George St. Leger Grenfell facts for kids
George St. Leger Grenfell (May 30, 1808 – March 1868?) was a British soldier of fortune, of the Cornish family, who claimed to have fought in Algeria, in Morocco against the Barbary pirates, under Garibaldi in South America, in the Crimean War, and in the Sepoy Mutiny. Immigrating to the United States, he fought for the Confederacy during the American Civil War, and was a leader of a notorious plot to seize control of parts of the Northern U.S.
Biography
Grenfell was born in London, England. He came to America in 1862 and became an officer in the Confederate States Army, serving with cavalryman John Hunt Morgan, General Braxton Bragg, and General J.E.B. Stuart. He resigned from the Confederate Army in 1864 to join a plot to take over the governments of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois and establish a Northwestern Confederacy. When the plan to take over Chicago was discovered, Grenfell and some 150 others were arrested. In what became known as the "Chicago Conspiracy", Grenfell was tried, convicted, and sentenced to hang. Through the efforts of the British Minister in Washington, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment at the isolated Fort Jefferson military prison located about 70 miles west of Key West, Florida, in the Dry Tortugas islands of the Gulf of Mexico. He arrived at Fort Jefferson on October 8, 1865.
The great majority of the 527 prisoners at Fort Jefferson when Grenfell arrived were Union Army privates whose most common transgression was desertion. A number of civilians were also being held, most for robbery. Grenfell was in a special category called "state prisoner."
There were only four other state prisoners at Fort Jefferson: Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, Edmund Spangler, Samuel Arnold, and Michael O'Laughlen, all of whom had arrived at Fort Jefferson just two and a half months earlier after being convicted at the Lincoln assassination conspiracy trial.
Unfortunately for Grenfell, Dr. Mudd had attempted to escape a few days before Grenfell arrived. Fearing a larger escape attempt of the state prisoners, the five men were confined together for the next three months in a ground level cell known as the "dungeon." In a letter Dr.
In an April 16, 1867, letter to Tom Dyer, his wife's brother in New Orleans, Dr.
Colonel Grenfell was afflicted with yellow fever during the height of an epidemic in September 1867. In letters to his wife, Dr. Mudd wrote "Colonel Grenfel is quite sick with the disease; he was taken yesterday. I will do all that is possible to save him." And, "Colonel Grenfel is quite sick; his case is doubtful." But in the end, Dr. Mudd was able to save his life and Colonel Grenfell recovered.
Dr. Mudd's final mention of Colonel Grenfell is in an April 14, 1868, letter to his wife. In it he says "We have heard nothing from Grenfel since he escaped on the 6th of last month. All hands may have perished, it being quite stormy at the time."
Colonel Grenfell, a highly experienced sailor, and three others had escaped from Fort Jefferson in a small boat.
Most assumed that Grenfell and the others perished at sea, but there were persistent rumors he had survived. On June 5, 1868, the following announcement, originally published in the Mobile, Alabama, Advertiser, appeared in the New York Times.
Most historians believe that notices such as this about Grenfell were fabrications. All that is known for sure is that Grenfell was never heard from again.
