Individual

Go to List of Family Names Go to List of People    < Previous Next >

Birth:          30 May 1845 Richmond, Va.
Death:          28 Jun 1878 

Notes
1981 book:
Eugenius was an engineer.
	After Ella died, Eugenius married Mary R. -----, and had a child Raymond L. 
In 1880, Eugenius and his family lived in Richmond, Va., and in 1900 they lived in 
Portsmouth, Va.
Source: Comly Fam. in Amer.; Ege Fam.; Va. State Vital Rec.; 1880, 1900 Va. census
1850 in Richmond, Va.
in 1880, her husband is living with her parents in Richmond, Va.
genforum response from Shirley Jack
(for Eugenius, won't fit in his notes)
http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/virginian-pilot-ledger-star-
norfolk/mi_8014/is_20050421/confederate-sailor-recalled-lincoln-
murder/ai_n41285072/
Confederate sailor recalled Lincoln murder
by ALAN FLANDERS 
The Confederacy was in ruins as two loyal rebels unknown to each other walked the 
streets of Washington on a raw April 14, 1865, each with a certain mission in mind.

Eugenius Alexander Jack, a Confederate sailor from Portsmouth who served on the 
ironclad CSS Virginia, focused on survival as he and about 100 fellow prisoners of war 
trudged from their Potomac River Landing to the Old Capitol Prison. 

The other man, well-known actor John Wilkes Booth, was putting the final touches on 
a conspiracy to kill President Abraham Lincoln that night.

Booth, of course, succeeded in his mission, slipping into Lincolns balcony box seat at 
Fords Theatre as the war-weary president enjoyed the play Our American Cousin. 
Years later, Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg described the murder:

He raised the derringer, lengthened his right arm, ran his eye along the barrel in a line 
with the head of his victim less than five feet away and pulled the trigger.

Eugenius Jack, too, accomplished his goal, surviving the miseries of a prison that he 
described as a very dilapidated and much crowded apartment. He slept on flea-
infested clumps of damp straw.

But that first night, Jack and the other Confederate prisoners almost joined Lincoln as 
victims of Booths gunshot. Angry mobs tried to storm the Old Capitol Prison to avenge 
the assassination.

In an irony of war, Union soldiers staved off the mob attack to save the captured 
Confederates.

Jack later recalled the night in his memoirs:

I was surprised by the clamor and mutterings of many people in the street near the 
building, and as the voices did not recede, but appeared to be local and seemingly 
growing more and more, I was painfully conscious of some fears for my own safety.
He continued: So there just up under the low roof of that attic I sat trembling, yes 
trembling with apprehensions of some terrible calamity to us all.

Before dawn, the crowd and noise around the prison lessened, allowing its inmates, 
including Jack, to get some sleep. Later that morning, Jack heard about Booths deed.

I learned that these people had gathered around the prison to make us victims of 
retaliation for the death of President Lincoln who had been cowardly assassinated by 
Wilkes Booth that night, Jack wrote.

Never shall I forget my thankfulness that I had escaped the rage of that mob or that 
night of the 14th of April 1865. I was told that troops had to be massed around the 
building to protect us from those frenzied people.

After the war, Jack compiled his recollections, which were published years later by the 
Friends of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Museum as the 113-page Memoirs of E.A. 
Jack: Steam Engineer, CSS Virginia. 

The original manuscript, a gift to the Friends of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard 
Museum by Jacks granddaughters, Eleanor Jack Hudgins, Elizabeth Jack Bruce and 
Margaret Jack Griffin, is stored in the museum library and continues to provide primary 
material for those interested in Civil War naval history. 

The memoirs include Jacks account of what it was like to work in the engineering 
spaces of the CSS Virginia during the Battle of Hampton Roads, March 8-9, 1862. He 
went on to serve on about a dozen other Confederate ironclads.

After Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, Jack turned 
himself in to Union troops in Burkeville, southwest of Richmond. He was sent to City 
Point on James River near Richmond where he was placed, he wrote, in the prison-
pen with the rest, herded up like cattle. 

Regretting that he had not tried to escape, Jack learned his next stop would be 
Washington.

He wrote: We were then just passing out of the James into Hampton Roads and the 
familiar sights around made me most miserable, not twenty miles away lay my house 
barely hid from view by the ends of the Elizabeth River. If I had been a good swimmer 
I believe I would have jumped overboard to make my escape.

In Washington, Jack was packed into the crowded attic of the Old Capitol Prison. The 
jail was a converted boarding house that had been used by Congress for meetings 
during the War of 1812 when the original Capitol was burned by the British. The U.S. 
Supreme Court building now stands on the site.

The Union paroled Jack later in 1865 and he returned to Portsmouth. But there he 
found that Booths legacy had resulted in punitive Reconstruction-era laws that limited 
the employment of former Confederates. He no longer could work at the Gosport 
Shipyard.

After a few years, he joined other former Confederates who procured jobs in South 
America. Jack became an officer in the newly organized Colombian navy.

He returned to Portsmouth in the early 1870s after restrictions imposed by 
Reconstruction had been lifted. 

Jack joined the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service a predecessor of the Coast Guard where 
he served as a lieutenant and chief engineer for about 25 years.

He was 71 when he died on Dec. 18, 1911. He now rests in Portsmouths Cedar Grove 
Cemetery near some Confederate shipmates.

* Reach Alan Flanders at 462-3602.
Copyright 2005 
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved. 
birthplace from death cert of son Kenneth




Parents
EGE James Lawrence (25 Aug 1816 - 27 Feb 1903)
MAULE Caroline Ridgeway (1 Jan 1822 - 6 Jun 1894)

Siblings
EGE William Thomas (4 Jul 1841 - 25 Jan 1908)
EGE Laura Jane (28 Feb 1844 - 27 Jul 1930)
EGE Ella Brown (30 May 1845 - 28 Jun 1878)
EGE Elizabeth Mendenhall (8 Oct 1847 - 12 Aug 1848)
EGE Caroline Elizabeth ("Carrie") (16 Mar 1858 - 26 Dec 1950)
EGE Diana Maule (7 Mar 1861 - 6 Feb 1942)

Marriage To JACK Eugenius Alexander (17 Jul 1840 - 18 Dec 1911)
    m. 8 Mar 1869 Richmond, Va.

Notes

Parents
JACK John ()
ATKINSON Mary E. ()

Children by JACK Eugenius Alexander 17 Jul 1840 - 18 Dec 1911
JACK Laurence McKay (11 Mar 1870 - 24 Dec 1955)
JACK Eugenius Alexander (23 Oct 1875 - 9 Mar 1972)
JACK Kenneth Stott (2 Jun 1878 - 12 Apr 1924)

Produced by Fzip 1.7 2/10/2021