From the Richmond Dispatch, 2/25/1888, p. 4, c. 4

THE QUARLES QUESTION.
Letter from a Son of the Late Henry W. Quarles.

PHILADELPHIA, February 20, 1888.

To the Editor of the Dispatch:

A copy of your issue of the 7th instant has been forwarded to me and my attention called to an article therein headed “Libby Prison,” in which a Colonel Streight, now of Indianapolis, is quoted as having made the statement that after his escape from the Libby he was safely housed for a week in the house of Mr. Quarles, since deceased, which was situated on Twelfth street within an easy stone’s throw of President Davis’s house. As this statement does an injustice to myself and family and may be misleading to some of the older residents of Richmond as to the identity of the family mentioned, especially those who were familiar with the locality surrounding the Executive Mansion of the late Confederacy, I beg that you will give equal prominence to the following: Colonel Henry W. Quarles resided for some years prior to his death at No. 404 north Twelfth street, diagonally opposite to the back of Mr. Davis’s house. His death occurred January 28, 1861, and his widow and children continued their home at the same place until several years after the war closed. So far as I can remember no other family of the same name resided either on Twelfth street or within a number of blocks of the same neighborhood, and as the only surviving son of Colonel Quarles I desire to say as emphatically as I can do so in print that neither Colonel Streight nor any other escaped Union officer or soldier found a shelter nor a haven in our household. I regret exceedingly the necessity of going into print to make this explanation, but justice to my father’s memory demands this effort to prevent the confounding of our family with some other of this matter.

                                                                                                                                                                          Very respectfully,                C. H. QUARLES.

[In addition to the above the following should be stated: The Quarles who harbored Colonel Streight was said to have been a northern man. Colonel Henry W. Quarles was not a northern man, but a native of Louisa county, Virginia. He had two sons, both of whom were in the Confederate army and true to the core. The elder went out with the first troops that left the city, and the other entered the service as soon as he was old enough to do so. Colonel Quarles married a sister of John R. Thompson, the poet, and she is still alive. At times during the war her house was filled with Confederate soldiers, and she was indefatigable in nursing them. Recent investigation tends to show that Colonel Streight’s friend was a shoemaker, and that he might have lived on an imaginary extension of Twelfth street. In that case his house, which must have been a very small one, could only have been approached via Fifteenth or Seventeenth streets. One thing is certain – he was not of the well-known Quarles family of Virginia.]

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