Jefferson Davis “attempted escape in disguise” with “a gown & hood

on & bucket on his arm”KEN LAWRENCE

On May 10, 1865, the Fourth Michigan Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army captured Jefferson Davis, members of his family, and his Confederate entourage near Irwinville, Georgia. Events of that morning — in particular, reports that Davis had attempted to escape capture disguised as a woman — proved to be the greatest embarrassment of Davis’s life. He and his admirers have sought ever since to deny and muddle them, in a permanent propaganda exercise that today we would call “spin.”

Three contemporaneous manuscripts recorded the event. Two are in archives. One of them has gone missing. Here I shall present the historical evidence as the trio of participant witnesses recorded it at the time. Not surprisingly, details and interpretations occasionally diverge. Even after taking account of the Rashomon effect, Davis’ humiliation remains.

Captain John Taylor Wood (1830–1904)

John Taylor Wood was a Confederate naval hero who had Virginia (formerly the USS

Merrimack) in the famous 1862 battle of the ironclads against the USS Monitor. He was Zachary Taylor’s grandson and Jefferson

Manuscripts, Vol. 71, No. 4 (Fall) 327

MANUSCRIPTS328

Davis’s nephew. Wood devoted nine pages of his diary to the May 10 events. This is my transcription of his full narrative:

May 10–/65 Unfortunate day! We camped last night near a stream with a narrow thicket & swamp on either side of it, as is the case with all streams in this pine region. Capt. Campbell with some of his scouts was in advance, there was no one in the rear, from which direction alone we might expect danger. The P. slept in a tent with Mrs. D., Miss Howell and the children occupied another, all others slept in the open air. I was with Col. Lubbock near our horses. At day dawn we were awakened by Jim the coachman,

were dressing, when from the opposite direction we heard shouts & the clattering of horses feet, in a few moments after over a hundred Yankee Cavalry burst into the camp; taken completely by surprise,

horses, I held on to Tom for some times, a Yankee on one side of

if I did not let go, I gave him up reluctantly. I never rode as game

towards Abbeville, some of the Yankees moved across the branch

good daylight, some of the balls passing through the camp. Then

the regiment which surprised us, had by taking the Jacksonville road, come in ahead of us at Irwinville, it was a Michigan Reg. under a Col. Pritchard; the other following us was a Wisconsin Reg. They Killed & wounded several of their own people. While this was going on, I went over to the P.’s tent, saw Mrs. D. told her that the enemy did not know that he was present & during the confusion he might escape into the swamp not more than 100 yards distant; she much alarmed said if we would engage the attention of some Yankees near the tents he could do so. Some time was lost, it was becoming more light, the enemy were posting their sentries

JEFFERSON DAVIS 329

around the camp, when the P. came out of his tent with a gown & hood on & bucket on his arm, with Helen the mulatto nurse. They advanced some distance towards the stream, when one of the Yankee guards directed them in another direction as the balls

her over anxiety saying from the tent, “they were only going after water”, “they were not afraid of the balls.” Another Yankee rode up, ordering them to halt, saying he knew who it was, recognizing a man, but not the P., still moving on, he ordered them to halt, pointing his Carabine at the P.’s head. Then Mrs. D. by her appeals, the children by crying, the servants by fear & howling betrayed all. Others rode up, the P. was obliged to make himself known. His attempted escape in disguise I regret exceedingly, only Mrs. D.’s distress could have induced him to adopt it.

Seeing that there was no chance for the P. I determined to make the effort & so told Judge R. & Col. Lubbock, asking them to take charge of my saddle bags and clothes which I would leave. I walked around the camp some time before an opportunity presented, the Yankees in the meantime plundering the wagons, which they supposed contained treasure & this is one reason why they had followed me so closely. Ten of them attempted to steal my watch, but I saved it. However before I left, a guard was put over the wagons & stop nearly to the pilfering. Scanning the countenances of the enemy I at last selected one that I thought could answer my purpose & asked him to go to the swamp with me, hesitating, he did so & after waiting a little while, returned towards camp telling me to follow when I was ready, stopping him, I said I did not wish to return, that I would give him half of what was in my purse if he would let me remain, he consented & I gave him $40 in gold. Creeping a little further into the swamp I lay concealed for about three hours in the most painful position, sometimes moving a few yards almost “ventre à terre” to escape notice for I was within hearing of the camp on either side of the stream & often when they came down for water or to water their horses I was within a

MANUSCRIPTS330

Page 23 of the third volume (April 2, 1865 – July 10, 1865) of John Taylor Wood’s diary. Image courtesy of The Southern Historical Collection, the Wilson Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

JEFFERSON DAVIS 331

sounded & the P. started on one of his carriage horses followed by a squadron of the enemy. I watched him as he rode off. Sad fate. I understood afterwards that he was very anxious for his favorite horse Kentucky, but some one had stolen him & he could not be recovered, with him I think he could have escaped. Sometime after their departure, I saw some one leading two abandoned horses into the swamp & recognized Lt. Barnwell of our escort, who alone escaped as I did, tho Judge Reagan & Col. Johnston I think attempted it. Secreting the horses, we picked up from the debris of the camp, parts of the saddles & bridles & with some patching &

man bestrode. Hungry & tired we gave a Mr. Fenn the remains of the camp for a dinner, he lived a mile distant at Irwinville, the

consequently treated with more consideration. He recommended us to Widow Poulk ten miles distant, an old lady rich in cattle alone, here we spent the night. I saved my haversack & all it contained, my overcoat & a small Derringer pistol that I picked up in camp, just on leaving, it had belonged either to the P. or Judge R.

Wood escaped to Cuba, made his way to Canada, settled at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and lived there for the rest of his life. He became a prosperous Canadian citizen engaged in shipping and maritime insurance. For many years he was secretary-treasurer of the Halifax Pilot Commission.

Wood never returned to the United States, but he corresponded

to Jefferson Davis as long as he and they lived.

Varina Howell Davis (1826–1906)

Jefferson Davis’s wife Varina wrote her description of the May 10 capture in a June 6, 1865, 38-page letter to Francis Preston Blair

MANUSCRIPTS332

Republican, father of Union General Francis P. Blair Jr. and Postmaster General Montgomery Blair. With Abraham Lincoln’s consent he had twice met with Jefferson Davis in Richmond in pursuit of a negotiated end to the Civil War. In her “Private and

Blair’s intercession on behalf of her husband, who by then was

section described the capture:

Just before day the enemy charged our camp yelling like demons. Mr. Davis received timely warning of their approach but believing them to be our own people, deliberately made his toilette, and was only disabused of the delusion when he saw them deploying a few yards off. He started down to the little stream hoping to meet his servant with his horse and arms, but knowing he would be recognized, I plead with him to let me throw over him a large waterproof wrap which had often served him in sickness during the summer season for a dressing gown, and which, I hoped, might so cover his person, that in the grey of the morning he would not be recognized. As he strode off I threw over his head a little black shawl which was around my own shoulders, seeing that he could

him with a bucket for water, hoping that he would pass unobserved. He attempted no disguise, consented to no subterfuge but if he had, in failure is found the only matter of cavil. Had he assumed an

which trusted in him, it had been well. When he had proceeded a few yards the guards around our tents with a shocking oath called out to know who that was. I said it was my mother and he halted

upon to surrender did not do so, and but for the interposition of my person between his and the guns would have been shot. I told the man to shoot me if he pleased, to which he answered he “would not mind it a bit,” which I readily believed.

JEFFERSON DAVIS 333

Page 17 of the June 6, 1861, letter from Varina Howell Davis to Francis Preston Blair. Image courtesy of the Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

MANUSCRIPTS334

Rather than repeating her version of that episode in her 1890 book Jefferson Davis, ex-president of the Confederate States of America, a memoir by his wife Varina Davisthe capture story in his words (Volume II, pages 637–639), copied verbatim from his 1881 book The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (Volume II, pages 701–702):

My horse remained saddled and my pistols in the holsters, and I lay down fully dressed to rest. Nothing occurred to rouse me until just before dawn, when my coachman, a free colored man who

branch, just behind the encampment. I stepped out of my wife’s tent and saw some horsemen, whom I immediately recognized as cavalry, deploying around the encampment. I turned back and told my wife these were not the expected marauders but regular troopers. She implored me to leave her at once. I hesitated, from unwillingness to do so, and lost a few precious moments before yielding to her importunity. My horse and arms were near the road on which I expected to leave, and down which the cavalry approached; it was therefore impractical for me to reach them. As it was quite dark in the tent, I picked up what was supposed to be my “raglan,” a water-proof light overcoat, without sleeves; it was subsequently found to be my wife’s, so very like my own as to be mistaken for it; as I started, my wife thoughtfully threw

twenty yards when a trooper galloped up and ordered me to halt

shawl and raglan from my shoulders, advanced toward him; he levelled his carbine at me, but I expected it, and my intention was to put my hand under his foot, tumble him off on the other side, spring into his saddle, and attempt to escape. My wife, who had been watching, when she saw the soldier aim his carbine at me, ran forward and threw her arms around me. Success depending on instantaneous action, and recognizing that the opportunity had been

JEFFERSON DAVIS 335

lost, I turned back, and, the morning being damp and chilly, passed

To that she added her own commentary (pages 640–641 and 648–649):

While the camp was being plundered, which was done with great celerity, there was a shriek dreadful to hear, and our servants told us it came from a poor creature who, in prying up the lid of a trunk with his loaded musket, shot off his own hand. Out of this trunk the hooped skirt was procured, which had never been worn but which they purported to have removed from Mr. Davis’s person. No hooped skirt could have been worn on our journey, even by me, without great inconvenience, and I had none with me except the new one in the trunk. I have long since ceased to combat falsehood when it has been uttered and scattered broadcast, a much less distance than this one has been borne upon the wings of hate

averted from my husband by any disguise, I should gladly have tried to persuade him to assume it; and who shall say the stratagem

. . . . [At Hampton Roads the following week, separated from

steamer William P. Clyde that would carry her and her children to

asked me for my waterproof, which I thought would disprove the assertion that it was essentially a woman’s cloak, and gave it to

insist upon having my shawl, and said he would take everything I had if I did not yield it to him, though he offered to buy me another to replace it. It was relinquished, as everything else would have been to dispense with his presence.

MANUSCRIPTS336

Varina Howell Davis completed her memoir shortly after her husband died in December 1889; it was published less than a year later. In 1891 she moved to New York City, where she became columnists for Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World newspaper.

There she became a friend of Julia Dent Grant, widow of the former Union general and U.S. president. In an April 21, 1901 World article titled “The Humanity of Grant,” Davis urged former Confederates “to do the best for our country under the conditions which the Ruler of the world in His wisdom allowed to prevail.”

Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Dudley Pritchard (1835–1907)

Benjamin D. Pritchard, commander of the Fourth Michigan Cavalry, United States Army, wrote on the May 10 page of his diary:

Harnden [Lieutenant Colonel Harry Harnden, commander of the

learn from inhabitants that a force went into Camp 1½ miles out on Abbyville road. I at once moved out within ½ mile of Camp

Camp might be ours.At 3½ Oc’ A.M. moved up & captured the whole camp without

as his) together with his family & portions of his Civil & Military staff.

Soon after capture had a verry sad & unfortunate collision with 1st Wisconsin in which several men were wounded & two killed, either of whom was worth more than the whole Southern Confederacy, Arrived at Abbyville at dark.

JEFFERSON DAVIS 337

The next day Pritchard sent this dispatch from Abbeville to his commander, Brevet Major General James H. Wilson at Macon, Georgia:

I have the honor to report that at daylight yesterday at Irwinville I surprised and captured Jeff. Davis and family, together with his wife’s sister and brother, his postmaster-general (Reagan), his

The May 10 and 11 facing pages in Benjamin Dudley Pritchard’s 1865 diary. Reproduced from the author’s copy of the catalog for lot 400 of the John A. Fox auction sale of March 11, 1964, titled The Capture of Jefferson Davis.

MANUSCRIPTS338

private secretary (Colonel Harrison), Colonel Johnston, aide de camp on Jeff.’s staff, Colonel Morris, Colonel Lubbock, Lieutenant Hathaway, also several unimportant names and a train of 5 wagons and 3 ambulances, making a most perfect success had not a most painful mistake occurred by which the Fourth Michigan and First Wisconsin collided, which cost us 2 men killed and lieutenant Boutelle wounded through the arm, in the Fourth Michigan, and 3 men wounded in the First Wisconsin. This occurred just at daylight, after we had captured the camp, by the advance of the First Wisconsin not properly answering our challenge, by which they were mistaken for the enemy. I returned to this point last night. Shall move on to Macon without awaiting orders from you as directed, feeling that the whole object of the expedition is accomplished. It will take me at least three days to reach Macon. We are seventy-

of the capture to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, among the manuscripts kept with his diary, added support to his brief diary entry:

On the afternoon of the 23rd I received orders from the War Department through Gen’l Miles directing me to procure the disguise worn by Davis at the time of his capture and proceed to Washington and report to the Secretary of War. Accordingly I went over to the Steamer Clyde and rec’d from Mrs. Davis a ladies waterproof cloak or robe & which Mrs. Davis said was worn by Davis as a disguise at the time of his capture, and which was

following the balance of the disguise was procured which consisted

Davis. These I brought to Washington and turned them over to the Secretary of War.

JEFFERSON DAVIS 339

In Varina Davis’s letter to Blair she praised Pritchard as an honorable man who protected her and her children, who treated her cordially and with respect, while she had harsh words for

and the other Confederate captives. Passages of her letter that bear unsolicited private witness to Pritchard’s character bolster the credibility of his account in my opinion:

Col. Pritchard did what he could to protect us from insult, but against robbery he was powerless to give us protection, though I feel sure he tried to prevent it. (page 19)

usual from a gentleman to a lady until Lt. Grant of the 14th Maine took charge of us. (pages 32–33)

For his part in the capture of Davis, Pritchard was promoted to the brevet rank of brigadier general and was awarded a $3,000 share of the $100,000 bounty that President Andrew Johnson had offered. After the war he returned to Michigan, where he practiced law at Allegan. He served two terms as state treasurer, from 1880 to 1884.

Parsing differences among the three reports

Not every detail of these narratives is in agreement, but

as a woman while attempting to escape, dressed in his spouse’s attire. Pritchard recorded what he and his men had observed. When challenged, Varina Davis had told her captors that he was her mother, but four weeks later she disingenuously added, “He attempted no disguise, consented to no subterfuge.” Nevertheless

MANUSCRIPTS340

country the heart of which trusted in him it had been well.” Wood attributed the ruse to Varina Davis, but observed that Jefferson Davis had acquiesced in it for her sake. Varina Davis called the garment that concealed Jefferson Davis’s uniform a waterproof wrap that had served him “as a dressing gown”; Wood called it “a

cloak or robe.” In Wood’s version, the bucket was on Davis’s arm; in Varina’s, the older woman carried it. Wood’s biographer wrote, “Wood’s diary makes clear his conviction that Davis was dressed as a woman, and there could hardly be a more reliable source.”1

Almost immediately, exaggerated reports began to circulate. On May 13 Wilson reported to the War Department before Pritchard had arrived with the captives:

The captors report that he hastily put on one of his wife’s dresses

thought him a woman, but discovering his boots while running, suspected his sex at once. The race was a short one, and the rebel president was soon brought to bay. He brandished a bowie knife of elegant pattern and showed signs of battle, but yielded promptly to the persuasion of the Captain’s revolver, without compelling

which he was pursued, saying that he thought our government was more magnanimous than to hunt down women and children. Mrs. Davis remarked to Col. Harnden after the excitement was over, that “the man had better not provoke the president, as he might hurt some of them.”

Wilson’s report was a windfall for caricaturists and satirists, who heaped irreverent insults onto Davis’s indignity. I have a modest collection of cartoons that show Davis in drag at the moment of his capture. The following illustrates an exceptionally colorful one by New York lithographer Charles Magnus.

JEFFERSON DAVIS 341

The unfortunate consequence is that all subsequent descriptions

people who were present, are unreliable. Varina Davis’s otherwise credibly honest June 6 letter to Blair is marred by her blushing, half-hearted attempt at denial, a transparent response to the sting of Wilson’s May 13 report, which had been published in May 15

1890 memoir lack candor and credibility.

Denial scholarship

by Chester D. Bradley (1900–1988), published in the August 1974 Journal of Mississippi History (pages 243–268), has become a standard citation for writers whose articles and books include that incident, one of his many contributions to Lost Cause iconography.

Bradley was an obstetrician in the Tidewater region of southeast Virginia. In 1951 he had co-founded the Casemate Museum at Fortress Monroe and served as its curator of exhibits. Today the museum showcases the entire history of the fort, but its original purpose was to create a Confederate shrine of the cell in which Jefferson Davis had been held in irons.

Bradley’s approach was to cast doubt on reports that Davis had attempted to escape capture disguised as a woman by blending several disparate threads of argument. He quoted Wilson’s May 13 report, and later newspaper reports that repeated the wrong parts of that report and embroidered other parts, in order to refute the mistakes.

Bradley quoted Pritchard’s terse May 11 report to Wilson, followed by this: “Note that this report says nothing about Jefferson

quoted both Davises’ accounts approvingly, including the part of Varina Davis’s letter to Blair in which she described covering her husband with her waterproof and shawl, but he left out the part

MANUSCRIPTS342

New York lithographer Charles Magnus published this song sheet, topped by a caricature of Jefferson Davis in a woman’s dress on the occasion of his capture. Image from the author’s collection.

JEFFERSON DAVIS 343

where she replied to the soldier who challenged him, “I said it was my mother.”

Bradley quoted Pritchard’s diary from the Fox sale catalog (“his excellent pre-auction brochure”), followed by this skeptical suggestion:

This unhesitating assertion in Pritchard’s diary is in marked contrast to the reserve in his report of May 11 at Abbeville, Georgia. A word of caution is permissible. Diarists, particularly military diarists, sometimes fall behind in their entries and have to catch up at a later date. Could Pritchard have made this May 10 entry some time after his arrival at Macon, when he found the dress story, brought in by men of the First Wisconsin, had been accepted by

But Pritchard’s May 11 report summarized only the important details — the successful capture of Jefferson Davis and his colleagues, and the tragic bloodshed when the two Union Army units collided in the pre-dawn darkness.

Bradley obtained from the National Archives and published photographs of the actual cloak and shawl. To my eyes they appear to be women’s apparel. If a suitably type-cast screen actor, dressed in that costume, were to perform a script based on the manuscript evidence adduced here, no movie-goer would be in doubt. But Bradley wrote,

Thus, for a few moments before capture, Jefferson Davis, a man with a beard, who was clad in a coat, trousers and riding boots, wore over these clothes a cloak, a garment worn by both sexes. Around his head he wore a shawl. Shawls were sometimes worn by men in those days for added warmth while traveling.

Bradley’s cunning method blended misdirection, partial admission and omission, refutation of mistaken and exaggerated

MANUSCRIPTS344

made no mention of Wood’s diary.

Manuscript locations

John Taylor Wood’s diary is part of the John Taylor Wood papers, 1858–1915, #2381, Southern Historical Collection, the Wilson Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Access is unrestricted; many pages are digitized and on-line:

I transcribed the excerpts quoted here from Volume 3. April 2, 1865 – July 10, 1865, pages 20–28. The library acquired the Wood collection in 1941.

Varina Howell Davis’s letter is in the Blair family papers, 1755–1968, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Access is unrestricted; some pages are digitized and on-line including four pages of this letter: https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/civil-war-in-america/epilogue.html

The page from Benjamin Dudley Pritchard’s diary illustrated here is reproduced from my copy of the catalog for lot 400 of the John A. Fox auction sale of March 11, 1964, titled The Capture of Jefferson Davis. Fox sold the diary among a group of Pritchard papers, which consisted of “between 75 and 100 pieces including original envelopes,” as a single lot. “The papers have never been made public, and had remained until recently in the Pritchard family home.”

Where are the Pritchard Diary and papers today?

The 1964 buyer at $5,300 was Lieutenant Colonel John Francis Rider (1900–1985), radio pioneer, publisher of radio service manuals, scholar and expert on classic postage stamps of Peru, and postal history collector. Rider died in Florida in 1985. Robson Lowe sold parts of Rider’s philatelic collections in 1978 and 1979. Christie’s Robson Lowe sold his philatelic estate in 1985, 1987,

JEFFERSON DAVIS 345

and 1988, but none of those sales included the Pritchard diary and related papers. To the best of my knowledge they have not reappeared.

I transcribed the Pritchard diary entry from the photograph in the 1964 John Fox auction catalog. Fox reproduced only two facing pages of the diary in the picture. The quality is less than we would wish, but it is legible. Fox transcribed the entire manuscript text of

related documents, which he included in the auction lot description.The Michigan State University Archives and Historical

Collections acquired the Benjamin D. Pritchard records, noted as a September 4, 1962, gift of D.H. Pritchard, but the donation did not include the trove sold by John Fox in 1964.

If a reader has knowledge of the current whereabouts of the diary and other papers that accompanied it, please notify me.

Acknowledgements

their appreciation to my helpers: Ellen Peachey, Jan Hillegas, and Jim Loewen — as well as to our distinguished editor. Those who did not should blame only me.

About the Author

Ken Lawrence of Spring Mills, Pennsylvania, has been a Manuscript Society member since 1989. In

1972 he co-founded the Deep South People’s History Project. He co-edited with George P. Rawick and Jan Hillegas, and wrote the interpretive introduction to, The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Supplement, Series 1, Volumes 6–10, Mississippi Narratives (1977: Greenwood Press, Westport and London). Since 1986 he has been a columnist for Linn’s Stamp News. He has published comprehensive articles and reviews about Civil War

MANUSCRIPTS346

postal history and about Union and Confederate patriotic envelopes. Ken can be contacted by e-mail at apsken@aol.com

Endnotes

1 Royce Gordon Shingleton, John Taylor Wood, Sea Ghost of the Confederacy (1982: The University of Georgia Press, Athens), 162.