First Death Prize – Confederate retaliation for the deaths of Corbin and McGraw.

    In 1863, Federal general Ambrose Burnside authorized the execution of two Confederates captured in Kentucky. Burnside issued a general order after the capture of the pair, William F. Corbin and Thomas J. McGraw, members of the 4th Kentucky Cavalry who were out recruiting. That order stated that anyone caught in Federal-occupied territory recruiting for the Confederacy “will be tried as spies or traitors, and if convicted will suffer death.” You can read more about that event here.

   Word reached Richmond in mid-May 1863 that Corbin and McGraw had been tried as spies, found guilty, and sentenced to be shot.  By June, newspapers in Richmond were reporting that the pair had been executed. A fellow member of the 4th Kentucky Cavalry wondered that since the United States government claimed “as their boundary the whole of the Confederate States” how could anyone recruit for Confederate service “without subjecting himself to a like treatment in the event of his capture? It is to be inferred that the President sanctioned the act of Gen. Burnside, and that it is quite probable that other commanders will adopt a similar policy. . . If in the great struggle for independence our enemies force us, by such acts, to resort to their barbarous mode of warfare, they will be the responsible party. We must fight our enemies with their own weapons.” 

   The public cried out for some type of reprisal. One Virginia newspaper editor believed that Capt. William P. Kendrick and Capt. Daniel E. Bonham, 3rd Tennessee Cavalry (US) recently captured while recruiting in Tennessee, should meet the same fate as Corbin and McGraw.  Confederate officials were already moving in that direction. On May 22, Robert Ould, chief of the bureau of exchange, sent a letter to his Federal counterpart, Lt. Col. William H. Ludlow, that the Confederate government had selected two Federal prisoners of War to meet the same fate. Northern newspapers, Ould informed Ludlow, reported that five or six Confederate prisoners captured while recruiting had also been condemned to death. “In view of the awful vortex into which things are plunging I give you notice,” Ould wrote,” that in the event of the execution of these persons retaliation to an equal extent at least will be visited upon your own officers, and if that is found ineffectual the number will be increased. The Great Ruler of nations must judge who is responsible for the initiation of this chapter of horrors.” 

   On July 4, 1863, Brig. Gen. John H. Winder issued Special Order 160: Captain T. P. Turner, in charge of the Federal prison in Richmond, was to select two Federal officers by lot for execution. 

Libbry Prison, Richmond, Virginia

   There are conflicting reports as to how the two men were selected. A Richmond newspaper reported that the prisoners, all captains, were “formed in a hollow square around a table” were they were informed of Winder’s order; “A slip of paper, with the name of each man written on it and carefully folded up, was then deposited in a box on the table, and Captain Turner informed the men that they might select who they pleased to draw the names out—the first two names drawn to indicate the men to be shot.”  Many years after the war, a Federal prisoner recalled that on July 6, the imprisoned captains were taken to lower room and informed of the order that two captains were to be selected by lot and executed in retaliation for the execution of Corbin and McGraw. One of the officers present “suggested that a number of white and black beans should be placed in a hat, and that one of the Chaplain prisoners should hold the hat up in the air, and then the captains should step up and draw out a bean, and the first black bean drawn should be the ‘First Death Prize.’ The second black bean drawn should be the ‘Second Death Prize.’” 

   Regardless of the method, the names chosen were Capt. Henry W. Sawyer, 1st New Jersey Cavalry, and Capt. John Flinn, 51st Indiana Infantry. They were taken to Winder’s officer and permitted to write letters, then returned to Libby Prison where they were kept “in close confinement.”  The Official Records actually contain a letter written by Sawyer and Flinn, addressed to Winder, in which they complained that they were being executed for two men Burnside had executed. “Of these persons we know nothing, nor if the circumstances attending them,” the pair wrote. They were not connected to that part of the army, and believed that they should not be punished “for the alleged offenses of any other department of the army than which we served.” Instead, the two members of the Tennessee cavalry regiment should forfeit their lives, or some “other officers of like rank from Burnside’s department.” 

   The post-war article author wrote that the execution was to take place before noon the same day the names were drawn. The two “bade our companions farewell, and distributed a few trinkets we had on our persons, and then confided to our warmest friends a few messages for our families.” The guards appeared, and Sawyer and Flinn were escorted through the streets of Richmond in a cart being pulled by oxen. On the outskirts of the city, they met a Catholic priest, and Flinn complained that he was being executed without the “rites of clergy.” A reported friend of Jefferson Davis, the Priest rushed to Richmond to try and intervene. When the pair and their escort reached the tree, they stood in the cart while ropes were placed around their necks. The captain of the guard continued to wait, seemingly hoping for a message. The condemned sat down and then, as noon neared, stood again. As the “Confederate officer was raising his sword as a sign to the driver to move away… a cloud of dust was observed in the distance, and the Confederate officer hesitated for a few moments, when a horseman covered with dust, and his horse covered with foam, dashed up to the officer and handed him a dispatch. He opened it quickly and read, Captains Sawyer and Flinn are reprieved for ten days.”  Given that prison commander wrote Winder that the names were drawn on July 6 and Sawyer and Flinn addressed Winder by letter on July 11, the story related above seems unlikely. 

   Lieutenant Colonel Ludlow passed the news of the pending execution of Sawyer and Flinn up the chain of command on July 12, recommending that two Confederate officer prisoners of war be selected in retaliation.  Ould wrote Ludlow the following day, hoping to send “a communication more fully setting forth the views of the Confederate authorities in relation to the unjust and barbarous execution of Captains Corbin and McGaw.”  There was an enormous amount of correspondence flowing between Ould and Ludlow at this point in time, dealing with prisoner exchanges, including those captured earlier in 1862 and 1863, Vicksburg prisoners and Gettysburg prisoners. The Richmond Daily Whig reported in mid-July that Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens was sent to Old Point to try and work out “the atrocities of the enemy… particularly in the case of Captains Corbin and McGraw.”  Lincoln was willing to travel to Fortress Monroe to meet with Stepens, but Lincoln’s cabinet refused and Stephens returned to Richmond.  

   The Lincoln administration turned up the heat on the matter. On July 15, General-in-Chief Henry Halleck ordered Ludlow to “immediately place General W.H.F. Lee and another officer selected by you not below the rank of captain, prisoner of war, in close confinement and under strong guard, and that you notify Mr. R. Ould…that if…Sawyer…and…Flinn… or any other officers or men in the service of the United States not guilty of crimes punishable with death by the laws of war, shall be executed by the enemy, the aforementioned prisoners will be hung in retaliation.” Ludlow did not need any further orders; if he heard of the execution of Sawyer and Flinn, he was to execute Lee and William S. Winder.  Lee was the son of Army of Northern Virginia commander Robert E. Lee; Winder was the son of John H. Winder. The threat of executing the two men quickly eased some of the tension. On February 25, 1864, Sawyer was exchanged for Lee, with the exchange of Flinn for Winder shortly thereafter. 

All of this begs the answer to the question of why Burnside was not held responsible for the deaths of Corbin and McGraw.