President Johnson Interposes  
Mr. Johnson kept his word. Late in December I found myself on my way to Baltimore with the President’s autographed permit in hand, that would admit me to my husband’s prison. I left Washington on the afternoon of the 27th of December, going by train to Baltimore. Here, crossing the city in an omnibus with other passengers, to the wharf of the “New Line Steamers,” I was soon on board the boat, the George Leary, bound for Norfolk and Fortress Monroe. I was so keenly alive to my own lonely condition that I could not bring myself even to register my name among the list of happier passengers. Everywhere about me gaily dressed people thronged. I saw among them General Granger and wife, his staff, and ladies of the party. As the George Leary pulled out from her moorings, the brass band of a company of soldiers bound for Norfolk began to play sweet, old-time airs. I had no desire to linger among the care-free throng, and, calling the stewardess, handed her a gold-piece, saying, “Can you sign for me or get me a stateroom? I only go to Fortress Monroe.”
In a few moments she returned, regarding me inquiringly.
“Lady!” she asked, “ain’t you the wife of one of those gentlemen down at the Fort?”
“Yes!” I answered. “I am the wife of Mr. Clay, the prisoner!”
Thereupon she opened her hand, displaying my gold-piece, saying, “The captain says he can’t take any fare 332from you. He’ll be here in a little while!” And she moved away.
In a few moments the tall, gaunt Captain Blakeman stood before me.
“Are you Mrs. Clay?” he asked. “Wife of the prisoner at Fortress Monroe?”
Upon receiving my affirmative answer, the Captain spoke earnestly.
“Mrs. Clay, you have my deep sympathy. I’m a regular Down-Easter myself—a Maine man; but for forty years I’ve plied a boat between Northern and Southern cities; and I know the Southern people well. I think it is a damned shame the way the Government is behaving toward you and Mrs. Davis!”
For a moment the tears blinded me, seeing which the Captain at once withdrew, comprehending the thanks he saw I could not utter. However, when the gong sounded for supper, he returned, and with kindly tact led me to a place beside him at the table, though I assured him I wanted nothing. At my obvious lack of appetite he showed a very woman’s thoughtfulness, himself preparing the viands before me while he urged me “to drink my coffee. You must take something,” he said from time to time, whenever he perceived a lagging interest in the dishes before me. Nor did this complete his kindnesses, for on the following morning, as I left the boat, Captain Blakeman handed me a slip of paper on which was written:
“New Line Steamers, Baltimore, December 27, 1865.
“Will please pass free Mrs. C. C. Clay, rooms and meals included, to all points as she wishes, and oblige,
“S. Blakeman,
“Commanding Steamer George Leary.”
“I hope you will use this pass as often as you need it,” he said.
We arrived at Fortress Monroe at four o’clock the next morning. As I stepped from the gang-plank, the scene 333about me was black and bleak, the air wintry. Save for a few dozing stevedores here and there, whom I soon perceived, the wharf was quite deserted. It had been my intention, upon my arrival, to go directly to the little Hygeia Hotel just outside the Fort, but upon the advice of Captain Blakeman I accepted the shelter offered me by the clerk in charge of the wharf, and rested until daylight in his snug little room just off from the office.
Just before leaving Washington I had written to Dr. Craven, telling him of my intended visit to the prison, and asking him to meet me at the little hotel. I now, at the first streak of dawn, still acting upon the suggestions of the kind captain, found a messenger and sent him with a note to General Miles, telling him of my arrival with the President’s permit to see my husband, and asking that an ambulance be sent to convey me to the Fort; and I despatched a second to Dr. Craven to tell him my whereabouts. Unknown to me, that friendly physician, whose humane treatment of Mr. Davis and my husband had brought upon him the disapproval of the War Department, had already been removed from his station at the Fort. My messenger found him, nevertheless, and upon receipt of my message he came and made himself known to me. His words were few, and not of a character to cheer one in my forlorn condition.
“Look for no kindness, Mrs. Clay,” he said, “at the hands of my successor, Dr. Cooper. He is the blackest of Black Republicans, and may be relied upon to show the prisoners little mercy.”
Our interview was brief, and, as the Fort ambulance was seen approaching, the Doctor left me hurriedly. “For,” said he, “it will do neither you nor the prisoners any good if you are seen talking with me.” He had scarcely disappeared in the grey morning when the escort from the Fort arrived. The vehicle was manned by two handsome union soldiers, one, Major Hitchcock of 334General Miles’s staff, and the other Lieutenant Muhlenberg, a grandson, as I afterward learned, of the author of “I would not live alway.” Months afterward, when Mr. Clay left the Fortress, he carried with him the little volume containing Bishop Muhlenberg’s verses, a gift from the young lieutenant.
Arrived at the Fort, I was taken at once to the headquarters of General Miles, and conducted to a room commodiously and even luxuriously furnished. In a short time the General made his appearance. He was polite and even courteous in the examination of my passport, which he scanned carefully; but his manner was non-committal as he politely asked me to “be seated.” I seated myself and waited. The General withdrew. After the lapse of a few moments, an orderly appeared, bearing upon a salver a tempting breakfast; but I, who had spent months in seeking the privilege I had now come to claim, could touch nothing. I declined the food, saying I would wait and breakfast with my husband. The orderly looked perplexed, but removed the tray; and now a dreary and inexplicable wait began, interbroken with first a nervous, then an indignant, and at last a tearful inquiry. During the morning I affected a nonchalance wholly at variance with my real feelings. Picking up a book that lay at my elbow on the table, I was surprised to see a familiar name upon the fly-leaf. I commented upon the luxury of the apartment when next General Miles entered, and added, “These books seem to have been Governor Wise’s property.” The General was quick to defend himself from any suggestion that might lie in my words. He replied at once. “These headquarters were furnished by General Butler before I was sent here!”
 
DR. HENRY C. VOGELL
 
Fortress Monroe, 1866
335Midday came and still the President’s autographed permit, which to me had seemed so powerful a document, was not honoured. A savoury luncheon was now brought in, but a nausea of nervousness had seized me and I could not eat a morsel. My excitement increased momentarily, until the distress of mind and apprehension were wholly beyond my control. I now implored General Miles to let me see my husband, if only for a moment; to explain this delay in the face of the President’s order. I begged him to allow me to telegraph to Washington; but to all my pleadings his only reply was to urge me to “be calm.” He assured me he regretted the delay, but that “his orders” were such that he could neither admit me to my husband’s room, nor allow me to use the Government wires at present.
By the middle of the afternoon, faint with pleadings and worn with indignation and fears at the unknown powers which dared thus to obstruct the carrying out of the President’s orders, not knowing what might yet be before me, my self-possession entirely deserted me. I remember, during my hysterical weeping, crying out to General Miles, “If you are ever married, I pray God your wife may never know an hour like this!”
In the midst of an uncontrollable paroxysm which seized me at last, Dr. Vogell, who has been variously designated as the private secretary and instructor of General Miles, entered. During the day General Miles had presented the Doctor to me, and, in his subsequent passing and repassing through the room, we had from time to time exchanged a remark. He was a tall, picturesque man, of possibly sixty years. At the sight of my culminating misery, Dr. Vogell could bear the distressful scene no longer. He cried out impulsively, “Miles, for God’s sake, let the woman go to her husband!”
Unhappily, this manly outburst, though it had its own message of sympathy for me, failed as utterly to move the commanding General Miles as had my previous urgings. In the months that followed, Dr. Vogell often called upon me clandestinely in Washington (announced as “Mr. Brown”), to say that “a friend of yours was quite 336well this morning, and desired his love given you!” The recollection of his kindnesses lives imperishable in my memory, but especially vivid is that first upwelling sympathy during the painful waiting at the Fort.
General Miles seemed not untouched by my pleadings, but, it was evident, he felt himself subject to a superior power which forced him to refuse them. His manner throughout, in fact, was courteous and apologetic. Despite my agony of mind, it was late in the afternoon ere the President’s order was honoured. Then General Miles entered, and, with an appearance of completest relief, consigned me, tear-stained and ill, to the care of Lieutenant Stone, who conducted me to Mr. Clay’s prison.
All day my husband, to whom there had penetrated a rumour of my coming, had been waiting for me, himself tortured by fears for my safety and by the mystery of my delay. The gloomy corridors, in which soldiers patrolled night and day, guarding the two delicate prisoners of State, were already darkening with the early evening shadows when, at last, I saw my husband, martyr to his faith in the honour of the Government, standing within the grating, awaiting me. The sight of his tall, slender form, his pale face and whitened hair, awaiting me behind those dungeon bars, affected me terribly. My pen is too feeble to convey the weakness that overcame me as Lieutenant Stone inserted and turned the key in the massive creaking lock and admitted me; nor shall I attempt to revive here the brief hours that followed, with their tumultuous telling over of the happenings of the past months and our hurried planning for the future.
I returned to the capital full of sorrow and indignation. My adventure at Fortress Monroe had revealed to me, far more fully than I previously had suspected was possible, the struggle for power that was now going on between the Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton, on the one side, and 337on the other, President Johnson, by whose courtesy or timidity this official still retained his portfolio. I resolved to relate my entire experience at Fortress Monroe to the President at the first opportunity.
In the meantime, my husband, with whom I had left a digest of Holt’s report, upon a careful perusal of it, had been greatly aroused. By the courtesy of a secret friend, he hastened to send me a list of persons who could, if called upon, readily testify to his whereabouts during certain periods described in the charges agai............