Governor Lubbock, of Texas says in a personal letter: "I became so indignant and so completely unstrung and exasperated that I called upon the officers to protect him from insult, threatening to kill the parties engaged in such conduct."

As a prisoner Jefferson Davis was conducted to Fortress Monroe and there imprisoned for two years.

Whatever may have been the animosities that Mr. Davis incited as Chief Magistrate of the Confederacy, whatever may have been the criticism of his executive acts, these were all blotted out by the noble, dignified and uncomplaining attitude which he preserved during this cruel test. Adversity showed him as he really was, a wise, considerate, conscientious man, one who could suffer for conscience sake, and who, when he believed a thing to be right, followed it to the bitter end even if it took him through a dark valley and over a toilsome road.

When first incarcerated he was put in irons (an indignity unheard of in the history of the treatment of State prisoners). The details of this early prison life are simply and plainly told by Lieut. Col. John Craven, post surgeon at Fortress Monroe. 

This Federal surgeon speaks of Mr. Davis during this fearful ordeal in terms of the highest respect, and it was through his intervention that the distinguished prisoner was relieved of his shackles and received such creature comforts, as were the means of preserving his life and reason. 

In his book published in 1866, he writes: "Before history takes up the pen to record her final judgment, the world will be willing to conclude that the man who was our most prominent foe was not utterly bad—had, in fact, great redeeming virtues—and that no movement so vast and eliciting such intense devotion on the part of its partisans as the late Southern rebellion could have grown up into such gigantic proportions without containing many elements of truth and good which it may profit future ages to study attentively."