Lubbock said that “in a short time they were in possession of very nearly everything of value that was in the camp. I resisted being robbed, and lost nothing then except some gold coin that was in my holsters. I demanded to see an officer, and called attention to the firing, saying that they were killing their own men across the branch, and that we had no armed men with us…While a stop was being put to this I went over to Mr. Davis, who was seated on a log, under guard.”
Johnston was not as lucky resisting the plunderers. Several cavalrymen got his horse and his saddle, with the accoutrements and pistols, which his father, General Albert Sidney Johnston, had used at the Battle of Shiloh on the day he was killed in action. Understandably, the son prized his father’s personal effects.
Harrison did not want his captors to lay their vulgar hands on the letters from Constance Cary he carried with him all the way from Richmond: “I emptied the contents of my haversack into a fire where some of the enemy were cooking breakfast, and they saw the papers burn. They were chiefly love-letters, with a photograph of my sweetheart.”
As the skirmish between the Union regiments died down, Colonel Johnston’s guard left him unattended and he walked fifty yards to Varina Davis’s tent, where he found the president outside. “This is a bad business, sir,” Davis said, “I would have heaved the scoundrel off his horse as he came up, but she caught me around the arms.”
“I understood what he meant,” Johnston said, “how he had proposed to dismount the trooper and get his horse, for he had taught me the trick.” It was an old Indian move that Davis had learned years before when he served out west in the U.S. Army.
Once Davis had been apprehended, John Taylor Wood decided to escape. “Seeing that there was no chance for the President I determined to make the effort.” Lubbock and Reagan approved his plan. Wood strolled around the camp, examining the faces of the Union cavalrymen, until “at last I selected one that I thought would answer my purpose.” He asked the soldier to go to the swamp with him, where Wood offered him forty dollars. The Yankee grabbed the money and let him go.
Johnston warned another Union officer that they were firing on their own men: “Feeling that the cause was lost, and not wishing useless bloodshed, I said to him: ‘Captain, your men are fighting each other over yonder.’ He answered very positively: ‘You have an armed escort.’ I replied, ‘You have our whole camp; I know your men are fighting each other. We have nobody on that side of the slough.’ He then rode off.”
Soon Pritchard and his officers discovered that this was true. There were no Confederate soldiers behind the camp. His men were fighting the First Wisconsin Cavalry, and they were killing each other. Greed for gold and glory may have contributed to the deadly and embarrassing disaster. The troopers of the Fourth Michigan and the First Wisconsin cavalries knew nothing about President Johnson’s proclamation of May 2, offering a $100,000 reward for the capture of Jefferson Davis. They were not after that reward money, although once they learned of it, a few days after the Davis capture, they were eager to claim it. No, they wanted a bigger prize—Confederate gold. Every Union soldier had heard the rumors that the “rebel chief” was fleeing with millions of dollars in gold coins in his possession.
The Northern newspapers had reported it, Edwin M. Stanton and a number of Union generals had telegraphed about it, and, no doubt, every last man of the Fourth Michigan and First Wisconsin had heard about it. The lure of the so-called Confederate “treasure train” was irresistible. General James Wilson’s broadside proclamation of May 9, which General Palmer had printed and then distributed as handbills in Georgia, intoxicated Union soldiers with dreams of untold riches.
Eliza Andrews had seen the reward posters:
The hardest to bear of all the humiliations yet put upon us, is the sight of Andy Johnson’s proclamation offering rewards for the arrest of Jefferson Davis, Clement C. Clay, and Beverly Tucker, under pretense that they were implicated in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. It is printed in huge letters on handbills and posted in every public place in town—a flaming insult to every man, woman, and child in the village, as if [the Yankees] believed there was a traitor among us so base as to betray the victims of their malice, even if they knew where they were…if they had posted one of their lying accusations on our street gate, I would tear it down with my own hands, even if they sent me to jail for it.
Wilson had promised this: Whoever captured Davis could claim the millions of dollars in gold he was carrying as their reward. But what these man hunters did not know was that Davis was not the one transporting it.
But Davis’s pursuers wanted more than gold—they were also after glory. After a patrol of the Sixteenth New York Cavalry tracked down John Wilkes Booth, they, and especially the sergeant who shot the actor, became national heroes. Why shouldn’t the men who captured the archcriminal Jefferson Davis be rewarded with the same level of fame?
The fatal skirmish between the two regiments created tensions on both sides. Their failure to capture the rebel treasure exacerbated their anger and humiliation. They blamed each other for the fratricide, accused each other of appropriating leads about Davis’s whereabouts during the chase, and fought over the reward money. The Fourth Michigan did not want to share the money with the First Wisconsin. The Wisconsin men claimed that if the Fourth had not fired upon them, they would have been the ones who captured Davis, not the Fourth. The Wisconsin faction accused Colonel Pritchard of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. The accusation later made it into the press, and Pritchard demanded the right to a public reply. To settle the dispute, one general suggested that the reward money be divided among all the men of both regiments present at the scene that morning.
Davis, who had sacrificed all he owned for the Confederacy, who never sought to profit from his office, and who was captured without a single dollar to his name, must have appreciated the irony. He never commented publicly about the ugly dispute among his captors, but it must have amused him to see Yankees killing one another and then squabbling over money in their greed to claim him as their prize.
It was only after the deadly skirmish that Pritchard realized he had captured the president of the Confederate States of America. Pritchard took an inventory of his prisoners:
As soon as the firing had ceased I returned to camp and took an inventory of our captives, when I ascertained that we had captured Jeff. Davis and family (a wife and four children), John H. Reagan, his Postmaster-General; Colonels Harrison [Johnston] and Lubbock, aides de camp to Davis; Burton N. Harrison, his private secretary; Major Maurin, Captain Moody, Lieutenant Hathaway, Jeff. D. Howell, midshipman in the rebel navy, and 12 private soldiers; Miss Maggie Howell, sister of Mrs. Davis; 2 waiting-maids, 1 white and one colored, and several servants. We also captured 5 wagons, 3 ambulances, about 15 horses, and from 25 to 30 mules. The train was mostly loaded with commissary stores and private baggage of the party.
Pritchard did not bother to list in his report the names of the handful of common Confederate soldiers who were captured with Davis. They were not important enough. If a junior officer from the Fourth Michigan had not added their names to another tally of the prisoners, the identity of these twelve men who had volunteered to risk their lives to serve their president might have been lost to history.
In the confusion, Davis’s aides gathered around him to protect him and his family. The cavalrymen made no attempt to bind or handcuff Davis. Harrison could not believe that Davis had been captured. He believed that Davis had left during the night, hours before: “I had been astonished to discover the President still in camp when the attack was made.” The Union soldiers began taunting and insulting Davis, enraging Governor Lubbock: “The man who a few days before was at the head of a government was treated by his captors with uncalled for indignity…A private stepped up to him rudely and said: ‘Well, Jeffy, how do you feel now?’ I was so exasperated that I threatened to kill the fellow, and I called upon the officers to protect their prisoner from insult.??
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Lubbock praised Varina’s demeanor in the presence of her enemies: “[S]he bore up with womanly fortitude…her bearing towards [our captors] was such as was to be expected from so elegant, high-souled, and refined a Southern woman.” But the governor saw that her family was frightened: “The children were all young, and hovered about her like a covey of young, frightened partridges; while her sister, Miss Maggie Howell, was wonderfully self-possessed and dignified.”
Davis’s aides had used good judgment on the morning of May 10. No matter how much they might have wanted to open fire on the Union cavalry, they knew they would lose the fight. They might have killed several of the enemy, but the federals, outnumbering them by more than ten to one, could have killed them all and then shot the president. A gunfight at dawn, when visibility was low, might also have had fatal consequences for Mrs. Davis and the children. The president’s aides had done everything that their honor as Confederate officials and Southern gentlemen had required. Surrender, however hateful, had been the honorable choice. Davis never suggested his men should have done more for him that morning. Indeed, he expressed affection for his inner circle for the rest of his life.
And now, thirty-eight days after he evacuated Richmond, after an epic journey through four states by railroad, ferry boat, horse, cart, and wagon, Davis was a prisoner. Others, including his aides, would speculate for years why Davis hadn’t placed his own welfare first and escaped to Texas, Mexico, Cuba, or Europe. Judah Benjamin and John C. Breckinridge did so and had escaped abroad. Burton Harrison always believed that Davis could have escaped—if he had “ridden on after getting supper with our party the night we halted for the last time; had he gone but five miles beyond Irwinville, passing through that village at night, and so avoiding observation, there is every reason to suppose that he and his party would have escaped either across the Mississippi or through Florida to the sea-coast…as others did.”
Harrison speculated that the reason Davis did not was “the apprehension he felt for the safety of his wife and children which brought about his capture.”
No one really knows why Davis failed to leave the camp that night. Perhaps he was tired of life on the run, or maybe his chronic illnesses had weakened him. Maybe he thought a few more hours of stolen rest would not matter. In Virginia, John Wilkes Booth had paid the price for tarrying too long at a farm where he had found respite from his manhunt. The assassin might have reached Mexico if he had not slowed his flight. Delay had cost him his life. Perhaps Davis thought it was too late to escape to Texas and resuscitate a western Confederacy there. He might have feared once he left this camp, he would never see his wife and children again. Perhaps part of him did not want to flee, run away to a foreign land, and vanish from history. Instead he would remain onstage for the drama’s last act, waiting for the curtain to fall upon the lost cause. Any explanation is just speculation.
But he failed in his mission, which was not escape but victory. He had not been able to rally the army or the people to continue the war. He did not make it across the great Mississippi River to create a new Confederate empire in the west. But he had done his best.
The war, and the chase for Jefferson Davis, were over. But he was alive. His story might have ended at the little camp near Irwinville, Georgia. The cavalryman he hoped to unseat from the saddle might have shot him. Or, if he had seized the horse and galloped for the woods, he might have been cut down by carbine fire. And if he had escaped the scene, he might have been, an hour, a day, or a week later, shot and killed, unprotected and alone, somewhere in the wilderness of southwest Georgia or beyond. May 10, 1865, was the end for Jefferson Davis’s presidency and his dream of Southern independence. But it was the beginning of a new story too, one he began to live the day he was captured. “God’s will,” he said.
Now Davis would begin a new, twelve-day journey to imprisonment.
John Taylor Wood, who had been hiding in the swamp for three hours, witnessed what happened next. “I was within hearing of the camp on either side of the stream and…when they came down for water or to water their horses I was within a few yards of them. The wagons moved off first, then the bugles sounded and the President started on one of the carriage horses followed by his staff and a squadron of the enemy. I watched him as he rode off. Sad fate.” Wood fled, embarking on a fantastic odyssey by land and sea to avoid capture by Union forces.
That day in Washington, people did not rush into the streets to celebrate Davis’s capture. No one knew about it. Georgia was too far away for the news to travel to the capital on the same day. Instead, the newspapers were filled with headlines and stories about the Lincoln
ASECOND REWARD POSTER FOR DAVIS AND OTHER CONFEDERATE LEADERS. NEITHER DAVIS NOR HIS PURSUERS LEARNED OF THE REWARD UNTIL AFTER HE WAS CAPTURED.
assassination. May 10 was the opening day of proceedings in the great conspiracy trial.
In Washington the eight defendants charged as Booth’s accomplices went on trial before a military tribunal convened at the Old Arsenal penitentiary. Many people believed that if Davis was captured before the trial ended, he would be rushed to Washington and charged as the ninth conspirator in Lincoln’s murder. Indeed, the government’s first plan was to transport Davis to Washington and imprison him at the Old Capitol prison, two blocks east of the Great Dome. Since mid-April the Bureau of Military Justice had been building a case against Jefferson Davis based on mysterious documents and questionable witnesses.
It took four days to travel from the capture site to Macon, where General James Wilson had his headquarters. At an encampment along the way Davis learned about the $100,000 bounty on his head. Burton Harrison recalled the moment: “It was at that cavalry camp we first heard of the proclamation offering a reward of $100,000 for the capture of Mr. Davis, upon the charge, invented by Stanton and Holt, of participation in the plot to murder Mr. Lincoln. Colonel Pritch-ard had himself just received it, and considerately handed a printed copy of the proclamation to Mr. Davis, who read it with a composure unruffled by any feeling other than scorn.”
Outside Macon, John Reagan got into a dispute with Colonel Pritchard:
On the morning of the day we arrived at Macon, while I and the President’s staff were taking an humble breakfast, sitting on the ground, Colonel Pritchard came by where we were, and I said to him that I understood we were to reach Macon that morning, that I had not changed my clothing for some time, and requested some clothes which I had in my saddle bags, taken from me when we were captured.
“We have not got your saddle bags,” he answered me.
“I am sorry to hear you say that, Colonel,” I retorted, “for I know you have them.”
He asked how I knew that.
“Because your officers told me of your examining their contents right after our capture,” I answered; “and named correctly what was in them.”
With some temper he questioned, “Who told you so?”
“Your officers.”
“What officers?”
“Since you question the fact,” I said, “I will not put them in your power by giving you their names.” Then I added, “It does not look well for a colonel of cavalry in the United States Army to steal clothes.”
“Sir,” he said, “I will put you in irons.”
“You have the power to do so,” I replied, “but that will not make you a gentleman or a man of truth.”
He walked off as if intending to execute his threat, but I heard no more of it.
In Macon, Davis met with General Wilson, who had flashed news of his capture to Washington.
Macon, Ga.,
May 12, 1865—11 A.M.
Lieut.-Gen. U.S. GRANT and Hon. Secretary of War, Washington, D.C.:
I have the honor to report that at daylight of the 10th inst., Col. Pritchard, commanding the 4th Michigan Cavalry, captured Jeff. Davis and his family, with Reagan, Postmaster-General; Col. Harrison, Private Secretary; Col. Johnson, A.D.C.; Col. Morris, Col. Lubbock, Lieut. Hathaway and others. Col
. Pritchard surprised them their camp at Irwinsville, in Irwin County, Ga., 75 miles south-east of this place. They will be here to-morrow night, and will be forwarded under strong guard without delay. I will send further particulars at once.
J. H. Wilson, Brevet Major-General.
Once the Davis party arrived in Macon, they received better treatment than they had on the road. Union troops honored Davis by presenting arms upon his arrival. It was the last time that federal troops would honor him. John Reagan commented on their treatment: “When we reached Macon, we were taken to the headquarters of General Wilson, which was a large building that had been used as a hotel. General Wilson invited President Davis, his staff, and myself to dine with him, treating us with courtesy.”
When Reagan learned that he and Davis were to be separated, he asked General Wilson if he might remain with the president. “I thereupon observed that President Davis was much worn down, and that, as I was the only member of his political family with him, I might be of some service to him, and requested to have the order changed as to send me on with him. He asked me if I was aware that this might involve me in danger. I told him I had considered that; that we had entered upon the contest together, and that I was willing to end it with him, whatever that end might be.”
On the morning of their capture, Davis, Mrs. Davis, Reagan, Harrison, Johnston, and Lubbock remained unbowed and defiant. They were not meek prisoners. They had resisted the plundering of their persons and the baggage train, took umbrage at the crude language with which the soldiers addressed Davis, and scorned their captors as moral and social inferiors. To the Southern mind, the officers and men of the Fourth Michigan Cavalry, some of them immigrants, represented all that was wrong with the North and were living proof of the superior civilization of the South.