The Annals of the Civil War Written by Leading Participants North and South
Alexander Kelly McClure, Ed.

Governor Letcher was a fine specimen of a Virginian, frank, dignified, courteous, and generous, firm and unchangeable in his deliberate and matured purpose, and of inflexible integrity and honor.

General Edward Johnson occupied the same room with the above-mentioned Governors, and also a gentleman from Savannah named Lamar, and they exhausted thoroughly every means in their power to avert the tedium of confinement. Governor Vance, once looking from his window into the East Capitol Park, said, with a sigh, “How I would like to stretch my limbs with a brisk walk over there.” I replied, by saying, “Put on your hat, then,” and suiting the action to the word, he did so, and I led him down stairs and past the guard, and away he went and enjoyed his stroll hugely, returning in a few hours safe to his hotel.

One evening there arrived from the War Department an order to prepare for the reception of (as near as I can recollect) one hundred and fifty prisoners, who were coming from Baltimore, nearly all of whom were to be placed in solitary confinement and not allowed to communicate with each other. Now, every room in both prisons was occupied, and to carry out the command was simply impossible, and I did not attempt it. Their arrival was a fresh surprise, for the prisoners were some of the principal business men of Baltimore, with their employees-such gentlemen as Messrs. Johnson, Sutton & Co., Hamilton Easter & Co., Weesenfelt & Co., Charles E. Waters & Co., and many more. They were arrested by a leading detective for alleged selling of goods to be run through the blockade. I believe there was not a guilty man in the number, and that it was a put up job by the astute detectives, who knew that, being gentlemen of wealth, they could extort money from them by sufficient squeezing. Their coming brought a good influence in many ways, and many a poor devil then confined, with neither friends or money, could testify to their liberality and generosity, and benefited by the ill wind that blew these gentlemen into durance vile.