When I related this affair to a fellow-prisoner, Mr. Augustus Williams, he told me that he was a prisoner in the Old Capitol at the time young Wharton was shot, and his room was on the same floor.
It was either in the latter part of March or first of April, 1862, that Jesse W. Wharton, a young man about twenty-five or twenty-six years of age, son of Professor Wharton, of Prince George County, Md., was deliberately murdered by a man belonging to the 91st Pennsylvania Regiment, then on guard duty at the prison. Wharton was standing at the window of his room when the sentry called out to him: “Get away from that window, or I will blow your damned head off.” Wharton turned away, walked across the room and again stood at the window as before. The guard, on seeing him, repeated his command, or words to the same effect. Wharton, feeling that as he was violating no rule the guard would not attempt to carry out his threat, paid no further attention, but stood with his arms folded. The sentry (I cannot call him soldier) fired, and the ball struck Wharton in the left hand, passed through the right arm, breaking the bone of the elbow, entered the right side, coming out near the spine. He staggered, and would have fallen, but some of his fellow-prisoners caught him and lowered him gently to the floor. He lingered for seven or eight hours. Before he died he called for the lieutenant commanding the post, and when he came in, the dying man said: “I am dying, and you are the man who caused my death.” He said he heard the lieutenant give the man the order to fire.
Williams also mentioned another case, that of Harry Stewart, son of Dr. Frederick Stewart, of Baltimore, a young man less than twenty-five years of age. He had been to Richmond, and on his return was arrested as a spy and sent to the Old Capitol. One of the sentinels, a member of the 86th Regiment New York Volunteers, agreed for a bribe of fifty dollars to allow him to escape by lowering himself from the window to the pavement below. Stewart waited until the hour appointed, when this particular sentry should be on guard. He then let himself out of the window and was lowered but a few feet when the sentry cried, “Halt!” and fired, the ball striking Stewart’s right leg, splintering the knee-bone. He was quickly drawn up by his room-mates, and the prison surgeon amputated the limb. The shock was too great, however, and he died in a short time after the operation. The money (fifty dollars) was found in his pocket, wrapped up in paper, upon which was written, “This is the money I promised you.”
Augustus Williams, to whom I am indebted for these facts, is a citizen of Fairfax County, Virginia. Living near Vienna, and being within the Union lines, he was arrested and taken to the Old Capitol. There being no charge against him, except refusal to take the oath, he was released after a short term of imprisonment. Going back to his home, he was again picked up by the first party of troops raiding in his neighborhood, and returned to the Old Capitol. This occurred so frequently that Superintendent Wood came to look upon him as a regular visitor, and would greet him on his arrival with a handshake, and say:
“Hello, Gus; you’re back again. You couldn’t stay away from us very long.”
“No,” he would reply. “You fellows treat me so well when I am here. And then, it’s such a nice trip to go back home by way of Fortress Monroe and Richmond.”
Some of the prisoners who have gone out recently are suspected of having purchased their freedom at a cash valuation.
A man named George Hammett was brought in on Saturday night with a number of prisoners. He was captured on the Potomac River, and is charged with attempting to run the blockade. He was called down from the room this morning, and on his return said that he told Superintendent Wood he was willing to take the oath. Wood told him that hereafter no one would be released on simply taking the oath; that he might be released on payment of a sum of money—from one to six hundred dollars. These blockade runners, I suppose, are thought to have money, and this, no doubt, is but a plan to extort money from them.
Emanuel Weiler was released to-day. He was taken with Aaron J. King on charge of carrying contraband goods.
Tuesday, Feb. 10.—This morning two ladies passing the building bowed to prisoners at our window. A guard was sent out and brought them in. They were released after fifteen or twenty minutes’ detention, Brave soldiers! How fortunate the weather continues cool so that the ladies cannot bare arms, as it might interfere with the prison arrangements, making it necessary to double the guard in order to insure the safe keeping of the prisoners and protect our timorous guards.