An Uncommon Imprisonment

Tal Day, Editor Spring 2020 AN UNCOMMON IMPRISONMENT The Life and Civil War Times of Welborne Walton Davidson and “the wife” Sherry Hulfish Browne Welborne Walton Davidson, my great known as Captain Davidson’s Tavern.1 Wal- great uncle, was a third generation Alexan- ton’s father at the age of 15 was apprenticed drian born on October 28, 1832. We will to James Green and became a local cabinet- call him Walton, his pre- maker who appears to have ferred name as an adult, alt- done well in his craft.2 He hough he was called Wel- bought the house at 404 Prince borne growing up and local Street (then numbered 86 records from his youth list Prince)3 as well as the house him with that name. His next door and was able to pro- mariner grandfather mi- vide his son with an education grated to Alexandria from at the famous Hallowell Board- Whitehaven, England, in the ing School.4 After completing 1790’s. For a time, his his schooling, Walton went to grandfather operated a tav- work as a bookkeeper for the ern on Prince Street on the commission merchant firm of block known as “Gentry Fowle & Co. located on the Row,” just above the block Strand near Prince Street.5 And known as “Captain’s Row.” even though Alexandria was Figure 1 Walton Davidson at Alton The name was The Ship’s Prison, 1864 Credit: Family Records thriving and booming in the Tavern, but it was generally decade of the 1850s,6 Walton Sherry Hulfish Browne, Ph.D., Univ. of Florida, is a 6th generation Alexandrian who grew up in Old Town. Since retiring in 2009 from her clinical psychology practice, Sherry has been researching the his- tory of her family. Her first project, Polly’s Houses, documents her mother’s preservation of Old Town’s historic homes. The manuscript is in the Alexandria Public Library Special Collections. Sherry’s article on the Minnigerode Arch at The Virginia Theological Seminary appeared in the Spring 2014 issue of the Chronicle. Much of what is set out in this article could not have been discovered without assistance from her DNA Cousin, Kathryn Convey of Provo, Utah. Sherry particularly wishes to thank her for reaching out and sharing information about Sue Lundy. was restless. Yankee as prisoner whom he was escorting Walton likely grew up hearing tales of his back to the Confederate camp, Walton was grandfather’s seafaring experiences. His himself captured by the Yankees and ended mother was born in a little village in York- up being sent to Alton Prison in Illinois, ar- shire, England, and then moved to Brazil riving in February 1863. where she lived with her family several By all accounts Alton prison was a true years before coming to Alexandria at the age hellhole at this time. It had been built in of 16.7 They had seen something of the 1831 as a state facility but closed in 1860 as world but Walton had not. He was encour- unfit for human habitation at the urging of aged by his paternal aunt and her family to the prison reformer, Dorothea Dix.12 visit them in Memphis where they ran a Hurriedly reopened out of necessity with boarding hotel.8 And so in 1853 at the age of hardly any improvement the first groups of 21 Walton accepted their invitation. Once in prisoners suffered extreme hardship with un- Memphis, Walton found a good job, liked it bearable conditions. It was bitterly cold at and stayed, making Memphis his home in the time Walton arrived and the men were adulthood. It was then that he changed his given only one blanket apiece. They slept on name, going by W. Walton Davidson and straw in overly crowded hallways of the W. W. Davidson. cellblock with rats crawling over them. Sani- About a year later Walton’s letters home tary conditions were abysmal; the outdoor began to mention a pretty girl named Kate latrines contaminated the water source. James and in April 1855 Walton married There were no bathing facilities and the men her. They set up housekeeping and by 1858 were badly clothed, unshaven and filthy. the couple had two little sons, Willy and Food was often inedible. Punishment was Frank. Then tragedy struck. His wife died of severe for any infraction. Not surprisingly diphtheria at the age of 24 in July 1860.9 disease was rampant. It was Walton’s mis- Their sons, ages 4 and 1, went to live with fortune to arrive at the prison at the height of their mother’s extended family who lived in a severe smallpox epidemic that ran from the a multi-generation family compound about winter of 1862 until the spring of 1863.13 two miles outside of Memphis in a rural Alton prison was built with 256 cells to area. The census shows the James males to house a maximum capacity of 900 inmates. be financially comfortable “speculators.”10 Throughout most of the war it held between They set up a room for Walton so that he 1,000 and 1,500 and sometimes more. By could stay overnight when visiting his sons. the last year of the war it held nearly 1900 He gave up the house in Memphis, rented a prisoners. It is thought that over the course room and took his meals at a city hotel. He of the war at least 11,764 POWs passed walked the two miles to visit his sons when though the facility. When Walton arrived the he had time off from work. Such was life death toll was 6 to 10 deaths a week. The until the war began. prison hospital was a small 5-bed room in In the summer of 1862 Walton enlisted in the main prison building; two converted the 2nd Mississippi Partisan Rangers Cav- workshops on the premises were added. The alry, also called Ballentine’s Regiment Cav- dead house was a shed in the prison yard alry, Company C.11 The regiment mainly where the bodies were kept until they could saw action in Mississippi, participating be- be buried in the Alton Cemetery on the north tween September and December 1862 in the edge of town. Some were buried near the Battles of Iuka, Corinth and Coffeeville. In prison building. Finding burial space be- December 1862, when Walton had taken a came a major challenge and many bodies 2 Figure 2 Alton Prison in 1861 Credit: http://madison.illinoisgenweb.html were thrown into common graves both in- The few letters from Walton to his par- side the prison walls and at North Alton ents in Alexandria during this stay at Alton Cemetery.14 were short, guarded, and largely uninforma- Most historians assess the death rate for tive. He did say he was doing as well as Alton Prison around 20 percent, above aver- could be expected; he had lost 70 pounds but age for a Union prison. However, that figure was physically OK (unlikely but probably does not reflect the total devastation. stated to prevent his family from worrying) Guards were also incapacitated, and it is said and that the only thing he could use and that they had to be threatened with court needed was money.17 Fortunately for Wal- martial to continue their duties. The small- ton, this imprisonment happened while pris- pox spread into town as well, causing a large oner exchange was still in effect. He was ex- number of deaths there. In an attempt to changed and released two months later in stem the epidemic outside the prison walls, April 1863 and sent to Virginia. the mayor made all city hospitals and ceme- After Walton was released, the authori- teries off limits to the prison.15 ties at Alton moved the smallpox patients to In July 1863 the Alton Prison Com- a small uninhabited island called Sunflower mander wrote to the Commissary General of Island in the middle of the Mississippi River Prisoners in Washington, D. C. “Smallpox opposite the prison. It came to be called first appeared in December last with three Smallpox Island. There was a tented area cases…the malady spread with alarming ra- and a small wooden cottage that served as a pidity. It assumed a malignant type and the hospital. Few patients ever returned to the mortality during the months of January, Feb- main prison. After death they were interred ruary, and March was fearful. The guard on the island in unmarked graves. Prison necessarily became affected and the whole records show 900 buried on the island. Esti- city was more or less affected by the conta- mates of the unrecorded deaths and burials gion. Every new accession of prisoners only on the island range from 1,000 to 5,000. The furnished new victims for the disease.”16 island later became flooded and submerged. 3 In the 1930s during the construction of a excused from any other duty. This suits me nearby dam and locks, 300 graves were in- much better than active service as I am used advertently discovered. The dirt from the is- to hard work at writing …”21 land, including the skeletons of the de- One of Walton’s letters reveals how strik- ceased, was used as fill for one of the em- ingly he distinguished between the War and bankments. In 2002 a monument was erected the humanity of soldiers in the Union Army. at the dam to commemorate the persons who You recollect when I was taken pris- were buried on the island. It lists the known oner last Dec.

Load more