Sold – Official Report of the Capture of Jefferson Davis at the End of the Civil War

At daylight yesterday, at Irwinville, I surprised and captured Jeff. Davis

On Sunday, April 2, 1865, while seated in his pew in St. Paul’s Church, Richmond, Jefferson Davis was handed a telegram from General Robert E. Lee announcing the latter’s speedy withdrawal from Petersburg, and the consequent necessity for the evacuation of the capital. That evening, accompanied by his personal staff, members of the cabinet, and others, Davis left by train for Danville, VA. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia on April 9 and his men immediately started going home, which for all practical purposes ended the Confederate resistance. Davis had to abandon Danville, and after a conference at Greensboro, NC with Generals Johnston and Beauregard, in which his hopes of continuing the war met with no encouragement, he went to Charlotte. There he heard of the assassination of President Lincoln, an event that put him in greater personal jeopardy than he would otherwise have been. In the aftermath of the assassination of Lincoln, President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton mounted a massive manhunt for Davis, who was now under suspicion of complicity in the assassination. Davis fled through the Carolinas and into Georgia, though with an ever-decreasing military escort. In early May, Davis’s Union pursuers were beginning to close his routes of escape. General James H. Wilson deployed the 1st Wisconsin and 4th Michigan cavalry regiments to search for Davis in Georgia, but he neglected to coordinate the operations of the two units, which had tragic results. Benjamin D. Pritchard commanded the 439 men of the 4th Michigan as they chased Davis and his entourage.

On May 9 Pritchard learned that Davis had crossed the Ocmulgee River and was headed toward Abbeville. So Pritchard headed his 135-man force there and arrived in the town at 1  a.m. on May 10. That night residents told him that Davis’s camp was 1.5 miles north of town, so he rode his men in that direction. Reaching the encampment, he waited for dawn so the light would illuminate his approach. At 3:30 a.m., Pritchard ordered his men to ride forward; he wrote, “Just as the earliest dawn appeared, I put the column in motion, and we were enabled to approach within four or five rods of the camp undiscovered, when a dash was ordered, and in an instant the whole camp, with its inmates, was ours.”

Davis was inside his wife Varina’s tent and heard the gunfire and the horses in the camp; he assumed these were Confederate stragglers or deserters. He told his wife. “I will go out and see if I cannot stop the firing; surely I still have some authority with the Confederates.” He opened the tent flap, saw the bluecoats, and turned to Varina: “The Federal cavalry are upon us.” Before he left the tent, Varina prevailed upon him to wear an unadorned raglan overcoat, also known as a “waterproof.” She hoped the raglan might camouflage his fine suit of clothes, which resembled a Confederate officer’s uniform. This later led to stories that he had tried to evade capture by wearing wonmen’s clothes. Another story claimed that he had tried to escape. “I had gone perhaps between fifteen or twenty yards,” Davis recalled, “when a trooper galloped up and ordered me to halt and surrender.” One member of Davis’s party later described Davis’s treatment at the moment: “A private stepped up to him rudely and said: ‘Well, Jeffy, how do you feel now?’” Then Pritchard was notified that he had just captured the Confederate president.

Pritchard filed an official report with his division providing all the details of the capture. This is that official report. Autograph Letter Signed (“B. D. Pritchard, Lieut. Col. 4th Mich Cav.”), 2 pages, Abbeville, Georgia, May 11, 1865, to Capt. T.W. Scott, Assist. Adjutant General of his cavalry division. “I have the honor to report that at daylight yesterday, at Irwinville, I surprised and captured Jeff. Davis and family, together with his wife’s sister and brother, his Postmaster General (Reagan), his private secretary (Col. Harrison), Col. Johnston, aide-de-camp. on Jeff’s staff, Col. Morris, Col. Lubbock and Lieut. Hathaway; also several important papers and a train of five wagons and three ambulances, making a most perfect success, had not a most painful mistake occurred, by which the 4th Michigan and 1st Wisconsin collided, which cost us two men killed and Lieut. Boutelle wounded through the arm in the 4th Michigan, and three men wounded in the 1st Wisconsin. This occurred just at daylight after we had captured the camp, by the action of the 1st Wisconsin not properly answering our challenge, by which they were mistaken for the enemy.” The letter comes in a half russet morocco folding-case. This next-day account makes no allusion to any attempt of Davis to escape the Union cavalrymen, nor of him wearing women’s clothes.

The news of Davis’s capture as revealed in this report hit the North like a thunderclasp, and led to celebrations everywhere. Meanwhile, the 11th of May, the captured party headed for Macon, and a courier from there arrived and notified them that there was a $100,000 reward offered for Mr. Davis’ capture in connection with the Lincoln assassination. When Reagan read the notice, he earnestly protested that Davis had no connection whatever with that crime. Pritchard then received orders to make a detail from his regiment in readiness to take his prisoners to Washington, and after they reached camp, he proceeded upon that service and conveyed Jefferson Davis to Fortress Monroe. Davis would remain there awaiting trial for two years.