Pictured: The Ten Mile House, off Stagecoach Road. Thus named because it was ten miles from Little Rock and was on the old stagecoach road that ran from Little Rock to Texas. The house is now well within the citys limits. The Union was using this house as a headquarters after Little Rock was captured. This is the site of the Confederates Last Stand for the capital city. David was kept here after his capture. His ghost, according to many, has been seen sitting at the fireplace at this house. 151 years ago, Davids place in history was beginning. Today is the 151st anniversary of his capture by Union soldiers. Its all starting to unfold: On December 28, 1863, David O Dodd visited the Provost Marshals office at St. Johns College (several hundred yards southeast of the arsenal) and had no trouble obtaining a pass through Union lines to rejoin his family in Camden. He headed out the Benton Road, riding a mule, showing his pass to Union sentries at the city line and again at a point eight miles from Little Rock, where the outpost sentry tore up the pass, explaining to David that he would have no further need for it because he was entering Confederate territory. A short way farther on, David detoured to spend the night with his uncle, Washington Dodd, who had lived in the area for years. He obtained some pocket money and a handgun from his uncle, and the next morning, December 30, he resumed his trip south. He took a crosslots route back to the Benton Road, instead of returning the way he had come to his uncles house, and this proved to be a fatal mistake. Had he followed his earlier route, David would have stayed in Confederate territory. But his cross-country course took him back through an area controlled by the Union, and it was there he encountered a foraging party of Union cavalrymen. Challenged by these horsemen, who demanded to see a pass or other identification, David tried to explain how his pass had been destroyed the previous evening by the last Union sentry he met. But the foragers were not convinced. They forced the boy to ride his mule alongside them as they led him back to the sentry post. As it happened, the sentry who tore up Davids pass was no longer on duty. So the cavalrymen took their captive to the nearby guardhouse to be questioned by the lieutenant in charge of the guard south of the city. This officer, too, became suspicious when David was unable to produce personal identification. So he ordered him to empty his pockets. The money, both Confederate and Union, did not surprise the officer. Neither did the handgun. Anybody traveling in remote areas without at least a pistol would be thought foolhardy. Some letters David was carrying to relatives and friends in south Arkansas caused no concern, but a memorandum book aroused curiosity. The officer found most entries in the book innocuous, but one page, written entirely in Morse Code, prompted him to arrest the boy on suspicion of espionage and send him back to Union headquarters at the arsenal in Little Rock. General Steele called in a telegrapher from the Little Rock telegraph office to decode the suspicious page of Davids memorandum book. The result was formal charges of espionage and formation of a Court Martial to try the case. The Morse Code in the memorandum book proved to be a highly accurate synopsis of Union strength in Little Rock, even listing the number of artillery pieces in certain units. For two days, David Dodd was questioned by Federal military officers who were extremely anxious to identify the Union traitor who gave him detailed information about Little Rock defenses. They also demanded to know for whom David was working. Some histories claim the youngster steadfastly refused to answer either question, but Walter Scott McNutts Elementary History of Arkansas maintains, without attribution, that David blamed General Fagan in Camden for his plight. He reportedly told Union investigators that Fagan refused to issue him a pass to Little Rock through Confederate lines unless he agreed to spy. David was now committed to the State Prison to await trial. The military tribunal convened January 2, 1864, at the arsenal with General John Milton Thayer as the presiding officer of the Court Martial. The trial record indicates the boy was asked repeatedly to name the Union traitor and the person to whom he was directly responsible. But in the four days the Court Martial lasted, David kept silent. His attorneys, William Walker, who was hired by Alderman Henry, and William Fishback, who later became Governor of Arkansas, had little but Davids ignorance on which to base a defense, and the defendant made only a feeble effort to explain his Morse Code information as something he did to exercise his telegraphic skills. The boy did not take the witness stand, but his attorneys submitted a written deposition of his testimony. The Court Martial lasted four days. David Dodd was convicted of spying for the Confederacy and was sentenced to be hanged at the discretion of General Steele. The boy was immediately transferred back to the State Prison to await his execution, and General Steele designated Friday, January 8, 1864, as the fateful day.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 14:25:25 +0000
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