CHAPTERXXIX
Amongthe unusual cases that often fell to me, was that of an elderly man, who had at one time been a judge in New Jersey, but drink had been his undoing. He was now serving a Civil Service sentence for petty larceny in Old Capitol Prison. I saw at once that he was a “bummer,” but that he had been a gentleman while sober. I did not feel much interest in this man personally, but he showed me a letter from his son, evidently educated, in which he begged his father to come home, saying he would take care of him and they might live together and be happy. The man had been a soldier for a short time, but had been degraded and discharged, and was now a prisoner of Civil Law. It was a difficult case, but for the sake of his faithful son I undertook it. I went to Judge Carter, of that district, urging him to let the man go.
“It is of no use, Miss Smith. The old fellow is a scamp and not to be trusted for a moment,” was the reply. “He will steal anything, and if I should let him go to-day he would be back here to-morrow on another charge. He was arrested on the charge of stealing a wheel-barrow.”
“Why, Judge,” I said, laughing, “he did not know what he was doing. He might as well have stolen a grindstone!”
This seemed greatly to amuse the judge, and he said directly: “Well, that settles it; if you will see that he goes out of the city on the train to his son, he may go. If he gets free he will be back here in a week on another charge.”
Quite pleased with my success, I went to the Sanitary Commission, still in Washington, secured a ticket to his home, and wrote to his son to meet him; then I notified the old man to be ready at a certain hour the next day when I would call for him.
When I went to the prison for him he began a round of deliberate lying, and tried every subterfuge to evade me and get away, so that he might remain in Washington. Finally I said: “You will go with me to the train where I will put you in charge of the conductor, who will deliver you to your son, and if you will not agree to this you may remain where you are.”
At last we started on our way down Pennsylvania Avenue. He insisted that the Government owed him money, so I took him to General Brice’s office, where his clerks soon found a record of desertion, fraud, and bounty-jumping. I lost no time in getting him to the train, threatening to have him arrested if he attempted to give me the slip. The conductor took him in charge and promised to deliver him to his son, and I was glad to get the old sinner off my hands. A few days after, I received a grateful letter from the faithful son.
Some months later I chanced to see a Jersey paper which stated that my old scamp had been arrested for stealing photograph albums, and that he had formerly been a reputable judge.
GENERAL HANCOCKGENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK
GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK
On returning from the train I stopped at the War Department for advice in some other cases. There I chanced to meet General Winfield Hancock, who gave me his autograph, and, chatting easily, we walked up Pennsylvania Avenue. And so it happened that I had walked down Pennsylvania Avenue with a miserable old “prison bird” and had walked up the Avenue with “the handsomest man in the army,” whose appearance was greatly enhanced by a spotless, brilliant uniform.
At Army Square Hospital I met again my former patient of City Point, who had captured his young rebel brother, the Captain. Their faithful brother had, with much care and difficulty, succeeded in bringing them to this hospital, but the cheerful young captain had died there from gangrene,—perhaps due to carelessness. The Major, weaker than when at City Point, unable to speak, motioned his brother to say that he had not forgotten the Lincoln badge I had given him, and that he would always cherish it. His devoted brother had struggled heroically to reach their city, and the Major had at least his wish to die at home. Thus ended another of the many tragedies of our unholy, unnecessary war.
During my last weeks in Washington, I attended a session of the trial of Wirz, a Swiss, formerly turnkey of Andersonville prison, who was later found guilty of barbarous treatment of prisoners of war and condemned to be hanged, with eight conspirators against the life of President Lincoln, including Mrs. Surette. I believe, however, that only four, including Mrs. Surette, were executed. These were the only traitors that suffered ignominious death. Can any other victorious nation show such Christian clemency?
Assisted by the Agency and Government Departments, I had great success in difficult cases. After much travelling about from one department to another in the interest of a convalescent soldier, I collected for him fifty dollars,—which was long due, and which at once enabled him to start for his home, greatly elated by his freedom.
CORDELIA ANDERSONCORDELIA ANDERSON
CORDELIA ANDERSON
An erratic, wild Irishman was made almost delirious by getting his long delayed three hundred dollars, and insisted upon giving me fifty dollars of it, but I informed him that I did not work for pay. He wrote me from New York later, on a double sheet of cap, in letters an inch long, with “God bless you!” scrawled all over the page.
Having left Doctor Painter’s hospitable home, I was now boarding on K Street, where I met a most charming blonde Scotch girl—Cordelia Anderson, holding a responsible position in the Treasury Department. She made my evenings delightful, as had my friend Annie Bain in our field tent at City Point, after the strain, the work and indignation of almost every day. A few years later, this rare young woman, still in Washington in July of ’67, sent for me to come to her on my way north on my vacation from Norfolk, Virginia, where I was Superintendent of Colored Schools. She was very ill with typhoid. I nursed her till the doctor insisted that for my own health I must leave her, when a kindly old Auntie took charge until her recovery.
The intolerable heat of Washington at that season was unusual. The streets were not paved, and a fine impalpable dust, continually rising, was suffocating. At the boarding house where we were, I saw the most astonishing rats, as large as small cats; and at night when I went down-stairs to get ice for the sick girl, they ran up-stairs ahead of me, and coolly sat upon their haunches, blinking at me with their vicious black eyes.