From the Richmond Examiner, 3/14/1863
CONFEDERATE STATES PRISON ITEMS. – On Wednesday night the prisoners
captured at Fairfax Court House by Captain Mosby, arrived at the Libby prison
from Gordonsville, forwarded by Major Boyle. – The jewel of all was Brigadier
General E. H. Stoughton, second brigade, Casey’s division, an exceedingly
handsome man, and a native of Vermont. He is one of those who, at the beginning
of the war, took out contracts for pulverizing the South in six months. His next
companions seemed to be R. Wardena, a reputed Austrian Baron, and Captain A.
Barker, company L, 5th New York cavalry. The other prisoners, thirty
in number, were all cavalrymen of the 18th Pennsylvania and 1st
Ohio cavalry, and George Wenstright, the telegraph operator at Fairfax.
A ludicrous instance is related of Captain Mosby’s capture of the
Brigadier. He was in bed, and the Captain hurrying to his room in the dark,
shook him by the shoulder with a “come, get up quick, I want you.” ‘Do you
know who I am?’ growled the brigadier, thinking the intruder one of his own
men; “I will have you arrested, sir.” “Did you ever hear of Mosby?”
retorted that individual. “Yes, have you caught the damned rascal?” he
sitting himself on an end in bed, “No, but he has got you,” was the retort
in the dark. “Come along, or you are a dead man.” The Yankee Brigadier
wilted, and being put astraddle a horse, was galloped into the Confederate line. [later
in the same paper]
From the Richmond Examiner, 3/14/63
DISTINGUISHED HOTEL ARRIVALS. – On the reception at the
Libby prison on Wednesday evening, of the prisoners sent from Gordonsville, it
was found that the list accompanying them did not tally with either their number
or rank. In fact, Brigadier General Stoughton, Baron Wardena, Captain Barker,
and a servant, were non set, and answered no to the call of the roll. The
commandant of the prison, suspecting that Lieutenant McClellan, of General
Fitzhugh Lee’s cavalry, who came down in charge of the prisoners, had given
the distinguished prisoners a choice of the Richmond hotels for the night,
dispatched Captain Bossieux, with a file of men, to the Ballard House, where,
sure enough, they were found, in bed, the distinguished prisoners occupying room
No. 95, and Lieutenant McClellan No. 89, sleeping with one eye open. Captain
Bossieux demanded that the prisoners at once change their quarters from the
Ballard House to the Hotel de Libby, but Lieutenant McClellan would not deliver
the prisoners except upon a regular order from General Winder. Captain Bossieux
returned, and reporting to his superior, who is an acting Provost Marshal, that
official repaired in person to the hotel, with a sufficient guard, and compelled
a “change of base” on the part of the Brigadier and his friends from the
Ballard to the Libby at the dead hour of midnight.
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