Surratt Courier

[Lincoln Wonk]

Great article on electoral votes and popular votes in the February 2017 Surratt Courier.

[RJNorton]

Kudos to Bill Binzel for his fascinating article in the latest Surratt Courier. The article is entitled "When Did Booth and Herold Attempt to Cross the Potomac?"

[Steve]

I second Roger, that was an excellent and interesting article Bill!

[Dennis Urban]

It was interesting to see all of those "crossing" accounts collated in the same article. Kudos to Bill for taking the time to do that. I counted that seventeen accounts were mentioned. Seeing such caused this researcher to look for the original source of the book quoted statements. This was easy since the page attribution was given and most of the books are in my library. Of the eight accounts that favor April 20 as the crossing date, I found that six of those accounts used the Thomas Jones 1893 book, J. Wilkes Booth, as the source. However, those accounts favoring April 21 (I counted seven) as the crossing date, used a variety of different sources; Tidwell, Owens, Woodland, Wilmer). This, of course, proves nothing but it does serve to demonstrate that when various authors over the years quote the same source, we tend to believe that the bulk of the same information is more accurate than several individual sources. True, there is no definitive answer. I do, however, favor the several sources over the single or few sources.

Additionally, I continue to find the Owens statement remarkable and plausible; primarily because of its accurate detail so soon after the event. Such detail could not have been widely known or reported by April 28. I am intrigued by Owens giving his statement at Bryantown, somewhat removed from his home base at Newport. Although he did not say, Owens could have had many reasons for being in Bryantown on April 28th. Of greater concern is that Newport is east of Allen's Fresh which would take the fugitives away from their intended crossing point. Perhaps they were looking for another way out of the area. We shall never know. Perhaps at some future date another account or two may surface to confirm or deny the Newport incident.

[L Verge]

The Owens statement makes so much sense that I don't think we can dismiss it, but how do we prove it? Rick and Wild Bill think that Owens died while in federal custody, and that may be true. I wish, however, that we had the means of doing Find A Grave searches for him in the Newport area. His being a negro, however, in Southern Maryland makes that difficult. Chances are excellent that he was Catholic; wonder whether he is in an unmarked grave in St. Mary's Newport - the same cemetery where Thomas Jones rests? Wish I had time to search that church's records. Anyone know if Old Capitol kept a record of deaths at the prison?

[Steve]

James H. T. Owens - age 35 and citizen of Newport, Maryland died of "inflammation of the brain" while at Old Capitol Prison on June 23, 1865. He was buried in Arlington Cemetery Grave 16, Range 15, Block 2.B.

I found his Find A Grave entry, it has a picture but is lacking in details:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6055...-h_t-owens

[Gene C]

I am a bit surprised that in 1865 a negro, who was held and died in the Old Capitol Prison, would be buried in Arlington Cemetery.

[Dennis Urban]

Might be a different person. Was he in the military. The burial card might have more information.

[mike86002000]

(06-10-2019 12:55 PM)Dennis Urban Wrote:  Additionally, I continue to find the Owens statement remarkable and plausible; primarily because of its accurate detail so soon after the event. Such detail could not have been widely known or reported by April 28. I am intrigued by Owens giving his statement at Bryantown, somewhat removed from his home base at Newport. Although he did not say, Owens could have had many reasons for being in Bryantown on April 28th. Of greater concern is that Newport is east of Allen's Fresh which would take the fugitives away from their intended crossing point. Perhaps they were looking for another way out of the area. We shall never know. Perhaps at some future date another account or two may surface to confirm or deny the Newport incident.

Allen's Fresh, Newport, and Bryantown were more closely connected in 1865 than is obvious, today.
I have a copy of the 1835 map of "Allen's Fresh" by Alexander. It covers the area from present day Allen's Fresh, where rt. 234 crosses the Wicomico/Zekiah Swamp, all the way to Bryantown. Bryantown itself is also shown in a detail, street map. Allen's Fresh was some sort of district back then, and included Zekiah and the land on either side, North to Bryantown. The small town of Allen's Fresh grew up around a tobacco ware house, and didn't even always have it's own post office.
Newport was just over the hill from the town of Allen's Fresh, (actually, the road ran around the hill to the South). Very useful, circa 1860 maps of the area are available at: http://slavery.msa.maryland.gov/html/map...index.html . Note "Allen Fresh" is about 1/4 of Charles County!
As far as Newport and Allen's Fresh being a way out of the area:
The town of Allen's Fresh lies just below the tide line where Zekiah Swamp feeds into the Wicomico River. It's very practical to ride the out going tide down the river in a small boat. The current, after the heavy Spring Rains of 1865, would have been helpful. Machodoc Creek and Mrs. Quesenberry's safe house are across the Potomac. It would be critical to catch the tide so as to be down the Wicomico, and across the Potomac in darkness.
As I remember, Thomas Jones' man told Oldroyd, in an interview, that he had brought the boat Booth used in his escape, around to Dent's Meadow from Allen's Fresh, where it had been kept, at the instructions of Jones, just before Booth finally used it. That means it was probably at Allen's Fresh the night of the assassination.
I believe Harbin told Townsend, (Gath), in an interview, that he and Baden had been waiting for Booth at Adam's tavern in Newport, to assist him across the river, to Virginia, the night of the assassination. Booth didn't show. Eventually, they connected at Mrs. Quesenberry's.
Mike

[L Verge]

Personally, I think there were always two plans for crossing into Virginia, one via the Wicomico out of St. Mary's County as well as the route taken finally. Those of you who have read Tidwell's work will remember that there was an incident near Mechanicsville (St. Mary's County) involving a small unit of federal cavalry at the time - likely because the Union was aware of the various points of crossing the Potomac. Harbin and Baden finally crossed as decoys from that area, and that gave Jones the opportunity to take the fugitives across upriver.

---

(06-11-2019 05:57 AM)Gene C Wrote:  I am a bit surprised that in 1865 a negro, who was held and died in the Old Capitol Prison, would be buried in Arlington Cemetery.

Arlington did not start out as an honored national cemetery. Because it was the confiscated home of one of the most hated men in the Union ranks, Robert E. Lee, it first became a dumping ground. The area around it was known as Arlington Heights and became one of the largest contraband (refugee) camps in D.C. It would be interesting to know who some of the other persons were who are buried in that particular section. Maybe it was a prisoners and paupers section?

Also, prisoners at the Old Capitol were dying and had to be disposed of. If there was no family to claim a body (or if a family were even notified), the deceased had to go somewhere, and Arlington was right across the river. Surely, the Adams family of Newport was not going to make the trek into the city to claim a hired hand - if they even knew that he had died.

For those of you who know the background to this story, I have to congratulate Rick Smith and Wild Bill on their educated guess as to Owens's cause of death. The records list "inflammation of the brain," and it is pretty logical to think that it was caused by severe beatings.

[L Verge]

Speaking of the beginnings of Arlington National Cemetery: After the Lee family was evacuated, 14,000 federal troops descended on the 1,100-acre estate. Here's what ensued.

...The attack never materialized, but the war's impact was seen, felt and heard at Arlington in a thousand ways. Union forces denuded the estate's forest and absconded with souvenirs from the mansion. They built cabins and set up a cavalry remount station by the river. The Army also took charge of the newly freed slaves who flocked into Washington after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. When the government was unable to accommodate the former slaves in the capital, where thousands fell sick and died, one of Meigs' officers proposed that they be settled at Arlington, "on the lands recently abandoned by rebel leaders." A sprawling Freedmen's Village of 1,500 sprang to life on the estate, complete with new frame houses, schools, churches and farmlands on which former slaves grew food for the Union's war effort.

Appropriating the homestead was perfectly in keeping with the views of Lincoln, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, Gen. William T. Sherman and Montgomery Meigs, all of whom believed in waging total war to bring the rebellion to a speedy conclusion. "Make them so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it," Sherman wrote.

The war, of course, dragged on far longer than anyone expected. By the spring of 1864, Washington's temporary hospitals were overflowing with sick and dying soldiers, who began to fill local cemeteries just as General Lee and the Union commander, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, began their blistering Forty Days' Campaign, exchanging blows from Virginia's Wilderness to Petersburg. The fighting produced some 82,000 casualties in just over a month. Meigs cast about for a new graveyard to accommodate the rising tide of bodies. His eye fell upon Arlington.

The first soldier laid to rest there was Pvt. William Christman, 21, of the 67th Pennsylvania Infantry, who was buried in a plot on Arlington's northeast corner on May 13, 1864. A farmer newly recruited into the Army, Christman never knew a day of combat. Like others who would join him at Arlington, he was felled by disease; he died of peritonitis in Washington's Lincoln General Hospital on May 11. His body was committed to the earth with no flags flying, no bugles playing and no family or chaplain to see him off. A simple pine headboard, painted white with black lettering, identified his grave, like the markers for Pvt. William H. McKinney and other soldiers too poor to be embalmed and sent home for burial. The indigent dead soon filled the Lower Cemetery—a name that described both its physical and social status—across the lane from a graveyard for slaves and freedmen.

The next month, Meigs moved to make official what was already a matter of practice: "I recommend that...the land surrounding the Arlington Mansion, now understood to be the property of the United States, be appropriated as a National Military Cemetery, to be properly enclosed, laid out and carefully preserved for that purpose," he wrote Stanton on June 15, 1864. Meigs proposed devoting 200 acres to the new graveyard. He also suggested that Christman and others recently interred in the Lower Cemetery should be unearthed and reburied closer to Lee's hilltop home. "The grounds about the Mansion are admirably adapted to such a use," he wrote. Stanton endorsed the quartermaster's recommendation the same day.

Loyalist newspapers applauded the birth of Arlington National Cemetery, one of 13 new graveyards created specifically for those dying in the Civil War. "This and the [Freedmen's Village]...are righteous uses of the estate of the Rebel General Lee," read the Washington Morning Chronicle.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/h...145147007/

[Steve]

I got this information (which I've retyped below) directly from the Arlington burial record made at the time. It specifically says that Owens was not in the military and was a citizen of Newport, Maryland who died at Old Capitol Prison:


James H. T. Owens - age 35 and citizen of Newport, Maryland died of "inflammation of the brain" while at Old Capitol Prison on June 23, 1865. He was buried in Arlington Cemetery Grave 16, Range 15, Block 2.B.



I've already sent both images of the record to Roger who can post them to the forum, if any of you still have doubts that this is the correct person.

The entry is the second last from the bottom continued across both pages.

Find A Grave page:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6055...-h_t-owens

[L Verge]

(06-11-2019 04:45 PM)Steve Wrote:  I got this information (which I've retyped below) directly from the Arlington burial record made at the time. It specifically says that Owens was not in the military and was a citizen of Newport, Maryland who died at Old Capitol Prison:


James H. T. Owens - age 35 and citizen of Newport, Maryland died of "inflammation of the brain" while at Old Capitol Prison on June 23, 1865. He was buried in Arlington Cemetery Grave 16, Range 15, Block 2.B.



I've already sent both images of the record to Roger who can post them to the forum, if any of you still have doubts that this is the correct person.

The entry is the second last from the bottom continued across both pages.

Find A Grave page:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6055...-h_t-owens

I have very few doubts that you have found the missing James Owens, and I bet that he still lies in the Lower Cemetery where the slaves and freedmen went, but it likely is no longer known as the Lower Cemetery. Thank you, Steve, for putting another piece in the puzzle.

[Gene C]

Thanks Laurie & Steve, always nice to learn something new and totally unexpected

[wpbinzel]

(06-10-2019 11:06 PM)Steve Wrote:  James H. T. Owens - age 35 and citizen of Newport, Maryland died of "inflammation of the brain" while at Old Capitol Prison on June 23, 1865. He was buried in Arlington Cemetery Grave 16, Range 15, Block 2.B.

I found his Find A Grave entry, it has a picture but is lacking in details:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6055...-h_t-owens

Great find, Steve. Congratulations! In the pages of the records which precede and follow "Owens," is there any notation of race on any of the entries? It was generally the custom to note "colored" on records pertaining to African-Americans at that time. I am curious whether the lack of a designation of race on the Owen's entry was an omission or consistent with other entries of persons buried in that section of Arlington.

In any event, well done, and thank you for sharing your find!