From the Richmond Examiner, 3/2/1864
A LAMENTABLE MISTAKE – A DETECTIVE OFFICER SHOT BY THE PRISON GUARD. –
Between eleven and twelve o’clock yesterday morning one of those unforeseen
circumstances which sometimes occur under a system of military discipline, took
place at the Deserters’ Prison, opposite Castle Thunder. – The prisoners had
been annoying the guard by throwing bricks and pieces of timber, and applying
insulting epithets to them. After standing it sometime, a sentinel on Cary
street, named H. C. Jordan, Company D, Twentieth Virginia battalion, put the
prison rule in force by firing his musket at one of the most obnoxious of the
prisoners as he appeared at a third story window. The shot was without effect.
Upon the discharge of the piece, detective officers James L. Woodis and Lemuel
Powell, on duty at Castle Thunder, went across into the prison quarters for the
purpose of enforcing order among the Yankees. Unfortunately, they did so without
first notifying the guard of their intention. Woodis mounted to the third story,
and putting his head out of the window, spoke to the sentinel, Jordan, saying,
“All right.” Jordan, who had reloaded his musket, mistook Woodis for a
Yankee, and, smarting under his former annoyance, drew up his musket, and fired.
The ball struck Woodis fair in the right eye, passed directly through without
breaking the eyelid, and lodged in the back of the skull, fracturing and
breaking out the skull bone in its passage. Woodis fell insensible, in a gore of
blood, and the mistake of the sentinel having been discovered, immediate
assistance was rendered him. We was carried on a litter to his home, on Union
Hill, where several physicians were called. Every indication pointed to his
death last evening, as there was no possible hope of his surviving. Woodis had
held the appointment of detective about three months; is about thirty-two years
of age, and the husband of a wife and father of a dependent family of the three
children.
Jordan was not placed under arrest, as it was evident that, in enforcing the
prison rule, he did not recognize Woodis, but mistook him for one of the
prisoners.
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