Among the New Yorkers who used to flourish twenty years ago was a young fellow–he was young then, not over thirty–called Fuller, W. J. A. Fuller. It ain’t every man can carry so many initials to his name is that, but as I am goin’ to tell you, this Fuller could carry anythin’. He had a brother, Charles E. Fuller, of Boston, and the two made a strong team, very fond of each other, very smart, very plucky, regular go-ahead, and they were very fond of their country, which ain’t the case with every American. They had traveled in Europe, but hadn’t learned to despise America, and when the great rebellion broke out, although they had heavy interests South, they determined to stick to the North, where they belonged, and to the star-spangled banner under which they had been born.
They happened to be in Washington about the time that Ellsworth was makin’ such a stir with his Zouaves, and just before the Federal troops marched into Alexandria the two brothers entered Alexandria by ‘emselves.
The Marshall House was the leadin’ hotel at Alexandria just then, and was kept by a man named Jackson, who was the red hottest kind of a red-hot secessionist. This Jackson had got a Confederate flag and had hoisted it on top of his hotel, and was very proud of it. It could be seen floatin’ and flarin’ in the air all the way from the Capitol at Washington, and it looked just like what it was, a defiance flung right in the face of the Government. Somebody spoke to Jackson about this secesh flag, and Jackson then had taken two things he often took, a glass of whiskey and an oath that no man should ever haul that flag down and live. The night the two Fuller brothers came over to his hotel to spend the night, havin’ a little business to attend to the next day, this Jackson repeated his whiskey and his oath. And then the Fuller brothers took an oath, all to ‘emselves, without any whiskey, that they would haul that flag down ‘emselves before they left the place.
So it was arranged that the New York Fuller should stay at the hotel, and get his opportunity for pullin’ down the flag, and should carry it away with him. Meanwhile the Boston Fuller was to go back to Washington, then pull down the river in a boat to the United States sloop of war Pawnee, which lay off of Alexandria, with its guns all shotted and its men already for any emergency. He was then to tell the commander of the Pawnee about his brother’s scheme, and had the sloop all ready to fire at any of his brother’s pursuers. For it was arranged that, once having got the flag, the New York Fuller should rush to the river, in case of bein’ discovered and pursued, the Pawnee havin’ a boat all ready for him, to take him and the secesh flag safely to the sloop. The two brothers arranged a lot of signals so that they could communicate with each other, and then they parted, wringing each other’s hands; for in desperate times like those, and engaged in such desperate work as this, it wasn’t by any means certain that they two should ever meet again alive.
Havin’ parted with his brother, Fuller went back to the Marshall House. It was a large four story buildin’, and was filled from office to attic with secesh officers and men. Fuller had a large room given him for the night, in the main buildin’ of the hotel. Now the flagstaff was fastened to the roof of this main buildin’ runnin’ up through an open scuttle. Fuller prospected around the best he could, got the arrangements of the main buildin’ in his mind, and prepared himself for work. Then he went and fortified himself for what was before him by taking a hearty supper.
After supper he smoked awhile, and loafed awhile, and then when it got dark he commenced operations. He groped his way along up to the roof, but when he got as high as he could he found the upper doors all locked, which cut him off that way. Then he climbed to the window handiest to him, a window some ten feet above the stairway, but found that nailed down. Two failures in half an hour. But he wouldn’t have backed out if they had been twenty-two.
He came downstairs again, went out into the street, found a hardware store and bought a hammer. Then he went upstairs again, and with the hammer drew out the nails from the boarded window. His idea was just then to get on top the window, and from the top climb to the roof of the spout which ran alongside of it. It required a pretty active sort of a fellow to do this, but Fuller was somethin’ of an expert in all manly exercises. He was particularly fond of gymnastics, and was as spry as a tom-cat.
But even a tom-cat must have somethin’ to climb by, to hold on to. And that was just what Fuller hadn’t. For by touchin’ it he found that this spout by which he expected to reach the roof was as rotten as paper, and crumbled as he clutched it. So this way of gettin’ to the roof was n. g., makin’ failure No. 3 in the first hour.
Then he went downstairs once more, lit a cigar, and did a lot of thinkin’. He made up his mind that his only chance was to get to the roof by means of the upper doors, which he had already found were locked. But he must get some keys and open ‘em, but how to get the keys. He found a locksmith’s cellar near by, and saw that the locksmith was a lazy man and a poor one. So he told the locksmith he wanted a bunch of keys to open a closet, but said that there was no necessity for the man to go with him to fit the lock; he could save him that trouble. All he wanted was a bunch various sized keys to take with him, and he would give the man five dollars as a deposit on the keys for security. The locksmith clutched the five dollars, and Fuller clutched the bunch of keys, and the locksmith never saw the keys, nor Fuller his five dollars again.
With the keys in his pocket, Fuller returned to the Marshall House, and smokin’ like a furnace, he watched his opportunity to get upstairs unnoticed. Everybody was talkin’ secesh, so he soon got his chance. Throwin’ away his half-smoked cigar, perhaps the hardest trial of all, Fuller got up to the rooms just below the roof which he had found locked. He pulled out his bunch of keys; there were ten on the bunch and tried ‘em in the lock of the middle door. He had to try nine keys before he got a fit. But the door opened at last. But just as he was congratulatin’ himself on the fact, he heard the noise of advancin’ footsteps, and heavy footsteps, as if a party of soldiers were comin’ up the stairs full of secesh and half full of liquor. He rushed into a dark closet near the door. It contained somethin’ which by feelin’ he discovered to be a mattress. He got under the mattress and waited, scarcely darin’ to breathe, till the soldiers passed. They went into the adjoinin’ room, of which they had a key, lit a candle and proceeded to play a game of “poker.” This much Fuller could plainly make out, under the mattress, the walls of the closet being very thin.
Half suffocated, Fuller waited till the soldiers got completely absorbed in poker, and then creepin’ out, he felt his way in the dark, through the room he was in, to the flagstaff, which came down through the roof alongside the wall. He climbed the flagstaff, and got on the roof at last. He tried the signal halyards, found that they worked beautifully and knew that he was sure at least of bein’ able to haul down the flag when he was ready.
But he wasn’t ready yet, for a while he was mountin’ to the roof a new obstacle had presented itself. Nature itself began to fight against him. It had been a cloudy night at first, but now around nine o’clock, it had cleared up and the moon was shining bright as day. The streets were full of soldiers and citizens, and for all intents and purposes it was high noon. There couldn’t have been a worse night for his plans. But Fuller felt that a born and bred New Yorker ought to be more than a match for even the full moon. So he waited awhile and then quietly tried the halyards once more. Just then he heard another party of soldiers comin’ upstairs, just below him, and he began to fear that even the slight movin’ of the flag, raisin’ it up and down, that he had just caused while workin’ the halyards had been observed. But it was a false alarm. The newcomers joined the poker party and all was comparatively still again. For a minute or two Fuller had stood ready to jump by the first man who might mount to the roof after him, make a run to the nearest dock, jump in and swim to the Pawnee. But finding that it was a false alarm he sat still awhile, and relightin’ his cigar did some more thinkin’.
The result of his thinkin’ was that he came downstairs again to the street and walked towards the docks, so as to give an agreed upon signal to his brother, who was by this time on the Pawnee, so as to have everythin’ in readiness. But he wasn’t able to give the signal; he couldn’t get near the docks. The streets were filled with soldiers and the docks were guarded, so he had to come back to the hotel again without notifyin’ his brother.
This was a great misfortune to him, the way things were fixed, and it was equivalent to givin’ up any chance of gettin’ to the Pawnee that night. But still, Pawnee or no Pawnee, Fuller determined to haul down that secesh flag. All the obstacles in the way of doin’ it only made him the more determined to do it.
About ten o’clock he got back to the roof again, and about a quarter past ten three cavalry companies came into town, and all the people turned out to see the soldiers, and didn’t see just then anythin’ else.
This was his opportunity, and he seized it and the flag. He hauled it down, cut the halyards, and made them fast to the cleat, that they might not attract attention by swingin’ loosely.
He had hauled the flag down, sure enough. But now the question was, what on earth should he do with it? The flag was a good deal bigger than he had calculated on. It was nearly fifteen feet long and nearly ten feet wide–a mighty hard flag to handle in the way of a bundle.
In fact, you couldn’t make a bundle of it at all, so Fuller determined to wrap the flag around him–inside of his clothes.
He had heard about “wrappin’ oneself in the American flag,” but here he was wrappin’ himself up in a secesh flag. But there was no help for it, so he undressed himself on the roof, took off his coat, pants and vest, and wrapped the flag all around him. Then he made his toilet on the roof again, put on his clothes over the flag, and by the time he got through looked about twice as big as he was half an hour before–makin’ a regular Daniel Lambert of himself.
Fuller couldn’t help laughin’ at his own appearance, when he had finished dressin’. He tied his pants and coat around him with a cord, and waddled down-stairs. Waddled, I say, because really he couldn’t walk. The most graceful creature in the world would have to waddle if she had a fifteen foot by ten foot flag wrapped round her.
He waddled as quietly and as carefully as he could, and as by this time it was after eleven o’clock, he managed, with some patience and strategem, to get out of the hotel unnoticed. Once outside of the hotel he waddled along pretty fast.
His was a forlorn hope, and he knew it. The riverbank was lined with sentries. The picket guards extended to Long Bridge, where the draw was raised. And now, to make matters worse, he heard a general alarm given, and knew the cause. The flag had been missed, a hue and cry was raised, and he must hide.
Near the river there was an old shed. He crept into it and crouched down in the comparative darkness. His face as he lay was turned toward the river, and he could see objects on it distinctly. He saw the Pawnee away off, and nearby he saw a boat with some soldiers and one civilian in it. The one man in plain clothes was his brother, who, with some of the Massachusetts Fifth, had, in absence of any signals from Fuller, started out in a boat, to be ready anyway.
If he could have hailed his boat he and his flag would have been in safety. But he couldn’t. Secesh sentinels were all around; secesh pickets were everywhere. It was very tantalizin’ to see help so near, yet not be able to use it, but such was the fact, and there is no more use in ignorin’ a fact than there is in buttin’ your head against a stone wall. So Fuller crouched and looked and waited, and then after a while started off again.
Then he came within a few yards of a secesh guard patrol who was smokin’ by the river bank. There he was compelled to stop and hide again in a little clump of shrubbery, lyin’ on the flat of his back for half an hour, while the guard was smokin his cigar so comparatively near him. The smokin’ was what made him so mad. The guard was smokin’ and he couldn’t, and in all his life he had never felt so much like smokin’ as just then. If the guard or patrol hadn’t moved off in a little while Fuller would have turned over and asked him for a cigar certain.
At last, long after midnight, he found himself beyond the suburbs, but he also found himself at last confronted by two sentries. He made a rush to pass ‘em, when both of ‘em went for him and seized him. Then came the tug-of-war. Wrapped up in the flag as he was, Fuller was still quite an active and powerful man. He grasped one of the sentries by the breast and hurled him to the ground with all his might. In the tussle he wrenched one of the Virginia army buttons off of the soldier’s coat. Seein’ the fate of his companion, the second sentry, a young fellow, ran for it, contentin’ himself with givin’ an alarm. But just then a third soldier came along and clutched Fuller from behind. And by this time the first soldier had recovered from the fall, and had got up again. And seein’ this the runaway youngster determined to return to the fight again, now that he was sure to be on the winnin’ side of three to one.
But just then two shots were fired. The man who had clenched Fuller from behind was wounded and let go his hold. The other two soldiers skedaddled rapidly, and Fuller found himself saved by the landin’ of the boat from the Pawnee.
His brother on the boat had become so uneasy about him that he had ventured to land anyway to reconnoiter, and had happened to land just at the right time and place for the flag-wrapper.
He got into the boat on the double quick, and was delivered in good shape on the Pawnee with his flag.
A few days after the noble Ellsworth, who has appropriately passed into history as “The Martyr Zouave,” made his celebrated march into Alexandria and saw a flag which had supplanted that pulled down by Fuller floatin’ over the Marshall House, tore it down, and lost his life in the act, bein’ shot by Jackson, who, although he had failed to keep his oath in the case of Fuller, fulfilled it to the bitter end with the great Zouave.
[Editor’s notes: For reasons unknown–except perhaps to appeal to a New York readership–the Harry Hill’s Gotham writer made William J. A. Fuller the hero of this exploit, when in fact it was his Boston brother, Charles E. Fuller, that made the attempt to steal the rebel flag from Jackson’s Marshall House. Moreover, before he could escape with the flag, Charles Fuller was captured by Jackson and detained at the Marshall House, until his release was negotiated. A few days later, Union troops landed at Alexandria and the New York Zouaves, led by Col. Elmer Ellsworth, determined to take down the flag once more. Jackson shot Ellsworth as he was coming down the stairs with the flag in his hand.
The remnants of the flag are on display at the New York State Museum. This was the design of one of the first flags of the Confederacy.
W. J. A. Fuller, though not the hero of this episode, was an interesting character. Prior to the start of the Civil War, he was one of the nation’s chess masters. He had been a newspaperman in Milwaukee and in California, before coming to New York to establish a law practice.]
