid., 37–38.
83 “the remains of Captain Allen”: Ibid., 39.
84 “the commander of the rebel forces”: Ibid., 40.
84 “whose gentlemanly confidence”: Ibid., 41.
85 “found him on the upper deck”: Ibid.
85 “ten miles from Charleston I heard that Wise”: Ibid., 42.
85 “at a large round table”: Ibid.
85 “re-enforce us with men, arms and ammunition”: General Wise’s dispatches are reproduced in The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Government Printing Office, 1880–1901).
86 “He is now there, about three thousand”: Ibid.
86 “a panic-stricken force running off”: Poland, The Glories of War, 351.
87 “murdering Yankees”: Ibid., 340.
88 “Retreat! Never dare call it a ‘retreat’ again”: Ibid., 356.
Chapter Eleven: “That Is Tim Webster”
89 “discharged for celebrating our safe return”: PLM, 44.
90 “Bridgeman directed my attention”: Ibid.
90 “a tall, broad-shouldered, good-looking man”: Allan Pinkerton, The Spy of the Rebellion (M. A. Winter and Hatch, 1883), 110.
91 “The residents of Newhaven are chiefly engaged”: Reverend T. W. Horsfield, The History and Antiquities of Lewes and Its Vicinity (Baxter, 1824).
92 “men were found dead behind hedges”: This quote is attributed to the radical nineteenth-century MP and writer William Corbett, and reproduced in Trevor Wild, Village England: A Social History of the Countryside (Tauris, 2004).
92 “about the number of Sussex laborers”: Letter from William Coleman to Home Secretary Robert Peel, February 2, 1830, which is held by the Kew National Archives, London.
93 “the thickly-studded drinking shops”: Horace Greeley, Art and Industry of the Crystal Palace (Redfield, N.Y., 1853).
94 His family remained in New York: This period of Tim Webster’s life is best dealt with in Patricia Dissmeyer Goff, Timothy Webster: The Story of the Civil War Spy and His Family (Elgin, England: Goff, 2000).
94 “he was of a quiet, reserved disposition”: Pinkerton, The Spy of the Rebellion, 158–59.
94 “a genial, jovial, convivial spirit”: Ibid.
95 “got in conversation with men from Louisville”: Report of Timothy Webster to Memphis and Knoxville, written on August 7, 1861, and preserved in the Pinkerton Collection at the Library of Congress.
95 “that there was 3,000 men at Randolph”: Ibid.
97 “there was 5 to 6,000 stand of arms in Baltimore”: Report of Timothy Webster’s trip to Baltimore, Pinkerton Collection at the Library of Congress.
97 “we have leaders enough”: Ibid.
Chapter Twelve: “The Most Persuasive Woman That Was Ever Known in Washington”
98 “We are utterly and disgracefully routed”: James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom (Penguin, 1990), 347.
99 “be prepared to hear from me”: quoted in James D. Horan, The Pinkertons: The Detective Dynasty That Made History (Crown, 1967), 78.
99 “procuring from all possible sources”: Quoted in ibid., 79.
99 “that the rebels have spies”: Allan Pinkerton, The Spy of the Rebellion (M. A. Winter and Hatch, 1883), 252.
100 “her love of notoriety and dread of sinking”: W. E. Doster, Lincoln and Episodes of the Civil War (Putnam, 1915), 81.
100 “she hunted man with that resistless zeal and unfailing instinct”: Stephen Mallory’s opinion of Greenhow was revealed to Mrs. Clement Clay, the wife of a Confederate politician in Canada. The letter was reproduced in William Tidwell, April ’65: Confederate Covert Action in the American Civil War (Kent State University Press, 1995), 58.
100 “black eyes, an olive complexion, firm teeth, and small hands and feet”: Quoted in Doster, Lincoln and Episodes of the Civil War, 79.
101 “after expiating on the injustice of the North”: Quoted in General Erasmus Keyes, Fifty Years’ Observation of Men and Events, Civil and Military (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1885).
101 “was a traitor and met a traitor’s doom”: Quoted in Ann Blackman, Wild Rose: The True Story of a Civil War Spy (Random House, 2005), 14.
101 “McDowell has certainly been ordered to advance on the sixteenth”: Quoted in ibid., 6.
102 “Our President and our General direct me to thank you”: Quoted in ibid., 45.
102 “movements had excited suspicion”: Pinkerton, The Spy of the Rebellion, 252.
103 “natural shrewdness, experience and patriotic zeal”: PLM, 46.
103 “induced me to remain in a service”: Ibid., 47.
103 “this was a subject of amusement to me”: Rose Greenhow, My Imprisonment and the First Year of Abolition Rule at Washington (Bentley, 1863).
103 “two-storey and basement brick building”: Pinkerton, The Spy of the Rebellion, 253.
103 “remained a little distance across the street”: PLM, 47.
104 “stand under a tree”: Ibid.
104 “something that sounded very much like a kiss”: Pinkerton, The Spy of the Rebellion, 259.
105 “distinguished member of the diplomatic corps”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment.
105 “a beautiful woman”: PLM, 49.
105 “for I knew that the fate”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment.
105 “conversed on impersonal subjects”: PLM, 49.
105 “If I had known who you were when you came in”: Ibid.
106 “compared herself to Marie Antoinette”: Ibid.
106 “two of the most insolent of these men”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment.
107 “live to plague mankind a little more”: Journal of Mrs. Eugenia Levy Phillips, 1861–62, Phillips papers, Library of Congress.
107 “had been severely scolded for lighting”: PLM, 50.
107 “presented a pass signed by Secretary of War”: Lewis’s war of words with Edwin Stanton is described in PLM, 50–51.
107 “bring down the wrath of the abolitionists”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment.
108 “lodged a complaint against me”: PLM, 51.
Chapter Thirteen: “You’ll Have to Be Mighty Careful Now, or You’ll Be Arrested”
109 “Hotel Greenhow”: New York Times, November 5, 1861.
109 “virtuous, refined, pure-minded women”: Rose Greenhow wrote in My Imprisonment and the First Year of Abolition Rule at Washington (Bentley, 1863) that on September 10, 1861, she had read the editorial in the Baltimore Exchange.
110 “untiring energies”; “nothing has been too sacred for her appropriation”: Dispatch written by Pinkerton (using the alias E. J. Allen) to Brigadier General Porter in November 1861, reproduced in The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, series 2, vol. 2 (Government Printing Office, 1880–1901).
111 “You’ll have to be mighty careful now”: Quoted in Allan Pinkerton, The Spy of the Rebellion (M. A. Winter and Hatch, 1883), 327.
112 “The Northern press bears testimony”: J. B. Jones, A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary (Old Hickory Bookshop, 1866), 91.
112 “I have declared my purpose to sign no more”: Ibid.
112 “it is my belief that th
ey render”: Ibid.
113 “miniature world … the hum of conversation”: Mrs. Fannie Beers, the wife of a Confederate officer, quoted in Ladies of Richmond, edited by Katharine Jones (Bobbs-Merrill, 1962), 67.
113 “brothers, husbands, sons, and sweethearts”: Alfred H. Bill, The Beleaguered City (Knopf, 1946).
113 “perhaps the youngest landlord of a large hotel in the world”: Richmond Whig, January 3, 1862.
114 “noticed, lying upon the floor”; “the contents of the bundle”: Pinkerton, The Spy of the Rebellion, 475.
114 “James Howard, a native of the south”; “confessed his treason”: Ibid.
114 Tim Webster’s report of his trip to Nashville is in the Pinkerton Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
115 “a gentleman of about thirty-six”: Richmond Whig, April 3, 1862.
Chapter Fourteen: “It Would Be Folly for Me to Go to Richmond”
116 “discovered in his conduct”; “to justify harsh measures”: PLM, 49.
117 Pryce Lewis gives an account of the investigation of Elizabeth Morton and her children in ibid., 51.
118 “take a musket, join the army”: Ibid., 54.
118 “It would be folly for me”: Lewis gives an account of his meeting with Pinkerton in ibid., 54–57.
120 “purchased a new suit of clothing apiece”: Ibid., 58.
121 “to negotiate with a man”: Ibid.
122 “about an hour before sunset”: Ibid., 60.
122 “suddenly a pack of hounds came baying toward us”; “noticed McChesney’s faded gray uniform”: Ibid., 61.
123 “wanted to go to Richmond by the most direct route”: Ibid., 62.
123 “in dingy, ill-fitting uniforms”: Ibid., 63.
123 “Where did you capture the Yankees?”: Ibid., 64.
124 “anxiety to reach Richmond had been very great”: Ibid., 66.
Chapter Fifteen: “He Is a Noble Fellow, a Most Valuable Man to Us”
125 Cobb Neck: Situated on the peninsula between the Wicomico and Potomac rivers, Cobb Neck got its name when a seventeenth-century trader called James Neale bought the land with Spanish coins known at the time as “cub dollars.” He christened his two thousand acres “Cub Neck,” and time distorted this to “Cobb Neck.”
126 “a cold rain fell in sheets”: Alfred H. Bill, The Beleaguered City (Knopf, 1946).
126 “black with spectators”: Ibid.
127 “Richmond burst beautifully into view”: Emory Thomas, The Confederate State of Richmond (University of Texas Press, 1971).
127 “twelve parallel streets, nearly three miles in length”: New York Herald, July 28, 1862.
128 “the long, gaily-painted buses”: Bill, The Beleaguered City.
128 “the atmosphere of Richmond is redolent of tobacco”: Catherine Cooper Hopley, Life in the South from the Commencement of the War (Chapman and Hall, 1863).
129 “gay ladies and grande dames”: Richmond, Virginia, 1861–1865, published by Richmond Civil War Centenntial Committee 1961.
129 “the merriest little place”: Quoted in James Wilson, Thackeray in the United States, 1852–3, 1855–6 (Dodd Mead, 1904).
130 “During all the night of the arrival”: Richmond Dispatch, November 12, 1860.
130 “rounds of beef, saddles of mutton, venison”: Charleston Mercury, January 5, 1865.
131 “by the accuracy of its reporting”: Thomas, The Confederate State of Richmond, 19.
131 “the qualities of the scimitar of Saladin”: Bill, The Beleaguered City.
131 “ferocious old Orang-Outang”: Ibid.
131 “would find Captain Webster at the Monumental”: PLM, 67.
131 “the rough brick walls had been covered”: Bill, The Beleaguered City.
132 the Monumental Hotel: A hotel had been located at this spot since 1797, when Colonel Parke Goodall opened the Indian Queen Tavern. It was later renamed the Washington tavern, then the Monumental Hotel. Some people called it the Monumental, others the Hotel Monument, and during the war its name changed again, this time to the Central Hotel. Pryce Lewis referred to it as the Monumental.
132 Lewis’s initial encounter with the sick Webster is described in PLM, 67–68.
133 “unheralded appearance of his companions”: Allan Pinkerton, The Spy of the Rebellion (M. A. Winter and Hatch, 1883), 502.
133 “small, handsome man”: Richmond Enquirer, February 28, 1862.
133 “soldiers, free and easy in their ways”: Ibid.
135 Lewis’s introduction to McCubbin is described in PLM, 69–70, and in Pinkerton, The Spy of the Rebellion, 503–4.
135 “short and compact in frame”: William Harris, Prison Life in Tobacco Warehouse in Richmond (G. W. Childs, 1862).
136 “a feared and fearful thing”: Ibid.
136 “tied up by the thumbs”: Richmond Dispatch, March 3, 1895.
136 “made by sawing a common flour barrel”: Evidence given by T. G. Bland at enquiry into treatment of prisoners at Castle Thunder, April 1863.
136 “petty larceny detectives”: J. B. Jones, A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary (Old Hickory Bookshop, 1866), 39.
137 “seem to be on peculiar terms of intimacy”: Ibid.
137 “to resign his commission”: Edwin Fishel, The Secret War for the Union (Houghton Mifflin, 1998), 98.
137 “very glad to meet any friends”: PLM, 71.
138 “perfectly secure from any mishap:” Ibid., 72.
138 “occupied by parties of a dubious and uncertain character”: Richmond Dispatch, June 20, 1861.
138 “smirks and smiles, winks, and, when occasion served”: Ibid., May 13, 1862.
139 “to leave the following day”: PLM, 73.
139 Lewis’s encounter with Clackner and Morton is described in ibid., 73–74.
Chapter Sixteen: “I Suspected You All Along”
141 “if I ought to know the Lord Mayor”: The account of Lewis’s interrogation is in PLM, 75–77.
144 “that probably one of them had been placed”: Ibid., 83.
146 “John Scully and Pryce Lewis were arrested”: Richmond Enquirer, March 4, 1862.
146 “snug institution, hitherto known as”: Ibid.
147 “the main entrance to the jail”: PLM, 85.
148 “could wrench it off”: Ibid., 86.
148 “cover himself in the ash heap”: Ibid.
148 “a lump of soap mixed with ashes”: Ibid., 87.
148 “asserted that if we took them with us”: Ibid., 88.
149 “Stanton wrapped himself in a blanket”: Ibid., 89.
149 “rigged up a broomstick in blankets”: Ibid., 90.
149 “the jailor’s eye caught sight of the heap of straw”: Ibid.
150 “positively refused to follow his body”; “cursing, intermingled with expressions of disgust”: Ibid., 91.
150 “passed the last house in the suburbs”: Ibid., 93.
Chapter Seventeen: “Trust for a Favorable Outcome”
153 “secret enemies were endeavoring to prejudice the mind”: Allan Pinkerton, The Spy of the Rebellion (M. A. Winter and Hatch, 1883), 537.
153 “tortured by the uncertainty of their fate”: Ibid., 544.
154 “trust for a favorable outcome”: Ibid., 534.
Chapter Eighteen: “We Have All Your Companions”
155 The escape from Henrico County Jail and the subsequent recapture of Lewis and his companions are recounted in PLM, 93–101.
156 “the tall pines”: Three months later, on June 13, 1862, the correspondent of the New York Times had this to say about the Chickahominy River: “No better defensive line could exist than the Chickahominy swamp. The river flows through a dense forest of pines and underbrush. The river itself is not over sixty or seventy feet wide, but on each side of it, extending beyond the forest, is a deep marshy swamp, heretofore considered as practically impassable.”
159 The shoulder wound: George Patton resumed command of his regiment and by May 1864 was leading a bri
gade under General John Breckinridge. He died of wounds received at the Battle of Winchester in September 1864. He was buried alongside his brother, who had fallen the previous year at Gettysburg.
Chapter Nineteen: “Hanged by the Necks Until We Were Dead”
160 “learned that jailor Staples and keeper Thomas”: PLM, 102.
162 Lewis describes his court-martial in ibid., 109–10.
163 “haggard and woe-begone”: Ibid., 111.
164 “was always in the company of known Secessionists”: Allan Pinkerton, The Spy of the Rebellion (M. A. Winter and Hatch, 1883), 535.
164 “suspicion that would naturally attach to Webster”: PLM, 116.
Chapter Twenty: “Keep Your Courage Up”
165 “sought and obtained an interview with the officer”: Letter from Cridland to Lord Lyons, August 19, 1862, a copy of which is in the Kew Public Records Office, file: F.O 115/328.
165 “in the cases of persons who had evidently violated”: Ibid.
166 “their movements very extraordinary and suspicious”: Ibid.
166 “Keep your courage up”: Ibid.
167 “John Scully and Pryce Lewis acknowledged to me”: Letter from Cridland to Lord Lyons, August 19, 1862.
167 “the prisoners had been tried and condemned to death”: Ibid.
167 “the brains of the Confederacy”: This description is contained in the introduction to J. B. Jones’s A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary (Old Hickory Bookshop, 1866).
167 “intellect, education, and extensive reading”: Ibid.
168 “cowardly rout, a miserable, causeless panic”: The Times description was reproduced in the August 31 edition of Harper’s Weekly.
168 “the exponent of that British public opinion”: Harper’s Weekly, October 26, 1861.
168 “a profound indignation is felt by the larger part”: New York Times, August 29, 1861.
168 “The [London] Times reflects the sentiment”: Mary Chesnut, A Diary from Dixie (Houghton Mifflin, 1961), 75.
169 “a hideous black harem”; “holds his head high”: Ibid., 114.
169 “increased to an unlimited extent”; “the Nicaraguan Embassador”: Harper’s Weekly, September 14, 1861.
170 The eyewitness account provided by the Trent’s purser of the incident with the San Jacinto appeared in the London Daily Telegraph, November 29, 1861.