Early in the afternoon, Captain Alexander returned to the prison, and informed Mrs. Lawton that all was over. He found her deathly pale, but now firm, and giving no other outward sign of the agony of the past few hours.
"May I see him before he is taken away?" she asked.
"There is no objection to that."
Accompanying the officer, she went to the room in which the body lay, incased in a metallic coffin which Mrs. Lawton had procured. His face was not discolored in the least, and the features indicated the same Roman firmness which he exhibited when he left the prison. He died as he had lived—a brave man.
Several rebel officers stood around the coffin. Turning suddenly upon them, and facing Captain Alexander, Mrs. Lawton, in a burst of passion, exclaimed:
"Murderers! this is your work. If there is vengeance or retribution in this world, you will feel it before you die!"
As if stung to the quick by this accusation, Captain Alexander stepped up to the coffin, and laying his hand upon Webster's cold, white forehead, said:
"As sure as there is a God in Heaven, I am innocent of this deed. I did nothing to bring this about, and simply obeyed my orders in removing him from the prison to the place of execution."
Application was made to General Winder for the privilege of sending Webster's body to the North, where it might be buried by his friends; but this the rebel officer peremptorily refused. A petition was then made that it be allowed to be placed in the vault in Richmond, with no better success. Not content with heaping ignominy upon him while living, the fiend was determined that even in death the patriot should be the subject of odium and contempt.
In the dead hour of the night, he ordered the remains to be carried away, and buried in an obscure corner of the pauper's burying-ground.