I am charged with and convicted of theft, and sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment, and after that time until I shall have paid my Government three hundred dollars. I have called no witnesses, made no appeal, adduced no evidence. A soldier, a prisoner, an orphan, and a minor, I have little with which to employ counsel to oppose the Government of the United States.
Whatever I may have been convicted of, I deny the charge of theft. I took my rolls home with me that they might be preserved; I considered them mine; it had never been told or even hinted to me that they were not my own rightful, lawful property. I never denied having them, and I was not arrested for stealing my rolls, but for having declared my intention of appealing to higher authority for justice. I supposed this to be one of the privileges of an American citizen, one of the great principles of the Government for which we had fought and suffered; but I forgot that the soldier who sacrificed his comforts and risked his life to maintain these liberties was the only man in the country who would not be allowed to claim their protection.
My offense consists in an attempt to make known to the relatives and friends the fate of the unfortunate men who died in Andersonville Prison, and if this be a crime I am guilty to the fullest extent of the law, for to accomplish it I have risked my life among my enemies and my liberty among my friends.
Since my arrest I have seen it twice publicly announced that the record of the dead of Andersonville would be published very soon; one announcement apparently by the Government, and one by Captain James M. Moore, A.G.M. No such intimation was ever given until after my arrest, and if it prove that my imprisonment accomplishes that which my liberty could not, I ought, perhaps, to be satisfied. If this serves to bring out the information so long and so cruelly withheld from the people, I will not complain of my confinement, but when accomplished, I would earnestly plead for that liberty so dear to all, and to which I have been so long a stranger.
I make this statement, which I would confirm by my oath if I were at liberty, not as appealing to public sympathy for relief, but for the sake of my name, my family, and my friends. I wish it to be known that I am not sentenced to a penitentiary as a common thief, but for attempting to appeal from the trickery of a clique of petty officers.
Dorence Atwater
On September 25, 1865, just one month from the day when he returned from Andersonville from the marking of the soldiers’ graves, Dorence Atwater, as Clara Barton records, “was heavily ironed, and under escort of a soldier and captain as guard, in open daylight, and in the face of his acquaintances, taken through the streets of Washington to the Baltimore depot, and placed upon the cars, a convict bound to Auburn State Prison.”
Clara Barton had moved heaven and earth to save Dorence from imprisonment; had done everything excepting to advise him to give up the rolls. She knew so well what the publication of those names meant to thirteen thousand anxious homes, she was willing to see Dorence go to prison rather than that should fail. Secretary Stanton was out of Washington when Dorence was arrested. She followed him to West Point and had a personal interview, which she supplemented by a letter:
Roe’s Hotel, West Point, September 5th, 1865
Hon. E. M. Stanton
Sec’y. of War, U.S.A.
My Honored Friend:Please permit me before leaving to reply to the one kind interrogatory made by you this morning, viz: “What do you desire me to do in the case?” Simply this, sir,—do nothing, believe nothing, sanction nothing in this present procedure against Dorence Atwater until all the facts with their antecedents and bearings shall have been placed before you, and this upon your return (if no one more worthy offer) I promise to do, with all the fairness, truthfulness, and judgment that in me lie.
There is a noticeable haste manifested to dispose of the case in your absence which leads me to fear that there are those who, to gratify a jealous whim, or serve a personal ambition, would give little heed to the dangers of unmerited public criticism they might thus draw upon you, while young Atwater, honest and simple-hearted, both loving and trusting you, has more need of your protection than your censure.
With the highest esteem, and unspeakable gratitude,
I am, sir
Clara Barton
Failing to secure the release of Dorence by appeal to Secretary Stanton, who was not given to interference with military courts, Clara Barton tried the effect of public opinion and also sought to arouse the military authority of the State of Connecticut. Two letters of hers are preserved addressed to friends in the newspaper world, but they did not immediately accomplish the release of Dorence.
Clara Barton was not a woman to desist in an effort of this kind. She had set about to procure the release of Dorence Atwater; she had the support of Senator Henry Wilson and of General B. F. Butler, and she labored day and night to enlarge the list of influential friends who should finally secure his freedom. She surely would have succeeded. While the Government saw no convenient way of issuing him a pardon until he returned the missing rolls, public sentiment in his favor grew steadily under her insistent propaganda. At the end of two months’ imprisonment, he was released under a general order which discharged from prison all soldiers sentenced there by court-martial for crimes less than murder. Even after the issue of the President’s general order, Atwater was detained for a little time until Clara Barton made a personal visit to Secretary Stanton and informed him that Dorence was still in prison and secured the record of his trial for future use.
Then she set herself to work to secure the publication of his rolls. He must copy them and rearrange them by States and in alphabetical order, a task of no light weight, and must then arrange with some responsible newspaper to undertake to secure their publication. Moreover, this must be done quickly and quietly, for she believed that Dorence still had an enemy who would thwart the effort if known.
The large task of copying the rolls and rearranging the names required some weeks. When it was finished, Clara Barton, who had previously thought of the New York “Times” as a possible medium of publicity on account of an expression of interest which it had published, and even had considered the unpractical idea of simultaneous publication in a number of papers, turned instead to Horace Greeley. She wrote to him in January, 1866, and then went to New York and conferred with him.
Greeley told her that the list was quite too long for publication in the columns of any newspaper. The proper thing to do, as he assured her, was to bring it out in pamphlet form at a low price, and, on the day of publication, to exploit it as widely as possible through the columns of the “Tribune.” To get the list in type, read the proof, print the edition, and have it ready for delivery required some days if not weeks. Valentine’s Day was fixed as that upon which the list was to appear. On February 14, 1866, the publication occurred.
Horace Greeley was a good advertiser. All through the advertising pages of the “Tribune” on that day appeared the word “Andersonville” in a single line of capitals, varied here and there by “Andersonville; See Advertisement on 8th page.” No one who read that day’s “Tribune” could escape the word “Andersonville.” The editorial page contained the following paragraph: