From Confederate Veteran Magazine, Vol. 16 (1908), p. 114
FEDERAL SOLDIER
FULFILLED HIS PROMISE.
BY R. WINTHROP JONES.
During the Civil War I had been
confined as a prisoner in Libby Prison, and ten years after being discharged
from the United States service I was suddenly seized with a desire to go South
and have a look at it. As I was starting an uncle of mine insisted on giving me
a letter to an old friend of his, Samuel Porcher, a Richmond merchant.
As soon as I arrived in the
former Confederate capital I went down to the river bank and, handing before the
old tobacco warehouse that had been my prison, looked up at it with very
singular feelings. There on the street level was the door out of which I had
passed in broad daylight at the imminent risk of my life and began a journey of
intolerable suffering down the James River. As I stood in 1874 looking on the
scene of my adventure of 1864 I scarcely realized that I was a free man,
permitted to come and go as I liked. Not a uniform was to be seen; business had
taken the place of war.
I was confined on the ground
floor. At times the door would be left open, a guard pacing back and forth on
the pavement before it. Occasionally I would go to the door and look out,
usually to be ordered back. One of the sentries was an old man of about
forty-five. One day at noon I went to the door and stood looking out. Everybody
was at dinner, and I could see no soldier except the old sentinel, and he was
not on the alert. It was a crazy thing to do; but I watched this sentinel till
he turned to walk with his back to me, then like a flash slipped out of the door
and ran like a deer to the corner where a street sloped down to the river. As I
turned a ball came whizzing past me. The sentinel chased me; and although I was
much younger, I was weak by confinement, and he caught up with me just as I was
getting behind a pile of lumber. I turned and shot him with the revolver that a
comrade had given me. I don’t know how he got it. Darting on, I saw a cellar
window open and crawled in. Searchers passed my hiding place, but did not enter;
and at dark I crawled out, dodged along down the river bank, found a boat, and
floated on the historic James. How I reached Old Point Comfort and our ships
would make a story of much interest.
Well, after inspecting Libby, I
presented my letter of introduction to Mr. Porcher, who had a pretty daughter
ten years my junior. Between us there was a case of “love at first sight.” I
stayed in Richmond a long while, pretending to have business there, all the
while attempting to smooth away Mr. Porcher’s prejudice against me as having
been a Union soldier. When at last I thought I had him somewhat conciliated, I
ventured to ask him for his daughter. He heard me through with lowering brow,
and said: “I will give my consent on one condition. There is a miserable,
dirty little Yankee who was a prisoner in Libby in 1864 whom I wish to kill. I
was a member of the home guard and a sentinel at the prison, when one day that
impudent fellow walked out of the door and ran away. I followed him. He shot me
in the shoulder, from which I have suffered ever since; but I was dropped from
the guard in derision.”
Mr. Porcher was going on, getting
more and more excited as he proceeded, when his daughter came in anxiously and
stopped him. He ended by making it a condition to our union that I promise to
find that imp and give him a chance to shoot him.
I listened to this with manifest
astonishment. There was something familiar about Mr. Porcher’s face and
figure, and I could not get over the idea that I had seen him somewhere. I had
grown whiskers and weighed fifty pounds more than when I was a prisoner. I was
too much disconcerted to reply at once, but finally said: “Mr. Porcher, I
promise you that within six months after my marriage with your daughter I will
produce the ‘dirty little Yankee’ you refer to. I have heard of this case,
and am sure I can oblige you.”
Exactly six months after making
the promise I redeemed it by going to my father-in-law, with whom I had become a
great favorite, and giving him permission to shoot me. He was too much
astonished to avail himself of the privilege.
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