SERGEANT BOSTON CORBETT
During a visit to Harewood Hospital, I observed a very sleek-looking young man, apparently absorbed in reading the Bible. This man I found was the notorious Boston Corbett who had disobeyed orders to capture Booth alive. He had shot him in the barn, then burning, and which was surrounded by a cordon of troops. For this disobedience Corbett had been imprisoned, but ill-health had brought him to the hospital. I asked him why he had disobeyed orders, and he replied that Booth was about to get away, and he thought it better to shoot him than to run the chance of having him escape. I then asked how he came to have such a remarkable name. He replied: “When I was born my father could not decide upon a name for me, so being a very religious man, he asked the Lord, and the Lord said ‘Call him Boston’.” I still have the photograph he gave me in his favorite Bible-reading pose.
The piazza of Mrs. Painter’s house was separated from that of the adjoining house only by a railing. Here lived a Southern family consisting of father, mother and a beautiful daughter. The father had been secretary to Jefferson Davis, and from a social point of view, was an elegant courteous gentleman. I greatly enjoyed his Southern accent and refined conversation. He had been obliged, through poverty, to rent a part of his house to some Northern politicians.
One day I saw going up the steps, a fine-looking man, Colonel Forney, a prominent politician of that day. He asked politely of this Southern gentleman, then seated on the piazza, if he could see Mr. B., whereupon the owner of the house flew into a rage, as if insulted, and said: “I don’t know, suh, ring the bell for the servant!” As the servant opened the door for the Colonel to pass, the irate gentleman said to him, quite childishly,—but in fierce tones,—“Bring me my cut glass carafe of cold water instantly.”
A few days later, as we were again sitting on the piazza, having a pleasant chat, this same gentleman told me, with great indignation, of the insults they were now compelled to take from free niggers. He said that a servant maid had become so independent that she would not answer her mistress’ bell. “I determined to stop such presumption and ordered my wife to continue ringing while I went down and hid myself behind the kitchen door. The bell rang and rang again while the wench laughed and said to another servant: ‘She can just keep on a ringin’, an’ when I gets good and ready I’ll come!’ This was too much,” he said. “I went quickly forward into the kitchen and slapped her black face twice! The insolent hussy had the temerity to have me hauled to court and bound over to keep the peace!” This was the saddest effect I had yet seen of the influence of slave-holding.
While boarding with Mrs. Painter I met that eccentric yet anomalous woman, Doctor Mary Walker, pleasant, refined and interesting, despite the semi-masculine garb she had then adopted. Her husband, an army surgeon, was, I think, then living, but died soon after the war.
In speaking of her dress, her arguments and logic were unanswerable. She wore loose, long trousers to boot tops, a skirt below her knees, a close-fitting jacket and cape, much like an officer’s, high collar and soft hat, all rather becoming for her petite style.
“You,” she said, “with long skirts, sweep up and carry home with you samples of all sorts of filth from the streets, and besides you are not modest, for when you must lift your skirts there is always a suggestive display of hosiery, while I go home free from extraneous matter and never have to expose my ankles.” This was perfect hygiene and logical; and many times in my army work I wished I could go about without drabbled skirts.
Doctor Walker was, I think, a graduate physician and did much good among sick soldiers. But she gradually grew more pronounced in her mannish attire, and was many times arrested for that infringement of the law. She always pleaded her own case so logically that she was generally dismissed with a reprimand, and cautioned not to do so again. But to this warning she paid no regard; and at one time entered the court-room bearing the United States flag and claiming her rights as an American citizen.
The last I heard of Doctor Mary Walker was from a friend who, in 1908, saw her,—then grown old,—in a Brooklyn car. She was dressed in full male costume,—trousers, collar, tie, dress coat, high silk hat, and held a gaudy little cane.