Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 29.djvu/65

 The Trials and Trinl <>f Jcfcrxon D.irix. 49

In compliance with this last request Brevet-Major-General Nelson A. Miles was selected as a person " sharp enough " to be Mr. Davis' jailor, and he reported to General Halleck for the purpose. (121 War of Rebellion, p. 560.)

On the i gth of May the steamer " Clyde " reached Fortress Mon- roe, having aboard Mr. Davis and family, Mr. Stephens, Mr. Reagan, Mr. and Mrs. C. C. Clay, Major-General Joseph Wheeler and staff, Colonels Johnston and Lubbock, and Mr. Burton N. Harrison, be- sides one or two subaltern officers. The safeguards were at once augmented by placing a gunboat on each side of the "Clyde." Stephens and Reagan were sent to Fort Warren; Wheeler and staff, Johnston and Lubbock, to Fort Delaware, and Harrison to Wash- ington, while the women and children were sent back South.

Fearing that Halleck might not be harsh enough or Miles "sharp enough" for the occasion, Mr. Stanton sent the Assistant Secretary of War, Mr. C. A. Dana, to the fort to supervise the details of the incarceration of the two prisoners, Davis and Clay. He was present on the 22d of June, when they were removed, and wrote a graphic account of the proceeding, which has been preserved (121 War of Rebellion, p. 563), and as it is both accurate and authentic, it may be instructive to quote a few sentences :

" At piecisely i o'clock General Miles left with a tug and a guard from the garrison to go for Davis and Clay. At 1 130 the tug left the ' Clyde ' for the fort. She landed at the engineer wharf, and the procession, led by the cavalrymen of Colonel Pritchard's command, moved through the water battery on the east front of the fortress were followed by General Miles, holding Davis by the right arm. Next came half a dozen soldiers, and then Colonel Pritchard with Clay, and last the guard which Miles took out with him. The ar- rangements were excellent and successful."
 * and entered by a postern leading from that battery. The cavalrymen

That one may fully appreciate the excellence of the arrangements which secured this success, it must be remembered that there was not an armed Confederate soldier east of the Mississippi; that the two prisoners were old, delicate and worn, and that all around them there was nothing but massive walls, heavy ordnance, and well- armed men-of-war.

Mr. Dana's patriotic soul must have been stirred within him as he saw the procession slowly cover the short space between the beach and the postern gate the cavalrymen in front and then Davis with