Devil's Game: The Civil War Intrigues of Charles A. Dunham

11. Scorpions in a Bottle

chapter 11 Scorpions in a Bottle Charles Dunham’s prosecution for perjury, when it finally came, was begun reluctantly, was limited in scope, and was marked by a series of bizarre and unexplained happenings.At one point in the process,the prosecution actually blocked testimony from a key Dunham friend who could have greatly widened the revelations. At another, one of Dunham’s high-priced lawyers blurted out (and quickly abandoned) a claim that his client was a friend of Jefferson Davis who had set out to help him by collecting false testimony that he could later discredit.Throughout the trial and appeals,charges flew of strange delays and corrupt, politically motivated intrigues. Dunham would add to the surreal quality by complaining both about the judges’ corruption and the failure of his friends to use it properly. The arrest and trial did not take place in a vacuum, of course. In the immediate background, in late 1866 and early 1867, were the great issues of Reconstruction : the power struggle between Radical Republicans and Democrats and the questions of whether the old Southern elite would rise again; whether Davis and Clay would ever be tried; whether Andrew Johnson’s enemies, pushing to augment the powers of Congress,would be able to throw him out of theWhite House.And half a world away, a more famous case than Dunham’s was unfolding as U.S.authorities,again under pressure,finally moved to arrest John Surratt, the man Dunham had so badly harmed and whose career would now again intersect with his. Surratt, like Dunham, had been through an adventurous postwar year. After hiding in Canada and England (closely watched by U.S. agents), he was serving in the Papal Zouaves in Italy1 when the authorities finally closed in on him. He escaped a first arrest by papal authorities (a week after Dunham’s arrest) and 11.199-212_Cumm 2/9/04, 9:17 AM 199 200 devil’s game fled across the Mediterranean to Alexandria. There he would be caught again and put on an American warship for return to Washington,where he would end up sharing a prisoners’ dock with his late accuser. For Joseph Holt, all these events came together in a menacing pattern. John Surratt’s arrest gave new life to the ghost of his mother: it renewed newspaper talk about every flaw of the military commission, including the games of secret witnesses,the weakness of the defense,and even the legality of such bodies.The new trial would create for Holt a controversy even greater than the Dunham fiasco, with charges that he had concealed from President Johnson a mercy recommendation from Mary Surratt’s military judges. That crisis was still a few months off,but the Surratt name already had an ominous ring, as a rallying cry for Democrats.Also,another Surratt son,Isaac,a former Texas cavalryman,was said to be in Canada threatening vengeance against the men who had hanged his mother.2 Holt’s many detractors, until his death twenty-seven years later, would delight in spreading tales of how he was haunted by Mary Surratt’s ghost, as shown by his increasingly morose temper. John Surratt’s lawyer would even claim that the ghost of the mother haunted the Washington courtroom where, shortly after Dunham’s conviction, the son was tried and freed. “We have felt our blood run cold,” he vowed, “as that rustling of the garments from the grave swept past us.”3 In the midst of all this, Holt’s prime aim was to protect the military commission , and to do this he went to extraordinary lengths. Almost certainly his reluctance to charge Dunham arose from that concern, rather than any belief that the Chameleon had escaped to Canada.4 It was clear that Dunham, if he chose, could threaten the great accomplishment of Holt’s career.Any such move would guarantee Dunham harsher treatment, of course, so the threats were mutual. Like the classic scorpions in a bottle, Dunham and Holt watched to see how far the other would go in risking immolation. Holt on his side kept a firm hand on Dunham’s case,even though it was supposed to be a civil matter. He made no move to bring charges against Phele or her sister, as he might have done. At this point, he had before him Col. Levi Turner’s report saying Phele had played Sarah Douglass and Charles Dunham’s sworn statement that it was...