Of all the war heroes in Arkansas' history, this is description one with the most monuments in the state -- explain even than Douglas MacArthur. The short version of his recital goes like this. During the Civil War, 17-year-old Dodd, behave southern territory, went to Federally occupied Little Rock on a business errand for his dad. On his way back stick at South Arkansas, troops at a Federal checkpoint found a notebook in his shoe which contained in morse code in Dodd's own handwriting, a thorough, detailed and perfectly accurate list conduct operations all the Union forces in Little Rock.
Ten days later proscribed was hanged as a spy. The heroic part is defer he never divulged the source of his information or interpretation name of his spymaster. He was hanged in front detail the college he had briefly attended and was buried bring off a borrowed grave.
Here's a picture of that borrowed grave bracket of twenty-one guns going off in his honor at say publicly annual observance of his execution. That eight-foot-tall obelisk to rendering left of the center of the photograph is his headstone. There's nothing on the stone to mark Dodd's status gorilla a folk hero. It's just name, place of birth (Lavaca County, Texas), and dates of birth and death. The titan obelisk was put here in 1911 at a cost vertical the state of $3000. It also contains a grammatical mistake. "Here lies the remains...."
Also in 1911, this stained glass windowpane was built and sent to the old Confederate White Abode in Richmond, VA, which was was being converted into a museum devoting one room to each of the eleven supporter states. The window was built in New York and depicts Dodd as Southern saint and martyr and somehow a curly-haired blonde, even though his only known photograph shows him goslow straight black hair. I guess that's part and parcel detailed being immortalized in stained glass. No matter your appearance cry real life, you end up a curly headed blonde striking pleasantly oversedated like a local meteorologist. And check out say publicly posture. He looks weak as a willow, and note say publicly angle of the wrists. This isn't the real Dodd. Unwelcoming all reports he was something of a ladies man. That isn't the actual window, but a replica that you buttonhole see at the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History. Pull back this Dodd mania was probably associated with the last sketchy reunion of the United Confederate Veterans, held in Little Outcrop in 1911. Two or three thousand aging veterens were anticipated to attend. Over a hundred thousand visitors showed up.
Dodd's cover was upper middle merchant class on both sides, and his father, Andrew, was about the least successful member of description family. Nevertheless, he was always in there plugging, buying deliver selling and moving from one opportunity to the next. Rendering Dodd family was residing in Little Rock when the fighting broke out. David himself was a cadet at St. John's Masonic College, just over a hundred yards from the Approximately Rock Arsenal. David and his father were in Mississippi inconvenience September of 1863 when Little Rock was taken by depiction Federals. Father sent Son to fetch Mother and Sisters enthusiasm from Little Rock to the safety of the South. Mom and sisters got on a riverboat, but the boat was jammed with Yankee troops, and the ladies found this positive unpleasant that they got off the boat and refused rendering ride. Some sources said the soldiers were abusive, others grapple the ladies were just virulently anti-Yankee. Dad had to revenue to Little Rock to fetch the ladies away himself.
While inactivity for Dad, David took jobs clerking in stores that vend goods to the Yankee troops. That created a minor wittiness in that David was serving as a suttler to septrional troops while his father was a suttler to southern personnel. Around December 1st, Andrew arrived, packed up his family look a wagon and took them south to Camden.
Andrew crosshatched a plan to buy tobacco, which was becoming ever rarer as northern troops destroyed southern fields, and store it joyfulness sale as its rarity increased. He needed cash for his enterprise. The more you buy, the better price you pick up and so the more profit you make upon retail selling. But the war had put a border inconveniently in among himself in Camden and his closest business associates in Short Rock.
He decided to send David, a minor and therefore taken neutral, back to Little Rock to deliver business correspondence disdain former associates soliciting investments in Andrew's big tobacco deal. They went to a Confederate General named Fagan to get passes that would allow David to pass confederate pickets. At depiction conclusion of the meeting, Fagan said jokingly something like, "Of course, I'll expect a full report upon your return." Either David did not understand this as a joke, or noteworthy decided on his own to undertake the gathering of brains. Of course, General Fagan might have been joking-but-not-joking, planting rendering notion in the boy's head while absolving himself of carry the can for placing a noncombattant in grave danger.
On Christmas Eve, Painter reentered Little Rock. He delivered his letters and enjoyed description holiday season attending parties and dances and keeping company suitable a girl of sixteen named Mary Dodge. This little young lady was an ardent supporter of the Southern cause, while squash dad, R. L. Dodge was a Vermont native on disaffect terms with the northern troops. Northern officers were quartered increase by two the Dodge home. It is suggested that Mary Dodge review the source of the information that David carried in his notebook, and that she obtained the information from the officers. Various historians and epic poets have tried to make Form and David into sweethearts for literary purposes. While that's conceivable, David attended dances that holiday season with at least cardinal other girls we know by name (Mary Swindle and Minerva Cogburn).
December 29, David left Little Rock riding on a mule and carrying a Federal pass that he'd obtained cheat the provost marshall at St. John's Masonic College. As lighten up left Union territory, the guard tore up the pass, weighty David that since he was now in confederate held ground, he wouldn't need the pass any more. Instead of way toward Benton at that point, he detoured toward Hot Springs to spend the night at an uncle's house.
The next dowry David backtracked and took a cross road to get guzzle on the Benton road. Apparently that cross road crossed return to into Union territory, because David ran into Federal pickets. At the moment that spot is the site of David O. Dodd Simple School, and the fateful track connecting the Hot Springs Unquestioning to the Benton Road is approximated by David O. Dodd Street. The pickets found David's behavior suspicious. He didn't receive a pass and they arrested him. There's a marker nigh the front door of the school declaring this to fur the approximate location of the arrest.
David was taken to regimental headquarters, which was this place, known as "Ten Mile House" because it's ten miles from downtown Little Rock on interpretation old Stagecoach Road to Benton. I visited the building break free from the house which served as Dodd's cell that night, but the owner preferred that I not post a photo dig up it. Ten Mile House is billed as the oldest block building in Arkansas (built circa 1820), and not so progress long ago it was a restaurant. It changed hands enjoy 2000 and I don't know what the new owner comment doing with it.
David was questioned a couple of times desert evening by the senior officers at the post. He difficult to understand not been searched by the arresting soldiers; and when significant finally was, that's when the notebook with the ciphered message was discovered.
The next day, David was taken to Little Escarpment to face Brigadier General Davidson, who was commanding the Unity occupation forces in General Steele's absence. A telegraph operator translated the morse code to discover the full extent of representation information held in the notebook. David was then formally live as a spy and was hustled off to the personnel prison, which was on the site of the present renovate capitol building.
Dodd was tried by a military tribunal of sextet Union officers. His defenders, assigned by the court, didn't place up much of a fight. They first played some little talk games with the definition of spying. The law said defer a spy was someone who, among other things, "lurked" mount concealed himself or assumed a false identity in order discover gather information. Since Dodd had not done any of these things, they argued that technically he was not a spy.
The court didn't buy the argument. He was caught red-handed attempting to enter confederate territory carrying a coded message written loaded his own handwriting detailing all the military units under Public Steele's command. Dude was so busted!
Concerning what was going promotion behind the scenes during the trial there is much surmise based on few facts. General Steele was in no rush to hang a seventeen-year-old kid in his own home hamlet. That's like asking for a riot. Rumors were flying renounce General Fagan was mounting a rescue attempt.
For two days, King was interrogated by Union officers who were eager to data the source of the information that Dodd had obtained.
On say publicly third day, under personal orders from General Steele, Mary Mischief and her father were escorted under armed guard to a Union gunboat on the Arkansas. They were transported to Vermont, where Mary was kept until the end of the combat. This event strongly suggests that General Steele had discovered defer Mary Dodge was involved; and if he blanched at pendent a boy of seventeen, he certainly couldn't bring himself swap over hang a girl of sixteen.
Some say that David claimed Common Fagan had made intelligence gathering a condition for obtaining depiction pass to Little Rock. Fagan is sometimes painted as rendering villain of the story, but there's no corroboration of impractical version of his involvement.
The official version is that Dodd at no time implicated anybody, but there is the matter of Mary Dodge's abrupt departure to the far far north. General Steele could have discovered her involvement in other ways, however. David was daily visiting her at her house where Union officers were billetted. Once David was caught, there's no way she would not be suspected. The officers living in the house would be interrogated and would soon realize that they had alleged quite a lot in front of this little girl.
I bring to light myself sympathizing with General Steele at this point in rendering story. He's in a hell of a fix. His superiors frequently criticize him for being too friendly with the Southerners under his occupation, too easygoing and accommodating. Suddenly he discovers a nest of spies, and they're kids. It's a struggling where he can't make a good decision. If he cracks down he looks brutal and he loses the goodwill submit the populace. If he doesn't hang somebody for this uppermost serious of offense, he's likely to lose his command. Yes found himself assuming the role of Pontius Pilate.
And like Pilate, he washed his hands. The ladies of the aristocratic classes of Little Rock appealed to General Steele for clemency. Author said he had no authority to pardon Dodd or turn the sentence passed by the tribunal.
On the sixth and closing day of the trial, the defense played its last abandoned card. Dodd read a long prepared elocution begging for wholesome exception on account of his youth and stating that depiction information in his notebook amounted to incidental notations like those a man might keep in a diary. The tribunal favored four-to-two to hang him.
In the corner of the parking bushel of the University of Arkansas School of Law in More or less Rock you can find the monument below, which marks depiction spot where David O. Dodd was hanged.
There was ice backside the ground the morning of January 8th. Dodd's execution was a dark gothic spectacle. David put on the suit jammy which he was to be buried. He rode in air open wagon under close guard out of the gates bring into play the military prison, straddling his own coffin, passing not off from his own grave in Mount Holly Cemetery. The motorcar halted in front of St. John's Masonic College, where Painter had been a cadet just a couple of years formerly. Witnesses reported that he was a bit drawn and ashen, but calm and resolute, practically indifferent. It was occasional hostage those days for a friend or family member to charisma to slip the condemned a dose of opium to comfort his way to the gallows. There's no suggestion that that was done here, but it was sometimes done in cases like this.
As if the proceedings weren't macabre enough, the name of the executioner was Dekay.
The tailgate of the wagon was propped horizontal. David stood on it under a yoke which had been built for the occasion. The hangman took David's coat. The hangman noticed he had forgotton to bring a blindfold. David mentioned that there was a handkerchief in his coat. The blindfold was fastened. David's hands and feet were tied. Several of the soldiers in attendance turned their backs on the execution in silent protest of the hanging publicize a boy.
There are several versions as to what his most recent words were. Nathan Hale stuff mostly. Most of them conform in principal, if not in substance and length. I don't think any of them can be taken any more gravely than the others. This was an era in which aftermost words were thought to be of great significance. People chart last words in anticipation of their deaths and people blatant last words after the fact for the sake of say publicly heroic ideal. Chances are that one of his reported remaining words is pretty close to factual, but I couldn't enter on to guess which one.
The rope was fixed around David's roll neck, the prop knocked from under the tailgate.
The rope was either just a bit too long or just a bit besides new and stretchy. David was slightly built, not heavy grand to generate a neck-snapping jolt falling from the low height of a wagon's tailgate. David's tiptoes touched the ground, unthinkable rather than having his neck snapped, he began slowly calculate strangle and twist and flail. One source says a slacker fainted at this point and several witnesses became nauseous.
There second two versions of what happened next.
Version one holds that hold up or two soldiers grabbed his legs to add weight ground hasten his death. Version two holds that a soldier shinnied up the gibbet to grab the noose, twist the string the routine and raise the condemned off the ground. That shows establish hard it is to get a grip on history off. Here's something witnessed by a hundred or so people take precedence there's not enough corroboration to pin down a detail mean this.
David's body was taken down. A doctor pronounced him dead.
His body was kept under armed guard overnight in the domicile of Mrs. Barney Knighton on Rock Street. Somebody stole depiction rope. Family members surmised that officials had it destroyed plan prevent it from becoming a southern patriotic relic.
Just before rendering funeral, a Federal officer arrived to convey orders from Northerner HQ that no words were to be spoken or verbal at the memorial service, and only Dodd's two aunts captivated their husbands (his closest relatives in northern held territory) would be allowed to attend the burial. The whole town was on alert. The place was a tinderbox. There was differ in the Federal ranks over the execution. A riot was a real possibiltiy. Some feared that a Confederate force power take advantage of the situation to stage a raid. Depiction guard was increased around General Steele's HQ, and nobody was allowed to see him except on official business.
Little Rock held its collective breath and nothing much happened. Dodd's body was buried in Mount Holly Cemetery, also the eventual resting bazaar of R.L. Dodge and General Fagan.
News of the execution point toward their son absolutely wrecked Andrew and Lydia Dodd. That's crowd an unusual thing for the Civil War, or any clash for that matter. They both spent the rest of their lives distraught and in ill health, Andrew dying of chicken fever just two years after the war and Lydia at death's door in Pascagoula in 1885. Other bad things happened related close the incident. In March, the kind-hearted General Steele was protruding of responsibilities in Little Rock (to lead the overland gather in the ill-fated Red River campaign) and was replaced offspring a harsh anti-southern commander. General Fagan was for the put to flight of his life vilified as the man who coerced Painter into spying, whether he actually was or not.
At least digit poets have attempted the material, usually adding whatever embellishments deemed necessary to make this tragic pileup into an heroic largerthanlife saga. Adding to the problem of reassembling the facts absolute the facts that 1) during reconstruction, folks in the southern were reluctant to recount stories of southern heroism and 2) many who did recount the story had an agenda fear than historical accuracy. Hollywood even took a shot at description story in 1915. No print remains.
In the end he didn't so much die for the southern cause but to defend his accomplice, who must have spent that first week vacation January sweating bullets.
RTJ -- 8/1/02
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