When William A. returned to Alcatraz, the same kind of deserters and Union soldier-misfits he’d left behind before he was posted to the front were now in his keep. The Sacramento Daily Union reported on May 3, 1862, that at Alcatraz, “six members of the Fourth Regiment” were found guilty of desertion “and threats to kill officers.” They were sentenced for a period of a few months to a year of hard labor, the worst offenders being made to drag about a “twelve pound ball and chain” and subject to having their “heads shaved upon discharge.”1
The San Francisco Bulletin of June 12, 1862, expressing pride in the splendid and well-armed island, reported, “There are in garrison at Fort Alcatraz about one hundred artillerymen, and the Island is well stocked with ammunition and cannon. Upon the top of the Island are two eight-inch siege guns, the longest on the coast. There are also two ten-inch Columbiads, which are the largest on this side of the continent, and any number of smaller cannon of various denominations. One of these big Columbiads points at the Golden Gate, the other at Angel Island.”2 Soon secessionists would have more to fear than the forbidding sight of cannon in the distance. On August 8, 1862, the president ordered the secretary of state to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and thus allow army officials and chiefs of police to arbitrarily arrest people for “any other disloyal practice.” The orders came by boat and did not reach San Francisco until September 8.3
Gen. George Wright, the reluctant commander of the Department of the Pacific, which “merged the military departments of California and Oregon,” hungered to go to the front and was bitterly disappointed to learn he would command the department and remain in California. He wrote to his brother-in-law, General Sumner, however, that he could not “decline . . . this appointment without sacrificing all my future prospects. I love my country . . . I love the Union.” And in a portentous echo of what would befall William A. if he abandoned his post, he wrote that there was “no personal injustice . . . or victimization” that would cause him to decline his new position.4
When Wright received his appointment, he was nearing sixty and had a thirty-nine-year career as an infantry officer behind him. He had entered West Point at the age of fourteen and later evolved into a brutal and infamous Indian fighter in the Pacific Northwest, his campaigns “devolving into a bloody and vindictive march featuring hangings, [the slaughter of seven hundred horses], burned villages, lies and coercion.” His actions “did permanently suppress the region’s native people, and settlers appreciated his effectiveness.”5
Defense of the Union was now his mission. He vowed to purge California of civilians deemed probable and known secessionists-turned-supporters of the Confederate cause.
*
The Confederate cause was of course active, vocal, and persistent and deadly in William A.’s own family. On August 9, 1862, his cousin, Gen. Charles S. Winder, was killed in the Battle of Cedar Mountain while leading the famous Stonewall Brigade. He was proclaimed a hero despite his reputation as a martinet hated by his own men. There was even a rumor of assassination by his own troops when he was killed instantly. On August 14 the Sacramento Union reported that the “rebel general Winder” had been killed.6
Confusion sometimes reigned in press reports, as there were in fact two rebel General Winders: John H. and Charles S. And there was also William A.’s civilian uncle, Charles H. Winder. But this time there was no mistake.
After lying in state in the Confederate capitol building in a closed coffin, as the condition of his body was not fit for the many mourners to view, “the remains of the late Brig. Gen. C. S. Winder, commander of the Stonewall Brigade, were interred yesterday evening in Hollywood Cemetery,” the Richmond Dispatch reported. “Up to 4 o’clock they were deposited in the old Senate Chamber of Virginia, the coffin being enveloped in the flags of Maryland and the Southern Confederacy.”7
Perhaps William A. mourned the man he’d known from childhood, once a friendly sort whose prewar diaries read like weather reports—gleeful in describing sunny mornings or morose when rain threatened so many of his days aboard one ship or another. Now the two cousins who had survived the wreck of the San Francisco and were commended for their valor aboard the ship would never see each other again. But because the violent tear in the family fabric was becoming larger and more permanent, it is impossible to say with certainty if the death of William A.’s cousin was a personal trauma or nothing more significant than any other enemy casualty of war.
*
But William A., whether mourning his cousin or not, had a job to do, an island to protect, and rebels to punish. With summer bleeding into early September, by the eighth day of the month, with speed and determination even though it was not yet officially mandated as to how to handle seditious civilians, General Wright ordered the erection of a prison at Alcatraz Island to house Confederate sympathizers and “further allowed such persons to be brought before a military tribunal without habeas corpus.”8
General Wright exulted that “open-mouthed traitors” were now beyond the reach of civil authorities.9 Winder agreed and urgently recommended the construction of a separate prison building, as seen in his well-reasoned and urgent letter of September 10 to Maj. Richard Coulter Drum, the assistant adjutant general of the army.
“In view of the existing difficulties at home and the threatening aspect of our foreign affairs,” Winder, as commander of “this all-important post,” wrote that the caponier “at the entrance of the fortification, defending the approach from the wharf[,] is occupied by guards and prisoners.”10 Worse, “the earliest prisoners found themselves confined in the bare basement cell room of the guardhouse . . . and had to be housed in one of the howitzer rooms flanking the sally port.” They were beset by illness, cold, insects, lack of sanitation, and no running water, “sleeping head to toe on pallets on the stone floors of the dungeon.”11
Sympathetic to the plight of the prisoners and concerned about security, William A. said the overcrowding made it impossible to properly mount the howitzers so vitally needed for the defense of the island.
Drum, however, seemed unconcerned about prisoners and fully focused on his official orders: “The order of the President suspending the writ of habeas corpus and directing the arrest of all persons guilty of disloyal practices will be rigidly enforced. Those of them who are leading secessionists will be confined at Alcatraz.”12
With no need to produce a living body to face charges before a court, Wright’s Pacific Department had new powers never before granted. The “open-mouthed traitors” he’d earlier promised would be met with swift prosecution were now legitimate targets. The Sacramento Daily Union edition of September 13 elaborated: “General Wright . . . at his earliest opportunity will appoint a military Commission, to consist of three officers, who will take cognizance of all cases of arrests for disloyalty under the recent orders from Washington, which are intended particularly to meet the case of rebels who have lately emigrated from the Atlantic States. The decision of the Commission will be without appeal to the Courts.”13
That same day the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin ran a story with much the same information, saying that there would be “immediate construction on Alcatraz Island of a prison for political offenders,” and “if stringently enforced [the order] would make disloyalty in California . . . shrink into retirement.” Wright’s “great power rests in judicious hands,” the article stated, before dropping a news bombshell. Offering no explanation for its precipitous scoop, the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin reported that “Captain Winder of that post [Alcatraz] has been relieved, and is succeeded by Captain Black.”14
Proof of that news is the letter that Drum wrote to Lt. Colonel Caleb Chase Sibley, the commander of the Ninth Infantry, at his headquarters at the Presidio on September 12. He also ordered “a true copy” delivered to William A. that same day. Because Drum did not write directly to William A., the news was a great humiliation, without any associated explanation. But it was an order—to Sibley, not William A.: “Sir: Captain Black’s company (9th Infantry) will be in readiness to embark from Fort Point Wharf tomorrow at 11 O’clock a.m. to proceed to and take post at Alcatraz Island; the command of which Captain Black will assume.”15 This meant that William A., an artillery captain, would be superseded by an infantry captain who was ordered to take command of the island away from him. Capt. Henry Moore Black, originally commander of Fort Vancouver in the Washington Territory, was in the wings, “at garrison in San Francisco, awaiting orders.”16
It is likely that this assignment would have baffled Captain Black. Alcatraz was strictly an artillery post. What could have prompted this hasty, demeaning, and disturbing order?
The Sacramento Daily Union, clearly privy to information from an official unnamed source, had an answer: “San Francisco, Sept. 13th. Captain Winder, late of Fort Alcatraz, is under the ban of suspicion as to his loyalty, though it appears no charges have been made against him.”17 No charges but a ban of suspicion. The meaning was unclear. No explanation was given.
By sunrise the next day Capt. Henry M. Black’s Company G of the Ninth Infantry had arrived at Alcatraz to take command of the post. Outraged, William A. wrote to Assistant Adjutant General Drum on September 14, 1862, about the extreme action taken by General Wright: “I have the honor to enclose herewith a slip cut from the Sacramento Union of the 13th, instant [referring to the ban of suspicion], the result of the position in which I have been placed by the act of the General commanding [Wright]. If there is any truth in the statements contained in this paragraph,” William A. wrote, “I respectfully request that the matter may be fully investigated before a military tribunal—if not, I am compelled to request an unqualified denial of it.” With anguish apparent, he continued: “I cannot believe, for an instant, that it is the intention of the Commanding General to place an officer who has proved his loyalty to the entire satisfaction of the authorities at Washington, from the President down, in so cruel and false a position without even an investigation[.] I earnestly request immediate action in this matter. I am sir, your obt svt Wm A. Winder Capt. 3. Arty.”18
This was no faraway shipwreck, no near drowning, no gasping for air as an angry sea nearly washed him away when he was much younger. These were the storm clouds hovering, near to bursting, that had followed him from New York along the Atlantic, into the Pacific with his family in tow, with no sailor’s red sky warning, no sound of thunder.
No record exists of any military tribunal or even a formal military investigation. Again a newspaper appeared to settle the issue. “Disloyalty Disproven,” the Daily Alta California bulleted. “As is generally known, Captain Winder has lately been superseded as Commander at Fort Alcatraz, by Captain Black. Thereupon the correspondent of the Union hinted at the disloyalty of the supplanted officer.” And there it was again—the inescapable taint: “It is known that Captain Winder is of Southern birth, but his earnest cooperation, in so far as we have been informed, has hitherto been relied upon by the Federal Government in aiding the suppression of the rebellion.”19
Guilty of southern birth, and the qualifying “so far as we have been informed.” What did that signify? Fortunately for William A. and the many readers of the Daily Alta California, there was more. “In relation to the question of disloyalty,” the article stated, “we herewith subjoin a copy of a communication addressed by the Assistant Adjutant-General to Capt. Winder.” The text of the letter was as follows:
Headquarters of the Department of the Pacific. San Francisco, Cal., Sept 15, 1862.
[To] Capt. Wm. A. Winder. 3d Artillery through Commanding Officer, Fort Alcatraz.
Sir: Your letter of yesterday, enclosing a slip from the Sacramento Union, stating that suspicions are entertained as to your loyalty to the General Government, having been submitted to the General Commanding the Department, I am entrusted to say, in reply, that so far as these Headquarters are concerned, no such suspicions have been entertained.
Very Respectfully, Your ob’t serv’t,
Richard C. Drum, Asst. Adj.-Gen.20
Somehow the newspaper had gotten hold of and copied out this official communication from Assistant Adjutant General Drum to William A. In all probability it should be assumed that William A. got the letter the same day the Daily Alta California did. Many official reports and letters came to Alcatraz from San Francisco, but in order to get the letter straight to William A. at Alcatraz, a messenger from the Department of the Pacific taking the one-and-a-half-mile, roughly fifteen-minute boat trip straight to the island to deliver the missive is a likely scenario.
Drum’s profession of faith in William A. Winder’s loyalty might have given him some comfort. But the damage was done, his lot unchanged. He was still frozen in place, superseded by Captain Black.
General Wright would proffer an explanation, a tepid excuse that devolved into a defense of William, but it was not given until 1864 and did little to help William A. during the summer of 1862.
“In the summer of 1862,” Wright wrote, “there was considerable talk in the city of San Francisco in relation to Capt. Winder, growing, I apprehend, out of the fact that his father was in the Rebel Army; and as I wished to increase the force on the island I sent Capt. Black with his company of the 9th Infantry, as he ranked Capt. Winder. I did this with a view to quieting the public mind.” And he added this all-important sentence: “In all the period of Captain Winder’s command of Alcatraz I had never a doubt of his reliability as a faithful officer.”21
Reliable and faithful indeed but not at the front. On the day William A. was perfunctorily absolved of disloyalty, he was a bystander to a most important event. Just before he had lost his command on September 10, he’d made an official request for a much-needed new prison building. From the start of the war, inmates at Alcatraz were confined in harsh and crowded conditions in the guardhouse and were kept in dark basement dungeons, pressed together, sleeping toe to toe on lice-infested straw mattresses, with illnesses spreading, hardly any food, and almost no exercise. It couldn’t last. William A. expressed concern about the conditions at the guardhouse, as well as the safety of the island, in a letter to Assistant Adjutant General Drum. The “caponier . . . defending the approach from the wharf is occupied by the guard and prisoners,” William A. wrote, stating that this impossibly crowded area was threatening the defenses of the island: “The howitzers have never been mounted. . . . I would therefore urge the immediate erection of a building suitable for that purpose.”22
On that very day, completely unknown to William A., and as he was no longer the ranking officer on the island, Assistant Adjutant General Drum addressed an order to Captain Black stating that the “General Commanding the Department [Wright]” had directed that any political prisoners on Alcatraz Island would not be allowed to receive any visitors “unless authorized by the General Commanding.” In addition, “the General commanding the Department directs that you will make immediate arrangements for constructing on the Island of Alcatraz, a building (wooden) suitable for the confinement of political prisoners. All must take the oath of allegiance.”23
This order was exactly what William A. had asked for, but it would be several months before a structure was put in place. Outraged and humiliated, frozen in place, unable to fight at the front or take back his command at Alcatraz, William A. wrote to Assistant Adjutant General Drum. The letter remained stiffly formal. He was an officer, not a belligerent private. It must have been painful to write.
September 28, 1862
Alcatraces Island Cal
Sir
With great reluctance I find myself compelled to appeal from a decision of the General commanding the Department of the Pacific, but a sense of duty to my corps and to myself demands it—I therefore respectfully submit my letter of remonstrance addressed to him, with his endorsement to the General in Chief for his decision. The departure of Major Burton 3rd Artillery for the East, left me in command of this post and according to the customs of service, and all former discipline, I believe myself entitled to retain the command.24
He tries all manner of reasoning, even while Captain Black’s men are fixed in place—no infantry men are needed on the island; in fact their sheer numbers force Winder’s company to sleep in tents. There are “many infantry stations,” so why are there infantry troops on the island? They don’t belong. His position is unjust, “a great personal injustice—and that which has cursed him”—being southern by birth—“the act of the General Commanding, at once gave the impression to the citizens of California that my loyalty was doubted.” He encloses the Sacramento Union squib saying he was “under a ban of suspicion” (quickly retracted, in fact) and cites the “very cruel position in which to place an officer who has given every proof of his earnest desire to support the Government.” He invokes individual rights and demands, “all palpable encouragement to officers of the Army.”25
This letter forms part of a package Winder sent first to Wright, who then forwarded William A.’s correspondence to Lieutenant Colonel Drum along with William A.’s request that he “forward the above to Brigadier General Lorenzo Thomas.”26
*
As William A. agonized over his plight during the months of September and October, rebel supporters became outraged by Lincoln’s preliminary Emancipation Proclamation of September 22, which stated that “the States [in rebellion] . . . may voluntarily adopt . . . immediate or gradual abolishment of slavery.” Emboldened after the Union victory at Antietam—a grim tally of twenty-three thousand dead, wounded, or missing on both sides over a single day—Lincoln had even more reason to demand that the rebels end the fighting and that Wright immediately order the roundup of his so-named “open-mouthed traitors.” Wright had yearned to arrest California secessionist politicians—self-declared colonels and majors who’d made active threats, spouted treasonous sentiments, or headed local militias—and send them to Alcatraz.27 The Daily Alta California on September 16 trumpeted, “First Arrest for Treason in California.” The article stated that “Major R. I. [W. R. Isaacs] Mckay, a notorious secessionist” and former state official, was arrested in Benicia for publicly voicing treasonous sentiments and refusing to take the loyalty oath. “He will be transported to the healthful but breezy atmosphere of Alcatraz Island . . . and chew the bitter end of treason.”28
“This obese man,” the Santa Cruz Weekly Sentinel reported, “was arrested at Benicia, and “loses no occasion to vilify the country which gave him bread.” He refused to take the oath of allegiance, “declaring he would rot in jail first,” and was sent to Alcatraz “to ruminate on the bitter fruits of treason.”29
During September and October there were suppressions of various newspapers known to be overtly secessionist. The Daily Alta California, calling Wright’s decision “a proper subject of publication congratulation,” listed the newspapers that were “excluded from the mails and Express.” That list included the Stockton Argus, Stockton Democrat, San Jose Tribune, Visalia Post, and Visalia Equal Rights Expositor, as well as the Los Angeles Star. “Of course, there will be a howl from the Secessionists about the ‘liberty of the Press.’”30
More arrests followed: “George P. Gillis, Democratic State Central Committee representative from Sacramento . . . E. J. C. (‘Colonel’) Kewen,” Los Angeles Star editor Henry Hamilton, “and state senator Thomas Baker from Visalia.”31
The Daily Alta California of October 11, 1862, announced another arrest, detailing with a bite the “early salt-water trip” to Alcatraz of Maj. John S. Gillis, ruing the fact that “the only regret that loyal men will feel in his case is, that he must now be kept alive at the expense of that Government which he has so long vilified . . . and in a manner that puts to the blush the treasonable tirades of the scurviest soldier in an Arkansas rebel regiment.”32
The Sacramento Daily Union on October 16 announced that, by order of General Wright, Thomas Baker, “Senator elect from Tulare and Fresno counties, was arrested yesterday at San Francisco, for treason, and will be sent to Alcatraz to-day.”33
Several days later the Sacramento Daily Union provided its readers with a discussion of the sentiments that did and would send disloyal men to Alcatraz: “Is it treason to rejoice over rebel victories, to denounce the Administration, to curse the Union, and call every man a d—n Yankee Abolitionist who is in favor of sustaining the Government and defending the national flag?”34
On November 22 Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton issued an order allowing the release of all prisoners in military custody who had taken the oath of allegiance. By December 20 the last political prisoners had left Alcatraz. As one historian notes, “Most took the oath of allegiance quickly, while [anti-Union] newspapers suspended briefly or resumed publishing under new names.”35
*
The same order freed William A.’s uncle, William H. Winder, from Fort Lafayette on November 27. Even as he was several days away from walking out of the prison, he was still railing against the “monarchy, despotism, abolition, or any similar outrage” of the Republican Party and the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. “The sins of this war are already a sufficient stench in the nostrils,” he wrote. “Shall this country, by adoption of the proclamation . . . attach to itself an inextinguishable odor of infamy?”36
William H. Winder remained free for the duration of the war, but “none of his personal possessions were ever returned.” Nor did he ever see his nephew William A. again.37
*
William A.’s spirit, will, and patience were sorely tried in 1862, and he remained frustrated that he could not fight for the Union. Lincoln’s patience with General McClellan was similarly tested, and running out. Mary Lincoln, in a letter to her husband on November 2, 1862, spoke for many who feared an unending struggle and an absurdly intransigent commander who, when his Army of the Potomac had the chance to crush Robert E. Lee’s forces, did not. Mary Lincoln wrote, “They would almost worship you if you would put a fighting general in place of McClellan.”38
By November 5 McClellan was out. Gen. Ambrose Burnside was now in charge of the Army of the Potomac. Rumors that McClellan was no true friend to the Union but a pawn of the Peace Democrats had abounded.
Unimpeachable loyalty endorsed by superiors was paramount for any officer. For William A., a man who was unjustly defamed and who for three months was ordered to stand down from his command on an island that was hardly an enchanted landscape, it suddenly seemed as if a spell had been broken. By December 15 a new order had arrived at the post. By January 1 Winder was back in command of Alcatraz.39