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CHAPTER XXVII
PRESIDENT JOHNSON INTERPOSES

MR. JOHNSON kept his word. Late in December I found myself on my way to Baltimore with the President's autographed permit in hand, that would admit me to my husband's prison. I left Washington on the afternoon of the 27th of December, going by train to Baltimore. Here, crossing the city in an omnibus with other passengers, to the wharf of the "New Line Steamers," I was soon on board the boat, the George Leary, bound for Norfolk and Fortress Monroe. I was so keenly alive to my own lonely condition that I could not bring myself even to register my name among the list of happier passengers. Everywhere about me gaily dressed people thronged. I saw among them General Granger and wife, his staff, and ladies of the party. As the George Leary pulled out from her moorings, the brass band of a company of soldiers bound for Norfolk began to play sweet, old-time airs. I had no desire to linger among the carefree throng, and, calling the stewardess, handed her a gold-piece, saying, "Can you sign for me or get me a stateroom? I only go to Fortress Monroe."

In a few moments she returned, regarding me inquiringly.

"Lady!" she asked, "ain't you the wife of one of those gentlemen down at the Fort?"

"Yes!" I answered. "I am the wife of Mr. Clay, the prisoner!"

Thereupon she opened her hand, displaying my gold-piece, saying, "The captain says he can't take any fare

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from you. He'll be here in a little while!" And she moved away.

In a few moments the tall, gaunt Captain Blakeman stood before me.

"Are you Mrs. Clay?" he asked. "Wife of the prisoner at Fortress Monroe?"

Upon receiving my affirmative answer, the Captain spoke earnestly.

"Mrs. Clay, you have my deep sympathy. I'm a regular Down-Easter myself - a Maine man; but for forty years I've plied a boat between Northern and Southern cities; and I know the Southern people well. I think it is a damned shame the way the Government is behaving toward you and Mrs. Davis!"

For a moment the tears blinded me, seeing which the Captain at once withdrew, comprehending the thanks he saw I could not utter. However, when the gong sounded for supper, he returned, and with kindly tact led me to a place beside him at the table, though I assured him I wanted nothing. At my obvious lack of appetite he showed a very woman's thoughtfulness, himself preparing the viands before me while he urged me "to drink my coffee. You must take something," he said from time to time, whenever he perceived a lagging interest in the dishes before me. Nor did this complete his kindnesses, for on the following morning, as I left the boat, Captain Blakeman handed me a slip of paper on which was written:

"NEW LINE STEAMERS, BALTIMORE, December 27, 1865.

"Will please pass free Mrs. C. C. Clay, rooms and meals included, to all points as she wishes, and oblige,

"S. BLAKEMAN,

"I hope you will use this pass as often as you need it," he said.

We arrived at Fortress Monroe at four o'clock the next morning. As I stepped from the gangplank, the scene

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about me was black and bleak, the air wintry. Save for a few dozing stevedores here and there, whom I soon perceived, the wharf was quite deserted. It had been my intention, upon my arrival, to go directly to the little Hygeia Hotel just outside the Fort, but upon the advice of Captain Blakeman I accepted the shelter offered me by the clerk in charge of the wharf, and rested until daylight in his snug little room just off from the office.

Just before leaving Washington I had written to Dr. Craven, telling him of my intended visit to the prison, and asking him to meet me at the little hotel. I now, at the first streak of dawn, still acting upon the suggestions of the kind captain, found a messenger and sent him with a note to General Miles, telling him of my arrival with the President's permit to see my husband, and asking that an ambulance be sent to convey me to the Fort; and I despatched a second to Dr. Craven to tell him my whereabouts. Unknown to me, that friendly physician, whose humane treatment of Mr. Davis and my husband had brought upon him the disapproval of the War Department, had already been removed from his station at the Fort. My messenger found him, nevertheless, and upon receipt of my message he came and made himself known to me. His words were few, and not of a character to cheer one in my forlorn condition.

"Look for no kindness, Mrs. Clay," he said, "at the hands of my successor, Dr. Cooper. He is the blackest of Black Republicans, and may be relied upon to show the prisoners little mercy."

Our interview was brief, and, as the Fort ambulance was seen approaching, the Doctor left me hurriedly. "For," said he, "it will do neither you nor the prisoners any good if you are seen talking with me." He had scarcely disappeared in the grey morning when the escort from the Fort arrived. The vehicle was manned by two handsome Union soldiers, one, Major Hitchcock of

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General Miles's staff, and the other Lieutenant Muhlenberg, a grandson, as I afterward learned, of the author of "I would not live alway." Months afterward, when Mr. Clay left the Fortress, he carried with him the little volume containing Bishop Muhlenberg's verses, a gift from the young lieutenant.

Arrived at the Fort, I was taken at once to the headquarters of General Miles, and conducted to a room commodiously and even luxuriously furnished. In a short time the General made his appearance. He was polite and even courteous in the examination of my passport, which he scanned carefully; but his manner was noncommittal as he politely asked me to "be seated." I seated myself and waited. The General withdrew. After the lapse of a few moments, an orderly appeared, bearing upon a salver a tempting breakfast; but I, who had spent months in seeking the privilege I had now come to claim, could touch nothing. I declined the food, saying I would wait and breakfast with my husband. The orderly looked perplexed, but removed the tray; and now a dreary and inexplicable wait began, interbroken with first a nervous, then an indignant, and at last a tearful inquiry. During the morning I affected a nonchalance wholly at variance with my real feelings. Picking up a book that lay at my elbow on the table, I was surprised to see a familiar name upon the fly-leaf. I commented upon the luxury of the apartment when next General Miles entered, and added, "These books seem to have been Governor Wise's property." The General was quick to defend himself from any suggestion that might lie in my words. He replied at once. "These headquarters were furnished by General Butler before I was sent here!"

Midday came and still the President's autographed permit, which to me had seemed so powerful a document, was not honoured. A savoury luncheon was now brought in, but a nausea of nervousness had seized me and I could

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not eat a morsel. My excitement increased momentarily, until the distress of mind and apprehension were wholly beyond my control. I now implored General Miles to let me see my husband, if only for a moment; to explain this delay in the face of the President's order. I begged him to allow me to telegraph to Washington; but to all my pleadings his only reply was to urge me to "be calm." He assured me he regretted the delay, but that "his orders" were such that he could neither admit me to my husband's room, nor allow me to use the Government wires at present.

By the middle of the afternoon, faint with pleadings and worn with indignation and fears at the unknown powers which dared thus to obstruct the carrying out of the President's orders, not knowing what might yet be before me, my self-possession entirely deserted me. I remember, during my hysterical weeping, crying out to General Miles, "If you are ever married, I pray God your wife may never know an hour like this!"

In the midst of an uncontrollable paroxysm which seized me at last, Dr. Vogell, who has been variously designated as the private secretary and instructor of General Miles, entered. During the day General Miles had presented the Doctor to me, and, in his subsequent passing and repassing through the room, we had from time to time exchanged a remark. He was a tall, picturesque man, of possibly sixty years. At the sight of my culminating misery, Dr. Vogell could bear the distressful scene no longer. He cried out impulsively, "Miles, for God's sake, let the woman go to her husband!"

Unhappily, this manly outburst, though it had its own message of sympathy for me, failed as utterly to move the commanding General Miles as had my previous urgings. In the months that followed,Dr.Vogell often called upon me clandestinely in Washington (announced as "Mr. Brown"), to say that "a friend of yours was quite

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well this morning, and desired his love given you!" The recollection of his kindnesses lives imperishable in my memory, but especially vivid is that first upwelling sympathy during the painful waiting at the Fort.

General Miles seemed not untouched by my pleadings, but, it was evident, he felt himself subject to a superior power which forced him to refuse them. His manner throughout, in fact, was courteous and apologetic. Despite my agony of mind, it was late in the afternoon ere the President's order was honoured. Then General Miles entered, and, with an appearance of completest relief, consigned me, tear-stained and ill, to the care of Lieutenant Stone, who conducted me to Mr. Clay's prison.

All day my husband, to whom there had penetrated a rumour of my coming, had been waiting for me, himself tortured by fears for my safety and by the mystery of my delay. The gloomy corridors, in which soldiers patrolled night and day, guarding the two delicate prisoners of State, were already darkening with the early evening shadows when, at last, I saw my husband, martyr to his faith in the honour of the Government, standing within the grating, awaiting me. The sight of his tall, slender form, his pale face and whitened hair, awaiting me behind those dungeon bars, affected me terribly. My pen is too feeble to convey the weakness that overcame me as Lieutenant Stone inserted and turned the key in the massive creaking lock and admitted me; nor shall I attempt to revive here the brief hours that followed, with their tumultuous telling over of the happenings of the past months and our hurried planning for the future.

I returned to the capital full of sorrow and indignation. My adventure at Fortress Monroe had revealed to me, far more fully than I previously had suspected was possible, the struggle for power that was now going on between the Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton, on the one side, and

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on the other, President Johnson, by whose courtesy or timidity this official still retained his portfolio. I resolved to relate my entire experience at Fortress Monroe to the President at the first opportunity.

In the meantime, my husband, with whom I had left a digest of Holt's report, upon a careful perusal of it, had been greatly aroused. By the courtesy of a secret friend, he hastened to send me a list of persons who could, if called upon, readily testify to his whereabouts during certain periods described in the charges against him. He urged me to see the President, and not to cease in my efforts to obtain his release on parole. His condition of mind as expressed in this communication was, it was evident, one of intense excitement.

"You must not get discouraged!" he wrote. "My life depends upon it, I fear! Since the days of Cain and Judas, men may take life for money or some other selfish end. As innocent men as I am have been judicially murdered, and I do not feel secure from it, although God knows I feel innocent of crime against the United States or any citizen thereof. As to my declaring my purpose to surrender to meet the charge of assassination, my unwillingness to fly from such charge, my preferring death to living with that brand on me, my desire to exculpate Mr. Davis, myself and the South from it, you know as well as I do.

"Judge Holt is determined to sacrifice me for reasons given you.(*) He may do it if I am not allowed liberty to

(* In the preparation for the publication of these Memoirs, I found myself continually lighting upon evidences of irregularity in the Government's proceedings against Mr. Clay. I was met constantly by what appeared to be a persistent and inexplicable persecution of Messrs. Davis and Clay (if not a plot against them, as hinted by Representative Rogers) at the hands of the War Department, acting through Mr. Joseph Holt. I encountered charges, not ambiguously made against Mr. Holt, of malice, and of rancour which would be satisfied only with the "judicial murder" of the prisoners in his hands. Charges of malice and meanness have been made against him by living men as frequently as by those who have passed away; men, moreover, whose integrity of purpose has never been challenged. A rather general condemnation of Mr. Holt appears in certain correspondence of the sixties. It was uttered publicly in the press in the early and middle portion of that decade. In the pamphlet alluded to and quoted from in Chapter XXII. of these "Memoirs," the Rev. Stuart Robinson had quoted Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky, and another, to show the peculiar estimate in which Mr. Holt was then held. "I know little," wrote Mr. Robinson, in June of '65, "either of the personal or public character of Mr. Holt. . . . The only well-defined impression I have of his personal character is gained from two remarks concerning him in 1861-'62. The first, that of a venerable Christian lady, of the old-fashioned country type, made to me: 'Joe Holt, Sir, is the only young man I ever knew that left this country without leaving one friend behind him in it!' The other, the fierce retort of the venerable Crittenden, to a Cabinet officer, reported to me by Governor Morehead: 'Joseph Holt, of Kentucky, did you say, Sir? I tell you, Sir, by Heaven! there is no such man as Joseph Holt, of Kentucky!'"

In addition to such contemporaneous public utterances concerning Mr. Holt, I have learned much that is corroborative by word of mouth from men whose opinions have been softened by time, and whose conspicuous positions in national affairs establish their utterances as both weighty and trustworthy. Said one of these, a United States Senator within the year (1903), "Joseph Holt was the meanest man of his time. He was both unscrupulous and ambitious; and the smartest man I ever knew!"

Another as prominent in the nation's affairs, said, using the same adjective as did the Senator just quoted, "He was a peculiarly mean man. I don't know the true circumstances of Mr. Davis's and Mr. Clay's imprisonment, but the suspicions that attached to Holt were never proven, nor, so far as I know, investigated. After he went out of office he seemed to have no friends. He remained in Washington. I often saw him. Every morning he would get into a shabby old buggy and drive to market, where he would buy his meat and vegetables, potatoes, etc., for the day. These he would carry back to the house in his buggy, and his cook would prepare his solitary meals for him. I never felt anything but dislike for him," said this gentleman, "and I don't know any one else who did!"

"True!" responded another gentleman, whose word has balanced national opinion to a large extent for many years, "Mr. Holt was repugnant to me. I think he was generally regarded as a man who had forsaken his own section for gain. I thought him a heartless man. When he left office he went into utter obscurity!"

These remarks, coming from sources so authoritative, lent strength to the supposition that Mr. Holt's behaviour toward his self-surrendered prisoner and former friend, Clement C. Clay, if it might be traced to its source, would, indeed, reveal a persecution at once vengeful and malicious, springing from some personal animus. For a year I made continuous effort to find this motive, but without success. Pitiless enmity, supported by almost unlimited powers (vested in Mr. Holt as Judge Advocate General, when the Government was in an unprecedented condition of chaos), this officer surely exercised toward Messrs. Davis and Clay; but, where was the raison d'être?

By an accident, "at the eleventh hour," the paper in Mr. Clay's handwriting containing the sentence quoted in the preceding text came to light. I wrote promptly to Mrs. Clay-Clopton concerning it, urging her to try to recall, if possible, the "reasons" which Mr. Clay in his prison in Fortress Monroe, on the night of December 29, 1865 had given her in explanation of Mr. Holt's animosity toward him. Her reply ran as follows:

"I can give you, in regard of Mr. Holt's persecution of my husband, one very important reason! On the breaking out of the war, I think on the secession of Mississippi, Holt, who had won both his fame and his fortune in that State of his adoption, espoused the Southern cause. Whether this was known to others than Mr. Davis and Mr. Clay, I do not know. From the impression that remains on my memory, Holt communicated in confidence to those two gentlemen alone his intention of standing by the South. Possibly, it was said to Mr. Davis alone, as the latter was Mississippi's leading Senator, and by Mr. Davis repeated to Mr. Clay. It was a common thing in those days to keep secret one's intentions." [See visit of Admiral Semmes, Chapter IX.] "Whether Holt's decision was known to others than Mr. Davis and Mr. Clay, his friend," continues the letter, "I do not know. I remember Mr. Clay telling me that Mr. Holt was a renegade and a traitor, who had pledged himself to the South; but when, in his selfish ambition, he received a higher bid from the Federal Government, he deserted our cause and went over to the opposition. I do not recall the position offered Mr. Holt by the Federal Government, but it was a plum he coveted.

"You ask whether Mr. Clay and Mr. Holt ever had any dealings with each other, political or business:

"None of any kind! Mr. Clay only knew of Holt's base defection from our cause and condemned him for it. My husband told me (in the Fortress), 'Mr. Holt knows the estimate Mr. Davis and I have of his defection and would fain get us out of the way!'" A.S.)

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seek witnesses and prepare my defense; or, if I am subjected to the mockery of trial by Military Court, when all the charges he can make may be brought against me in a great drag-net."

As a step toward securing an early interview, and also because the President's daughters, Mrs. Stover and

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Mrs. Patterson, now presiding at the White House, had been courteous to me, I resolved, as a stroke of policy, to attend the Presidential reception to take place on the ninth of January. Naturally, since my arrival in Washington, I had not participated in the social life about me. In acknowledgment of Mr. Johnson's concessions, and with my husband's life at stake, with a desire further to win the President's good offices, I now prepared to attend his levee. My toilette was complete save for the drawing

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on of my gloves, when, while awaiting the call of my hostess Mrs. Parker and her daughter Mrs. Bouligny, whose preparations were somewhat more elaborate than my own, I broke the seal of some letters from home. The news they contained was of a nature well calculated to divert me from the thought of appearing at a public gathering, even at the Executive Mansion.

The first told me, in hurried lines, of the illness of my husband's mother; the second, posted a few hours later, announced her death. "I write beside mother's dead body," began my sister, Mrs. J. Withers Clay. "Her constant theme was brother Clement, and the last thing I remember hearing her say was 'What of my son?' in so distressed a tone that her heart appeared broken. . . .I trust you have seen your dear husband ere this. I hope he will be released before poor father leaves us. He is very distressed, very gentle and subduedinhis trouble. . . .I can never forget mother's heart-thrilling question 'What of my son?' She was very unhappy about your last letter - it was rather low-spirited - and said, 'I have no hope; I shall never see my son!' "

Within the next day I called upon Mr. Johnson. He received me with his usual urbane manner, quite in contrast with my own indignant mood.

"Mr. Johnson," I began, "Who is the President of the United States?"

He smiled rather satirically and shrugged his shoulders.

"I am supposed to be!" he said.

"But you are not!" I answered. "Your autographed letter was of little more use to me when I reached Fortress Monroe than blank paper would have been! For hours it was not honoured, during which time your Secretary of War held the wires and refused to allow me either to see my husband or to communicate with you!" Then, in as few words as possible, I related the circumstances of my

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visit to the Fort. Mr. Johnson, though constrained to preserve his official reserve, was unable to repress or disguise his anger at my recital.

"When you go there again you'll have no difficulty, I assure you!" he said.

"When may I?" I asked eagerly.

"When you wish," he answered.

I now pictured to him my husband's position; I related the sad news I had just received, and which, under present conditions, I knew I dared not tell Mr. Clay. I implored the President, by every argument at my command, to exercise his Executive power and release Mr. Clay on his parole. Every moment of his incarceration under the discipline invented by the unscrupulous military authorities, I felt his life to be imperilled. As our interview proceeded, however, I perceived the old indecision of manner returning. The President's replies were all to one effect; viz.: that the Secretary of War must decide upon the case. He freely made out another permit to the prison, this time to cover a longer stay, but about a parole for Mr. Clay, or the naming of a day for an early trial, he could promise nothing. He would consult his Cabinet; he would see Mr. Stanton. At last, my importunities for an authoritative action growing greater, the President burst out with every evidence of deep feeling:

"Go home, woman, and write what you have to say, and I'll read it to my Cabinet at the next meeting!"

"You will not!" I answered hotly.

"Why?" he asked, cynically.

"Because," I replied, "you are afraid of Mr. Stanton! He would not allow it! But, let me come to the Cabinet meeting, and I will read it," I said. "For, with my husband's life and liberty at stake, I do not fear Mr. Stanton or any one else."

The President assured me I need have no misgivings;

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if I would write my plea and send it directly to him, he would, he promised me, have it read at the next Cabinet meeting (on the morrow). Actuated by the hope, however meagre, of gaining a possible sympathy from the President's Governmental associates, even though the dictator Stanton was so coercing a personality in that body, I prepared my letter. I afterward secured an official copy of it. It ran as follows:

WASHINGTON CITY, January 11, 1866.

"To His Excellency, President of the United States:
". . . How true it is that all conditions of life, however seemingly extreme, are capable of augmentation! I have thought and so told you, that for eight months past I have been, and God knows with what cause, at the Nadir of despair; that my cup, bitterer than the waters of Marah, was brimming, my heart breaking. A letter received two evenings ago announces the death of my husband's beloved mother, wife of ex-Governor Clay. Deeply distressing to me; oh! Mr. Johnson, what a blow to my husband, your unhappy prisoner! He was her idolised son, her first-born; bears the name of her lover-husband, and upon whose lineaments she had not rested her longing eyes for three long, weary, desolate years.

"On the morning of the first she swooned, and expired on the second, inquiring, 'What of my son?' Oh, Mr. President, what an agonising reflection to my husband! How can I summon nerve to tell him the news? I cannot write so great a grief, nor can I tell it and leave him in his gloomy prison to struggle with it alone! Will you not pour in the oil of healing? I beg of you, permit me to bear with me, along with my 'weight of woe,' the antidote. Issue the order for my husband's release on his parole d'honneur, with bail if desired, and let him once more see our father, who lies (now) on a bed of illness. My sister writes, 'Father cannot long survive.(*) God grant that he may see dear brother Clement ere he goes. Cannot he come?' - I repeat, cannot he come?

"Mr. President, you hold many noble prisoners in your forts, but Mr. Clay's case is sui generis. General Grant, the whole-souled soldier, in his letter to you in his behalf, says, 'His manly surrender is to me a full and sufficient guarantee

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that he will be forthcoming at any time the civil authorities of the land may call for him.' Even Mr. Stanton, who is not considered partial to so-called 'Rebels,' told me, in my only interview, that 'he was not my husband's judge,' as if he, Pilate-like, were willing to wash his hands of innocent blood. I replied tremblingly, 'I would fain not have you for his accuser, Sir.' To which he rejoined, not unkindly, 'I am not his accuser, Madam.' I thanked God for even that cold comfort as harbinger of better days.

"And now, Sir, may I ask you who are those opposed to my husband's release on parole? I have yet to find the first man, Federal or other, who does not express admiration at the high sense of honour and chivalric faith, in the prompt and manly surrender; and astonishment at the detention. To-day we might have been far away in some peaceful spot, united at least, and happy, but for that sense of unsullied honour, which 'feeling a stain like a wound,' remained to wipe it out. Can you longer refuse him the privilege?

"The law supposes all men innocent till proven guilty, and if it will allow me, I, alone, can disprove, in toto, the testimony of the conspiracy case, implicating him. Mr. Clay, always delicate, is dying daily. He told me he was resigned to God's will and perfectly willing to perish in those four walls if his country would be benefited thereby. Mr. President, my husband is my world, my all, and 'dear to me as are the ruddy drops that visit this sad heart.' Give him to me for a little while, at least long enough to glad the dim eyes of the eager and aged watcher at home and close them; and he shall return to you, on his honour and my life, at any moment called for by the Government. Let me bring him to you to prove to you the truth of my statement in point of health, and to afford him the right of personal appeal. . . .That God may incline you to grant my prayer and soften 'the hearts of our enemies,' restore Peace indeed to the land, and bless and guide and guard you in public and private life to your journey's end, is the prayer of her who hopefully, trustfully, and truthfully subscribes herself,

"Your friend,
(Signed.) "V. C. CLAY."

I sent this epistle to Mr. Johnson, but, despite the haste in which I had written and despatched it, I was too late for the promised reading, which fact I learned from the

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following message, that reached me the next day. It was written on the back of the President's card in his (by this time) familiar, scrawling hand.

"Your letter," it read, "was too late yesterday. It does your heart and head credit. It is a most powerful appeal. You have excelled yourself in its production!"

At the next Cabinet meeting Mr. Johnson made his promise good. The letter was then read, by Mr. Evarts, too late, however, even had it produced immediate results, to enable me to carry the parole I had hoped for to my husband. I was again with Mr. Clay at the Fortress when this meeting took place, but, having no balm to soothe the wound, I could not tell him of the blow that had befallen him, nor did he hear of it until, nearly four months later, he left the prison. In the interim, in order that my husband should not remark upon the sombreness of my attire, I wore a red rose in my bonnet and red ribbon at my throat whenever I visited the Fort.

I learned the particulars of that (to me) eventful Cabinet reading from Mr. Johnson later. Upon the conclusion of the letter Mr. Stanton asked for it. He scanned it closely and put it into his pocket without comment. Nor was the missive again returned to Mr. Johnson until weeks had elapsed and several requests had been made for it.

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CHAPTER XXVIII
THE NATION'S PRISONERS

ON the twenty-first of January, 1866, a few days after my last conversation with President Johnson, I found myself a second time within the ramparts of America's most formidable military prison. This time, unhindered, I was led directly to my husband's gloomy room. In this and the several succeeding visits I paid Mr. Clay in prison, I learned to comprehend, where before I had but imagined, the terrible sufferings my husband had undergone for now eight months. When I parted from General Miles on May 24th, of the preceding year, he gave me his promise that Mr. Clay should have every comfort he could allow him.

I found, upon my admission to Fortress Monroe, in January, 1866, that his prisoner, for three or more months, had been confined within a narrow cell, grated and barred like a cage in a menagerie, into which the meagre daylight crept through the long, thin opening in the thick walls. An unwholesome sweat had oozed through the bare walls which surrounded him, at times, it was said, increasing until it flowed in streams. For weeks after entering the prison (I now learned) Mr. Clay had been denied not only the use of his clothing, but his toilet brushes and comb, and every item calculated to preserve his health and self-esteem had been taken from him. His only food for weeks had been a soldier's rations, until Dr. Craven, at last, felt obliged to order a hospital diet. These rations had been passed through

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the prison bars in tin cup or plate, unaccompanied by knife, fork or spoon.

For forty days at a stretch he had not been permitted to look upon the sun; for months, though debarred from communication with or visits from his own family, he was exhibited to strangers, civilian or military, who from time to time were brought into his cell, conversing among themselves, or to the gratings to stare at him with curious gaze. "I have been treated as if already convicted of an infamous crime," wrote my husband in a paper sent out by one who proved trustworthy. "Indeed, one of my warders told me that the orders from Washington required I should be subjected to the same prison discipline that the assassins of Abraham Lincoln underwent. While the Third Pennsylvania Artillery (volunteers) were on duty (till October 31st), I scarcely ever walked out without being greeted with 'Shoot him! Hang him! Bring a rope! The damned rascal!' But since the regulars came in nothing like this has occurred. . . . Mr. Davis and I are not allowed to communicate with each other. We have met but a few times, in walking contrary to the intention of officers and orders, but only saluted each other and asked of health."

Once, my husband told me, upon thus meeting, Mr. Davis and he greeted each other in French, whereupon the soldiers, scenting some further "treason," rushed at them, pointing their bayonets.

"I have been subjected," continued my husband's statement, "to the most refined but severe torture of body and soul; my health considered in order to preserve the sensibility of the body to pain. . . . I have been allowed irregularly some newspapers, but never one alluding to any evidence against me, or mentioning me, unless in terms of reproach. I am cut off from the world, except its reproaches!"

During none of my visits to the Fort was I permitted

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to speak with Mr. Davis, between whom and my husband, as I have said, even an occasional word, for a long time, was interdicted; but, when sending to him a tray of good things from among gifts to my husband or brought with me from Washington, I managed often to send, with an extra segar or two, a twisted paper lighter on which I had scribbled "Mrs. Davis and children are well," or some (as I hoped) equally cheering greeting.

In later days, when a fuller liberty of walking about the Fort was granted the prisoners, they were occasionally able to pass to each other some brief message, written, it might be, on the inch-wide margin of a bit of newspaper or wrapping. Two or three times a scrap of writing-paper, written all over in the finest possible hand, was passed from one to the other. Two such messages, uttered under the impression that Mr. Clay was soon to be liberated, are expressive of the unflinching spirit which Mr. Davis at all times showed, even under torments as humiliating, and, in one instance, even more cruel, than those endured by my husband. The first would seem to have reached Mr. Clay shortly after my first visit to the Fort. A lengthy note, in finest script and compressed within the dimensions of a single six-by-eight sheet of paper, it read as if it had been written sentence by sentence, as mood dictated or opportunity offered.

A second note, in even more diminutive script,(*) was passed to my husband in the early winter of '66, when at last it seemed assured that Mr. Clay would be liberated. It was written in this belief, and gave my husband directions as to friends whose influence might be awakened on our late President's behalf. Mr. Davis reiterated his loyalty to the cause for which he was now suffering, but

(* On the back of this scrap, Mr. Davis wrote in pencil, "If you get this, say I've got the tobacco and will give you a puff." Long afterward, lest the identity of the little slip should be lost, Mr. Clay added this comment beneath the original inscription: "Preserve! Mr. Davis to me in prison! C. C. C." A.S.)

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declared his anxiety for his wife's and children's fates. He felt that there was a bloodthirsty hate against him, the strong motive being to degrade the lost cause in his person.

In all of his communications, however short, Mr. Davis wrote with dignity and conviction, as became a man who had been the Chief Magistrate of a people. Once only, and that during my first stay in the Fort, I saw the tall figure of our late Chief. "I saw Mr. Davis walking on the ramparts," I wrote to ex-Governor Clay. "His beard and hair are white, and he is thin to emaciation, but walked like a President still."

Upon my arrival at the Fortress early in '66, I found Mr. Clay established in Carroll Hall, in what, in view of his earlier surroundings, was a comfortable room. It was perhaps sixteen feet square, and was lighted by two fairly large windows which opened toward the front of the building, but were heavily barred with iron, as was also the entrance. The cot upon which my husband slept was much too short for his comfort, and a stool was the only seat at his disposal.

After a survey of Mr. Clay's quarters, I at once called the attention of General Miles to the shortcomings of the cot and the absence of a chair, and in a few hours a mattress sufficiently long and two chairs were brought in. I also requested that a drugget be placed upon the floor of Mr. Davis's room, in order that the noise caused by the change of guard might be diminished; for, in his nervous state, it was said, he suffered greatly by reason of it. This, I believe, was also conceded. My husband had converted the window-sills of his room into a buffet and book-shelf, respectively, on one of which were kept his medicines and such tidbits and delicacies as were now from time to time sent to him by Dr. Withers, our cousin, or which I carried in with me from Washington friends. On the other, his meagre supply of books, the Bible and Jay's Prayers being the principal volumes.

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But for his own scrupulous cleanliness, Mr. Clay's life must long ago have succumbed to his unparalleled deprivations in that cruel imprisonment. So neatly had he kept his cell and room, however, that they were the wonder of all his attendants. It was his custom, when he took his morning bath (he told me), to stand the basin first in one and then another position in the room, splashing the water about as far as he could, after which he would take the broom with which he was provided and brush the wet portions clean! To such depths of cruelty did the agents of Mr. Stanton and Mr. Holt condemn a delicate scholar - a former friend, recently a United States Senator, whose name throughout the land was the synonym for unfailing integrity, against whom the United States as yet seemingly had not found a single charge on which he might be brought to trial!

I learned of many instances of insult offered to Mr. Clay by his rude first custodians. Upon one occasion, reminded of it by the sound of the dull-splashing waters without the walls of his cell, my husband conceived the idea that a salt bath would assist in strengthening him. He therefore asked the attendant for the day if, instead of the fresh water usually supplied to him, he would bring him some salt water. The man's reply was emphatic.

"You damned Rebel!" he said. "You may thank God you get any water. You don't deserve to have any!"

My husband, whose nature was of the tenderest and most patient, especially with the ignorant, answered very quietly, "I am thankful for any water!" His reply illustrated anew the magic of the soft answer, for the soldier, looking very much ashamed, spoke in a moment in a very different manner.

"Forgive me, Mr. Clay," he said, "I don't know why I did it. I've got nothing against you. Guess it's a kind of habit of damning Johnny Rebs! I'll get you the water. I believe you're a Christian gentleman!"

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On the evening of the first day of my second visit to the Fortress, I encountered Dr. Cooper, against whom, it will be recalled, Dr. Craven had warned me. To the prisoner he had always revealed himself as a man of strictly unsocial manner, not to say an austere and pitiless one. During the first day of my visit to the Fort, I saw nothing; of him. It was dark when I left my husband's cell and set out, escorted by Lieutenant Stone, for the little hotel outside the ramparts. Once outside of the prison, the air was chill, and so silent, save for a strong wind, that I was conscious of no sound save it and the swashing of the waters against the stone walls of the Fort. Its cadence was weird and full of melancholy. As the doors of the prison closed behind us, I saw in the shadows a curious figure coming directly toward us. It was clad in a long, loose, flapping dressing-gown, and in its mouth was a pipe in which glowed a live spark of tobacco. I observed my guard looking straight ahead and apparently unobservant; but he said, under his breath and in a tone only audible to me, "Here comes Dr. Cooper!"

Another moment and the figure was beside us.

"Stone," said a gruff voice, "present me to Mrs. Clay!"

My escort complied promptly, and then, to my alarm, hastened away at once, leaving me dismayed and apprehensive, in the care of the "blackest of Black Republicans" and one who would "show me no mercy!"

"Madam!" said the Doctor, whose features I could scarcely discern in the dusk, "my wife wishes you to accept the hospitality of our house to-night!"

Had the man turned suddenly and clasped manacles about my wrists, I could scarcely have been more startled.

"I beg your pardon!" I stammered. "I am on my way to General Miles's headquarters for my passport with which to leave the Fort. I have not the privilege of remaining within the ramparts over night."

"Nonsense, Madam!" replied the Doctor, almost rudely.

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"My wife expects you! We soldiers have no luxuries and but few comforts, but we can give you shelter and save General Miles some trouble in sending you to and fro!" And he started rapidly across the stone walk. I followed him in silence for some distance, hardly knowing why I did so, my mind busy conjuring up the possible significance of his conduct, and alert to meet the unknown perils into which it was possible I was being led. Presently the Doctor, between puffs of tobacco, asked, "Ever been here before?"

"Yes!" I answered, sorrowfully enough, but with some pride, too, unless at that moment I proved untrue to myself, which I know I did not. "Yes! I was here during President Pierce's administration, when my husband was an honoured Senator, and I, beside Secretary Dobbin, looked on the brilliant rockets that wrote the names of Pierce and Davis across the night sky!" I was sad at the thought of that joyful occasion and the contrast the present afforded me. Suddenly the Doctor, who had been chewing most ostentatiously at his pipe, edged up to me and said, in a low voice:

"Cheer up! Cheer up! Cheer up! Madam!" He spoke so rapidly that I hardly realised the significance of his words. They sounded exactly like "chirrup, chirrup, chirrup, Madam." "My wife," he added, still in that low- guarded voice, "is the damnedest Rebel out, except yourself, Madam!"

I was dumbfounded! He, Dr. Cooper, the blackest of Black Republicans, etc., against whom I had been warned so emphatically? A flood of gratitude rushed over me. Half crying, I turned to grasp his hand and thank him, but seeing my intention, he drew away, saying sharply, "None of that, Madam! None o' that!" and, increasing his gait suddenly, almost flew before me, his long gown rising in his wake most ludicrously, as he made for a dark cottage that now began to shape itself out of

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the gloom. It was so small that until we were almost upon it I had not perceived it. Every window it boasted was mysteriously dark.

My guide pushed open the door, however, and entered, I following him mechanically. The door closed behind me, and it seemed automatically, as the Doctor disappeared from view; but, in a moment, I found myself in the friendly embrace of the Doctor's wife, one of the loveliest of women, Elva Cooper.

"Be of good cheer, my sweet sister!" she said, as her tears flowed in sympathy with mine. "You are in the right place. There is nothing under heaven you would do for Mr. Davis or Mr. Clay that I will not do. I am an Old Point Comfort woman, born here. My mother is a Virginian," she continued, "and is with me; and you must know my little Georgette. We are all Rebels of the first water!" and this I found to be true.

This strangely God-given friend, Elva Jones Cooper, with whom I remained four days and nights, never flagged in her devotion to me and the prisoners. I saw her many times in my several visits to the Fort, and on numberless occasions had reason to note the womanly expression of her sympathy. Quite frequently she would prepare with her own hands a dainty breakfast, write on a card, "By order of Dr. C-," and send to one or the other of the prisoners.

I once saw her gather from a box of growing violets a small bunch of flowers, tie them with a strand of her shining hair, and drop them into her husband's hat, saying, "Put that hat where Mr. Clay can see it. He shall smell violets, even though he is a prisoner!"

Mrs. Cooper was young, not thirty; beautiful in form and face; snowy skin and raven hair and eyes; tall, commanding, and graceful. My husband, on seeing her, exclaimed, "Maid of Saragossa!" And very appropriately did he transfer to her this poetic title.

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Outwardly, Dr. Cooper's deportment to me was barely civil, and so continued. I dared not ask one favour, so stern and seemingly implacably did he deport himself toward my husband and me, toward our section and the cause for which we were suffering; yet, in the months to come, as on that memorable night of January 21, 1866, many an occasion arose to convince me that Dr. Craven's successor, after all, was actuated by a genuine feeling of humanity toward the State prisoners, and I soon grew to recognise in him a lamb in wolf's clothing.

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CHAPTER XXIX
PRESIDENT JOHNSON HEARS WHAT THE "PEOPLE SAY"

UPON my return from the Fort on the 30th of January I redoubled my pleadings for Mr.Clay's release, both by correspondence and by visits to the White House. The President's bearing toward me was courteous and friendly, though it was apparent the confusion of the times and the pressure which was being brought upon him on every side was troubling him; but, notwithstanding that he listened and with every evidence of sympathy, Mr. Johnson continued irresolute, deferring from time to time on what, in fact, seemed the most trivial excuses, the issuing of the release papers. If I called once at the White House during the weeks that followed, I called fifty times, incessantly suing for my husband's freedom, and adding sometimes a plea for the pardons of friends and neighbours in Huntsville who were eager to resume their normal positions in the community. In the middle of February I was enabled to write home as follows:

"My Dear Father: I send your long-sued-for pardon. Act upon its requirements at once! I am pressing my husband's case and never mean to stop until success crowns my efforts. I am emboldened to hope the day not far distant when he will be a free man! Great political excitement now reigns. . . . The President is very kind to me always."

Notwithstanding there were times when my own heart sank to an almost hopeless state, I wrote thus hopefully to the patriarch at home, for each post told me of his increasing feebleness, and I longed to sustain him, at least until my husband's release was accomplished.

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"God bless you!" wrote my sister, Mrs. J. Withers Clay, early in March, "and give you success! I asked father to send you some special message. He replied, 'Give her my best love, and tell her for God's sake to tell me when my poor boy will be pardoned!' "

These appeals, as will be understood, were the private agonies which acted like a lash to spur me to the end of the task of securing my husband's freedom, and to stimulate me, even in the face of the continued delays which now were become so inexplicable.

Early in February a change in public feeling began to be made manifest in the press. The mystery of the detention of the prisoners at Fortress Monroe without trial was arousing curiosity. The New York Herald, thanks to the intervention of our friend, ColonelRobertBarnwell Rhett (of the doughty and fearless Charleston Mercury), who had presented Mr. Clay's case to Mr. Bennett, now began to make inquiry in the cases of the unjustly treated prisoners.

"Dear Mrs. Clay," wrote Colonel Rhett, late in December, "having the opportunity of a good talk with Mr. Bennett, of the New York Herald, day before yesterday, I urged him to come out for the release of your husband. He said he did not know much about the business! I told him Mr. Clay was universally recognised to be one of the purest and most high-minded public men in the country - one wholly incapable of anything criminal or questionable; and that he had gone to Canada at the solicitation of Mr. Davis to communicate with the Peace Party of the North. I reminded him that, after the collapse of the Confederate Government, when a reward was offered for his arrest, Mr. Clay had voluntarily and promptly surrendered himself, asking an investigation; and that no intelligent man in the country who knew anything of our public men believed the charges to be other than frivolous and absurd. I added

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that Mr. Clay's prolonged captivity was regarded simply as an outrage on propriety, and that if he, Mr. Bennett, would take the subject in hand, he would greatly gratify the Southern people.

"He showed an interest in the matter, and said he would take it up in the Herald. That paper, you are aware, aims to reflect current public opinion, irrespective of parties, and now warmly supports President Johnson against the Radicals. It is a great power, and by preparing the public mind and strengthening the President, may aid you efficiently."

The results of this interview by no means met the hopes of Colonel Rhett, however; for the utterances of Mr. Bennett's paper were few and guarded. But they were as a straw showing the veering of the wind.

"I was disappointed in Mr. Bennett's fulfilment of his promise to speak in Mr. Clay's behalf in the Herald," ran a second letter from our friend. "A few incidental expressions of opinion and a communication published did not come up to my expectations. If you feel disposed to write, Mrs. Bennett is the channel by which to reach him. She told me she sympathised with the South in her feelings, and admired Southerners. . . .In failing to deal with the case as you present it, the President must be very feeble in the article of nerve, touching his War Secretary and other Radical adversaries. Yet the widow prevailed with the unjust Judge, and I trust your importunity may weary the cautious Tennesseean into decided steps for Mr. Clay's release!

"Yours, etc.,
"R. BARNWELL RHETT."

Early in the month of February two important letters reached me through Mr. R. J. Haldeman. They were addressed to the President, and bore the signature of Thaddeus Stevens and R. J. Walker, respectively. Since my letter addressed to him in May, 1865, Mr. Haldeman's

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efforts had been unremitting to interest in my husband's behalf those whose recommendations were likely to have most weight with the President and his advisers. He now wrote me as follows:

"MRS. C. C. CLAY, JR.

"My Dear Madam: I inclose you a very handsome letter from the Honourable R. J. Walker to the President. I also sent you the letter of Mr. Stevens, which has become of some importance in view of Mr. Stevens's recent utterances. Mr. Walker considers it of the highest importance, and wonders how I obtained it.

"After seeing you, I called on Mr. S- in reference to the proposed visit (to you), but found him brooding over the violent speech which he has since made. I did not therefore deem it prudent to insist upon the performance of his promise, and am confirmed in my judgment by events.

"During the day I heard something which convinced me the President would not then act. This I could not bring myself to tell you, and therefore obeyed a hasty summons to New York by an unceremonious departure from Washington. As the future unfolds, I hope to be again at Washington, and at the propitious moment. I hope you will keep up your good spirits, for, upon the faith of a somewhat phlegmatic and never over-sanguine Dutchman, I think the period of Mr. Clay's release approaches rapidly. . . . Mr. Walker, however, desires me to say to you that 'as we must all go to Clay at last, why not go at once?' I think this pointed witticism would bear repetition to the President. I am, very respectfully, Madam,

Yours,
"R. J. HALDEMAN."

"February 3, 1866.

As I had done in the case of General Grant's letter, I now hastened to send to the President the letters from Thaddeus Stevens and Judge Walker, both of whom recommended the prompt release of Mr. Clay. The letter from R. J. Walker was what might have been expected from an old friend of Mr. Clay's; that from Mr. Stevens, the most radical of Radicals, was a source of some astonishment. It was not the only surprise of those weeks, however.

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"I have had strange visitors lately," I wrote to father. "Some extremists of the Radical party have called upon me to assure me of their belief in my husband's innocence!" And in my diary of the 14th of that fateful February, I find entered: "When will wonders cease? Who but the Honourable Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, has called, and voluntarily, to say he will do anything in his power for me or Mr. Clay; knows he is innocent; believes Mr. Davis to be also innocent! It is the goodness of God!"

The circumstances of Mr. Wilson's unexpected visit were altogether dramatic. I was seated at the dinner-table with the family of Mrs. Parker, when, it being still early in the evening, a visitor was announced who declined to give his name or the purpose for which he had called.

"Tell Mrs. Clay that a friend wishes to see her," was his message. A sudden remembrance flashed over me, and, indeed, over the friends around me, of the secret warning I had received just after my arrival in Washington, viz.: that I must be on my guard against strange visitors. After a few moments' consultation with the family, Idecided to see the stranger. Doctor Maury, Mrs. Parker's son-in-law (who had been Chief of Staff on General Longstreet's medical staff, and was a brave and charming man), accompanied me to the drawing-room door, encouraging me by telling me to have no fear, as he would remain near by. As I entered the room the Doctor drew back into the hall. He was prepared, he assured me, for any emergency.

Great, indeed, was my astonishment upon entering, to see, rising to meet me, Senator Wilson, Vice-President of the United States!To that moment I had had no acquaintance with the Massachusetts Senator, though I had seen him often on the floor of the Senate. Though seized with an inward panic of apprehension that he

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was the bearer of some dreadful tidings, I took the proffered hand of my strange visitor, obeying mechanically an instinct of responsive courtesy. For a moment, however, fear made me speechless. At last, Mr. Wilson broke the painful silence.

"You are doubtless surprised to see me," he said.

"Unutterably so!" I rejoined. "Please tell me quickly why you have come, and end this agony of suspense!" And I burst into tears.

"Do not weep, dear Madam!" said Mr. Wilson. "Mr. Clay is well, and I have come to tell you that I deeply sympathise with you and desire to help you to obtain his release!"

"Mr. Clay's surrender," Mr. Wilson continued, "reflects great honour upon him. He is a brave and good man. Though he and I were opposed in politics, I have always respected Mr. Clay. Even his enemies on my side of the Chamber always knew where to find the Senator from Alabama!"

My heart was so full as I listened to these words, I could not make answer to this tribute to the worth of my suffering husband but by a fresh flow of tears. Somehow, as he stood before me, the erstwhile shoemaker of Nantucket seemed stamped with the seal of nobility from God! I did not then know his kindly nature, and those to whom I related the incident of this visit said nothing to impress me with the sincerity of Senator Wilson's act. On the contrary, many assured me that some selfish and sinister motive impelled the interview, and that Mr. Wilson would not commit himself by writing what he had spoken. A friend to whom I wrote an account of the visit, replied, counselling me as follows:

"I do not personally know Mr. Wilson, but believe him, from report, to be tricky, unscrupulous, and only hypocritically fanatical. Mr. Stevens may have spoken

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to him, or Mr. Sumner (whom, you remember, I saw); or he may have wished to approach the President through an opening which he supposed congenial to the President's wishes. However, your course is clear. Commit Mr. Wilson by a letter to the President, so that when the fight waxes furious he may not be able to take advantage of what the President may do. I consider it a good sign that the President desires to keep the letters of Messrs. Stevens and Walker."

In the meantime I had spoken of the incident with warm enthusiasm to Mr. Johnson. He replied very much as others had done; to wit., that Mr. Wilson would not commit to writing the sentiments he had expressed verbally to me.

"He fears the Radical press too much," said the President.

Nettled somewhat at this distrust, I assured Mr. Johnson of my faith in his Vice-President; that I would get the letter from him, and voluntarily. "If not," I added, somewhat stung by his cynicism, "I will extort it!"

Shrugging his shoulders, and casting up one eye, a characteristic habit of the President, he asked, "How?"

"Simply," I replied, "by an avowal that I will give to the Herald and other papers the whole affair, telling how the Honourable Senator had come, secretly, by night, like Nicodemus, to deceive by false promises a sorrowful woman, for some base reason best known to himself!"

Leaving the President still with an incredulous smile upon his face, I returned to my asylum at Mrs. Parker's, and shortly addressed Mr. Wilson a note, expressive of my wish. A reply, under his own frank, reached me early in March, and I bore it in some triumph to the President. The Vice-President's letter, a copy of which I afterward secured, was dated from the "United States Senate Chamber, Washington, March 3, 1866." It was addressed to

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"HIS EXCELLENCY, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

"Sir" [the letter began]: "Mrs. Clay, the wife of Clement C. Clay, is now in the city, and has requested me to obtain permission for her husband to go to his home on parole. His father is said to be at the point of death, his mother recently deceased, and, if there be no objections or reasons unknown to me why the request of Mrs. Clay should be denied, I have no hesitation in recommending its favourable consideration, if only from motives of humanity, as I have no doubt Mr. Clay will be forthcoming when his presence is again required by the Government.

"I have the honour to be,

"Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
(Signed.) "H. WILSON."

Some six weeks later, when Mr. Clay's release was at last accomplished, and the press was busy with comments upon it, the names of the gentlemen who had written to the President on my husband's behalf being enumerated, some of the Radical papers attempted to deny the probability of Mr. Wilson's intercession; which was, as it appeared to me, a singularly useless thing to do, since his letter was already filed among the Government's archives. But the air everywhere was full of political revolution, and parties and partisans did not hesitate to resort to such means in their endeavour to effect the desired feeling in the public mind.

Every step taken by the President in those days was opposed or attacked. In my efforts to accomplish my husband's release, I came in contact with many good and earnest men, anxious to serve Mr. Clay and me, though often wholly disapproving of Mr. Johnson's weak course. The retention of Mr. Stanton in the Cabinet was peculiarly offensive to a great many. Wherever a political meeting was held, Mr. Johnson was liable to vituperative assault. Private conversation teemed with rumours of a growing and increasingly violent opposition.

In view of Mr. Johnson's demonstrated kindliness to me, it was not only loyal to the President, but, I hoped,

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would prove protective to Mr. Clay's interest, that I should give the Executive the benefits of some of the warnings I had heard by no means privately uttered. I, therefore, spoke to him fearlessly, and wrote to him no less unrestrainedly.

A few days after Mr. Wilson's visit, I wrote to Mr. Johnson in this wise, my letter being dated February 16th:

"MR. PRESIDENT.

"Dear Friend: Fearing I may not see you this morning, I fortify myself with this note. I go up [to the War Department] hoping for my father's correspondence. If I get neither, may I beg to remind you of your promises? I have some strange things to tell you. . . .Rumour says that 'the people say,' 'If Mr. J- does not support them versus the Radicals, they will call on General Grant!' I know you will not falter, and are not to be intimidated by threats from brave men, far less cowards. . . .Will you not send me one line? Do! and say the wheel has advanced one notch toward the day of deliverance!"

A letter received after sending the above missive, in addition to the conferences I held daily with Judges Black and Hughes, and with others calculated by their established judicial and political worth to aid me, had its share in stimulating me to press my arguments home more and more confidently in my future interviews with Mr. Johnson.

"I was spectator yesterday in a Democratic Convention in an adjoining County (Harrisburg)," ran the letter, "when the news of the veto was brought. A resolution of approval was immediately adopted, and I, being seen in the crowd, was called out. I raised such a storm in fifteen minutes as would have done the President's heart good to have witnessed. The people are palpitating with eagerness to have the battle- ground defined, foggy constructions and platforms removed, so that they may charge upon the foes to a restored and tranquil Union.

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"Alea jacta est: Mr. Johnson has put his hand to the plow, and cannot look back. . . .He has shown the very highest order of statesmanship in that command of himself and ability to bide his time, amid unexampled embarrassments, which have won for him the confidence of reflecting men. But could you not gently insinuate some day that, hereafter, the great debate, on appeal, is to be carried before the Tribunal of the American people in the case of the President versus Congress? . . . .Many of Mr. Lincoln's acts, wrong in themselves, were nevertheless pardoned or applauded, because they evinced energy, courage or willingness to shoulder responsibility. . . .

"As one of the people, . . . and accustomed to 'pulse' the public, I think I may unhesitatingly assert that Mr. Johnson would gain immensely by no longer waiting to be attacked and undermined, but boldly striking his country's and his own enemies. If he would break out before witnesses into indignant denunciation of Mr. Stanton for having attempted to sap the foundation of liberty, and that, therefore, he is unfit to be in the Government of a free people, a thrill of joy would course like electricity through the land. Let the contest be only strictly defined; let the President, with a cabinet of friends, stand forward as the defender of peace and Union against a Congress which seeks to perpetuate strife, discord, and disunion, and we will, by meetings held in every county of the North, so arouse the people in support of our constitutional and law-abiding President against a lawless and usurping Congress, that it would be comparing small things to great to compare it with the pressure which General Monk and the people of England brought to bear upon the fanatical Parliament in behalf of Charles II."

A few days after the receipt of this letter, while on my way to call upon the President, and in the company of

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my faithful friend, Mrs. Bouligny, I met Mr. Stanton descending the stairs of the White House. I saw by the Secretary's manner that he recognised me. Indeed, there was a half-inclination of the head, as if he had expected me to bow to him. I did not do so. The innate contempt I felt for this despotic Secretary of War, whom I knew to be the power upholding Mr. Holt, who was so cruelly detaining my husband, froze my manner into a hauteur I could not easily have assumed. I went angrily to my appointment.

As I entered the parlour in which the President stood ready to receive me, I immediately broke into the subject to which I so continually had returned at each of my many visits during the past three months. But the President interposed a question.

"Did you meet Stanton as you came in?" he asked.

"I did!" I replied. "And he had the audacity to bow to me!"

"The scoundrel!" ejaculated the President. "He has been here an hour clamouring for the blood of Davis and Clay!"

"But you will release them?" I asked.

"You must be patient," answered Mr. Johnson. "I must detain them a little longer to satisfy public clamour!"

At this my indignation rose. In augmenting emotion I recapitulated the letters and indorsements I had brought to him urging my husband's release. I reiterated my reasons why the recommendations of these gentlemen should have weight with him. I referred to my husband's inability to combat the charges that had been made against him, while denied trial, the access of counsel, or his release from custody. I described his ill-health and the aged father at home, now so near to death; I rehearsed my husband's past services to his country and the dishonourable way in which the

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Government had acted toward this self-surrendered prisoner. I spoke the thoughts that rose in my heart, irrespective of the consequences, and, having massed my arguments in this way, I summed them all up in one uncontrollable protest:

"And now, Mr. President," I asked, "in the name of God, what doth hinder? In view of all these things, does it not seem that you are the lion in the path? Please tell me who was benefited by Mr. Lincoln's death? Was it Clement C. Clay? What good accrued to him from the murder? He was the loved representative of a proud constituency. He is now pining in solitary confinement. You, Mr. Johnson, are the one man benefited! You have succeeded to the highest office in the gift of the people! You, through this elevation, have become the centre of a nation's hopes, the arbiter of life and death!" I paused in my plea, at a movement of deprecation made by the President, but I would not be halted.

"You have promised me," I continued, "and Heaven knows how I thank you for it, that never while you sit in the Presidential chair will you surrender to the Military Commission the two prisoners in Fortress Monroe. In that, you have saved their lives! I have not the shadow of a doubt but that execution, and that in chains, as in Mrs. Surratt's case, might have taken place. But, when, notwithstanding the recommendations of such men as General Grant, Thaddeus Stevens, Judge Walker, and Henry Wilson, I see you waiting for 'public clamour' to subside, and, at the same time, in counsel with your Secretary of War, I am afraid. Again I implore you to stand firmly, my friend; thus far, at least, by not yielding to the desires of that wicked Commission and staining your soul with innocent blood!"

Turning, my eyes rested upon the marble bust of the late President, and I said, "Whose bust is that?"

"Mr. Lincoln's," was the surprised reply.

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"I know it!" I answered. "But is he not a dead President? And why, may I ask, do you, a living one, stand surrounded by his Cabinet? Why do you not reach out to the great conservative heart of this Nation and select your own Cabinet? Why not become the popular head, as you can become? So long as you stand, Mr. President, as the barrier between your Military Commission and my husband and Mr. Davis, so long will I dare to be your friend to the extent of telling you what the people say of you!"

"Well, what do they say?" asked the President, with an air of indifference which, it was obvious, was assumed.

"They say," I replied, "that you should get rid of Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet; that you should surround yourself with a Cabinet of your own! Why do you hobble yourself with a dead man's advisers? They say, too, you are swinging in too circumscribed a circle! I have even heard," I added, "hints of 'impeachment' uttered in connection with the dissatisfaction resulting from your administration!"

During my bold speech the President gave evidence of being deeply moved, if not irritated, by my revelations; and, feeling that I had said enough, if, indeed, not too much, in the intensity of my feelings, Mrs. Bouligny and I withdrew. Ere we left him, however, the President assured me, as he so often had done (though he said the words over each time with an earnest gravity that was void of consciousness of his repetition), that he would "confer as to the release in our next Cabinet meeting!"

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CHAPTER XXX
THE GOVERNMENT YIELDS ITS PRISONER

BY the early spring of '66 the faces of old friends began to reappear in the Northern cities. New York, which I necessarily visited at times during those eventful months, when not at the Fort with Mr. Clay or beseeching the President on his behalf, was crowded with Southern people, many of whom were returning from abroad, or were industriously seeking to reëstablish business connections. In the capital one met on every hand friends of the ante-bellum days, saddened and changed, it might be, in fortune, but brave-spirited and walking with heads upright and hearts strong to meet the future. "I am persuaded that our States and people are to be prosperous, despite the portentous clouds which are now around us," wrote Mr. Mallory, from Bridgeport, Connecticut, where, now an invalid, he was constrained to remain; "and that the day is not far distant when you and your incomparable lord, with other congenial spirits, will smile at fate and look back to the paths we are now treading with more of pride than of sorrow! My love to Clay. God love him! What would I not give to be able to serve him!"

A spirit as loyal and comforting to us pervaded the circle of old-time associates in Washington, and permeated the newer ones who had gathered about me in my adversity. Mrs. Parker, the brilliant hostess of the Buchanan days, who now so hospitably had thrown open her home to me, proved an unsparing and faithful friend. Her hospitality to me and to the legion of other friends

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who flocked to offer their sympathy and services to me was unstinted, and the several members of her family vied with each other in extending their kindnesses and protection to me.

Among the friends who reappeared in Washington about this time, my diary notes the calls upon me early in '66 of fair Constance Cary and her fiancé, Burton Harrison,(*) long since released from the imprisonment which, for a time, he shared with Mr. Davis; of my kinswoman, Mrs. Polk, of North Carolina, and of Madame Le Vert, the brilliant Octavia Walton, who, almost three decades before, had led all other fascinating beauties in the capital. Accompanied by her daughters, Mme. Le Vert had returned to the North to intercede for the pardons of General Beauregard and others of her kin and friends. Her comings and goings were heralded everywhere. She was the distinguished member of the Southern coterie in New York, whence frequent trips were made to the capital, and it was commonly remarked that the charm of her personality had suffered no diminution with the increase of years.

(* Mr. Harrison died in Washington, March 29, 1904. A.S.)

Our beloved General Lee, who had been summoned to Washington to appear before the Reconstruction Committee, was the lion of the day. I saw him several times, surrounded by hosts of admirers, the ladies begging for mementoes, buttons - anything, in fact, he might be persuaded to give up, while he, modest and benevolent, yielded helplessly to their demands. It was during these months that I became acquainted with the lovely Mme. de Podestad, General Lee's kinswoman, who was both witty and beautiful. For a number of years, as the wife of one of the Spanish Minister's suite, she was a conspicuous member of Washington society. Going thence to Spain, she became lady-in-waiting to the Queen. Madame de Podestad was a devoted admirer of

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her heroic kinsman, and I saw much of her in those memorable days of '66.

It was a time of intense political excitement. The strife over the Civil Rights bill was the absorbing topic everywhere. The "returning good sense of the people," upon which the President so long had appeared to depend, was less apparent than he had hoped, and to many astute minds the air seemed to vibrate with premonitions of the Government's overthrow. Cabinet changes were so earnestly desired that a discussion of that body became part of every conversation. Mr. Johnson's absorption in the progress of the Civil Rights bill was so great, that, upon my return from a visit to my husband, early in April, realising the inadvisability and the inconsiderateness of pressing my demands at that moment, I yielded to the urgings of my friends and entered upon a short season of diversion. I remember to have visited, in company with Senator Bright and Mr. Voorhees, the studio of Vinnie Reames, whose vogue in Washington was then at its height; and I indulged in a pleasure trip to Baltimore, where a great fair was in progress which had been arranged by the patriotic ladies of that city. Contributions had poured in, and half the capital was in attendance.

"Mrs. Johnson sent a superb basket of flowers," reads the account I sent home, "which was raffled for sixty dollars! A portrait of the President was bought and sent to her. Also General Johnston's and General Lee's were bought and sent to their wives. Mr. Corcoran won the portrait of 'Stonewall' Jackson. Admiral Semmes was present one day, and he and I promenaded the rooms together. Though not the 'Pirate's Bride,' I was proud of his company. A robe de chambre for Mr. Davis and a superb pillow for Mr. Clay are in my possession.Will take them soon! Ross Wynans," I added, in describing the more generous donations sent

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to the energetic ladies, "has sent one hundred thousand dollars, and an English gentleman twenty-five thousand!"

Admiral Semmes was the most recent of the State prisoners to be released, and his appearance at the fair was the signal for a lively enthusiasm. By this time Mr. Stephens, our late Vice- President, was a free man, and thrice had called upon me in Washington to offer sympathetic suggestions concerning the case of my husband, so inexplicably detained. Our dear friend, ex-Secretary of the Navy Mallory, had been given his liberty early in March.

"Deeply anxious about your good husband," Mr. Mallory wrote, early in April, "I have deferred writing to you from day to day since my release, confident that I would soon be able to congratulate you upon his release. Persuaded that he will never be called upon seriously to respond to the charge upon which he was incarcerated, and unable to perceive any reason or motive for discriminating between him and others, myself included, who laboured in the Confederate cause, I am at a loss to conceive why this confinement continues. Of course, I fully appreciate the character of the struggle between the two great departments of the Government, and the embarrassments which it throws in the President's path; and hence I attribute to this cause all which affects Mr. Clay, and which I cannot otherwise account for. But the restoration of civil law throughout the country opens a way which his friends may very properly take . . . and I have been prepared to learn it has been entered upon!"

A resort to the habeas corpus proceedings thus suggested by Mr. Mallory had already been discussed by Judge Black as a step to be taken when all other efforts had proved unsuccessful. By the fourteenth of March, Mr. Johnson's courage to act in behalf of Mr. Clay had risen to the point of procuring for him the liberty of the Fort

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without guard, from sunrise to sunset, which order I had carried at once to General Miles.

"I have not yet called upon the President," I wrote father upon my return from Fortress Monroe, on the 29th of March, "but will report myself to-morrow and ask of him that no revocation of the late order shall be made. I shall urge Mr. Clay's release, if only temporary, that he may come and see you and help you arrange your business. . . .The Radical pressure on the President is fearful. They have expelled Foote, and have persuaded Stewart, of Nevada, his son-in-law, to desert his colours and cause, and they may pass the veto over the President's manly veto of the Civil Rights bill. But President Johnson will fall, if fall he must, battling!"

The records of my calls upon the Executive during the weeks that followed almost might be traced by the many pencilled cards sent me by Mr. Johnson from time to time.

"It will be impossible for me to see you until it is too late. I am pressed to death!" reads one. "There is a committee here in consultation; I cannot tell what time they will leave. I fear too late, but see if in twenty minutes," runs another. And a third, "Some matters of importance are now transpiring. I will see you at anytime, but would prefer passing the answer until Saturday." Weeks passed thus in futile calls and beseechings, until, having tested every expedient to hasten the President to the fulfilling of his promise, my patience was exhausted.

"Again I am under the necessity of writing," I began in a letter to my sister, dated the fourteenth of April, "without announcing my husband's release! Nor can I give you any definite information save what I mean to do and wish others to do. I am at this moment from the President's; did not see him, but left a note inquiring when I could, and [asked] to be informed by note, which

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he often does in my case. He shall tell me in this interview whether he means speedily to release Mr. Clay. If not, then I will have issued the writ of habeas corpus, unless Judge Black oppose it!"

At eleven o'clock at night, however, I added, "The President sent for me to-night, and I have strong hopes that Mr. Clay will be released in a few days! I will telegraph you immediately when it occurs. I pray Heaven it may be ere this reaches you!"

Three days later, accompanied by my faithful friend, Mrs. Bouligny, I again called upon the President. It was eight o'clock in the evening. Having detected, as I believed, a disposition on Mr. Johnson's part yet further to procrastinate, notwithstanding his recent promises that he would order Mr. Clay's release, I was resolved not to leave the White House again without the requisite papers. I announced this intention to the President as he greeted us, asking him at the same time whether he would not spare me another moment's anxiety and write me the long- petitioned-for order for Mr. Clay's release.

Mr. Johnson's mood was light. He repeated some of the on dits of the day, trying in various ways to divert me from my object, to which, however, I as often persistently returned. From time to time other visitors entered to claim the President's attention; or, he excused himself while he went into a Committee meeting which was being held in an adjoining room. During such an interval I sat at the President's desk and scribbled a short letter in pencil to Mr. Clay. It was dated:

"EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, D. C.,
April 17, 1866.

"My precious husband!" I wrote. "Behold me seated in the library of this house, in the President's chair, writing you the 'glad tidings of great joy!' The President has just gone in for a few moments to see some gentlemen, and will bring me your release papers when he returns! He told me on the

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fourteenth that he would try to have them, but not to be too hopeful. So I came with some misgiving, to be relieved and rejoiced. Ere this will reach you, you will be informed by telegram of the release. I will telegraph you to-night. . . . Judge Black anxiously desires to see you, also Judge Hughes, both kind friends to me!"

It was still early in the evening when I wrote this buoyant epistle,which immediate after-events scarcely bore out. The President returned again and again to my companion and me, but ten o'clock arrived and still the papers had not been given me. I was growing more and more impatient, but upon reiterating my intention not to leave without the papers, the President became somewhat jocular. He invited Mrs. Bouligny and me to make ourselves comfortable, his words being accompanied by an evasive smile. My soul rose up in resentment at this!

"You seem to be inclined to treat this matter lightly, Mr. President," I said hotly. "I am indignant! I want the paper!" Alas! my protest did not win me a direct compliance. The hands of a nearby clock already pointed to eleven when, the President having seated himself at a desk or writing- table that stood at hand, I rose and stepped to his side.

"Mr. President," I said, "are you going to give me that paper? I will not go until you do!" My words were hurled at him angrily. He looked up at me curiously, and the half-cynical smile on his face changed. It was as if, notwithstanding the ardour with which I had urged my demand throughout the evening, he now for the first time realised I was not to be put off.

"Give me the paper, Mr. Johnson!" I urged. "I am resolved to have it!"

My imperative demand at last proved effectual. The President turned without further demur and wrote a brief note, which, upon calling an attendant, he sent out

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immediately. In a few moments the messenger returned, bearing a paper which read as follows:

"WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, D. C.,
"April 17, 1866.

"ORDERED:
"That Clement C. Clay, Jr., is hereby released from confinement and permitted to return to and remain in the State of Alabama, and to visit such other places in the United States as his personal business may render absolutely necessary, upon the following conditions, viz.: That he takes the oath of allegiance to the United States, and gives his parole of honour, to conduct himself as a loyal citizen of the same, and to report himself in person at any time and place to answer any charges that may hereafter be preferred against him by the United States.

"By order of the President,
"E. D. TOWNSEND,
"Ass't Adgt. General."

The paper, prepared by the hand of an amanuensis, had been written at and dated from the Executive Mansion, and a space beneath had been reserved for the name of the Secretary of War. When it reached my hand, however, the words at the top, viz.: "Executive Mansion," had been crossed out and "War Department" substituted; the space for signature had been filled in with the name of Mr. Stanton's assistant, General Townsend, and the words "Secretary of War" (below) had been crossed out. The changes were made in a different ink from that used in the body of the paper. The document was a curious additional proof of Mr. Stanton's personal indisposition to release his illegally detained prisoner, and of Mr. Johnson's equal evasion of the responsibility of freeing him. As neither name appeared upon the document, it would seem as if a "muddle" had been intended in the event of some later complications arising.

It was already toward the midnight hour when this document was handed to me. I seized it eagerly, and,

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thanking the President for at last performing the act for which I had so long pleaded, I hurried to the carriage which had been in waiting and ordered the coachman to drive with all haste to the telegraph office. As I parted from the President he expressed the warmest good wishes for Mr. Clay's health and our future, and pressed upon me an autographed carte de visite, which I took with no less surprise than pleasure, being glad to see in the politician before me this evidence of the inner, sympathetic man. Though our horses dashed down the avenue at breakneck speed, it was within a few moments of twelve o'clock when I hurried into the telegraph office.

"Can you send a telegram to-night?" I asked.

"Yes, Madam," was the reply.

Inexpressibly relieved, I dictated these words:

"HONOURABLE C. C. CLAY, Fort Monroe.

"You are released! Have written you to-night.

"V. C. C."

The President's telegram to the Fortress having been sent simultaneously with mine, my husband was given his freedom the next day. There remained, however, yet a few duties to perform ere I might join him at Petersburg, whence we together were to return to our beloved home; to Alabama, with its purple and russet mountains and spreading valleys, its warm hearts and loyal friends, and where waited the feeble and eager father, Ex-Governor Clay, whose remaining tenure of life was to be so short. There were kindnesses to be acknowledged ere I left the capital, and on every side I met detaining hands overwhelming me with congratulations on my success at last. The evening before my departure, the venerable former Vice-President of the Confederate States called upon me to extend his good wishes for the future. Being deterred from coming in

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person, Judge Black wrote several notes full of his characteristic impulsiveness.

"Dear Madam," his messages ran, "tell your great and good husband I could do nothing for him, because his magnificent wife left nobody else a chance to serve him! I would have been proud to have some share in his defense, but circumstances have denied me the honour. I rejoice none the less in his happy deliverance, and I have no right to envy you the privilege which you have used so grandly, of vindicating his stainless name. His liberation under the circumstances is a full acknowledgment that the charges against him in the proclamation are infamously false. . . . Your note of yesterday evening literally took my breath away. After you had done so much for yourself and I had done so little, nay, less than nothing, you address me as if I had been your benefactor merely because I rejoiced in your success. . . . If I say but little, you must not, therefore, suppose that I shall ever forget your amazing eloquence, your steadfast courage under circumstances which might have appalled the stoutest heart; your unshaken faith where piety itself might almost have doubted the justice of God; the prudence with which you instinctively saw what was best to be done, and the delicacy which never allowed the charms of the lady to be lost in the great qualities of the heroine. These things are written down at full length in the book of my memory, where every day I turn the leaf to read them. . . . I cannot forget your sad look when I saw you at Mrs. Parker's the last time. Do not allow yourself to doubt the ultimate triumph of justice. God has recorded among His unalterable decrees that no lie shall live forever!

"Remember, if I can serve you it will always seem like a privilege to do it. In feudal times, when the liege man did homage to his suzeraine, he put his head between her hands (if it was a queen or a lady) and declared himself

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hers to do her commands; to be the friend of her friends, and the enemy of her enemies, for life and limb and earthly honours. Imagine the homage vowed in proper form, and claim your authority as suzeraine whenever you please. I ought to add that Mrs. Black was so wrought upon by your conversation that she has longed to see you again, and her whole heart, an honest and good one as ever beat, is yours."

"You went to work like a true wife," was the message sent by my dear old mess-mate, Mrs. Fitzpatrick, "and God blessed you for it. Did you see Mr. Holt? I have heard he was our bitterest enemy. Can it be so?"

"Ten thousand thanks to God, my dear friend, for your release!" wrote Mr. Mallory to my husband. "May He punish with rigorous justice... your unjustifiable and most cruel incarceration! My wife and I, if indescribables would permit us, would dance for joy to-day at the news of your release. Love to your wife! God bless her bright spirit and noble heart; and may we meet in Florida, one acre of whose barrens I would not give for all New England!"

From Mr. Lamar, "dear old Lushe," the following tender word came: "Ah, my friend, you know not how often, how constantly my heart has been with you! Often in the watches of the night, when all around was hushed in sleep, have I wept over your fate! . . . I have not time to write now, except to beg you to come right here and make your abode with me. We have a large house. Oh, do, Mr. Clay, do come and see me! I would share the last dollar I have with you. Come, my friend, and live with me, and let us henceforth be inseparable. Please come. I believe the sight of you will restore my health; at least, if anything can.

"Your devoted brother, L. Q. C. LAMAR."(*)

(* Mr. Clay's response to this letter is printed in Mayes' "Life of Lamar," page 122)

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The sight of these letters of long ago sets the tears gushing, and awakens a thousand tender memories of kind hearts that long since ceased to beat to the emotions of pain or pleasure. Oh! the vast army of men and women who, by their sympathy in those last crucial days of my experiences in the capital, were a buoy to my courage, and that of my husband, broken in health, and heart, and spirit, as we turned back to our home in Alabama!

The news of his mother's death, which came to Mr. Clay a few days after his release from Fortress Monroe, fell upon him like a pall. I could not induce him to visit Washington, to which city powerful friends had invited him. He had but one wish; to return to his stricken father, far from the turbulent political centre, where a man's life and honour were but as a pawn in the hands of the unscrupulous politicians of that day.

A few months and his father had passed away, gladdened, despite the vicissitudes of his later days, that his cherished son at last was restored to him. We laid the tired body beside that of the little mother. Together they sleep in the valley that smiles up so perennially to the crest of Monte Sano. A few years of effort for my sake, to retain an interest in the world which to his broken heart appeared so cruel and hollow, and my husband withdrew to our mountain home, sweet with the incense of the cedars; to his books and the contemplation of nature; to the companionship of the simple and the young. Yet a few more years, and he, too, fell wearily to sleep, and was put to rest beside those he had so well loved. I can think of no more fitting close to this portion of my memories than these brief quotations, from some of the hundreds of tributes which came from all quarters of the land, like the upwelling of healing springs in the desert, when at last I was left alone.

One who sat in the Senate Chamber in Washington,

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scanning a later generation of his fellows, all eager in the strife for the fame that is the guerdon of the true statesman, wrote thus of Mr. Clay, his predecessor:

"You knew him best, having proved him, by a long association in the sacred character of wife, in many years of trial filled with memorable vicissitudes, as a true and knightly gentleman, a devout Christian, a loyal husband and friend, a patriot of the sternest type, a statesman of great ability, and the devoted son of Alabama. In my course of thought and conduct, as his successor in the Senate, I have thought it well to accept his standard as that which would best help me worthily to represent our beloved State. Mr. Clay left a character here which stands greatly to the credit of the State, and will be quoted long after we have passed away, in proof of the character of the people he so worthily represented. His name and public history in the Senate are a cause of pride to our people.

"Your sincere friend,
"JOHN T. MORGAN."

And one who had been our intimate friend for more than thirty years, Bishop Henry C. Lay, wrote of my dear one thus:

"How gentle and kind he was! How fond of young things, and how tender to the weak and helpless! Especially was he a singularly devoted husband, giving you his admiration and his confidence. . . .Life seemed very full of promise to him in those days. It was a sad changewhenthe storm arose, with its exile, imprisonment, disappointed hopes, retirement into seclusion and inaction! Truly your life, with its opposite poles in Washington and Alabama, has been a varied one!"

THE END

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