Out of the clink?
Fort Warren at Boston Harbor “had a reputation for humane treatment of its detainees.” Given the circumstances, I’d say that newspapers and whiskey from your home state (especially if that state is Kentucky) would go on the humane side of the ledger.
From the Richmond Daily Dispatch April 3, 1862:
Letter from Gen. Buckner.
The Louisville Journal, of the 15th, publishes the following as a letter from General Buckner. Of course, Prentice could not forego the opportunity of exhibiting as a blackguard, and the “bagged rebel,” as he called Gen. Buckner, is treated to an extraordinary specimen of the Journal’s characteristic style:
Fort Warren, Mass., March 4, 1862.
To the Editors of the Louisville Journal:
Among other luxuries of which I have been deprived since my imprisonment, is the pleasure of perusing those chaste and refreshing notices with which, for some time past, your paper has honored me; and although in my progress through the North I have met with many attempts on the part of the press at an imitation of your peculiarly felicitous style of misrepresentation, I have found none to equal the original. I am, therefore, under the necessity of applying at the fountainhead. I inclose two dollars, for which please send me your country daily to the following address.
Gen. S. B. Buckner,
Care of Col. Dimick,
Fort Warren, Mass.
P. S.–Since writing the above, our friend, Col. R. W. Hanson, has reached this celebrated resort, and desires me to add that the present of a demijohn of whiskey, which he learns you have promised him, would never be more acceptable than at this time — the locality and the latitude, as well as the sentiments of our neighbors up the harbor, holding out most tempting inducements to cultivate a taste for that delightful beverage. As a matter of caution, however, he urges me to add that he hopes, if the liquor be of good quality, you will not venture to taste it, as he might thereby incur much risk of losing it altogether — a privation which, however agreeable to yourself, would be attended with serious inconvenience to himself during the prevalence of the prevailing “nor’easters.”
S. B. B.
After Simon Bolivar Buckner surrendered unconditionally at Fort Donelson he was imprisoned at Fort Warren until August 15, 1862, when “after five months of writing poetry in solitary confinement [?], Buckner was exchanged for Union Brig. Gen. George A. McCall. The following day he was promoted to major general and ordered to Chattanooga, Tennessee, to join Gen. Braxton Bragg’s Army of Mississippi.”
Skipping over the rest of the Civil War: Buckner was governor of Kentucky from 1887-1891. His son served as an American general in the Pacific Theater during the Second World War. Simon B.Buckner, Jr. was killed by Japanese artillery fire during the Battle of Okinawa.
Fort Warren still stands
The photo of Fort Warren is licensed by Creative Commons.
