According to the newspaper account, which is corroborated by several eyewitness accounts recorded between 1862 and the 1890s, Dodge offered Davis his life in exchange for information about his informants. The condemned man apparently refused all such offers. "Would "you" betray a friend?" Davis is reported to have said while seated on his coffin. "I had rather die a thousand deaths." Confederate lore had Davis saying upon climbing the scaffold that "the boys will have to fight the battles without me."