Tag: Auburn (Culpeper VA)

Library of Congress says: Culpeper, Virginia (vicinity). Residence of John Minor Botts.

Wikipedia says: John Minor Botts (September 16, 1802 – January 8, 1869) was a nineteenth-century politician, planter and lawyer from Virginia. He was a prominent Unionist in Richmond, Virginia during the American Civil War.

…Through the war, Botts refused to fight against Virginia, but remained in the Commonwealth. On March 2, 1862, Richmond’s Confederate provost marshal John H. Winder jailed Botts and fellow Unionist Franklin Stearns without trial for espousing Unionist positions after the Confederacy suspended the right of habeas corpus. About 150 people were eventually picked up, and Stearns was later placed under house arrest in his Richmond warehouse, where his family could care for him. Botts stated that while he was in captivity Captain George W. Alexander attempted to persuade him to join the Confederate army as a brigadier general in exchange for his freedom.

Botts spent eight weeks in solitary confinement. He was released after promising not to publish any more incendiary letters, and in January 1863 moved to a plantation he had won gambling, Auburn, in Culpeper County, Virginia, where Botts entertained both Union and Confederate officers at various times. Botts had promised he would move away from Richmond to ensure his pardon. He was arrested on October 12, 1863 by order of Confederate General J. E. B. Stuart, for entertaining Union officers (although three of his slaves had absconded for Union lines and he requested their return but was denied), but released later the same day.