Secretary Stanton Denies Responsibility  
From the hour of my arrival in the capital, Friday, November 17th, my misgivings gave place to courage. I went directly to Willard’s, which, being near the Executive Mansion and the War Department, and my purse very slender, I believed would save me hack hire. I had scarcely registered when General Clingman called. He was followed shortly by Senators Garland and Johnson, of Arkansas, the vanguard of numerous friends, who within a few hours came to extend their sympathies and wishes for the success of my mission. During that first day I sent a note to Colonel Johnson, Mr. Johnson’s Secretary, asking for an interview with the President at the earliest possible date. To my great relief of mind, within a few hours there came an answer, telling me the President would see me the following Wednesday!
For the next few days I knew no moment alone. The list of callers noted in my small diary necessarily was but partial, yet even that is wonderfully long. Among them, to my surprise and somewhat to my mystification, were General Ihrie, Major Miller and Colonel Ayr of Grant’s staff. Their friendliness amazed me. I could imagine no reason why they should call. General Ihrie, moreover, assured me of his chief’s kind feeling toward my husband, and advised me to see the Lieutenant-General at an early date.
The Sunday after my arrival, callers began to arrive before breakfast, the first being Colonel Ogle Tayloe, bearing an invitation from Mrs. Tayloe to dinner the 308following evening. Before church hour had arrived, dear old Mr. Corcoran came, intending to give me welcome on his way to St. John’s. He forgot to leave again until services were over, and others returning from church crowded in. Mr. Corcoran’s manner was full of the old-time charm, as he bade me good-bye at last; and, as he took my hand in parting, he said, “You’ve not forgotten the little white house round the corner?” (referring to the banking-house of Riggs & Corcoran).
“No,” I answered, smiling sadly, “You are my bankers still, but, alas! where are my deposits?”
Mr. Corcoran’s glance was full of kindness. Laying his hand upon his heart, he replied, “They are here, my friend!” and he pressed my hand reassuringly.
I remember that Sunday as one in which tears of gratitude rose to my eyes again and again, until at last I exclaimed, “It is all very strange to me! There appears to be none of my husband’s enemies here! It seems to me as if everyone is his friend!”
The following morning, however, I had an experience calculated to arouse in me a feeling somewhat less secure. I was still in the bath when a tap came at my door.
“A lady wishes to see you,” was the reply to my question.
“Who is she?” I asked.
“Don’t know, ma’am. She wouldn’t give her name!”
“Very well,” I answered. “Explain to her that I am dressing; that unless her business is imperative, I would prefer to have her call later.”
In a few moments I heard light tapping again. Upon my inquiry, a name was whispered through the keyhole, which I recognised as that of the wife of a well-known public official. I at once admitted her. The purpose of her visit was a peculiar one. She had come to warn me of the presence in the city of James Montgomery, alias Thompson, one of the hireling witnesses 309whose “testimony” against Mr. Davis and Mr. Clay had been registered with the Bureau of Military Justice. By some unfortunate connection of her own family with this miscreant, my visitor had learned that Montgomery, upon hearing of my object in visiting Washington, had been heard to make a threat of violence against me. The lady, who shall continue to be nameless, was so convinced some harm threatened me that she begged me to promise that while in the capital I would go armed, and especially be cautious with unknown callers. Montgomery, she added, was likely to disguise himself; but, further to aid me in guarding against some injury at his hands, she had brought with her a photograph of the wretched man. Whether or not some crime was projected against me by this man I never knew, but the wild nature of the times warranted me in exercising, thereafter, a prudence which otherwise would not have occurred to me. I took counsel with friends, and, with one exception, later to be mentioned, no occurrence during my stay in the capital served to arouse in me a further apprehension from that quarter.
In the days that intervened until my appointment with the President, my hours were spent in advantageous interviews with Judge Hughes, of Hughes & Denver, with Judge Black, Senator Garland, Frederick A. Aiken and others, during which I gleaned much knowledge of what had transpired since my husband’s incarceration, and of the public feeling concerning the distinguished prisoners at Fortress Monroe, whose trials had been so mysteriously postponed. It was now six months since the imprisonment of Messrs. Davis and Clay; but in so far as might be learned, definite charges against them had not yet been filed at the War Department. On every side I heard it declared that the situation was unprecedented in English or American jurisprudence. Leading lawyers of the country were ready and eager to appear in the 310prisoners’ behalf, but every effort made by friends to see them thus far had been futile. In those first weeks, reiterated proffers of legal aid continued to reach me daily from distinguished quarters.
Upon my arrival in the capital I had put myself at once into communication with Judge Hughes, as advised by Senator Pendleton. His kindness was unceasing, not only in the matter of legal advice to guide me through the intricacies of my undertaking, but in his generous placing at my disposal his horses and carriages, and the services of his coachman and footman. Mrs. Hughes was absent in the West, and the hospitality of their home, therefore, was barred; but all that a thoughtful nature could suggest was done by the Judge to facilitate success in my mission.
From the first, too, Judge Jeremiah S. Black, ex-Attorney-General, and Secretary of State under President Buchanan, with whom I now became, for the first time, personally acquainted, proved a bulwark of sympathy that thereafter never failed my husband and self. He was a peculiar man in appearance, with shaggy brows, deep-set eyes, and a cavernous mouth, out of which invincible arguments rolled that made men listen. This feature was large when he spoke, but when he laughed, the top of his head fell back like a box cover, and looked as if it must drop over the other way. Happily for the unfortunate, his heart was modelled on a scale as large, and for months he gave his time and advice unstintedly to me.
On the Wednesday appointed by the President, accompanied by Judge Hughes, I proceeded to keep my appointment at the White House. One of the first familiar faces I saw as I entered was that of Mrs. Stephen A. Douglas, now widowed. A wait of some moments being imminent, with the affectionate warmth so well-known to me in other and happier days, Mrs. Douglas at 311once volunteered to accompany me in my call upon “the good President,” and in a few moments we were shown into his presence. Mr. Johnson received us civilly, preserving, at first, what I learned afterward to know was an habitual composure, though he softened somewhat under the ardent appeal of Mrs. Douglas when she urged upon him the granting of my request.
My first impression of the President, who, while a Senator, in the fifties, had seldom been seen in social gatherings in the capital, was that of a man upon whom greatness, of a truth, had been thrust; a political accident, in fact. His hands were small and soft; his manner was self-contained, it is true, but his face, with “cheeks as red as June apples,” was not a forceful one.
From the beginning, as Judge Black had declared he would do, Mr. Johnson clearly wished to shirk the responsibility of my husband’s case, and to throw it upon the shoulders of his Secretary of War. His non-committal responses to my reasons why I should have access to my husband, why he should be tried or liberated, disheartened me greatly. When Mrs. Douglas perceived this, she added her pleadings to mine, and, as the President’s shiftiness became more and more apparent, she burst into tears, and, throwing herself down on her knees before him, called upon me to follow her example. This, however, I could not comply with. I had no reason to respect the Tennesseean before me. That he should have my husband’s life in his power was a monstrous wrong, and a thousand reasons why it was wrong flashed through my mind like lightning as I measured him, searing it as they passed. My heart was full of indignant protest that such an appeal as Mrs. Douglas’s should have been necessary; but that, having been made, Mr. Johnson could refuse it, angered me still more. I would not have knelt to him even to save a precious life. This first, memorable one of many, unhappy 312scenes at the White Hou............