The old Mission Hotel, now headquarters of the Mackinac Island State Park Commission, housed soldiers who guarded the Confederates in 1862. The building dates to 1825. Confederate Judge Saves Indian in Murder Trial on Mackinac Courthouse Lawn
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Here's the scene: Mackinac Island, 1862.
A young Indian brave arrives by canoe, attacks another arriving young man armed with a tomahawk (who is his rival for a girl) with a tomahawk and kills him.
The accused Indian is brought to trial on the courthouse lawn of the island, surrounded by onlookers. Just then a Confederate judge, Josephus Guild, 59, of Tennessee, happens by in custory of Union soldiers.
Guild observes the peril of the accused Indian and begs his guards to let him intervene, in the interest of justice.
The defense lawyer asks Judge Guild to examine the witnesses and give the closing argument. Self defense, says Judge Guild, elaborating his defense from long years of practice.
The jury agrees and renders a verdict to that effect. The young Indian is freed. Folks gathered around on the lawn begin to cheer the judge's action. He is carried off on their shoulders.
Now Guild recalls he is in custody and time is passing fast. Suddenly the guard of twelve soldiers with rifles and bayonets arrives to bring him back to reality.
Judge Guild is upbraided for "practicing law" by Lt. Col. Grover S. Wormer, of the 8th Michigan Cavalry, commander of the Stanton Guards (named for the Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton).
But the judge and two other rebel prisoners, Gen. William Harding and Gen. Washington Barrow, all of them from Tennessee, stayed on the island for four months with little to do but watch the soldiers drill. They even visited the local church until a visiting French priest harangued them about slavery and they fled the building followed by their guards.
The island vacation continued until Sept. 10, just about the end of today's tourism season, when they were taken to Detroit.
The fascinating story of the Confederate prisoners on Mackinac Island during the Civil War will no doubt entrance history buffs.
You may have heard the basics of this story since two weeks ago the Mackinac Island State Park Commission began to promote it through a new element of re-enactment.
More than 40 costumed re-enactors from the 16th Michigan Company and the Michigan Living History Educational Association told the story of the Confederate prisoners.
You'll read all about it soon in a forthcoming book by Phil Porter of the Mackinac Island State Park Commission.
(EDITOR'S NOTE: Most of the details of the story recounted here may be found in an article by Richard Shaul in the July/August 1998 issue of Michigan History Magazine.) ###
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Dave Rogers |
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