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Alton Penitentiary/Civil War Prison |
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More about the Alton Prison Picture of the Alton Prison, 1861
Read the entire history of the Penitentiary/Civil War Prison, from the Alton Evening Telegraph, January 15, 1936, as told by Doris McDow
Read Military Correspondence Regarding the Alton Military Prison Alton Penitentiary Report - 1855 & 1856 NEW!
Search for names of Confederate soldiers who died at the Alton Prison |
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According to the Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois, 1904, page 16, the earliest punishments imposed upon public offenders in Illinois were by public flogging or imprisonment for a short time in jails rudely constructed of logs, from which escape was not difficult for a prisoner of nerve, strength and mental resource. In 1827, a grant of 40,000 acres of saline lands was made to the State by Congress, and a considerable portion of the money received from their sale was appropriated to the establishment of a State penitentiary at Alton. The sum set apart proved insufficient, and in 1831, an additional appropriation of $10,000 was made from the State treasury. In 1833 the prison was ready to receive its first inmates. It was built of stone and had but twenty-four cells. Additions were made from time to time (256 cells by 1857), but by 1857 the State decided to build a new penitentiary, located at Joliet. In 1860, the last convicts were transferred from Alton to Joliet. The Alton prison was conducted on what is known as "the Auburn plan" - associated labor in silence by day, and separate confinement by night. The management was in the hands of a "lessee," who furnished supplies, employed guards and exercised the general powers of a warden under the supervision of a Commissioner appointed by the State, and who handled all the products of convict labor.
In 1862 it was reopened as a military prison during the Civil War. Thousands of captured Confederate prisoners were housed here during the war. In 1863, a small pox epidemic spread through the prison killing hundreds. The prison was closed down permanently in 1865 at the close of the war, and the remaining prisoners were sent to St. Louis or released. The prison was then dismantled, except for a portion of a wall which was relocated in 1970 to its present location in downtown Alton.
Commanders: Colonel Sidney Burbank, 13th U. S. Inf. (Feb. 9, 1862 - June 25, 1862); Maj. F. F. Flint, 16th U.S. Inf. (to Sept. 5, 1862); Colonel Jesse Hildebrand, 77th Ohio Vols., (to Apr. 18, 1863); Colonel William B. Mason, 77th Ohio Vols., (to July 30, 1863); Colonel George Kincaid, 37th Iowa Vols. (to Jan. 14, 1864); Colonel William Wier, 10th Kansas Vols. (to Apr. 26, 1864); Brig. General J. T. Copeland, U.S. Vols, (to Dec. 28, 1864); Colonel Ray Stone, 149th Pa. Vols. (to March 1865); Colonel John H. Kahn, 144th Ill. Vols. (to July 1865). [per Alton Telegraph, July 2, 1976]
Lessees of Alton State Prison: Nathaniel Buckmaster |
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Source: Proceedings of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, 1908-1909 (Not in Copyright) "The Western Sanitary Commission also turned its attention to the conditions of the military hospitals and prisons in St. Louis, and after experiencing a good deal of opposition on the part of the authorities succeeded in introducing into the prison wards substantially their own regulations. They also spent much care and time in alleviating the distress of the Confederates imprisoned at Alton Illinois. Mr. Yeatman always insisted that the Confederate soldiers and wounded should always be treated exactly as were the Union troops."
Source: The Western Sanitary Commission, A Sketch of its Origin, History, Labors for the Sick and Wounded of the Western Armies, and Aid Given to Freedmen and Union Refugees, With Incidents of Hospital Life, Published for the Mississippi Valley Sanitary Fair; R. P. Studley & Co., 1864; page 88; (Not in Copyright) "In November, 1862, the hospital of Gratiot Street Prison, in McDowell's College, used exclusively for prisoners of war, was found to be much crowded, .... and the crowded condition both of the prison and the hospital was obviated by sending a considerable number to the large military prison at Alton, Illinois. The Commission has extended its inspections to the military prison at Alton, Illinois, and furnished supplies, to most urgent cases of need, on the requisition of the surgeon in charge. This prison is the same formerly occupied as the Illinois State Penitentiary, which was removed to Joliet, just before the breaking out of the war. It has a large area of ground, 420 by 323 feet, enclosed by a high stone wall, with the prison buildings inside, is in a healthy location, within a few rods of the Mississippi river, on the east side, has good water, excellent drainage, a free circulation of pure air, and could not be better adapted to the purposes for which it is used. A committee from the Western Sanitary Commission visited it in December 1862, and in a published report of the visit, said, 'We found the hospital to be a good, brick structure, 104 by 35 feet, well ventilated, but insufficiently warmed. It contains sixty-three patients. Many of the sick were needing proper under-clothing. Most of the buildings in the enclosure stand isolated, with considerable ground between them, so that in a moral and sanitary point of view, they are very favorably situated. The prisoners are furnished abundantly with good, wholesome food, and they appear to be entirely satisfied with the kind treatment of officers and attendants. The clothes of the prisoners are washed outside the walls, by laundresses, paid out of the prison funds. There is also a washing apparatus on the ground, with a plentiful supply of hot water, and soap, which is freely resorted to by the inmates.'
There were then 700 prisoners confined in this prison, with accommodations for 1,300. Since then, it has frequently contained over one thousand. During a recent visit of the Secretary of the Commission, he found the hospital in an excellent condition, in charge of Surgeon T. A. Worrell, U.S.V., Dr. Hez. Williams, A. A. Surgeon, with beds for three hundred patients; the floors clean, and the arrangements similar to the military hospitals for our own troops. There were 120 sick prisoners out of 1,000, then in prison. The four female nurses in attendance were Sisters of Charity. A chaplain is also allowed the prison, Rev. Father Vehay, of the Catholic church. A supply of sanitary stores has been recently sent to the Surgeon in charge, on his requisition. The smallpox patients are treated in tents, on the island, just opposite Alton. There were recently but few cases of this disease.
Those who die in this prison are buried in a ground about two miles out of the city, set apart especially for that purpose. They are furnished with a coffin, the same as the Union soldier, and are in all respects decently interred. Head boards, with the initials of their names, are placed at each grave, so that there can be no difficulty identifying the spot.
The statistics of the prison and hospital were recently requested, for the purpose of giving a more complete statement for this work, but were refused by Brig. Gen. Copeland, commanding the post. It is believed that the facts would show that this prison and its hospital have been conducted in a manner creditable to the humanity of the United States Government, and would convey, by contrast, a terrible rebuke to the inhumanity with which our soldiers have been starved and treated in the prisons of the South. |
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ARTICLES REGARDING THE ALTON PENITENTIARY/CIVIL WAR PRISON: |
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PRISON WARDEN DIES IN ACCIDENT Source: Albany, New York Evening Journal, August 27, 1835
Mr. David Owens, Deputy Warden
of the Illinois State Penitentiary, at Alton, came to his
death on the 25th ult. in a very singular and unexpected
manner. He was standing as guard over the prisoners who were
at work in the quarry adjacent to the prison, when his rifle
slipped from the edge of the rock upon which it was resting,
and in attempting to recover it is supposed to have drawn
the cock back by the projection of the rock, and while the
muzzle was not more than an inch from his body, the gun
discharged itself, and the ball entered obliquely, taking
some links of his watch chain with it. The unfortunate man
attempted to rise, but expired before his purpose was
accomplished.—St. Louis Herald.
PRISON INMATE - SETH T. SAWYER Source: Auburn, New York Journal and Advertiser, 1837 A Van Buren Man - Beauties of the Sub-Treasury - Seth T. Sawyer, late Public Printer at Vandalia, Illinois, has been sentenced to one year in the State Penitentiary at Alton for stealing the public deposits. ******************************************
TRANSPORTING PRISONERS FROM CAMBRIDGE, ILLINOIS TO ALTON Source: History of Henry County, Illinois by Henry L. Kiner, 1910, page 674 Spring & summer of 1837: At the close of each term of court, the sheriff would take the prisoners to the state prison at Alton, a journey of some three hundred miles. There were no railroads in those days. The sheriff took two or more prisoners alone in his buggy from Cambridge to Peoria, on his way to the "pen" at Alton, and some of them were desperate characters. They had no jail, and from the beginning he made it a point to treat his prisoners well, but to depend upon irons to keep them safe. That way, he lost no prisoner during his term of office. He had a two-seated buggy and always placed them on the front seat, with feet and hands shackled; then the two men were shackled together and by a chain their feet were made fast to the coupling pole. He took the back seat, with the lines passing between the men.....A man by the name of Wilcox was transported this way and delivered to the warden, who was at that time Samuel Buckmaster. ******************************************
PRISONERS ESCAPE Source: Albany, New York Evening Journal, September 1837 The Alton Spectator of the 7th contradicts the statement going the rounds of the papers, "that forty prisoners had escaped from the penitentiary at Alton," and says there never was over 12 or 15 convicts in it at a time. *****************************************
$100 REWARD! Source: The Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Advertisement, August 8, 1840 Escaped from the Illinois Penitentiary on the night of Friday, August 7, 1840, a convict named Hansel G. Horn. Said convict is 5 feet 8 inches high, slender made, dark hair, blue eyes, slightly pock-marked, about 40 years of age, has a small scar on his right eyebrow, one on his right arm, the third finger of the left hand crooked and cannot be straightened. It is presumed that said Horn will proceed direct to Texas. Any person apprehending him without the limits of the State will be entitled to the above reward, on his delivery to me in the City of Alton; or if taken within the State and delivered as above, fifty dollars will be paid. I. Greathouse, Warden Ill's Penitentiary, Alton, Aug. 8, 1840. *****************************************
$200 REWARD! Source: Alton Telegraph, September 19, 1840 Escaped from the Illinois Penitentiary on the afternoon of Thursday, July 23d, 1840, two convicts named William Hill and James M. Harrison. Said Hill is about 35 years of age; 5 feet 0* inches high; fair complexion; hazel eyes; high forehead; heavy eye brows and heard, latter somewhat ____; brown hair with high top _____; but had his left ankle broken, which may be discovered on close examination; walks very straight, and rather proud in his carriage. Said Harrison is about 33 years of age; six feet 1 inch high; fair complexion; brown hair; remarkably keen dark hazel eyes; a large scar on the left temple; one on the right side of the under lip, one on the side, and one on the top of the left foot; plausible in his manners, and walks very erect. The heads of the above described convicts have not been shaved. Both are shoemakers by trade. The above reward will be paid for their delivery at the penitentiary, if taken out of the state. One Hundred Dollars if taken within the State. Or, One Hundred Dollars for either, if taken without the State; or, Fifty Dollars for either if taken within the State. J. Greathouse, Warden, Alton, July 23, 1840. *****************************************
BILL RELATED TO THE PENITENTIARY Source: Alton Telegraph, January 23, 1841 The following is a copy of the Bill in relation to the Illinois Penitentiary, reported to the House a short time since by Mr. Gillespie, of this county:
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75 DOLLARS REWARD! Source: The Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Advertisement, May 23d, 1842 Escaped from the Alton Penitentiary, on the 20th inst. two convicts, Isaac Bell and William B. Ledbetter. Isaac Bell was sentenced from Sangamon County in March 1838 for five years. He is 27 years old, 5 feet 3 inches high, hazel eyes, dark brown hair, a deep scar on the left cheek, and a scar on the right leg, made by the kick of a horse and some small scar on his right hand. He is an old horse trainer, and his whole subject of conversation is about horses. Ledbetter was sentenced from Shelby County, June 2d, 1841, for one year. He is 21 years old, heavy made, 5 feet 5 inches high, dark hair, dark complexion, gray eyes, a scar on the back of the left hand, and another on the calf of the left leg. His parents reside in Shelby County. I will give fifty dollars for the apprehension and delivery of Isaac Bell at the Prison, and twenty-five dollars for Ledbetter. Isaac Greathouse, Warden Illinois Penitentiary. Alton, 23d May, 1842. *******************************************
$175 REWARD! Source: The Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Advertisement, February 27, 1843 $100 reward will be given for Wilford J. Palmer, a convict, escaped from the Illinois Penitentiary on Sunday morning, February 26th. Said convict is 33 years old, 5 feet 7 3-4 inches high, light hair, grey eyes, fair complexion, has a scar above the right temple, and is very heavy made. $50 reward will be given for Thomas White, a convict, that escaped from the Illinois Penitentiary, on Sunday morning, February 26th. Said convict is 18 years of age, 5 feet 7 inches high, black hair, grey eyes, dark complexion, has a scar on the left temple, and also one on the right shin bone, and is very slender made. $25 reward will be given for Adam Guidal, a convict, that escaped from the Illinois Penitentiary on Sunday morning, February 26th. Said convict is 22 years of age, 5 feet 6 1-2 inches high, light hair, grey eyes, lilght complexion, heavy set and stout made, and is a German. N. Buckmaster, Warden, Ill's Penitentiary, Alton, February 27, 1843. *******************************************
PRISON INMATE - DEWEY Source: Albany, New York Evening Journal, August 2, 1845 It is supposed that Birch and Sutton, alias William Fox, two notorious villains, who have been roaming the lines of Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois for the past four years, are two of the gang who murdered Col. Davenport. Birch is said to be the man who sold a cream-colored horse at Peru, not long since, is the same man with whom Bridge (now in Rockford jail) exchanged the money with that he robbed Mulford of. We cannot yet get the name of the person at Peru who has the horse, but he is kept on the Island, and could tell the strange stories if he could talk. In this same gang is "Devin, the Kentuckian," who was in Lee county late in November last. He was arrested in Iowa last year, and with irons on his feet, was sent out to chop wood, with a guard. He struck the guard over the head with an axe, then got off his shackles and ran off to Bridge's in Washington Grove, Ogle Co., with his head shaved. He stayed at Bridge's, and wore a black handkerchief over his head until his hair grew out. He then went to Indiana and persuaded a man to come to Lee and Ogle counties, with several yoke of oxen and a cart to sell apples. The man had about $500 with him. He proposed to West to go with him and kill him. West would not go, and so the man was spared. This Davis, about six years ago, with a man by the name of Searls, found out that a man was traveling between Princeton and Hennepin with money. They awaited in the brush near Leeper's mills and shot him from his horse as he rode along the road. They got his money, from $600 to $800, dragged him to within 30 rods of the creek on the left-hand side of the road, and left him behind a log. This murder was never [unreadable], nor has the body ever been found. This Davis may be known by having one of his ears bit off. At Bridge's, in the [unreadable], near the house, a caucus was held which decided on the murder of Campbell. Bridge was present, as also were several of the Driskills, Birch, and Sutton. It was voted that young Driskill kill Campbell, as he did. Bridge was at Inlet Grove on the night of the murder, and West was making [unreadable] and selling it two for one for Michigan money at Flatteville, Wisconsin. West got clear when arrested for his [unreadable] there by getting Dewey and [unreadable] of Inlet Grove, to go his [unreadable] and he ran away. [unreadable] and Dewey are now in Alton Penitentiary. *****************************************
PENITENTIARY WALL PARTIALLY COLLAPSES Source: The Daily Star, Syracuse, New York, January 15, 1847 About fifty feet of the wall of the Penitentiary at Alton, Illinois fell down a few days ago. A cow was the only victim of the damage, and none of the convicts had an opportunity of benefiting by the unexpected enlargement of their boundaries. *******************************************
CHARLESTOWN, MASSACHUSETTS PRISONERS REACH OUT TO ALTON Source: Prison Discipline in America, by Francis Calley Gray, 1848 About a year ago, a clergyman from Alton, in Illinois, visited the prison [in Charlestown], and was requested by the chaplain to perform the evening service; after which he made a short address to the prisoners, a mark of attention from a stranger, which always gives them pleasure. He expressed his high gratification with the neatness, order, and contentment which prevailed there, and his particular delight in seeing the library, observing that they were much better off in this respect, than the inmates of the State Prison at Alton, who had no books at all. The next day, as the chaplain was walking through one of the workshops, a prisoner having asked leave to quit his work and speak to him, told him, that he had some books, which he could spare, and should like to send to the prisoners at Alton, if permitted, and so had some of his shopmates. The chaplain, having conferred with the warden, stated in the chapel, after evening prayers, that such an application had been made to him, and added, that if any prisoner had books which he wished to send to the Alton prison, he might leave them in the adjoining room, on coming to prayers the next morning. He also sent word to his friend the clergyman, that if he would call at the prison the next day, he would find some books for Alton. The Reverend gentleman went accordingly, and took with him a large silk handkerchief to carry off the books. What was his astonishment to find in the room adjoining the chapel more than four hundred bound volumes, besides tracts and pamphlets! The silk handkerchief would not do; and the prisoners requested permission to make boxes to pack the books in. *******************************************
PRISON INMATES - CHICAGO CONVICTS Source: Syracuse, New York Daily Standard, January 9, 1850
Nine convicts arrived at Alton
from Chicago a few days since, and were safely lodged in the
Penitentiary. The Alton Telegraph says "Chicago is coming
out."
PRISONERS ESCAPE ON WAY TO ALTON Source: Syracuse, New York Daily Standard, August 2, 1850 Four prisoners, on their way to prison at Alton, Ill., leaped from the steamboat into the river. Two were recaptured, one drowned and one escaped. *******************************************
PRISON REPORT Source: Alton Weekly Courier, October 15, 1852 The report of the Warden of the Penitentiary for the month ending Sept. 6th, shows the following result for the month: 9 received, 11 discharged, 8 by expiration of sentence, 2 by pardon, and 1 died. Number remaining, 190. The report for the month ending Oct. 4th, shows the following: 11 received; 21 discharged: 2 by death, 1 by pardon, and 18 by expiration of sentence. Number remaining, 180. ********************************************
INMATE BOYNE Source: Alton Weekly Courier, April 15, 1853 A convict by name of Boyne from Hillsboro, Montgomery County, was received at the Penitentiary yesterday. He was the same person who was brought down from Chicago by Sheriff Bradley a few weeks since, and taken to Hillsboro for trial. ******************************************
A VIEW OF THE PRISON Source: Auburn, New York Christian Advocate, August 20, 1853 [From an Illinois Correspondent, a description of his journey on the Mississippi River] ....We found the business part of this city [Alton] in water, the under part of the stores and warehouses being deserted. Alton is rendered famous as the place where the philanthropic Lovejoy met an untimely fate, by the violence of a ruthless mob. I could but realize that a martyr's blood was upon that city. Here also is the State Penitentiary. It occupies a position on the terminating slope of the great bluffs mentioned above. As we receded from the city, we had a fair view of the interior of the massive enclosure. The poor convicts, who are not so unfortunate as to be incarcerated in a dungeon, can, without doubt, enjoy an occasional view of the river scenery below. The tedium of their confinement and toils may have been relieved by a shy glance at our own gallant steamer, as she moved like a thing of life over the blue waters..... ****************************************
JUSTICE?
Source: Lyons, New York Gazette,
December 28, 1853 "My G— ! I only robbed a man, and I got ten. I wish I had killed him, for then they might have let me off as easy as you." "Yes, very likely."—Chicago Dem *******************************************
PRISON CHAPLAIN Source: History of Walworth County, Wisconsin by Albert Clayton Beckwith, page 564 Rev. John William Vahey: In 1854 he received priest's orders at Dubuque. He served at the federal military prison at Alton as chaplain. *****************************************
PRISONERS TO MAKE BROOMS Source: Alton Weekly Courier, May 4, 1854 Messrs. Buckmaster & Wise are making extensive preparations for the manufacture of brooms by the convicts in our State Penitentiary. Mr. Spencer, of Ohio, has been employed to superintend the work. They have already purchased two tons of broomcorn, from which they will be able to manufacture 2,666 brooms, allowing one and a half pound of material to one broom. They are making arrangements with neighboring farmers to raise broom-corn the coming season, and offer $50 per ton for the material after the seed is removed, the purchasers to remove the seed and take it as a compensation for their labor. It is said to make a good article of feed when ground. They wish to secure two hundred and fifty tons of material, which, reckoning as above, will be sufficient to manufacture 333,333 brooms. These, at 15 cents each, will amount to $50,000. They will probably manufacture the handles, as they have the necessary machinery. Lind, and if practicable, cotton wood, will be used for handles, as such timber grows in this vicinity. Some of the manufacturing in the penitentiary has been a cause of complaint on the part of mechanics in our city, because of the competition which they are called upon to contend with in consequence. We think this new enterprise is calculated to show that the warden of the penitentiary is desirous to avoid such a state of things, and that while, as in duty bound, he endeavors to avail himself of the business advantages which he possesses, he is willing, as far as lies in his power, to protect the interests of our city. ****************************************
PRISON ESCAPE AND CAPTURE Source: Alton Weekly Courier, May 18, 1854 Yesterday, as the convicts were returning to their workshops from the dining-room in the prison, four of them, named Cooper from Galena, and Rainsford, Chalk and Douglas, from Chicago, made an effort to escape by placing a long plank against the newest part of the north wall of the prison, upon which they mounted to the top of the wall; and four of them jumped off and ran up the hill. The other was shot while on the top of the wall by one of the guard, and jumped or fell back into the yard. His name is Cooper. The others were immediately pursued by Mr. Buckmaster, with some of his guards, and assisted by Marshal Filley and several of our citizens, the four were soon brought back. The wounded convict is not dangerously hurt, although two balls took effect in his back and one in his arm. His wounds were dressed by Dr. Metcalf, the Prison physician, assisted by Dr. Arnin, who think he will recover in a week or two. The convicts were all engaged in the blacksmith shop, and had knives concealed upon them, which they brandished at those who endeavored to arrest them. Several shots were fired at them by the guards, and it is singular some of them were not killed. *****************************************
NEW PRISONERS ARRIVE Source: Alton Weekly Courier, June 22, 1854 The Sheriff of Cook County brought down six State Prison convicts on the cars yesterday from Chicago. Four men were sentenced one year each for larceny; and a man and his wife two and a half years each for murder, according to the commitment, though we imagine such a sentence for a capital offense will not appear from the records of the Court. *****************************************
THE STATE PRISON AND ITS OPERATIONS Source: Alton Weekly Courier, February 8, 1855 Although many of our readers reside within view of the walls of our State Penitentiary, but few have much knowledge of its operations, and still less of the results of the system. We do not propose at this time to go into an inquiry as to the best system, when considered as to its effects upon the Convicts themselves, or the interest of the State, but merely propose giving a few extracts from the report of the Inspectors of the Prison, which has been printed and laid upon the tables of the members of the Legislature. By an act of the Legislature, passed in 1845, the Prison was leased to the Hon. S. A. Buckmaster for eight years, at the yearly rent of $5,100. In 1851, the lease was extended five years, making thirteen years in all. The present lease will expire in 1858. The Inspectors, in the report before us, say:
The present Prison Physician, Dr. R. L. Metcalf, was appointed about fourteen months ago, so that his report is not as full as it would otherwise have been, but his report presents several very interesting facts, not only as to the prevailing diseases of the prison, and his method of treatment, but also in relation to its policy. He says:
The Chaplain, Rev. J. B. Randle, has also made a report, but it is a matter of regret that it is not more full and explicit. No doubt the Chaplain has been attentive and unremitting in his duties, but it would have been much more satisfactory if he had given more particulars. He says:
A joint committee of both Houses of the Legislature was appointed to examine into the condition of the Prison, and performed their duty several days ago, but we have not, as yet, seen their report. It will doubtless be published, and should there be any matter of particular interest in it, we will recur to this subject again. ****************************************
PRISON STATISTICS Source: Alton Weekly Courier, March 8, 1855 The Warden of the Penitentiary reports that the present number of convicts in the Penitentiary is 336. During the month just ended, five were received, and eleven discharged as follows: seven by expiration of sentence, two pardoned, and two died. *****************************************
PENITENTIARY STATISTICS Source: Alton Weekly Courier, June 7, 1855 We learn from Mr. Sargent, the obliging Clerk at the Penitentiary, that the number of prisoners received during the month of May was 19; discharged 15, of which 13 were by expiration of sentence, 1 by pardon and 1 escaped. The number now in prison is 382, of whom 12 are women. The health of the prisoners is very good, as is evident from the fact that at divine service on last Sabbath, every prisoner was present. *******************************************
PRISON INMATES ARRIVE Source: Alton Weekly Courier, June 14, 1855 Marion county, Ill., last week sent five convicts to the Penitentiary, viz: Thomas Grooms, two years for forgery; Ferdinand Hang, two years for grand larceny; Charles Thayer, two years also for grand larceny; Charles Grenville, one year for grand larceny. Grooms was disposed of in short order. The forgery was discovered on Friday, on Saturday the case was sent before the Grand Jury, the indictment was found at once, the trial was had on the same day, he was found guilty and on the following Wednesday he was on his way to the Penitentiary. The forgery was only a ten dollar promissory note. *******************************************
PRISON ESCAPE Source: Alton Weekly Courier, July 19, 1855 A convict named David J. Johnson, escaped from the Penitentiary yesterday morning during the storm. The Warden offers $50 for his arrest. He is described as 29 years of age, five feet five inches high, spare built, light complexion, dark brown hair, blue eyes. He was clad in prison attire, but may succeed in changing it for others. He was sent down from Will county under sentence for larceny. ******************************************
PRISON BROOM MANUFACTORY Source: Alton Weekly Courier, July 26, 1855 We noticed last year that Messrs. Buckmaster & Wise, lessees of the Penitentiary, had commenced the manufacture of brooms. Several farmers last year made an attempt to raise broom corn to supply the necessary material, but in the drouth that crop in common, with all the late crops, failed. Only about eight tons of broom corn were raised in this vicinity, and about twelve tons were purchased abroad at exorbitant prices. The business has therefore been limited. About 3000 dozens or 35,000 brooms have been manufactured. The work of the past year cannot be considered a fair experiment. Broom corn has been planted to considerable extent this season, and with the coming year, the plan of manufacturing will doubtless be fairly tested. It is probably, nay almost certain, that with the advantages of soil for growing all kinds of corn, which Illinois farmers possess, this necessary branch of manufactures will ere long be more extensively and profitably prosecuted in this State, than in any other portion of the Union. Messrs. Buckmaster & Wise have been so fortunate as to secure the services of Mr. Spencer, a gentleman from Ohio, who has been engaged for upwards of ten years in this branch of manufacture, to superintend this part of their business. He has turned out the very best work in his line that we have ever seen. It is heavy, substantial and durable, and finished with a neatness that cannot be surpassed. ****************************************
PENITENTIARY STATISTICS Source: Alton Weekly Courier, September 6, 1855 By the report of the Warden of the Penitentiary, it appears that during the month just ended, five prisoners have been received at the prison, and eighteen have been discharged. Of the latter, one died, three escaped, thirteen were released on expiration of sentence, one was shot dead while attempting to escape. The present number of convicts is 385, of which number ten are women. The health of the convicts is good, there being but four cases in the hospital. *****************************************
PAYMENT TO POLITICIANS TO VISIT THE ALTON PRISON AND MONIES ALLOWED TO PURCHASED LAND FOR PRISON CEMETERY - 1855 Source: Laws of the State of Illinois Enacted by the General Assembly, 1855 To each member of the joint committee of the senate and house of representatives, to visit the state prison at Alton, the sum of twenty-five dollars. The inspectors of the penitentiary are also authorized to purchase a lot of ground, in some convenient place, without the limits of the city of Alton, not to exceed two acres, to be used by the penitentiary as a burial place for the convicts that die: Provided, that said ground shall not cost to exceed three hundred dollars. ******************************************
CONVICT SHOT Source: Alton Weekly Courier, September 6, 1855 On Saturday morning, at an early hour, when the gate of the Penitentiary yard was opened by the keeper to admit the bearer of the prison supplies, a colored prisoner named Wilkeson, and a white prisoner named George Clark rushed out and attempted to escape. The gate keeper followed and arrested Wilkeson, but Clark was fast making his escape. He was discovered by the guard who ordered him to stop. He disregarded the call and was shot dead. An inquest was held over his body. The jury returned a verdict that he came to his death by a shot from the prison guard, in the discharge of his duty. Clark was a young man about 22 years of age. He was sentenced at the April term, 1855, of the Cook County Criminal Court to eight years in the penitentiary for larceny. He had a wife, now in Louisville, Kentucky, as appears from a letter addressed to Clark, written from that city, under date of August 24th. It also appears that the last letter Clark had written to her was directed to Detroit, Michigan. Clark was an American by birth. *****************************************
ARRIVAL OF PRISONERS Source: Alton Weekly Courier, October 4, 1855 J. D. Kennedy, Esq., Sheriff of Kendall county, brought down two convicts for the penitentiary yesterday. Their names are Mitchell Jordan and John McCune. Their offense was larceny. Sentenced for one year each. Deputy Sheriff Norton, of Cook county, brought down on the noon train yesterday, from Chicago, 29 convicts - 28 men and 1 woman. They were sentenced at the recent term of the Recorder's Court in Chicago. Deputy Sheriff Dawson, of McLean county, brought down two on Wednesday. There are now 423 convicts in the penitentiary. ****************************************
PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CONVENTION MEMBERS MINISTER TO PRISON INMATES Source: Alton Weekly Courier, October 25, 1855 ....In the afternoon, no business of general importance was transacted except the selection of the Church of the Atonement at Chicago as the place of meeting of the next annual convention, the time of holding which will be appointed by the Bishop. The convention adjourned at an early hour, for the purpose of proceeding, agreeable to the polite invitation of the warden, to the penitentiary, in order to be present at the administration of the solemn rite of confirmation to a large number of the convicts, who have manifested a deep repentance of their sins for some months past. As about one half of these had never been baptized, this sacred ordinance was, in the first place, administered to twenty-three of them, by the Rev. Dr. McMasters, the Chaplain of the prison, under whose ministrations they have been brought to a sense of their guilt; followed by a solemn exhortation from the same gentleman, and another from the Rev. Dr. Arnett, of Milwaukee. The candidates for confirmation, forty-five in number, were then desired to kneel around the benches upon which they sit at their meals; when the Bishop proceeded to lay his hands, with the customary invocation, upon each of them successively. After the close of this truly affecting ceremony, the Bishop addressed the recipients for the space of perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes, in one of the most powerful and eloquent exhortations to which it ever has been our privilege to listen, and which, we are persuaded, can never be forgotten by any one who heard it, but of which we feel unable to give even a slight sketch. Suffice it to observe, that the strong walls and barred windows of the hall in which the rite was performed - the kneeling prisoners, nearly all of whom were bathed in tears - the deep and sympathetic emotion visible in the countenances of the members of the Convention and other spectators - the solemn and earnest language of the Bishop, and the deep tones of his voice, as he briefly alluded to the past lives, the present condition, and the future destiny of the persons to whom he was speaking, altogether formed a scene such as probably never before has been witnessed in the United States, or perhaps any other country; and which, we think, cannot fail to make a most salutary impression, not only upon those most interested in it, but also upon every beholder. We add no more. *****************************************
PRISON STATISTICS Source: Alton Weekly Courier, December 13, 1855 Since the beginning of the present month, including seven days, 73 convicts have been received at the Penitentiary. Of these 7 were from Lasalle, 3 from McHenry, 2 from Pike county, and 25 from Chicago. The Recorder's Court in that city has just adjourned, and has sent down the quarterly delegation for that city. The number of convicts now in the Penitentiary is 451. The prisoner Crosby, who escaped a short time since, was run over and killed by a railroad train at Pontiac. He was stealing his way east. A wood pile fell against him, knocking him under the cars. ****************************************
PRISONERS USED AT ALTON STATE FAIR, 1856 (read more about the 1856 Alton State Fair) Source: Alton Evening Telegraph Centennial Edition, January 15, 1936 In the penitentiary, Col. Buckmaster's prisoners were bending over their part of the work. The carpenter shop inside the prison walls turned out chairs, tables, window frames, etc., the blacksmith shop turned out fancy iron gates, horseshoes, foot-scrapers, and the tailor shop produced a number of high grade garments - all to be placed on exhibition at the Fair, to increase the fame of Alton abroad. *****************************************
PRISON STATISTICS Source: Alton Weekly Courier, January 17, 1856 During the month of December, 1855, 44 prisoners were received at the Penitentiary, and 21 were discharged from it, viz: 4 were pardoned, 2 died, 1 escaped, and 14 were released on expiration of sentence. The number remaining at the close of the month was 440. during the year just ended, thirteen prisoners died: two in February, two in March, one in June, one in August, four in September, two in November, and one in December. Two of these deaths were by suicide. One man shot himself; another destroyed himself by eating a mixture of cheese and glass. Three-fourths of the other deaths were from chronic diseases, contracted before coming to prison. Considering the number of prisoners, which has ranged from 300 to its present number, 440, and taking into account also the previous character, habits and modes of life of the convicts, it must be admitted that the proportionate mortality in the prison is remarkably small. *****************************************
PRISON STATISTICS Source: Alton Weekly Courier, May 15, 1856 During the month of April thirty-nine prisoners were received at the Illinois Penitentiary and forty were discharged. Of the latter, twenty-seven went out by expiration of sentence, eleven were pardoned, and two escaped. The number remaining on the 1st of May was four hundred and seventy-five. ******************************************
PRISON STATISTICS Source: Alton Weekly Courier, August 14, 1856 The report of the Warden of the Illinois Penitentiary for the month ending August 4th, shows that during the month 19 were received and 15 discharged, viz: 3 pardoned; 5 escaped, and 9 by expirations of sentence. The number now in prison is 477. ********************************************
DEATH SENTENCE COMMUTED TO LIFE IN PRISON Source: Alton Weekly Courier, June 25, 1857 Yesterday morning Robert Sharpe, alias Joseph Watson, convicted at the recent term of the Madison County Court of complicity in the murder of Jacob Barth, was brought to the Penitentiary at this place, his sentence of death having been commuted by Gov. Bissell to imprisonment for life, in accordance with a numerously signed petition. ******************************************
PRISON GETS A TEACHER Source: Albany, New York Evening Journal, December 8, 1857
Brayman, the Chicago editor who
was sent to prison at Alton, Ill., for stealing letters from
the post office, is engaged in teaching some fifty or sixty
fellow prisoners, most of them old men who are too infirm to
labor.
PRISON PHYSICIAN REPORT Source: Alton Weekly Courier, January 8, 1857 We have been permitted to examine the report of Dr. Hez. Williams, who has officiated during the last two years as physician at the Illinois State prison. The report embraces a period of two years, commencing with the first of January 1855, and ending with December 31, 1856. The number of deaths among the convicts during that period was 23. The number of cases treated was 1200. The deaths were from the following causes, viz: By consumption, 2; general dropsy, 2; inflammation of the lungs, 2; inflammation of the stomach and bowels, 1; chronic diarrhea, 3; inflammation of the brain, 1; chronic disease of the liver, 1; tuberculosis mesenterica, 1; cancer, 1; congestive fever, 1; general debility caused by masturbation, 3; dropsy of the abdomen, 1; casualties, 3. In January 1855, the smallpox broke out in the prison, the contagion having spread from a convict who had been exposed who was sent down about that time from one of the northern counties. There were twenty-five cases in all, ranging through all the classified degrees of severity. A temporary hospital was established where patients suffering from the malady were as far removed as possible from the other convicts. All the convicts were promptly vaccinated, and were required to conform to a system of dieting usual in such cases. No death resulted from this cause. Early in the same year some twenty-five cases of scurvy are recorded, none of which proved fatal. The number of prisoners during these two years ranged from 350 to 500. It is claimed that the sanitary arrangements within the prison during the last year will compare favorably with those of any other prison in the country, and judging from the facts as set forth above, we think the claim is just. *******************************************
NEW PENITENTIARY Source: Alton Weekly Courier, June 4, 1857 The new Penitentiary Commissioners, having located the new prison at Joliet, and having determined to sell the Alton Prison if a price approaching to the value of the ground can be obtained, it would be well, in view of the great object to be attained, for our citizens to be on the alert, and be ready with some proposition for the purchase of the ground when the Commissioners arrive. We are informed they will have a meeting in this city next week for the purpose of taking this matter into consideration, and much will depend upon the action of our citizens whether a removal of the old prison is effected or not. Would it not be well for the Mayor to call a meeting of the citizens to consider this matter? ******************************************
ATTEMPTED ESCAPE Source: Alton Weekly Courier, October 29, 1857 An attempt to escape was made yesterday morning by the prisoners in the State prison. They commenced by throwing stones and other missiles at the guard house on the east wall, partially demolishing it. The guard shot three times, killed George Armstrong, who was sent from Chicago last March, and wounding two others, one it is thought fatally, when the disturbance was quieted. It is apprehended that a further attempt to escape will be made, but the guards are prepared for any emergency. Esquire Middleton held an inquest on the body of Armstrong. Verdict, that he came to his death by being shot by the prison guard in the performance of his duty. ******************************************
ALTON PENITENTIARY TRAGEDY Source: The New York Times, March 16, 1858 The Alton Courier of the 10th has the following additional particulars of the Penitentiary tragedy, an account of which was given yesterday: "The convict, Hall, was laid on a mattress in the prison hall. He said that he hoped Crabb would live, and in the next breath that he had put five men in the same fix he was himself. Dr. McMasters was present, and endeavored faithfully to turn his attention to immediate death. He exhibited no penitence, no remorse, but said he hoped that God, if there was any, would forgive him. He sent for one of his Confederates, advised him to behave himself when he got out and not bring himself to what he saw before him. The steady, unfaltering voice of the desperado, his utter indifference to spiritual advice, and his well-known desperate character, almost induced us to believe that he was still playing out his desperate game. The general regret, and we fully participate in it, is, that the warden's shot did not finish the scoundrel at once. The taking or killing of a single man, however powerful and well armed, looks like an easy task, but when it is recollected that every movement had to be made so as, if possible, to save the life of Crabb, the case was one of unusual difficulty. The plans of the Warden and Superintendent were well conceived and carried out with as much promptness and decision as was possible. Every possible regard was had to the safety of Crabb, and that anxious regard was alone the cause of delay. Up to a late hour last night, Mr. Crabb, the guard, showed a considerable improvement in his condition. His pulse was firm and steady, and his general symptoms much improved. His physicians now think there is considerable hope of his recovery. He felt quite comfortable and suffered but little pain. The convict, Hall, lies in about the same condition as he appeared in shortly after being shot. There is little expectation of his recovery. That Hall had Confederates he admits, but the number or extent of their participation previous to the daring attempt of Hall, has not yet been ascertained. A rigid investigation will be made.
PRISON GUARD (CRABB) TAKEN HOSTAGE Source: Syracuse, New York Daily Journal, March 18, 1858; New York, New York Harpers Weekly, March 27, 1858; Oswego, New York Palladium, March 17, 1858
We get the following from a
letter to the Chicago Journal: Springfield, Ill.,
March 9,1858: *****************************************
PRISON INMATE CHARLES REISNER, alias CHARLES HERSE Source: The New York Times, April 26, 1858 From the Chicago Times. Mr. J. R. Coudry, Deputy United States Marshal, of Wisconsin, arrived in this city yesterday, having in custody a German named Charles Reisner, alias Charles Herse, who is charged with the crimes of burglary, robbery, arson, and murder, in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Reisner was arrested at Peoria, where, under the name of Herse, he has been carrying on the business of a butcher. In the Summer of 1855, he was arrested in this city by officer Rehm and Sauier, for larceny, for which he was convicted and sentenced for the term of two years to the State Prison at Alton. After serving out his time, he went to La Crosse, where in less than six weeks after his arrival, the murder was committed for which he is now arrested. ******************************************
PRISONERS CAUGHT Source: Alton Weekly Courier, March 18, 1858 A week ago two convicts in the Penitentiary absented themselves at night from roll-call, and succeeded in secreting themselves in the yard until yesterday. They were found under the floor of the dining room, with a fair store of provisions. One of the convicts is under a sentence of seventeen years. Whenever a convict hides, which has of late become somewhat common, the night guards are stationed outside the walls so that any convict is sure to be seen and fired at. *****************************************
PRISON BURNED Source: The State League, Syracuse, New York, 1858 The military prison at Alton, Illinois, was partially destroyed by fire on the morning of the 17th of November. Several of the prisoners, just how many could not be ascertained—took advantage of the excitement to make their escape. *******************************************
PRISON CLOSING - PRISONERS SENT TO JOLIET, ILLINOIS Source: Albany, New York Evening Journal, June 21, 1858 The work of removing prisoners at the old penitentiary at Alton has already commenced. About sixty went up [to Joliet, Illinois] two weeks since. Within six weeks from now cells will be constructed [at Joliet] for more than two hundred. Capt. Pillsbury, formerly of the Connecticut Penitentiary, at Wethersfield, and more recently from the prison at Albany, N. Y., has been selected as a thoroughly competent and experienced man to whom to entrust the entire discipline of the Penitentiary. He has entered upon his duties, and in company with Mr. Casey is urging on the work of building and providing requisite accommodations for the prisoners now at Alton. *********************************************
FIFTY CONVICTS SENT TO JOLIET Source: Alton Weekly Courier, July 22, 1858 Yesterday morning S. K. Carry, the lessee of the new Penitentiary at Joliet, took fifty convicts from the prison here and carried them to the new prison. One hundred and fifty have now been removed. ******************************************
STATE PRISON STATISTICS Source: Alton Weekly Courier, August 12, 1858 From F. S. Rutherford, Esq., Superintendent of the State's Prison, we learn that the number of convicts in the Illinois State Penitentiary, in this place, on the first day of July last, was 614. During July four were received, twenty were discharged, and three died, leaving a total of 595 on the first day of August, of which number eight are females. The number at the new prison, at Joliet, is 148, leaving 447 yet in the old Penitentiary in Alton. The severe hot weather has produced an unusual amount of sickness - principally fevers - among the convicts. Three deaths occurred during July, being a greater number than during the whole of the preceding seven months. *******************************************
PENITENTIARY FIRE
PRISON TAKES FRENCH LEAVE Source: Alton Weekly Courier, November 4, 1858 One of the dwellers at the State Hotel on the bluff evidently not liking his quarters, concluded to attempt a change yesterday. So, while working with a number of his fellow prisoners upon the Levee, he took leave of them very unceremoniously - not even bidding them or the guard Good bye. The guard thought this a very reprehensible performance, and accordingly invited the other laborers to rest within the Penitentiary walls while he sought the missing one, who had started up the river. Chase was given and he was soon caught, and much to the joy of Messrs. Sanger & Casey, we have no doubt, persuaded to return to his old quarters. But we very much fear that he found their joy his sorrow. *********************************************
PENITENTIARY FIRE Source: The New Albany Daily Ledger, New Albany, IN, August 16, 1858 St. Louis, Aug. 14.-The work shops, the dining hall, the chapel, the hospital and two or three other small buildings, together with a large quantity of material and finished work belonging to the Penitentiary at Alton, were destroyed by fire last night. Loss $30,000; fully insured. The state loses nothing. Messrs. Sauger & Carri having purchased the entire property from the state sometime since. **********************************************
Source: Davenport Daily
Gazette, Davenport, IA, August 17, 1858
PRISONER - STARVED INTO SUBMISSION Source: Syracuse, New York Daily Journal, February 16, 1859 The Alton, Ill. Courier states that a convict in the Penitentiary at that place, who had been punished for insubordination and confined in his cell, was found to have a knife secreted about his person. The Warden ordered him to strip in his cell and walk out naked. This order he stubbornly disobeyed, and declared that sooner than do it, he would die. The Warden concluded to try the "hunger cure" upon the desperado, and food was withheld from him during the day. This did not reduce him to submission; he still declared that he would starve, but would not yield. The penitentiary physician was ordered to watch him, and the starving process was continued ninety-seven hours, more than four days, when the man was so weak that he could not rise, and the courageous officers then entered his cell and he was disarmed. The physician found the convict was becoming delirious, and at once attended to his case. The knife had a blade four inches long, ground to a sharp point. ***********************************************
PRISON INMATE THOMAS MORGAN DIED IN PRISON Source: Syracuse, New York Central City Courier, May 16, 1859
A few weeks since, Thomas
Morgan, a wealthy resident of Scott County, whose estate is
valued at $85,000, was incarcerated in the penitentiary, at
Alton, for an assault with intent to kill. The Courier of
Wednesday mentions the death of Mr. Morgan, in the prison,
and that his remains were sent up the river Wednesday
evening for interment at his former home.
THE CASE OF JOSEPH M. P. NOLAN Source: History & Digest of the International Arbitration to which the U. S. Has Been a Party, by John Bassett Moore, 1898, page 3302 Joseph M. P. Nolan, No. 272, was arrested by the military provost-marshal at Saint Louis, Missouri, in October 1861, on the charge of disloyalty to the United States, and of having written a letter to an alleged enemy of the United States in Canada, giving information as to military movements. He was detained in prison at Saint Louis till June 1862, then transferred to the military prison at Alton, Illinois, and there detained till August 1863, when he was finally discharged. His release was offered him in December 1861, and on one or two other occasions, on his giving his parole to do no act unfriendly to the United States. This parole he refused to give. Great and unnecessary hardships in connection with his confinement were alleged on the part of the claimant, and the proof conclusively showed that the prison in which he was confined at Alton was wholly unfit in its appointments and sanitary condition for the confinement of prisoners, especially for the large number there confined; and that at times the treatment of the prisoners, including the claimant, was harsh and cruel. An award was made in favor of the claimant for $8,600; all the commission joining. I am advised that the majority of the commission, at least, held the original arrest of the claimant and his reasonable detention justified; but that his long confinement and improper treatment during it were not justified. In the case of Mary Nolan, No. 273, the claimant alleged that she was arrested at Saint Louis by a detective in the employ of the United States authorities in September 1864; taken before the provost-marshal at Saint Louis, and committed by him to the Chestnut street prison, where she was detained for an entire day; and that she was there subjected to improper treatment. She claimed damages $10,000. The evidence in her case showed that she was brought before the provost-marshal, apparently upon a subpoena, to testify in a case before him; that she refused to testify, and defied and insulted the officer, who committed her to the city prison, where she was detained for nine or ten hours. Her allegations of improper treatment were not sustained. The commission unanimously disallowed her claim. *************************************************
NURSE AT THE PRISON Source: Historical Genealogy of the Woodsons and Their Connections, by Henry Morton Woodson, 1915 Thomas Hart Benton Woodson, born February 19, 1840 in Ralls county, Missouri. during the early part of the Civil War (abt. 1861) he served for six months as nurse in the hospital at Alton, Illinois, caring for the sick and wounded soldiers. In 1862 to went to Dubuque county, Iowa. *************************************************
PENITENTIARY CONVERTED TO MILITARY PRISON Source: Liberty Weekly Tribune, January 31, 1862 The old Illinois Penitentiary buildings at Alton will be converted into a military prison, General Halleck having notified parties at Alton to have the buildings prepared for the reception of the 1,200 prisoners lately captured by Gen. Pope's command. *************************************************
MILITARY PRISON NOT YET READY Source: Alton Telegraph, February 7, 1862 We learn that the workmen employed in fitting up the prison for the reception of our Missouri neighbors, from McDowell's college, have not yet completed their work. When finished, the buildings and yard will furnish them very comfortable quarters - in fact, they will be much better provided for than the great mass of our own soldiers. We do not complain of this, however, for there is nothing to be gained by treating prisoners of war with inhumanity, but on the contrary, there is much to be gained by assuring those of the rebels who fall into our hands, that the Government is not ________ by revenge, but aims solely at re-establishing the legitimate authority of the laws over the entire country, and thus convince them that they have labored under a delusion in supposing that the NOrth wished to oppress of injure them beyond accomplishing this end. Accommodations are being made for 1640. ***********************************************
REMOVAL OF PRISONERS TO ALTON Source: Liberty Weekly Tribune, February 14, 1862 The prisoners of war, who have been confined in McDowell's College [St. Louis] for some time past, were yesterday removed to the Penitentiary buildings at Alton. The prisoners numbered about six hundred and fifty, and they were escorted to Alton by two companies of the Second Iowa Regiment. The boat was at the landing foot of Chestnut street, at an early hour yesterday morning, but it was half past 12 o'clock, p.m., before the prisoners made their appearance on the wharf. They came down Chestnut street well guarded, and passed aboard the boat in good order. The "City of Alton" [steamer] started for Alton with the prisoners, at about 2 1/2 o'clock. The removal of the prisoners caused a great deal of excitement in the neighborhood of their former prison, and also on the wharf large numbers of our citizens flocked around them during their march from the college to the boat, but there was no disorder in the proceeding. They were doubtless safely landed at Alton, and are now in their new quarters. ***************************************************
DEATHS IN ALTON MILITARY PRISON Source: Liberty Weekly Tribune, February 28, 1862 Two of the prisoners confined in the military prison died on Sunday. Their names are T. J. Stevens, of Knox county, Mo., and Joseph Paschall, of Palmyra, Mo. There two are the only ones that have died since the prisoners have been here, we believe. The health of the prisoners is very good - only forty-three being in hospital. The physician in charge of the hospital, this morning, gave orders for a general wash and cleansing of the prison, and after this is done, he hopes the sick list will be greatly diminished. *****************************************************
PRISONERS ARRIVE Source: Alton Telegraph, July 4, 1862 The Tatum brought up almost 187 rebel prisoners on Saturday night. They were taken mostly near Corinth, but a number were persons resident in St. Louis, river men, etc., who have been arrested for disloyalty. On the trip up from St. Louis, the Lieutenant in charge of the guard allowed some of the rebel officers to have the liberty of the boat, which they improved by getting gloriously tight and kicking up a fight among themselves. They were put under guard however, without any serious disturbance, although, at one time the passengers on the Tatum feared a general riot among them. On landing, and while passing through our streets to the prison, they were quite noisy, hurrahing for Jeff Davis, etc., but were lodged within the walls without any of the number making their escape. We understand that some of them were rebellious and had to be place din the cells for the night. *************************************************
PRISONER SHOT Source: Alton Telegraph, July 25, 1862 One of the prisoners who arrived in this city Saturday, named Mabre (sp), attempted, on Sunday, to pass the limits assigned to them. He was challenged by the guard and informed that he could nto pass. He immediately began _______ and cursing the guard, who brought his musket to a charge when the prisoner seized and attempted to take the bayonet from the gun. The guard fired putting the charge through the head of the prisoner. ********************************************
REBEL PRISONERS RELEASED Source: Watertown, New York Reformer, 1861/1862 Four hundred and ninety-one of the rebel prisoners at Alton, Ill., have taken the oath of allegiance and been released. ***************************************************
7TH ILLINOIS REGIMENT QUARTERS AT ALTON PRISON Source: History of the Seventh Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, From April 25, 1861 to July 9, 1865, by D. Leib Ambrose, 1868 At this time the firm steps of Illinois patriot men were heard keeping step to the music of the Union. In every direction her stalwart sons were seen marching towards the Capital. The loyal pulse never beat so central and quickening as at this period. After the organization of the regiment on the twenty seventh, they are marched from Camp Yates to the armory, where they receive their arms - the Harper's Ferry altered musket - after which the regiment marches to the depot and embarks for Alton, Illinois where the regiment arrives at 4 p.m. [abt. April 25, 1861] and are quartered in the old State Penitentiary. With men who were eager for war, whose hopes of martial glory ran so high, to be quartered in the old criminal home grated harshly, and they did not enter those dark recesses with much gusto. During our stay here the regiment was every day marched out on the city commons by Colonel Cook, and there exercised in the manual of arms and the battalion evolutions until they attained a proficiency surpassed by none in the service. On the nineteenth of May, private Harvey of Company A died the first death in the regiment. The first soldier in the first regiment to offer his life for the flag and freedom. On the second of June private Dunsmore of the same company falls into a soldier's grave. May the loyal people ever remember these first sacrifices so willingly offered in the morning of the rebellion. On the third of July [1861] the regiment embarked on board the steamer "City of Alton" for Cairo, Illinois. Passing down the river the steamer is hailed and brought to at the St Louis Arsenal and after the necessary inspection proceeds on her way. ************************************************
GENERAL COPELAND TAKES COMMAND AT ALTON Source: Michigan in the War by Michigan Adjutant-General's Dept., John Robertson, 1882, page 575 General Copeland was ordered to report to General Rosecrans, in St. Louis, Missouri, and on reporting was ordered to command the post and military prison at Alton, Illinois, which command he held until the close of the war. ************************************************
PRISON INMATES - EIGHT BRIDGE BURNERS Source: Watertown, New York Daily Times, February 20, 1862 Gen. Halleck has issued an order that in consideration of the recent victories won by the Federal forces, and the rapidly increasing loyalty of the citizens of Missouri, the sentence of the eight bridge burners condemned to death are provisionally mitigated to close confinement in the military prison at Alton. If, however, rebel spies again destroy the railroads and telegraph lines, and thus render it necessary to make severe examples, the original sentences against these men will be carried into execution. No further assessments will be levied or collected from any one who will now take the prescribed oath of allegiance. Boards of commissioners will be appointed to examine the cases of prisoners of war who apply to take the oath of allegiance. On their recommendation, orders will be issued for their release. *************************************************
DEATH AMONG THE PRISONERS Source: Alton Telegraph, April 25, 1862 On yesterday morning, D. W. Keown, formerly a sheriff in one of the counties in Missouri, and lately a prisoner in the penitentiary, rose as well as usual, but afterwards threw himself on his bed beside his comrade. The attention of his bed fellow was soon arrested by his unnatural breathing. When he got up he found Mr. Keown breathing his last breath. The cause of this sudden death is unknown. A son of Dr. Roberts of Rockport, Montgomery County, Missouri, also died in the prison yesterday. His disease was erysipelas. ************************************************
PRISON INMATE - EBENEZER 'BEN' MAGOFFIN Source: Albany, New York Evening Journal, March 26, 1862 Ebenezer Magoffin, of Missouri, a brother of Gov. Magoffin, of Kentucky, and formerly an officer in the Rebel army, taken prisoner some months ago, released on parole, which he violated, and subsequently recaptured, has been tried by court martial for "violation of parole," and for "killing in violation of the ethics of war," found guilty and sentenced to be shot. Gen. Halleck has approved the sentence, and it will be carried into effect at a time and place hereafter to be designated. In the meantime, the prisoner will be confined in a cell of the Military Prison at Alton ************************************************
PRISON RELIC Source: The Daily Standard, Syracuse, New York, March 31, 1862 Mr. Alfred Wilkinson, who has recently returned from a southwestern tour, as far as St. Louis, has in his possession a pipe made by one of the rebel prisoners at Alton, Illinois, which is a rare specimen of ingenuity and skill, as well as persevering industry. The material of the pipe is cotton stone, a soft stone found in the south, easily worked, and susceptible of a fine polish. The bowl of the pipe is square, and is beautifully carved. One of the sides presents the new rebel flag, and the other the Palmetto tree, with the cotton plant and rattle, snake, appropriate emblems of the rebellion. The front bears the coat-of-arms of Missouri, with the usual scrolls and mottoes. It is understood that the work was executed with a pen-knife, by a young man who had no experience in carving, and regarding it in that light the work Is a marvel of taste and skill. ***********************************************
PRISON INMATE - COL. JENNISON
Source: The Syracuse, New York Daily
Standard, April 21, 1862 *************************************************
PRISON PLACED UNDER SUPERVISION OF THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION Source: William Greenleaf Eliot, Minister, Educator, Philanthropist, by Charlotte Chauncy, 1904, page 226-227 In May 1862, by order of Major General Schofield, the military prisons were placed under the supervision of the Western Sanitary Commission, and Dr. Eliot and Mr. Yeatman acted as a committee on the Gratiot Street prison......Dr. Pollak and Rev. Dr. Schuyler, associate members of the Commission, were appointed a committee to visit the Alton prison, and found that it answered all requirements of sanitation and comfort. It was large, airy, situated in a healthy location, and the buildings were isolated, with considerable ground around them. It was filled to only half its capacity. The food was good in quality and abundant in quantity, and the prisoners were well provided for in every respect. A Catholic priest acted as chaplain, and the Confederate dead were buried with exactly the same care as the Union soldiers. ************************************************
FEAR OF SPREAD OF SMALLPOX FROM ALTON Source: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, 1910, page 100 Letter from Fort Pillow, Tenn., May 20, 1862 Captain: On yesterday evening, while temporarily absent from my headquarters, the second in command, Colonel A. Jackson, Jr., through inadvertence or carelessness, received at this post 202 confederate prisoners of war, just from an infected prison at Alton, Ill., with two cases of smallpox among them, in exchange for the same number of United States prisoners, turned over to your authorities some time ago, free from infection. While I do not presume that you are in any way responsible for so barbarous an act as sending released prisoners to communicate to my command the loathsome and infectious disease of smallpox, I demand that your Government disown the act by receiving these prisoners back into its lines and caring for them until every symptom of the infection has disappeared from their midst. I am, captain, with high respect, your obedient servant, Jno. B. Villepigue, Brigadier-General, Commanding
Off Fort Pillow, May 21, 1862 General: Your letter of the 20th instant has been received. I have not a sufficient knowledge of the circumstances of the case, as, for example, the condition of the building at Alton, Ill., in which the prisoners referred to have been confined, the health of the prisoners at the period of their release, or the possible change of health they may have undergone on their way to this place, to render it worthwhile for me to enter into the details of the subject. In order, however, to remove any grounds of complaint, and to make a suitable provision for an unexpected emergency, I propose that a temporary neutral hospital be established for the benefit of the prisoners suffering from smallpox. The place for this hospital may be determined by Captain Dove, the bearer of this letter, acting for me, and such officer as you may designate on your part. I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant, C. H. Davis, Flag-Officer, Comdg. U. S. Naval Forces **************************************
A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE MEMPHIS APPEAL FROM W. M. W. OF 3d REG. LA. VOLUNTEERS REGARDING NORTHERN PRISONS Source: The New York Times, June 8, 1862 Having been for some time a prisoner of war in the hands of the Federal Government, and made personal acquaintance with the interior of several of their miitary prisons, it has occurred to me that a brief sketch of what some of those prisons are, and of the treatment of prisoners in them, might afford information and relief to the many relatives and friends of our unfortunate soldiers who are there, that they could not otherwise easily obtain. The prison at Alton, Illinois, is the place of my first experience. The State Penitentiary was formerly at this place, but proving too unhealthy a location for that purpose, was subsequently moved, and the building and inclosure are now purchased or rented by the Federal Government, and used as a military prison - the objection against it as a place of incarcerating convicts not holding good in the case of "rebels." The number confined there was some seven or eight hundred previous to the late exchanges, mostly from Pea Ridge, Springfield and Blackwater, and political prisoners. Their treatment is inhuman. No distinction is made between citizens, officers and men. They are huddled together in the large rooms, sleeping in bunks one above another, with scarcely room to pass between the rows, leaving no room for a seat except upon the bunks. During the day some little relief is found by walking or sitting in the yard, but even this is so close that a breath of fresh air never reaches them, surrounded as it is by high stone walls. The rations are scanty and frequently of bad quality, and the same dining room and table furniture that once sufficed for the convicts, now answers for them - except that there are no knives, forks or spoons allowed. The cooking is done by a few of the prisoners, who take the job for want of something else to do. The officers in command are supercilious, haughty and brutal - compel, or attempt to compel, the most servile deportment, and for any offense or murmurs against their tyranny, the offender is locked in a cell and starved into compliance. They cause all debris and filth brought into the inclosure by the water, wood or provision carts, to be shoveled up for removal by the prisoners; and so of any other menial employment that becomes necessary. Meeting an officer, every one is expected to take off his hat, and otherwise bow the head and bend the knee in their august presence. The health of the place, under these circumstances, is, of course, not improved. About 100 have died since the 1st of April, and there are now 40 or 50 cases of smallpox, which scourge has lately made its appearance there, and the whole concern bids fair to become a pest-house. So much for Alton. It affords me pleasure to credit them with a different state of things in other places. I was fortunate enough to be one of thirteen, who, after one week at Alton, were sent to Camp Chase near Columbus, Ohio. This prison consists of a number of small, single room houses, built in rows or streets, after the usual method of arranging winter quarters for an army..... [letter continues to describe other prisons] ... I deem the course they pursued at Alton the one natural to their instincts, for the prisoners there are almost entirely Missourians, and they consider the State of Missouri a conquered province. Time will probably enlighten them as to this, and then, as I remember the haggard look and deep set eyes of some of the very first men of the State that I saw in close confinement, both at Alton and St. Louis, I almost shudder at the dark depths of the vengeance most certainly in store for the foul tyrants who oppress them. W. M. W., of 3d Reg. La. Volunteers, Memphis, Tennessee, May 27, 1862. *********************************************
PRISONER OF WAR Source: Alton Telegraph, June 27, 1862 John Harker, of the 1st Indiana battery, has been sentenced to imprisonment in the Military Prison in this city during the war. *************************************
PRISON INMATE - ISHAM Source: Oswego Commercial Times, August 1862 Mr. Isham, the sensation writer of the Chicago Times, who fabricated the story of the ten iron-clad gunboats in Mobile harbor, has been arrested by a Government officer and sent to the Alton Penitentiary. He has lived out of jail long enough to establish a reputation as the biggest liar on the footstool. ***************************************
PRISONERS ESCAPE Source: Oswego New York Commercial Times, August 5, 1862 On the night of July 25th, thirty-five prisoners escaped from the prison at Alton, Ill., by digging a tunnel 50 feet in length, which furnished them an exit six feet beyond the sentinel's beat. Col. Magoffin, who had been sentenced to death for breaking his parole, was lucky enough to get away with the rest. [see these stories below, which tell of Magoffin's escape: January 15, 1936 & July 2, 1976] Read the Confederate's story of the escape. *****************************************
PRISON INMATE - ISHAM Source: Syracuse, New York Daily Standard, August 22, 1862 W. P. Isham, editor and correspondent of the Chicago Times, was arrested in Memphis on the 14th inst., and sent to the Penitentiary at Alton, by order of Gen. Grant. Isham is charged with sending to his paper false and pernicious statements, intended to benefit the rebel cause. Near Memphis, recently, he fell into the hands of a party of rebel guerillas, who upon learning the name of his paper, immediately let him go. Isham was the author of the gunboat and Cumberland-Gap canards, first published in the Times and then telegraphed to the Associated Press. A short lease of imprisonment at Alton may have the effect to moderate his zeal on behalf of the rebels. ****************************************
PRISON ITEMS ......THOMAS JEFFERSON'S GRAND-NEPHEW HELD IN PRISON AS REBEL Source: Alton Telegraph, October 10, 1862 We are greatly indebted to the gentlemanly adjutant of the military prison for the following account of prisoners, received and otherwise disposed of, since the 77th Ohio has been here. Prisoners received during the month of September at the military prison - 531. Prisoners discharged - 87. Prisoners died - 8(?). Prisoners paroled to limits of the City of Alton - 2. Prisoners paroled to the limits of St. Louis - ?. Prisoners confined in cells and sentenced to hard labor - 12. Under sentence during the war - 18. Under sentence of hard labor during the war - 1. Escaped - 1. Sent to Vicksburg - 81?. Balance remaining in prison to 1st of October - 850. Forty prisoners arrived here by the Terre Haute Road this morning in charge of Lieut. Lewis, of General Rosecranz's staff, from Corinth, Miss. They were captured at the battle of Iuka. Robert Randolph Jefferson, a grandson of Thomas Jefferson's brother, is confined here in the military prison as a rebel. "Shades of departed heroies," who would have over thought, that a descendent of that noble family would ever be found recreant to the constitution which was formed by the immortal Thomas Jefferson.
LETTER FROM A REBEL Source: Albany, New York Evening Journal, March 26, 1863 The St. Louis Union is publishing a number of intercepted letters, written by certain parties here, to friends and relatives in the Rebel army. The following, addressed to a Mr. W. F. Luckett, is a "Specimen brick:"— St. Louis, Feb. 3,1868. Dear Darling Frank—I suppose by this time you have received my other letter, and I am going to try this carrier. Enclosed you will find your ma's letter, and this carrier is so closely watched that I fear he will be captured, but we all hope for the beet. Miss Lucy, our "Intelligent contraband," watches everything so closely that we do nothing but lie. You Just ought to see how the Union people are shaking. They have very little faith in their glorious Union Government, and I do assure you we Rebels never felt as sure of a Southern Confederacy as we do now, and we do so pray for the time to come, when our brave soldiers and bushwhackers will be released from their prisons and be free men once more. There are now 800 men in Gratiot Street Prison, or McDowell's College, and so many of them have the small pox. There is over one thousand in the Alton prison, and they are almost destitute of clothing. Ma and I have been permitted to visit the Alton prison next Thursday. I have been sewing and mending old clothes for them all this week. Dick Beauford, United States Express messenger, promised to write a letter to you, but I have not seen it as yet. I received a long letter from your Ma, and Miss Loutie said I might love you if I was a real good rebel, and if that is all she asks of me I think you are my property. I will admit that I have talked to Feds, but after Pa shot that soldier we could not do as we pleased. He lived six days after he was shot, and the night he died, four black-hearted villains came bolting into Ma's room, and damned us to everything they could, and not a soul In the house but her and I, nor was there a person in town, or a friend any where that would come near us. We moved everything over to Mrs. Johnston's, and slept on the floor in our clothes and shawls, for six weeks, and every night was warned to leave the house, that it was going to be burnt. We could not live so, and all we could do was to lake some of the highest officers in our house to board, but Ma never got me to set with the contemptible hounds, if I was compelled to speak to them. No one knows what we have to contend with. May God speed Gen. Price and his noble army into Missouri, so that we poor persecuted "she devils" as that elegant paper the Republican chooses to term us, may have the satisfaction of trampling a few ...... ladies under our feet. ........Dr. came down last night. - He is living at College Mound, and he says there was a prisoner shot at that place on the 2d of February, for hurrahing for Jeff. Davis. We dare not breathe Jeff. Davis' name aloud here; but I wish you could see the picture Ma has of him. Mr. C. Y. J. gave it to her, and it cost $15. It is splendid. I have such a dreadful cold that I can scarcely speak above a whisper; but I will not die, because there is too many Southern girls down there. You must soon come home, for such I still call our house, and Ma says she does want to see her son Frank so much. Now I know you will come. Give my love to all the Rebels, Edward Barton, William Halleck, Shad, and more to yourself, and write, by the first carrier, a long letter. We all send much love to you, and Mr. Flanagan, and hope you will give the Feds your best Minnie ball, and shoot a few extra balls in revenge for us. You may look for several kisses in this letter, and you will find them. Write soon to Your true and devoted Rebel, Zaide L. Bagwill
[Note from your county coordinator: A few racial statements were removed from the above letter. The absence of the statements do not detract from the historical essence of this letter, and I saw no purpose in including offensive material.] ******************************************
VIEW OF PRISON LIFE BY AN IMPRISONED SOLDIER HELD IN OHIO, 1863 Source: Camp, Field and Prison Life by W. A. Wash, 1870 ..."During the day about sixty officers came in from the prison at Alton, Illinois. They, with a number of privates, had been started for exchange, but were stopped at Pittsburg and sent here, as we all supposed, on account of retaliatory measures. The bad faith with which both parties have kept the cartel agreed upon for exchange has caused many a gallant man to languish and die in prison. Thousands of soldiers are now suffering in prisons, who, at a word from those in power, could be honorably exchanged and serving their cause.
...This, the 8th day August, the officers of Price's army taken at Helena, Arkansas, on the 4th day of July, arrived from Alton prison, several of them, Col. Johnson, of Arkansas, among the number, wearing, as ornamental appendages, a ball and chain for the offense of trying to escape from prison. They had made a hole through the ceiling and roof of their quarters, but some traitor or spy informed against them, and a detachment of Yankee boys was paraded to greet them as soon as they made their exit through the hole Several cases of smallpox came in with them, and were quartered in a tent in one corner of the prison yard. They did not give the Alton House a very good name, and promise never to patronize the institution again if they can consistently avoid it, for they don't admire the situation of the concern, nor the compactness and height of the yard fence, and last, but not least, the landlord and his sub-officials did not distinguish themselves for hospitality and generosity." **************************************
PRISON INMATE - DR. W. A. CHEATHAM Source: The Syracuse, New York Daily Standard, May 13, 1863 Dr. W. A. Cheatham and family has been ordered to Alton, Ill, to be confined during the war. Mrs. Cheatham is the sister of Mrs. John Morgan. *****************************************
PERMISSION TO SEND WHISKY TO JEFF. THOMPSON Source: Letter From George D. Prentice to Military Commandant at St. Louis, September 15, 1863 Dear Sir: I learn that Gen. M. Jeff. Thompson is in the prison at Alton, Illinois. A year and a half ago, when he had a command in Arkansas, he did me a kindness by writing to me information in regard to my son. I hope you will not deem it inconsistent with your public duty to permit me to send him a demijohn of whisky. Please be so kind as to let me know your decision. Geo. D. Prentice. *****************************************
PRISON INMATES - BRIGADIER GENERAL JEFF THOMPSON AND CAPT. REUBEN KAY Source: Skaneateles, New York Democrat, September 24, 1863 Brigadier General Jeff Thompson, the notorious rebel swamp ranger and bushwhacker, with his adjutant, Capt. Reuben Kay, are now in the Alton, Ill. military prison. They will soon be transferred to Johnson's Island. ****************************************
SOUTHERN BELLE DIES IN ALTON PRISON Source: The Diary of an Old Lawyer, Or, Scenes Behind the Curtain, 1895, by John Hallum ....The affianced of a young Confederate officer, living near Collierville (whose name now escapes me, because my record in which it was kept was long since lost) came to Memphis and purchased from a large dry goods firm, cloth and trimmings to make the dashing young officer a uniform. To obtain this favor, she pledged her honor, that in case of detection she would not disclose the name of the merchants. It was in the winter of 1863-4. She wrapped the cloth around her person and proceeded out on the Germantown road to the exit through the lines. On that day for the first time, tents had been erected, and ladies put in charge, to search the wearing apparel and persons of all their sex passing out of the line, and our little heroine, who belonged to the middle classes, was the first caught at that station. She was handed over to the guards and conveyed to the "Irving Block," that Bastille of the revolution, situated on Second street opposite the northeast corner of Court Square. Ladies confined there were always placed in the upper story, without fire in the most inclement weather, and no bedding whatever, except a mass of straw thrown loosely on the bare floor, and without a chair, table, box, or anything on which to sit. For a cultured and refined lady, this was hard, as was the prison fare of coffee, cold potatoes, salt pork, and hard crackers. To a gentleman who loved to honor and preserve untarnished the uniform and arms of the country he bore, it was simply revolting, especially so because in the heart of a city overflowing with all the luxuries the arts and commerce of the age commanded. This young lady, whose innocent and pure, yet exalted love was her death, sent for me. I found her in that cold and cheerless room alone, sitting in the corner on a bed of loose straw, cold and shivering in the pitiless air; her large blue eyes swimming in tears, which stirred up the fountains of my own. She told me the details already stated, the merchant from whom she purchased the cloth, after my assurance that I would not betray them.....The merchants who trusted her had a stock of goods worth two hundred thousand dollars, which would have been confiscated had that suffering girl told them where she obtained the goods. This girl was in the incipient stages of consumption, aggravated greatly by exposure in that cold, damp, fireless and bedless room. Already the arrows and seeds of death gave voice to their presence. After a confinement of three weeks in that Bastille, she was sent to the Alton prison, where she died keeping her faith. ************************************
PRISON INMATE - JOSEPH M. HAMILTON Source: Syracuse, New York Daily Journal, June 27, 1864
An actor named Joseph M.
Hamilton has been convicted of disloyalty In St. Louis. He
drank toasts in honor of Jeff. Davis and entertained a rebel
soldier, and did other deeds which have brought upon him the
penalty of wearing a ball and chain in prison at Alton for a
year.
ALTON PRISONERS RECAPTURED Source: Alton Telegraph, September 23, 1864 We learn from the Missouri Democrat of this morning, that Wm. Bamberg, the notorious rebel mail carrier, who was under sentence during the war and escaped from the Alton prison about two months ago, was recaptured in that city yesterday. His father is in prison at Alton. ****************************************
PRISON INMATES Source: Syracuse, New York Daily Courier, October 1864
St. Louis, Oct. 25.—The dead
bodies of Major Wilson 3d Missouri Militia and six of his
men, captured by the rebels at Pilot Knob, and given up to a
guerrilla band for execution, for the alleged reason of the
killing of some rebels, last summer, were found this
morning. A rebel Major and six privates now in Alton prison
in solitary confinement, held as hostages for Major Wilson
and men, will doubtless be executed in retaliation.
PRISON GUARD REGIMENT RAISED - IL 144th INFANTRY Search for members of 144th IL Infantry Source: The Alton Telegraph, August 19, 1864 General Rosecrans has requested the citizens of Alton to raise a regiment of soldiers to serve one year as guards for the prison at this post. The following is the appeal of the General: "By authority from the War Department and agreement with Governor Yates, I appeal to you to raise a regiment of infantry to serve twelve months. I want them for guards of Alton prison, but I want them to be of high soldierly bearing and to make their qualification and behavior the condition on which they will be kept on the duty. Each non-commissioned officer and private will receive a bounty of one hundred dollars and be exempt from the draft, while he will count on your quota. The officers will be commissioned on my recommendation by the Governor of Illinois. As these troops are wanted immediately, I hope for a prompt response. W. S. Rosecrans, Maj. Gen." The appeal to the citizens of Alton was received by the undersigned this morning, and I deem it an eminently fit opportunity for the citizens to respond cordially and with alacrity, as the occasion seems to require. The advantages to us are manifest, besides securing mild service at home, we shall have fill our quota on the last call and some to spare, and thus maintain the proud pre-eminence of the State of Illinois in responding voluntarily to all the calls of the Government. Every man thus employed will help to swell the ranks in the field with tried veterans, and I confidently appeal to the citizens of Alton to come forward at this time and thus rally to the support of our Government. Edward Hollister, Mayor. ******************************************
PRIVATE IN 144TH INFANTRY GIVEN PROPER BURIAL Source: Alton Telegraph, January 13, 1865 A private of Company I, 144th Infantry, was buried in a most appropriate and decent military manner yesterday. The body was taken in a hearse to the cemetery, accompanied by a full band, and the entire company and officers. This we are sorry to say, is a rather unusual occurrence, as the bodies of privates are generally taken in a wagon to the cemetery, without military escort or honors, and then placed in the ground, almost without a show of respect. We understand the Captain Moore, of Company I, bore the expenses of the burial himself, feeling that the privates of his command are as much entitled to decent interment as those who wear the insignia of rank on their shoulders. *************************************
PRISON INMATES ARRIVING ABOARD "BELLE OF MEMPHIS" Source: The Daily Courier, Syracuse, New York, January 18, 1865 The steamer, Belle of Memphis, brings 35 rebel prisoners from Little Rock for Alton, Illinois. *******************************************
PRISON INMATE - DICK MORGAN Source: Utica, New York Weekly Herald, April 4, 1865 Dick Morgan, brother of John Morgan, is in the Alton Penitentiary, to which institution he has been sentenced for life. ********************************************
EMPTYING THE GRATIOT AND ALTON PRISON Source: Liberty Weekly Tribune, May 12, 1865 All those prisoners of war captured from Gen. Price, and who were able to prove that they had been conscripted into the rebel service, have been released, as well as those prisoners of war in general, who have consented to take the amnesty oath. There are now remaining in Gratiot, the only military prison in St. Louis, not more than one hundred and fifty prisoners, including citizens, Federal soldiers, and prisoners of war. At Alton, there remains three hundred and ninety-two prisoners of war, one hundred and eighty-seven citizens and seventy-nine Federals - eight hundred and fifty-eight in all. It has not been a very long time since there were more than three thousand prisoners at Alton *********************************************
A CONFEDERATE TRICK? Source: The United States During the War, by Auguste Laugel, 1866 Onboard the steamer 'Sucker State' from Quincy to St. Louis, written by Auguste Laugel, on a visit to the United States in 1864 "....The morning after, we arrived in sight of Alton. Above the rocky promontory on which the town is built stands the immense penitentiary which was used as the prison for the rebel soldiers. The bayonets of the sentinels flashed brightly in the rays of the morning sun, and idle soldiers lounged upon the quay. A few moments before our arrival at Alton, a young man who had seen me drawing on deck came to me, and timidly begged me to make for him a sketch of the prison at Alton. In spite of his rough uncombed hair and beard, and sparkling eyes, the expression of his face was so candid and simple that I acceded to his wish. I could not refrain, however, from enquiring why he preferred that point to any other: he blushed, and told me that many of his friends and townsmen knew the place well, and would be glad to have a sketch of it. A few days after, I learned at St. Louis that there had been, on the part of the guerilla bands, a plan to surprise Alton, and deliver the prisoners; it was not carried out, however; so my sketch was useless, even if it left the hands of my young unknown, whom I have since suspected of having served in the armies of the rebellion." ******************************************
ALTON PRISON TERM SPURS REB TO JUMP TRAIN Source: Liberty Weekly Tribune, January 26, 1866 During the battle of Tishomingo Creek, a young gentleman of this city [Liberty, Missouri] now engaged in the study of law, was captured and brought to this city and shipped together with a number of others to Alton Penitentiary, where he was kept some six weeks, at the end of which time an order was received to transfer a number of officers - himself among the number - to Johnson's Island; and, under a strong guard, they took the train for that delightful summer retreat. Lieutenant H___ had seen enough of prison life during his six weeks' sojourn at Alton to satisfy him that it was not exactly suited to one who had followed the "War Eagle" through all his campaigns, and determined, if possible, to affect his escape. But it seems that several others were possessed of the same idea, and it was soon known that several had taken leave without the countersign, by jumping from the train, which increased the vigilance of the guard and rendered an attempt doubly dangerous; but the Lieutenant determined that the prison gates should never close on him again. About two o'clock in the morning he noticed that the guard had fallen asleep, and, softly raising the window, he peeped out into the darkness and discovered that the train was rushing on with frightful speed, enough to have deterred any other than he from making the attempt; but Alton was behind and Johnson's Island ahead, and committing himself to the fates, he slipped through the window, and, loosing his hold, dropped to the ground. For a moment he was stunned and bewildered, and unable to rise, but luckily no bones were broken, and on rising he discovered that he was in the midst of a large prairie, while far away the train was thundering on. Pursuing the line of the railway, he about daylight came within sight of a village, which afterwards proved to be Clinton [Illinois]. What to do he did not know, without a cent and dressed in full uniform and weary and hungry. The first thing to be done was to get rid of his gray jacket, which was taken off and buried in an adjacent cornfield, and resolved to put a bold face on the matter, he set out for the town, and, on reaching the suburbs, he discovered some workmen engaged in building a brick house, and, walking up to one who seemed to be in authority, he asked him if he wanted workmen, to which he received a ready reply in the affirmative, coupled with the remark that he was Colonel of the 154th Illinois, and his furlough had nearly expired, and immediately offered him two dollars a day to "wait on" the brick masons. This was a great trial to the adventurous "reb," but he immediately set to work with a will, and thus things passed along very smoothly until he sat down at the dinner table on the third day, when the Colonel startled him by remarking to the family that several rebels had escaped from the train, and that one of them had been traced to Clinton, looking the Lieutenant full in the face at the same time, but he kept his countenance and returned to work, ill at ease. About 4 o'clock the Colonel made some excuse for going into town, but scarcely had he left, when an Irish servant girl beckoned to him to come into the kitchen, which he did, and learned from her that the Colonel had gone after a guard to arrest him. She begged him to fly, at the same time handing him two dollars in silver. He was not long in taking her advice, and ere night closed in was miles away in the boundless prairie. We will not follow him in all his adventures to Chicago, where he found friends and means, and thence to Detroit, Montreal and Halifax, where he embarked on a blockade-runner, and on his fearful voyage along Hatteras, the passage of the blockading fleet, his safe arrival at Wilmington, from which point he immediately proceeded to join his command, then in NOrth Mississippi. Suffice it to say that he did so, and fought through the remainder of the war, and then was paroled, and now walks the streets with an air decidedly more legal than warlike. A few days since he entered a store where quite a number of gentlemen were collected, when one of them suddenly accosted him with: "Hallo! ain't you the Reb I hired to carry the hod?" "Yes, I am," responded the limb of the law, "and I want the seven dollars you owe me for it." Mid roars of laughter, Colonel S. produced his pocketbook and handed over the amount, stating that he never experienced more pleasure in liquidating a debt in his life. We venture the prediction that this is the first debt of the kind collected since the close of the war. (From the Memphis Appeal. *********************************************
PRISON INMATE - CAPT. H. H. HINE - THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY Source: Ogdensburg, New York Daily Journal, May 24, 1867 .....It seems Capt. Hine had been tried, convicted (as he claimed, unjustly), and sentenced to the Alton Penitentiary. Before the sentence was carried into execution, however, he escaped and fled to Canada. ********************************************
PRISON INMATES - TEASON, HORNER, CRAWFORD Source: Utica, New York Morning Herald, 1869
Three prisoners escaped from the
Alton
jail in Illinois, on the night of the 23d ult. (leaving
behind them the following note to the City Marshal: "John
Young—Dear Sir: As we do not like your style of board we
have concluded to change our boarding place. We wanted Harry
to go, but he likes the board and says he means to stick to
it. Catch us if you can. **********************************************
PRISON MANAGEMENT CONTROVERSY Source: The New York Times, July 26, 1869 The controversy in relation to the State Penitentiary and its management still goes forward, and is exciting considerable public interest. As is usual - but perhaps a little strange in this case - it is a fight between the ins and the outs. The outs are trying to get in to the Penitentiary! Had they their deserts, perhaps the end would have been accomplished long since without any volition of their own. But as they wish to get in for the purpose of plundering the State, there is some objection. For about thirty years, the institution, while at Alton, was leased to the same parties. It was carried on for the purpose of making money, bot out of the labor of the prisoners and the State. A nominal sum was agreed to be paid to the State as rent; but the State was always brought into debt by the lessees, who contrived to make charges under all possible pretences. The government of the prison was horribly barbarous, and the diet of the prisoners of the poorest and meanest description. At one time, I am informed by the person who was acting as Chaplain, while they were manufacturing corn brooms, the seed of the broom corn was manufactured into meal, and made into bread. Drunken bosses and drunken guards were employed, and the lash and the shower-bath were in constant requisition. And to such an extent were they used that men were known to have died from the effects. In fact, I suppose from what I learn from good authority, that a more barbarous institution scarcely ever existed than the Illinois Penitentiary for a period of over a quarter of a century. After its removal to Joliet, as long as it continued to be managed on the lessee plan, there was little or no change for the better, except in the matter of diet, which was much improved. But the same barbarous, inhuman and brutal system of discipline was continued. Instead of being reformed, the prisoners were brutalized and hardened. The new prison was in process of construction, and the contractors were the lessees of the labor of the prisoners - one of them acting at the same time as Warden, so that the State was not virtually represented at all. At the outset, the Penitentiary was to cost - according to the estimates of the architect - $400,000. It has cost nearer $1,200,000 - a large proportion of which has been taken from the State Treasury fraudulently, and much of it through party favoritism, and through the connivance of the State agents appointed to oversee the work. About two years ago the State assumed control of the institution, and placed its management under the control of three Commissioners, who are elected by the people. A new order of things was inaugurated, and an attempt made to render the prison reformatory as well as a place of punishment. A more humane system of discipline was adopted, and efforts made to improve the minds and morals of the inmates. A good measure of success attended these efforts, and the State was relieved from any financial burden connected with the prison. But the "old Penitentiary Ring" has never been at rest since they were ousted from this means of public plunder. They have entered upon a systematic course of falsehood and misrepresentation in regard to the management of the prison, and hence the excitement which has been created throughout the State in regard to the matter. There are now about 1,200 prisoners confined there, and the Commissioners find more difficulty in these depressed times in keeping them profitably employed. But an investigation has shown that the charges of the "Ring" are unfounded, and got up to effect their own selfish purposes. *********************************************
UNKNOWN SOLDIERS LIE IN ALTON GRAVES Source: The Congressional Globe - Speeches, Reports, and the Laws of the Second Session of the Forty-Second Congress, by F. & J. Rives & George A. Bailey, 1872 The Confederate prisoners of war who died were 30, 152, as shown by the mortuary records of the War Department, gathered from the eighty-nine different places of interment at hospitals, forts, and prisons where they were buried, and are stated thus: Officers - 455 Enlisted men - 29, 216 Citizens - 481 TOTAL - 30,152
Of these, the names are kept and graves designated of 29, 426, and names not kept of 726. Of this latter number, 662 were at Alton, Illinois, leaving only 64 unknown at the remaining eighty-eight places. Why this neglect at Alton I do not know; but it is reprehensible, and is the only record in all our responsibilities to be condemned. There were only 1,549 deaths of confederate prisoners at Alton prison, and 662 of these are marked "unknown."
Burials at Alton: Commissioned officers - 7 Enlisted men - 1,549 Unknown - 662 TOTAL - 2,218 *************************************************
PRISON INMATE - WILLIAM THURMAN/alias HARRY FREEMAN Source: Syracuse, New York Daily Journal, January 20, 1872 Alexander Manning, representing himself to be a Deputy Sheriff of Carroll parish, La , and another, giving his name as Laddy. arrived in St. Louis, Mo., Friday, from Lake Providence La., having in charge Harry Freeman, whom they allege is a burglar and murderer, and was an associate of Quantrell in the Lawrence, Ks., massacre during the war, for whom they state the Governor of Missouri offered $5,000 reward. They left their prisoner with Chief McDonough during the day, saying they expected the Sheriff of Atchison county to come and take him. Not having any authenticated papers. Chief McDonough suspected something wrong, visited the prisoner and found him barbarously ironed. He ordered the removal of the shackles and heard his story, from which be, McDonough, believed that the man had been kidnapped, and refused to deliver him to his captors until they produced properly authenticated papers. Today (Saturday) Chester Harding applied for a writ of habeas corpus, and Freeman was brought before Judge Ewing and discharged, his captor failing to show cause why he was arrested. The man, whose real name it Wm. Thurman, states that he was drugged in Lake Providence, some ten day* ago, and when ho came to his senses found himself on board a steamer, loaded down with irons, and on his way to Missouri. It appears from the man's own statements, and from the statements of others who knew him, that he was a Union scout and spy during the war, and rendered valuable service to the Federal cause. Ho served under General Harding, who was his counsel Friday, also under General Rosecrans, and others in that department. It is further stated by those cognizant of the facts, that in 1865 he was tried by a military court martial at St. Joseph, convicted of seven different murders, and sentenced to be hanged, but the sentence was commuted to imprisonment in the Alton penitentiary, from which he was pardoned after nine months imprisonment. He was one of the original Kansas Red Legs, and is said to have been one of Quantrell's gang. While acting as a Federal spy he was much in the rebel country, and fought, and was wounded in their ranks. Ho was captured by Union soldiers on one [unreadable], tried as a spy and sentenced to be hanged, but was pardoned by the President, through the intercession of General Harding, to whom he had always been true. After the war he was sent to the Missouri penitentiary for passing counterfeit money, but was pardoned by the Governor after serving two years. Since then he has been living in Louisiana and Mississippi. By his own story and statement he is, or has been, a most desperate villain, and but for manner in which he was brought to St. Louis, would have been held. He attributes his arrest to some of Quantrell's men living In Louisiana, who he says, were afraid he would expose them, and took this way of getting rid of him. **************************************
A VINDICTIVE SPIRIT - MURDER COMMITTED BY ONE OF THE "MATERIALIZED" Source: Utica, New York Daily Observer, December 9, 1874 The St. Louis Democrat publishes the following, commenting upon which another paper says: "if this story is true it puts Spiritualism in a new aspect and makes it a very practical matter of serious import to all." At Mendota, Ill., lives a medium of extraordinary force named Betty Milton. Although its' but a short time since her powers in this line have been developed, she has succeeded in producing manifestations, according to the testimony of respectable, intelligent, and credible witnesses, which are fully equal to any of the phenomena which have been observed among the most advanced Spiritualists. Lately she has been troubled by the presence of a Spirit whom she feared and dreaded, but who, in spite of all her efforts, persistently strove to gain control of her organization. It was evident that this spirit desired to manifest through her some strange and dark statement, and its nature could be guessed at by her occasional wild mutterings concerning hatred and murder, revenge and remorse. She gradually yielded to the influence of this troublesome spirit, and finally, near the close of last month, to be exact, on the 23rd of October--he stood beside her in the shape of a slender, tall young man, with long hair and German features! There were a dozen or more persons present, all of whom saw him and saw that the medium was in a state of trance, while the materialized spirit made his ghostly confession in these words, which were heard by all in the room: ‘I come to make a confession, to express my remorse, to atone as far as I may for a wrong doing. My name, when in life, was Carl Reystadt. On the night of May 8, 1872, I murdered Andrew Garrity. It was my crime for which Martin Fynes died in Alton prison. I was at the time in spirit form, but assumed the likeness of Martin Fynes when the deed was done, in order that he might be suspected of the crime and hanged for it. I stole his knife; I purposely encountered two men who knew him, that they might honestly swear to have seen him near the scene of the murder. |I hid the bludgeon where it was found at his house. I did all this that I might be revenged upon him for a great wrong he had done me. I was the instrument in the hands of an all-wise justice in taking the life of Andrew Garrity, for he deserved his fate; but my purpose |was evil. In my later spirit-life, in higher stages of progression I have learned forgiveness. I have been taught to repent the deeds of my wicked heart. For this reason I have come back to attest the innocence of Martin Fynes.’ Having finished this confession, the form began to fade, and shortly disappeared and was never seen again! The circumstance was so singular that inquiries were set on foot by two gentlemen, Mr. N. Moulton, of Mendota, and Mr. B. Longley of Centralia. They discovered that there had been such a person as Andrew Garrity, that he had been murdered as stated in the spirit confession, that Martin Fynes had been arrested for murder, and that he had died at Alton. They also discovered that Carl Reystadt been ill-treated by Martin Fynes, and that ee was dead when Garrity was murdered. In the trial the evidence was conflicting. Two men swore they had seen Fynes, on the night of the murder, near the place where the body was found, with a bludgeon in his hand, and that they had spoken to him but he did not answer them. Four other persons testified that he was at a distance from the spot where the murder occurred and accounted for all his movements during the night. It was proved, however, beyond a doubt, that the knife which was found near the murdered man was his property. Several other circumstances were put in evidence for and against the prisoner and the entire testimony was so puzzling that the jury could not agree and were finally discharged. Fynes was sent to the State prison for a third trial, but died before it could take place. In these proceedings, there was nothing unusual or supernatural, but there were some circumstances connected with Fynes’ prison life, in jail, and in State prison, which are entirely unexplainable except in view of the revelation which purports to have been lately make by the spirit of Carl Reystadt, through the mediumship of Miss Betty Milton. While in prison, Fynes professed to have been visited and persecuted by the ghost of the young German who appeared to him when his cell was dimly lighted, even in the presence of other persons, telling him that he (Fynes) was going to be hanged, and frightening him to such an extent that it was thought best never to leave him alone at night. The only person besides Fynes who claimed to have ever seen this spiritual persecutor was one of the keepers, who declared that he caught a glimpse of him at a time when Fynes' cellmate was removed for a few minutes. He described the ghostly intruder as being the exact counterpart of Martin Fynes, standing by his side, and differing from him in no particular of dress, or in feature. The keeper was so astonished at this vision that he hastily closed the door and called for help. In a few minutes it was opened, but the counterpart had disappeared, and Fynes was lying on his pallet in a fainting condition, or in a state of trance. Thereafter Fynes declared that the murder of Garrity had been committed by a demon that had taken his form and had possessed itself of his knife, and that this demon had frequently visited him in the jail at Carlinville, and in the State prison, terrifying him almost to death. Of course he was regarded as insane and the keeper who declared he had seen the vision above referred to was considered as being in no better mental condition. Fynes died without making any confession, but stoutly adhering to his statements concerning his supernatural visitant, and both he and his supposed crime were forgotten until the time of the remarkable revelation that purported to be made through the mediumship of Miss Betty Milton. It is a strange story as it stands, and we leave the credulous and the incredulous to puzzle their brains over it as they please, only adding that it is published here just as we received it. *****************************************
THE PRISON IN 1875
Source: The Phelps County New
Era, [Rolla, Missouri] December 4, 1875
PRISON INMATE WALTER SHERIDAN Source: Utica, New York Daily Observer, March 25, 1876 The career of Walter Sheridan is a most wonderful one, considering the life of an ordinary criminal as a comparison. Sheridan is now thirty-eight years old. He was born in New Orleans of respectable parents, and received a very fine education. He is about five feet seven inches in height, weighs about one hundred and sixty five pounds, has light complexion, blue eyes, light hair, sandy mustache and beard, and is of a gentlemanly address. He has friends at Sandusky, Ohio, and his wife and one child live at Hudson, Mich.— When a mere boy he drifted into crime, and made has first appearance in the character of a criminal in Western Missouri as a horse thief about sixteen years ago. Then be became so accomplished general thief and confidence man, but especially distinguished himself as a bank sneak. In 1858 he was arrested in company with Joseph Moran, a noted Western robber, for a bank robbery, in Chicago, convicted and sentenced to five years in the Alton Penitentiary, which term he served....... ***************************************
GHOST OF THE PRISON Source: Auburn, New York Daily Bulletin, July 5, 1889 A ghost with the lockstep is one of the rarities of spiritualism, but that is what they say has been heard near the old prison at Alton, Ill. [Note: a lockstep is a way of marching in very close file, in which the leg of each person moves with and closely behind the corresponding leg of the person ahead.] ***************************************
PICTURE OF PRISON WANTED Source: Alton Daily Telegraph, February 24, 1893 (Advertisement) - Wanted - a picture of the old penitentiary during the war. A reward will be paid. J. E. Collins, photographer. ************************************
SMALLPOX TREATMENT Source: Source: Confederate Military History by Clement Anselm Evans, 1899, page 598 ..."Dr. Tebault has held the rank of surgeon-general of the United confederate veterans during the past four years, and his official reports in this capacity are valuable contributions to the literature of the Confederary. In one of them he recounts his experience in caring for two hundred exchanged Confederate prisoners at Fort Pillow, who had been at the Federal prison camp at Alton, Ill., and were nearly all sick with smallpox. He had no vaccine matter with which to protect the garrison from contagion, but with the resourcefulness of a true physician he conceived the idea of diluting lymph from the sick with fresh cow's milk, a method which proved entirely successful, and is now recommended by high medical authority for use in emergencies when the resources of modern medical supply are unavailable, as was often the case in the Confederate service." **************************************
ALTON - PENITENTIARY TRAGEDY Source: Rochester, New York Democrat Chronicle, December 7, 1902 One of the many prisoners received at the Alton Penitentiary when I was deputy warden was a man named Horton. He was editor and proprietor of a weekly paper. He was a pretty strong writer and made many enemies. The article which led to its author's imprisonment was a five-line squib ridiculing a local doctor. The doctor railed to demand a retraction, a fight ensued, and the editor had the misfortune to kill his man. He was sentenced to be hanged, but the Governor commuted it to imprisonment for life. When Horton reached the prison, he was in such a bad state of health that he had to go to the hospital, but after a few weeks he was made librarian to the prison library. After a year or so, Horton's wife got a divorce, his friends ceased to call, and he was virtually dead to the world. As far as I could judge, the man submitted to the inevitable without a murmur, and it has ever since been a sore thought with me that I made such a mistake in sizing him up. Subsequent events proved that he begun plotting from the very first, and we were to learn that he was a man willing to take the most desperate chances to regain his liberty. There was living in the town in which the prison was situated a young lady named Calhoun. She used to come in every Saturday afternoon at 2 o'clock, with papers or other things for the prisoners, and sometimes she had company and sometimes not. Saturday afternoon was a holiday with the prisoners—that is, all were locked up in their cells after the noonday meal and could read, write or sleep. This order did not include the librarian and certain other "trusties." One Saturday afternoon Miss Calhoun was an hour late. It was in April, and the day was dark and foggy. The order was to pass her in and out without question. At 7 o'clock in the evening, some of her friends called at the prison to say that she had not returned home. At midnight, after a search of the town had been made, Miss Calhoun's friends returned to the prison. Horton was the first to be consulted. He said she had come in late, bringing two books and some tracts. The books were left in the library, but he went with her to the west corridor to distribute the tracts. We verified his statement by going to the corridor. The country around the prison was searched all night long, and soon after daylight the mystery was solved. The dead body of the girl was found in the Prison yard. On the second floor of a storehouse lay the half naked body, while hat, dress, skirts, and wrap were in a heap beside it. In spite of my good opinion of Horton I suspected him of this awful deed. There were nine other "trusties" who might possibly have had opportunity, and so the deed could not be brought home to him. Whoever had killed the poor girl had dressed in her clothes, but afterward had taken them off. If he had planned to go out in the disguise, his nerve failed him. About eight months after the murder, when Horton had been with us for three years and four months, he made his escape, by means of a tunnel which he had been over two years digging. It began in a clothes closet of the library and ended ninety-three feet away outside the prison walls. What was done had to be accomplished between 7 A. M. and 6 P.M. Horton could not bar anyone out of the library, nor could he tell what minute someone would enter. No convict ever worked for liberty with such odds against him. He simply took the one chance in a thousand. There were times when he descended to his tunnel and worked for an hour before coming out. After coming out he had to wash his hands and remove all dust and dirt, and he must have had nerves of steel and a will of iron to bear up under the hourly fear of discovery. That tunnel was more than a nine days wonder after discovery. You will want to know how I learned of certain things. A year after Horton's escape we heard of him in Montana. He had joined a small band of trappers and hunters and was living among in the mountains. After he had been located it was decided that I should be sent out to attempt his capture. When I reached Gallatin, I learned that Horton's party was in the mountains to the north and enlisted two men in the search for him. We were on the trail of the hunters for a month before we found them. One evening we rode into their camp prepared to capture or kill the fugitive murderer, but he was not there. Two days before, he had started out alone to inspect some traps and had not returned. The rest of the party, numbering six, had been out looking for him on the day of our arrival, but had found no trace. The search was resumed next day, and along in the afternoon we found him. He had fallen over a cliff and landed on a shelf about forty feet below. His fall had been broken by a bush, but he had been severely injured and was almost dead when we got him up. He had broken a leg and an arm, and as there was no way to get a doctor we knew that death soon must terminate his sufferings. During the last day of his life Horton was not only conscious, but talkative and free from pain. He insisted on telling me all about the tunnel business, and of course I was interested in the details. I plainly told him that I had suspected him from the hour of finding Miss Calhoun's body and that, figure it out as I might, no one else had the opportunity that he had. He did not answer me for several minutes, and then quietly said: "I will give you my idea of that affair, though of course it may be all wrong. When Miss Calhoun and I separated, she started for the exit and I for the library. There were several "trusties" about, and no doubt one of them spoke to her and she may have turned aside. It was a dark, foggy day, you remember, and the man might have clutched her by the throat to prevent an alarm and carried her to the storehouse. He took great risks, but was not discovered. I have always felt much grieved over the fate of that poor girl." "What motive do you think the murderer had?" I asked. "Probably to don her clothes and pass out to liberty." "But why didn't he carry out his plan?" "Probably something threw him off his nerve as he approached the wicket. He could have gone out unquestioned, but something happened to make him suspect that he would be nabbed." "And you will not confess, realizing as you must, that death is not far away?" "My dear man," Horton replied as a smile played over his pale face, "let's talk about that tunnel and drop all dismal subjects. So all of you called it an excellent bit of civil engineering, eh? Well, I think it was. I was very proud of that tunnel, and sometimes I felt like going back to have a look at it." Four hours later he was dead, passing away as peacefully as if he had never shed a drop of human blood. ************************************************
PRISONERS TRANSFERRED FROM ST. LOUIS TO ALTON (clip from a story about Sandford Kirkpatrick, chaser of moonshiners and member of Congress)
Source: Buffalo, New York
Morning Express, May 3, 1914 *************************************************
OLD CONFEDERATE PRISONER DIES Source: Alton Evening Telegraph, June 18, 1914 Robert A. Guerrant, one of the confederate soldiers who was confined in the prison in Alton during the Civil War, died this morning at his home in East Alton at the age of 70, after a three weeks' illness with cerebral hemorrhage. Guerrant was born and reared in Missouri, and when the war broke out enlisted as a Confederate soldier. Towards the end of the war he was captured while with Gen. Price's men in Missouri and was imprisoned in Alton where he was kept until an exchange of prisoners was made. He settled here [Alton] after being liberated. Guerrant leaves his wife, an adopted daughter, Miss Ada Starkey, and three sisters, Mrs. Mary E. Hardesty of Beechville, Ill., Mrs. Jennie Ingle of Beechville, Ill., and Mrs. Olivia Wallendorff of Deer Plain, Ill. The two latter sisters are expected to arrive this afternoon. Robert Hardesty, of Beechville, Ill., Frank Delonay of Alton, James Anderson of Beechville, Ill., nephews, and Mrs. Bertha Wachtel of Upper Alton, were at the Guerrant home at the time of the death. The funeral will be held Sunday morning at 10 o'clock at the East Alton Baptist Church. The burial will be in Milton Cemetery. ************************************************
DEATH OF PRISON WARDEN'S DAUGHTER WHO HAD MARRIED CONFEDERATE PRISONER Source: Alton Evening Telegraph, January 16, 1930 Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Miller, widow of Dan Miller, died this morning at 8:30 o'clock at her home, 301 East Twelfth street. She had been seriously ill for six weeks, but her health had begun failing about 10 months ago. During all her life she had been strong and well until the decline set in. She was 83 years of age. Mrs. Miller was born in Alton and had lived here all of her life. She was born October 1, 1846, the daughter of Charles Rodemeyer, a pioneer carriage manufacturer in Alton and at one time superintendent of the Federal prison at Alton where Confederate prisoners of war were confined during Civil War years. The connection of her father with the Federal prison here was to have an important influence on the life of his daughter. In the prison was a Confederate soldier who had been captured and held as a prisoner of war. That prisoner was Dan Miller. When the war was over and Dan Miller was released, it happened that the former war prisoner courted and married the daughter of the man who had formerly been his keeper. The couple were married in Alton, April 6, 1869, after Mr. Miller had established himself in a business he managed the rest of his life. The daughter of one carriage maker, she became the wife of another carriage maker. Her husband established here a reputation for high quality of his products which drew him a great trade for many years. Dan Miller buggies were famous for their style and wearing qualities, just as those of Mrs. Miller's father had been. Mrs. Miller was an interested and active worker in the Congregational church at Alton for many years. Her interest in the cause of the United Daughters of the Confederacy had led her to become a charter member of the Sam Davis Chapter at Alton. It was that chapter which when the Federal government took over the care of the old Confederate cemetery on Rozier street, sponsored it and took an active interest in keeping it in good condition. Mrs. Miller for years was the one who gave personal attention to the charge of the property by appointment of the government. She is survived by two children, William D. Miller of Alton, and Mrs. Rose Frush of Pella, Ia. who has been with her mother in the last weeks of the mother's life. The oldest daughter, Mrs. Mary Cunningham, passed away at Columbia, Mo., last July. That was about the time the mother's health began failing. Mrs. Miller leaves also one sister, Mrs. Louise Roenicke, of Fillmore, California. Another sister, Mrs. Charles Raith, died eight months ago. There are also seven grandchildren - Marion and Harriet Frush, David, Thomas and Horatio Cunningham, William Miller, Jr., and Verne Miller. There are two great-grandchildren. The funeral will be held at 2:30 o'clock Sunday afternoon. Services in the Congregational church at Sixth and Henry streets will be conducted by Mrs. Miller's old friend and former pastor, the Rev. J. C. Townsend. Interment will be in Oakwood Cemetery.
******************************************** SMALLPOX ISLAND DESTROYED - CEMETERY OF CONFEDERATE SOLDIERS Source: Utica, New York Observer, June 30, 1935 McPike's [Smallpox] Island Cut Away in Mississippi River Work - A Mississippi River island which once was shown as a dueling ground for Abraham Lincoln and later was the cemetery for Confederate victims who died of smallpox while in the military prison at Alton during the Civil War, is being removed piecemeal from the Missouri shore of the river to provide as base of operations for the federal government's work on a dam across the river at Alton. About 40,000 cubic feet of earth has already been removed from the piece of ground. It is no longer an island in reality, having been joined to the Missouri mainland by the action of river currents. The earth is being removed from a point about 200 yards from the dam. When Lincoln was supposed to have gone there for a duel, the land was known as McPike's Island. It was chosen as the site of a duel between Lincoln, then a country lawyer, and James Shields, brigadier of the Mexican War. Shields challenged Lincoln after the latter wrote an article which offended him. Tradition has it that Lincoln, given the choice of weapons, picked Calvary broadswords, a selection which his challenger did not particularly favor. The day of the duel, Lincoln "warmed up" by by slicing off a small willow tree with his immense weapon, at which Shields burst out laughing. Before they returned to the Illinois shore, their quarrel was made up, without the duel having been fought. During the Civil War, its use as a cemetery followed an outbreak of smallpox at the prison camp at Alton, where numerous Confederate soldiers were confined. After that episode, it was known as Smallpox Island. The dam now under construction by the government is one of many being built along the length of the river to control the effects of river currents and aid navigation. *********************************************
FEW STONES GRIM RELICS OF TRAGEDY IN ALTON PRISON Source: Alton Evening Telegraph, January 15, 1936 (Centennial Edition) by Doris McDow
'Secesh' Captives Died Like Flies in Civil War Epidemic Fragments of one wall is all that remains to mark the spot in Alton that was occupied by the first state institution of Illinois - the state penitentiary, located here 1833-1860, and used during the Civil War as a military prison. The ruin of the stone structure stands in Uncle Remus park, now used as a parking lot. The original gloomy structure, scene of many horrors, was the place Dorothea L. Dix, "mother of the prison system of Illinois and of Illinois mental hospitals," condemned in 1847 as being filthy and unfit to keep criminals in. Her plea for betterment of the prison system led to erection of a new prison at Joliet and transferring of prisoners to that city. Though the structure ceased to be a state prison in 1860, it was used during the war and then was its most intriguing history, a story of pain, pathos, peril, even romance.
As a new nation grew out of the colonies that had been settled by persons from various countries, the question of dealing with criminals arose, but it was not until 1826 and 1827 that the state of Illinois, then eight years old, turned thoughts to dealing with such persons. Tracing the development of laws, courts and punishments is an interesting study, but it must suffice here to state that prior to 1831 it was customary in all parts of the United States to punish criminals by whipping in public, the stocks, and pillory; county jails were built but were unstable and unsanitary places.
In 1831, by order of the general assembly of Illinois, confinement and hard labor, with occasional floggings by guards of prisons as they deemed it necessary, were substituted for the old forms of punishment, and the change caused comment. Governor Ford, discussing the change, said in the 15 years prior to the change, the increase of crime greatly exceeded the relative increase of population of the state, and something had to be done to suppress the wave of evil. There were many arguments of the subject, some saying no punishment was so deterrent of crime as the laying on of stripes. With this change came the growth and development of the first state penitentiaries and then the federal ones, with a regular system growing out of the practice for the control and sentencing of criminals.
Long before this change in the criminal code of Illinois took effect, a movement had been on foot for the government to supply the first state institution, in the form of a penitentiary. The fifth general assembly of Illinois, meeting at Vandalia in the winter of 1826-27, discussed the need of a prison and suggested Alton as a location, as county jails were inferior and unsafe. But the state was poor and oppressed by failure of the first State bank, and the subject probably would have been dropped had it not bee remembered that John Reynolds, later governor of the state, had sent a memorial to the assembly of the year before, suggesting that Illinois sell 30,000 unused acres in Gallatin County, Saline reserve, to raise funds. The assembly then voted to sell 40,000 acres of the reserve, one half the proceeds to go for the penitentiary and the other half to be used to improve the Wabash River and drain swamps. Commissioners appointed to supervise the sale and erect the prison were ex-governor, Shadrach Bond, William P. McKee, and Dr. Gersham Jayne.
The same John Reynolds, now governor, who promoted sale of Saline land, had the general assembly of 1831 pass an appropriation of $10,000 from the state treasury as additional funds, with a sum of $2000 set aside from treasury to be drawn on by the warden at order of the governor at such times as needed for supplies of provisions, clothing, mechanics' tools, materials for labor, and incidentals. In 1832 the general assembly gave inspectors authority to sell land adjoining the penitentiary site, to raise money to erect a wall around the buildings, and a workshop.
The state prison was opened in 1833 and was a model and near-perfect institution at the time, it was thought. In a short while, the shortcomings of the buildings were found and the establishment never was a success from the viewpoint of the purpose it was meant to fulfill - betterment of the jail system.
Prison Leased to Warden; State Men Could 'Farm Out' Convicts That was the "magnificent" prison erected at Alton! The congregated system was used instead of the brutal solitary system prevailing in county jails. The main building was a neat stone structure with 24 cells. This number was increased gradually. The location was a bad one, as the buildings were placed on a steep slope which extended to the river, the lower wall being within eight feet of the high water line. The buildings were on different levels, crowded within the wall, and the sloping area-way was not "graded or McAdamed" and had no drains as late as 1847, so that rains made the yard muddy with deep gullies that always threatened to undermine the walls. J. C. Bruner was warden from August 1833 to July 28, 1837.
For the first five years, the state conducted the prison, electing a warden biennially to receive a salary of $600. Under a law passed in 1837, the inspectors could, at their own discretion, farm out convicts and give a bonus of $800 in addition. During this year, Ben S. Enlow was appointed warden and served until 1840. From 1838 to the close of the prison it was managed by a lessee who took over the prison and men for a fixed sum; the lessee to furnish supplies, handle products of convict labor, employ guards, and exercise powers of warden. At the time the lessee system was initiated with S. A. Buckmaster the first to serve in that capacity, there were 38 convicts, and the system lasted in the State of Illinois 29 years, until 1867. Isaac Greathouse was warden under S. A. Buckmaster, from 1840 to 1842.
S. A. Buckmaster's first term as lessee expired in 1842, and two men, Nathanial Buckmaster and Isaac Greathouse took the lease together, without a bonus to the state, with N. Buckmaster serving as warden 1842 to 1846. The prison was re-leased to S. A. Buckmaster in 1845 for a term of eight years with a bonus to the state of $5,000, beside which he agreed to feed, bed and guard prisoners, pay physicians' bills and fees of inspectors. There had been a gradual increase from 24 cells in the prison in 1833 to 88 cells in 1845. Two men were in a cell and more room was needed. A journal of the day says that beds used by prisoners were of straw, covered with blankets and buffalo robes.
Filthy Conditions Existed In 1846 the general assembly, now meeting at the new state capitol at Springfield, decided it was the duty of inspectors to erect 96 new cells of same size as old ones and to complete the 14 in unfinished state - make necessary alterations for ventilation and admission of light to safeguard prisoners - erect additional story to warden's building and use this house for hospital - erect warden's house in niche at southwest angle of area of outer wall to be three stories high, 44 by 36 feet in dimensions, and built either of stone or brick - build a cooper shop 100 by 50 feet, a suitable distance from outer wall - sink a cistern to afford a bath for convicts and a supply of water for extinction of fires - build a kitchen adjoining the dining room - erect smith shop and wagon maker shop - construct a common silver, unless a convenient substitute could be thought out - macadamize or pave the area - put supports and security to walls as needed - all this ordered with the admonition that expenditure should not exceed the bonus due from lessee ($5,000). It was not stated whether the inspectors carried out the orders of the assembly or not. At this time, S. A. Buckmaster was appointed warden, as well as lessee, to serve 1846 to July 1860.
Prisoners Make Desperate Attempts to Escape; Few Succeed The investigating committee of 1847 reported to the legislature of Illinois the deplorable conditions of the prison, stating that the eating room had no flagging and the dirt floor could not be washed. According to Dorothea L. Dix, it was the only prison in the United States at the time where inmates stood to eat. The hospital was in a damp basement with neither light nor ventilation, and the floor flooded in rainy weather. There were no bathing facilities, the convicts washing their faces and hands in tubs or buckets in the shops, should they be so inclined. There was no chapel, and religious services were lacking. Prisoners wore gray-striped clothing, and in this year it was recommended to give a suit of clothing and a small sum of money to a discharged convict as his own clothes usually were lost or destroyed before the end of his term. Rope making from hemp and barrel making were the prison industries, the shops being attached to outer walls and so much lower that they were without ventilation and always filled with smoke.
Dorothea Dix, who took up the fight for betterment of the prison system of Illinois and for the establishment of mental hospitals, reported in a speech before the general assembly the abuses she saw at Alton prison and her speech was a factor that stopped further wasting of funds on this penitentiary which had proved to be hopelessly faulty. She urged the abandonment of the penitentiary at Alton and the building of one elsewhere. Her speech was to bear fruit in the years that followed.
About this time in the history of Alton the city was suffering from the setback which followed the Lovejoy assassination and the town was the target for unkind criticism of contemporaries of the Alton Evening Telegraph in the southern and eastern portions of the state. The Telegraph of Dec. 21, 1849 carried a cryptic notation that "Fear of the penitentiary appears to be the main cause of the opposition to Alton . . . They seem to hope to escape their inevitable fate of being occupants of that institution, by abuse of Alton and all it contains in advance. Be easy, gentlemen; you shall be dealt with as you deserve."
Not much is found in the records prior to that time, of attempted escapes of convicts, but from then on until its close as a state penitentiary the Telegraph news columns carried reports of attempts at escaping and treachery of convicts. When the place was opened during the Civil War as a military prison the condition was even more acute.
April 7, 1854, while a number of convicts were unloading a flat-boat of staves at the levee, one stripped off his clothing and plunged into the river. After a guard fired his rifle at the fugitive and missed, several skiffs put out and overtook him three or four hundred yards downstream. He was chilled and frightened, but returned to the prison without causing more excitement; the Telegraph in commenting on the incident thought the man a brave fellow for attempting to gain his liberty, but afterwards found attempts to gain freedom were too numerous to bother about, except to give a mere mention in the paper's columns.
One dash for liberty more audacious than the rest took place in May of 1854, when four convicts made a break for the north wall as prisoners were returning from the dining hall to the work shops. They threw a long beam against the wall, climbed to the top and jumped, then tried to escape across the bluffs. The alarm was given and two convicts were shot in the arms by a guard, but the wounds did not slow the flight of the men. Citizens joined in pursuit of the fugitives. The first surrendered at the residence of S. Wise, one of the prison lessees, where exhaustion and loss of blood caused him to give up the fight; the second was overtaken at J. H. Lea's residence on Prospect street (the present Loretto home), and though he threatened to kill any one who tried to recapture him, he was subdued when knocked down by several stones; the third was captured near the C. Trumbull residence before he had a chance to draw the knife he carried; the fourth hid under a tree trunk in a sink hole on the bluffs and when overtaken, ran to the edge of the bluff and threatened to kill himself, but reconsidered and went back to the prison. The last mentioned convict was said to be one of the most desperate, and wore an iron collar around his neck because of another attempt at escape he had made several months before.
On Saturday morning, Sept. 6, 1855, when the gate of the penitentiary yard was opened by the keeper to admit the bearer of the prison supplies, a negro prisoner named Wilkeson and a white prisoner, George Clarke, rushed out to escape. The gate keeper followed and arrested Wilkeson; a guard shot and killed Clarke when he disregarded the call to halt. Cells in the prison numbered 256 in 1857, and there were at least two men in each cell. S. K. Casey was appointed lessee for five years on the same terms as S. A. Buckmaster's agreement of 1845. Dorothea Dix's plea and the urging of others took effect, and in this year, 1857, the legislature passed a bill to move the penitentiary to Joliet and erect a new prison with 1,000 cells, building to be closer to the main source of supplies. The old prison was to be sold or razed. The legislators talked of using material in the old penitentiary to build the new one and having the convicts help with labor on the new structure, but that plan did not materialize. The law also provided that the office of inspector would be abolished and a superintendent appointed instead, to serve with lessees, the superintendent to reside at the prison and have discretionary power over punishments inflicted, to receive $1,000 per annum for his services, and be appointed by the governor by and with consent of the senate. Appointment of Governor Bissell make F. S. Rutherford, esp., the first superintendent, and the only one to serve at Alton before the prison eventually was moved.
Convict Capture Guard, Stages Three Day Rule of Horror in Cell In 1859 one prisoner, who was known to have a knife in his possession, chose to starve rather than give up the weapon or let a warden enter his cell; he took no food for 97 hours. At the end of that time, he was so weak that the guards were able to take the weapon from his and care for him.
One incident in the late 50s that aroused the entire city and countryside is recalled as the "three-day horror." A convict named Hall, serving a life sentence for murder, was a desperate man whose imprisonment had made him insane with rage and hate. He worked in the blacksmith shop and managed to make a short knife of a worn-out file. His cell, like all the others, was strongly built of blocks of stone and the door was of oak several inches thick, banded with bars of iron. The prisoner's bed shut down against the door which opened inwards so that the door could not be forced from without when the prisoner was in bed. In the door was a hole about eight inches square that was strongly barred, and the only other opening into the cell was in the outer wall where a narrow slit, also barred, admitted light and air. This window was near the ceiling and by reason of its narrowness and thickness of the wall, a person on the outside could not look into the cell. Hall understood all this. At 10 a. m., while he was working one day, he signaled the guard, Crabb, and said he was sick and wanted to leave the workshop, so, in accordance with the rule, Crabb started to the cell with the convict. As the guard opened the door, Hall struck him down and dragged him into the cell. He bound the guard with strips from the bed blanket and closed the door with the bed against it. The guard was stunned and unable to raise an alarm. Search was made for him when he did not return to the workshop. Hall, armed with the knife, was watching over the wounded guard when other officials of the prison came to investigate his disappearance. In negotiating with the prison officials in the corridor, Hall said he would kill the guard unless he, the convict, was given a full pardon and furnished with a loaded revolver, permitted to walk with a guard out of the prison to a carriage that must await him at the gate, and that Colonel Buckmaster should drive the carriage wherever the occupant ordered. He also stated that if attempts were made to take him, he would kill Guard Crabb.
The guard was well-known and liked, a respected citizen of Alton and head of a family, so that consternation over his predicament was great, and news of the barricade soon spread over the county and state. Communication was kept up between the convict and Colonel Buckmaster, who kept an armed guard in the corridor for three days, watching for a chance to shoot the convict, but Hall managed to keep himself covered with the body of his hostage and his vigilance never was relaxed. Hall told the watchers he had been trying to capture the warden but had been compelled to accept smaller game, whereupon Buckmaster offered to take Crabb's place in the cell, but Hall declined, though Buckmaster promised to enter the place naked. Food put into the cell could not be poisoned because the convict made Crabb eat with him.
When the desperate situation was realized, Governor Bissell sent a pardon for Hall to the warden to be used at his discretion, but the warden decided not to use it and free the maniac, except as a last resort. When every other expedient failed, the warden decided to force the door and when the door was opened a bit to admit the supper of the two men, Buckmaster inserted a crow bar to keep it open, and with the aid of another guard, rushed in and pulled Crabb out, but not before Hall had fallen on the guard and tried to kill him. Though Crabb was wounded seriously, he soon recovered. The guard was taken from the cell but Hall was not, and he barricaded himself again, refusing to surrender. Buckmaster still kept a close watch until he saw one foot of the convict exposed and instantly shot at it. The wound broke Hall's nerve and he exposed himself more so that he received a head wound. He was taken from the cell and died a day or two later. Crabb recovered and resumed his duties as guard, serving in the new prison at Joliet, as well.
Soon after this, transferring of prisoners from Alton to the new penitentiary at Joliet was started, in 1859. The men were forwarded to the northern part of the state in groups of 40 to 50, but all were not moved out of the Alton buildings until June 1860, at which time the Alton prison, with its extensive grounds and buildings bounded by Fourth street on the north, Williams on the east, Second or Short on the south, and Mill on the west, was ready to be abandoned.
Colonel Buckmaster continued to hold over his connection with the Alton penitentiary after its abandonment as his lease from the state gave him control until 1867, and it was before his term was up that the place was put into service the second time as a prison, this time as a military place of confinement. After 1864, Buckmaster had as partners in the lease Messrs. J. J. and W. H. Mitchell and Z. B. Job of Alton, and others. Although Alton boasted the first state institution in this prison, there were no other state institutions or buildings erected in Alton until the opening of the present Alton State Hospital for care of mental disorders.
With the beginning of the Civil War, Alton became a much talked of place because of its position on the border, and as the town was northern and supported the views of the Union in the controversy, its proximity to St. Louis gave it favor of the army officers, as a military post for protection of the citizens from raids of southern sympathizers across the river. The Alton post was under the jurisdiction of the federal commander at St. Louis, and the first garrison stationed here was three or four companies of the Thirteenth United States regulars, General Sherman's regiment that was to figure so importantly in the war before its finish. This was commanded by Lieut. Col. Sydney Burbank.
Even before the soldiers were brought to Alton, it had been suggested that the old State Penitentiary be used as a military prison for "secesh" prisoners and southern sympathizers. The town was divided in opinion on this move, some arguing that Alton would become the target of southern neighbors for raids and other depredations. The Alton Democrat went so far as to print in December of 1861 a statement that, should the 1300 Missouri rebel prisoners be brought to Alton as had been suggested, it would be a public nuisance. To this statement the Telegraph replied it saw no objection to the prison being established here if the army officers thought it helpful to the Union cause, and while the prison might be a nuisance in some respects, it would be that no matter where located, and Alton should be willing to make that contribution to the northern cause.
Late in the year the project began to take shape, with Gen. H. W. Halleck in command of the department at St. Louis, applying to Gov. Yates of Illinois for permission to use the old penitentiary for military purposes. S. A. Buckmaster still held the lease on the building, and his consent was sought, as well as her services.
January 17, 1862 it was decided that prisoners confined at McDowell College in St. Louis should be transferred to Alton. This announcement ripped the town wide open and many professed fear of evil consequences, stating the Missourians would cross the river and fire at Alton. The Telegraph had one suggestion to make, that if the prisoners were brought here, Alton should be protected by having the place garrisoned. This arrangement was made, later and on Feb. 1, 1862, permission was received from the governor to move the prisoners and use the buildings of the penitentiary.
Three days later Major General Halleck sent a letter from St. Louis to Lieut. Col. Burbank, placing him in charge of the prisoners, and the Thirteenth regiment moved into the old penitentiary property on a quiet Sabbath afternoon. The first prisoners were received at the Alton levee Feb. 9, 1862, having come from the south up river by steamer. They were landed between files of the Thirteenth and marched to the prison by way of the south wall gate. The prisoners, a motley crowd, were not all soldiers, but included spies, bridge burners, train wreckers and southern sympathizers of various grades. Among the first prisoners to be received was Colonel Ebenezer Magoffin, brother of the Governor of Kentucky. The colonel was a colorful figure who caused a great deal of trouble at the military prison several months later. Capt. Charles C. Smith of the Thirteenth reported to Lieut. Col. Burbank on Feb. 12 that he had received the invoice for the prisoners and if any more were transferred to Alton, there would be no room for the regiment within the prison walls. The surgeon had not procured a hospital at that time, prisoners were policing quarters, and the regiment expected to have the newcomers under control by the next evening. Supplymaster Decourcey had made requisition for needed supplies. There was no trouble as yet - that was to come later.
In April of that first year, there were 791 prisoners of war in the penitentiary, 88 of them officers - five Colonels, two Lieutenant Colonels, three Majors, one Chaplain, 18 Captains, 22 Lieutenants, and seven surgeons - and of that number, Capt. Carey and the seven surgeons were on restricted parole to the town limits. Union soldiers had taken 459 of the prisoners at Pea Ridge, 130 from Fort Henry and vicinity, and the others, taken at Milford included bridge burners, soldiers arrested for pillaging, and disloyal citizens. A letter to headquarters at this time reported that quarters at the Alton prison were "excellent, equal, if not superior to those at Camps Butler, Douglas and Morton." There were 300 men in the penitentiary proper, not in cells but in "wide passageways running around the three different tiers of 'cells'." Bunks were double. Other prisoners were lodged in outbuildings, and the report said, "In regard to their quarters, bunks and bedding, we heard but a single complaint." Six Illinoisans were in prison, charged with assisting prisoners of war to escape. They were confined in separate cells awaiting sentence. The list included W. P. Brooks, N. T. Brooks, A. C. Gish, W. S. Hutton, W. G. Nabb and William Richardson, all residents of Auburn, in Sangamon county.
When Romance Stirred Hearts of Alton's Girls for Boys in Blue Romance flourished in the days when Alton was garrisoned by men in uniforms, and the ladies bestowed special favors on the military visitors, one instance of which caused harsh comment in the press. A group of the fairer sex of Alton, some of them being so discreet as to wear masks, gathered outside the north wall of the prison and serenaded those within. The next issue of the Telegraph contained a scalding reprimand from the editor for the actions of the young ladies, stating that it was no bad enough that they had serenaded prisoners of war, but that they had sung "Dixie" amidst shouts and cheers of the southerners. But the next day the paper carried an apology to the ladies for a number of the "culprits" had visited the newspaper office and explained the situation. It seemed that Companies A and G of the regiment had moved from the building in the north yard of the penitentiary without having made public mention of it, and the ladies, thinking the soldiers still were there, went serenading the noble youths in uniform. They were filled with confusion to find that their gentle efforts had been wasted on secesh prisoners - and so far as singing the beautiful song of "Dixie," they wanted to know since when one portion of a country had a right to have full possession of so charming a song, and why they could not sing it. So the Telegraph, with an editorial chuckle, apologized and enjoyed the romantic atmosphere that permeated the town since the advent of the dashing regiment.
A tipsy crowd of prisoners arrived at Alton July 4, 1862, and went reeling into prison in a jovial mood. It seemed that the 180 rebels had enjoyed their trip from St. Louis on the Tatum steamer, as the lieutenant in charge of the shipment had allowed them quite some freedom. The boat load consisted of many old St. Louis rivermen, war prisoners taken at Corinth, and others from that vicinity arrested for disloyalty. When the lieutenant was not watching them, they proceeded to "get tight and kick up a few fights." Those who were disorderly, which included most of the boat load, were put under guard when riot was feared. Landing of the noisy outfit drew a crowd to the levee and Altonians watched the new prisoners reel down the gangplank and march (?) to the prison, singing and cheering for "Jeff Davis." Though none tried to escape or make more trouble, the ringleaders were locked in cells overnight, but received no other reprimand, as the warden thought the "headaches the next morning were punishment enough."
Daring Col. Magoffin Joins Group of 35 in Escape Through Tunnel Escape! The first attempted and accomplished by the secesh prisoners occurred Aug. 1, 1862, when 35 men escaped and only two were apprehended. Among those escaping was the dashing Col. Magoffin who was under sentence of death for murder of a Union man, and for breaking his parole. Magoffin had been in solitary confinement since his arrival in Alton. During the night, the 35 men escaped through a 50 foot long tunnel they had excavated. They started the passageway in the wash house, which contained a bake oven that was not in use.
Making a hole from the top of the oven to the earth below, they dug seven feet down, then continued the tunnel under the west wall and made the exit some six feet from the end of the sentinel's beat. How the men carried out their plan without detection was a mystery, but it was thought they carried the dirt in buckets and threw it into the sinks during the night, although a large quantity of the earth was piled upon and around the oven. To hide that quantity of dirt, the prisoners acquired the habit of hanging their clothes all around the wash house, and this hid them from view as they worked. When the men were missed in the morning, a further checkup disclosed that Col. Magoffin was among the missing, and it was determined that he must have had outside assistance, as his death sentence had caused the prison officials to lock him in a room. He would have had to pick the lock on the door to gain access to a flight of steps that led into the yard, after which it would have been necessary for him to pass a sentinel in going toward the wash house - however, the colonel accomplished all that and made his escape.
Only one of the escapers was found by posses sent out in the morning, but another, Charles H. Fulcher, returned and gave himself up. According to him the ringleader and man who planned the tunnel was John O. McClusky. Col. Magoffin was heard of later, but never was recaptured to have his death sentence carried out. He returned to his home in Kentucky and continued to be active in the confederate army throughout the war, living to a ripe old age and chuckling over his escape from the Alton military prison.
Schoolboys Taunt Soldiers of Regiment That Retreated at Shiloh Duty called away the Thirteenth regiment early in September 1862, and the valiant soldiers sailed away to join Grant's army preparing to move on Vicksburg, the Thirteenth relinquishing its garrison duties to the 77th Ohio. Among the Alton lads in the Thirteenth, were a number who never returned: Moses Pierce of Godfrey, who was killed at Vicksburg; Dan Broderick, who died in a southern hospital; and Henry Poettgen, who was sent home in a short time seriously ill and who died in the arms of his widowed mother just after he had returned.
The 77th Ohio was not held in high esteem by the majority of Altonians, and the men had a bad time during their stay in town. The commander was Col. Jesse Hildebrand, a brave disciplinarian and soldier who commanded a brigade at Shiloh, but the regiment that came to Alton with him behaved badly in that battle and was routed, driven back to the river. The men were sent to Alton to do lighter duty and to recover the regiment's morale. This was accomplished and later the regiment gave distinguished service on the battlefield, but the most trying portion of its history during the war probably was the stay in Alton, when the outfit was the object of torment by every schoolboy in the city. When a group of schoolboys would meet one of the regiment's soldiers on that street, they would shout "There goes a Shiloh racer." The result was that the soldier would dash for his tormentors, the air becoming blue with adjectives of a gingery nature, but this would only delight the boys and they would continue the bickering from a safe distance.
Fire broke out in a wooden building in the northwest corner of the prison grounds in November of that year; and the flames were finally subdued by the Alton volunteer fire department, but during the excitement, several prisoners escaped. This was blamed onto the 77th by the boys, though a much more serious escape had taken place during the guardianship of the beloved 13th, and no capital had been made of it.
Col. Hildebrand, an aged and sick man, was relieved of duty in March 1863, and died soon after that at his home in Ohio. His immediate successor was Major Thomas Hendrickson of the Third United States Infantry, but his time of service at garrisoning the prison was short, and he was relieved in the same year by Col. G. W. Kincade and his 37th Iowa volunteers, called the "Graybeard regiment."
The intensions of the army officers and surgeons in charge of the prison were to keep conditions in fine shape for the unfortunate southerners and sympathizers under their control, but, because of the large number of prisoners shipped to Alton, there was a crowded condition most of the time, and the list of prisoners in the place numbered 5,000 at the peak of the war. Although these prisoners were well cared for, well sheltered, though crowded, and had plenty of good rations and competent medical attention, the mortality among them was heavy.
Because it was a prison of war, many of the inmates, when received, were diseased and worn out by exposure of their service, many beyond help other than temporary alleviation of pain. Because of the high rate of mortality, the conditions of the prison were blamed for so many deaths, but that was a harsh condemnation, for circumstances of war claimed many more of the men than the conditions of the prison.
The official death list for the several years that Alton penitentiary served as a military prison was as follows: (1862 - 235), (1863 - 623), (1864 - 302), (1865 - 274). The total on the record for the period of over three years was 1,434. That the number is low and conservative is admitted, as the records were faulty and haphazard, with many exchanges of prisoners and escapes jumbling the exact number of inmates. This inaccuracy was especially noticeable during the scourge of 1863-64, when guards and prisoners died together, and everyone was too ill to keep a check on how many had died, but the prisoners and guards were buried at the rate of as many as 60 in a common grave, so it is thought that the 623 figure for that year is ridiculously low.
Lack of medical attention could not be blamed for this high rate, for the prison was supplied at all times with competent doctors. Dr. I. E. Hardy was the first prison surgeon. He was succeeded by Dr. Hez Williams, who was assisted by an army surgeon, Dr. Worrall. Sometime later, Dr. T. Hope, former mayor and recent candidate for State Governor, a prominent Alton physician of outspoken secession sentiments, was confined in the prison for disloyalty. This doctor felt his confinement and begged the commander to give him some duties, so he was placed at work in the prison hospital, and did excellent service. A number of surgeons were among the prisoners taken, and each did his share. At the peak of the scourge in March 1864, the Sisters of Charity (now conducting St. Joseph's Hospital) came to attend the prisoners, serving as nurses until the close of the war.
With the exception of those who died in 1863 in the smallpox epidemic that jumped the mortality rate up twice the size of the preceding year, those who died in the prison were interred in the penitentiary burying grounds that comprised two acres just within the limits of North Alton. Thirty convicts had been buried there when the ground was turned over to the government by the state. It ceased to serve as a place to inter prisoners from the State Penitentiary, and the second epoch was dedicated to providing a last resting place for the Confederate soldiers in the military.
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LAST SURVIVOR OF PRISONERS IN ALTON CONFEDERATE PRISON DIES Source: Alton Telegraph, August 31, 1940
Samuel A. Harrison, last know survivor of the Confederate prisoners in the old penitentiary at Alton, died Friday night at his home near Rolla, Mo. The Telegraph was informed of the death of the 98 year old war veteran in a telegram from his grandson, S. Claude Null. Funeral services for Mr. Harrison will be at Anutt, Mo. Samuel Harrison was in Alton on June 7, 1938, and visited the site of the old penitentiary where he had been a prisoner of war 73 years before. At that time, though in his ninety-sixth year, the little old man who once scoured Missouri plains with the daring Confederate raider, General Price, appeared in excellent health and talked with vivid memory of the dark days which he spent in a military prison while the tragic fratricidal conflict between the North and the South was coming to an end. Harrison, who enlisted in the Confederate army at the age of 20 in 1862, was captured in the closing months of the war while trying to return to his Rolla, Mo., home after his detachment, one of two commanded by Price, was split into scattered groups and faced surrender or death. He was kept prisoner at Rolla for four or five weeks, then was taken to St. Louis where he remained a month while exchanges were being carried on by the North and South of Confederate prisoners at St. Louis and Union prisoners at Richmond, Va. Harrison was among those kept in a confinement because of the lack of a sufficient number of Union prisoners in the exchange and was taken to the Alton penitentiary. That was in December 1864. He was not released until June 3, 1865, more than a month after the Confederacy's last shred of resistance was broken at Appomattox and General Robert E. Lee surrendered in an honorable peace to General Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Union armies. During his stay in Alton's now non-existent prison, Harrison survived a fearful smallpox epidemic that killed off his comrades in confinement as fast as they could be buried. He told how an old man came each day and night with a horse and hack to transport coffins bearing the bodies of the dead to a cemetery and how a number of his fellow prisoners executed a daring escape once by substituting themselves in the coffin for the dead men and then making their get away en route to the burial ground. He told also of other breaks and attempted breaks - how one of the most carefully planned was frustrated just inches short of success when a prison guard, walking over the soft ground outside the penitentiary after a heavy rain, fell through into a tunnel which the prisoners had been digging for weeks. While here in 1938, Harrison visited the Confederate cemetery in North Alton, where many of his comrades lie buried and also view the crumbled walls of the penitentiary in which he lived through some of the most poignant moments of his life. A week-choked patch of ground marked the spot where his cell had once been.
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ROCK PILE SIGNIFICANT PIECE OF ALTON HISTORY Source: Alton Telegraph, October 29, 1973 Those few blocks of stone located in the Merchant's parking lot that have been the center of controversy between a historical association and Peavey Mill in recent weeks are more than a tumbling pile of rock - they are one of the most significant pieces of Alton's historical background. Those badly weathered, rectangular stones are all that is left of a once massive Illinois State Prison, the first in the state's history, built in 1830, 12 years after Illinois was admitted to the Union. Today Peavey Mill, which owns the land where the few blocks of stone remain, wants to move them and build a small park around them. Alton Area Landmark's Assn. is insisting that the blocks remain where they are which is their original position in the prison wall. To begin with, the prison was constructed too close to the Mississippi River, and officials could never overcome the problem of rats, disease and insects. The old state pen was designed to hold about 1,000 prisoners, and was almost always under heavy fire from prison reformers such as Dorothea Dix. She carried her campaign to improve the conditions at the prison to the state legislature in 1847, but life at the prison didn't really improve much. The warden of the prison in the last 14 years of its existence, 1846-1860 as a state prison, was Samuel Buckmaster, a tight-fisted Alton business man who used to farm out prisoners for profit during that time. Buckmaster leased the prison from the state, and in that way became its warden. However, because of rising public opinion against the prison from Alton residents, who claimed it was unsafe to their welfare and a detriment to the rapidly growing city, the prison was closed in 1860, with the construction of a new state prison in upstate Joliet. With the coming of the Civil War a year later, the prison was re-opened and with this re-opening came the darkest days those old walls and the city of Alton would ever face. If residents were upset because of the conditions and prisoners housed there when the prison was a state institution, they must have been overwhelmed with indignation when the Federal government turned it into a prisoner of war facility in the early 1860s. It was during these days that the Alton prison developed a reputation among Confederate troops much like the Confederate prison at Andersonville had among Union troops. Squeezed into a prison compound measuring a mere 100 yards square were over 5,000 Confederate POWs. In a prison with just 1,200 crude bunks made of rough boards with straw mattresses stacked three high, the prisoners slept three to a bed. Meals, when and if they were served, came once a day and consisted more of water than anything else. The prisoners ate standing up. Buckmaster was still in charge of the prison, technically, he held the lease to the prison when the federal government took it over. The government paid him $20,000 a year for care, maintenance, and providing for the needs of the prisoners, such as food, clothing and medical facilities. Also in the contract was an agreement that Buckmaster could keep whatever of the $20,000 that was left over. He became a wealthy man during those times. The Col. Jesse Hildebrand of the 77th Ohio was the prison commander. Described in historical records as well respected, he was also noted for his hatred for Southerners. He would often cancel all rations, such as they were, for days because of minor flare-ups among the prisoners. In one instance, when the Union flag fell off the flag pole into the prison yard, two dozen prisoners ran out stomping on the flag while singing "Dixie." This episode resulted in the shooting on the spot of one prisoner, and a full week without food for all inmates. During this time 12 more prisoners died. But the real tragedy came to the prison in 1863 when smallpox broke out among the prisoners. The medical treatment provided by Buckmaster consisted of a local doctor visiting the prison hospital, five beds in all, every Saturday. The smallpox spread quickly in the filth infested prison. When the yard was not turned into a swamp by rain, it was a desert of dust with a current oasis consisting of puddles of urine and other human wastes. The prisoners were in no physical condition to withstand the ravages of smallpox and it soon turned into a full-scale epidemic. A panic spread through the city of Alton when it was learned what was happening in the prison. With the death toll increasing to five per day and rising, burial became a problem also. The first victims of the epidemic were buried in what is now the Confederate Cemetery, located near North Alton. But when North Alton residents learned of what was going on, they protested and the prison officials had to find another place to put the dead. The problem was solved when officials started using an island located just 200 yards upstream from the prison on the Mississippi. Mass graves were dug on the island, in the form of trenches four feet deep and 50 feet long. Bodies were wrapped in a blanket and thrown into these mass unmarked graves. The death toll required a trench to be dug once a week to accommodate the bodies during the height of the epidemic, which lasted from the winter to the spring of 1863-64. No accurate records were kept during the epidemic, but estimates of deaths due to the epidemic range from 1,000 to over 5,000. The Army listed the toll at 1,354, but then, their records were not accurate either. During the epidemic, a hospital was also set up on the island of the gravesites, known by this time as Smallpox Island. Only a few of the several thousand smallpox victims ever returned from the island. The epidemic subsided in the late summer of 1864, almost a year after it had started, and about a year after that the old prison once again became inactive. Buckmaster still owned the prison, but after a couple of attempts to get it reopened, he sold it in 1875. The prison walls began to come down as the smooth limestone blocks were in great demand by area builders, who used the stones in foundations of many local buildings. Many of the stones went into the construction of the East Alton railroad underpass. By the year 1894, when the city of Alton purchased the wall, all that was left of the prison is what stands there now, only a small reminder of the first Illinois state prison - a prison that had no bathing facilities, the only prison where the inmates had to stand to eat their meals, and a prison that rivaled Andersonville for filth, misery and death. *********************************************
PRISON ESCAPE TOLD OF IN LETTER Source: Alton Telegraph, July 2, 1976 This rare letter, belonging to Maurice Estes, is from Jas. C. Scott, dated August 30, 1883, tells of his experience as a prisoner in the Alton Penitentiary during the Civil War. He gives an account of Col. Magoffin, brother of the Governor of Kentucky, who was a fellow prisoner, and how he escaped with two other Confederate soldiers. Martin Golden, Manager of the Golden Troup, was the famous leader of the "Golden Band," which played the river boats and river towns in the 1870s and 1880s. There are few accounts existing of prisoners of the Alton Military Prison. Most of them died of smallpox. The letter:
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PRISONERS OF ALTON PRISON - SENTENCES COMMUTED Source: General Orders of the War Department, Embracing the Years 1861, 1862, and 1863 by U.S. War Dept., Oliver Diefendorf, Thomas M. O'Brien General Orders, 1863: The proceedings of the Military Commission in the case of Alfred Yates, private in the rebel army, have been approved by the proper commanders and forwarded for the action of the President of the United States. Upon the recommendation of the Major General commanding the Department of the Missouri, the President directs that the sentence "to be hanged by the neck until he is dead," be commuted "to imprisonment during the war." The prisoner will be sent, under proper guard, to the military prison at Alton, Illinois.
The proceedings of the Military Commission in the case of George W. Casey, of the so-called Confederate States army, have been approved by the proper commanders and forwarded for the action of the President of the United States. Upon the recommendation of the Major General commanding the Department of the Missouri, the President directs that the sentence "to be hanged by the neck until dead," be commuted to "imprisonment during the war." The prisoner will be sent, under proper guard, to the military prison at Alton, Illinois.
The proceedings of the Military Commission in the case of John F. Cook, citizen, have been approved by the proper commanders and forwarded for the action of the President of the United States. Upon the recommendation of the Major General commanding the Department of the Missouri, the President directs that the sentence "to be shot to death," be commuted "to imprisonment during the war." The prisoner will be sent, under proper guard, to the military prison at Alton, Illinois.
The proceedings of the Court in the case of Private William Polson, Company "D," 8th Regiment Kansas Volunteers, have been approved by the proper commanders and forwarded for the action of the President of the United States, who directs that the sentence "to be shot to death," be commuted to "imprisonment during the war." The prisoner will be sent, under proper guard, to the military prison at Alton, Illinois. ******************************************
OTHER ALTON PRISONERS:
Source: Annals of the Army of the Cumberland, by John Fitch, Attorney at Law, Alton, Illinois (Not in Copyright) Salzkotter (for smuggling), released C. J. Zeutzschell (spy) Ogilvie Byron Young (spy) Mrs. Judd (spy & smuggler)
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Silas Norris (for kidnapping) Mrs. Molly Hyde (spy - furnished rebel generals with information) Joseph M. P. Nolan, arrested in St. Louis October 1861 for disloyalty to the United States, giving information to the enemy; released August 1863 ***************
Source: Switzler's Illustrated History of Missouri, from 1541 to 1877 by William Franklin Switzler, Chancy Rufus Barns, Robert Allen Campbell, Alban Jasper Conent, & George Clinton Swallow, 1879 ..."The sentences of John C. Thompkins, Wm. J. Forshey, John Patton, Thomas M. Smith, Stephen Stott, George H. Cunningham, Richard B. Crowder and George M. Pulliam, heretofore condemned to death, are provisionally mitigated to close confinement in the military prison at Alton. If rebel spies again destroy railroads and telegraph lines, and thus render it necessary for us to make severe examples, the original sentences against these men will be carried into execution." ..."In March of the same year [1862], James Quiesenberry, James Lane and William F. Petty were tried on the charge of railroad and bridge burning on the North Missouri railroad, on the night of December 20-21, 1861, found them guilty and sentenced them to be shot at such time and place as the General commanding the department shall designate; in the meantime to be confined in Alton military prison. Nor were these men ever shot; but on recommendation of the commission, the sentence was mitigated. ***************
Source: History of Arizona by Thomas Edwin Farish, page 257 Columbus H. Gray (in prison for nine months; captured in Helena, Arkansas, escaped by jumping out of railroad cards as he was being transferred to Fort Delaware) **************
Source: Minnesota in the Civil and Indian Wars 1861-1865 Sylvester Dreger, in prison at Alton, Ill., on discharge of regiment *************
Source: History of Henry County, Illinois by Henry L. Kiner, 1910, page 639 John Root, for murder, 1850; court ordered imprisonment in Alton penitentiary, the first five days to be in solitary confinement and the rest at hard labor, the defendant further to pay the cost of prosecution. At the end of a year, Root was pardoned by Governor Joel A. Matteson, after petitions had been made for the purpose. He died not long after his release, a saloon brawl the cause. *************
Source: History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography by Thomas McAdory Owen & Marie Bankhead Owen, 1921 Robert Hodges, minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Cartersville, Mississippi; died at the prison in Alton, Ill. in 1862 or 1863 *************
Source: The History of Rock County, Wisconsin, by Wesern Historical Company, 1879, page 413 David F. Mayberry; horse stealing in 1847, served 8 yrs and asserted someone would have to recompense him for time served. Later murdered Andrew Alger and was lynched. ************
Source: History of Boone County, Missouri, Written & compiled from the Most Authentic Official & Private Sources, 1882 James S. Hickam, captured at Rolla, Missouri, sent to Alton prison until the war was nearly over, when he was exchanged at Vicksburg. Joseph Glenn Jones Thomas Gilpin Tuttle; arrested on order of Gen. J. B. Douglass and held at Alton; released after swearing allegiance and giving bond of $4,000. Edwin Ruthvan Westbrook; taken prisoner near Osceola, St. Clair county, Missouri, confined at Alton until March 19, 1865. Released on condition of enlistment in army to serve against Indians on the plains. Durrett H. Barnes; kept at Alton until 1864, released and allowed to return home. James Lawrence Henry; captured in 1862, confined in St. Louis, Alton, & Washington City. Exchanged in 1863 & sent to City Point, Virginia. George Thomas Langston; Captured in 1861 gathering up recruits hiding in the brush in the vicinity of father's farm. Confined for 10 months in St. Louis, tried as a spy and sentenced to be shot. Granted new trial and sentenced to prison at Alton under hard labor. Released in fall of 1864 after being at Alton over a year. Zephaniah Spiers; captured & taken to Mexico, Missouri, St. Louis, then Alton. Prisoner at Alton six months. W. T. Maupin; captured in Cooper county, Missouri by soldiers of Col. Eppstein. Held prisoner for 13 months in St. Louis & Alton. Upon release, he weighed only 87 1/2 lbs. Became a physician. William I. Roberts; captured and taken to St. Louis, then Alton. Released in 1863. George Bryant Forbis; taken prisoner at Port Gibson, taken to Alton until released on parole. Francis Marion Lowrey; captured and taken to St. Louis, then Alton, & remained there until 1865. *************
Source: Confederate Military History by Clement Anselm Evans, 1899, page 289 Second Lieutenant W. C. Osborne; died in prison at Alton, Ill. *************
Source: HIstorical Genealogy of the Woodsons and Their Connections, by Henry Morton Woodson, 1915 Horace Woodson Ardinger; captured and sent to Alton for several months. Through the influence of his uncle, Gov. Austin King, he was released. *************
Source: Centennial History of Missouri by Walter Barlow Stevens Colonel John Hughes Winston; captured [abt. 1863] and sent to Alton prison until the Civil war ended. ***********
Source: Missouri Historical Review by State Historical Society of Missouri, pg 587 Captain Hanson McNeil and son, Jesse; captured & held in Missouri, then taken to Alton from which young McNeil made his escape by bribing a guard to give him his clothes. Lieut. Jesse McNeil then succeeded in helping his father to escape by climbing a pile of lumber which had been placed against the prison wall. They went down the Mississippi river, up the Ohio and across country until they reached their old home in Virginia. ************
Source: Hancock's Diary by Richard R. Hancock, pg 567 J. H. McAllister, died in January 1864 in prison at Alton, Illinois. J. H. Thomas was sent right to Alton, Illinois. E. D. Thomas, wounded, sent to Alton, Illinois for about two months, then he and his brother, J. H. were sent to Fort Delaware. J. K. Dodd; while an independent scout he was captured near New Albany, Mississippi abt. August 18, 1863 and sent to Alton for 5-6 months. Exchanged. ***********
Source: History of the First Kentucky Brigade by Edwin Porter Thompson, 1868 John Pendergrast of Louisville, KY was wounded in battle at Donelson and is supposed to have died in prison at Alton, Illinois. *********
Source: The World's Word, Volume XXI, November, 1910 to April, 1911, 1911, pg 14,165 William Martinson, a private of Company G, Eleventh Illinois Cavalry, while in Benton Barracks near St. Louis, in 1863, went out one day (May 17) got drunk, and went up and down the streets insulting, assaulting, and shooting at peaceable citizens. He dragged a man named Dwight Durkee for several squares, with a revolver at his head, and he shot a Negro in the head. Martinson was court-martialed and sent for confinement to the military prison at Alton, Ill. He served two years, and was then sent under guard to join his regiment. **********
Source: The Captured Scout of the Army of the James: A Sketch of the Life of Sergeant Henry H. Manning by Henry Clay Trumbull, 1869, page 37 Henry H. Manning was deemed a rebel prisoner, and as such was sent to the military prison at Alton, Illinois. **********
Source: The Confederate Veteran Magazine, 1895, page 24 D. T. Beall; captured in 1862 and imprisoned at Alton. Held for 6 months. Exchanged. **********
Source: Official Roster of the Soldiers of the State of Ohio in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-1866, 1895 Henry Cole; captured September 19, 1863 in the battle of Chickamauga, Georgia; confined in prison at Alton; paroled September 26, 1863. ***********
Source: The Repeal of the Missouri Compromise by Perley Orman Ray William Cecil Price; taken prisoner at Wilson's Creek and confined in the prison at Alton, Ill. for a long time. **********
Source: Annual Report of the Adjutant-General of the State of New York, 1898 Edward Stevenson; captured at Egypt Station, Mississippi, December 28, 1864, confined at Alton, Ill., 18 years old Avery Bullis; captured at Egypt Station, Mississippi, December 28, 1864, confined at Alton, Ill., 20 years old Lewis Reppersburger; captured at Egypt Station, Mississippi, December 28, 1864, confined at Alton, Ill. and released June 26, 1865 on take the oath of allegiance. 24 years old. **********
Source: A History of Northeast Missouri by Walter Williams Major H. C. Caldwell *********
Source: Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Illinois for the years 1861-66, 1886 Jonathan B. Green; Dishonesty, discharged November 26, 1864; loss of all pay &c., and be confined in prison at Alton, Ill., 3 years John S. Wharton; died at Alton, November 25, 1862 *********
Source: A History of the State of Oklahoma by Luther B. Hill William Dodson; died at the military prison at Alton, Illinois ********
Source: History of Ray County, Missouri by Missouri Historical Company Andrew J. Greenawalt; captured by Union troops and taken to military prison at Alton, Illinois, and kept there until September 8, 1862, when he was exchanged. Thomas Elder; taken prisoner at Springfield, Missouri and confined at Alton, Illinois about 7 months; exchanged. Martin Elder; taken prisoner at Baker's Creek and taken to Alton, Illinois; exchanged. *******
Source: The Life of Lyman Trumbull by Horace White Charles G. Flournoy; captured by Gen. Grant's forces near Vicksburg and confined at Alton, Illinois. ******
Source: History of Ramsey County and the City of St. Paul Sylvester Dreger; in prison at Alton, Ill., on dis. of regt. ******
Source: St. Louis Christian Advocate, June 20, 1866 W. L. Reynolds, captured November 1862, died a prisoner at Alton, Illinois. ******
Source: St. Louis Christian Advocate, July 4, 1866 J. Clark Meadows, died in prison, Alton, Illinois, 1863 *****
Source: St. Louis Christian Advocate, August 22, 1866 John Gossit, died 1862 at Alton, Illinois. Wilson Hewett, died at Alton, Illinois April 10, 1862. *****
Source: St. Louis Christian Advocate, September 5, 1866 James Dunn, died at Alton, Illinois in 1862. *****
Source: St. Louis Christian Advocate, October 10, 1866 Perkins Sims, died at Alton, Illinois May 20, 1862. *****
Source: General Forrest by James Harvey Mathes Major G. V. Rambaut was sent to join Major J. P. Strange in prison at Alton, Ill., and was exchanged with him, four or five months later. ******
Source: First Kentucky Brigade, 1868 John Pendergrast; wounded in battle - supposed to have died in prison at Alton. ******
Source: The Captured Scout of the Army of the James: A Sketch of the Life of H. H. Manning, 1869 Henry H. Manning; deemed a rebel prison and sent to military prison at Alton, Ill *******
Source: History of Wyandotte County, Kansas, edited by Perl Wilbur Morgan Paris Davis; taken prisoner and sent to prison at Alton, Illinois, where he sickened and died in 1863. ********
Source: The History of the Civil War in America, by John Stevens Cabot Abbott, page 362 Ogilvie Byron Young and a bookmaker from Nashville, who made boots for rebel spies with area in heel of boot to conceal papers; rebels, smugglers and spies ********
Source: The Commonwealth of Missouri by Chancy Rufus Barns, Alban Jasper Conant, William F. Switzler, George Clinton Swallow, Robert Allen Campbell, William Harris, 1877, page 923 William T. Thornton; eight months confined in the Alton prison, captured at Cassville, exchanged on September 24, 1862. Jacob A. Love; captured at Helena, Arkansas, taken to Alton, then to Johnson's Island. ********
Source: Our Women in the War, by News and Courier, Charleston, S.C., page 323 ....The next day they received permission to bury them, and from the grave of Major Lundy [in Memphis], his sister was taken to Alton prison. ********
Source: Publications of the Arkansas Historical Association, 1906, by John Hugh Reynolds Livie Bushnell; taken prison at Elk Horn; died in Alton prison. ********
Source: Crimes of the Civil War, and Curse of the Funding System, 1869, by Henry Clay Dean J. C. Moore, son of Col. David Moore of the Federal army; taken prisoner at Helena, Arkansas, July 4, 1863, taken to Alton prison, where "men are kept with ball and chain at work in the street, for mere peccadilloes, where the keepers shot their victims and stabbed them, with all of the indignities usual in the prisons everywhere, which seemed under control of no military, but rather governed by the instigation of the devil." John M. Weiner, formerly Mayor of St. Louis; arrested in St. Louis, transferred to Alton penitentiary, and from there made his escape. Killed near Springfield, Mo. ********
Source: Missouri the Center State, by Walter Barlow Stevens, 1915 L. F. Wood; captured near Arkansas line, taken to Alton prison for one year, paroled and returned home. ********
Source: Personal Record of the Thirteenth Regiment, Tennessee Infantry by Alfred J. Vaughan, 1897 M. J. Stegall; captured and died in Alton prison William Ellis; captured and died in Alton prison. *******
Source: Southern Silhouettes by Jeannette H. Walworth, 1887 Joel Harvey; sent to Alton Prison, "There were a lot of fellows there that he knew, men who had been captured as scouts on the battlefield, men who had been picked up by the wayside sick and worn. They were hungry and gaunt, and woe-worn and heart sick. Harvey says he hung his head before them for very shame, because he was neither hungry, nor gaunt, nor heart sick, nor woe-worn. But he did the only thing he could do for them, sold his gold watch, and added materially to their comfort." ******
Source: History of Linn County, Iowa by Luther Albertus Brewer and Barthinius Larson Wick, 1911 ? Granger; convicted of passing counterfeit money in Chicago, sentenced to Alton prison for four years. *******
Source: General Forrest by James Harvey Mathes, 1902 Major J. P. Strange; sent to Alton Prison and not exchanged for four or five months. Major G. V. Rambaut; captured and sent to Alton Prison, exchanged with Strange four or five months later. *******
Source: 14 Letters to a Friend, the Story of the Wartime Ordeal of Capt. De Witt Clinton Fort by Laurier B. McDonald John S. Jones, MO 2nd Cav., Co. G; captured October 29, 1863, died January 3, 1864 at Alton Prison, buried in Confederate Cemetery, Alton, IL John K. Moore; released from Alton prison October 1862. Tom Henry Fort; held at Alton prison June 1862 - September 1862 *******
Source: Genealogy and History of the Related Keyes, North and Cruzen Families by Millard Fillmore Stipes, 1914 Nathaniel Greene North Cruzen; captured by Gen. Jefferson C. Davis, transferred to Alton. Many in his company took the oath of allegiance and were released under parole, but Nathaniel declined to do so. After six months he was exchanged at Vicksburg. Nathaniel's letter from the Alton Prison to Thomas J. Winning:
Major Hiram Ferrill; captured December 1861, sent to Alton, exchanged at Vicksburg in 1862. *******
Source: New York Times, August 7, 1901 William Cecil Price, Treasurer of the United States under President Buchanan, was with Gen. Price at the battle of Pea Ridge and was captured by the Federal forces and confined in the prison at Alton, Ill., until September 1862, when he was exchanged. ******
Source: A History of Northeast Missouri by Walter Williams, 1908, pg. 58 Eight unknown soldiers, sent to Alton prison in 1861 for burning railroad bridges in Missouri. Sentence was death, but was commuted to imprisonment at Alton. William W. MacFarlane, taken prison at the battle of Moore's Mill in Missouri. (see quote below)
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