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

Again calling attention to the fact that this extract is made from a work, the materials for which were “gathered behind the scenes in Richmond,” I leave the reader to decide for himself how trustworthy this authority may be. I have no wish to do Mr. Davis, or his apologist, an injustice, and still less, if possible, to do violence to the facts of history.

It will be observed that even Mr. Pollard admits that Mrs. Davis besought her husband to escape, and “urging him to an opening in the tent, threw over his shoulders a shawl which he had been accustomed So wear.”

The friends of Davis, immediately after his capture became known, strenuously denied that he was disguised as a woman, and many good people, particularly those of rebel proclivities, looked upon this denial as settling the question for good and all. It is, therefore, necessary to detail the proofs upon which this story rests, as well as to specify the exact articles of woman's apparel which constituted the disguise. It is stated by Lieutenant Dickinson, in writing, that the rebel chieftain was one of the three persons “dressed in woman's attire,” and that he had “a black mantle wrapped about his head, through the top of which could have been seen locks of his hair.” Captain G. W. Lawton, Fourth Michigan Cavalry, who published an account of the capture in the Atlantic