The Real Jefferson Davis - free ebook by Landon Knight

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The Real Jefferson Davis

Landon Knight

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38 chapters

THE REAL JEFFERSON DAVIS

THE REAL JEFFERSON DAVIS

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 ou

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DEDICATION

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....

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PREFACE

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

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I. Birth and Education

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 whi

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II. Service in the Army

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,

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III. His Life at Briarfield

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

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IV. First Appearance in Politics

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 que

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V. Enters Mexican War

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 doct

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VI. The Hero of Buena Vista

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

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VII. Enters the Senate

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

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VIII. Becomes Secretary of War

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

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IX. He Re-enters the Senate

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 apprecia

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X. Still Hoped to Save the Union

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

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XI. President of the Confederacy

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, p

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XII. His First Inaugural

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

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XIII. Delays and Blunders

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

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XIV. The Bombardment of Sumter

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.

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XV. Conditions in the South

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

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XVI. The First Battle

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, nec

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XVII. A Lost Opportunity

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 quali

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XVIII. The Quarrel with Johnston

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. General Joseph E. Johnston In March, 1861, the Confederate Congress enacted that the relati

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XIX. The Battle of Shiloh

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 fortun

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XX. The Seven Days of Battle

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 severe

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XXI. Butler’s Infamous Order 28

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 throu

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XXII. Mental Imperfections

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

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XXIII. Blunders of the Western Army

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,

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XXIV. Davis and Gettysburg

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

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XXV. The Chief of a Heroic People

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 esc

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XXVI. Sherman and Johnston

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

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XXVII. Mr. Davis’ Humanity

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

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XXVIII. General Lee’s Surrender

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 rai

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XXIX. The Capture of Davis

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 forwa

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XXX. A Nation’s Shame

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 revie

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XXXI. Efforts to Execute Mr. Davis

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 th

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XXXII. Indictment of Mr. Davis

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 tri

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XXXIII. Why Davis Was Not Tried for Treason

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 r

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XXXIV. Freedom, Reverses, Beauvoir

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 to

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XXXV. Death of Mr. Davis

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 griev

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