Jefferson Davis, American

by William J. Cooper

  As Davis immersed himself in his work, Varina and the children joined him, arriving in Montgomery on March 1. While alone, Jefferson made clear how much he missed his family. En route to Alabama, he asked Varina to “kiss my dear children and tell them to be good and love one another.” He wrote lovingly, “I am always with you in spirit and so will be while life lasts.” Reporting on his journey to Montgomery, Davis wished both wife and children could have shared the outpouring of support that greeted him along the way. “I thought it would have gratified you to have witnessed it and have been a memory to our children.”21

  When Varina and the children reached Montgomery, they found Jefferson living at the Exchange Hotel. All the Davises remained there until mid-April, when they moved two blocks to a house that had been leased by Congress for an executive mansion. The two-story “Confederate White House” had been built in the 1830s and renovated in the Italianate style in 1855. Varina supervised redecoration of the house, which she called “roomy enough for our purposes,” and even returned to Brierfield for personal items before the family took up residence in their new home.22

  As first lady, Varina made strong and generally positive impressions. William Russell described her as “a comely, sprightly woman, verging on matronhood, of good figure and manners, well-dressed, ladylike and clever.” Numerous people noted her quick mind and her wit. The perceptive wife of a member of the South Carolina delegation, who would become a great friend, Mary Chesnut, recorded, “she is awfully clever—always.” Varina’s first levee, given on March 6 at the Exchange, was a success. Thereafter she gave regular receptions at the residence, and Jefferson attended most. But even in the midst of a busy social schedule she took great delight in her children and enjoyed her role as mother. “She is well received,” commented one observer, “and admired more as a true Southern lady than as the wife of the chief executive.”23

  The only qualification to the positive assessment concerned her frequent public statements that she harbored no animosity toward northern friends. Mary Chesnut recognized that Varina found “playing Mrs. President of this small Confederacy slow work after leaving … Washington.” Without doubt she missed that capital city. Privately she called Montgomery “a strange community,” depicted the Confederate Congress as “the Botany Bay, no I am too polite to say that, but bear garden of the South,” and complained about the sanitation. She did not totally disagree with the new attorney general, who informed a northern friend: “We will show you what a true Republican government is—no pâté, no champagne, no salmon, no nothing—people don’t give dinners here: but only nice tea parties.”24

  Varina Davis, c. 1860.

  Museum of the Confederacy (photo credit i11.1)

  But family and active social life did not deter President Davis from his work. He gave great attention to the creation of an army. He had long believed that secession would result in war, though he considered conflict might be avoided if all the slave states left the Union. In building the Confederate States Army, Davis concentrated his efforts on three major tasks. He strove to have Congress adopt a lengthy enlistment policy. Aware of the time required to prepare civilians for military service, and fearful war was imminent and that it would be long, he wanted soldiers signed up for the duration of any conflict, or for at least three years. He failed. Most congressmen advocated only a six-month period of service, convinced either that no fighting would occur, or if it did, the struggle would be brief and successful. Davis’s pleas did get twelve-month enlistments, but no more. Also recognizing the critical importance of a trained cadre, Davis courted officers from the U.S. Army. Because of his time as secretary of war, he had considerable knowledge of the officer corps. In this area Davis experienced success. Although most officers from the South resigned upon the secession of their home states, Davis’s overtures ensured that many offered their services to the Confederacy. In addition, Davis knew his country faced a perilous shortage of military equipment, especially weapons. He dispatched agents to both the United States and Europe to procure as much as possible as soon as possible. But until the spring of 1862 the Confederacy remained unable to arm all its soldiers.25

  The army did not occupy all of the president’s attention, however. In setting up departments, he followed advice to embrace the old federal bureaucracy and its rules, at least initially. Thus United States postmasters became Confederate States postmasters, and officers of the United States courts became officers of the Confederate States courts. This process of governmental creation was materially assisted by former civil servants in Washington who volunteered their services and expertise in Montgomery. Some even appeared with copies of regulations and procedures that could be promptly distributed and implemented.26

  Although the tasks, both civilian and military, were unending, to Davis one seemed foremost: diplomacy. He identified three diplomatic fronts, though he realized their interconnection: the slave states still in the Union; Europe, especially Great Britain; and the United States. Acutely aware that eight slave states had not seceded, Davis wanted to signal that the Confederacy respected them, wanted their friendship, and eagerly awaited their joining the Confederacy. He signed a law declaring the Mississippi River would remain open for commerce from all states, and he talked about trade and good relations. He also dispatched emissaries to present the Confederate case to these states.

  Like most Confederates, Davis believed Europe would react positively to the Confederacy. When they referred to Europe, they really meant Great Britain and to a lesser extent France. They thought that Great Britain would welcome the division of the United States, and more important, they were absolutely convinced that British prosperity depended upon southern cotton. As a result, Davis and his advisers could not envision Britain’s permitting any serious interference with the cotton trade. To impress upon the British and others that the Confederacy had only peaceful intentions with an eagerness to trade, Davis did not delay in sending a mission abroad, though his choices for commissioners revealed both his ignorance of foreign affairs and his penchant for correlating commitment to the Confederacy with suitability for important assignments. He named the voluble Alabama fire-eater William L. Yancey, who would concentrate on Great Britain; Ambrose Dudley Mann, who had considerable diplomatic experience in the old Union and was a Confederate and Davis loyalist, but also an ineffectual lightweight; and Louisianian Pierre Rost, who knew a number of influential men in his native France. This irregular team received no special instructions and possessed no authority to conclude any particular agreements with the European powers. They were simply to convey the message of friendship and trade.

  Although Davis did think about the other slave states and Europe, his most pressing problem in the late winter and early spring of 1861 centered on relations with the United States. Davis obviously wanted recognition of Confederate legitimacy, but his immediate concern focused on the military posts within Confederate borders still garrisoned by United States troops. As individual states seceded, state authorities gained control of almost all federal posts within their jurisdiction. No clashes resulted and no casualties occurred. Yet upon the formation of the Confederate States, four remained in Union hands—two far away in the Florida Keys; Fort Pickens at Pensacola, Florida; and the most visible, Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. Davis wanted the soldiers withdrawn from Pickens and Sumter.

  President Davis was prepared to offer compensation for these forts as well as for all the federal property that had already come under Confederate authority. To communicate his position and carry out negotiations, he sent a special mission to Washington. Although there had been some indication that the Buchanan administration might have received the Confederate delegation, it arrived after Lincoln had come into office. And President Lincoln had no intention of treating with the Confederates. Though formally rebuffed, the southerners did manage to establish an informal channel with Secretary of State William Seward. Although never meeting, Seward and the Confederates com
municated through Justice John A. Campbell of the United States Supreme Court, an Alabamian who had not yet resigned. Initially Seward promised that Fort Sumter would be evacuated, but every time the Confederates pressed for details, he equivocated. They assumed he spoke for Lincoln, but in fact Seward was struggling to influence his president’s decisions. And always all dealings were strictly unofficial.27

  As President Davis awaited developments in Washington, South Carolina fully occupied him. The situation in Charleston was extremely volatile, for South Carolina officials talked about attacking Fort Sumter on their own. Even before he left Washington, Davis had cautioned Governor Francis Pickens against precipitate action. From Montgomery he was in almost daily telegraphic contact with Pickens, always urging the governor not to act unilaterally. Pickens kept insisting that South Carolina must have Sumter, as soon as possible. The president was delighted when the Confederate Congress on February 22 passed a resolution charging the Confederate government with responsibility for the forts still held by the United States. At that point he stated to Pickens, “I hope you will be able to prevent the issue of peace or war for the Confederate States from being decided by any other than the authorities constituted to conduct our international relations. The most ardent and sensitive should believe that we will not be unmindful or regardless of the rights and honor of South Carolina.” On March 1, Davis took control when he dispatched Brigadier General Pierre G. T. Beauregard to assume command of all forces in the Charleston area. A professional soldier, veteran of the Mexican War, and former superintendent of West Point, Beauregard had orders to get all in readiness, but to prevent any attack on Fort Sumter, “unless in self defense.”28

  Davis tried to ensure that any military action in Charleston Harbor would result only from his direct orders, then hoped for positive word from Washington. There the fledgling Lincoln administration confronted a crisis of its own. On the day after his inauguration Lincoln learned that Major Robert Anderson, commanding at Fort Sumter, had informed the War Department that dwindling supplies made it impossible to hold the bastion for very long, a month or six weeks at the most.

  Fort Sumter became the prize in the first great contest between the Union and Abraham Lincoln and the Confederacy and Jefferson Davis. The stakes were more political than military, for the Sumter garrison, massively outnumbered and outgunned by the Confederates, could not hope to win a fight. On the political front the rewards and dangers were much greater. Some of Lincoln’s advisers recommended withdrawal from Fort Sumter. The commanding general of the U.S. Army, Davis’s old nemesis Winfield Scott, informed the president that he could not mount a mission to succor Anderson before Sumter’s supplies ran out. But Lincoln did not want to pull out; in his mind doing so would mean conceding the Confederacy’s independence, and possibly the end of his cherished dream of keeping the Union whole. On the other hand, he realized that a straightforward military reinforcement not only would provoke a Confederate reaction but might also push both the Upper South and the border states into the Confederacy, thus doubling the Confederacy’s base and courting disaster for the Union. Although over the next several weeks Lincoln received numerous suggestions and opinions for dealing with this vexing problem, it always seemed to come down to these same two basic choices: attempt to reinforce Fort Sumter or give it up. At times he appeared inclined toward one, then the other. He never wanted to begin a war, but he desperately wished to keep the flag flying.

  As Lincoln groped toward a decision, Davis received reports and warnings about what might happen. Former Senate colleagues still in Washington and Confederates retaining ties in the capital revealed to Davis and other prominent men in Montgomery that division reigned in Republican circles, basically between a peace party headed by Seward and a war party led by several major Republicans in and out of the cabinet. In mid-March one of Davis’s delegation wrote Vice President Stephens that Seward had indirectly begged for time. “If we force an answer,” the diplomat reported Seward as saying, “he is whipped in the cabinet; if he have some time he is sure he can carry his views.” Two weeks later Justice Campbell corresponded directly with President Davis. In a lengthy message he recounted his dealings with Seward, in which the secretary of state repeatedly maintained that Sumter would be evacuated. Campbell thought Lincoln knew what Seward was about, but he did make clear that Seward declared all his assurances he made on his “own.” Campbell did not doubt that Sumter would soon be abandoned, but about Pickens he was unsure. He concluded that what he termed “the inactive policy is as favorable to you as any that this administration could adopt for you and that I would not interrupt it.”29

  Yet even before Campbell’s message, Lincoln had made a decision. On March 29 he ordered that an expedition for Fort Sumter be made ready to depart by April 6. Rejecting both reinforcement and withdrawal, he had decided simply to resupply Fort Sumter, sending in no additional soldiers or guns, only food and medicine for the troops already there. In this way the calculus of power in Charleston Harbor would apparently be left unchanged. It was a masterful maneuver, providing the first clear sign of the political genius that would make Lincoln such a formidable president and war leader. Despite Lincoln’s directive, Seward kept trying to forestall the ultimate showdown by substituting Fort Pickens for Fort Sumter as the target of Federal action. He failed. On April 6 Lincoln, never admitting the legitimacy of the Confederacy, dispatched a messenger to Charleston with a notice for the governor of South Carolina. Two days later Governor Pickens and General Beauregard read Lincoln’s message: he would resupply only, and if not resisted, he would make no attempt at reinforcement “without further notice, or in case of attack upon the fort.”30

  Now it was Jefferson Davis’s turn to make his first desperate decision. Despite the optimistic word from the Confederate mission to Washington, by early April Davis and his advisers considered “threatening” the Federal military activity known to them. From their point of view, they occupied peaceful and defensive ground because the United States had no legitimate claim to Fort Sumter or Fort Pickens. Both were equally important to Davis, though more attention in Montgomery and Washington focused on Sumter. If the question of Sumter had been resolved, the problem of Pickens would have moved immediately to the forefront. On April 6 Davis eagerly desired “peace between those who though separated have many reasons to feel towards each other more than the friendship common among other nations.” At the same time, as president of the Confederate States of America, he could not dismiss the critical importance of the forts. “We have waited hopefully for the withdrawal of garrisons which irritate the people of these states and threaten the respective localities, and which can serve no purpose to the United States unless it be to injure us.” He said his government had taken no action and did not want to use force. But now “the idea of evacuation had been abandoned,” and he contemplated that perhaps all along the United States had followed a policy of deception. In Davis’s mind, Lincoln controlled the “problem” of the forts. Any attempt to relieve or to maintain Fort Sumter, whatever the term employed, Davis saw as an assault on the Confederacy. At that point the Federal presence did more than touch upon pride; it became a powerful threat to vital interests of his government. To a visitor Davis was blunt: “they mean to compel us into a political servitude we disown and spurn.”31

  Potent arguments supported the contention that the Confederates should take Fort Sumter. The first was that the Union occupation mocked the independence of the Confederacy. According to this thinking, the Confederate States of America could not stand as an independent nation so long as another power maintained an uninvited military force within its borders. Second, the administration justifiably worried that despite the Confederate command structure in Charleston, zealots in South Carolina might strike against the fort on their own initiative. Such an action would undermine the authority of the Confederate government and commit it to a course it had not decided upon. The Confederate leadership also recognized that a move against For
t Sumter would mobilize the citizens behind their government and, perhaps more important, bring the Upper South, especially Virginia, within the Confederate fold. It was the weight of these considerations that directed Davis’s course, though some thought was given to the possible adverse impact on potential northern friends of the Confederacy. Davis recognized the difficulty stemming from actually shooting first, but as he informed his commander in Pensacola, “to relieve our territory and jurisdiction of the presence of a foreign garrison that advantage is overbalanced by other considerations.”32

  He made his decision. On April 10 the War Department ordered General Beauregard to demand the surrender of Fort Sumter. If the Federals refused, Beauregard was instructed to take the fort. The next day Beauregard sent officers out to the fort. Presented with the alternatives of surrendering or facing an attack, Major Anderson said he would fight, but he added that unless he received new supplies in a few days, he would have to evacuate. Aware that war or peace now rested in the balance, Beauregard reported Anderson’s response to the War Department. The new directive sent to Beauregard held firm to the government’s fundamental position, though it did give the general some latitude. If Anderson would provide a specific date for evacuation, Beauregard was not to open fire. Late on the night of April 11, Beauregard’s messengers returned to Fort Sumter with their new ultimatum. After considering his situation and his options, Major Anderson announced he would withdraw at noon on the fifteenth, unless before that time he received additional supplies or further instructions from his government. Because the Confederates were aware that supplies and possibly reinforcements were en route, Anderson’s qualifications made his response unsatisfactory. Beauregard’s deputation notified Anderson that Confederate batteries would commence firing in one hour. At 4:30 a.m. on April 12, Beauregard’s guns began pouring shot and shell on Fort Sumter. Thirty-four hours later Anderson surrendered.33