On the Wednesday appointed by the President, accompanied by Judge Hughes, I proceeded to keep my appointment at the White House. One of the first familiar faces I saw as I entered was that of Mrs. Stephen A. Douglas, now widowed. A wait of some moments being imminent, with the affectionate warmth so well-known to me in other and happier days, Mrs. Douglas at once volunteered to accompany me in my call upon “the good President,” and in a few moments we were shown into his presence. Mr. Johnson received us civilly, preserving, at first, what I learned afterward to know was an habitual composure, though he softened somewhat under the ardent appeal of Mrs. Douglas when she urged upon him the granting of my request.
My first impression of the President, who, while a Senator, in the fifties, had seldom been seen in social gatherings in the capital, was that of a man upon whom greatness, of a truth, had been thrust; a political accident, in fact. His hands were small and soft; his manner was self-contained, it is true, but his face, with “cheeks as red as June apples,” was not a forceful one.
From the beginning, as Judge Black had declared he would do, Mr. Johnson clearly wished to shirk the responsibility of my husband’s case, and to throw it upon the shoulders of his Secretary of War. His non-committal responses to my reasons why I should have access to my husband, why he should be tried or liberated, disheartened me greatly. When Mrs. Douglas perceived this, she added her pleadings to mine, and, as the President’s shiftiness became more and more apparent, she burst into tears, and, throwing herself down on her knees before him, called upon me to follow her example. This, however, I could not comply with. I had no reason to respect the Tennesseean before me. That he should have my husband’s life in his power was a monstrous wrong, and a thousand reasons why it was wrong flashed through my mind like lightning as I measured him, searing it as they passed. My heart was full of indignant protest that such an appeal as Mrs. Douglas’s should have been necessary; but that, having been made, Mr. Johnson could refuse it, angered me still more. I would not have knelt to him even to save a precious life. This first, memorable one of many, unhappy scenes at the White House, ended by the President inviting me to call again after he had consulted his Cabinet. At the same time he urged me to see Mr. Stanton.
“I think you had best go to him,” he said. “This case comes strictly within the jurisdiction of the Secretary of War, and I advise you to see him!”
Realising the futility of further argument with Mr. Johnson at the time, I followed his advice, going almost immediately, and alone, to the War Department. It was my first and last visit to Secretary Stanton, in that day of the Government’s chaos, autocrat of all the United States and their citizens. Varying accounts of that experience have appeared in the press during the last thirty-seven years. The majority of them have exaggerated the iron Secretary’s treatment of me. Many have accused him of a form of brusque brutality,[[54]] which, while quite in keeping with his reputation, nevertheless was not exhibited toward me.
The Secretary of War was not guilty of “tearing up in my face and throwing in the waste-basket,” as one writer has averred, the President’s note of introduction, which I bore him, even though I was a declared “Rebel” and the wife of a so-called conspirator and assassin. He was simply inflexibly austere and pitiless.
Upon arriving at the War Department, I gave my card and the President’s note to the messenger in waiting, which, from across the room, I saw handed to the Secretary. He glanced at them, laid them on the desk at which he sat, and continued in conversation with a lady who stood beside him. In a second the messenger returned, and desired me to take a seat on a sofa, which, as it happened, was directly in line with Mr. Stanton’s desk. In a few moments the lady with whom he had been in conversation withdrew. As she passed me I recognised her. She was Mrs. Kennedy, daughter of ex-Secretary Mallory, then a prisoner in Fort Lafayette. Her face was flushed and very sad, which I interpreted (and rightly, as it proved) as meaning that her request had been denied. The sight filled me with indignation. I resolved at once to retain my seat and let the Secretary seek me, as a gentleman should do. I was strengthened in this determination by the conviction that he would ignore my plea also, and I was resolved to yield him no double victory.
After a delay of a few moments, in which the Secretary adjusted first his glasses and then his papers, he slowly approached me, saying, “This is Mrs. Clay, I presume?”
“And this Mr. Stanton?” I replied.
I at once briefly, but bravely, proceeded with my story. I told him that my object in visiting Washington was to obtain the speedy release of my husband, who was dying hourly under the deprivations and discipline of prison life; or, failing this, to obtain for him an early trial, which he desired not to shirk, but to hasten; of the result of which we had no fear, unless “he be given up to that triumvirate called the ‘Military Bureau of Justice,’ of which you are one, Mr. Stanton!” This I said with inward trembling and with eyes brimming, but looking him fully in the face. His own gaze fell.