Authors: Jennifer Chiaverini
Not long into September, Mr. Huson came down with a terrible fever. Mr. Ely campaigned for his friend’s release—not only was he gravely ill, but he was also a civilian—but Lieutenant Todd flatly refused. Lizzie resolved to plead Mr. Huson’s case to the lieutenant herself, so she instructed Caroline to pack a basket with his favorites, ginger cake and buttermilk, and added a bouquet of autumn blossoms for good measure.
When she asked the guard to take her to see the lieutenant, he gave her a curious look and said, “You must mean the captain, Ma’am.”
“I suppose I do,” said Lizzie, surprised. In her opinion, nothing about Lieutenant Todd’s service merited a promotion. Perhaps the guard, whom she did not recognize and was likely new at his post, was mistaken.
But when she arrived at the commandant’s office, she stopped short in the doorway. A tall, dark-haired man with a full, untidy beard stood behind the desk, which was cluttered and disorganized to a degree Lieutenant Todd never would have tolerated, sorting through stacks of papers and muttering to himself. He looked to be about five years younger than herself, and he wore the uniform and insignia of a captain.
“Captain Gibbs, sir,” said the guard. “Miss Van Lew to see you.”
The captain glanced up, his gaze traveling from her face to the basket on his arm. “Miss Van Lew,” he greeted her, wiping his palms on his trousers before gesturing to a chair and seating himself. “Lieutenant Todd told me much about you. I was expecting you to call eventually.”
“Why, the lieutenant never mentioned you at all,” said Lizzie, concealing her surprise behind a show of disappointment and mild affront. “I do hope you like ginger cakes and buttermilk. They were his favorites.”
“I like them very much indeed,” he replied, his eyes lighting up eagerly. She had scarcely set the basket on his desk before he was digging into it, and by the time she had arranged her skirts gracefully and sat down, he already had ginger cake crumbs in his beard.
“I shall have to learn your favorites too.” She paused to allow him time to finish eating, but the noisy smacking of lips and licking of fingers was so off-putting that she had to look away. “I gather that you have taken over as commandant?”
“Yes. Quite an honor. Quite a responsibility.” Vigorously he wiped his palms over the desk, scattering crumbs on the papers. “Of course, I would prefer to be on the battlefield, but one must serve where one’s duty requires.”
“I wholeheartedly agree.” Lizzie paused, preparing herself. “Duty is, in fact, what brings me to you today, Captain: my duty as a Christian and as a lady to dispense charity with mercy upon the sinner as well as the just. You have in your care a desperately ill gentleman, a civilian, who will likely perish if he is not returned to his family, whose tender ministrations may yet restore him to health.”
“You refer to Calvin Huson, the lawyer from New York.”
“Yes, Captain, I do.”
“I could paper the walls of this entire room with the notes his friend Mr. Ely has consumed in writing to me about him,” the captain remarked, and Lizzie smiled obligingly. “Of course, I must refuse.”
Lizzie kept her expression serene. “And why
must
you refuse, Captain?”
“I’m reluctant to criticize my predecessor, but regrettably, his discipline was wanting.” Captain Gibbs shook his head, frowning. “The prisoners are unaccustomed to a firm hand. They must learn, and quickly, that I will not indulge them as he did.”
“Releasing a gravely ill civilian to his family is not a sign of indulgence but of mercy.”
“I would not expect a lady like you to understand.” Captain Gibbs’s smile was patiently condescending. “I cannot free every prisoner who falls ill.”
“I am not asking you to release every ill prisoner—”
“Not yet, but this is how it begins.” He rose and came around to the front of the desk. “Fruit pies.”
She blinked up at him. “I beg your pardon?”
“You asked for my favorites. Your ginger cake is delicious, but I prefer fruit pies.” He shrugged apologetically. “I confess I don’t care for buttermilk.”
“I won’t forget.” She rose, extended her hand gracefully, and managed to put some warmth into her smile as he shook her hand and bade her farewell.
Rebuffed but undaunted, Lizzie went over his head to General Winder, just as she had done when Lieutenant Todd would not cooperate. There she ran into another immovable obstacle. General Winder would not release Mr. Huson without receiving an equally valuable Confederate prisoner in exchange, but President Lincoln and Secretary of State Seward refused to exchange prisoners, because to do so would be tantamount to official recognition of the Confederate government.
Outraged and increasingly alarmed by his friend’s worsening condition, Mr. Ely flooded the prison mail with letters to officials both North and South, imploring them to initiate a system of prisoner exchanges to alleviate suffering on all sides. Even the Richmond press seemed to support the idea of prisoner exchanges, not only to benefit Southern soldiers held captive in the North, but also to relieve the Confederacy of the great expense of keeping so many Yankees under lock and key. “Within the past ten days, $700 has been expended for bread for their consumption, and $2,000 for meat,” the
Enquirer
complained in mid-September, going on to estimate that the Yankee prisoners cost the Confederacy around eleven thousand dollars each week. “It has been found necessary, within a few days past,” the reporter continued, with an irritating air of satisfaction, “to discontinue the rations of coffee and sugar hitherto allowed the prisoners, and the deprivation is said to have told more upon the spirits of the Yankees than any other circumstance connected with their captivity.”
Disgusted, Lizzie concluded that only someone who had never set foot inside the prisons could believe that.
As the senior prisoner, the energetic Congressman Ely did what he could to boost morale. Not long after Manassas, he and the other officers formed the Richmond Prison Association “for mutual improvement and amusement.” Mr. Ely was elected president, and the association’s first order of business after choosing a vice-president, secretary, and treasurer and toasting themselves with tepid water from a wooden pail was to design an official seal—a swarm of lice arranged in a circle with the motto, “Bite or Be Damned.” Their meetings featured recitations, debates, card games, or music, with “Home Sweet Home” a particularly favorite song.
Neither the entertainments offered by the Richmond Prison Association nor the comforts provided by Lizzie, Eliza, and an increasing number of colored servants—their own, or those employed by other anonymous Unionists, or acquaintances of Mary Jane who came of their own accord—could make the prison tolerable, and occasionally prisoners would attempt to escape. On September 5, Colonel de Villiers, a surgeon with the Eleventh Ohio Regiment, stole a Confederate officer’s coat and hat, hid behind the prison gate until he heard the guards offer the challenge and countersign, and used the password to make his exit through the front gates. The following night, two enlisted men stole out a first-floor window and fled all the way to the foot of Libby Hill before they were shot by members of the Louisiana Battalion stationed nearby. Ten days later, four men escaped from the prison depot but were pursued by guards to Rocketts Wharf, where one of the fugitives was shot and killed, a second was mortally wounded, and the two others were compelled to surrender. Three nights later, six more prisoners, undeterred by the deaths and recaptures of their comrades, fled the prison and disappeared into the city, eluding their frustrated pursuers, who eventually gave up after a vigorous but fruitless search.
“We have heard it alleged,” the Richmond
Whig
opined tartly, “in explanation of the escape of so many federal prisoners from the factories in this city, that the sentinels are more vigilant in keeping outsiders out, than in preventing the egress of insiders. There is some plausibility in this allegation, as it is a fact that if a citizen projects his big toe half an inch over the ‘line,’ on the sidewalk in front of either factory, he will be requested to make a retrograde movement of the offending foot; whilst those who are passed in are suffered to depart, without much, if any, questioning. The officers in command should reform this practice, if it be still continued, as it is far more important to keep strangers in than to prevent them from entering.”
Lizzie knew Captain Gibbs had read the report, for she overheard him in the yard the next day, berating the guards for their inattention and negligence. They must have taken the criticism to heart, for not quite a week later, she learned from the
Enquirer
that it was no longer necessary for a prisoner to lean out a window to be shot by guards patrolling outside:
A YANKEE PRISONER KILLED BY A SENTINEL.
—A Yankee prisoner, named N. C. Buck, a member of the 79th New York Regiment, confined in the lower prison, near Rockett’s, was shot and instantly killed, about 1 o’clock Saturday morning, by one of the sentinels who kept watch over the building.—The latter observing the Yankee to approach the window in a suspicious manner, as if contemplating an escape, ordered him away several times. To these repeated commands the prisoner returned an insolent and defiant refusal, and the sentinel finally leveled his musket and fired. The ball struck the luckless Lincolnite in the stomach, inflicting a terrible wound, which terminated his life in a very few moments. The sentinel has not only been exonerated from all blame in the matter, but has received the applause of the proper military authorities for his prompt and decisive conduct in carrying out his instructions. The unfortunate Yankee was buried during the evening, in the burial ground at the foot of Third street, set apart for the interment of the Federals who may shuffle off their mortal coils in this locality.
It came as a dizzying shock to learn about such a terrible event from the newspaper considering that Lizzie spent so much time at the prison, but it happened that she had not visited the prison in several days. She had reluctantly sent servants instead, because for most of the week the man with the tobacco-stained beard had planted himself directly across the street, as bold as brass, and had taken to following her at a distance just beyond arm’s reach. His interest in shadowing her seemed to wax and wane, but with no predictable pattern. She might find him observing her for several days on end but then see him not at all for several more. The unsettling thought occurred to her that perhaps even on the days she thought herself rid of him, he might still be watching her from someplace unseen. Sometimes she eluded him by taking the carriage in the opposite direction, but other times she would lead him on a dull, lengthy, aimless walking tour of Church Hill or Capitol Square or the markets, hoping to bore him into leaving her alone.
By late September, Mr. Huson’s condition had drastically deteriorated. Desperately worried for his friend, Mr. Ely arranged for him to be moved to the infirmary, where despite Lizzie and Eliza’s ministrations, fever continued to wrack his body and steadily drain his vitality. Dr. Edward Higginbotham, the medical director and surgeon in charge of prison hospitals, who had seen Mr. Huson a few weeks before during one of his routine calls on the prison, gave him a more thorough examination and determined that he was suffering from typhoid fever.
“I will take him in,” said Lizzie. “This place is too foul, too wretched. He will never get better here.”
“Lizzie,” Eliza whispered, turning her head away from Mr. Huson, though he was in too wretched a state to overhear. “It’s too dangerous. Everyone will hear of this. All that you’ve done to dispel suspicions will be undone in an instant.”
“I cannot leave him here to die,” Lizzie protested. “He wasn’t even engaged in battle when they captured him. He was a spectator. He should have been freed long ago, or sentenced to house arrest somewhere in the city. If Mrs. Greenhow was entitled to such comforts, Mr. Huson certainly should have been.”
On October 9, with General Winder’s reluctant consent, Mr. Huson was wrapped in blankets and brought on a litter borne by several of his fellow prisoners to the Van Lew mansion, where he was soon settled into a bright, warm, airy room Mother and Judy, Mother’s maid, had prepared for him. To Lizzie his countenance seemed brighter, and he weakly spoke of feeling, on average, a little better, but his tongue remained very much swollen and white with deep ridges. Later that day, Francis Clark, a private who had tended Mr. Huson in the prison hospital, was paroled and sent to the Van Lew residence with instructions to assist them however he could.
“I would give one hundred dollars if Mr. Huson’s family could see for one moment how comfortably situated he is here,” prison commissary Captain Jackson Warner confided to Lizzie when he paid an unannounced visit to the sickroom the next morning. “They would be deeply touched and relieved if they knew what tender care you and your mother offer him.”
“Perhaps when he is recovered enough to travel, you could appeal to your superiors,” Lizzie suggested. “He will surely recuperate much faster in his own home, looked after by his own devoted wife.” To her relief, Captain Warner agreed.
The following day, Mr. Huson, though still feverish and pale, professed to feel much improved, and spoke hopefully of returning home. Lizzie sat by his bedside as he told her, in a thin, quavering voice, of his loving wife and energetic young children; of Rochester, New York, his dear old hometown; of his pride at being appointed by President Lincoln to be the United States’ commissioner to Costa Rica; and of his regret at being prevented from undertaking his duties. “When you are well, you surely will,” Lizzie encouraged him, smiling. His recovery seemed a hundredfold more likely than when he had been brought to Church Hill.
Yet on the morning of October 12, Lizzie met Captain Warner at the door gravely, wringing her hands, and as she led him to the sickroom, she explained that Mr. Huson had relapsed overnight. Dr. Higginbotham had administered medicines, shaken his head, and said that it was perhaps time to notify his wife.