MY STORY OF JOHN YATES BEALL

   I  have started this story many time with no results. Just can't get all my facts together. I have been fascinated with this subject since I found it on the internet about 1998. "The Hanging of John Yates Beall." First of all, let us find out about the name Beall. It is based on the ancient Celtic god "Bel" who was by some accounts similar in nature and function to the Greek god "Apollo." The best known patriarch, Ninian Beall, came to this country as a slave more or less. He was an indentured servant and as he worked, he accumulated land in the Maryland area. He originally spelled his name "Bell" but he was commanded to change it to the older spelling, Beall, when he was sent to the New World in 1653. This was to politically disassociate the members of the clan who supported the Stuarts from the parts of the clan that remained loyal to the Crown.
Variations on the spelling include Bell, Beal, Belle, Bel, and of course Beall-but these are all related families. In fact there can be various spellings of the name in the same family. Much research has been done to prove that all the Bealls and different spellings are one and the same.
      My tale begins with John Yates Beall, a distant relative of mine. He was born at Walnut Grove, Jefferson County, Virginia on January 1, 1834. His parents were George Brooke Beall and Janet Yates. He was studying for the law at the time of his father's death in 1855. So he came home and farmed for the family until the outbreak of the Civil war when he volunteered for the "Botts Greys" and mustered into Company G, 2nd Virginia infantry. After being incapacitated by a wound, he went west and then moved into Canada. While in the latter country, he contrived a plan to liberate the Confederate prisoners at Johnson's Island prison. With this plan in mind, he returned South and solicited the approval of the Confederate authorities. He was commissioned as acting master in the Confederate navy, but was not assigned to command. On his own initiative, he began a series of exciting privateering enterprises along the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay, but he was captured in November, 1863, and confined in irons at Fort McHenry, Baltimore, Maryland. until he was exchanged on May 5, 1864. Unable to secure the approval of the government, he went to Canada without orders to carry out his favorite plan of liberating the prisoners on Johnson's Island. On Sept. 18, 1864, with a small band of picked men, he captured the "Philo Parsons" and "The Island Queen" and would probably have reached Johnson's Island, but for a mutiny in his crew and the miscarriage of other plans. He was forced to abandon his project and was captured in citizens clothing at Niagara, NY on Dec. 16, 1864. He was hurried to New York. General John Adams Dix ordered a military commission for Beall's trial, which began on January 17, 1865. He was represented by James T. Brady. The arrest of Beall had not been published in the newspapers and Confederate authorities were unaware of his status. On February 8, the commission found him guilty on all charges and sentenced him to death.
      The story of Beall's arrest and trial then appeared in the newspapers, and efforts were made to save him. Appeals were made by many prominent people, including six Senators and ninety one members of Congress, but President Lincoln refused to intervene and Beall was executed on February 24, 1865.
      There is a legend discussed by Lloyd Lewis that Lincoln was approached by John Wilkes Booth who was a friend of Beall's to save his life, and that the President agreed to do so. But Lincoln changed his mind (the legend goes) when he was approached by his friend and Secretary of State, William Henry Seward, who insisted that Beall's activities had been dangerous to the citizen's of New York State (Seward's state). Supposedly a furious Booth determined to kill Lincoln and Seward for this betrayal after Beall was executed.