John Higgins: Southern Traitor? Pal of the Pope?

In March 1862 as Richmond seemed under imminent attack, Confederate authorities there arrested suspected Union sympathizers, including John M. Higgins,  a prominent Irish immigrant grocer and liquor dealer.  In contrast to other political prisoners, Higgins’ incarceration was short, allegedly freed by the intervention of Pope Pius IX.  Was it true?

Although it was not until three years later that Union forces would take Richmond, the advance of General McClellan toward the city during the 1862 Peninsula Campaign panicked Confederate officials.  They declared martial law and arrested a number of prominent citizens on charges of “treason.” Higgins apparently was targeted because of his relationship with Union Colonel (later General) Michael Corcoran, shown here.  

Because two of Higgins’ aunts had married two of Corcoran’s uncles, the liquor dealer and the soldier had become friendly.  Early in 1862 Corcoran sent a letter to Higgins advising him to move his wife and family North and assured him that he would see them to safety under a flag of truce.  When the letter was intercepted by Confederate authorities they immediately marked Higgins as a traitor.

Along with others seized in the roundup, Higgins was imprisoned at Richmond’s former “Negro jail” on Franklin Street, renamed “Castle Godwin” after a local police official.  Meant to accommodate about 75 prisoners, within five months the small facility held 250 prisoners in thirteen rooms.   An armed sentry guarded the front door.  Meals for prisoners were provided by a nearby saloon.

As he languished for weeks at Castle Godwin, Higgins would have had ample time to review how he had come to that point.  He was born in County Sligo on the northwest coast of Ireland in 1832, the names of his parents unknown.  He arrived in the United States in 1850 at the age of 18 and headed almost immediately for Richmond where he seems to have had relatives in the liquor or grocery trade.

By 1852, possibly with assistance from those same relatives, Higgins opened his own specialty grocery store, shown here.  It stood on the northwest corner of Franklin and Seventeenth Streets in Richmond, with liquor a principal commodity.  

John also married.  His wife was Kate C. Dempsey, born in March 1826 in Cashell, County Tipperary, Ireland.   Their first child, also named John, came in September 1860, eighteen months before his father’s arrest.  The couple would go on to produce seven more offspring, five girls and two boys.  Interestingly, the others were born only after the end of the Civil War.

Because “habeus corpus” had been suspended by the Confederate government for the duration of the conflict, few if any political prisoners were ever tried — merely held and sometimes freed as influence was brought to bear.  Among Higgins’ fellow prisoners was George Washington Frosst, shown here.  Frosst was a Maine-born machinist  who was outspoken in favor of the Union and equally vociferously opposed to Roman Catholicism.  When Castle Goodwin was closed after about two months and Frosst with other inmates were sent to a prison in Salisbury, North Carolina, Higgins was liberated and allowed to go home.

Frosst was outraged, claiming that Higgins was a “papal delegate” and had been released through the intervention of the Pope. Later he wrote:  “Romish subjects were allowed their liberty which were denied those whose fathers had fought and died against European influence and dictation.  At this time ’Hell was smiling’ on the Church of Rome and John M. Higgins, an Irish Pagan, was in clover.”

Not exactly in clover.  The same martial law that had led to Higgins’ arrest also decreed that no liquor could be sold within the city limits of Richmond.  The liquor business that the Irishman had built had to be suspended for the duration of the war.  Higgin’s income and ability to support his family all but vanished.  Setting aside whatever views he may have had on the Confederacy, he took the oath of allegiance and found employment in the office of General John Winder, shown here.  Winder was the chief military officer in command of city forces and supervisor of the prison Higgins had just left.  Even more ironic,  Higgin’s job as a clerk in the Confederate War Department included examination of mail to and from prisoners being held in Castle Godwin, now mainly deserters and soldiers who had gone AWOL.

Once the war had ended, Higgins went back to his grocery trade, emphasizing liquor sales once again.   By 1870 his net worth, according to the federal census, had advanced to $15,000 (equiv. to about $330,000 today).   He also was advertising his wares in local newspapers with the slogan “Pure goods, full value for money.”  

With his growing prosperity Higgins was able to move his family into an impressive looking home, shown here left.  In time both his eldest son, John R., and a younger boy, Gerald, were working in the store with him.

Higgins’ popularity as a merchant also assisted him in carving out a political career.  In 1872 he was elected to the City Council of Richmond, a thirty-member body with five representatives from each ward.  He was re-elected numerous times, serving 18 years in all.  Among his duties was oversight of the local police.  In 1901 Higgins announced that he would be a candidate for Police Commissioner of Richmond, citing his experience on the Council’s Police Committee.  I can find no indication that he achieved that post.

Higgins continued to be active even into old age in guiding the fortunes of his company.  He died in July 1906 at age 74 and was buried in Richmond’s Mount Calvary Cemetery.  His gravestone noted his origins in County Sligo. His wife, Kate, had preceded him, dying in August 1892 at age 56.  The family burial plot is marked by a large statue of an angel standing on a cloud.  

What of G. W. Frosst’s charges about the reason for Higgins’ release from jail?  The Irish immigrant definitely was a Catholic and active in local church affairs, including for a number of years president of the Catholic Beneficial Society, a Richmond organization devoted to charitable causes.  Moreover, when his daughter was married in 1880 the ceremony was performed in the city’s cathedral by a newly created Archbishop, indicating Higgins’ importance in the church. No evidence exists, however, of his being a “papal delegate” as charged by Frosst.

Nor is there proof that Pope Pius IX took a personal interest in Catholics caught up in the American Civil War.  While he offered to moderate the conflict between North and South, the Pope also was for emancipating the slaves and withheld formally recognizing the Confederate government.  It is highly unlikely that he would have interposed on behalf of John Higgins.  The more plausible answer to the Irishman’s release was his prominence in Richmond and his willingness to take the Confederate oath of allegiance.