Records in Other Custody. --Gallaudet College has correspondence, admission records, financial records, photographs, and a survey of Kendall Green, July 9, 1864, and a contract for its purchase. Papers of Edward Miner Gallaudet, after being lent to Dr. Boatner for her biography of Gallaudet, were given to the Library of Congress. The collection includes diaries, journals of travels, and an unpublished memoir. The diary for the war period is brief and is devoted to personal data and reflections. One of the journals concerns a trip made in Apr. 1865 to Fort Sumter, where Gallaudet witnessed the raising of the U. S. flag. The memoir is valuable for the history of the college but should be checked with the published annual reports. Maxine T. Boatner, "The Gallaudet Papers," Library of Congress, Quarterly Journal of Current Acquisitions, 17:1-12(Nov. 1959). Correspondence in the records of the Office of the Secretary of the Interior includes letters from Gallaudet and Amos Kendall, concerning annual reports, funds, quarterly accounts, the admission of pupils, and the acquisition of land. A few outgoing letters are in a press copy book. U. S. Penitentiary for the District of Columbia An appropriation of $40, 000 had been made for building a penitentiary for the District of Columbia by an act of May 20, 1826 (4 Stat. 178). After its opening in 1831 the institution had been used to imprison offenders against U. S. laws and laws of the District of Columbia. In Apr. 1861 there were 171 prisoners in the penitentiary, about half of them employed in broom and shoe shops and the rest sick or unemployed. There were a few women inmates, who did the housekeeping tasks. The Secretary of the Interior, who had supervised the penitentiary after 1849, recommended to President Lincoln on Apr. 10, 1861, that a more reliable warden be appointed to prevent the escape of prisoners, who might be armed by Confederate sympathizers. Besides the warden there were a board of three inspectors appointed by the President, a deputy warden, clerk, physician, chaplain, matron, guards, night wall guards, and foremen of the shops. Some of the guards left the penitentiary early in 1861 to join the secessionists. The War Department soon began to crowd the penitentiary with court-martialed soldiers, but Secretary of the Interior Smith on June 5, 1862, ordered the warden not to receive any prisoners except those sentenced by judicial tribunal. The matter was brought to the attention of Congress, and an act of July 16, 1862 (12 Stat. 589), prohibited the confinement of military personnel in the penitentiary except as punishment for certain crimes and directed the discharge of those prisoners sentenced by court-martial. By President Lincoln's order of Sept. 19, 1862, however, the penitentiary building was turned over to the War Department for use as an arsenal, and the prisoners were soon shipped on a War Department vessel to an old county jail at Albany, N. Y. Under the provisions of an act of Jan. 16, 1863 (12 Stat. 635), the Secretary of the Interior still was responsible for the imprisonment of persons convicted of crimes in the District of Columbia. He had not only to select the places of imprisonment but also to arrange for transporting, confining, and subsisting District offenders. Secretary Usher considered this act as terminating the services of the staff of the penitentiary, since it stipulated other uses for the available funds. Successive wardens during the war period: Charles P. Sengstack, Dec. 23, 1858. Hiram J. King, Apr. 12, 1861-Jan. 16, 1863. Stephen Dalsheim, "The United States Penitentiary for the District of Columbia, 1826-62," Columbia Historical Society, Records, 53- Record Group 48. --The records of the penitentiary are varied and almost complete for the period of its existence. Letters received include communications from business firms concerning broomcorn and leather and bills for the shipment of these materials, letters and recommendations to the President and the Secretary of the Interior regarding appointment as inspector or warden, acceptances of appointment, instructions from the Secretary of the Interior, and communications from other Government officials. With these letters are other documents such as reports on claims, descriptive rolls and lists of military prisoners, minutes of the board of inspectors, orders from the provost marshal for the transfer of prisoners to the Old Capitol Prison, and copies of certificates of officers of the penitentiary. Useful for studying the administration of the prison are the minutes of the board of inspectors and a signed register of visits by inspectors and physicians. In separate files are resolutions of the board for payments to the warden to meet the salaries of officers of the penitentiary and vouchers for expenditures, including payrolls signed by the staff for monthly salaries. Records of the shoe and broom shops show the assignments of prisoners, materials and tools supplied, time worked, output, and amounts earned. A small file of permits to visit the penitentiary, Nov. 1860-Apr. 1861, shows the names of visitors admitted and of those visited. Some requisitions from the Washington Arsenal for powder, 1861-62, indicate that the penitentiary was used as an annex to the arsenal before it was officially turned over for that purpose. Available also are annual reports and some accounting records. Commitment papers, Concerning the prisoners there are other records. containing sentences of U. S. district courts and special orders of Army general courts-martial, show that civilians were committed for a variety of serious crimes and that soldiers from camps and fortifications in Washington and the neighborhood were committed for insubordination, forgery, and desertion. A register of prisoners contains personal information on the prisoners and their crimes, employment in the penitentiary, and dates and reasons for discharge. A record of punishments shows the penalties for prisoners who broke the rules of the penitentiary. Arranged chronologically is a file of orders, from the U. S. Marshal of the District of Columbia and the Adjutant General's Office of the War Department, for the release of prisoners. Correspondence and reports relating to the penitentiary are in this record group among the files of the Patents and Miscellaneous Division, Office of the Secretary of the Interior. The Secretary's published annual reports contain not only reports of the board of inspectors, the warden, the matron, the physician, the chaplain, and the clerk on finances, but also a "journal of convicts," which duplicates the information given in the register of prisoners (see above) except that it gives only the initials instead of the full names of the convicts. District of Columbia Jail The District of Columbia Jail, which since 1842 had been at 4th and G Streets Northwest, was under the control of the U. S. Marshal of the District. Ward H. Lamon, former law partner of President Lincoln, was appointed marshal on Apr. 6, 1861, but he left the management of the jail to George W. Phillips, who continued in his post as deputy marshal. Lamon appointed John H. Wise, then crier of the court and a bailiff, as keeper of the jail, where there were 8 guards. The Senate Committee on the District of Columbia, which investigated charges against the conduct of the jail by the keeper, recommended in June 1862 that a warden should be appointed, in view of the onerous duties of the marshal. An act of Feb. 29, 1864 (13 Stat. 12), authorized President Lincoln to appoint a warden for a term of 4 years, who was to report annually to the Secretary of the Interior. The jail, which was removed to its present location at 19th and B Streets Southeast in 1872, is now under the Department of Corrections of the District of Columbia. Political or state prisoners were confined in the jail in 1861, but the last of them were removed by November of that year to the Old Capitol Prison. The District of Columbia Jail was also used to confine fugitive slaves and "contrabands" as well as criminals and persons who had committed misdemeanors. Successive wardens during the war period: Robert Beale, Apr. 5, 1864. "Report... Into the Condition and Management of the Jail in the City of Washington." June 21, 1861 (S. Rept. 60, 37 Cong., 2 sess., Serial 1125). A list of 235 prisoners in the jail in Dec. 1861 is in S. Misc. Doc. 2, 37 Cong., 2 sess., Records in Other Custody. --The jail still has some of its records. Jail dockets date from 1848 and are available for the Civil War period. These books give a chronological record of prisoners committed, showing for each person the name, date of commitment, by whom committed, nature of offense, date of discharge, by whom discharged, and names of witnesses. Information sometimes appears as to the sentence and transfer to other prisThe pages for entries 365 to 379 (Apr. 18-22, 1865) in the book for Feb. 1864-Oct. 1865 have been cut out, presumably because they contained some entries relating to the imprisonment of suspects in the assassination of President Lincoln. Entry 2164 in the next book shows that John H. Surratt, another suspect in the assassination plot, was imprisoned on Feb. 19, 1867, and discharged on June 22, 1868. The jail has neither correspondence nor personnel records for the war years. ons. Correspondence, from 1864, with the warden and other officials regarding the jail is in the letters received file of the Patents and Miscellaneous Division, Office of the Secretary of the Interior (Record Group 48). Records concerning the trials of persons later imprisoned in the jail are among the records of the courts of the District. The papers of Ward H. Lamon are in the Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif. Metropolitan Police A Federal police force was organized in the District of Columbia early in the war, to ensure better security for Federal interests and better protection for citizens against the hangers-on who followed the Army into the area. Police protection previously had been supplied by an auxiliary guard paid with Federal funds but under the control of Washington's mayor and by constables employed by the corporations of Washington and Georgetown and Washington County. Secretary of the Interior Thompson recommended to the Senate Committee on Finance on July 8, 1861, that the auxiliary guard be put under the control of the Federal Government and, more specifically, of his own Department. An act of Aug. 6, 1861 (12 Stat. 320), combined the corporations of Washington and Georgetown and Washington County in one police district, to be called the Metropolitan Police District of the District of Columbia. Control over the police district was to be exercised by a board of seven, consisting of the mayors of Washington and Georgetown and five commissioners appointed by the President. The board was empowered to appoint a Superintendent, 10 sergeants, and not more than 150 patrolmen. The Secretary of the Interior, to whom the board of commissioners was to report annually, conferred with General McClellan as to the acceptability of the men selected for commissioners; and on Aug. 15, 1861, he transmitted commissions to President Lincoln for signature. The first policemen, inducted on Sept. 11, 1861, were assigned to precincts set up by the board of commissioners. An act of July 16, 1862 (12 Stat. 579), authorized the formation of a detective force, the appointment of three police surgeons, the organization of a sanitary company, the establishment by the commissioners of stations or substations in the precincts, and the appointment of police magistrates at the stations to hear charges against persons arrested and haled to the station houses. The sanitary company, charged with enforcement of ordinances to protect public health, conveyed sick vagrants to hospitals, buried dead ones, and disposed of dead horses. Some of the police patrolled on horseback to cover the rural parts of the district, which were occupied by military camps. The metropolitan police had difficulty in getting the cooperation of the provost guard, whose function was to maintain discipline among the military forces in the District. A telegraph system connecting the police stations was installed in 1864 at a cost of $15,000. The board of police commissioners was abolished in 1878, and control over the police was transferred to the Commissioners of the District of Columbia. Successive Superintendents during the war period: William B. Webb, 1861. Almon C. Richards, Dec. 1, 1864. Richard Sylvester, District of Columbia Police; a Retrospect of the Police Organizations of the Cities of Washington and Georgetown and the District of Columbia (Washington, 1894); J. Russell Young and E. C. R. Humphries, The Metropolitan Police Department, Washington, D. C., Official Illustrated History (Washington, 1908); "Report of the Board of Metropolitan Police," in Report of the Secretary of the Interior, 1861-65. Record Group 351. -- Various records document the early years of the metropolitan police. Returns of arrests from precinct stations begin in Nov. 1861 and extend throughout the war and later years but are missing for Mar.-Apr. 1865. These are daily returns made by precinct sergeants to the Superintendent, giving detailed information on arrests, including those of soldiers and sailors, and the disposition of cases. On the backs of these printed forms are notes of the number of patrolmen attached to the precincts and some data concerning their assignments. A series of property books, the first of which covers Sept. 1861-Dec. 1875, describes lost, stolen, or missing property and its disposition if recovered. A chronological register of oaths of allegiance, on printed forms, contains signatures of members of the police force. A fragment of an order book, Feb. 1862Jan. 1863, records sentences against erring patrolmen, laws of the corporation to be enforced by the police, and instructions to policemen. A time book, 1861-69, containing a record of leave taken by policemen, is of some value for the names of men on the force. A daily record of the police force, 1863-64, is available. The detective department blotter, or daily record, Sept. 1862-Feb. 1867, contains detailed entries on arrests, complaints of robberies, etc., assignment of detectives to investigations, and reports of investigations, reports of property recovered, and detectives appointed. In this record, for Apr. 14, 1865, and succeeding days, are entered the names of witnesses to President Lincoln's assassination, lists of articles found at Ford's Theater and of property found in the stable of John Wilkes Booth, the names of detectives who participated in the search for the assassin, and notations of the arrests of persons suspected of complicity in the assassination. Blotters kept at the precinct stations, presumably more detailed than the reports made to the Superintendent, have been destroyed. The correspondence of the Superintendent is also unavailable. A small quantity of correspondence received by the Secretary of the Interior regarding police affairs is in the records of the Patents and Miscellaneous Division of his Office (Record Group 48). Records in Other Custody. --The Metropolitan Police headquarters has individual personnel folders from 1861, arranged alphabetically by name. The lists of the names of patrolmen who served during the war, in the Official Register, 1863 and 1865, can be used as an index to this file. |