killing and wounding several of their own men. In the confusion consequent upon this, some of the Confederate party escaped—among them Colonel Wood, who afterwards accompanied General Breckenridge in his perilous and adventurous voyage in an open boat from the coast of Florida to Cuba.
After some delay, an officer with a paper, on which he was taking a list of the prisoners, approached the spot where the President was sitting, and asked his name. This he declined to give telling the questioner that he might find it out for himself, but Mrs. Davis, anxious to avoid giving provocation as far as possible, gave the required information.
When Colonel Pritchard appeared upon the scene, President Davis, under the influence of feelings natura1ly aroused by certain indignities offered by subordinates, and by the distress inflicted upon the ladies of his family, addressed him with some asperity. It would probably be impossible (as it always is under such circumstances) for any participant, or even any witness, to recite with accuracy the conversation that ensued. I may say, however, that Mr. Davis has never made any complaint of the language or demeanor of Colonel Pritchard to himself, personally. Among the remarks made in that, or some subsequent conversation, by that officer, was one to the effect that, having refused to surrender, Mr. Davis had given the soldier who demanded the surrender the right to shoot him—a right, under the laws of war, of which President Davis was well aware at the time, and which he did not deny. As to the conversation recited by Wilson, Colonel Johnston, in his very temperate, cautious, and conscientious statement, appended to this article, avers most positively that no such remark was made (about Mr. Davis' "garb," means of "rapid locomotion," &c.,) as is there attributed to Colonel Pritchard.
It would require too much space to point out in detail all the misrepresentations in General Wilson's account of this affair. I shall copy merely a paragraph. After quoting from the account of the capture given by Pollard, who, although one of the most virulent and unscrupulous of President Davis' enemies, has rejected the contemptible fiction of the "petticoat story," he says:
"Between the two explanations given above, nearly all the truth has been told, for Davis certainly had on both the shawl and
