Prospects of Peace 1864 Tour: Master Armorer’s House

General Stevenson’s Headquarters 1864

Sketch by war-time artist Alfred Waud

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Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits

34th Mass Regiment Provost clerk Charles Moulton wrote in his letter home about this incident. “It is now the evening a December 2nd and I have witnessed the saddest scene this day I ever beheld, in the shape of an execution. Yesterday a prisoner of war, one of Mosby's guerrillas caught in Loudoun county, was reported at this office, his name is William Loge, also known as French bill, and he is notoriously known as a guerrilla bushwacker murder and assassin. And that is not all. The same person deserted from the six New York volunteers and joined the rebel forces. He was sentenced…to be hung today at 2:00 PM. A general order having been issued to that effect; Captain Pratt was ordered to see that it was carried into effect. Accordingly this afternoon an immense crowd assembled on the ground in Bolivar and the procession arrived around 3:00 PM headed by the post band it being the first execution that has occurred in this vicinity since the John Brown affair, a large crowd had congregated on the spot . The criminal bore his fate with singular courage and expressed as his only wish that he would like to see his mother, he being scarcely 20 years old but his circumstance never changed when he was notified of his sentence. He said he was willing to die. On the scaffold he made a short speech, running up his crimes, saying that he was a deserter from the U S army and owing up that he had shot in cold blood and robbed many a Yankee soldier etc the worst part of the affair was the rope broke and the poor criminal in his last struggles of agony, while being brought to the scaffolding a second time, cried that they should only shoot him and put him out of his misery. I never want to witness another execution of this kind.”