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Title: The Real Jefferson Davis
Author: Landon Knight
Release Date: October 19, 2013 [EBook #43979]
Language: English
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THE REAL JEFFERSON DAVIS
[Illustration: Jefferson Davis
(From a photograph taken in 1865)]
The Real Jefferson Davis
_By_ LANDON KNIGHT
"Where once raged the storm of battle now
bloom the gentle flowers of peace, and
there where the mockingbird sings her night
song to the southern moon, sweetly sleeps
the illustrious chieftain whom a nation
mourns. Wise in council, valiant in war, he
was still greater in peace, and to his
noble, unselfish example more than to any
other one cause do we owe the indellible
inscription over the arch of our union,
'_Esto perpetua_.'"
PUBLISHED BY
THE PILGRIM MAGAZINE COMPANY
BATTLE CREEK, MICH.
1904
Copyright, 1904,
THE PILGRIM MAGAZINE CO.
Battle Creek, Mich.
DEDICATION
_To My Wife_
Is dedicated this little volume in appreciation of that innate sense of
justice which has ever loved and followed the right for its own sake.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I Birth and Education 11
II Service in the Army 21
III His Life at Briarfield 29
IV First Appearance in Politics 35
V Enters Mexican War 41
VI The Hero of Buena Vista 45
VII Enters the Senate 49
VIII Becomes Secretary of War 53
IX He Re-enters the Senate 59
X Still Hoped to Save the Union 67
XI President of the Confederacy 75
XII His First Inaugural 79
XIII Delays and Blunders 85
XIV The Bombardment of Sumter 91
XV Conditions in the South 97
XVI The First Battle 101
XVII A Lost Opportunity 105
XVIII The Quarrel with Johnston 111
XIX The Battle of Shiloh 115
XX The Seven Days of Battle 121
XXI Butler's Infamous Order 28 125
XXII Mental Imperfections 131
XXIII Blunders of the Western Army 135
XXIV Davis and Gettysburg 139
XXV The Chief of a Heroic People 145
XXVI Sherman and Johnston 151
XXVII Mr. Davis' Humanity 155
XXVIII General Lee's Surrender 161
XXIX The Capture of Davis 167
XXX A Nation's Shame 173
XXXI Efforts to Execute Mr. Davis 177
XXXII Indictment of Mr. Davis 183
XXXIII Why Davis Was Not Tried for Treason 187
XXXIV Freedom--Reverses--Beauvoir 193
XXXV Death of Mr. Davis 199
ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
Jefferson Davis Frontispiece
Jefferson Davis' Birthplace, at Fairview, Ky. 15
Where Jefferson Davis Boarded While in Lexington 17
Transylvania College at Lexington 19
Jefferson Davis at Thirty-five 31
Briarfield, Jefferson Davis' Home 33
The Room in the Briars in Which Jefferson Davis Was Married 37
General Taylor and Colonel Davis at Monterey 43
The Charge of Colonel Davis' Regiment at Buena Vista 47
Jefferson Davis as United States Senator in 1847 51
Jefferson Davis as Secretary of War 57
The Capitol at Richmond 77
Interior of Fort Sumter after the Surrender 93
Henry Clay Addressing the Senate on the Missouri Compromise 99
Edward Ruffin 103
Robert Toombs 107
General Joseph E. Johnston 111
Generals Lee, Jackson and Johnston 113
C. G. Memminger 119
The Site of the Prison Camp on the James River Below Richmond 133
On the Field of Cold Harbor Today 137
The Battle of the Crater 143
Mr. and Mrs. Davis in 1863 147
The Davis Children in 1863 153
The Famous Libby Prison as It Appeared at the Close of the War 157
The Surrender of Lee 163
Richmond as Gen. Weitzel Entered It 169
The Davis Mansion 195
The Davis Monument at Richmond 201
PREFACE
For four years Jefferson Davis was the central and most conspicuous figure
in the greatest revolution of history. Prior to that time no statesman of
his day left a deeper or more permanent impress upon legislation. His
achievements alone as Secretary of War entitle him to rank as a benefactor
of his country. But notwithstanding all of this he is less understood than
any other man in history. This fact induced me a year ago to compile a
series of magazine articles which had the single purpose in view of
painting the real Jefferson Davis as he was. Of course, the task was a
difficult one under any circumstances, and almost an impossible one in the
restricted scope of six papers, as it appeared in _The Pilgrim_. However,
the public according to these papers an interest far beyond my
expectation, I have decided to revise and publish them in book form.
This work does not attempt an exhaustive treatment of the subject but, as
the author has tried faithfully and without prejudice or predilection to
paint the soldier, the statesman, the private citizen as he was, he trusts
that this little volume may not be unacceptable to those who love the
truth for its own sake.
L. K.
_Akron, Ohio, Aug. 16, 1904._
The Real Jefferson Davis
I. Birth and Education
Almost four decades have passed since the surrender at Greensboro of
Johnston to Sherman finally terminated the most stupendous and sanguinary
civil war of history. Few of the great actors in that mighty drama still
linger on the world's stage. But of the living and of the dead,
irrespective of whether they wore the blue or the gray, history has, with
one exception, delivered her award, which, while it is not free from the
blemish of imperfection, is nevertheless, in the main, the verdict by
which posterity will abide. The one exception is Jefferson Davis. Why this
is so may be explained in a few words.
Occupying, as he did, the most exalted station in the government of the
seceding states, he became from the day of his accession to the
presidency, the embodiment of two diametrically opposite ideas. The loyal
people of the North, disregarding the fact that the Confederacy was a
representative government of limited powers, that a regularly elected
congress made the laws, often against the judgment of the chief executive,
that many of the policies most bitterly condemned by them were inaugurated
against his advice, transformed the agent into the principal and visited
upon him all of the odium attaching to the government that he represented.
Nay, more than this. The bitter passions engendered in the popular mind by
the conflict clothed him with responsibility, not only for every obnoxious
act of his government, but, forgetful of the history of the fifty years
preceding the Civil War, saddled upon him the chief sins of the very
genesis of the doctrine of secession itself. Thus confounded with the
principles of his government and the policies by which it sought to
establish them, the acts for which he may be held justly responsible have
been magnified and distorted while the valuable services previously
rendered to his country, were forgotten or minimized, and Jefferson Davis
as he was disappeared, absorbed, amalgamated, into the selfish arch
traitor intent upon the destruction of the Union to gratify his
unrighteous ambition.
The masses of the Southern people, on the other hand, holding in proud
remembrance the gallant soldier of the Mexican War and deeply appreciative
of his able advocacy of principles which they firmly believed to be
sacredly just, regarded their chief magistrate as the sublimation of all
the virtues inherent in the cause for which they fought. When the
Confederacy collapsed, the indignities heaped upon its chief, his long
imprisonment and the fact that he alone was selected for perpetual
disfranchisement added the martyr's crown to the halo of the hero, thus
creating in the South an almost universal mental attitude of affection and
sympathy, which was as fatal to the ascertainment of the exact and
unbiased truth of history as were the rancor and bitterness that prevailed
at the North. That this prejudice and predilection still exist cannot be
doubted. But time has plucked the sting of malice from the one and has
dulled the romantic glamor of the other sufficiently to enable us to
examine the events that gave birth to both with that calm and
dispassionate criticism which subrogates every other consideration to the
discovery of truth. I do not underestimate the difficulties that beset the
self-imposed task, but to the best of my humble ability and free from
every motive except that of portraying the impartial truth, I shall
endeavor to delineate the life of the real Jefferson Davis.
[Illustration: Jefferson Davis' Birthplace, at Fairview, Ky.]
Contrary to the belief still somewhat prevalent, Jefferson Davis was not
descended from a line of aristocratic progenitors, but sprang from the
ranks of that middle class which has produced most of the great men of the
world. About the year 1715 three brothers came to this country from Wales,
and located in Philadelphia. The younger, Evan Davis, eventually went to
the colony of Georgia and there married a widow by the name of Williams.
The only child of that union, Samuel Davis, enlisted at the age of
seventeen as a private soldier in the War of the Revolution. Later he
organized a company of mounted men and at its head participated in most of
the battles of the campaign that forced Lord Cornwallis out of the
Carolinas. At the close of the war he married Jane Cook, a girl of
Scotch-Irish descent, of humble station, but noted for strength of
character and great personal beauty, and they settled on a farm near
Augusta, Ga. In 1804 Samuel Davis removed with his family to southwestern
Kentucky to engage in stock raising and tobacco planting, and there, in a
modest farmhouse, which was then in Christian County and not many miles
from the cabin where a few months later Abraham Lincoln opened his eyes
upon the light of the world, Jefferson Davis was born, June 3, 1808. The
spot is now in Todd County, and upon it stands the Baptist church of
Fairview. While he was still an infant, the hope of there better providing
for a numerous family caused his father to seek a new home on Bayou Teche
in Louisiana. The country, however, proved unhealthful, and he remained
but a few months. He finally bought a farm near Woodville in Wilkinson
County, Miss., where he spent the remainder of his long life, poor, but
respected and esteemed as a man of fine sense and sterling character.
[Illustration: Where Jefferson Davis Boarded While in Lexington]
Jefferson Davis' first tuition was at a log schoolhouse, near his home,
but the educational advantages of that time and place were so meager that
when seven years old he was sent to a Catholic institution known as St.
Thomas' College, and there, under the guidance of that truly good man and
priest, Father Wallace, afterward Bishop of Nashville, his education
really began. After some years in this school, he entered Transylvania
University, at Lexington, Ky., then the principal collegiate institution
west of the Alleghanies and famous many years thereafter as the alma mater
of a distinguished array of soldiers and statesmen. In November, 1823,
when in his senior year at Transylvania, through the efforts of his
brother, Joseph Davis, he was appointed by President Monroe a cadet at
West Point. The following year he entered that institution and after
pursuing the customary course of four years, was graduated in July, 1828,
with a very low class standing.
[Illustration: Transylvania College at Lexington]
He was then in his twenty-first year. The period in which the principal
foundations of character are laid had passed. What this important period
of life had developed is, therefore, both interesting and instructive.
Fortunately, this information is obtainable through evidence which is
conclusive. More than a half score of his classmates at Transylvania and
at West Point, who subsequently played important parts in the history of
the country, have left us their impressions of Jefferson Davis during that
period of his life. This information is supplemented by his instructors at
both institutions. All of this testimony was recorded previous to the
occurrence of any of the later events in his life which might have biased
the judgment, and all of the witnesses corroborate each other. Without
entering into any extended discussion of this evidence, we may safely
conclude from it that in his youth he was one of those peculiarly normal
characters whose well-ordered existence leaves but little material for the
biographer. Few inequalities and no excesses are discoverable. He seems to
have possessed one of those refined natures that abhor vice and immorality
of every kind. While he made no pretensions to piety, and, apparently
selected no associations with this view of avoiding contamination, his
moral character was without a blemish. Nor was he, as has been
represented, haughty, impulsive and domineering, but, on the contrary, his
nature seems to have been remarkably gentle and his bearing free from
pretensions of every kind. He had opinions, and his convictions were
strong, but he neither reached them hastily nor maintained them with
arrogance. He was serious, somewhat reserved, always cheerful, sometimes
gay. In his manner he was thoroughly democratic, but free from any
suggestion of demagoguery. He was slow to anger, easily mollified, without
malice and possessed in a remarkable degree that ingenuous and credulous
nature which a long and eventful life never impaired and which was
responsible, in no small degree, for many of the fatal mistakes of later
years. If at this time he possessed any of those mental powers which later
in life won the admiration even of his enemies, he gave no indication of
the fact. He was an indifferent student, always somewhat deficient in
mathematics, and never particularly proficient in any other branch,
impressing those who knew him best as an ordinary youth of fair capacity
and of about the attainments requisite to pass the examinations.
II. Service in the Army
Thus equipped by nature and education, Jefferson Davis was commissioned,
upon leaving West Point, a second lieutenant, and was assigned to duty
with the First Regiment of Infantry at Fort Crawford. The life of a second
lieutenant on a frontier post in time of peace, unless under exceptional
circumstances, is not likely to provide many incidents of a nature to
illuminate his character, test his higher capacity or to greatly interest
posterity. The circumstances in this case were not exceptional, and during
the next seven years there was nothing in the career of Lieutenant Davis
worthy of preservation that cannot be recorded in few words. It was the
most barren period of his life. At Fort Crawford, at the Galena lead mines
and at Winnebago he was employed in the police duty that our army at that
time performed on the frontier which consisted chiefly of building forts
and trying to preserve the peace between the Indians and encroaching
settlers. In the performance of all of the duties to which he was
assigned, he acquitted himself creditably and earned the reputation of
being a conscientious, intelligent and efficient officer. At one time
during this service an opportunity to win distinction seemed imminent.
Black Hawk, driven to desperation by the continuous encroachment of the
pioneers upon the hunting grounds of his people, formed what was then
believed to be a powerful coalition of all of the Indian tribes of the
Northwest. But the coalition soon fell to pieces, and the war, with its
few slight skirmishes, turned out to be nothing more serious than an
Indian raid, which was speedily terminated. An incident happened at the
beginning of these troubles which, in the light of subsequent events, is
perhaps, worthy of preservation. The governor of Illinois called out the
state forces and mobilized them at Dixon. General Scott sent there from
Fort Snelling two lieutenants of the regular army to muster them into
service. One of them was Lieutenant Davis and the other was the future
major who so gallantly sustained the fire of Beauregard's heavy guns
against the old walls of Fort Sumter. Among the captains of the companies
to be mustered in was one who was hardly the ideal of a soldierly figure.
He was tall, awkward and homely, and was arrayed in a badly fitting suit
of blue jeans, garnished with large and resplendent brass buttons. He
presented himself and was sworn in and thus probably the first time in his
life that Abraham Lincoln ever took the oath of allegiance to the United
States it was administered to him by Jefferson Davis.
Soon after the engagement at Stillman Run, Black Hawk and several of his
more troublesome warriors surrendered to the United States forces and were
sent as prisoners in charge of Lieutenant Davis to Jefferson Barracks. In
his autobiography the old chief describes this journey in a way that
leaves nothing to be guessed of the bitterness he felt, but he does not
fail to express his appreciation of "the young white chief who alone
treated me with the courtesy and consideration due to an honorable,
vanquished enemy." About a year after Lieutenant Davis' return from this
mission to Fort Crawford, an incident occurred, which, while unimportant
in itself, was destined to produce far-reaching consequences. Col. Zachary
Taylor was assigned to the command of the First Regiment, and with him
came his family to Fort Crawford. His daughter, Miss Sarah Taylor, and
Lieutenant Davis soon conceived an ardent affection for each other, and
their marriage would have followed within the year had it not been
prevented by Colonel Taylor. The cause of his opposition to the marriage
has been the source of much speculation and of many absurd stories. The
bare fact of the case is that Taylor's opposition to Davis as a son-in-law
was based solely upon the privations that confronted the wife of a
soldier,--a not altogether unreasonable objection when we consider army
life on the frontier at that time. Convinced of the fact, however, that
his own family considered the reasons of his opposition unsound, he
determined to find what, at least to him, would prove weightier ones, and
proceeded to seek a quarrel with his daughter's suitor. He found a pretext
in a court martial, where, upon some trivial point, Davis voted against
Taylor with a certain Major Smith. Taylor and Smith were not upon friendly
terms, and thereupon the former flew into a violent rage, and in language
which needed no additional strength to convince one that he fully deserved
his sobriquet of Old Rough and Ready, he swore that Davis should never
marry his daughter, and forbade him to enter his house as a visitor. In
striking contrast to his intended father-in-law, Davis comported himself
throughout this affair as a gentleman, and during the next two years
sought in a manly way to reverse the irate old warrior's decision.
However, all of his efforts were unavailing, and finally convinced that
the task was a hopeless one, but resolved to remove the only substantial
objection, he in the summer of 1835, resigned his commission in the army.
A few weeks later he and Miss Taylor were married at the home of one of
her aunts in Kentucky. But his new-found happiness was destined to a sad
and untimely end, for in September of the same year, while visiting his
sister near Bayou Sara, in Louisiana, both he and his bride were
simultaneously stricken down with malarial fever and in a few days she
succumbed to the disease. He was passionately devoted to his wife, and her
death inflicted a blow from which he did not finally recover for many
years. The winter following the death of his wife was spent in Havana and
at Washington, and in the spring of 1836 he returned to Mississippi to
take up with his brother, Joseph, the threads of a new life, the influence
of which upon his future destiny has never been properly estimated.
III. His Life at Briarfield
Joseph Davis was in many respects a remarkable man. Educated for the bar,
he abandoned the practice of law, after a successful career, when he was
still a young man, and embarked in the business of cotton planting. He
succeeded, acquired two large plantations known as "The Hurricane" and
"Briarfield," and soon became a wealthy man. But he was something more
than a rich cotton planter. He was a man of great strength and force of
character, a student possessed of a vast fund of information, and a clear
and logical reasoner. He read much and thought deeply, if not always
correctly, along the lines of political government and economic science.
Always refusing to take an active part in politics, it was, nevertheless,
a subject in which he was deeply interested. He was partially in sympathy
with the principles of the democratic party, but in that academic, strict
and literal construction of the Constitution and upon the question of
state rights he occupied a position far in advance of that political
organization--a position even beyond that assumed by Mr. Calhoun in his
advocacy of the doctrine of nullification.
[Illustration: Jefferson Davis at Thirty-five]
From this brother Jefferson Davis purchased "Briarfield," and arrangements
were made by which they lived together and jointly managed the
plantations. Owning a large number of slaves, they inaugurated a policy
for their management which is no less interesting in itself than for the
results attained. It was based upon the political maxim of the elder
brother that the less people are governed, the better and stronger and
more law-abiding they become. All rules that involved unnecessary
supervision and espionage of any kind were abolished. The slaves were
placed upon honor and were left free to go and come as they pleased.
Corporal punishment was only inflicted in cases involving moral turpitude,
and only then after the trial and conviction of the accused by a jury of
his peers, during the process of which all of the rules governing the
production and admission of evidence observed in a court of justice, were
scrupulously adhered to. The pardoning power alone was retained by the
masters, and that they frequently exercised. Whenever a slave felt his
services were more valuable to himself than they were to his master, he
was allowed by the payment of a very reasonable price for his time to
embark in any enterprise he wished, the brothers counseling and advising
him, frequently loaning him money and always patronizing him in preference
to other tradesmen. A copy of a page from one of the books of a slave,
bearing the date of Sept. 24, 1842, is before me, and upon it J. E. and J.
Davis are credited with $1,893.50. Another slave usually purchased the
entire fruit crop of the two plantations, and there were still others who
conducted independent and successful business operations. Some of those
slaves in after years became respected and substantial citizens, one of
them purchasing the plantations for something less than $300,000, which
had been offered by a white competitor.
In their intercourse with their slaves, the brothers observed the utmost
courtesy. With the idea that it involved disrespect, they forbade the
abbreviation of Christian or the application of nicknames to any of their
servants. Jefferson Davis' manager, James Pemberton, was always received
on his business calls in the drawing-room, and the dignified master met
the equally dignified slave upon exactly the same plane that he would have
met his broker or his lawyer. From the practice of this system two
results followed: A large fortune was accumulated and the slaves became
thoroughly loyal and devoted to their masters.
[Illustration: Briarfield, Jefferson Davis' Home]
But, as great as must have been the influences of this life in forming the
character of Jefferson Davis, still greater and of more importance,
perhaps, must be regarded the rigorous mental training which he derived
from it. During the period of their residence together, the time not
required by business the brothers devoted to reading and discussions.
Political economy and law, the science of government in general and that
of the United States in particular, were the favorite themes. Locke and
Justinian, Mill, Adam Smith and Vattel divided honors with the Federalist,
the Resolutions of Ninety-Eight and the Debates of the Constitutional
Convention. It was said they knew every word of the three latter by
memory, and it is certain that year after year, almost without
interruption, they sat far into the night debating almost every
conceivable question that could arise under the Constitution of the United
States.
IV. First Appearance in Politics
The first appearance of Jefferson Davis in politics would be hardly worthy
of mention, if it were not for the fact that the event was used in after
years to lend color to a baseless calumny. The Democratic party of Warren
County nominated Mr. Davis for the Legislature in 1843, and although the
normal Whig majority was a large one, he was defeated only by a few votes.
Some years previous to that time the state had repudiated certain bank
bonds which it had guaranteed, and in that canvass this question was an
issue. Mr. Davis assumed the position that as the Constitution provided
that the state might be sued in such cases, the question as to whether the
bonds constituted a valid debt was one primarily for the courts rather
than for the Legislature to decide. Referring to this controversy,
General Scott in his autobiography says, "These bonds were repudiated
mainly by Mr. Jefferson Davis;" and during the Civil War the same
propaganda was urged in England by Robert J. Walker. The well-known
imperfection of General Scott's knowledge on most matters political
serves, in some measure, to palliate his error; but as General Walker was,
at that time, a senator in Congress from Mississippi, it is difficult to
believe that he erred through lack of information or that he was ignorant
of the fact that when the Legislature finally refused to heed the mandate
of the courts and provide for the payment of those obligations, Mr. Davis,
as a private citizen, advocated a subscription to satisfy the debt, and
that this very act was later used by the repudiators as their chief
argument against his election to Congress.
Mr. Davis took a conspicuous part in the presidential campaign of 1844,
and was chosen one of the Polk electors. Before this campaign he was but
slightly known beyond his own county; but at its conclusion his popularity
had become so great that there was a general demand in the ranks of his
party that he should become a candidate for Congress in the following
year.
[Illustration: The Room in the Briars in Which Jefferson Davis Was
Married]
On February 26, 1845, he was united in marriage to Miss Anna Varina
Howell, of Natchez, and in the following month entered upon the canvass
which resulted in his election by a large majority. He took his seat in
the Twenty-Ninth Congress, December 8, 1845.
In that body were many men whose lives were destined to exert an influence
upon his own fate in no small degree. Among them was that ungainly captain
of volunteers to whom we have seen him administering the oath of
allegiance at Fort Snelling, and a strong rugged, wilful man, who, in his
youth, had been the town tailor of the little village of Greenville, in
Tennessee.
Practically the only question involved in the campaign of 1844 was the
admission of the Republic of Texas as a state of the Union. Mexico had
declared that she would regard that act as tantamount to a declaration of
war, and all parties in the Twenty-Ninth Congress now recognized the
conflict as inevitable. Nor was it long delayed. One of President Polk's
first official acts was to order General Taylor to proceed to the Rio
Grande and defend it as the western boundary of the United States.
Proceeding to a point opposite Matamoras, he was there attacked by the
Mexicans, whom he defeated, drove back across the river and shelled them
out of their works on the opposite side.
In the war legislation that was now brought forward in Congress, Mr.
Davis' military education enabled him to take a conspicuous part. His
first speech seems to have left no doubt in the minds of the best judges
that henceforward he was a power to be reckoned with. John Quincy Adams,
it is said, paid the closest attention to this maiden effort, and at its
conclusion shouted into the ear trumpet of old Joshua Giddings: "Mark my
words, sir; we shall hear more of _that_ young man!" But this speech,
which was a reply to an attack made by Mr. Sawyer, of Ohio, on West Point,
did something more than win the admiration of Mr. Adams. Contending for
the necessity of a military education for those who conduct the operations
of war, and ignorant that any member of either avocation was present, he
asked Mr. Sawyer if he thought the results at Matamoras could have been
achieved by a tailor or a blacksmith. Mr. Sawyer good-naturedly replied
that, while he would not admit that some members of his craft might not
have rivaled the exploits of General Taylor, that when it came to
reducing things he himself preferred a horse shoe to a fort any day.
Andrew Johnson, however, took the matter as a personal insult, and as long
as he lived cherished the bitterest hatred for Mr. Davis.
V. Enters Mexican War
But as promising as Mr. Davis' congressional career began, it did not long
continue. Soon after war was declared, he received notice of his election
as colonel of the First Mississippi Regiment, and early in June resigned
his seat in Congress and accepted that office. President Polk, learning of
his resignation, sent for Mr. Davis and offered him an appointment as
brigadier-general. There is no doubt that he greatly coveted that office,
but such, even at that time, was his attachment to the doctrine of state
rights, that, frankly informing the President of his conviction that such
appointments were the prerogatives of the states, he declined the offer.
Hastening to New Orleans, Colonel Davis joined his regiment, and at once
inaugurated that course of training and discipline which, in a few
months, made of it a model of efficiency.
In August he joined General Taylor's army just as it moved forward into
Mexico. On Sept. 19, 1846, General Taylor with six thousand men reached
the strongly-fortified city of Monterey, garrisoned by ten thousand
Mexican regulars under command of the able and experienced General
Ampudia. Two days later the attack began, and at the close of a sharp
artillery duel, General Taylor gave the order to carry the city by storm.
The Fourth Artillery, leading the advance, was caught in a terrific cross
fire, and was speedily repulsed with heavy losses, producing the utmost
confusion along the front of the assaulting brigade. The strong fort,
Taneira, which had contributed most to the repulse, now ran up a new flag,
and amidst the wild cheering of its defenders redoubled its fire of grape,
canister and musketry, under which the American lines wavered and were
about to break.
[Illustration: General Taylor and Colonel Davis at Monterey]
Colonel Davis, seeing the crisis, without waiting for orders, placed
himself at the head of his Mississippians, and gave the order to charge.
With prolonged cheers his regiment swept forward through a storm of
bullets and bursting shells. Colonel Davis, sword in hand, cleared the
ditch at one bound, and cheering his soldiers on, they mounted the works
with the impetuosity of a whirlwind, capturing artillery and driving the
Mexicans pell mell back into the stone fort in the rear.
In vain the defeated Mexicans sought to barricade the gate; Davis and
McClung burst it open, and leading their men into the fort, compelled its
surrender at discretion. Taneira was the key of the situation, and its
capture insured victory. On the morning of the twenty-third, Henderson's
Texas Rangers, Campbell's Tennesseeans and Davis' Mississippians the
latter again leading the assault, stormed and captured El Diabolo, and the
next day General Ampudia surrendered the city.
VI. The Hero of Buena Vista
Two months later, General Taylor again moved forward toward the City of
Mexico, and on February 20 was before Saltilo. Santa Anna, the ablest of
the Mexican generals, with the best army in the republic, numbering twenty
thousand men, there appeared in front. Taylor could barely muster a fourth
of that number, and for strategic purposes fell back to the narrow defile
in front of the hacienda of Buena Vista, where, on the twenty-third, was
fought the greatest battle of the war.
The conflict began early in the morning, and raged with varying fortunes
over a line two miles long, until the middle of the afternoon when the
furious roar of musketry from that quarter apprised General Wool that
Santa Anna was making a desperate effort to break the American center.
Colonel Davis was immediately ordered to support that point, and the
Mississippians went forward at a double quick. As they came upon the
field, the wildest disorder prevailed, and only Colonel Bowles' Indiana
regiment held its ground. After trying in vain to rally the fugitives of a
routed regiment, Colonel Davis speedily formed his own into line of battle
and rapidly pushed forward across a deep ravine to the right of the
Indianians just in time to meet the shock of a whole brigade, which the
two commanders succeeded in repulsing with great gallantry.
But the battle was not over. Under cover of the smoke, Santa Anna's full
brigade of lancers flanked the Americans, and now at the sound of their
trumpets, the Mexican infantry advanced once more to the charge. Thus
assailed on two sides by overwhelming numbers, the situation was truly
critical, but Colonel Davis, forming the two regiments into the shape
of a re-entering angle, awaited the assault.
[Illustration: The Charge of Colonel Davis' Regiment at Buena Vista]
With flying banners and sounding trumpets the gailey caparisoned lancers
came down at a thundering gallop until a sheet of flame from the angle
wrapped their front ranks and bore it down to destruction. Quickly
recovering, the survivors, with the fury of madmen, threw themselves again
and again upon those stubborn ranks, which, now assailed on two sides,
refused to give an inch, and met every onslaught with a withering fire,
which soon so cumbered the ground with the dead that it was with
difficulty the living could move over it.
At last utterly demoralized by the awful carnage, the Mexican lines broke
and fled from the field. The day was over. Buena Vista was won, and
Colonel Davis had accomplished a feat which, when Sir Colin Campbell
imitated it at Inkerman two years later, he was sent by England to
retrieve her fallen fortunes in India.
Notwithstanding the fact that Colonel Davis' right foot had been shattered
early in the morning, he had refused to leave the field for aid, but now
at the close of the action he fell fainting from his horse. The wound was
a dangerous one, and as the surgeons were of the opinion that more than a
year must elapse before he could hope to walk, as soon as he was able to
travel, General Taylor insisted on his going home, and thus closed his
career in the Mexican War.
VII. Enters the Senate
This exploit at Buena Vista created the profoundest enthusiasm throughout
the country, and the Legislatures of several states passed resolutions
thanking him for his services. Governor Brown of his own state, in
obedience to an overwhelming popular sentiment, a few weeks after his
return, appointed Colonel Davis to fill a vacancy that had occurred in the
Senate--an appointment which was speedily ratified by the Legislature.
When, in 1847, Mr. Davis took his seat in the Senate, that irrepressible
conflict, inevitable from the hour that the Constitutional Convention of
1787 sanctioned slavery as an institution within the United States, had
reached a crisis which was threatening the very existence of the Union.
The Missouri Compromise prohibiting slavery north of 36° 30' had failed
to sanction it in express terms south of that parallel, and while in 1820
probably no one would have denied that this was the logical and obvious
meaning of that measure, such was not the case thirty years later. The
Abolitionists had opposed the annexation of Texas, believing, as Mr. Adams
declared, that such an event would justify the dissolution of the Union.
In finally accepting Texas with bad grace, they served notice that it was
their last concession. Therefore when the application of the Missouri
Compromise to the vast territory acquired from Mexico would have given
over a large portion of it to slavery, they brought forward the Wilmot
Proviso, a measure, the effect of which was to abrogate the Missouri
Compromise in so far as it affected slavery south of that line, while
leaving its prohibition as to the north side in full force.
[Illustration: Jefferson Davis as United States Senator in 1847]
Mr. Davis participated in the discussion of these questions and at once
became the ablest and most consistent of those statesmen who, contending
for the strict construction of the Constitution and the broadest
principles of state sovereignty, sought to prevent Congress from violating
the one by infringing on the prerogatives of the other. Holding that the
Constitution sanctioned slavery, that Congress had specified its limits,
that the territories belonged in common to the states, he contended that
the South could not accept with honor anything less than that the Missouri
Compromise extended to the Pacific Ocean.
Reasoning from these premises, his speeches were masterpieces of logic,
and whatever one may think of their philosophy, all must agree that they
were among the greatest ever delivered in any deliberative body. Had the
leaders of his party stood with him in that great battle, they would have
been able to force some definite legislation which would have postponed
the Civil War for many years--possibly beyond a period when the operation
of economic laws might have effected the abolition of slavery as the only
salvation of the South--but Henry Clay's dread of a situation that
endangered the Union prompted him to bring forward his last compromise
measures, which he himself declared to be only a temporary expedient.
Calhoun, equally strong in his love for the Union, anxious to preserve it
at all costs, abandoned his former position, and against the warnings of
Jefferson Davis, soon to become prophetic, his party accepted the measure
which, as he declared, guaranteed no right that did not already exist,
while abrogating to the South the benefits of the Compromise of 1820.
VIII. Becomes Secretary of War
With temporary tranquillity restored, Mr. Davis soon afterward resigned
his seat in the Senate to become a candidate for governor of his state--a
contest in which he was defeated by a small plurality. He retired once
more to Briarfield, and there is little doubt that he at that time
intended to abandon public life. However, in 1853, he yielded to the
insistence of President Pierce, and reluctantly accepted the portfolio of
war in his cabinet.
Only a brief summary is possible, but if we may judge by the reforms
inaugurated, the work accomplished during the four following years,
Jefferson Davis must be considered one of our greatest secretaries of war.
The antiquated army regulations were revised and placed upon a modern
basis, the medical corps was reorganized and made more efficient, tactics
were modernized, the rifled musket and the minie ball were adopted, the
army was increased and at every session he persistently urged upon
Congress the wisdom of a pension system and a law for the retirement of
officers, substantially as they exist at present.
But more enduring and farther reaching in beneficent results were those
great public works originated or completed under his administration,
prominently among which may be mentioned the magnificent aqueduct which
still supplies Washington with an abundance of pure water; the completion
of the work on the Capitol, which had dragged for years; and the founding
of the Smithsonian Institute, of which he was, perhaps, the most zealous
advocate and efficient regent.
Transcontinental railways appealed to him as a public necessity. He
therefore had two surveys made and collected the facts concerning
climate, topography and the natural resources of the country, which
demonstrated the feasibility of the vast undertaking, which was
subsequently completed along the lines and according to the plans that he
recommended.
From his induction into office he set at naught the spoils system of
Jackson, and may very justly be regarded as a pioneer of civil service
reform, for he altogether disregarded politics in his appointments, and
when remonstrated with by the leaders of his party, informed them that he
was not appointing Whigs or Democrats, but servants of the government who,
in his opinion, were best qualified for the duties to be performed. The
same principle he adhered to in matters of the greatest moment, as he
demonstrated in the Kansas troubles. A state of civil war prevailed
between the advocates and opponents of slavery, and it could not be
doubted where his own sympathies were in the controversy. From the nature
of the case, the commander of federal troops in Kansas must be armed with
practically dictatory powers. The selection remained altogether with
himself, and he sent thither Colonel Sumner, an avowed abolitionist, but
an officer whose honor, ability and judgment recommended him as the best
man for the difficult duty.
How the absurd story ever originated that Mr. Davis used the power of his
great office to weaken the North and prepare the South for warlike
operations, is inconceivable to the honest investigator of even ordinary
diligence. No arms or munitions of war could have been removed from one
arsenal to another or from factory to fort without an order from the
Secretary of War. Those orders are still on record, and not one of them
lends color to a theory which seems to have been adopted as a fact by Dr.
Draper, upon no better proof than that afforded by heresay evidence of the
most biased kind. In fact, arsenals in the South were continuously
drawn upon to supply the Western forts during his term of office, and at
its close, while all defenses and stores were in better condition than
ever before, those south of the Potomac were relatively weaker than in
1853.
[Illustration: Jefferson Davis as Secretary of War]
Other less serious charges are equally baseless, and the historian who
would try Mr. Davis upon the common rules of evidence must conclude that
his administration was not only free from dishonor but was characterized
by high ability and unquestioned patriotism--a verdict strengthened by the
fact that contemporaneous partisan criticism furnished nothing to question
such a conclusion.
IX. He Re-enters the Senate
When, in 1857, Mr. Davis was again elected to the Senate, the Compromise
of 1850 had already become a dead letter, as he had predicted that it
would. The anti-slavery sentiment had, like Aaron's rod, swallowed all
rivals, and party leaders once noted for conservatism, had resolved to
suppress the curse, despite the decision of the Supreme Court statute, of
law, of even the Constitution itself. Those who have criticised Mr. Davis
most bitterly for his attitude at that time have failed to appreciate the
fact that he then occupied the exact ground where he had always stood.
Others had changed. He had remained consistent. He had never countenanced
the doctrine of nullification; he had always affirmed the right of
secession. Profoundly versed, as he was, in the constitutional law of the
United States, familiar with every phase of the question debated by the
Convention of 1787, his logical mind was unable to reach a conclusion
adverse to the right of a sovereign state to withdraw from a voluntary
compact, the violation of which endangered its interests. He believed that
the compact was violated by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise; he felt
that it was being violated now, but as in 1850 he had declared that
nothing short of the necessity of self-protection would justify the
dissolution of the Union, he now pleaded with the majority not to force
that necessity upon the South. Secession he frankly declared to be a great
evil, so great that the South would only adopt it as the last resort; but
at the same time he warned the abolitionists that if the guarantees of the
Constitution were not respected, that if the Northern states were to defy
the decrees of the Supreme Court favorable to the South, as they had done
in the Dred Scott decision, that if his section was to be ruled by a
hostile majority without regard to the right, the protection thrown around
the minority by the fundamental law of the land, that the Southern states
could not in honor remain members of the Union, and would therefore
certainly withdraw from it.
He undoubtedly saw the chasm daily growing wider, and had he possessed
that sagacious foresight, that profound knowledge of human nature, in
which alone he was lacking as a statesman of the first order, he would
have realized then, as Abraham Lincoln had before, that the die was cast
and that the Union could not longer endure upon the compromises of the
Constitution which had implanted slavery among a free, self-governing
people, a majority of whom were opposed to it. But there is no recorded
utterance of Jefferson Davis, no act of his, that would lead one to
believe that he had despaired of some adjustment of matters, or that
secession was wise or desirable, until after the nomination of Mr.
Lincoln. Then, for the first time, he declared before a state convention
at Jackson, Miss., that the Chicago platform would justify the South in
dissolving the Union if the Republican party should triumph at the coming
election. But he did not expect that triumph. Shortly previous to that
speech, he had introduced resolutions in the Senate embodying the
principles of the constitutional pro-slavery party.
They affirmed the sovereignty of the separate states, asserted that
slavery formed an essential part of the political institutions of various
members of the Union, that the union of the states rested upon equality of
rights, that it was the duty of Congress to protect slave property in the
territories, and that a territory when forming a constitution, and not
before, must either sanction or abolish slavery. The resolution passed the
Senate, and Mr. Davis hoped to see it become the platform of a reunited
party, which would have meant the defeat of the Republican ticket and a
consequent postponement of the war.
The foregoing facts alone make ridiculous the assertions of Mr. Pollard
that during this Congress Jefferson Davis, with thirteen other senators,
met one night in a room at the Capitol, and perfected a plan whereby the
Southern states were forced into secession against the will of the people
thereof.
What the plan was, how it was put into operation so as to circumvent the
will of the people of eleven states who more than a year later decided the
question of secession by popular vote, why Mr. Davis later introduced the
above resolution and why he worked so zealously thereafter to prevent the
threatened disruption and why he sought to induce the Charleston
Convention to adopt his resolution as the principles of the party, Mr.
Pollard does not attempt to explain. In fact, any rational explanation
would be impossible, for at every point the evidence refutes the
allegation.
Then, again, those who, like Mr. Pollard, have sought to saddle the chief
responsibility of secession upon Jefferson Davis have overlooked the fact
that while not an avowed candidate, he nevertheless hoped to be the
nominee of his party in 1860 for the presidency, and that much of his
strength lay in Northern states, as Massachusetts demonstrated by sending
him a solid delegation to the Charleston Convention. His conduct during
his last year in the Senate is consistent with this ambition, but the
ambition is wholly inconsistent with the theory that he had long planned
the destruction of the Union. The truth is that the impartial historian
must conclude from all of his utterances, from his acts, from the
circumstances of the case, that in so far from being the genius and
advocate of disunion, he deprecated it and sought to prevent it, until
political events rendered certain the election of Mr. Lincoln. Then,
sincerely believing the peculiar institutions of the South to be
imperiled, and never doubting the right of secession, he advocated it as
the only remedy left for a situation which had become intolerable to the
people of his section.
His advocacy, however, was in striking contrast to that of many of his
colleagues. Always free from any suggestion of demagoguery, always
conservative, his utterances on this subject were marked with candor and
moderation. Nor did the ominous shadows that descended upon the next
Congress disturb his equanimity or unsettle his resolution to perform his
duty as he saw it. For days the impassioned storm of invective and
denunciation raged around him, but he remained silent. At last the news
came that his state had seceded. He announced the event to the Senate in a
speech, which in nobility of conception has probably never been surpassed.
He defined his own position and that of his state, and as he bade farewell
to his colleagues, even among his bitterest opponents there was scarcely
an eye undimmed with tears, and whatever others thought in after years,
there was no one in that august assemblage who did not accord to Jefferson
Davis the meed of perfect sincerity and unblemished faith in the cause
which he had espoused.
X. Still Hoped to Save the Union
On the evening of the day Mr. Davis retired from the Senate, he was
visited by Robert Toombs of Georgia, who informed him that it was reported
from a trustworthy source that certain representatives, including
themselves, were to be arrested. He had intended to leave the capital the
following day, but changed his plans to await any action the government
might take against him.
To his friends he declared the hope that the rumor might be well founded,
for should arrests be made, he saw therein the opportunity to bring the
question of the right of a state to secede from the Union before the
Supreme Court for final adjudication. Nothing of the kind happened, and
after waiting for about ten days, Mr. Davis left Washington.
During his stay he freely discussed the situation with the leading
Southern statesmen who called upon him. The general opinion was the first
result of secession, which most of them assumed to be final, must be the
formation of a new federal government, and the consensus of opinion
designated Mr. Davis as the fittest person for the presidency. On the
first proposition he did not agree with his colleagues. He expressed the
belief that the action of the states in exercising the right of secession
would serve to so sober Northern sentiment that an adjustment might be
reached, which, while guaranteeing to the South all of the rights
vouchsafed by the Constitution, would still preserve the Union. He
therefore sought to impress upon them--especially the South Carolina
delegation--the necessity of moderation, the unwisdom of any act at that
time which might render an adjustment impossible.
The second proposition he refused to consider at all, and begged those who
might be instrumental in the formation of a new government, if one must be
created, not to use his name in connection with its presidency. That he at
this time entertained a sincere desire for the preservation of the Union
can be doubted by no one familiar with his private correspondence. In a
letter dated two days after his resignation from the Senate he defends the
action of his state, it is true, but at the same time deplores disunion as
one of the greatest calamities that could befall the South.
In another letter written three days later, he uses this significant
language: "All is not lost. If only moderation prevails, if they will only
give me time, I am not without hope of a peaceable settlement that will
assure our rights within the Union." That he did not abandon that hope
until long afterward, that he clung to it long after it became a delusion,
is very probable, as we shall see.
Nothing could be farther from the truth than the theory so often advanced
that presidential ambition was responsible for Mr. Davis' attitude on the
question of secession. This I have indicated in the last chapter. The
truth of this position is established if he were sincere in his
declarations that he did not covet the honor of the presidency of the new
government. Those declarations were made to the men who, of all others,
could further his ambition; they knew his stubbornness of opinion,
understood how likely it was that he would never abandon that or any other
position; there were other aspirants whom he knew to be personally more
acceptable to a majority of these statesmen, and his attitude, of course,
released them from any responsibility imposed by popular sentiment in his
favor in the South. If one is still inclined to accept all this, however,
as another instance of Cæsar putting the crown aside, the question
arises, Why did he assume the same attitude with those who possessed no
power to influence his fortunes? Why in his letters to his wife, to his
brother, to his friends, in private life, did he express the strongest
repugnance to accepting that office should it be created and offered? But
even stronger evidence that he did not seek or want it is afforded by
another circumstance. Mississippi, in seceding from the Union, had
provided for an army. The governor had appointed him to command it, with
the rank of major-general. In the event of war, that position opened up
unlimited possibilities in the field, which was exactly what he desired;
for, unfortunately, he then and always cherished the delusion that he was
greater as a soldier than he was as a statesman. All of this is consistent
with his sincerity--inconsistent with any other reasonable theory.
Mr. Davis must also be acquitted of the charge made by no inconsiderable
number of the Southern people that he first failed to anticipate war and
later underestimated the extent and duration of the approaching conflict.
On his way from Washington to Mississippi, he made several speeches. All
of them were marked by moderation, but to the prominent citizens who on
that journey came to confer with him, he declared in emphatic terms that
the United States would never allow the seceded states to peacefully
withdraw from the Union, and warned them that unless some adjustment were
effected, they must expect a civil war, the extent, duration and
termination of which no one could foresee.
At Jackson he reiterated those views, along with a hope for
reconciliation, in a speech delivered before the governor and Legislature
of his state. Peaceful adjustment he declared not beyond hope, yet if war
should come, he warned them that it must be a long one, and that instead
of buying 75,000 stands of small arms, as proposed, that the state should
only limit the quantity by its capacity to pay. Those views, it may be
here remarked, were not coincided with by his own state or the people of
the South generally. They were far in advance of their representatives on
the question of secession, but the belief was generally prevalent at even
a much later date that no attempt would be made to coerce a seceding
state.
XI. President of the Confederacy
The convention of the seceding states met at Montgomery, Feb. 4, 1861, and
proceeded to adopt a constitution as the basis for a provisional
government. The work was the most rapid in the history of legislative
proceedings, being completed in three days. With the exceptions of making
the preamble read that each state accepting it did so in "its sovereign
and independent capacity," fixing the president's and vice-president's
term of office at six years and making them ineligible for re-election,
prohibiting a protective tariff, inhibiting the general government from
making appropriations for internal improvements, requiring a two-thirds
vote to pass appropriation bills and giving cabinet officers a seat, but
no vote, in Congress, the Confederate constitution was, practically, a
reaffirmation of that of the United States.
It was adopted on the eighth, and the provisional government to continue
in force one year, unless sooner superseded by a permanent organization,
was formally launched upon the troubled waters of its brief and stormy
existence. The following day, an election was held for president and
vice-president, the convention voting by states, which resulted on the
first ballot in the selection by a bare majority of Jefferson Davis and
Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia. Mr. Davis, as we have seen, was not a
candidate. He was not in, nor near, Montgomery at the time, and took no
part, by advice or otherwise, in the formation of the new constitution.
His selection over Mr. Toombs was the result of a single set of
circumstances. Mr. Davis' military education, his experience in the field,
his services as secretary of war, a widespread popular belief in his
ability as a military organizer, and his known capacity as a statesman
in times of peace, all marked him as the fittest man for a place which
evidently required a combination of high qualities. Had Mr. Toombs
possessed either military education or experience, there is scarcely a
doubt that he would have been chosen.
[Illustration: The Capitol at Richmond]
The news of his election reached Mr. Davis while working in his garden,
and is said to have caused him genuine disappointment and grief. That the
convention was uncertain of his acceptance is indicated by the fact that
with the notification was sent an earnest appeal to consider the public
welfare, rather than his own preferences, in considering the offer of the
presidency. Upon this ground he based his action in accepting the office
and hastening to Jackson, he resigned his position in the state army,
expressing the hope and belief that the service would be but temporary.
All along the route to Montgomery, bands and bonfires, booming cannon and
the peals of bells heralded his approach, and vast concourses greeted him
at every station.
What purported to be an account of this journey was printed in the leading
papers of the North, which pictured Mr. Davis as invoking war, breathing
defiance and threatening extermination of the Union. Nothing of the kind,
however, occurred. The speeches actually delivered were moderate,
conservative and conciliatory. So much so, in fact, that they were
disappointing to his enthusiastic audiences, and there are yet living many
witnesses to the frequent and repeated declaration of the fear that "Jeff.
Davis has remained too long amongst the Yankees to make him exactly the
kind of president the South needs."
XII. His First Inaugural
Monday, Feb. 18, 1861, there assembled around the state capitol at
Montgomery such an audience as no state had ever witnessed--as perhaps
none ever will witness. Statesmen, actual and prospective; jurists and
senators; soldiers and sailors; officers and office-seekers, the latter,
no doubt, predominating; clerks, farmers and artisans; fashionably attired
women in fine equipages decorated with streamers and the tri-colored
cockades; foreign correspondents--in fact, representatives from every
sphere and condition of life, each eager to witness a ceremonial which
could never occur again.
At exactly one o'clock Mr. Davis and Mr. Stephens appeared upon the
platform in front of the capitol, and when the mighty wave of applause
had subsided, Howell Cobb, President of the Constitutional Convention,
administered to them the oath of office. Then in that peculiarly musical
voice which had never failed to charm the Senate in other days, a voice
audible in its minutest inflections to every one of the vast throng, Mr.
Davis delivered his inaugural address.
Strangely enough, both sections of the divided country then and thereafter
attached a widely varying value to the address. It was so simple, clear
and direct that it is amazing two interpretations should have been placed
upon it. As an exposition of the causes leading to secession, it was a
masterpiece. It is impossible to read it today without feeling that in
every sentence it breathed a prayer for peace.
Viewed in connection with the events that produced it, as the first
official advice of the chief executive of a new nation beset with the most
stupendous problems, confronted by the gravest perils, it certainly added
nothing to Mr. Davis' reputation as a statesman. Beyond the declaration
that the Confederacy would be maintained, a desire for peace and freest of
trade relations with the United States, he outlined no policies and
offered neither suggestions nor advice.
Mr. Davis, now more than perhaps any other Southern statesman, should have
realized that "the erring sisters" would not be permitted to depart in
peace, and yet beyond the barest general statement that an army and a navy
must be created, he dismissed the matter, to plunge into an academic
discussion of the prosperity of the South and the _moral sin_ that would
be committed by the United States should it perversely and wickedly
disturb this condition and curtail the world's supply of cotton!
The question of revenue was, of course, of paramount importance, but no
idea, no plan, no suggestion was offered along that line. The more one
studies that remarkable production, the more puzzling it becomes, if we
assume that Mr. Davis was altogether sincere in his declaration that the
severance was final and irremediable.
If he were not, if he still hoped for some adjustment that would reunite
the severed union, one may readily understand why he refrained from
assuming the vigorous attitude that the occasion demanded, but which might
have placed compromise beyond the pale of possibility. The significant
omissions were not compatible with Mr. Davis' well-known views of official
duty. Nor is the matter in any way explained by assuming that as Congress
was charged with the performance of all of these important matters, that
it was not Mr. Davis' duty to suggest plans and methods. His office
invested him with those powers and he was elected to it for the express
reason that he was supposed to be eminently qualified in all practical
administrative and legislative details, especially those of a military
nature.
While Mr. Davis must be absolved from the charge that his cabinet
appointments were the result of favoritism, they were, nevertheless, for
the most part, unfortunate. The portfolio of the treasury, undoubtedly the
most important place in the cabinet, was intrusted to Mr. Memminger, of
South Carolina, an incorruptible gentleman of high principles and mediocre
ability, a theorist, devoid of either the talents or experience that would
have fitted him for the difficult place. Toombs, Benjamin and Reagan were
better selections. The others were men honest, sincere of purpose, but
little in their antecedents to recommend them for the particular positions
which they were called upon to fill. With at least two of them, Mr. Davis
was not previously personally acquainted, and political considerations
probably secured their appointment.
XIII. Delays and Blunders
One of the president's first official acts was to appoint Crawford,
Forsyth and Roman as commissioners "to negotiate friendly relations" with
the United States. They were men of different political affiliations, one
being a Douglas Democrat, one a Whig and the other a lukewarm
secessionist. All were conservative and shared fully in the president's
desire for peace on any honorable terms.
But while trying to secure peace, Mr. Davis was not insensible to the
necessity of an army, and on this point the first difference arose between
him and Congress. Beyond the small and inefficient militia maintained by
the different states, there was neither army nor guns, and ammunition with
which to equip one. He therefore urged Congress to provide for the
purchase of large quantities of warlike material, but that body,
infatuated with the idea that there would be no war, proceeded to debate
whether it were advisable to add anything to the stock owned by the
states, which at that time was insufficient to arm one-thirtieth of the
population subject to military duty.
Mr. Toombs once assured the writer that after the loss of valuable time it
was decided to send an agent abroad, it was proposed to purchase but eight
thousand Enfield rifles and that it was with the utmost difficulty that he
prevailed upon the government to increase the order to ten thousand.
From this circumstance the extent of the infatuation may be inferred. The
peace delusions of Congress seem to have been fully shared by the
secretary of the treasury.
At the time of the inauguration of the Confederate government and for
months thereafter, merchants and banks of the South held quantities of
gold, silver and foreign exchange which they were anxious to sell at very
nearly par for government securities, and yet this opportunity was
neglected. But as grave as that blunder was, it was, nevertheless,
insignificant when compared to another. There were then in the South about
three million bales of cotton which the owners would have sold for ten
cents a pound in Confederate money.
The president accordingly suggested to Mr. Memminger that the government
buy this cotton, immediately ship it to Europe and there store it to await
developments. His theory was that if war should come, it must be a long
one and that in less than two years this cotton would be worth from
seventy to eighty cents a pound, which would then give the government
assets, convertible at any time into gold, of at least a billion dollars.
The plan was sound and feasible, for a blockade did not become seriously
effective until more than a year after the beginning of war, and we know
the price of cotton went even beyond Mr. Davis' figures. The secretary,
however, engrossed in the puerile plans of fiat money, which the history
of almost any revolution, from the days of Adam, should have proved a
warning, turned a deaf ear to this suggestion which at once combined
profound statesmanship and admirable financial sagacity, and the matter
came to naught.
But this was only one of the many serious blunders and lapses which
retarded the adequate preparation which all at a later day recognized
should have been made by the Confederacy.
When the stern logic of events portrayed this neglect as the parent of
failure, the spirit of criticism emerged even in the South and failed not
to spare Mr. Davis. But these critics have, for the most part, overlooked
the very important fact that it was impossible for the president to
accomplish a great deal without the co-operation of his Congress.
The states' rights ideas, we must remember, were the predominant ones
entertained by the people and their representatives, and that they, more
than anything else, paralyzed action, promoted delays and fostered
confusion, can admit of no doubt. The forts, arsenals, docks and shipyards
belonged to the states, and although Mr. Davis early in his administration
urged that they be ceded to the general government, it was not until war
became a certainty that a reluctant consent was yielded and this most
necessary step consummated. Another weakness lay in the fact that the
provisional army, in so far as one existed, was formed on the states'
rights plan.
That is to say, it was composed of volunteers, armed and officered by the
states, who alone possessed power over them. Any governor might at any
time without any reason withdraw the troops of his state from the most
important point at the most critical moment, without being answerable to
any power for his action. These are but two examples of many that might be
adduced, but they will serve to demonstrate how impossible it was for any
man, whatever his influence or position, to make the preparations demanded
by the situation while hedged about by such fatal limitations. And,
whatever Mr. Davis' failures may have been in this regard, they are
chargeable to the system adopted by the people themselves, rather than to
any serious derelictions on his part.
XIV. The Bombardment of Sumter
The bulk of the Confederate army was mobilized at Charleston, where, if
hostilities were to occur, they were likely to begin, owing to the fact
that a Federal garrison still held Fort Sumter. Mr. Davis, realizing the
critical nature of this situation, impressed upon the peace commissioners
that, failing to secure a treaty of friendship, they were to exhaust every
effort to procure the peaceful evacuation of Sumter.
The history of those negotiations is too well known to need repetition
here. Mr. Seward's disingenious methods served their purpose of inspiring
a false hope of peace, and it is very probable that Mr. Davis suspected no
duplicity until fully advised of the details and destination of the
formidable fleet that was being fitted out at New York. When it sailed,
and not before, ended his long dream of peace.
The attempt to reinforce a stronghold in the very heart of the Confederacy
was express and unmistakable notice to the world that the United States
did not propose to relinquish its sovereignty over the seceded states. To
allow the peaceful consummation of the attempt was to acquiesce in a claim
fatal to the existence of the new government. Therefore, if the
Confederacy was to be anything more than a futile attempt to frighten the
Federal government into granting concessions, the time had now come to
act. The president did not hesitate. General Beauregard was instructed to
demand the surrender of Sumter, and, failing to receive it, to proceed
with its reduction.
The story of that demand and its refusal, of how at thirty minutes past
four o'clock on the morning of April 12, 1861, the quiet old city of
Charleston was aroused from its slumbers by that first gun from Fort
Johnston "heard around the world," and how the gallant Major Anderson, Mr.
Davis' old comrade in arms of other days, maintained his position until
the walls of the fortifications were battered down and fierce fires raged
within, are all history, and need no further comment or elaboration at
this time.
[Illustration: Interior of Fort Sumter After the Surrender]
There as at Matanzas in the beginning of the war with Spain, the first and
only life sacrificed was that of a mule. When Mr. Davis learned this, he
exclaimed: "Thank heaven, nothing more precious than the blood of a mule
has been shed. Reconciliation is not yet impossible." But he was hardly
serious in that declaration. The die was now cast, and for the first time
the North realized that the South was in earnest--the South, that war was
inevitable.
Mr. Lincoln's call for volunteers to coerce the seceding states aroused a
perfect frenzy of patriotism throughout the South, and the full military
strength of the Confederacy could have been enlisted in thirty days, but
it is hardly necessary to say that a government which had reluctantly
ordered ten thousand rifles was in no position to take advantage of that
opportunity.
The president immediately called an extra session of Congress. It convened
on April 29, and received his special message, which was in marked
contrast to his inaugural. There were no dissertations on agriculture and
morality now, but with that forceful perspicacity which usually
characterized his utterances, he marked out sensibly and well what should
be done, and suggested definite methods. This message was the first
utterance, public or private, which clearly demonstrated that his dream of
compromise was over.
His recommendations embraced the creation of a regular army upon a sane
plan, the immediate purchase of arms, ammunition and ships, the
establishment of gun factories and powder mills, and a number of other
subjects, which leave no doubt that he saw the situation in its true
proportions, and was resolved to use the resources of the Confederacy to
meet it. That these resources were meager when compared with those of his
powerful adversary, is beyond question. But neither in point of wealth nor
population were the odds so great against the South as those over which
Napoleon twice triumphed, or those opposed to Frederick the Great in a
contest from which he emerged triumphant; and the conclusion so freely
indulged in of late years that the Confederacy was foredoomed from the
beginning would seem to rest rather upon an accomplished fact than upon
sound reasoning, if in the beginning the resources of the South had been
used to the best advantage. That they were not, was known by every
statesman and general of the Confederacy whose achievements entitle his
opinion to consideration. But it is eminently unfair to seek to saddle all
or the greater part of this failure upon Mr. Davis, as has been attempted,
in some cases, by the delinquents who themselves, contributed largely to
that result. Some of the causes of that failure we have seen. Another, and
perhaps the most potent cause, the writer believes, may be traced to
conditions which have been very generally overlooked.
XV. Conditions in the South
Previous to the Civil War, the large slaveholders constituted as distinct
an aristocracy as ever existed under any monarchy. Educated in Northern
colleges and the universities of Europe, it produced a race of men who in
many respects has never been surpassed by those of any country in the
world. It was small, but it was the governing class of the South, in which
the people, except those in the more northerly section, placed implicit
confidence.
A majority of the latter were not slaveholders nor were they in sympathy
with slavery, and at heart they were unfriendly to the governing class,
its policies and politics--a fact which was responsible for giving to the
Union from the seceded states almost as many soldiers as enlisted for the
Confederacy.
The educated class, of course, understood all sections of the country, but
at this time it is almost impossible to understand how little the rank and
file of the Southern people knew of the North, its resources and, above
all, of the motives that actuated its citizens. In a word, two sections of
a country separated by no natural barrier, speaking the same language and
in the main living under the same laws, were to all intents and purposes
as much foreigners as though a vast ocean had divided them.
Nursed upon the theories of state sovereignty, the Southern people could
not at first understand how a seceding state could be coerced, and when
that delusion was dispelled, their attitude was one of angry contempt.
From colonial days, conditions in the South had been such as to develop
courage, resourcefulness and self-reliance in the individual. The idea of
coercion was to them ridiculous. Numerically inferior as they were,
they felt self-sufficient. So much so, in fact, that they took no trouble
to conciliate that class before referred to which, while out of sympathy
with them on slavery, were held by other ties which at first inclined them
rather to the South than to the North. What mattered it? Let them join the
Yankees, and they would whip both. This same confidence saw in the
approaching conflict a short affair, and among this people, naturally as
warlike as the Romans under the republic, there grew up the widespread
fear that the war would not last long enough for all to take a hand.
Valorous the attitude undoubtedly was, but at the same time the spirit
that gave it birth was fatal to that careful preparation which alone would
have insured a chance for success.
[Illustration: Henry Clay Addressing the Senate on the Missouri
Compromise]
This spirit invaded even the Congress, where strong opposition developed
to long enlistments. In fact, this body seems to have seriously believed
that the volunteers would be sufficient to maintain the struggle, and
while Mr. Davis saw the error and danger involved in both theories, the
most that could be secured was legislation which provided for a twelve
months' enlistment. This, in all truth, was bad enough, but it is doubtful
if it was so pernicious as the methods provided for fixing the rank of
officers by the relative position formerly held by them in the United
States army--a measure which from its inception proved a perfect Pandora's
box of discord and dissension.
XVI. The First Battle
The next step of Congress was unquestionably a fatal blunder. This was the
removal of the capitol from Montgomery to Richmond. From the very nature
of the situation, it was evident that the chief goal of the enemy would be
the capture of the capital and the moral effect of such a result must
prove extremely disastrous, by elating the North, discouraging the South
and impairing confidence abroad.
Left at Montgomery, it would have compelled the enemy to operate from a
distant base of supplies, necessitating his keeping open lines of
communication eight hundred miles long, while it would have liberated to
be used as occasion demanded, a magnificent army which was constantly
required for the defense of Richmond. Located as that place is, within
little more than one hundred miles of the enemy's base, upon a river
which permitted the ascent of formidable war crafts and within a short
distance of a strong fortress on a fine harbor, it was a constant
invitation for aggressions which required all of the energies and most of
the resources of the South to meet and defend.
When in May the president reached Richmond, its defense was already
demanding attention. The states had sent forward troops to the aid of
Virginia and these were divided into three armies. One of these was posted
at Norfolk. Another, under General Joseph E. Johnston, guarded the
approach to the Shenandoah Valley, and the third, under General
Beauregard, covered the direct approach to the capital from near Manassas.
The day the Federal army moved forward to the invasion of the South, Mr.
Davis was advised of the fact by one of his secret agents in Washington,
and he wired Johnston to abandon Harper's Ferry and effect a junction with
Beauregard--an order executed with the celerity and effectiveness which
could not have been surpassed by the seasoned troops of a veteran army.
But a difficulty now arose. Johnston and Beauregard were commanding
separate armies, and in the face of impending battle it was certainly
necessary to know who exercised supreme command.
[Illustration: Edward Ruffin, who Fired the First Gun at Sumter]
Under the law of Congress, it was doubtful if either exercised those
functions, Johnston therefore wired an inquiry and received from Mr. Davis
only the reply that he was general in the Confederate army. However, the
anomalous situation and perhaps another motive, which will be hereafter
noticed, induced the president to hasten forward, so as to be himself
present upon the field of battle. When he reached Johnston's headquarters,
the hard-fought day was closing, the storm of battle was dying away to the
westward and General McDowell's army, routed at every point, was
retreating in wild disorder toward Washington.
XVII. A Lost Opportunity
No man influential in the making of history ever knew less of the art of
divining character than Jefferson Davis. Entirely ingenous himself, he
persisted in attributing that virtue to every one else, utterly failing to
understand the mixed motives that influence all men in most of the affairs
of life. If he perceived one trait of character, real or imaginary, which
appealed to his admiration, it was quite sufficient, and forthwith he
proceeded to attribute to its possessor all of the other qualities which
he wished him to possess. That conclusion once reached, no amount of
evidence could overthrow it or even shake his confidence in its
correctness.
That peculiarity, in some ways admirable in itself, was responsible for
many of his mistakes and misfortunes. The first vital one attributable to
that cause was Mr. Davis' selection of the head of the commissary
department of the Confederate army. Early in his military career, while
stationed at Fort Crawford, a warm friendship had sprung up between
himself and Lieutenant Northrop. About the time he resigned his commission
an accident befell Northrop which compelled him to retire from the army
also. Thereupon he studied medicine and afterward locating in Charleston
became a zealous convert to the Catholic faith and beyond the spheres of
church quarrels and religious polemics, remained an unimportant factor in
his community. Indeed he seems to have been unable to manage his own small
affairs with any degree of success, and many of his neighbors and friends
believed him to be of unsound mind. Mr. Davis had not seen him, and
probably knew little of his life since he left the army, a quarter of a
century before. A superficial inquiry must have demonstrated that Dr.
Northrop was wholly unfitted by education, temperament and experience for
a position which required business training and executive ability of the
first order. However, Mr. Davis, remembering the man as he had supposed
him to be years before, proceeded to appoint him to the most important and
difficult position under the government.
[Illustration: Robert Toombs]
Colonel Northrop, of course, had ideas of his own and he proceeded to
execute them without the slightest regard for the wishes or opinions of
the able and experienced generals who commanded the Confederate armies in
Northern Virginia.
Near Manassas, where Johnston and Beauregard had been ordered to form a
junction, a railroad branched off from the main line and traversed the
famous Shenandoah Valley, then and afterward known as the granary of the
South. To have supplied the armies with provisions by the use of that line
whose rolling stock was then comparatively idle would have been one of the
easiest of military problems; but instead of following that course,
breadstuffs were transported first from the Valley to Richmond and thence
over the sadly overtaxed main line to the army at Manassas. But one result
was possible which, of course, was the almost complete failure of the
commissary department. Most of the Southern troops went hungry into the
battle of Bull Run, and not until ten o'clock at night could meager
rations be procured for the exhausted army. This fact was the real reason
why General Johnston did not pursue the routed army of McDowell. Johnston,
Beauregard and President Davis all concurred in the necessity of following
up the victory, and the latter actually dictated the order to Colonel
Jordan, but as the commissary department had completely gone to pieces,
no forward movement was possible then, or, indeed, for months afterward.
XVIII. The Quarrel with Johnston
A greater calamity than this, which practically nullified the fruits of
the victory, soon occurred in the beginning of that unnecessary and
calamitous quarrel between the President and General Johnston. Much that
is untrue has been written about its origin, but the facts as learned from
the principals themselves, and all the records in the case, refer it to a
single cause which may be stated in few words.
[Illustration: General Joseph E. Johnston]
In March, 1861, the Confederate Congress enacted that the relative rank of
officers should be determined in the new army by that which they held in
that of the United States. General Johnston alone of those who resigned
from the old army held the rank of Brigadier-General and therefore, it
would seem, should have become the senior general in the Confederate
armies. In fact, he was recognized as such by the government until after
the battle of Bull Run.
However, on the Fourth of July the President nominated five generals,
three of whom took precedence over Johnston, thus reducing him from the
first general to that of fourth, and in August Congress confirmed the
nominations as made. Upon learning what had been done, General Johnston
wrote the President, protesting against what he conceived to be a great
injustice. His language was moderate and respectful, and it is impossible
to read his argument without acknowledging its faultless logic. The
President, however, indorsed upon the document the single word
"Insubordinate," and sent to the writer a curt, caustic note, which
without attempting any answer or explanation summarily closed the matter.
That Johnston was deeply wounded admits of no doubt, but he was too
great a soldier and man to allow this snub to influence his devotion and
service, and his attitude toward the President remained throughout the
struggle eminently correct. Mr. Davis however, was never able to
understand those who differed from his views. General Johnston often did
so; wisely as the sequel always proved, but the President invariably
attributed this difference to the wrong cause. The breach was thereby kept
open and with what results we shall see.
[Illustration: Generals Lee, Jackson and Johnston]
The most important result of the victory of Bull Run was the tremendous
enthusiasm that it stirred throughout the South. Volunteers came forward
so rapidly that they could not be armed and the belief became general that
it was to be "a ninety days' war." President Davis, however, nursed no
such delusions. He knew the temper of the great and populous states of the
North, and he fully realized that defeat would teach caution while
arousing stronger determination. He, therefore, sought to impress upon
Congress the necessity of stopping short enlistments and the advisability
of passing general laws which would place the country in position to
sustain a long war. But the times were not propitious for that kind of
advice, and it was lost upon a body whose enthusiasm had temporarily
exceeded its judgment and discretion.
XIX. The Battle of Shiloh
In the fall of 1861 Mr. Davis was elected President of the Confederate
States for a term of six years, and on the 21st of February in the
following year he was inaugurated. This message may hardly be called a
state paper, as it was devoted rather to a recapitulation of the events of
the war than to discussion of measures or the recommendation of policies.
The tone of the message was hopeful, for notwithstanding the fall of Forts
Donelson and Henry, and the evacuation of Bowling Green, the fortunes of
war were decidedly with the South.
However, in those catastrophes, which Mr. Davis passed lightly over, the
ablest generals in the Southern army saw the first results of the fatal
policy of attempting with limited resources to defend every threatened
point of a vast irregular frontier reaching from the Rio Grande to the
Potomac. The three hundred thousand men in the Confederate army at that
time could have captured Washington or localized the whole Federal army in
its defense, but scattered over an area of more than fifteen hundred
miles, strength was dissipated and at every point they were too weak to
attempt more than a defensive policy. Upon this point, however, Mr. Davis
was inflexible, and absolutely refused to abandon any place however
insignificant from a strategic point of view, even when the soldiers
holding it might have been used most effectively elsewhere.
The Federal government soon perceived that this was to be the fixed policy
of the Confederate President and proceeded to make the most of it.
McClellan's preparation for a blow at Richmond diverted attention from
the West where General Albert Sidney Johnston was left without hope of
succor to deal with the armies of Grant and Buell. That great soldier,
however, was equal to any emergency and prepared to strike before Grant
and Buell could effect a junction. Fatally hampered as he was by the
Commissary General's lack of foresight or preparation and with a staff too
small and inexperienced to render the required services, he forced General
Grant into the battle of Shiloh. More brilliant generalship was never
shown upon any field than was that day displayed by the great Texan, who
drove the Federal army back upon the river in the wildest confusion and
disorder. At two o'clock the battle was won. A half hour later Johnston
was dead--a victim of the foolish practice of the Southern generals of
remaining on the firing line. The command devolved upon Beauregard who,
instead of completing the victory, stopped the battle while more than two
hours of daylight remained. He thereby lost all that had been gained and
insured his own defeat, for during the night, Buell's corps crossed the
river and easily routed his army on the following day.
What motives actuated Beauregard in this matter can only be conjectured.
His amazing conduct was never even plausibly explained by himself. It was
certainly not treachery, for his patriotism was unbounded. It was not
incompetency, for tried by the usual standards, he was not lacking as a
general.
He at that time was not on good terms with the President, and then and
ever he was vain and covetous of honors and fame. Had he completed the
victory, the administration, the world, history would have credited it to
Johnston. Had he succeeded in winning it on the following day, it would
have been his own. From all that can be learned some such reason must have
influenced him in halting a victorious army in the moment of its
triumph.
[Illustration: C. G. Memminger]
When the news of the fatal affair at Shiloh reached Davis, his rage knew
no bounds, but instead of relieving Beauregard of his command and bringing
him promptly before a court martial, as Frederick or Napoleon would have
done, he allowed him to remain at the head of the Western army without
even administering a reprimand. In fact, not until Beauregard had left the
army on sick leave about a month later did the President express any
disapprobation. Then he declared that nothing would ever induce him to
restore the offender to any command. But in most cases Mr. Davis' anger
was short lived, and while we must admire that gentleness which
undoubtedly was responsible for his never punishing any offender, it was
nevertheless a weakness in the South's Chief Executive from which it was
destined to suffer greater ills than flowed from the oblivion which soon
shrouded the offenses of this particular general.
XX. The Seven Days of Battle
The gloom cast over the South by the reverses of the West by no means
discouraged President Davis, and taking the field in person he aided and
directed his generals in preparing for the defense of Richmond against the
impending attack of McClellan.
The seven days' battle before Richmond are particularly interesting to the
military critic by reason no less of the valor displayed upon both sides
than for the masterly strategy used by the two great antagonists.
General Johnston, who had been severely criticised by the President,
remained long enough on the field of Seven Pines to demonstrate the
soundness of his plans by winning a great victory before he was stricken
down and borne unconscious to the rear. General Lee succeeded Johnston,
and being reinforced by the indomitable Stonewall Jackson, whose soldiers
were inspired by a series of recent magnificent victories in the Valley of
Virginia, drove McClellan back so rapidly through a strange and difficult
country that the wonder is he did not lose his entire army.
For this feat, which must be regarded as one of the most brilliant pieces
of maneuvering in history, General McClellan was held up to execration and
even his patriotism was questioned. In fact, the belief is still general
that he lost the opportunity to capture Richmond, when as a matter of fact
he could not have done so with an army of twice the size he commanded, as
must be evident to any one who will remember that it took Grant, with an
army of 200,000 men, more than a year to accomplish that result when
confronted not by 100,000 of the best troops the world ever saw led by a
dozen generals, either one of whom Napoleon would have delighted to have
made a marshal, but by less than 40,000 worn, starved and ragged veterans
whose great commanders with one or two exceptions, had fallen in battle.
President Davis was not an ungenerous enemy and at the time, as well as
frequently in later life, expressed warm admiration for the soldierly
qualities that enabled McClellan to extricate himself from a situation
which must have proved fatal to a less able commander.
XXI. Butler's Infamous Order 28
This series of victories in some measure offset the blow the South
sustained in the fall of New Orleans, and immediately thereafter the
President attempted to deal with the situation in that quarter in a way
which will serve to throw a strong side light upon another phase of his
character. General Butler had hanged a semi-idiotic boy by the name of
Munford for hauling down the flag from the mint. The act was one of
impolicy, if not of wanton barbarity, and it aroused a storm of
indignation throughout the South. This was, in a few days, followed by the
infamous "Order No. 28," which in retaliation for snubs received at the
hands of the women of New Orleans, licensed the soldiers, upon repetition
of the offense, "to greet them as women of the town plying their
avocation."
President Davis at once issued a proclamation declaring Butler an outlaw,
and placing a price upon his head and commanding that no commissioned
officer of the United States should be exchanged until the culprit should
meet with due punishment. The officers in Butler's army were also declared
to be felons, their exchange was prohibited and they were ordered to be
treated as common criminals.
As to the justice of the proclamation so far as it related to Butler
himself few North or South at this day who have read "Order No. 28" will
be inclined to question. But to attempt to attain to the officers of a
numerous army with the guilt of a personal act of its commander must, upon
due reflection, have appeared as absurd to the President as it did to the
rest of the country. As a matter of fact the proclamation was never
attempted to be executed although abundant chances were presented, and it
is very probable that had Butler himself fallen into the hands of the
Confederates he would have had nothing worse than imprisonment to fear had
his fate been left to the President.
Mr. Davis, as we all know, issued some very sanguinary proclamations in
his time, but they were altogether sound and fury, "signifying nothing,"
and not one of them was ever enforced. He no doubt hoped that their
terrible aspect would operate as a deterrent and no doubt they did at
first. But gradually their seriousness came to be questioned and then they
became a subject of amusement to both friend and foe. During his most
eventful administration, although hundreds of death warrants of criminals,
who richly deserved the extreme punishment, came before him he never
signed one of them or permitted an execution when he had the slightest
opportunity to interfere.
This, of course, was charged by Pollard and other enemies to his desire
to save himself, in the event the Confederacy should fail, but no motive
could have been further from the correct one than this view of the case.
The truth is that Jefferson Davis was as kindly, tender, gentle and
considerate as a woman, and it was quite impossible for him to assume the
responsibility of inflicting serious punishment or suffering of any kind
upon any of God's creatures, human or otherwise. Had he hanged a few
prisoners upon one or two occasions, it would have been of inestimable
benefit to the South; had he executed one or two deserters in 1864, he
would at once have checked an evil which was threatening the very
existence of the Confederacy, but he did neither, although fully realizing
the impolicy of his course. And whatever we may think of his strength of
character we can but love the man whose humanity triumphed over passions,
prejudice, policy and wisdom and brought him through those awful times
that frightfully developed the savage instinct in the best of men without
the taint of bloodshed upon his conscience.
XXII. Mental Imperfections
History must finally charge all of Mr. Davis' blunders to no moral
defective sense but rather to imperfect mental conceptions augmented and
intensified by a strong infusion of self-confidence and stubbornness which
frequently destroyed the perspective and blinded him to the truth apparent
to other men of far less capacity. Criticism, however well meant, never
enlightened him to his own mistakes.
If he made a bad appointment, he saw in the objection to his protege
ignorance of his merit, jealousy, a disposition to persecute, in fact
anything rather than the possibility that he himself might have made a
mistake.
This unfortunate mental attitude, combined with the fixed idea that his
genius was that of the soldier was responsible for the most unfortunate
acts of his life. What his real merits as a soldier were we can only
conjecture. In the Mexican War he demonstrated first-rate ability, but his
highest command was that of a regiment. Although he constantly interfered
with some of his generals with suggestions, sometimes tantamount to
commands, he never exercised the military prerogative in directing troops
in the field. We know that those suggestions were often wrong, but before
concluding that his capacity as an active commander must be determined by
them, we must remember that they were given usually at a great distance,
and that they might have been otherwise had he understood the situation as
thoroughly as he supposed he did. There is probably no doubt that he would
have proved a splendid brigade commander, but it is more than doubtful if
he could ever have understood the science of war as Lee or Johnston or
Jackson knew it.
[Illustration: The Site of the Prison Camp on the James Below Richmond]
In Virginia, where President Davis did not attempt to interfere with his
generals, the most brilliant triumphs of the South were won, and while
this is not assigned as the only reason, the fact is nevertheless
significant. From second Manassas, where the vain, boastful General Pope,
who had won notoriety at Shiloh by reporting the capture of 10,000
Confederates whom he must also have eaten as they never figured in parol,
prison or exchange lists--was annihilated by Jackson, to the brilliant
victory of Chancellorsville where the great soldier sealed his faith with
his life-blood, the army of Northern Virginia was handled with that
consummate generalship and displayed a degree of heroism which must ever
challenge the admiration of mankind as the most perfect fighting machine
in the world's history.
XXIII. Blunders of the Western Army
During this time the Western army suffered one disaster after another in
such rapid succession that the warmest friends of the Confederacy began to
despair of its future. Thoroughly alarmed. President Davis overcame his
animosity sufficiently to send General Johnston to the rescue, but instead
of giving him full authority over one or both of the armies he designated
him as the commander of a geographical department with little more than
the power usually invested in an inspector general.
Bragg, the most unfortunate of all the Southern generals, commanded in
Tennessee, where he was out-generaled and defeated at Murfreesboro when he
held all of the winning cards in his own hands. His blunders upon that
field so enraged his officers that they were almost in revolt against him.
However, in his fidelity to his old friend and comrade, Mr. Davis failed
to discover what was evident to every intelligent lieutenant in the army,
and Bragg was continued in command to perpetrate other blunders still more
costly and unpardonable.
The Southern corps of the Western army was still worse handled. The
Mississippi River, after the fall of New Orleans and Memphis, was of
little or no use to the Confederacy, but Mr. Davis conceived the idea that
it must be defended although that course, necessarily would weaken Bragg
and render success impossible to either corps.
To the command of the Southern corps, Mr. Davis appointed General
Pemberton, a theoretical soldier who it was alleged had never witnessed
any considerable engagement. However this may be, his conduct fully
sustained the allegation, for, from start to finish, he seems to have
been mystified by the tactics of Grant and Sherman, and after a series of
marches and countermarches in which he lost much and gained nothing he
fell back on Vicksburg, perhaps the most indefensible city in America, and
prepared to sustain a siege, the outcome of which could not be doubtful
for a moment.
[Illustration: On the Field of Cold Harbor Today]
Being safely driven into a position from which there was but one line of
retreat, Pemberton appealed to the President for aid, and General Johnston
was instructed to furnish it. His soldierly mind saw at a glance that the
proper thing to do was to abandon Vicksburg, and he accordingly ordered
Pemberton to do so. That officer protested and appealed to Mr. Davis, who
sustained him and notified Johnston that under no circumstances must
Vicksburg be abandoned. That decision sealed the fate of Pemberton's army,
and on the day General Grant invested it he telegraphed to Washington
that its fall was only a question of time. How that prediction was
verified by the surrender of Pemberton's army of 30,000 men, thus leaving
Grant and Sherman free to double back on Bragg, are too well known to need
any discussion at this time. All thinking men realized that it sealed the
doom of the Confederacy unless the Northern campaign of General Lee should
prove successful.
XXIV. Davis and Gettysburg
The conception of the Gettysburg campaign has been properly attributed to
Mr. Davis, but much of the criticism that it has evoked is unfair being
based upon a misconception of the object sought to be attained. If one
will consider the moral effect that the victory of Chancellorsville
produced throughout the North, that many influential leaders and a large
part of the press openly declared that another such calamity must be
followed by the recognition of the Confederacy, the idea of this Northern
campaign, it must be conceded, was founded upon sound military principles.
Military critics are very generally agreed that Gettysburg would have been
a Confederate instead of a Union victory had the Southern troops occupied
Little Round Top on the evening of the first day. That they did not is a
fortuitous circumstance, which can militate nothing against the soundness
of the idea involved in the campaign, while the fact that a victory so
great as to have been decisive lay within easy grasp of the Confederates
would seem to amply justify the hazard on the part of President Davis.
The last reasonable hope of success was over when Lee retreated from
Pennsylvania, but if Mr. Davis recognized that fact he gave no indication
of it. On the other hand, adversity had begun to develop that real
strength of character which a little later was destined to win the respect
of his enemies and the admiration of the rest of the world.
Confederate finances had now sunk to so low an ebb that a collapse seemed
inevitable. Congress passed one futile piece of legislation after another,
each worse than its predecessor, and matters went from bad to worse with
startling rapidity. Mr. Davis was not a financier, but he brought forward
a plan which, while it laid perhaps the heaviest burden of taxation ever
placed upon a people, nevertheless served for a time to stem the fast
rising tide of national bankruptcy.
About the same time, deeply impressed with the suffering of Federal
prisoners caused by the cruel policy of refusing exchanges, he attempted
to send Vice-President Stephens to Washington to negotiate a general
cartel with President Lincoln, but Stephens was allowed to proceed no
farther than Fortress Monroe, and nothing came of the mission which was
conceived by Mr. Davis purely in the interest of humanity.
As the fall drew on, Bragg was being pressed steadily back by an
overwhelming force under Rosecrans, and it became apparent that another
disaster was impending over the Confederacy. To avert it President Davis
hurried Longstreet's corps forward as reinforcements, a policy the
soundness of which was demonstrated a little later by the great victory of
Chickamauga.
But again Bragg failed to measure up to the situation, and instead of
capturing or destroying his antagonist, which a prompt pursuit must have
insured, he actually refused to understand that he had won a victory until
its fruits were beyond his reach. Not even that costly piece of stupidity
could quite shake the confidence of the President in his old friend, and
it was not until Bragg had insured and received his own disastrous defeat
at Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain, by sending Longstreet's whole
corps away on a wild-goose chase against Knoxville, that his resignation
was accepted; and even then he was taken to Richmond and duly installed as
the military adviser of the Chief Executive.
[Illustration: The Battle of the Crater]
The fortunes of the Confederacy were now at a low ebb. The Western army
was demoralized and so hopeless seemed the task of reorganization that one
general after another refused to undertake it, until in his dilemma the
President turned once more to General Johnston. That splendid soldier,
forgetting past injuries, accepted the command and soon succeeded in
creating an army whose very existence infused new courage throughout the
Confederacy. In the meantime, Mr. Davis' resolution rose superior over the
reverses that were everywhere overwhelming his government, and our
admiration for the man vastly increases as we see him steering, wisely
now, his foundering nation into that dark year 1864, destined to reveal to
us a great man growing greater, better and more lovable under the heavy
accumulation of terrible misfortune.
XXV. The Chief of a Heroic People
The world has never witnessed a more sublime spectacle than that presented
by the Southern people at the beginning of 1864. The finances of the
government had gone from bad to worse until it required a bursting purse
to purchase a dinner. Or, rather it would have done so had the dinner been
procurable at all, which in most cases it was not. Gaunt famine stalked
through a desolate land scarred by the remains of destroyed homes and
drenched in the blood of its best manhood. Scarcely a home had escaped the
besom of death and destruction, and, on the lordly domains where once a
prodigal and princely hospitality had been daily dispensed, children cried
in vain for the bread that the broken-hearted mother could no longer give.
That such terrific desolation should have failed to force submission is
almost beyond understanding, but it produced exactly the opposite result.
Delicately nurtured women, reared in ease and luxury, cheerfully chose to
starve in thread-bare garments while they sent their silver and jewels to
the government to enable it to continue the struggle. They bade their
husbands and sons and brothers to remain at the front and never sheathe
their swords unless in an honorable peace; and forthwith the stripling of
tender years and the gray-bearded grandsire, bowed with the infirmities of
time, went forth to perform prodigies of valor upon the last sanguinary
fields of the dying Confederacy.
The President of the Confederacy was too wise a man not to realize the
significance of the situation at that time. He fully realized the awful
suffering of his people. He saw his armies driven from the West, the
lines of the Confederacy daily contracting. He saw the last hope of
foreign intervention die and he witnessed the birth, even in the
government, of a strong spirit of hostility to himself. What this must
have meant to a man of his sensitive, kindly nature we may readily guess,
but to the world his attitude was most admirable. Calm, resolute, majestic
he stood at the helm, steering the foundering craft of state through the
last storm as steadily, as resolutely as though he knew a haven of safety
instead of destruction to lie just beyond.
[Illustration: Mr. and Mrs. Davis in 1863]
Early in 1864 it became apparent that such an effort as had never been
made before to crush the Confederacy was impending. General Grant was
transferred to the East, and early in the spring with a magnificent army
of 162,000 began his advance upon Richmond. The great Confederate
chieftain, Lee, with a force one-third as great confronted him, and then
began that mighty duel which must always remain the wonder and admiration
of the world. In the Wilderness Lee struck a staggering blow, which halted
the advance and doubled up the Federal army. Grant announced that he
proposed to fight it out on that line if it took all summer, straightened
his lines and began the campaign, which one may more readily understand if
he will imagine some Titan armed with a ponderous hammer, confronting a
wily, agile antagonist, who must rely upon a rapier sharp, indeed, but
slender to a dangerous degree. Incessantly through those spring days the
forests rang with the clamor of blows. At Culpepper and Spottsylvania and
North Anna the hammer fell and was parried by the rapier, Grant always
moving by the flank and seeking to out-maneuver his antagonist and always
failing to do so. By June, the two armies in their side-stepping tactics
had reached Cold Harbor, where Grant in a great frontal attack lost 13,000
men in a few moments, which must have convinced him that it would take
longer than all summer to fight it out on that line, as he then and there
abandoned it and adopted a new one. In three months he had lost 150,000
men and was not so near Richmond as McClellan had been in 1862.
XXVI. Sherman and Johnston
In the meantime that campaign which was destined to place Sherman and
Johnston in the very front rank of the world's great commanders, was in
progress. Both were masters of military strategy and each fully
appreciated the ability of the other. Sherman ever seeking to draw
Johnston into a pitched battle was constantly thwarted. At Dalton, Resaca
and Marietta Johnston delivered hard blows, falling back before his
antagonist could use his superior numbers to any advantage.
By this means he reached Atlanta with a larger army than he had in the
beginning of the campaign, while that of Sherman had decreased from one
hundred to little more than fifty thousand. Johnston's tactics of wearing
out the enemy by drawing him through a hostile country away from his base
of supplies is now admitted by military critics to have been a piece of
masterly strategy. It is also generally conceded that Sherman could not
have captured Atlanta by siege with three times his force. But although
Johnston had repulsed every assault upon his works and was daily growing
stronger, President Davis was greatly displeased with this defensive
policy and constantly importuned him to give battle. This Johnston refused
to do and was relieved of the command by the President, who appointed
General Hood, whom he declared "would at least deliver one manly blow for
the South."
In so far as the delivery of the blow was concerned he was destined not to
be disappointed, but very greatly so in the result.
[Illustration: The Davis Children in 1863]
The very day that he took command, Hood, a brave, impetuous man of slight
ability and poor judgment, left his works, furiously assaulted Sherman,
and was promptly cut to pieces. The Confederate army was practically
annihilated, and the fall of Atlanta made certain the success of that
famous march to the sea which alone would have doomed the Confederacy.
General Johnston, too great to cherish resentment, once more yielded to
the appeals of the President and took command of the shattered army. But
the time had passed when he might have accomplished any substantial
results and henceforth even his genius could not serve to postpone the
end.
XXVII. Mr. Davis' Humanity
In the meantime, amidst these disasters and the gloomy forebodings that
were settling over the South, Mr. Davis did not forget the sufferings of
the army of captives that languished in Southern prisons. Time and again
he had sought to establish a cartel for the exchange of all prisoners but
it had never been faithfully observed by the Federal government, and at
last General Grant had refused to exchange upon any terms, declaring that
to do so would ensue the defeat of Sherman's army. The result was that the
Southern prisons were rapidly filled, and as supplies and medicines
failed, the sufferings in some places, notably Andersonville, became
intense. The prisoners were placed upon the same rations as the
Confederate soldiers, but they had never been used to such fare and it
meant starvation to them. The ravages of malaria among them was appalling,
and yet as the Federal government had made quinine contraband of war not
an ounce of it could be procured for their use.
Mr. Davis, whose strongest trait of character was gentleness and humanity,
felt keenly this state of affairs, and sought by every power at his
command to ameliorate it. When the proposition to exchange was rejected,
he asked that medicines and supplies be sent for the exclusive use of
Northern prisoners. When that was refused, he asked that doctors and
nurses be furnished from the Federal army. That also failing, and the
condition of the sufferers at Andersonville growing worse he finally
offered to liberate them provided the government would take them out of
the South--a proposition which was not accepted until after many months of
useless delay which cost thousands of lives.
[Illustration: The Famous Libby Prison as It Appeared at the Close of the
War]
Thus it will be seen how baseless was that calumny which yet survives in
some quarters that Jefferson Davis was responsible for the sufferings of
those poor unfortunates who in reality were sacrificed by an indifferent
government, which feared to recruit the ranks of the Confederate army by
the exchange of prisoners although such a course was dictated by the laws
of civilized warfare no less than by motives of humanity. In reality Mr.
Davis did far more than required by the laws of nations, and the verdict
of history not only acquits him of any share in that great iniquity, but
places him in marked contrast to his antagonists who chose to sacrifice
their soldiers rather than jeopardize the prospects of an early final
victory.
The brilliant victory of Colquitt at Ocean Pond, of Forest at Fort Pillow,
and other minor successes gained by the Confederate leaders added scarcely
a transient ray of hope. Clouds of smoke by day, a pillar of fire by
night, marked the advance of Sherman through Georgia. The most fruitful
region of the South was left a charred and desolate ruin. Tilly, the Duke
of Alva, nor Wallenstein ever left destruction so complete and
irremediable as that which marked the path of that great soldier who
declared war was hell and fully lived up to that harsh conviction.
After the fall of Savannah, the blue legions now irresistible, turned
northward, and it became apparent that the vitals of the Confederacy lay
between the two huge iron jaws of Grant's and Sherman's armies which were
closing with a steady force that nothing could resist.
Day and night Grant rained his mighty sledge-hammer blows upon the
defenses of the devoted capital, which Lee met and parried with the skill
of consummate military genius. But the blade of the rapier was growing
thinner and the time must come when it would break. Holding works forty
miles in length with less than a thousand soldiers to the mile, he
inflicted repulse after repulse until the Southern people came to regard
him as invincible.
Even Mr. Davis, who was now almost constantly with his great Captain,
seems to have shared the delusion, and despite his warnings that the end
must soon come delayed his departure from Richmond.
At last on Sunday, April 2, 1865, a courier entered old St. John's in the
midst of services and handed the President a telegram. It was General
Lee's notice that he could no longer hold his lines. Mr. Davis quietly
left the church, but all understood and soon a panic reigned in the quiet
old city. This was increased by the terrific explosions that came from the
river and arsenals where warships and military supplies were being
destroyed. That night the fires from burning warehouses lighted the train
that bore out of the doomed city the President and his cabinet and the
archives of the fugitive government. Whether from the sparks of the
burning arsenals or from the torches of incendiaries will never be known,
but that night a fierce conflagration swept over the city, and when in the
gray dawn of the next morning General Godfrey Weitzel's cavalry rode
through the smoldering streets and raised the stars and stripes over
Virginia's ancient and the Confederates' recent capital, it floated over a
scene of desolation only a little less complete than Napoleon beheld when
he looked for the last time from the ancient Krimlin upon destroyed
Moscow.
XXVIII. General Lee's Surrender
History has fully recorded the last scenes of the heroic effort of the
peerless Lee to fall back upon Danville and effect a junction with General
Johnston and it is unnecessary here to relate how surrounded by
overwhelming numbers and reduced to starvation he finally at Appomattox
surrendered the remaining 7,500 of that superb army which, without doubt,
had been the most magnificent fighting machine in the world's history.
In the meantime the fugitive government reached Danville in a pouring
rain. There were no accommodations for the officials, no place to install
the executive machinery. General Breckenridge, sitting upon a camp stool
in front of the damp dingy little station, studied a map and drew the
lines along which Johnston and Lee should advance. The Secretary of
State, reclining upon a knapsack, talked hopefully of the recognition that
was certain to arrive from England and France in a few days. Mr. Reagan
chewed a straw and said nothing. It was a dull day in the department of
justice, and the Attorney-General paced the platform and looked
thoughtfully toward Canada. At last it was decided to begin work and the
clerks seated themselves around tables in the cars, and the government was
soon once more issuing all kinds of orders. Mr. Davis, calm and tranquil
as usual, had made up his mind never to surrender as long as resistance
was possible unless he could secure favorable terms for his people. For
himself he asked nothing, but he believed it his duty to continue the
struggle until the fundamental principles of a free people should be
secured for the South. This he did not doubt could be accomplished by the
junction of Lee and Johnston. It was, of course, a great blow to his
hopes when the news of Lee's surrender reached him, but he belonged to
that rare type of man whose courage and resolution grow stronger in the
face of adversity. His only hope now lay in Johnston's army, but with it
he declared the South could conquer an honorable peace against the world
in arms.
[Illustration: The Surrender of Lee]
With this idea in view the wandering government moved on to Greensboro.
There, the President was informed by General Johnston of the utter
hopelessness of longer continuing the struggle. That the old veteran was
right now admits of no doubt, but Mr. Davis combated the idea most
vigorously. Johnston assured him that while a surrender was a matter of
days in any event that Sherman would sign an agreement guaranteeing the
political rights of the people in the subjugated states. This Mr. Davis
rightfully believed the Federal government would repudiate, but left his
general full discretion in the matter, moving on southward, intending to
cross the Mississippi, join the army of Kirby Smith and continue the war
in Texas.
Just as he was leaving Greensboro he received the news of President
Lincoln's assassination. None who ever really knew Mr. Davis can doubt
what his feelings were upon that occasion. General Reagan, who was with
him, says his face expressed surprise and horror in the most unmistakable
manner. "It is too bad, it is shocking, it is horrible!" he declared, and
then after a moment's reflection added, "This is bad for the South. Mr.
Lincoln understood us and at least was not an ungenerous foe."
That very morning the little daughter of his host came running in and in
wide-eyed terror said that some one had told her that "Old Lincoln was
coming to kill everybody." Mr. Davis, taking her upon his knees, said
soothingly: "You are wrong, my dear, Mr. Lincoln is not a bad man. He
would not willingly harm any one, and he dearly loves little girls like
you." These incidents, trivial enough in themselves, are nevertheless
interesting as indices of Jefferson Davis' opinion of Mr. Lincoln.
XXIX. The Capture of Davis
Proceeding to Charlotte, Mr. Davis there learned of the surrender of
General Johnston. Determining to make his way to Texas he decided to take
a southerly route which he hoped to find free from Federal troops. A
cavalry force of about two thousand accompanied him as far as the Savannah
River, but there discovering General Wilson's brigade to be in the country
in front it was deemed advisable for the force to disband and Mr. Davis,
with Burton Harrison, his secretary, and a few others to go forward in the
hope of escaping discovery.
At Irwinsville, Ga., he learned that his family, which was also proceeding
westward, was but a few miles away and he was advised that the country was
filled with marauders who were rifling and robbing all strangers whose
appearance indicated the possession of valuables. This information,
coupled with the story that Mrs. Davis' party was believed to possess a
valuable treasure, so alarmed Mr. Davis for the safety of his family that
he resolved to join it at all hazards. This resolution cost him his
liberty.
Perhaps no event of history has ever been so grossly and malignantly
misrepresented as the capture of Jefferson Davis. At the time an absurd
story was published along with a cartoon in even so respectable a paper as
_Harper's Weekly_, which represented Mr. Davis at the time of his capture
arrayed in shawl, bonnet and hoop-skirts, and, strange as it may seem,
this ridiculous screed is still accepted by thousands of intelligent
people as correct history. The true facts of the case, as learned from Mr.
Davis and corroborated by both General Wilson and Mr. Burton Harrison, are
as follows:
[Illustration: Richmond as Gen. Weitzel Entered It]
The Confederate President reached the spot where his wife's party had
pitched its tent after nightfall. During the evening it was decided that,
to avoid discovery, he would leave the party on the following day and
thenceforward would proceed westward alone. About daylight the travelers
were awakened by firing across a nearby stream, and Mr. Davis thinking it
an attack from marauders remarked to his wife that he hoped he still had
enough influence with the Southern people to prevent her robbery and
stepped out of the tent. Almost immediately he returned saying it was not
marauders but Federal soldiers. Mrs. Davis, frantic with fright, begged
him to fly. In the darkness of the tent he picked up a light rain coat,
which he supposed to be his own but which belonged to his wife, and she
threw a shawl around his shoulders. His horse stood saddled by the
roadside and he ran toward it, but before he could reach it a trooper
interposed and with leveled carbine bade him surrender. Intending to place
his hand under the foot of the soldier and topple him out of the saddle he
gave a defiant answer and rushed forward. Mrs. Davis, however, now
interposed and Mr. Davis seeing the opportunity lost walked back to the
tent, where a few moments later he surrendered to Colonel Pritchard of the
Fifth Michigan Cavalry.
No soldier who took part in the capture of Mr. Davis ever supposed that he
attempted to disguise himself, and the story of the bonnet and the
hoop-skirts is, of course, pure fiction. The picture of the illustrious
captive, presented in this edition, represents him exactly as he appeared
at the time of his capture, when divested of the shawl and raglan, which
in no way served to conceal his identity, much less his sex.
Despite the efforts of Colonel Pritchard to spare Mr. Davis all
indignities, many insults were heaped upon him enroute to Macon. Once
arrived at that point he was furnished with a comfortable suite of rooms
and after a time General Wilson sought an interview, during the course of
which Mr. Davis first learned that he was accused of complicity in the
assassination of President Lincoln, and of Andrew Johnson's proclamation
offering $100,000 reward for his apprehension.
Those who knew Mr. Davis will remember him best by his habitual expression
of calm dignity and benign gentleness. One would imagine that scorn or
contempt could never disturb that face, but General Wilson says that when
he imparted the above information that his lips curved in contempt, that
his brows were knitted and that there was a deep gleam of anger in his
eyes which, however, soon softened away as he remarked, with a half rueful
smile, that there was at least one man in the United States who knew that
charge to be false. General Wilson, of course, asked who it was, and Mr.
Davis replied, "The author of the proclamation himself, for he, at least,
knows that of the two I would have preferred Lincoln as president."
From Macon Mr. Davis was sent under guard to Augusta, and from thence on a
river tug in company with Clement C. Clay and Alexander H. Stephens, to
Port Royal, where they were transferred to a steamer which conveyed them
to Fortress Monroe. During the time they were anchored off shore crafts of
all descriptions swarmed around, and the insults and gibes of the morbid
sight seekers keenly annoyed the illustrious prisoner, and it was a relief
when a file of soldiers came to escort him ashore. He requested permission
from General Miles for his family to proceed to Washington or Richmond,
but this was curtly refused and they were sent back to Savannah.
XXX. A Nation's Shame
In fortress Monroe, Mr. Davis was confined in a gun room of a casement
which was heavily barricaded with iron bars. Two sentries with loaded
muskets and fixed bayonets were posted in the room, while two others paced
up and down in front of his cell.
Escape would have been impossible for any one, however strong and
vigorous, and he, now an old man, was weak, feeble and emaciated.
Yet on the third day after his incarceration, while the victorious troops
of the republic were passing in solemn review before the President and
generals of a great nation, there was enacted in that little cell at
Fortress Monroe a scene which must forever cause the blush of shame to
mantle the brow of every American at its mere mention. A file of soldiers
entered the cell and Captain Jerome Titlow, with evident pain and
reluctance informed Mr. Davis that he had a most unpleasant duty to
perform, which was to place manacles upon him. Mr. Davis demanded who had
given such an order, and upon being informed that it was General Miles,
asked to see him. This was refused by Captain Titlow, who sought to induce
him to submit peaceably to the inevitable. "It is an order which no
soldier would give and which none should obey. Shoot me now and end at
once this miserable persecution!" At the same time the fallen chieftain
drew himself up to his full height and faced the soldiers, his hands
clenching in convulsive grasps and his eyes gleaming like those of a
hunted tiger driven to bay. A word from Captain Titlow and a soldier with
the shackles in hand advanced, but before he could touch the captive he
dealt him a blow which felled him upon the floor. Necessarily the struggle
was a short one and in a few moments heavy irons were riveted upon his
ankles and one of the foremost of living statesmen lay upon a miserable
straw mattress chained as though he had been the vilest of desperate
criminals.
Had Garibaldi or Napoleon after Sedan been subjected to the crowning
indignity inflicted upon Jefferson Davis all Europe would have rung with
the infamy of the brutal act, and yet the whirlwind of sectional strife
had so fanned the fires of prejudice and hatred that the act was generally
applauded at the North, and the officer responsible for this crime against
civilization for many years exhibited the shackles as though they had been
a trophy of honorable victory.
Let us as Americans be thankful that such perverted sentiment was short
lived, and that a day came when the infamous act was repudiated as
wantonly cruel and brutal, and its perpetrators were more anxious to avoid
the responsibility for it than formerly they had been to assume it. There
is now no longer any doubt as to the person who is responsible for placing
Jefferson Davis in irons, but it is only fair to General Miles to say that
he was very young at the time. The grave charges against Mr. Davis, no
doubt, served to mislead his immature judgment, and from the fact that
Louis Napoleon had recently escaped from a fortification in France he, no
doubt, believed that the extreme and cruel measure was necessary.
In justice it should be further stated that as soon as General Miles
believed the danger of escape no longer great he gave orders for the
removal of the shackles, and thereafter treated Mr. Davis with much
kindness. The story of Mr. Davis' two years' imprisonment at Fortress
Monroe is too well known from Dr. Craven's impartial, if somewhat
fragmentary, account to need further repetition here.
XXXI. Efforts to Execute Mr. Davis
It is a difficult matter at this distance of time to realize the attitude
of public sentiment against Jefferson Davis the state prisoner of Fortress
Monroe. As the chief executive of the late Confederacy, he was, in popular
estimation, the incarnation, if not the proximate cause, of all the sins
and suffering of Rebellion, but worse than all the administration which in
feverish, puerile haste had declared him an accessory to the assassination
of Mr. Lincoln and upon that score had paid out of the public treasury
$100,000 for his capture, could not, or rather dared not reverse its
attitude and speak the truth. The result was, of course, that the vast
majority of the people at the North believed Mr. Davis to be as guilty of
murder as he was of treason, and consequently there was a mighty clamor
for his summary execution.
Had there been a scintilla of evidence, nay, had there been any fact which
human ingenuity could have tortured into a plausible resemblance to guilty
knowledge of Mr. Lincoln's death, no one will now doubt that Jefferson
Davis would have been murdered as was Mrs. Serrat.
Andrew Johnston within ninety days after he had issued his ridiculously
false proclamation admitted it to be without foundation--a fact which all
along was fully realized by every member of the government who had
personally known the accused. And yet a coterie of radicals, headed by a
conspicuous member of the Cabinet, continued to search by such
questionable means for incriminating evidence that it disgusted the just,
conservative men of all parties, and they demanded that the senseless
accusation be dropped for all time.
However, a chance yet remained to dispose of the fallen chieftain without
incurring any of the trouble and risk that must arise from a trial
according to the laws of the land.
Thousands of Federal prisoners had starved and died at Andersonville and
throughout the North this tale of suffering had inspired such horror and
indignation that there was a general demand for the punishment of those
who were supposed to be responsible for it. Captain Wirz, the commandant
of Andersonville, was accordingly haled before a drum-head court martial
and, despite the fact that he conclusively demonstrated that conditions
responsible for the horrors of that pest hole were beyond his own control,
or that of any man or number of men in the Confederacy, he was promptly
convicted and was sentenced to death.
Then a serviceable, if not honorable, idea seized the hysterical radicals,
which was nothing less than the feasibility of holding Jefferson Davis
responsible for the horrors of Andersonville. But there again the
ingenuity of malice failed to discover any evidence except that which was
highly creditable to the intended victim.
All that followed in the nefarious plot is not and never will be fully
known, but from the declaration of the priest, who was Captain Wirz's
spiritual adviser, as well as from other authentic information, there is
no room whatever to doubt that the condemned man was offered his life and
liberty if he would swear that in the management of the prison he had
acted under the direction of Jefferson Davis. Captain Wirz, however, was a
brave and honorable man and scorning to purchase his life with such a lie,
he met his fate like a soldier. This left but one other course open. If
Mr. Davis were to be punished at all, it must be for treason. The idea
appealed to the radicals with something of the same zest that a child
experiences from its first gaudy toy, and for a time they fairly reveled
in visions of a court martial which, unincumbered of the troublesome rules
of evidence observed in courts of law, would speedily give the desired
result.
But fortunately for the American people, there were men in the Cabinet and
in Congress, who knowing the law, clearly saw that such a course of
procedure must shock the whole civilized world and reduce the guarantees
of the Constitution to a parity with the so-called organic law of the
revolutionary despotisms of Central American and South America. Against
this sentiment the ravings of the vindictive cabal availed nothing, and,
as the months went by, it became evident that if a trial ever came, it
must be according to the laws of the land.
XXXII. Indictment of Mr. Davis
In the meantime Mr. Davis was constantly demanding that he be given the
speedy and impartial trial provided in such cases by the Constitution.
Charles O'Connor, then the greatest of living lawyers, Henry Ould and many
other leading members of the bar from the Northern states volunteered to
defend Mr. Davis, while Thaddeus Stevens proffered his services to Clement
C. Clay. Horace Greeley, through the columns of the _Tribune_, constantly
demanded that Mr. Davis be either liberated or brought to trial, and by
the spring of the year 1866 he had created such a sentiment throughout the
country in favor of his contentions that the government could no longer
delay some action.
Accordingly in May an indictment was procured, charging Jefferson Davis
with high treason against the United States, and in June of the same year
Mr. Boutwell offered a resolution in Congress that the accused should be
tried according to the laws of the land, which passed that body by a vote
of 105 to 19.
But despite that resolution, there were those who clearly foresaw the
danger involved in it, and hoping that time might dispose of the necessity
for any trial at all, urged delay as the wisest measure. Consequently,
despite the efforts of Greeley and Gerritt Smith, and other great men of
the North, the trial was postponed until May, 1867.
Mr. Davis, weak pale and emaciated, appeared before Chief Justice Chase
sitting with Justice Underwood in the Circuit Court at Richmond. The
court-room was crowded to its utmost capacity and despite the stern
discipline sought to be enforced it was with the greatest difficulty that
the applause could be suppressed that from time to time greeted the
profound logic and masterly eloquence of Charles O'Connor's great speech
on a motion to quash the indictment. The arguments lasted two days and at
their conclusion Chief Justice Chase voted to quash the indictment, while
Justice Underwood voted to sustain it, thus necessitating a reference of
the matter to the Supreme Court of the United States for final decision.
In accordance with a previous arrangement Mr. Davis was soon afterward
admitted to bail, Horace Greeley, Gerritt Smith, Augustus Schell and a
number of other former political enemies becoming his bondsmen.
XXXIII. Why Davis Was Not Tried for Treason
From that moment the administration knew that Jefferson Davis would never
be tried for treason and drew a long breath of relief. Yes, the
administration knew, but the general public, beyond the gilded vagaries
about humanity and the magnanimity of a great nation to a vanquished foe,
sedulously promulgated to obscure the real reason, has never understood
why Jefferson Davis was never tried for the high crime which it was
alleged that he had committed against the United States.
Unfortunately the restricted space at this time at the disposal of the
author precludes anything more than setting forth the conclusions based
upon the evidence now in his possession, of why this charge was so
joyously abandoned by an administration which less than two years before
had moved heaven and earth to discover any pretext which might lend the
color of justice to the summary execution of the illustrious chieftain of
the Confederacy.
To one in any way acquainted with popular sentiment, with the temper of
the administration even in 1867, all declarations of magnanimity,
generosity and abhorrence of extreme measures must seem the merest cant.
It is, of course, not beyond the pale of possibility that those who in
1865 were willing to descend to any depths of infamy to secure a pretext
for the execution of Mr. Davis _might_ have experienced a change of heart
in two years sufficiently marked to create conscientious scruples against
putting him upon a fair trial in a court of justice on the charge of
treason. But that theory of the case would be altogether unlikely even if
we did not know that the desire of the administration to hang Jefferson
Davis was just as intense in 1867 as it was two years before. That it did
not attempt to accomplish that result through the regular channels of
justice, is due entirely to the fact that such a trial would have opened
up the whole question of secession for final adjudication by our highest
court of last resort. It would have been a trial not so much of Mr. Davis
as of the question of state rights, and the able lawyers of the
administration, partisans as they were, had no desire to see the highest
judicial body of the land reverse an issue which had been satisfactorily
decided by the sword.
Charles O'Connor's bold declaration that Jefferson Davis could never _be_
convicted of treason under the Constitution as it then stood first aroused
the administration to the dangers of the task that it had assumed. Mr.
Johnson sent for his attorney-general and had him prepare an opinion on
the case. In due time it was submitted. It was a veritable bombshell which
fairly demolished every theory upon which Jefferson Davis might have been
convicted of treason or any other crime.
Mr. Johnston then called to his aid two of the greatest constitutional
lawyers of the age, and they agreed with the conclusions of Mr. Stanberry.
Not satisfied with this, he invited the chief justice to a conference for
a full discussion of the matter.
If there was ever a partisan, it was Salmon P. Chase, but at the same time
he was a great lawyer and an honest and fearless man. "Lincoln," he said,
"wanted Jeff. Davis to escape. He was right. His capture was a mistake,
his trial will be a greater one. We cannot convict him of treason.
Secession is settled. Let it stay settled!" Significant words truly from
that source, and they explain the vote of the great judge who would have
quashed the indictment against Mr. Davis no less than the question so
often asked, "Why was Jefferson Davis never tried for treason?"
Immediately after Mr. Davis' release on bond, he went with his family to
New York, and a few weeks later to Montreal, where he continued to reside
until May of the following year when he again appeared before the Circuit
Court in Richmond for trial. But despite the efforts of his counsel to
force a trial of the case, it was dismissed by the government and thus
ended ingloriously the boast of the government that it intended "in the
arch traitor Davis to make treason odious."
XXXIV. Freedom, Reverses, Beauvoir
Impaired in health and longing for rest far away from the tragic scenes of
the past few years, Mr. Davis accepted the invitation of English friends
to visit them. But it was soon discovered that his visit was to be a
continuous ovation. Everywhere he was greeted as though he had been the
conqueror instead of the vanquished. The spirit that prompted those
manifestations he appreciated, but it revived sad memories of the cause
for which he had staked all and lost, and to avoid this lionizing he took
up his residence in Paris.
The cordiality of the Frenchmen, however, surpassed that of their English
brethren, and Mr. Davis soon found himself so much in the public eye that
he decided to return to England. Before quitting Paris, the emperor
conveyed his desire for an audience, which Mr. Davis courteously refused.
Napoleon, he conceived, had acted in bad faith with the South and such was
the moral rectitude of the man that he could never disguise his contempt
for any one, of however exalted station, whom he believed to be guilty of
double dealing of any kind.
As the guest of Lord Leigh and the Duke of Shrewsbury in Wales, Mr. Davis'
health gradually improved until he felt himself once more able to enter an
active business of life. The war had left him a poor man, and when a life
insurance company of Memphis offered him its presidency with a fair salary
he accepted, and with his family returned to America. The people of
Memphis soon after his arrival presented him a fine residence, but this he
refused.
Mr. Davis was probably a very poor business man and his associates of the
insurance company were in no way superior, for its affairs soon became
anything but prosperous. All of his available capital was invested in it,
but this he gladly sacrificed in order to sell his own company to a
stronger one which could protect the policies of the former.
[Illustration: The Davis Mansion]
The people of Texas, learning of Mr. Davis' losses offered to give him an
extensive stock farm in that state, but this he also refused.
Upon the Gulf of Mexico, near the little station of Beauvoir, Mr. Davis
owned a tract of land which he conceived would support his family, and
there, far from the strife of the busy world, he resolved to spend the
declining years of his life. However, retirement at best could only be
partial, for a man loved and venerated as Mr. Davis was throughout the
South, and Beauvoir accordingly became the shrine of the public men who
sought the counsel of its sage. But with the modesty characteristic of the
man he refused to advise any one upon measures of national import, since
by the action of Congress he was forever disfranchised.
He would not ask pardon, sincerely believing that he had done no wrong,
and when the people of Mississippi would have elected him to the United
States Senate he declined the honor in words which should be perused by
all who know the man as he was, during this period of his life: "The
franchise is yours here, and Congress can but refuse you admission and
your exclusion will be a test question," ran the invitation to which Mr.
Davis replied: "I remained in prison two years and hoped in vain for a
trial, and now scenes of insult and violence, producing alienation between
the sections, would be the only result of another test. I am too old to
serve you as I once did and too enfeebled by suffering to maintain your
cause."
Any word that might serve to still further increase that alienation never
passed the lips of the gentle, kindly old man, who still the idol of his
people, preferred to all honors the quiet life there among the pines,
where amidst his flowers he played with his children and their little
friends, and far into the night, surrounded by his books, he worked
assiduously upon his only defense, "The Rise and Fall of the Confederate
States of America." The concluding paragraph of that book, written in the
gray dawn of a summer morning after a night of continuous labor, should be
read by every one who would understand the motives that actuated Jefferson
Davis in the great part that he played in the world's history.
"In asserting the right of secession it has not been my wish to incite to
its exercise. I recognize the fact that the war showed it to be
impracticable, but this did not prove it to be wrong; and now that it may
not be again attempted, and the Union may promote the general welfare, it
is needful that the truth, the whole truth, should be known so that
crimination and recrimination may forever cease, and then on the basis of
fraternity and faithful regard for the rights of the states there may be
written on the arch of the Union 'Esto perpetua.'"
It is the voice of the soul in defeat, yet strong and conscious of its own
integrity, recognizing the inevitable and praying for peace and the
perpetuation of that Union which Jefferson Davis still loved.
XXXV. Death of Mr. Davis
His life's work was done with the completion of his book, and trusting to
impartial posterity for that vindication of his motives which he realized
must come some day, he turned away from the scenes of controversy and
contentions, seeking in books, the converse of his friends, in long
rambles with his children across wood and field, for oblivion of all
painful memories. Defeat and persecution never embittered him. Cruel and
false accusations found their way to his sylvan retreat. That they
grievously wounded can be doubted by no one who knew his proud spirit,
supersensitive to every insinuation of dishonor, but with the gentle smile
of a philosopher he passed them by, fully realizing that his beloved
people of the South, at least, would understand the stainless purity of
all his motives.
A harsh or an unkind word never passed his lips concerning any of his
personal or political enemies. In fact, it would be no more than the truth
to say that this gentle old man cherished no sentiment of enmity toward
any of God's creatures. The storm and stress of life were over, its hopes
and its passions were dead, and grandly, majestically this man, who at
once embodied the highest type of American manhood and all of the virtues
of the perfect Christian gentleman, calmly awaited the end. It came on the
6th of December, 1889, in New Orleans, at the home of Judge Fenner, his
life-long friend. When the news of his death went forth, even the voice of
malice was subdued, and many of those who had sought to fix everlasting
infamy upon his name ceased for a time to be unjust and agreed that a
majestic soul had passed. Over the bier of the dead chieftain the whole
South wept and nine of its governors bore him to the grave.
[Illustration: The Davis Monument at Richmond]
No proper estimate of the life and character of Jefferson Davis is
possible in the restricted scope of this work, but lest I should be
accused of partiality I shall here append the conclusion of Ridpath, the
historian, written after a residence of almost a year under the same roof
with Mr. Davis, which I heartily endorse as a correct estimate of the man.
"Before I had been with Mr. Davis three days every preconceived idea
utterly and forever disappeared. Nobody doubted Mr. Davis' intellectual
capacity, but it was not his mental power that most impressed me. It was
his goodness, first of all, and then his intellectual integrity. I never
saw an old man whose face bore more emphatic evidences of a gentle,
refined and benignant character. He seemed to me the ideal embodiment of
'sweetness and light.' His conversation showed that he had 'charity for
all and malice toward none.' I never heard him utter an unkind word of any
man and he spoke of nearly all of his famous opponents. His manner may be
best described as gracious, so exquisitely refined, so courtly, yet heart
warm. Mr. Davis' dignity was as natural and charming as the perfume of the
rose--the fitting expression of a serene, benign and comely moral nature.
However handsome he may have been when excited in battle or debate, it
surely was in his own home, with his family and friends around him, that
he was seen at his best; and that best was the highest point of grace and
refinement that the Southern character has reached."
Lest any foreigner should read this statement, let me say for his benefit
that there are two Jefferson Davises in American history--one is a
conspirator, a rebel, a traitor and "the Fiend of Andersonville"--he is a
myth evolved from the hell-smoke of cruel war--as purely an imaginary a
personage as Mephistopheles or the Hebrew Devil; the other was a statesman
with clean hands and pure heart, who served his people faithfully from
budding manhood to hoary age, without thought of self, with unbending
integrity, and to the best of his great ability--he was a man of whom all
his countrymen who knew him personally, without distinction of creed
political, are proud, and proud that he was their countryman.
This is a conclusion by no means extravagant, a conclusion which, despite
the fact of some mental faults that prevented him from quite attaining to
the first rank of the greatest statesman, nevertheless leaves him
pre-eminent as one of the purest and best of the men who has played a
conspicuous part in the world's history.
FINIS.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Real Jefferson Davis, by Landon Knight
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