Joseph Evan Davis, died April 30, 1864

Jefferson Davis's third son, Joe, died at five years old as the result of an accidental fall from the east portico of the Confederate White House.  He had celebrated his 5th birthday less than two weeks before his death.

Joseph Evan Davis was born on April 18, 1859 Washington while his father was serving in the Senate. Davis proclaimed his new son "a very fine one" and named the boy for his eldest brother and his grandfather. Varina protested, for she deeply resented Joseph Emory Davis. She confided to her mother, however, that the boy did bear a resemblance to his namesake uncle, which she hoped he would outgrow.

Little Joe was described as exceptionally bright, and he was apparently the best behaved of all of the Davis children. 

But his life ended tragically with a fall from a White House porch on April 30, 1864. Rumors persist that he was pushed by older brother Jeff Jr., but there is no evidence to support this story.

According to contemporary accounts, the accident took place at some point between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m., while neither parent was at home. A servant discovered Joe lying by the pavement onto which he had fallen from a height of about fifteen feet. His sister, Maggie Davis, ran to the neighbors for help, and Jeff Jr. enlisted the aid of two people passing by on the street. One of these men, a Confederate officer, wrote that Joe's "head was contused, and I think his chest much injured internally."

The child apparently died about the time his parents reached the house. His father refused to see visitors and could be heard pacing all night.

Funeral services were held at St. Paul's Episcopal Church on May 1, and Joe was buried at Richmond's Hollywood Cemetery, where the rest of his immediate family would eventually be interred.

On June 4, 1864, President Davis received a letter from Hollywood informing him the lot in which his young son rested, was now his free of charge. The letter went on to state that if the President wished another unsold lot in the cemetery, instead of the one selected under trying circumstances, he was at liberty to exchange. The Davis family chose to exchange lots to what is now known as Davis Circle.

Richmond children collected 40 dollars in May 1866 to buy a monument for their former playmate's grave. 

Young Joseph and his stone were moved to Davis Circle in 1893.

There are no known likenesses of Joseph Evan Davis, in large part due to the scarcity of photographic materials during the war. 

"Madame Restell" (Ann Trow Lohman), 
died April 1, 1878

On the morning of April 1, 1878, a maid discovered Madame Restell in the bathtub at her Fifth Avenue home; she had slit her own throat with a pearl-handled knife. She was sixty-seven years old.

Madame Restell / Ann Trow Lohman

Anthony Comstock had visited Madame Restell two times in January 1878, purportedly to obtain contraceptive powders for his wife. 

Anthony Comstrock

On his third visit on February 7th, he came accompanied by the police, deputies, and reporters from the World and the Tribune.  Under a state law of 1875,  he produced a warrant to search the premises and seize any articles for miscarriage or the prevention of conception. After searching the entire house, they seized what was inventoried as "15 bottles of a ruby-colored medicine, 100 boxes of white pills, 500 packages of powders, 250 circulars, 3 syringes, and 10 dozen condoms."

Illustration of Comstock and Restell on February 7th

Restell was indicted, and her trial date was set for April 1, 1878.

In the interval between her arrest and her trial, on the advice of former judge and attorney Orlando Stewart, she had taken down the sign affixed to her building. In a statement indicating her own role in provoking the attacks upon her, when asked why she was persecuted, she replied, "They are envious because I have such a fine house in such a splendid location."  Through early March, she was in and out of the Tombs as various legal proceedings took place, the court going out of its way to be as punitive and uncompromising as possible as the gleeful press looked on.

Restell's Mansion on Firth Avenue

Although she could afford the best attorneys, Madame Restell was quite alone in the world. Her husband had died in January, 1877.  She was estranged from her daughter, who had married a policeman. Although her granddaughter, Caroline, had been her assistant, she too had married. Madame Restell wasn't assured of escaping imprisonment. The newspapers had a field day, denouncing her on a daily basis and gloating that she was finally going to get her due.

While courtroom observers gathered for the trial on April 1, 1878, they waited in vain. Rumors swept through the courtroom when Restell did not appear at the appointed time. It being April 1st, however, Anthony Comstock, like many others, dismissed rumors of her suicide as a joke.

At 5 PM, a coroner's jury was impaneled in Restell's bedroom adjacent to the bath. In addition to touring the house, reporters were allowed to view the remains which lay in an ice-chest in a small reception room north of the parlor-floor hallway. After hearing testimony, touring the house, and viewing the body, the jury reached a verdict of death by suicide.   When the jury viewed the remains, it was reported "When the black pall was drawn back, Ann Lohman's features seemed calm, kindly, and youthful, her bloodless face white as marble, her dark brown hair faintly tinged with gray, her throat traversed by a thin red line."

The next morning, in addition to detailed descriptions of the sumptuous house interior, the newspapers editorialized.  "A fit ending to an odious career," announced the Times; while the Tribune, declaring the "end of sin is death" labeled her suicide as an admission of guilt.   Only the Sun was generous, "whatever she was, she had her rights, and the man who cunningly led her into the commission of misdemeanor acted an unmanly and ignoble part." 

When Comstock heard of her suicide he called it "a bloody ending to a bloody life." Comstock denied any wrongdoing and justified his entrapment as necessary and defensible. His Society for the Suppression of Vice hailed the closing of her practice and insisted that the Society's agent had in no way seduced Restell into committing a crime.

Madame Restell was buried in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Tarrytown, New York.

Restell's Grave

Upon her death, her fortune was claimed to have been worth between $500,000-$600,000 ($11.9 million-$14.3 million in present-day terms.)

Fitzhugh Lee, died April 28, 1905

In April 1896, Fitzhugh Lee was appointed consul-general at Havana, Cuba by President Grover Cleveland, with duties of a diplomatic and military character added to the usual consular business.  

Grover Cleveland

Lee arrived in June to an island torn by civil war and mass poverty. Three weeks after his arrival he informed the State Department that Cuban rebels did not have the strength to drive the Spanish out, but that the Spanish were equally unable to subdue the rebellion. 

He railed against the Spanish tactics to suppress the rebels and fought for the rights of American citizens in Cuba (including some suspected by the Spanish of aiding the rebels and held captive in Cuba, such as crewmen of the filibustering vessel Competitor, and Dr. Ricardo Ruiz de Ugarrio y Salvador, a naturalized American citizen).

Havana, Cuba

December, 1897 saw more unrest in Havana. While much of the violence was actually caused by the Cuban rebels (often directed toward American-owned sugar plantations), Lee's concern was chiefly the safety of Americans in Cuba, thus causing him to exaggerate the threat he feared from Cubans loyal to Spain. Lee requested a warship be ready in Key West in case violence erupted. 

The Maine

 The Maine was ordered to Florida in January, and Captain Charles Sigsbee maintained steady communication with the consul-general's office. 

Charles Sigsbee

Early that month, the situation appeared to Lee to have taken a turn for the worse. He sent a preliminary signal to Sigsbee, prompting him to ready his ship. Whether Lee felt he had over-estimated the danger or the situation calmed, he never sent a further call.  

William McKinley

President William McKinley and Navy Secretary John Long, however, did order the Maine to Havana.

John Long

Though Lee was unnerved by the Maine's sudden arrival, months later he would recall the arrival as "a beautiful sight and one long to be remembered." Adding to the uncertainty was the prospect of growing German influence in the Caribbean. Proponents of Lee saw his actions as decisive and pro-American, leading to a "splendid little war," while later critics would charge that his misreading of the Cuban situation moved both sides closer to war.

The Maine in Havana Harbor

The Maine arrived in Havana on January 25, 1898. Lee and Sigsbee were treated to a bullfight by hosting Spanish officers as part of the "good will" visit.  Underneath it all, however, was an undeniable tension. One of those who worried about overstaying his welcome was Secretary of Navy Long. Nearly the opposite of his fiery assistant, Theodore Roosevelt, Long openly considered pulling the Maine  out of Cuba.  Both Lee and Sigsbee strongly opposed withdrawing the Maine unless it was relieved by another warship.  "Many will claim Spain demanded it should go," Lee wrote Washington; "We are master of the situation here and I would not disturb or alter it."

Theodore Roosevelt

The explosion of the Maine  on February 15, 1898, killing 266 American sailors, suddenly changed everything. 

While McKinley and Washington moved closer to war by the day, Lee's chief concern was the safety and evacuation of Americans in Cuba. 

 As threats and ultimatums grew more intense, Lee cabled the president for more time, stating that he could not assure the safety of all Americans. 

Wreckage of the Maine

He requested that McKinley delay any statements until at least Saturday, April 9. Under intense pressure McKinley stalled, delaying the message that would lead to war until Monday, April 11, a day after Lee's arrival in Florida.  He was one of the last Americans to evacuate Cuba.

Following his return to a hero's welcome in the U.S., Lee was commissioned major-general of volunteers and assigned the VII Army Corps.  On May 4, 1898, Lee put on a blue uniform for the first time in thirty-seven years.   The appointment was largely political, as McKinley made it a point to place three well known former Confederate general officers in key commands to unite the nation. VII Corps trained in preparation of a major role in a fall offensive, though the war's quick end kept VII Corps from any action. After the war he commanded what amounted to an army of occupation in Havana and was charged with the restoration of order on the island.

Fitzhugh Lee in Uniform

He was military governor of Havana and Pinar del Rio in 1899.  During his two-year stint, he strove to ease the suffering of a people long mired in subjugation and poverty, but his efforts were hampered by his government's lack of a clear-cut plan for Cuba beyond its pacification.

Pinar del Rio

Lee wrote Cuba's Struggle Against Spain (published in 1899).

In November 1900, Lee, frustrated by his inability to influence occupation policy, vacated his post. He completed his military career as commander of the Department of the Missouri, headquartered at Omaha, Nebraska.  Fitzhugh Lee retired a brigadier-general on March 2, 1901. Returning to Virginia, he spent his final years in Charlottesville. 

At the time of his death, during a business trip to Washington, D.C., he was president of the Jamestown Exposition Company, formed to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the settlement of the nation's first permanent English-speaking community.  On a train from New York to Washington, D.C., Lee suffered a stroke involving his left side. A physician, who was traveling with him, administered strychnine. Though Lee was immediately transported to a hospital following his arrival in Washington, he died later that day, April 28, 1905.  He was 69 years old.  

He was survived by his wife of 34 years, Ellen.  His two surviving sons were commissioned into the 7th United States Cavalry; each of his three daughters married officers in their brothers' regiment.

Ellen Lee

He was buried in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia.  

Fitzhugh Lee Monument at Gravesite

At the time of his death, he was hailed as "Our Dear Old Fitz," a celebrated symbol of post-bellum reconciliation.

Lee was buried in his U.S. Army uniform, which caused one ex-Confederate to say "What'll Stonewall think when Fitz turns up in heaven wearing that!"

The Jamestown Exposition was held in Virginia in 1907.

Postcard of Opening Day at the Jamestown Exhibition

Battle of the Merrimac and Monitor 

Negro Building

Hell Gate

Baby Incubators with Living Infants

Destruction of San Francisco

Eastman Johnson, died April 5, 1906

Negro Life at the South is considered Johnson's masterpiece, and many elements have implications and have been interpreted at length.  Although this painting was popularly known as Old Kentucky Home nearly from the beginning, it depicts a scene from Washington, D.C.  The painting is a domestic scene behind a dilapidated house. On the left in the foreground is a couple courting, in the middle there is a banjo player playing while an adult woman dances with a child as others look on. At the right edge, a young white woman in an elegant white dress is gingerly stepping in to a social world that may not be her own. An adult black woman looks out an upstairs window as she steadies a small mulatto child sitting on the partially collapsed roof. The darkest skin belongs to the woman dancing with the child in the middle foreground. This skin color variation may simply be realistic, but it also invites the viewer to contemplate the mixed racial heritage of those portrayed. Several elements hint at or symbolize relations to an unseen wealthier white father -- the mulatto children, the ladder from the Negro quarters up to a larger house next door, and symbolically the rooster high in the tree near the taller house and hen on the Negroes' house roof.  Both proponents and detractors of slavery would sometimes see this painting as supporting their world views, because the Negroes seem cheerful enough but their house was dilapidated.

Negro Life at the South

His only child, Ethel Eastman Johnson, married Alfred Ronalds Conkling (nephew of Senator Roscoe Conkling) in 1896.

Ethel Eastman Johnson Conkling, Painted by her father

On his death in 1906 in New York, Eastman Johnson was buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. 

Johnson's Gravestone

His gravestone describes him simply as “ARTIST” and states “HIS WORKS ARE HIS MONUMENT.”

Josiah Warren, died April 14, 1874

From 1864 to 1869, Josiah Warren resided in Cliftondale, Massachusetts, where he  attempted to establish a mutual town. He then moved back to Boston, where he remained until his death.

In 1872, at the Spring meeting of the New England Labor Reform League in Princeton, Massachusetts, Warren made a striking and lasting impression on a young Benjamin Tucker, a MIT student.

Benjamin Tucker

Warren died on April 14, 1874 in Charlestown at the home of a friend after developing edema.  He was 76 years old.

Charlestown

Services were held at the Bulfinch Place Unitarian Church.

Bulfinch Place Unitarian Church

 Warren was buried at the Mount Auburn Cemetery.

John McLean, died April 4, 1861

"I contemplate the violence, bloodshed, and civil and fraternal war...with mingled emotions of sadness, alarm and mortification."

~ John McLean, 1856


John McLean died a week before the beginning of the Civil War.

Dred Scott

In the 1857 decision on Dred Scott v. Sandford, his strong dissenting views are believed to have forced the hand of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney into a harsher and more polarizing opinion than he originally planned. To the argument that "a colored citizen would not be an agreeable member of society", McLean responded, "This is more a matter of taste than of law." 

Roger B. Taney

McLean, in his dissent to the decision, pointed out Taney's historical error: at the time of the Founding, several states had admitted free persons of the color to the suffrage, thereby recognizing them as citizens. Furthermore, being colored is not and has never been an inherent disqualifier for citizenship; after the Mexican War, the U. S. made citizens of "all grades, combinations, and colors."

According to McLean, neither the Constitution nor the Founders explicitly promoted slavery; rather, slavery was an institution imposed on the colonies by their mother country-and the Founders were careful to guard the Constitution's language against mentions of slavery. Justices McLean and Curtis argued, contra Taney, that every free person born on the soil of a state and who is a citizen of that state is also a citizen of the United States. Furthermore, they defended the Missouri Compromise's constitutionality; it was passed overwhelmingly by Congress and approved as constitutional by the President; until the Dred Scott decision, no one had thought of questioning its constitutionality-for that would also call into question the constitutionality of Congress's first act: the renewal of the Northwest Ordinance and its prohibition on slavery in the Northwest territories.

Because of his anti-slavery-extension positions, he was considered by the new Republican party as a candidate in 1856.  Despite his efforts, the nomination went to John Fremont.  In 1860, he tried again, winning twelve votes on the first ballot at the Republican convention in Chicago; Abraham Lincoln ultimately was nominated.

McLean was in good health until the last two years of his life, when illness sometimes kept him from the bench in both his circuit and on the Supreme Court.  McLean served on the Supreme Court for nearly thirty-two years.

He took cold at the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln on March 4, 1861 and returned to Cincinnati.  He died of pneumonia on April 4, 1861 at his residence in the Clifton neighborhood.  He was 76 years old.

On April 6, more than 50 carriages gathered at the Cincinnati Court House and drove to his funeral in a pouring rain.  He was buried in Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati. 

McLean Monument

 

 

Less than a week later, the bombardment of Fort Sumter began: the first shots of the Civil War.

He was survived by his second wife of 18 years, Sarah Bella Ludlow McLean.

His son, Nathaniel McLean, was a Union general in the Civil War.

Nathaniel McLean

His daughter Evelyn McLean, married Joseph Taylor, another Union general in the war and   brother of U.S.President Zachary Taylor. 

During the war, Camp John McLean, a Union Army training camp in Cincinnati, was named in his honor.