v1.1.1 / chapter 89 of 93 / 01 sep 07 / greg goebel / public domain
* The surrender of Confederate forces in the East all but ended the fighting, but some loose ends remained to be tied up. One of the first was to deal with the conspirators in Booth's assassination conspiracy. They were dealt with harshly, with only a pretense of a proper trial and a major miscarriage of justice.
In the meantime, the Confederate forces in the West were laying down their arms. Jefferson Davis still wanted to continue the fight, but he was captured by Union cavalry and dragged off in humiliation. That only left Confederate forces at sea still in action for a time, including an ironclad, the CSS STONEWALL, that the Confederacy had purchased from France and the raider CSS SHENANDOAH, operating in the north Pacific. Both gave up the fight once their captains finally learned the war was over.
Although there had been calls for retribution against secessionist traitors during the war, in peace they were offered a broad amnesty. Many applied for it and most had it granted.
* The military tribunal that President Andrew Johnson had called for to try the conspirators in Lincoln's assassination was quickly formed, with Major General David Hunter at its head. Hunter's military record, which was clearly spotty and marked by a degree of malevolence, did not give any promise that the trial was going to be a fair one.
The trial formally began on 9 May 1865. The first session was short, since the first order of business was to observe that the prisoners hadn't been given any legal counsel for their defense, and without that the trial was hardly worthy of the name. That process was put in motion and the prisoners taken back to their cells.
The next day, the prisoners returned to court and were read the charges against them. The charges varied from prisoner to prisoner, but in general stated that the group had been formed as a conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln and other high Union officials, and that this conspiracy had been directed by Jefferson Davis and other Confederate officials or agents. The idea that the assassination conspiracy was directed by top Confederate officials is clearly untrue and a bit preposterous in hindsight, but at the time there were reasons to find it plausible. Davis' rhetoric had become increasingly hysterical as the Union tightened its stranglehold on the South, and however ineffective the Confederate saboteurs operating against the Union from Canada had been, they at least had established that the Confederacy was willing take extreme measures.
Once the prisoners were read the charges, they were sent back to their cells again. The trial proper began on 12 May, after friends and family of the accused had managed to find defense attorneys, many of surprisingly high quality. However, the military court was stacked against them and public sentiment against the accused was very strong. The defense attorneys were not even allowed to consult with their clients in private. The prosecution attacked the patriotism of the defense, and also produced surprise witnesses who told preposterous stories and were not allowed to be cross-examined. It later turned out that a few of the witnesses were shady characters who had been bribed, and some others had been threatened into giving testimony damaging to the defense.
The case against Lewis Paine was almost air-tight. Eyewitnesses clearly identified Paine as the man who had attacked Secretary Seward. In fact, Paine was impressively cool and had accepted his fate, asking that the court "hang him quick". Although Atzerodt and Herold hadn't attacked anyone, they had clearly been part of the conspiracy, and that was enough to condemn them. Atzerodt's defense attorney tried to plead that his client was too cowardly to have actually attacked anyone, and though this was obviously true it did him no good, partly because he looked so shifty. The two men were doomed. Herold looked so cowed that witnesses compared him to a "trapped animal".
The cases against the other defendants were much more complicated. Samuel Arnold and Michael O'Laughlin had in fact conspired with Booth in the dubious plans to kidnap Lincoln, but they had clearly not been involved with the assassination plot. The prosecution eventually just shrugged and tried them as conspirators anyway. As far as Ned Spangler went, there was no real evidence that he was any more than friendly to Booth. He was a Confederate sympathizer, of course, but so was a good part of the population of Washington DC. Similarly, Dr. Samuel Mudd had done no more than assist Booth in his escape, which was clearly complicity in the crime, but no more than large numbers of other Confederate sympathizers had or would have done. He was greatly assisted by the testimony of his cousin, Dr. George Mudd, to whom he had reported the passage of John Wilkes Booth.
The case against Mary Surratt was the most dubious. The evidence against rested on three items: the facts that her boardinghouse had been a meeting place for the conspiracy, and that Mary Surratt, as well as her daughter Anna, had been very friendly to the charismatic Booth; the package that John Wilkes Booth had asked to deliver to John Lloyd; and Lewis Paine's capture at the Surratt boardinghouse. Witnesses, including Louis Weichmann and John Lloyd, gave damaging testimony, though the testimony also showed that Lloyd was an unreliable drunkard. What the testimony did not reveal was that both men had been threatened and were trying to save their own necks. John Surratt, still in hiding in Canada, did not come forward to help his mother.
* The tribunal passed judgment on 29 June 1865. Paine, Herold, and Atzerodt were to be hanged, as was Mary Surratt. However, five members of the tribunal signed a request to President Andrew Johnson for clemency for Mrs. Surratt, suggesting that her punishment be commuted to life imprisonment. Dr. Mudd escaped the hangman by one vote and received life imprisonment, as did Arnold and O'Laughlin. Spangler was sentenced to six years of hard labor. What happened to the petition to the president remains unclear. Johnson later claimed he never saw it, but Brigadier General Joseph Holt, head of the War Department's Office of Military Justice, insisted that he had reviewed the matter personally with the president, and Johnson had refused to grant clemency to Mrs. Surratt.
Lewis Paine, David Herold, George Atzerodt, and Mary Surratt were hanged in the Old Penitentiary on the afternoon of 7 July 1865, under the direction of Major General Winfield Scott Hancock, the commander of the military district. Hancock had been expecting to receive a commutation of Mary Surratt's death sentence from the White House at the last moment, but nothing arrived, and she was executed along with the rest. The four were buried in equipment boxes near the prison.
The other four prisoners were shipped off to the hell-hole island of Garden Key in the Dry Tortugas, off the Florida coast. In August 1867, the island suffered an epidemic of yellow fever, with O'Laughlin among the dead, as well as the prison doctor. Dr. Mudd took his place and did his best to help the afflicted. The prison officials, in appreciation of the doctor's actions and in consideration of his good character, petitioned President Johnson for his release. Johnson not only ordered the release of Dr. Mudd, but also of Samuel Arnold and Ned Spangler. Spangler had contracted tuberculosis, and Dr. Mudd took into his employment and home until the disease finally killed Spangler in 1869.
John Surratt was the target of an international manhunt. He was captured in Rome while serving in the Papal Zouaves, but escaped, only to be captured again in Egypt and sent back to America. His trial began on 10 June 1867, but it was a civil court, not a military tribunal, and the case against him was not very strong. It eventually foundered on various technicalities and Surratt was never convicted.
* With Lee and Johnston's surrender, Confederate General Richard Taylor, commander of the Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana, knew that continued resistance was pointless. In late April he contacted Union General Canby in Mobile to discuss surrender, on the basis of the terms that had been worked out between Sherman and Johnston on 18 April. Canby quickly arranged a meeting for 30 April on the rail line 12 miles (19 kilometers) north of Mobile at a place called Magee's Farm.
On the designated day, Canby was waiting for Taylor's arrival, with a full brigade and a band in their dress uniforms as an honor guard for their guest. Taylor soon arrived from Meridian, accompanied by an aide in a uniform as worn as Taylor's own, on a handcar pumped by two blacks. It was about all the rolling stock left in the department that the Yankees hadn't wrecked. Taylor still bore himself with the same dignity he would have had if he had arrived by a special train decked out in gold trim. He and Canby went into a local house to discuss the terms. Since they were already known, they came to quick agreement, and Canby had the agreement wired off to Washington DC for approval. They then had a luncheon, Taylor enjoying Canby's champagne and the music of the band. Canby was doing his best to be a gracious host to a defeated enemy, and when the band started up "Hail Columbia", he ordered them to switch to "Dixie". Taylor was equally doing his best to be a good loser, and suggested they continue with "Hail Columbia".
Taylor returned to Merdian, where he received news the next day, 1 May, that the original Sherman-Johnston agreement had been overruled, and the terms offered would be the same as those given Lee. The terms were not bad, Taylor wasn't interested in carrying on the struggle, and he did not object. On 4 May, he went back down the line again to meet Canby at Citronelle, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Magee's Farm, and formally surrendered his department.
Taylor's decision applied to Bedford Forrest, who was by no means certain he felt like abiding by it. He was in a black mood and not merely because of the surrender; Wilson's troopers had not only given him and his men their worst beating of the war during the Union push on Selma, his arm was in a sling from multiple saber wounds, administered by a Union cavalry captain who Forrest shot with a revolver. That left Forrest's final personal score at 30 Yankees killed in close combat, while they had killed 29 of his horses in the course of the struggle. Forrest would say that he was "a horse ahead at the close."
That gave him little satisfaction for the moment. There was much talk in his ranks of going to Mexico, and Forrest himself seriously considered it until he had a long talk with his adjutant, who suggested that Forrest had a responsibility for leadership in the South in peace as he had in war. Forrest took the point to heart and decided to stay. When Forrest and his men formally gave up their arms and their regimental flags on 9 May, he said farewell with an address that stated the terms of their surrender were magnanimous and should be answered in kind, that there should be no blood feuds, that the men should obey the laws and be good citizens of the restored Union. It was a noble sentiment, though not one Forrest would live up to completely himself.
* Jefferson Davis was still at large at the beginning of May. He and his cabinet had remained in Charlotte until 26 April, watching the situation deteriorate. Davis was shocked to learn of Lincoln's murder, not out of any love for an adversary who had been so determined to crush secession, but because Davis knew that Abraham Lincoln had no vindictiveness towards the South, while Andrew Johnson made no secret of his desire for vengeance.
Davis was indignant when he heard that Johnston had surrendered without trying to escape with the remnants of his forces as Breckinridge had ordered. It was exactly what Davis expected of Johnston, and worse it left the Confederate government in the position of trying to escape through states where the Confederate States Army had laid down its guns.
Wade Hampton, as big a die-hard as Davis, didn't feel bound by Johnston's surrender. He wanted to lead the loyalists among his cavalry west to Texas to carry on the struggle, crossing over into Mexico if forced. Davis was encouraged to know there were still soldiers willing to keep on fighting, and decided to head west.
For the moment, the problem was to evade capture. Davis and his cabinet fled from Charlotte into South Carolina, though his party dwindled as officials dropped out due to ill health, duties to their families, and other reasons. The remaining group reached Abbeville, South Carolina, on 2 May, where Davis was delighted to find that there were 3,000 loyal troops still in the area. He felt invigorated, and that afternoon he spoke with their brigadiers, who had been assembled by Breckinridge. Davis told the officers they and their loyal men would be the nucleus from which a new campaign of resistance could be formed.
The officers went dead silent and acted a bit fidgety. Finally, they worked up the nerve to tell him that continuation of the struggle would be "a cruel injustice to the people of the South", that they did not want their men to be reduced to homeless brigands. Davis went silent for a moment in his turn, and then asked them why they were still in uniform if they did not want to carry on the struggle further. They replied that they would remain in arms long enough to see him to safety, but once that was done they were through with fighting. He thought this over, and gave them a speech appealing to their patriotism.
They remained silent. Davis now realized that the South no longer had the will to carry on the struggle and that the indefinite guerrilla war he had been calling for was a fantasy. "Then all is lost," he said, and got up. He almost fell over; Breckinridge had to come to his side and offer him his arm. Davis and his party left before midnight that same day, disposing of the money, gold, and silver from the Confederate treasury that had been carted with them from Richmond. Some was hidden locally; some was sent off in the false bottom of a carriage to Charleston, where it would be sent to England in hopes of eventually finding its way to the new capitol of the Confederacy, wherever that might be; and some was taken by the fugitives to help them on their journey.
The group continued to dwindle. By 6 May, the Davis party was in Georgia and had been reduced to 20 men, and his only cabinet official left with him was Postmaster General John Reagan. That same day, James Wilson released a notice in Macon that read:
BEGIN QUOTE:
One hundred thousand dollars Reward in Gold will be paid to any person or persons who will apprehend and deliver JEFFERSON DAVIS to any of the military authorities of the United States. Several millions of specie reported to be with him will become the property of the captors.
END QUOTE.
Davis's family had been on the move as well, looking for safety, but he finally caught up with them near Dublin, Georgia, on 7 May. Just before dawn on the morning of 10 May, two Federal cavalry regiments from James Wilson's command closed in from opposite sides on Davis's camp near Irwinville, Georgia. It was dark and raining, and the two regiments got into a fight with each other, resulting in two men killed and four wounded. It was the last shootout of the war east of the Mississippi.
The Federals quickly realized their blunder and fell on the aroused Confederates. In the confusion, Davis wrapped on a waterproof and shawl before he left his tent, and the garments turned out to belong to his wife. The Union troopers who captured him hooted that he was trying to disguise himself as a woman while they ransacked the camp, searching for Confederate gold. They then hauled him and his family off to Macon in an ambulance, gloating at their catch.
Andrew Johnson announced that day that "armed resistance to the authority of this Government in the said insurrectionary States may be regarded as virtually at an end." Although he did not know of the capture of Jefferson Davis when he released the announcement, Johnson still felt confident that the fighting was all but over.
It certainly was for the prisoners being taken to Macon. On 13 May, the prisoners were put on train and taken to Augusta, where they were to make the journey north by sea. Other prisoners joined them, including Joe Wheeler and Alexander Stephens. The prisoners went to various locations, with Davis being locked up deep inside Fortress Monroe on 22 May. That evening, he was reading a Bible that had been left in his cell when a captain and two men who were bearing chains and shackles. Davis immediately realized what they were there to do: "My God, you don't mean to iron me?!"
The War Department had authorized the commander of Fort Monroe, Brigadier General Nelson Miles, to shackle Jefferson Davis if it seemed necessary for security. It was hardly necessary for any purpose of security, but Miles was a political animal and thought that chaining up his prisoner would impress his superiors. The pointless cruelty of it was not a concern; such a mindset would one day make Miles the commanding general of the US Army. Davis protested loudly to the captain, but was told orders were orders. When his captors tried to put on the chains, he fought with "unnatural strength", but was subdued and shackled. He broke down completely and wept like a lost soul, with the captain recalling later that it was "anything but a pleasant sight to see a man like Jefferson Davis shedding tears."
* That same day, 22 May, Andrew Johnson ordered that all the ports in the conquered states east of the Mississippi be opened to commerce, and that civilian trade in the same region should also permitted without restriction. The Anaconda released its grip and faded into history.
A grand review of the Union Army was planned in Washington DC for 23 and 24 May, with Grant's Easterners marching the first day and Sherman's Westerners marching the second, an estimated 150,000 troops in all. The long-standing rivalries between the two armies had led to disputes and fistfights in their camps around Washington DC, and Grant had finally been forced to set up guards to keep the two separated.
Sherman was worried that his troops would not do well in the review. The Easterners were big on spit and polish, while his own men were raggedy, informal, unkempt. The word went down to get everything as shiny as possible for the march on 24 May, but there was little time to prepare.
The Easterners stepped out on 23 May as scheduled. The flags were back at full staff for the occasion, having been at half-mast since 15 April. Meade led the parade, with the men marching twelve abreast. George Custer, now a major general, excited the crowd when a wreath thrown into the procession made his horse bolt, Custer's shoulder-length blonde hair streaming in the wind as he got the beast under control.
Sherman watched the march carefully to find flaws that he might correct for the march the next day, but at the end of the review he was gracious to Meade, saying: "I am afraid my poor tatterdemalion corps will make a poor appearance tomorrow when contrasted with yours." Meade, equally gracious, suggested that people would make allowances.
They did. Sherman shrewdly decided that instead of trying to copy the Easterners, he would let his men show themselves as they were. When they stepped out on 24 May with Sherman at their head, they didn't have all the spit and polish, but they took long strides, and were accompanied by everything they had from their campaigns: bloodied ambulances, soldiers riding on mules, black camp followers with their mess wagons, pigs and turkeys, fighting cocks crowing from the muzzles of guns, even a pet monkey. The crowd loved it, wildly cheering the marchers. Sherman dismounted at the presidential box to pay honors to the officials, as well as settle a score. The general shook hands with Andrew Johnson, stepped to Secretary Stanton, stared at him for a moment with what all saw was red-faced bottled-up fury, and went on without saying a word to shake hands with the rest of the cabinet.
Sherman was highly satisfied with the parade, and with his revenge. The troops found the march exhilirating, one private saying: "I felt that the pleasures of that day fully repaid me for all the hardships, privations, dangers, and suffering that I had endured during all those years of strife and carnage." Now the soldiers went back to camp to be mustered out over the next few weeks, the men dispersing back to their homes for good.
* There was still one major item of unfinished business to take care of: the Transmississippi, which still remained under arms against the Union, though it was as much an afterthought now as it had been for the last year or so.
On 12 and 13 May, there had been a fight at Palmito Ranch on the Rio Grande near Brownsville, Texas. Several Federal regiments attacked a Confederate camp, were driven back, came back the next day, and were driven out again. The rebels had won that fight.
In fact, even as the Confederates were driving off the Yankees on 13 May, General Edmund Kirby Smith was meeting with senior officials of the Transmississippi states to consider further resistance. Smith knew about Lee's surrender, as well as the flight of the Confederate government from Richmond. Smith felt the government would arrive soon and take charge in Texas.
The state officials were not enthusiastic about this idea; they had no more fight in them and wanted peace, if it could be had on good terms. Smith was now of two minds on the matter, since Jo Shelby was so determined to fight on that he threatened to relieve Smith of command if he tried to surrender, and a blustery message from John Pope had presented Smith with a choice between unconditional surrender and complete destruction. Smith rejected Pope's demand in dignified language.
Then the news filtered in of Johnston's surrender, followed by Taylor's, and finally the straw that broke Smith's back, the capture of Jefferson Davis. There was nothing left to fight for. Smith decided to send Simon Bolivar Buckner down the Red and the Mississippi to New Orleans to deal with Canby, who could be assumed as a pretty good bet to be more reasonable than John Pope.
Buckner arrived at New Orleans on 25 May, just as Canby came back from Mobile. Canby missed a great deal of unpleasant excitement that same day, when a warehouse on the Mobile waterfront that was being used as a dump for captured ammunition blew up with a massive explosion, killing about 300 people and causing about five million dollars in property damage.
Canby offered Buckner the same terms as had been given Johnston, Buckner accepted them, and the surrender was signed the next morning, 26 May. Buckner, who had surrendered Fort Donelson in 1862, would unfortunately go down in history as a general who conducted surrenders rather than won battles. The agreement was signed by Kirby Smith on 2 June, aboard a Federal warship in Galveston harbor.
All the major Confederate armies had now been disbanded. There were a few holdouts, including Confederate Brigadier General Stand Watie of the Cherokee tribe, who led a battalion of native soldiers from various tribes in Indian Territory. The tribes having made their peace with the Union, he would be forced to follow on 23 June.
* The fighting had now completely sputtered out. In the aftermath, five
states -- Virginia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina --
had been all but wrecked by the comings and goings of rival armies.
Estimates of casualties gave a list of unpleasantly large numbers:
_________________________________________________________
Federals killed in action: 110,000
Federals killed by disease or other causes: 255,000
Total Federals killed: 365,000
Federals wounded: 275,000
Total Federal casualties: 640,000
_________________________________________________________
Confederates killed in action: 94,000
Confederates killed by disease or other causes: 162,000
Total Confederates killed: 256,000
Confederates wounded: 194,000
Total Confederate casualties: 450,000
_________________________________________________________
Killed in action: 204,000
Killed by disease or other causes: 417,000
Total killed: 621,000
Wounded: 469,000
Total casualties: 1,090,000
_________________________________________________________
The numbers are so full of conditions and assumptions as to be meaningless in
their specific values, but are unquestionable in their magnitude. About a
quarter of all Union soldiers and sailors became casualties, while the
proportion for the Confederates was roughly half. The list does not include
the many civilians, particularly displaced black slaves, who died of disease,
deprivation, and the incidental violence inflicted on civilians, mercifully
on a relatively small scale -- the war featured no mass exterminations of
civilians. The United States would never suffer such property destruction or
such casualties in any war that followed.
* There were a few small loose pieces left to pick up. John Bell Hood, on his mission to raise troops in the Transmississippi, was picked up by Union troops in Natchez, Mississippi, on 30 May, before he had been able to cross the river. He was paroled and released the next day.
At that time, William Quantrill was in bed in Kentucky, his spine cut by a Yankee bullet, with only a few days to live. Early in 1865, he had decided to head East with two dozen of his men, including Frank James, all dressed in Union blue and identifying themselves as a platoon of the fictitious 4th Missouri Cavalry. His plan was to go all the way to Washington DC and kill Abraham Lincoln.
The band made poor time, and Quantrill's plans were muddied by the news in mid-April that Lincoln had already been murdered by John Wilkes Booth. There was no way Quantrill could accept surrender, since it was a given that he would be hanged, so the band kept on moving. They ran into Federals south of Louisville on 10 May, and the Yankees shot him. He lingered until 6 June.
Some Confederate guerrillas had basically been granted amnesty by enlisting with the Union. Others, like Frank and Jesse James, decided to go West, where they could continue their hunt for loot by violent means without any pretense of being anything but bandits.
Jo Shelby was one of the few Confederate officers to actually go to Mexico, along with some of his troops. They crossed the border in late June and tried to enlist with the Emperor Maximilian, who didn't feel that gringo mercenaries would enhance his fading prestige with his reluctant Mexican subjects. However, Maximilian did offer them a plot of land near Veracruz. Most of Shelby's men weren't interested and went their own ways, but Shelby and a few others accepted the offer.
The settlement was named "Carlota" after the Empress, but it didn't last long. The US was funneling weapons, of which there were now plenty to spare, to Benito Juarez and his Mexican guerrilla patriots, and Federal armies began to mass on the Texas border to indicate to Napoleon III that a French colony was not welcome south of the border. Maximilian, cut off from support, was deposed, then executed in June 1867. Shelby and his gringos were no longer welcome and left.
* Shelby and the other die-hards were a very small minority. Most of the rebels had all they wanted of war and no thought of reviving the struggle. Few Southerners had any stomach for an endless guerrilla war against Yankee occupation; since living conditions were harsh they wanted to get back to their homes and take care of their families. In fact, although many Southerners would take lifelong pride in their struggle for independence, there was at least a thought in hindsight that maybe secession hadn't been all that good an idea; a warm remembrance of the proud Confederate battle flag didn't really equate to an equally fond memory of the half-baked Confederate state.
Not long after the end of the war, Joe Johnston was on a steamer when he overheard a young man proclaim that the South had been "conquered by not subdued." Johnston asked the young man whose command he had served under, and the young man replied that he had not been in the army. Johnston then said: "Well, sir, I was. You may not be subdued, but I am."
Simply because the rebels were subdued didn't mean they didn't worry about how far the Yankees would press their dominance, but as it turned out they didn't press it all that far. Although Andrew Johnson had breathed fire and smoke about vengeance, and there were those among the Radicals in Congress who talked the same or worse, Johnson proved surprisingly lenient. On 27 May 1865, he ordered the release of most rebel prisoners. Two days later, on 29 May, he issued a "Presidential Proclamation Of Amnesty", which stated that any ex-rebel who took an oath of loyalty to the United States would be fully pardoned and would have full property rights, except for slaves.
The proclamation did have a long list of exceptions, including Confederate government officials, senior Confederate military officers, those who had quit US government or military positions to join the Confederacy, those who had committed war crimes, and so on. The proclamation went on to state that those on the list of exceptions could apply to the president for pardon, which would be "liberally extended". This statement was deeply suspected by those affected, considering Johnson's rhetoric and the kangaroo court that was trying Booth's accomplices.
Much to surprise of most, Johnson was as good as his word, though as discussed in the next chapter there was an ulterior motive to his generosity. Although bloodthirsty Republican Radicals in Congress called for hanging Davis, Robert E. Lee, and other prominent rebels, the public had no stomach for such brutalities. There had been more than enough killing and cruelty. Johnson granted pardons almost on request.
Taking the loyalty oath became much more acceptable when Robert E. Lee took the oath himself and encouraged others to do so. Henry Wise, previously a governor of Virginia and a Confederate general, was furious when one of his sons took the loyalty oath: "You have disgraced the family, sir!" His son replied: "But Father, General Lee advised me to do it." Wise, startled, thought that over for a moment, and then answered: "That alters the case. Whatever General Lee advises is right."
Lee himself was not granted a pardon in his lifetime, though over a century later he would be politically rehabilitated as an honor to his memory. He was left to live in peace even as some of the most extreme Radicals demanded that he be imprisoned or hanged. One other Confederate officer was not as fortunate as Lee.
Henry Wirz was the Swiss-born commandant of the Confederate prison camp at Andersonville, where 12,000 Union prisoners died. News of the miserable conditions in the camp had enraged the North. The fact that the Confederacy simply lacked the resources to take care of so many men when their own armies lacked food and clothing was not considered, nor was the fact that Northern prison camps also suffered from disease and death. Wirz was put through a military tribunal similar in flavor to that which had tried Booth's accomplices and condemned to death. He was hanged on 10 November 1865 and buried next to Booth's accomplices.
However, by that time most of the Confederate governors and senior government officials, such as Alex Stephens, were free men. There were a few still behind bars, such as Confederate Navy Secretary Stephen Mallory, accused of promoting piracy; Raphael Semmes, accused of being a pirate; and Clement Clay, the Confederate special commissioner in Canada who had directed terrorist attacks on the Union, suspected of complicity in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. All three were released by the spring of 1866, leaving only one senior Confederate official in prison: Jefferson Davis. He only remained in shackles for five days, being unchained at the insistence of Fort Monroe's surgeon, as well as a number of prominent Northerners who may have had no liking for Davis but saw no point in such meanness. Nelson Miles shifted with the wind again and reversed his order.
That was the first in a long and very slow series of improvements in the condition of Davis. In July 1865 he was finally allowed an hour's exercise a day; in August he was allowed to correspond with Varina Davis; in October he was moved to better quarters, the dampness of his original cell having been clearly bad for his health; and in December he got his first visitor, his pastor, to give him the sacraments.
In the meantime, the desire to hold him was fading. The idea of trying him with another military kangaroo court like those that had sent Mary Surratt and Henry Wirz to the gallows was unrealistic. Jefferson Davis was too prominent, such a trial would be too visible to the public, and every outrage against justice would be splashed up in newspaper headlines. One of his strongest advocates was Chief Justice Salmon Chase. No law had ever been passed that explicitly outlawed secession, the argument simply having been sidestepped by events. From the legal point of view it would have been difficult to accuse Davis of having committed any crime.
Judge Chase felt there was no strong legal case against him for having been the president of the Confederacy, and added, with a surprising wisdom: "Lincoln wanted Jefferson Davis to escape, and he was right. His capture was a mistake. His trial will be a greater one. We cannot convict him of treason. Secession is settled. Let it stay settled."
Still, the wheels of government continued to turn to try him, but they were grinding down. Not only was the entire South rallying to Davis, so were many influential Northerners who felt that his continued imprisonment without charge was an abuse of justice by the government, accomplishing little more than making him a martyr to Southerners at a time when reconciliation was needed. The Federal government had been enthusiastic in performing arbitrary arrests and confinements during the conflict; the public had been more or less willing to tolerate such measures in an emergency, but the emergency was over and it was well past time for the abuses to stop. Horace Greeley loudly called for the release of Davis. His imprisonment even attracted international attention. Pope Pius IX sent Davis a crown of thorns, which the pope had woven himself.
By spring, Varina Davis was visiting her husband daily. In late May, she spoke with Andrew Johnson, who surprised her by saying that he wanted Davis released, at least when public opinion clearly supported it. Johnson suggested that it might go easier if Davis applied for pardon, but Davis wouldn't hear of it. He had done nothing he felt he needed a pardon.
In August 1866, Nelson Miles was reassigned and Jefferson Davis then found his circumstances about as comfortable as could be consistent with his status as a prisoner. He was allowed to move about Fort Monroe freely and given comfortable quarters with his wife. There he remained until the spring of 1867, when, the wheels of justice having turned further, he and his wife were taken to Richmond on Saturday, 11 May, to stand before the Federal District Court. He was still under guard, but only barely so, traveling in comfort and greeted enthusiastically by the people of the city.
On his appearance before the District Court on Monday, 13 May, the court formally declared that he had passed from military law to the custody of the Federal marshal, and told him that he would be tried as soon as possible. Since the court schedule meant that wouldn't be right away, he was released on $100,000 bail. The bail was put up by Horace Greeley, who was present, and other prominent Northerners who had once been enemies. He was now a free man.
The trial was repeatedly postponed, to be finally given up for good in 1869. The American Civil War was bloody and brutal, but unusual in some respects. History had few precedents for the leader of a rebellion not merely escaping execution, but even being allowed to walk free and pursue his private life. He never did ask for a pardon, even when the Mississippi legislature asked him to so they could send him back to the US Senate. He lived instead on the honor of being the President of the Confederate States of America, revered in the South in a way that he had never been when the title actually carried authority, not merely the nostalgia of a long-lost cause.
* Although the Confederacy had been unable to obtain the Laird ironclad rams from Britain, James Bulloch, the Confederacy's energetic and shrewd agent in Europe, hadn't given up. Emperor Napoleon III of France had demonstrated consistent sympathy with the Confederacy, in spite of the fact that the Emancipation Proclamation had undermined public support for the rebel cause there, just as it had in Britain.
Napoleon III's support for the Confederacy had reservations, however. As did the British, he felt the civil war would undermine the United States as a trade rival. He also felt the conflict would leave him free to pursue his effort to conquer Mexico and add it to the French colonial empire. On the other hand, weakening the United States left France without a potential counterweight to British naval power.
The French government assured Bulloch that the country regarded the construction of ironclads for the Confederacy to be "a legitimate branch of French trade." Confederate emissary John Slidell personally asked the Emperor if the French would release ironclads to the Confederacy when they were completed. Napoleon III replied: "You may build the ships, but it will be necessary that their destination be concealed."
Such assurances were all the resourceful Bulloch needed. He contacted Lucien Arman, the biggest shipbuilding concern in France, and arranged the construction of four fast cruisers and two ironclad rams. The cruisers were masked by a cover story that they were being built for trade to China and were armed for protection from pirates, and the two ironclads were masked by another cover story that stated they were being built for Egypt. The ironclads were given the appropriate cover names of SPHINX and CHEOPS.
Bulloch might have got away with it, but one morning a shipyard clerk named Tremont showed up at the Paris office of US Minister William Dayton with a business proposition. Tremont had documents showing the cruisers and ironclads were intended for the Confederacy, and handed the papers on to Dayton for 15,000 francs, or about $3,000 US at the time. Dayton sent copies of the documents to the French Foreign Minister along with a letter indicating that construction and sale of these warships to the Confederacy would be a violation of French neutrality, and politely asked the French to stop construction of the vessels.
Napoleon III tried to stall Dayton, but by early 1864 the Emperor was increasingly realizing that the Confederacy didn't have a future. Dayton was continuously raising the volume of his complaints, and US Secretary of State Seward cleverly worked on Napoleon III's worries about his colonial government in Mexico. On 18 February 1864, a discouraged Bulloch wrote Confederate Navy Secretary Stephen Mallory that the French government had detained the two ironclads and ordered the four cruisers sold.
Even with this disappointment, Bulloch did not give up. The six warships were sold to various countries, with the SPHINX purchased by Denmark, which was fighting Prussia. Their war with the Prussians ended quickly, and the Danes then sold the SPHINX back to Arman. Bulloch managed to buy the vessel. It was renamed the CSS STONEWALL and sent across the Atlantic in mid-January 1865. Damaged by rough weather, the STONEWALL sought shelter in a port in Spain, where repairs were performed. Two Federal warships arrived in the meantime and stood outside the harbor, but when the STONEWALL returned to the sea in late March, the Union captains decided that taking on the ugly iron giant would be suicide and let her go.
On 6 May 1865, the STONEWALL reached Nassau, in desperate need of coal. The vessel was slow and clumsy, and the captain, a Virginian named T.J. Page, wrote his superiors: "You must not expect too much of me. I fear the power and effect of this vessel have been much exaggerated."
On 11 May, the STONEWALL sought port in Havana, Cuba. Page learned of the collapse of Confederate resistance. Union warships, including powerful ocean-going monitors, assembled outside the port, hoping for a shot at the rebel ironclad. They never got it. Page turned the STONEWALL over to Cuban authorities on 19 May. It ended up in the hands of the US government, and was eventually sold to Japan.
* Although the war was over on land, in those days news traveled slowly to ships at sea, and the Confederate raider SHENANDOAH continued the struggle for months after Lee's surrender.
The SHENANDOAH had been James Bulloch's last real success for the Confederacy. He had obtained the 230 foot (70 meter) long vessel from a Scottish shipyard as the SEA KING, and in October 1864 sent it to the vicinity of the island of Madeira, off the coast of Africa, where it received eight guns and the name it would be remembered by. The new raider was commanded by Captain James Iredell Waddell, a forty year old North Carolinan who had been a US Navy lieutenant and was an excellent seaman.
There was no way the SHENANDOAH could attack Yankee shipping in the Atlantic. The US Navy had plenty of warships on patrol that would quickly hunt down the raider if it made its presence known. Instead, the SHENANDOAH's mission was to sail to the North Pacific and attack the Yankee whaling fleet there. In a sense, the SHENANDOAH's mission was an admission of defeat. The original purpose of the Confederate raiders had been to distract the Federal blockade and spread war-weariness in the North. They had clearly failed in these objectives, and so the SHENANDOAH's campaign seemed less a calculated military action and more a pointless act of spite.
The goals of the cruise of the SHENANDOAH could be debated. What is not debatable is that the raider caused a good amount of damage. Waddell seized nine merchantmen during the SHENANDOAH's passage to Australia, where the vessel took on stores and underwent maintenance before heading towards North Pacific.
In February 1865, the SHENANDOAH went north from Australia. On 1 April 1865, arriving at Ascension Island in the Carolines, Waddell took his first whaling ships, seizing four on that one day. By June, the SHENANDOAH was off the Siberian coast. Waddell only found one whaler, but the ship's second mate offered to lead the raider to other whalers in the area. On 16 June, the SHENANDOAH entered the Bering Sea and in the space of a week took six whalers. Five were burned, and one was bonded to carry the captured sailors to safety. The last of the six carried a newspaper dated 14 April, with an article announcing the surrender of General Lee at Appomattox. This was undoubtedly a blow to Waddell, but he fought on, seizing 18 more whalers and burning 15 of them.
The iceberg-dotted waters were becoming increasingly unsafe for navigation, and Waddell finally decided to head south again with some dubious scheme for threatening San Francisco. On the way south, Waddell encountered a British vessel and confirmed that the war was really over.
The SHENANDOAH had taken 38 vessels. The Federals were inclined to regard raider captains as little different from pirates and many of Waddell's prizes were taken after the end of the war, making the legality of his actions even more doubtful. Instead of risking a noose around his neck, Waddell took the ship to Liverpool by the African route, and handed it over to the British on 7 November 1865.
* That was the end of the Confederate raiders. In total, they had captured or sunk over 250 Union merchantmen. This might seem like a large number in itself, but it was only 5% of the Union merchant fleet, and the raiders had done little to relieve the Union blockade of the South.
The blockade had never been airtight by any means. About 8,500 successful passages were made through the blockade, with about 1,500 blockade-runners captured or sunk. Even at its tightest, a blockade-runner had about a fifty-fifty chance of success. However, the blockade had made the delivery of weapons and other manufactured goods needed to fight the war difficult and more to the point expensive, and had done much to drain the Confederacy of the will to fight.
The raiders hadn't really extended the survival of the Confederacy for a day, but they had been a great source of Southern pride, tweaking the nose of the all-powerful North and getting away with for a long time. If they weren't really effective, they still wrote an adventurous chapter in naval history.
Even with the Confederacy a memory and the raider threat finally ended, the Union still had scores to settle over the matter. The US continued the long-running series of quarrels with the British over the raiders, pressing claims against Her Majesty's government for the damages caused by the ships the country had built for the Confederacy. These demands became known as the "Alabama Claims". The British government naturally pressed counterclaims of their own.
William H. Seward, still secretary of state under President Andrew Johnson, tried to negotiate a settlement, but the Senate rejected the effort. Hamilton Fish, who followed him in his office, continued his work, and in 1871 the governments of the US and Britain signed the Treaty of Washington. The Treaty of Washington arranged for the Alabama Claims and other issues to be submitted to an international tribunal agreeable to both the US and Britain for impartial arbitration. The tribunal awarded the US government $15.5 million and Britain $1.9 million. Both sides abided by the decision. It was a landmark in the history of international diplomacy, undoubtedly a significant step away from traditional antagonisms between the two nations, and a significant step towards a "special relationship" and alliance in two world wars and beyond.
