Fanny
Ricketts, wife of U.S. Army Captain James B. Ricketts, was in or near the
capital at the time of the first battle of Bull Run. When her husband didn’t
return with his unit, she persuaded Lt. General Winfield Scott to give her a
pass that permitted her to go through Union lines to the site of the conflict.
However, when she reached a Confederate outpost, Scott’s pass became worthless
and it seemed that she would have to turn back.
Remembering
her husband’s friendship with J. E. B. Stuart, she managed to contact at
Fairfax Court House the professional soldier now wearing the uniform of a
confederate colonel. Stuart gave her a pass that enabled her to go to the
Manassas battlefield, held by victorious Confederates. Four days after the
battle she found her husband in an improvised field hospital at the Lewis
house, from which she accompanied him to Richmond, the Confederate capital.
These
adventures would have been more than enough for many wives, but Fanny’s saga
was just beginning. When Federal officers were being selected as hostages for
Confederates charged with piracy, Richmond’s Libby Prison held an insufficient
number of colonels and majors co complete the lottery. Ricketts was selected as
one of the junior officers who were threatened with execution in the event that
their Confederate counterparts should hang.
Fanny
remained in Richmond, made friends with prison guards in order to gain visiting
privileges, and was with her husband almost daily until he was exchanged for
Julius A. de Lagnel in January 1862.
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