8

Of Actresses and Wives

On the move again and with E. G. Barney’s dangerous ­allegations a few hours behind him, the following evening, Lloyd hopped a train and arrived in Canton, Mississippi, amid a violent storm of thunder, lightning, and strong wind. Canton was the home of Edward D. Frost, the assistant superintendent of Barney’s line, a true Confederate, a man much more to Lloyd’s liking, and besides, unlike Barney, he bore no personal grudge. It was while Lloyd was with Frost the following day that the news came in of the Union defeat at Manassas, the first significant battle of the war. General Beauregard’s men had routed the Union forces on a field studded with mimosa and oak trees and sent them back, in total disarray, tearing though the woods toward Washington City. There was wild celebration in Canton. It seemed possible that the Confederate forces would now invade the capital and win the war. There was jubilation, hope, and more jubilation in this small Mississippi town.

Curiously on that very day, in New York City, a woman named Harriet gave birth to a baby named Ernest P. The father’s name on the birth record was William Alvin Lloyd. Lloyd may never have known of this child. Ernest P. Lloyd would die during the Civil War at the age of twenty-two months.155

Lloyd left Canton and boarded the New Orleans, Jackson & Great Northern train at 11:50 on the night of Tuesday, July 23, 1861, a 206-mile ride through the night. Thirteen miles down the good track, on the banks of the Pearl, the cars halted for a while at the state capital of Jackson.156

While the passengers slept, the train thundered down the dead center of the state past a string of lost and faceless Mississippi towns, villages really, tiny depots, and everywhere the eye could see—in daylight, anyway—the eternal bales of cotton stacked high, cotton everywhere—picked by slaves, thousands of slaves—King Cotton, waiting to be transported, just like the passengers, just like Alvin Lloyd.157

The train made a brief stop at the lonely Lawrence County town of Brookhaven, and then crossed into Louisiana, traveling down the narrow length of Tangipahoa Parish, around Lake Pontchartrain, to join the Great Muddy just before the town of Kenner. Twelve hours and ten minutes after leaving Canton, Alvin Lloyd stepped off the train at the railroad’s depot at the foot of Calliope where it intersected with Magnolia. “Arrived in New Orleans July 24th,” he wrote.158

The next morning, far away from the Crescent City, the president of the Confederacy opened the daily mail at his office in Richmond. One letter had possibilities. It was Lloyd’s offer to spy for the Confederacy, for Jefferson Davis himself. He passed the correspondence on to his subordinates for further examination. If Davis had been limitlessly privy that day to the national press, he might have reconsidered, for notices of Lloyd’s bigamous crimes were appearing in the papers. A Memphis Appeal article began with “Bigamy,” and quoted in detail the Louisville Courier’s account of Lloyd’s arrest for bigamy.

The New York Herald of that day ran the story, as did the Tribune, with the banner “Lloyd the Bigamist Arrested,” the Trib adding, for those who might be in any doubt about the criminal’s identity, “This Lloyd is the Secessionist who made himself notorious by his denunciation of Union men and businessmen in his ‘Southern Railroad Guide,’ published in this city last year.”

Pretty much everyone within a hundred-mile radius of New York City saw this article one way or another on the day it came out. Including wives. The Herald and the Tribune together had such a deep penetration in New York and surrounding areas that it is difficult to imagine anyone missing a sensational story like this, especially if that someone was related to Lloyd.

As for his teenage wife, Virginia, it is probable that she had been communicating with him. The new Post Office Bill, passed by Congress on March 7, 1851, and effective as from July 1 of that year, had laid down up-to-date, and hopefully more efficient, rules for mail delivery. A post office would now hold a poste restante letter for a week, or the most convenient part thereof, and every week would sort out those that had not been collected from the pigeonhole under L for Lloyd. They would then advertise, once, in the newspaper that had the largest circulation in that town, once only, and then, if they hadn’t been collected within three months, would then send them to the dead letter office at the main post office in the nation’s capital. If you collected a letter at the post office as the result of the ad, then you paid a cent. If you got it out of the dead letter office, it now cost you six cents. The post office bill and summaries thereof appeared with great regularity in the newspapers of the day. In addition, in some papers, one would find in every issue at the top of the “List of Letters” a short explanation of the rules.

Even before the bigamy item, in fact just minutes after Alvin had left Westchester County, Virginia had seemingly dashed off two letters to the “Hon. Wm A. Lloyd, Louisville.” The term “Honorable” is a mystery, perhaps a prearranged code or a joke. Alvin never got to read the letters. He’d already moved on to Memphis by the time they arrived in Louisville. The next two letters sent to the Louisville Post Office were addressed to “Wm Alvin Lloyd.” Certaintly no longer “Honorable.” Had Virginia read the papers? Assuming from the wording in the press that he was a captive in Louisville, she probably figured he’d send out for his mail. But he never got those last two letters either. By then he was in the Deep South. It appears that Virginia sent one more letter, but, like the others, it just languished at the post office until all the uncollected Lloyd mail finally made its way to Washington, DC.

Virginia Lloyd certainly went south, as she would later swear. But in fact, she delayed for a month for unknown reasons. She might well have wondered whether the detectives had truly taken Lloyd to Louisville, as the papers said. Whatever the actual arrangement, remarkably, out of loyalty or some overriding, intense attachment to this man, she would meet him in Clarksville, as will be seen.

Alvin, now in New Orleans, went to see Theodore S. Williams, a Damn Yankee, as a man from the north was called after he had been fourteen years or more in the south.159

In spite of that, Williams was a business associate. Knowing that he was going to be spending a lot of time on the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern, Alvin needed a free pass, valid until the end of the year, and T. S. gave him one, issued to “W. Alvin Lloyd, Esq., Lloyd’s RR Guide.” The general superintendent wrote, “This ticket will pass but one person,” and then signed “Theodore S. Williams.”160

And as Alvin moves through time, and we follow him, here is clearly seen just how his spying episodes were concocted in the later summary presented to Federal officials. In New Orleans he wrote: “Remained 4 days. Visited the fortifications and defenses of the city forts at Algiers, where they were building two ‘Rams,’ Govt boats.” He continued, “Had conversations with the most prominent military men.” In contrast, his partial and selected diary pages, the ones that were not scrutinized by US authorities, merely said: “Arrived at New Orleans July 25th 1861. Left on Sunday July 28 1861 for Mobile.” When preparing this evidence at his lawyer Enoch Totten’s instruction, there was a clear endgame: The US authorities needed to see again and again how he was buttressing his claim.161

Of interest as well, in the loose diary pages—and it is a wonder that his outright lies weren’t exposed—are the crossed-out words and dates, mostly to obscure his original entries but in some cases to hide his encounters with other women. Often he is remarkably incautious, but by 1865, he and his lawyer are addressing inconsistencies. For example, he had written another New Orleans arrival date, but it has been partially obliterated. What he had actually first written was the correct arrival date—the 24th. Why he changed it to the 25th is that on that day he met a girl, the eighteen-year-old daughter of a French immigrant of Buffalo, New York. Louise Browner, known as Larry, was visiting with friends in New Orleans.162

Alvin had pressing business in Alabama. He and Larry Browner left New Orleans together.

In the old days, they could have gone by steamer between New Orleans and Mobile—simply cut around the gulf—but only the month before all steamer service had been stopped. Short of a swift and determined horse, the only alternative was the train. One of the frustrations in those days was that you couldn’t simply transit the short map distance by train, across the southern fringes of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, hugging the Gulf Coast, straight into Mobile. It had to be the hard way—back up to Jackson, Mississippi, on the line Alvin had come down on, then change to the Southern across to Meridian, and then down on the Mobile & Ohio. Even so, he and Larry Browner made good time.163

Again, here are discrepancies: While Alvin’s diary says, “Arrived Monday morning July 29/61,” the entry in the concocted summary (Enclosure 13) adds “Arrived at Mobile, July 29th, Monday morning. Remained 1 day. Visited the different forts and defenses about the city [as per his alleged contract with Lincoln] and conversed with the prominent men of the place.”164

And of course a man on the move needs railroad passes. While he was in town, Alvin managed to secure one from J. H. Parkes, superintendent of the M & O, who that day issued a free pass to “Wm Alvin Lloyd, Publisher RR Guide.” It was valid until the end of 1861. “Left Mobile for Montgomery, Ala., on Monday afternoon, July 29th,” Alvin writes.165

He left Mobile by steamer, but he wasn’t going south into the Gulf, of course. From Mobile you could voyage upriver on either the Tombigbee due north, or the Alabama to the northeast. The Alabama would take you to Selma, and on from there to Montgomery.

“Left for Atlanta, Ga., Saturday, August 3rd.”166

Montgomery through Opelika to West Point on the banks of the Chattahoochee was a railroad trip of eighty-eight miles on the Montgomery & West Point Railroad, which took five hours. Of all the roads to the south and west of Charlotte, North Carolina, this one was the only standard-gauge four-foot, eight-and-one-half-inch line in a network of what were otherwise all five-foot gauges. That meant two things. One, you had to get out at West Point and change, which wasn’t so serious. The other, which was hugely damaging to the Confederacy, was that they couldn’t maintain a smooth run at this vital crossroads. It was a situation similar to one north of Charlotte, where the North Carolina Railroad ran on standard gauge while Virginia ran on the five-foot gauge.167 At West Point, then, a traveler made the change to the Atlanta & West Point Railroad for the eighty-seven-mile, four-and-a-half-hour trip into Atlanta.168

More contradictions: “Arrived in Atlanta, August 3rd, at Chattanooga, August 3rd, at Knoxville, August 4th, Sunday.” A small detail, but worthy of note. An obfuscation—another woman is in the picture.

“Arrived at Atlanta (Ga.) August 3rd. Left the same night. Arrived at Knoxville (Tenn.), August 4th, Sunday.” He has omitted Chattanooga. By the time Alvin and his lawyer came to convert his diary into the summary Chattanooga has been deleted. It simply disappears. But there is a reason for this. Larry Browner.169

Alvin’s 1865 receipts and expenses list says: “Miss Larry Browner of Buffalo N.Y. loaned her $44 to get home. Loaned Larry Browner $44 August 3rd 1861 at Chattanooga, Tenn. She was going back to Buffalo, N.Y.” This date, August 3rd, has been written over July 25th, which has been crossed out.170 While Miss Browner left Chattanooga, Alvin took the train to Knoxville.171

But why go to all this trouble over a diary entry? Back then Alvin was still a vigorous man, answering to no one. But in 1865 he was a cripple, old at forty-three, and he needed his wife Virginia, an odd thing for him, but still, one he would have recognized. Virginia would have been well aware of the items in Enclosure 13, as she would have studied them with Alvin and his lawyer in 1865. So there was no need for Alvin to mention Larry Browner and his interlude with her.

In a later testimony, Alphabetical Boyd claimed that Lloyd had been “drifting about in Tennessee” during the months of August and September of 1861. But drifting about was not Alvin’s style, it is not the way he functioned. What he was doing, in fact, was collecting monies and putting together his Railroad Guide, and moving from town to town like a well-oiled clockwork mechanism. His life revolved around railroad schedules.172

Lloyd arrived in Knoxville. Four years later, he would write for the US government’s eyes: “conversed with the RR men and others. Campbell Wallace and some others started a report that I was a spy.” Wallace was president of the East Tennessee & Georgia Railroad. Alvin makes no mention of Wallace in his diary, let alone why that dignitary should spread such a rumor. These crucial entries, this strategy of Totten’s to underscore the suspicion that Alvin was indeed a Union spy, is calculated, and well calculated.173

He left “Knoxville for Mossy Creek, the residence of Mr. Jno. Branner, President of the E Tenn & Va RR. Saw Mr. Branner sick in bed. Returned to Knoxville, August 5th.” The distance between Knoxville and Mossy Creek was twenty-nine miles—on Mr. Branner’s own railroad.174

John Roper Branner, a banker by trade, and president of the East Tennessee & Virginia since January 20, 1861, was very much a Knoxville figure, and a secessionist. Lloyd returned to Knoxville, which seems an odd thing to do, given what Campbell Wallace’s rumor might have caused.

Now to ordinary business: “Left August 6th. Arrived at Lynchburg August 7th. Remained 1 day. Had a long confidential conversation with Jno. Robin McDaniel and other gentlemen.” John Robin McDaniel, born in Lynchburg fifty-four years earlier, was not only one of the most successful and revered businessmen in Lynchburg, he was also the Grand Master of Masons in Virginia. Alvin continues: “Presented my bill to the president of the Va. and Tenn. RR, Robt L. Owen, for payment, which was refused until Jno. R. McDaniel, who had been president of the road, stated it was correct, and ought to be paid. The company then paid me a portion of it only. Left August 8th.”

Alvin’s receipts page says, “August 8th. Lynchburg, Va. Va. & Tenn. RR—$300.” This was in gold.175

But according to his diary: “Arrived August 9th a.m. Left for Knoxville August 13th/61.”176

And Lloyd’s summary (Enclosure 13), states, “Arrived at Richmond August 9th, and remained 4 days. Visited the fortifications, etc, in the city. Called to see the President, but could not see him. Saw his nephew, Col. Joe Davis, at the door.” This was Joseph Robert Davis, the son of Isaac Davis, then aged thirty-six and aide to his uncle. “No admittance to Jefferson Davis, I was informed. Genl Winder’s detectives were on the watch for me, and had me under observation. During my stay in Richmond, one of the detectives came in the dining room of the Exchange Hotel, and went behind the screen near the kitchen, and took a photograph of me while I was eating dinner. Left August 13th.”177

Because Alvin related the particulars of the entire Winder episode for obvious effect, again to underscore the growing concerns that he was a Union operative, in fact, he must have at times looked oddly out of place. Wandering? Hanging about a railway station, a man on the move, looking for his next conquest? But whatever caught the eye of Winder’s detectives it is true that General John H. Winder was suspicious of any passing stranger. This West Point man and dubious hero of the Mexican War, a recently promoted Confederate brigadier general, and even more recently, inspector general of posts, was a self-important and tyrannical man feared not only by northerners in Richmond but by his own people as well. His band of “plug uglies,” fellow Maryland thugs-turned-­detectives, randomly arrested and imprisoned people whose guilt or innocence, in some cases, was never proven. In fact, a few months later, Timothy Webster—a Pinkerton detective embedded in Richmond and at the time a trusted courier of John H. Winder’s, a skilled spy who traveled back and forth across the lines with communications from Winder to his family—then, “reported [in person or in writing] to Pinkerton, who in turn, submitted detailed reports to General George McClellan.”178

But Webster was exposed when two of Pinkerton’s operatives, Pryce Lewis and John Scully, were sent through the lines to Richmond in search of Webster, who’d been out of touch. Scully and Lewis were recognized as Union detectives when they were visiting an ailing Webster. All were arrested, threatened with hanging. Lewis and Scully were spared execution when they outed Webster, admitting they were all indeed Pinkerton men. An enraged Winder vowed to make an example of Timothy Webster. Even as President Lincoln and Detective Pinkerton petitioned for Webster’s release, he was tried and hanged on April 29, 1862.

Winder’s reign of brutality continued. By the end of the Civil War, his notoriety as “Hog Winder,” the man who ran Andersonville Prison along the lines of a death camp, would have gotten him hanged as a war criminal had he not died of a heart attack at Florence, South Carolina, the site of his last prison, late in the night of February 6, 1865.179

And here is Alvin, out of Richmond and harm’s way as he continues his journey. And in the summary, Enclosure 13: “Arrived at Knoxville August 14th. Remained 2 days. Conversed with several military men and RR men.” But in the diary: “Arrived August 14th.” (Of course, there is no mention of conversing with military men.)

His receipts page for Thursday, August 15, has, “East T & Va. RR—$200.” However, in a transcription of his receipts page, he has padded the expense and puts three hundred dollars. Either way, he seems to have picked up some much-needed money in Knoxville.180

Diary: “Left for Chattanooga & New Orleans, August 16th/61. Arrived at Chattanooga August 16th/61. Left for New Orleans August 17th. Arrived at Nashville August 18/61.”

In contrast, in Enclosure 13, noting his spying episodes: “Left August 16th. Arrived at Chattanooga night of August 16th. Left August 17th a.m. Arrived at Nashville August 18th. Remained 1 day. Saw several prominent citizens and RR men, and conversed with them about the feelings of the people in reference to the war and dissolution, etc.”

W. Alvin Lloyd usually made a splash in the papers when he arrived in the Crescent City. But not this time. Not even a mention. He was keeping a low profile. There was an actress living there, whom he had met on his last trip, just before he’d met Larry Browner.

As for spying for Lincoln, in the concocted summary Lloyd says, “Remained 10 days. Visited the forts, defenses, etc. Had a room downtown, near the Parish Prison. A colored woman kept the house.”181

Why did this peripatetic man linger ten days in New Orleans?

Back on January 31, 1861, the New Orleans True Delta had run a small item: “Mobile is rejoicing in the advent of a new ‘star,’ Mrs. Annie L. Taylor [also known as Miss Annie Taylor], a well-known lady of that city, said to be accomplished, talented, and beautiful. She made a successful debut not long since, and is to be complimented by a benefit in which the first citizens lend a ready hand. Send her along, for the stage needs ladies of untarnished reputation, accomplishment, talent and beauty.”

Naturally, with his penchant for all things theatrical, Alvin caught Annie in his sights very early into his New Orleans visit. He should have stayed away from the young actress. For him, it was just another pretty conquest. There was no way he could have known that this beautiful young woman would imperil his life.

Alvin left for Mobile on Sunday, September 16. He hadn’t actually forgotten his rendezvous with Virginia up in Clarksville, but first he had to take Miss Taylor home to Mobile.

Enclosure 13: “Left Sept 1st/61.”

As usual, and according to his 1865 summary, he would say he was spying there. “Arrived at Mobile Sept. 2nd, daylight. Remained 1 (one) day. Visited the new fortifications, defenses, etc. Took drawings of the same.”182

He stayed in Mobile only long enough to spend the night, and then he was on the cars again, heading for Clarksville, Tennessee. In her November 15, 1872, deposition before the United States Court of Claims, Alvin’s wife Virginia was asked this question by her counsel: “Did you follow soon after?” meaning soon after Lloyd left Washington in July 1861. She replied, “Yes, Sir.”

By alarming contrast, in her July 18, 1865, deposition, Virginia deposes and swears that “on or about the 15th of September 1861 she was in the city of New York and . . . was informed that her husband was imprisoned as a spy in Memphis, Tenn., by the Rebels.”183

Yes, Alvin was indeed imprisoned in Memphis, just as Virginia says, but it was only for one night. And it certainly wasn’t for spying, as she knew well. It was for bigamy. Alvin was only imprisoned in Memphis overnight, and he was out by July 21, 1861. That was the only jail time he ever served in Memphis in his life: one night’s worth. His next incarceration would not be until the end of that year. So, when Virginia says she was informed that her husband was imprisoned as a spy in Memphis, the truth is very different.

“She immediately made preparations to go to her husband.” Finally, several days later, she “started for Memphis, Tenn., in the latter part of September 1861.” She was not traveling alone. She had a retinue—­Clarence, her son, aged not even two yet; and Nellie Dooley, the maid, who, in her June 3, 1865, deposition, would swear “that she was with Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd all the time Mrs. Lloyd was in the Southern States, except about nine months when they were in Savannah, Ga.”184

Virginia continues “that she had in her possession when she started more than the sum of twelve hundred dollars, and that she had left when she reached him twelve hundred dollars in gold which she turned over to her husband immediately after joining him.”185

The truth is, Virginia, Clarence, and Nellie the maid arrived in Clarksville as arranged on September 1, 1861. It was not as Virginia would claim in her deposition of June 3, 1865: “on or around the 1st of October 1861.”186

By the time of her 1872 deposition, she had forgotten the name of the place: “At some little town in Tennessee, but I do not now recollect the name.” Clarksville is—and was then—on the main rail line from Louisville to Memphis.187 Clarksville was the county seat of Montgomery County right up on the Kentucky line. In fact it was the first town you came to in Dixie proper if you were traveling by rail from Louisville toward Memphis. Both town and county had voted unanimously to join the Confederacy. However, Clarksville wasn’t as little and forgettable as Virginia made out. There were twenty thousand people living there at that time. There was virulent anti-Lincoln sentiment in the city, not to mention ridiculous humor; for example: “We have been reliably informed that Old Abe, the Kangaroo President, is the bastard son of a man by the name of Cisney.”188

J. S. Neblett and J. A. Grant, the publishers and proprietors, printed the Clarksville Chronicle once a week on Fridays. The paper of October 11 had a list of letters waiting at Clarksville. One of them was for W. A. Lloyd, which indicates that he had been there.

Of course, having joined him in Clarksville, Virginia found he was no longer imprisoned. So the entire rigorous and dangerous journey made so impulsively and generously from New York to Dixie—for her, the little boy, and the maid—may well have been for nothing. Or perhaps she knew all along.
At night on the fourth of September, according to Alvin’s concocted testimony, he arrived at Nashville, Tennessee, where he claimed he “was arrested in the cars as an abolitionist by a guard and a major on a telegraphic dispatch from the agent of the M & O RR at Corinth (Miss.). He is the son-in-law of the proprietor of the eatinghouse at that point. I had a lady in charge going north at the time. The guard went with me to Nashville, where my baggage was searched thoroughly, and nothing being found to detain me, we were set at liberty, but watched.”189

In his June 3, 1865, deposition, Alvin would claim to have been “confined in prison for several weeks in Nashville and in Memphis,” although he gives no dates. Of course, he cannot, as these weeks of incarceration never existed. However, on his 1865 expense claim, he itemizes both stints behind bars, the Memphis one in considerable detail. All he says for the term in Nashville is: “Sept. 1861. $75. Expenses while imprisoned in Nashville, Tenn., pd in gold.”190

No other Nashville imprisonment is presented on his expense sheet, and if there had been another one, he would have listed it there to gain sympathy from US officials.

But now, there is evidence of yet another woman:

Diary: “Left for Clarksville Sept 5th. Arrived same evening.”

Concoction: “Left Sept 5th. Took the lady, Miss Eliza J. Miller to the cars going to Louisville, Ky, at Junction. She went North to her friends.” What this means is that, going north from Nashville on the Nashville to Louisville line for ten miles, they came to Edgefield Junction, from where Miss Miller continued the 173 miles farther on to Louisville, while Alvin got off and changed to the Edgefield & Kentucky Railroad—the road that connected Nashville with western Kentucky—for the short, 37-mile trip as far as Guthrie, on the Kentucky state line, and then caught the Louisville to Memphis train from Guthrie for the 19-mile ride to Clarksville. “Arrived in Clarksville, Tenn, Sept 5th, same evening.”191

Meanwhile, in Mobile, Annie Taylor had received some wonderful news. Walter Keeble, the actor-manager, was putting together a troupe called the Southern Star Company. Annie had been picked as the leading ingénue. It was a five-week residence at the Nashville Theatre, opening night September 23, with “The Gamester,” followed by an interval of music, and to conclude with the farce, “Urgent Private Affairs.” And Nashville was so close to Clarksville. So she must have immediately dashed off a letter to Alvin, care of the post office in Clarksville.

Although Alvin doesn’t say so in any of his 1865 evidence or depositions, he was now traveling with Virginia, Clarence, and Nellie. The quartet took the same route Alvin had taken a few days before, but in reverse—first to Guthrie on the Memphis to Louisville, then from Guthrie down to Edgefield Junction on the Edgefield & Kentucky, and finally into Nashville on the Louisville & Nashville.

On they went:

Diary: “Left Nashville for Knoxville Sept 9th. Arrived 10th.”

Enclosure 13: “Left Nashville on Sept 9th. Arrived at Knoxville Sept 10th. Visited round the place, camps, etc.” This rather weak entry is supposed to support Lloyd’s spying claim.

Now Virginia, the maid, and child were to take the cars south, to Augusta, to stay with Virginia’s friends or relations. It is not of record with whom Virginia stayed, but as she was there often, it would certainly have been a close connection. Alvin was to stay in Richmond. One thing he did while there was write a letter. It is dated September 14:

To His Excellency, Jefferson Davis. Pardon the seeming boldness, in me, a stranger, for addressing you these few lines [perhaps he had forgotten that he had written Davis on July 18, while in Memphis, or maybe he figured that letter had never reached its destination]. If you have any place or position to give a Kentuckian, either in the army or bearer of dispatches, I am willing to serve you. I have lost all my type, office, etc., in New York, where I removed to, Office of “Lloyd’s Southern Steamboat & R Road Guide”, from New Orleans two and a half years since. I was driven from New York for writing for the South and against abolitionism in my Guide, on the night of July 4th. I presume Your Excellency has read the accounts of the affair. [There were no accounts of the “affair” other than the single mention in the Memphis paper told by Alvin.] Hoping, Sir, I have not obtruded too much upon your patience, knowing how many similar calls you have made to you. If you should have any use for me in any way that I am competent to fill, I will call upon you or your secretary and show you who I am. Very truly your friend, W. Alvin Lloyd, Publisher, Lloyd’s S St Bt & RR Guide. Richmond, Sept. 14th/61. I do not know, Your Excellency, whether this is the proper mode to make known to you my wishes or not, as I have never been an office seeker. Very truly, your friend, W. Alvin Lloyd.

There is also a Davis endorsement, meaning he would have seen the letter and passed it on:

Referred to the Postmaster Genl for his consideration, with a view to further conference. [signed] J.D. [Jefferson Davis.]192

On Tuesday, September 17, 1861, Alvin wrote to Davis again:

To His Excellency, Jefferson Davis. I presented the enclosed (your order) to Mr. Clements yesterday morning as I could not procure an interview with Judge Reagan [John H. Reagan, the Postmaster General], and was informed that there were no vacancies in the Dept—excepting as special mail agents in Louisiana, etc., and there was no one had power excepting Your Excellency to appoint one, as there were only seven special mail agents in the Eleven States [special mail agents accompanied mail on steamers and in railroad cars. They would later be known as couriers]. I regret it indeed as I am out of means sufficient to start the publication of my Guide at present, as everything has been taken from me in New York. If your Excellency has an appointment either in the army or the Post Office Dept., I would be glad to have the position. If not, I will not further annoy Your Excellency, knowing you must be annoyed by such request daily. Wishing you speedy recovery of health and a long and prosperous life. I am your friend, W. Alvin Lloyd. Richmond, Sept. 17/61.193

The same day he wrote this letter to Davis, on September 17, Alvin left Richmond.

The Richmond Whig published a very brief article on the eighteenth, mentioning that Lloyd had been there. Alvin arrived at Norfolk the same day he left Richmond, Tuesday, September 17, 1861, and remained there two days.

The two days in Norfolk are of interest:

Diary: “Visited Crany [sic] Island, etc, at Norfolk.”

Enclosure 13/summary: “Remained 2 days. Visited Crany [sic] Island, fortifications, camps, etc, etc. Met T.H.S. Boyd at Norfolk.”

Alphabetical Boyd arrived in Norfolk on or around August 1, at least according to him. He says he waited in that town for sixty to ninety days before Lloyd showed up, which would have made it October or November that Alvin arrived. Yet here we have Lloyd arriving in Norfolk on September 17, within forty-eight days of Alphabetical’s arrival there—not sixty or ninety. Clearly this was added in 1865.

This short visit was the only one Lloyd made to Norfolk in 1861, according to him. So, Alphabetical Boyd’s memory of Norfolk in 1861 must be regarded with strong suspicion. Alphabetical tells of spending two weeks with Lloyd there, spying, of course, whereas Alvin claimed to have been there only two days. Boyd is very specific:

I remained in Norfolk with Lloyd about two weeks, and was engaged in visiting the different fortifications and batteries on both sides of the Elizabeth and Nansemond Rivers, and the camps and fortifications adjacent to Norfolk and Portsmouth. Drew a map of the harbor and batteries on each side, and the number of troops then under the command of General Huger [Benjamin Huger]. The map was taken charge of by Mr. Lloyd and sent to Mr. Lincoln. The map went to Mr. Lincoln by a man who was an engineer on a transport between Norfolk and Craney Island. He went in a boat to Fortress Monroe. Lloyd left Norfolk for Savannah about the latter part of November 1861.194

That Lloyd was in Norfolk seems not to be a question. He had in his possession two passes to visit Norfolk. In his December 19, 1861, letter to Confederate Secretary of State Judah Benjamin, Colonel Rockwell (Alvin’s captor in Savannah) would write: “He had in possession two passes from the War Department, one, I think, to visit Norfolk, and he acknowledged to me that he had been to Craney Island.”195

Meanwhile, T.H.S. Boyd was still on Captain Nelligan’s roll in the Confederate army for the months of November and December, on detached service as a clerk in the regiment’s commissary department—still a private. He was mustered out on December 11, and that surely signifies that he was present. The commissary department was responsible for feeding the Army, and, of course, each regiment had its commissary department, headed by the commissary. According to Boyd’s 1907 obituary, he was made his regimental commissary.196 Most importantly, Boyd was clearly and of record a Confederate soldier.

Alvin left Norfolk on Thursday, September 19, 1861, to return to Richmond, arriving there the same day, at 8:00 p.m., and remained there five days. “Endeavored to see Jefferson Davis the first day, but without success.” This was to follow up on his letters to the president of the fourteenth and the seventeenth, inquiring after a government post. Alvin writes that he “did see him on Sept. 23rd.” Jefferson Davis, that is. “Had a conversation with him about giving me an office or position under his Government. He declined, etc, etc. Was accosted by a detective by the name of [he rather inconveniently leaves out the name, substituting a dash] and sounded as to where I resided, occupation, etc. He stated he was a stranger in the city, etc.”197

Alvin left Richmond on September 25, headed for New Orleans. We know New Orleans was his destination, for General Winder tells us so in a later communication. It took Alvin quite a while to get from Richmond to New Orleans, as he had stops to make along the way. It wouldn’t be until November 7 that he arrived in the Crescent City. En route, he “arrived in Knoxville Sept. 26th. Remained 4 days. Endeavored to see Brannan [sic], but could not do so with safety.” Branner, judging from his 1865 letter, seems never to have been aware that Alvin was in town.198

By contrast, “Left Knoxville for Nashville and New Orleans, Octr 2d/61.” In other words, on October 1 he was not in Clarksville, as Virginia claimed, but in Knoxville, two hundred miles away. To get from Knoxville to Nashville was not as easy as it is today. One had to take the East Tennessee & Georgia line down to Chattanooga, 120 miles, and then change to the Nashville & Chattanooga, then 150 miles up to Nashville. A long, tedious trip.199

At this point, Alvin’s 1861 diary (i.e., the extrapolated pages) comes to an end, and from that point on, his prepared summary with added spying episodes remains.

“Arrived in Nashville Oct. 3rd/61.”200

In Nashville, the Daily Patriot’s amusements column advertised the play The Serious Family, concluding with “Kiss in the Dark” and “The Secret.” There, in a list of the performers, was “Miss Taylor.”201

Lloyd “Remained 14 days, visiting fortifications, camps, etc, etc.”

Annie Taylor was now performing acting roles as well. Prior to September 26, she was merely a star vocalist. That night she had stepped into her new costume for the benefit of the Tennessee Volunteers. Two nights later she had scored a hit with her rendition of “Trust to Luck” in the play Rough Diamond. The Nashville Daily Patriot advertised, “Admission to suit the times: Parquette and dress circle, 50 cts; Gallery, 25 cts; Colored Gallery, 25 cts; Colored boxes, 50 cts; Box office open from 10 to 12, and 2 to 4 o’clock. Commences at 7½ o’clock precisely. No extra charge for reserve seats.”202

The following night, the fourth of October, she had a star singing turn in The Merry Monarch and Saturday night she was in How to Rule a Wife and The Maniac Lover. She played in Nashville again on the following Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and on Thursday, October 10, the Nashville Patriot ran this item: “Miss Annie Taylor has only to study and become entirely accustomed to the business of the stage, to be emphatically ‘The Star of the South.’ She has chosen the profession from ambition alone, and with appreciation, will create a sensation unequalled since the time of Mrs. Mowatt. Alabama may well be proud of her gifted daughter.”203

Annie Taylor’s career was afire in Nashville. Alvin, who could publish from any town that had a suitable press, decided on Nashville to settle down. At least that was the thought he had as he went to visit the Patriot’s editor, who reported: “Lloyd’s Steamboat and Railroad Guide. This interesting and very valuable periodical, which has been published in New York for some years, will, we learn, hereafter be published here. So soon as our difficulties culminated, Mr. Lloyd removed South, and has identified himself with the cause of our glorious Confederation.”204

However, even as the press plaudits were ringing in her ears, Annie Taylor’s career came to a sudden and heavy-handed end. Alvin it seems had forbidden her to appear on the stage anymore. No proper woman of his was going to be an actress. And she went along with it, and him.205

Saturday, October 12, 1861, was Miss Annie Taylor’s farewell performance. “The admirers of the drama in this city have come to regard Miss Taylor as a lady of great promise and universally regret her determination to abandon a sphere in which she could shine so brilliantly,” mourned the Patriot.206

Alvin Lloyd and Annie Taylor left Nashville on Thursday, October 17, 1861. Virginia Lloyd, when asked in 1872 about Alvin’s movements—“After he left there, then where did he go?”—replied, “He went to Savannah, Ga.” She may not have known the truth.207

But Savannah was a couple of months away yet. Virginia fails to mention any of the towns in between Nashville and Savannah, some of which would be the venues of extraordinary events in the life of William Alvin Lloyd. But, that’s because Virginia didn’t accompany Lloyd on this part of his trip. Annie Taylor did.

“Arrived at Atlanta Oct. 18th. Left Oct. 18th.” The following day, Saturday, saw Alvin and Annie arrive in Montgomery, where he “remained four and a half days.” He picked up twenty-five dollars in gold from the Exchange Hotel in Montgomery, owned by Watt, Lanier & Co. That was for advertising money in advance for the next issue of the guide, whenever that might be.208

On the morning of Wednesday, October 23, 1861, Alvin Lloyd left Montgomery on the Alabama & Florida Railroad. One hundred and sixteen miles of dead straight road to the state line where Alabama meets Florida at the Escambia River, and then, still on the same train, following the course of the river down the remaining forty-five miles into Pensa­cola, arriving there later that same day and checking in to a hotel for a good night’s sleep. That sleep was necessary, as it turned out, for the following day in Pensacola would be rather busy. “Remained 1 day. Visited the fortifications, etc. Was arrested by order of the provost marshal. Discharged. No proof against me.” In addition to all this activity, he picked up twenty-five dollars in gold from the Alabama & Florida Railroad Company. This alleged arrest, is of course, not of record.209

That evening Alvin and Annie left Pensacola and the following morning were back in Montgomery. On Saturday, October 26, 1861, they left Montgomery, bound for Selma. “Remained 2 days. Conversed with RR men, citizens, etc.” Of course, Alvin never mentions his traveling companion.210

The two of them left Selma on the twenty-ninth, and arrived back in Annie Taylor’s hometown, Mobile, on Wednesday, October 30, 1861. And Enclosure 13 alludes to spying when he was really on a romantic getaway. “Remained three days, visiting camps, etc.”211

They left Mobile on Sunday, November 3, 1861, heading north on the Mobile & Ohio to Meridian, Mississippi. In Alvin’s coat pocket was a receipted hotel bill for the board of “Mr. W.A. Lloyd and Lady.” He was still traveling with that lady, Annie. At Meridian the couple caught the Southern across the state, through Jackson, to the Mississippi River.212

“Arrived at Vicksburg (Miss.) Nov. 4th. Remained 2 days, visiting defenses, etc.” Remembering that all of Lloyd’s supposed visits to defenses and fortifications are sheer fiction, not to mention the repeated assertions that he was spying, is astounding, to say the least. On November 6 Lloyd was issued a free ticket on the Southern Railroad to “pass Mr W.A. Lloyd over Southern RR.” Perhaps more important, he had also appeared earlier that morning before a Vicksburg justice of the peace and married Annie Taylor. As the Warren County, Mississippi, marriage records repeat, “William A. Lloyd and Annie S. [sic] Taylor, Nov. 6, 1861.”213

“Left Vicksburg for New Orleans, Nov. 6th,” Alvin writes, omitting his new wife. But Alvin didn’t immediately avail himself of the free Southern Railroad ticket he had received in Vicksburg. He’d changed his mind, or had had it changed for him. Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd decided to take the southbound steamboat, and later that evening pulled into a sleepy hamlet close to where the Red River comes out into the Mississippi. Then they took a coach the few miles over into Avoyelles Parish, in Louisiana, where he again married Annie. “Nov. 6. William A. Lloyd and Mrs Annie L. Taylor,” the Avoyelles Parish marriage record states.214

Hardly pausing to stop, certainly not for a honeymoon in rural Louisiana, they hopped another steamer and late that following bright and pleasant day came to the end of their whirlwind cruise. What better to do on a protracted honeymoon, but spy. Again and again. “Arrived at New Orleans, Nov. 7th. Remained 4 days, visiting defenses, building Rams at Algiers, etc, etc.”215

There was a third marriage between Annie and Alvin—“Orleans Parish, La. Saturday, Nov. 9, 1861. W. Alvin Lloyd and Annie L. Widow Taylor.” Although Alvin fails to mention this event, it can be seen to this day in the New Orleans marriage register index. However, this index is, at least in this case, an illusion. It does not record an actual marriage between Alvin and Annie; rather Alvin’s taking out of a license to marry Annie. A big difference. If a marriage license applicant did not have a fixed abode in Orleans Parish, then he had to pay a five-hundred-dollar bond. He then had three weeks in which to get married, and to bring or send proof of that marriage to the registry. Failure to comply cost him the bond. Although there is no record of the marriage itself, it is hard to imagine Alvin forfeiting such a huge sum, so, probably, within a few days, possibly even on the same day, they married somewhere close by.216

On Monday, November 11, 1861, W. Alvin Lloyd left New Orleans with Annie. “Arrived at Mobile Nov. 13th. Left same evening on steamer Jeff. Davis.”217

“Arrived at Selma Nov. 15th. Thanksgiving Day. Remained 3 days” in Selma.218

Alvin was in Selma on November 16, for that was the Saturday Thomas H. Millington, general superintendent of the Ala. & Tenn. River Railroad Co., issued a free pass for “W. Alvin Lloyd, Esq., Pub. Southern RR Guide,” valid until January 1, 1863. From Mr. Millington he also received fifty dollars for an ad in the planned January 1862 edition of the Railroad Guide.219

He left Selma on the eighteenth, and the following day was back in Montgomery, where he “remained nine days.” On Sunday, the twenty-fourth, he collected fifty dollars in gold from the Montgomery & West Point Railroad Co., and then, on Thursday, November 28, 1861, left town, arriving in Atlanta the same day.220

In Atlanta, Alvin “remained six days, visiting camps, etc.” His second day there he collected one hundred dollars in gold from the Atlanta & West Point Railroad Co., and the day after that fifty dollars from the Western & Atlantic Railroad Co.221

On Wednesday, December 4, Alvin left Atlanta bound for Macon. “Arrived same day at 7.30 p.m. Remained 1 day, conversing with RR men, etc.” During his short stay there he managed to collect one hundred dollars in gold from the Macon & Western Railroad Co.222

“Arrived at Columbus, Ga., Dec. 6th, at 7.15 p.m.” The South-­Western Railroad passenger train would leave Macon at 1:30 a.m. and arrive at Columbus at 7:13 a.m. 223

In Columbus, he “remained 4 days, visiting manufactories, camps, etc.”224

On Tuesday, the tenth, Alvin left Columbus bound for Savannah, Georgia, where, the next day, he and Annie checked into the upstairs room at the Gibbons House Hotel. There W. Alvin Lloyd’s fate awaited him at the hard hand of a Confederate colonel, a powerful Mason, puritanical and punitive, an enemy in gray.225