Grave Suspicions
If Lloyd relived his agonies, his fears of being convicted and hanged, the times when no one could or would save him except a kind doctor who’d taken pity on his plight—and the young wife who’d stayed by his side—had the man he’d been, the man he was now, had he changed at all? And if he wept with relief when the day he’d longed for arrived, there was no fanfare, no music in the terse orders, the few lines on paper that set him free.
Order 427, Head Qrs, Dept. Georgia, Savannah. Sept. 14/62. Lt. Col. George R. Hunter, Cmdg at Macon, Georgia, will at once release from confinement and arrest, Mr. Lloyd, a political prisoner, placed there by orders of these Hd. Quarters. By order of Brig Genl Mercer.282
Exactly nine months after he was taken into custody in Savannah, “In obedience to special order from Brig Genl Mercer commanding this military department, Col. R. Hunter, Lt. Col & commandant of post, Mr. W. Alvin Lloyd, a political prisoner detained in custody by his order, is hereby released and honorably discharged from custody and set at liberty.” An honorable discharge. It appears there were no caveats and no additional restrictions.283
But during a cross-examination in 1872, when Lloyd’s estate was trying to collect the remainder of his claim, Alphabetical Boyd was asked this question, “When was Lloyd discharged from prison finally?”
“I don’t know that he was ever discharged finally,” he answered. “He was discharged with a paper of surveillance with orders to report at Richmond—in the fall of 1862.”
“Where was he when he got this paper of surveillance?”
“At Macon, Ga.”
“Were you at Macon when he was discharged?”
“Yes, Sir.”
That was not possible. On September 1, 1862, at Jaspers, Alabama, T. S. Boyd enlisted as a private in Company B of the 13th Alabama Battalion, an outfit known as the Partisan Rangers. On October 1, Private Boyd deserted, never to be seen again. Might this T. S. Boyd have been a different man? No. There can be no doubt that this is T. H. S. Boyd—our man. The following year Alphabetical was in Richmond, and on April 30, in an unsuccessful job-seeking letter that he wrote to Secretary of the Treasury Christopher Memminger, he included the following in his resume: “Having been in action in the field since the commencement of the war as First Lieut of Read’s Artillery, afterwards as Capt of Partisan Rangers in the west, when I contracted a painfull Rheumatism, from exposure, compelling me to resign.”284
However, as for Alvin’s “honorable release” document, there can be no reason to doubt its authenticity. It is extant. Its authenticity was not questioned by the US War Department when their lawyers came to study it in 1865. But was Lloyd on parole, as Dr. King seemed to think, or truly “set at liberty?” Under surveillance, according to Boyd? It is fact that the Confederate authorities had to let Lloyd go for lack of proof. They may have communicated with authorities in Richmond, especially General Winder. But would Alvin stay away from Richmond, from any town where he’d caused a ruckus, been under suspicion, defrauded minstrels, stolen a wife, or bilked a business? Certainly not. He was back, back on the rails. The belching, billowing engines, the whistles, the coal smoke and wood smoke, were his freedom, his necessary as he had been locked away, far from the tracks that carried him everywhere.
On September 24, 1862, Alvin, Virginia, and Clarence left Macon together on the Central Railroad. After 111 miles and almost eight hours on the train, they arrived at Millen, Georgia, where they transferred to the Augusta & Savannah Railroad to take them the fifty miles remaining up to Augusta, to Virginia’s friends and relations, where Alvin might recuperate. It was the first time in almost a year that Virginia and Clarence, that anyone outside Macon or Savannah, had seen Alvin outside the confines of captivity.285
After four days he left his family in Augusta and “arrived at Richmond on Wednesday night, Oct. 1. All the hotels being full, went to a private boarding house on Grace St., near 9th. Remained until Thursday morning. Procured a room at the Exchange Hotel.”286
But here Boyd, seven years later, must intrude: According to his 1872 testimony, it was in October that Alvin, being still on parole, reported to General Winder in Richmond. Boyd was very sure of this: “Yes, it was in the fall.” It had been on March 1, 1862, while Alvin was in prison in Savannah, that General John H. Winder had been appointed Provost Marshal General of Richmond. Now he would surely know Alvin Lloyd was back in town and did not seek to detain him.
But in Alvin’s 1865 claim, he says he “remained [in Richmond] 7 days, visiting and taking plans of the fortifications, etc, etc.” This, of course, is not true. It is calculated, “proof” to the US War Department that even after his imprisonment, his infirmities, he had been an indefatigable Yankee spy, risking everything.
The truth is far more prosaic: He left Richmond at 6:00 p.m., on Thursday, October 9, in company with Nellie Dooley, his wife’s maid. Nellie would say in her 1865 deposition that the Lloyds had not employed her during the nine months of Alvin’s imprisonment. Where she was and what she was doing during that period is not stated. However, she was almost certainly in Richmond, Petersburg, or Lynchburg.
“Arrived at Lynchburg Friday morning, October 10th, at 3½ o’clock. No room. I met my true friend Jno. Robin McDaniel, who had loaned me money during my imprisonment at Savannah and Macon,” Alvin wrote.
But when Nellie Dooley gave her deposition in 1865, she said October was the month she left Lynchburg for the lines, carrying a letter for personal hand delivery to Abraham Lincoln. She claimed she got as far as Richmond before being turned back by pickets, and had to return the letter—unopened, of course—to her employer in Lynchburg. However, according to Alphabetical Boyd he now took over the dangerous chore, and, with the letter by now expanded to a package, succeeded in getting back across the lines, where he met his brother Charles C. Boyd, then a Union soldier stationed in Washington, DC.
The two of them went to see Mr. Lincoln on October 20, according to Alphabetical’s June 3, 1865, deposition. However, Charles Boyd says, in 1872: “It was sometime in November 1862 that I went with my brother to see the President.” Charlie was now a willing participant in the fraud. “At the time I went with my brother to the President, the President gave him $250. The President seemed very much pleased at the information.” With fictions piled upon fictions, contradictions abounding, there is a sense of being trapped in a circus fun-house mirror of old. That is why truths, microscopic and often mundane, must be extracted.
For example and in truth, Alvin left Lynchburg on October 10, and on Saturday, the eleventh, arrived at Petersburg, leaving there the following day. On Monday, October 13, he “arrived at Augusta with my little boy’s nurse Ellen Dooley.” He would leave her there with his family.
Four days later, on October 17, Alvin left Augusta, and the following day arrived at Columbia, leaving there on Wednesday the twenty-second, at 5:15 p.m., bound for Charleston. He was on the move again, alone. He arrived in Charleston at 2:30 a.m. on October 23, and, of course, Alvin claims that he spied. He “remained 2 days, visiting defenses, gunboats, etc, etc.” He left Charleston at eight-fifteen the night of Saturday, October 25, 1862, and arrived back in Columbia the same day. Alvin “visited Alexanders and Glazes Foundrys & machine shops doing work for the rebels . . . also the camps, etc.” Alexander’s, and Glaze & Shields, were two separate foundries in Columbia.
At 8:00 a.m., on the twenty-sixth, he left Columbia, and arrived at Charlotte, just across the North Carolina line, at 3:30 p.m. He was out of Charlotte that evening, he claims, but where was he bound? In his concocted testimony he says he went to Goldsboro, North Carolina, arriving there on the twenty-seventh. “Remained two days, visiting usual places.” He claims he went on from Goldsboro to Wilmington, on the Carolina coast, arriving there on Friday, October 31, and that he “remained 3 days, visited forts, defenses, etc, etc.” Leaving there on November 2, he arrived at Richmond the next day. But this is another fiction so he could assert that he was spying on the Atlantic defenses. The truth is, he never went to Goldsboro or Wilmington. He left Charlotte heading to Richmond, and was in Richmond by the last day of the month. The next five days he was back and forth the twenty-two miles between the capital and Petersburg.287
Under the heading of 1862, in his original diary, he included the following rather odd notations:
Receipts in Petersburg, Va., 1861.
Nov. 1st, Petersburg RR—$100;
Lynch & Callender (Factory)—$50;
Thos. Calligan (Foundry)—$25;
Nov. 5th, 1861—Mechanics Cotton Factory—$12.50;
Nov. 5th, 1861, South Side RR—$100.
Receipts in Richmond, Va.
Nov. 3rd 1861: Crenshaw & Co. (Factory)—$50;
Va. Central RR—$100;
Richmond & Petersburg RR—$50;
Nov. 4th, 1861: Richmond & Danville RR—$100.288
At first glance it would seem Lloyd had simply listed his 1861 receipts under the wrong year, or perhaps wrote 1861 when he should have written 1862. An honest mistake, perhaps? But no. It is all part of the lie. This rigorous timekeeper, this schedule-obsessed man, would never have confused early November 1862 with early November 1861, as the latter was precisely when he was busy marrying the actress Annie Taylor three times in Louisiana.
Then the original diary entry continues: “Left Richmond, Va., on Wednesday morning, Nov. 5th/62, at 4.15 o’clock, for Petersburg. Arrived at 6 a.m.” However, his redone entry, and he must emphasize how imperiled he is again, reads: “Remained 2 days,” and he then claims he left Richmond on the fourth, “and dodged the detectives who were ordered to arrest me. Walked over Mayo’s Bridge. Remained in Manchester all night.” Next morning, Wednesday, November 5, 1862, he “took the cars going at full speed.” He “arrived at Petersburg at 7 a.m. Nov. 5th.”
Another original diary entry reports his arrival in Petersburg: “Was placed under arrest & paroled until ‘Pannill,’ the ProvoMarshall could telegraph to & get a reply from Genl Jno H. Winder at Richmond. The dispatch from Genl Winder came at 12 o’clock, ordering my confinement. I was then put under arrest at 8½ pm, Wednesday, Nov. 5/62.”
At Petersburg, for the 1865 claim Alvin said he “was arrested on orders from Genl Winder at Richmond, by the Provost Marshal—Pannill—of Petersburg. My baggage and person searched, but nothing found upon to order me to prison.” He continues: “I was set at liberty next day, Nov. 6th 62.” He then left for Lynchburg at 5:00 p.m.289
This account differs somewhat from the very detailed one given by Virginia, who claimed, “On or about the 5th of November 1862, she received a note from her husband, who was in Manchester, directing her to take the cars for Lynchburg on the next morning [the sixth] in order to avoid the rebel detectives; that she did so, and was joined by him at Burkeville, Va.” Burkeville was fifty-three miles down the Richmond & Danville line, and was the junction where one picked up the Southern RR train going to Lynchburg.290
On Friday, November 7, 1862, Alvin and his entourage were back in Lynchburg. Or, as Alphabetical Boyd says, under oath in 1872, “Mr Lloyd received from Mr. John Robin McDaniel of Lynchburg, Va., $500 in gold, $1000 Confederate money, and gave as security Mrs. Lloyd’s diamonds and furs and jewelry, including watches. Owing to the strict surveillance of the rebel detectives, he gave up the idea of returning North, and went to Richmond.”291
The resumption of his precious guide was of critical importance to Alvin. It was what he’d done before and knew how to do. It was the only way he could have made money so that even if he did consider fleeing the South, he had nothing left anywhere.
In Lynchburg, Alvin reported that “I was again arrested by the detective sent on my track from Richmond by Genl Winder, who, with the asst Provo Marshal of Lynchburg searched my baggage and person, as well as that of my wife (see Provost Marshal’s discharge dated Lynchburg, Nov 9th, 1862). The directors of the Va. and Tenn. Railroad censured Thos. Dodamead for advertising in my Guide, stating that Lloyd was an abolitionist and the road would never patronize Lloyd or any other Yankee.”292
Of this departure, in 1865, Alvin says, “Left Lynchburg in charge of Winder’s detectives, Nov. 8th, 1862,” and “arrived in Richmond same day.”293
Richmond: The Confederate capital was a disturbed and disturbing mix of inhumane prisons bulging with Union captives, roaming bands of thugs, men and women—black and white—arbitrarily jailed for treason, but rarely tried. Alvin “was taken before General Winder.” Alvin’s 1865 expense sheet reads: “Nov. 1862. $100 amt paid to Genl John H. Winder to discharge me from imprisonment and observation. See Discharge Nov. 11th 1862 (Paid in gold).”294 The important thing here to note is this: Lloyd was never imprisoned in Richmond, as he later claimed.
The discharge, dated November 11, 1862, reads: “Having had W. Alvin Lloyd under observation and having carefully and thoroughly examined with his case, and having made a thorough examination of his papers, I am unable to discover anything to reflect upon his loyalty to the Southern states, and I therefore discharge him from further observation. John Winder.”295
Imagine Alvin’s relief as he bribed his way out of a potential disaster, surely remembering the fate of Union spy Timothy Webster: exposed, captured, charged, tried, convicted, and hanged. This seems to be the month that Lloyd would later claim was when he paid one hundred dollars in gold to Winder, as well as money for a new suit, groceries, and other bribes. Part of Lloyd’s later expense account was for the new custom-tailored dress uniform for Winder. Boyd claims he was present when the general was being measured for it. It is true that Winder’s extreme vanity, his puffery and pomp, made him vulnerable to flattery.
Elizabeth Van Lew, the head of “Richmond’s Unionist underground,” boasted of her ability to flatter Winder into allowing her to visit Union prisoners. In the guise of a well-meaning, food-bearing, charitable eccentric, Van Lew would frequently receive critical intelligence from these prisoners that she would encrypt and transmit to her ring of spies. And if she learned that a captive soldier was going to be released or exchanged, she would slip dispatches to them that were meant for Federal authorities. She remained undetected until well after the war. Had Winder learned of her activities, she would have been hanged.296
In addition to Winder’s vulnerabilities, rumors were rife in the South that he drank excessively, was brutish to all but Marylanders, employed his thuggish detectives to brutalize citizens without due process, and habitually received bribes.
Lloyd charged the US government for expenses incurred while in Winder’s keep. His 1865 expense account includes the following two items, their dates of application being suitably vague—1862, 1863, and 1864: “$200—amount paid to Genl John H. Winder in Virginia during the years 1862, 1863, and 1864, to [illegible] him” and “$125—amount paid to Holt Richeson [actually Richardson], etc, Richmond, Va., for suit of clothes for Genl John H. Winder, being $1200 in rebel money, being equal to $125.00.”297
The Richardson suit affair is puzzling. Alvin, and this is in character for him, didn’t pay Mr. Richardson. Of record is a copy of the second half of a mild dunning letter to Alvin from W. Holt Richardson (the first half is not extant, and that’s unfortunate, as it would give the date). The fragment begins, “is to be had. So far I have not been able to get a peas [sic] that I thought would suit you. We are haveing Stearing times now. So far we have been successful.” He continues: “Thinking that you might not be able to get back to Richmond for some time to come, as The Rode is so taken up with troops.” Now comes the dun: “As money is very scarce and time very dull, I thought I would ask the favour of you to send by Express the amt you owe us, unless you think you can return soon. Yours truly, W. Holt Richardson & Co.” The creditor, in totting up his bill, says, “Genl Winder’s bill—$1200, Byds—$420.” Making a total of $1,620 due. It is not known who or what “Byds” is.298
Ever unfaithful to the truth, Boyd reports what Totten has instructed him to say about Lloyd’s clandestine activities in Richmond. “While in Richmond, he visited the various departments, and collected some valuable information as to the coming campaign of the rebel armies in the Gulf states. This was the latter part of November 1862. He gave me the dispatches to deliver to Mr. Lincoln, which I did, coming by way of Southwestern Virginia and Kanawha Valley.”299
“I met my brother in Washington,” continues Boyd, “and in his company delivered the dispatches to Mr. Lincoln. I returned to Richmond.”300
Apart from these impossibilities, in fact, Alvin embarked on another journey. He was truly and legitimately in the “land of cotton,” rocketing though tiny towns with astonishing speed. The cotton and woolen mills of the South, especially those of North Carolina and Georgia, were drafted for the cause, and became almost exclusively workhouses for the production of war supplies and goods no longer obtainable from outside the Confederacy. The thirty-nine cotton mills and nine woolen mills in the Tar Heel State, for example, sent everything they made to Raleigh, and, indeed, that state, especially the Piedmont area, with its many waterways and its cheap labor, was the only one that clothed its own troops—and the state had forty regiments to provide uniforms for. So, the mills of both states were of critical importance.
Alvin knew his factories, and, despite Alphabetical Boyd saying Alvin was spying in Richmond in the latter part of November, he set out from the Confederate capital with Virginia, Clarence, and Nellie on November 15 to make a tour of these establishments, selling ads for his upcoming edition, whenever that would be. As compensation for the uncertainty, and for paying cash up front, his customers would be guaranteed two editions for the price of one. It was a hard sell, but Alvin was a hard salesman, and most of the factories went along with the idea even though his first new edition hadn’t even come out yet. In fact, he had no idea when it would come out. As it happened, it was May 1863, from Richmond. That first edition of the “New Series” is not extant, but the one from June is, and as proof, there are ads for most of these people he visited in his whirlwind mill tour of 1862–1863.301
With his family in tow accompanying him on yet another arduous journey, his first stop was Columbia, South Carolina. He arrived there at six o’clock at night on Friday, November 21, 1862. Witness a man, perhaps for the first time in his life, perhaps by choice or though misfortune, taking some responsibility for his family. “My little boy Clarence was taken sick. Remained 5 days,” he writes. And stops. They left Columbia on Monday, the twenty-fourth, on the South Carolina Rail Road, and the following day arrived at Augusta, Georgia, where Virginia, as usual, would stay for a while.302
From December 3, 1862, in rapid order he was in one town and then another, like a machine. He carefully chronicled all these stops throughout his tours, these rapid runs through the heart of Georgia. This tour to obtain revenue is the reason he needed a pass from President Lincoln to go south. And there is no reason to disbelieve this fast-moving money grab, as most of the ads do appear in the extant issues of his guide. Remembering that he was recently incarcerated, his complete recovery from the illness that apparently plagued him is apparent. Here was a man of fierce drive and nearly superhuman energy. Often these factories he visited, these mills, would be out beyond urban limits, because originally, when they were built, it was of paramount importance to have the mill right in the middle of the cotton fields, to expedite flow from the enslaved cotton pickers to the manufacturer.
As 1863 dawned, Alvin sped through Georgia, past hundreds upon hundreds of slaves laboring in the cotton fields—and though the Confederate states would summarily ignore and defy this momentous event, on January 1, 1863, President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was issued, declaring “that all persons held as slaves within the rebellious states are, and henceforward shall be free.” Though many slaves fled—or tried to flee and were caught, punished, or killed—the plantation owners, the cotton kings, the entire industry remained, though altered. Moderately.
Finally, on January 3, Alvin was able to place an ad in the Charleston Courier for his guide: “Presidents, Superintendents, Officers of Railroads, are requested to send the latest schedules to W. Alvin Lloyd, Richmond, who desires and intends to issue immediately his new issue of the Southern Steamboat and Railroad Guide.”303 Now he couldn’t, wouldn’t stop. Sunday, January 4, found Alvin riding the cars out of Columbus bound for North Carolina.
One of the features in Alvin’s Railroad Guide about this time was “a list of all the cotton and woolen factories in the Confederacy, with names of proprietors and post office of each factory”—useful information for his readers but never intended to provide intelligence to the Union. These factories and their owners were well known. Alvin Lloyd’s entire cotton factory tour was strictly to collect revenue, nothing more.
Lloyd left Alamance on February 1, 1863, bound for Wilmington, North Carolina, where he arrived on the third. Although he doesn’t mention this, Alvin was probably taking a week at the beach to rest and care for his ailing little son.304
But he must later fictionalize this visit. After all, he must prove to the Federal authorities that he’d never stopped spying. “Visited the forts, camps, etc.” is all he says of this week on the coast. He and the family left Wilmington on Sunday, February 8, and “arrived in Richmond Feby 10th. Remained 20 days.”305
Lloyd slipped from view over this period. Most likely he was resting again. Nearly a month later, he left Richmond on Monday, March 2, 1863, and headed for Petersburg, arriving there the following day. On the fourth he left Petersburg, and on Thursday the fifth of March arrived in Salem, Virginia, near Roanoke. “Remained 7 days.”
It was during this time that Boyd claimed, “I next met Lloyd in Salem, Roanoke Co., Va., and accompanied him to Salisbury, N.C. Lloyd then traveled all over North Carolina and Georgia, and visited all the cotton and woolen factories in those states, and made a report of their hands, capacity, and quantity of cloth manufactured. This was in Jan’y, February, March and April of 1863. I was with him a portion of the time, about three weeks.”306
Lloyd left Salem, Virginia, on Thursday, March 12, 1863, and the next day was in Farmville. “Remained 1 day.” He “arrived at Whites & Blacks S.S. RR Station, March 15th.” He means Blacks & Whites—today’s Blackstone—in Nottaway County, equidistant between the towns of Wellville and Nottoway, and fifty miles southwest of Richmond. The station was on the Southside Railroad. “Remained 6 days.” He left Blacks & Whites on Saturday, March 21, and arrived at Petersburg the same day.307
On Sunday we find him in Raleigh. “Remained 9 days.” Close to midnight on Thursday, April 2, 1863, according to Boyd, the quartet left the state capital going west on the North Carolina Railroad. Here Alphabetical Boyd’s time with Lloyd was up, he claimed. As for Boyd’s accompanying Lloyd from Salem, Virginia to Salisbury, North Carolina, there is no mention of this in Lloyd’s Enclosure 13, nor is there any mention of Salisbury, and nothing about Boyd.308
Early in the morning Alvin pulled into Durham Station, twenty-six miles down the track. “Remained 15 days.” Durham, like many other towns in North Carolina, had been somewhat divided in its views on secession, and was still that way when Alvin arrived there. Here poor whites and poor free blacks lived cheek by jowl, working their small plots. Here, at Durham, was the old Bennett Place, where General William T. Sherman would accept General Joseph Johnston’s surrender on April 26, 1865.309
The Lloyd group were back on the North Carolina Railroad on April 18, and 128 miles later, pulled into Concord the following day, Sunday, April 19. “Remained 17 days.” Alvin took time out from his family to go and visit the town’s steam cotton mill.310
On Tuesday, May 5, 1863, Alvin was out of Concord and “arrived at Richmond” the next day. Finally, finally, and after this astonishing dash through the cotton lands, he had the ads and the content for a new publication. Lloyd’s Southern Railroad Guide, New Series Number 1, Volume 1, came out in early May of 1863, printed in handsome style by Messrs. George P. Evans of the Whig building, in Richmond. No more steamboats. The first guide since Old Series Vol. 8 No. 2 that had been issued as far back as February 1861. On May 7, 1863, Alvin Lloyd proudly dropped a copy of his new guide on the desk of the editor of his landlords, the Richmond Whig, and the following day left town. It would be eight months before he got back to Richmond, and then under very different circumstances.311
On Tuesday the twelfth of May 1863, W. Alvin Lloyd was back in Concord, North Carolina. The next day Virginia, Clarence, and Nellie returned to Augusta, while Alvin left town alone in the other direction, heading for Mobile, where not so long ago he’d wooed and won the young actress Annie Taylor. This mission to Mobile was different. His guide was to be published there. And that guide, his mouthpiece, was the bull’s-eye on his back.