Los Angeles herald., 1907-07-07

shelf of the congressional library
quaint and musty volume by Thomas
A. Jones, giving in simple narrative the
story of the tragic days of John Wilkes
Booth, Immediately succeeding the as
sassination of President Lincoln. Jones
was a native of Charles county Mary
land, his farm lying near the confluence
of the Potomac river and Pope's creek
The latter stream empties into the lord
ly river about sixty miles from Wash
| ington, and was a favorite point tor
refugees fleeing into Virginia.
Here Jones had established "hy-by-
night" ferry. He had only small boat
but during the first years of the civil
War he conveyed hundreds of men and
women and little children across to
safety from arrest and the dungeons OF
the "Old Capitol Prison." or Carroll
Hall" Many men, afterward distin-
guished in the Confederate army, owed
their escape from the District of Column
bia and Maryland to Jones, who also
handled contraband of.various kinds.
Held in Capitol Prison
So enterprising was the stalwart
young ferryman that he was finally ar
rested and sent to Washington as a
prisoner of war. His first Incarceration
was in the temporary barracks at Four
teenth street and Pennsylvania avenue,
but, being regarded as dangerous, ne
was sent to the "Old Capitol, Where
for six months he shared the hopes,
anxieties and despair of the several
hundred unfortunates who were gath
cred in on the merest suspicion and
huddled together in quarters totally In
adequate and wholly unfit. 1t was
while Jones was in prison that the
famous beauty-Mrs. Greenhowe-and
her 12-year-old daughter were incar-
cerated.
Mrs Greenhowe was charged with be-
ing a spy, but was finally released. She
went across the lines and afterward
was commissioned by the Confederate
government to undertake a diplomatic
mission to En-, land. That she was not
entirely successful was evidenced by
that country playing fast and loose
with the south during her struggle;
never openly acknowledging her entity
nor yet refusing her laid and COM
fort" Upon her return voyage Mrs.
Greenhowe was drowned while her boat
was attempting perilous landing on
the coast of North Carolina.
At the time of Jones Imprisonment
two other women of high social position
We're taken to the "Old CapltoP'-Mrs.
Backsley of Baltimore and Mrs. Morris
of Alexandria, Va. Both were subse-
quently released.
In March of 1862 congress, finding ar
rest and Imprisonment of hundreds of
innocent women and men was becoming
a menace to the good fame of the north,
passed an act emptying the noisome
holes and cells of the "Old Capitol"
and for a short time it was given over
to rats and the guards that, for four
and back of its history-reeking walls.
Jones Returned to Ferry
Jones returned to his farm, his ferry
and his smuggling and added the
honor of carrying the mails for the
south that were "grapevined" from
Canada and different parts of the
north, where knights of the Golden
Circle" and sympathizing Copper
heads" were tremblingly giving what
aid and comfort they dare, and he as
sisted Booth in reaching the Virginia
shore after the assassination.
Turning over the pages of the story
1 came across these significant words
"It was rumored at the time of
Booths death that his body, weighted
with a stone slab, had been thrown
into the Potomac. l remember" he
writes, seeing a picture in an illus
trated paper at the time, representing
two men in the act of throwing the
body from the boat into the water"
And this brings me to a story told to
me by Admiral Ammon of the navy,
at the time of it's telling a commodore