These raging Georgians howled, but they accomplished little. Davis and his definition of the Confederate cause had stalwart supporters in the state, such as Howell Cobb and Confederate senators Benjamin Hill and Herschel Johnson. Like Senator Johnson, a friend of Stephens’s who worried about increased executive authority, many Georgians refused to follow the dissidents’ lead. Maintaining trust in Davis, Johnson condoned no direct attacks on the administration and rebuffed all talk of replacing the president. Cobb, Hill, Johnson, and their backers called on all Georgians to rally to the cause and its leader. They prevailed. The Brown-Stephens team could not even persuade the legislature to adopt a strong anti-administration stance. Davis himself never became personally involved in this fracas, except to counter in direct fashion Brown’s long, argumentative letters. Although Davis loyalists may have exaggerated when they claimed that Brown’s machinations had “recoiled” upon the wily governor, the president’s position in Georgia was not undermined.14
In North Carolina, the situation was potentially more dangerous for President Davis and could have become explosive, but for the consummate political skills of Governor Zebulon Vance. Although Vance is usually coupled with Brown as a gubernatorial opponent of Davis’s administration, in fact, he was no such thing. Considerable antiwar and even anti-Confederate feeling existed in the state, particularly in the Appalachian region. In addition, widespread unhappiness caused by overzealous impressment and conscription officers increased hostility toward the Davis administration. The able journalist and veteran of Tarheel politics William W. Holden led a vigorous effort to direct this disaffection and distress into a peace movement, in which the state would at least consider a separate peace with the United States. Holden took on Vance in the 1864 gubernatorial contest. To stymie this activity and Holden, Vance operated on two fronts. He pressed Davis on issues such as peace overtures and impressment and conscription excesses while simultaneously appealing to the loyalty and patriotism of North Carolinians. He wanted no party organized to oppose the president. Vance’s strategy worked. Winning more than 75 percent of the vote, including almost 9o percent of the soldier vote, in the summer election, Vance smashed Holden while isolating and crushing the antiwar and anti-Davis faction.
Davis took Vance seriously, and exercised considerable judgment in his dealings with the governor. Not only was Vance the chief executive of an important state, he also spoke Davis’s language of patriotism. He told the president that “the true men of the state are going to work every where,” and he expected to prevail. Moreover, on two occasions the governor visited the president to exchange views and explain what was happening in North Carolina. The president saw Vance as a stalwart Confederate who could keep his state loyal. When Vance reported outrages by Confederate officials, Davis strove to effect corrective action. To the governor’s counsel on peace initiatives, the president detailed his efforts, most recently the aborted Stephens mission. He also said that he thought Lincoln would respond positively only to an offer of surrender.15
Although Davis was forthcoming and positive, he did reveal his sensitivity to criticism that implied any reasons for his decisions beyond the sole benefit of the Confederate cause. Bristling when he inferred that Vance had questioned the motives behind certain presidential actions, including appointments, Davis apprised the governor of his “regret that you have deemed proper in urging your views to make unjust reflections upon my official conduct.…” In order to avoid controversy, Davis said he preferred to remain silent, “but public interests are involved which preclude this course.” If unchallenged, Vance’s comments “would tend to create hostility to the Government and undermine its power to provide for the public defense.” Davis felt he had “a duty to respond.” Even so, he prepared a sober and moderate, though lengthy, letter in which he made clear that he took no personal umbrage. Replying promptly, Vance disabused the president of any such implications. “It was very far from my intention,” he wrote, “to raise any issues of disagreeable & unprofitable character with you.” Both men successfully endeavored to prevent disagreements from hampering their working relationship.16
In spite of a cacophony of tirades and screeds, the political opposition to the president accomplished little. No state, not even Georgia or North Carolina, took off on an independent course. Neither did any other political leader seriously challenge Davis’s authority or prestige in the Confederacy. By the autumn of 1864 the Confederacy had become geographically diminished but the president’s position remained undiminished. He continued to stand at the center.
In the president’s own house, Davis and his wife stood as one. Just after the war she said they “liv[ed] in the closest friendship,” and she was even “cognizant of a great deal relating to his official conduct.” Davis reacted sharply to perceived slights or insults to the first lady. In the southern code such reactions underscored the husband’s role as guardian and protector of the wife, but also the fact that the man’s own public and private identity was based in part on treatment of the woman. A man of honor demanded that other men demonstrate respect for his wife. During the winter of 1864, a general visiting the White House neglected to speak to Varina, though she was in the room. Recognizing his oversight and having intended no rudeness, he called again to apologize for the omission. Davis refused the apology.17
Earlier, Davis had revealed an extraordinary sensitivity about esteem shown to Varina and to his own self-image. In the fall of 1863, just before leaving Richmond for assignment in Charleston, Brigadier General Henry Wise, a former governor of Virginia, sent a present of wooden spoons as “a memento” of a pleasant visit with Varina. From Charleston, Wise asked his son-in-law Dr. A. Y. P. Garnett, who often treated members of the Davis household, to find out whether the gift had been received. When Dr. Garnett inquired, he did not talk with Varina but with her sister, who relayed Varina’s positive answer. Varina also sent word for Dr. Garnett to give her love to General Wise and tell him that she would write a personal note. When Garnett so informed Wise, at the same time he playfully noted newspaper stories about the president’s kissing girls on his western trip.
Davis learned of this communication and took singular exception, inferring that Garnett had connected Varina’s mention of love to his own supposed osculatory activities. He demanded an explanation from Garnett, who replied that he had simply delivered a message, with no intention of tying it to reported accounts of presidential behavior. Davis was satisfied, but Wise was disgusted. In an indignant letter to the president, Wise accused him of duplicity. He stated that when Davis was in Charleston, they had laughed at talk of the alleged kissing. Wise quoted Davis as declaring the story false, but “it is one of those sort of things which a man cannot deny.” Wise maintained that he had nothing but respect for Varina, but he told his son-in-law the president was “a small, weak, little jaundiced bigot & vain pretender.” An obviously angry Wise fumed that he was inclined “to kick his ‘seat of honor,’ if he has any.” In this instance, Davis certainly overreacted. He needlessly made an enemy of General Wise, and only Garnett’s forbearance averted a quite ugly situation. The record does not reveal what Varina thought of this epistolary huffing and puffing.18
As 1864 began, the first lady continued to lead an active social life. While she of course presided over numerous formal receptions in the White House, she also hosted popular ladies’ luncheons on Saturdays. Sometimes she and Angela Mallory chaperoned “gay society” on steamer excursions on the James River. Then there were gatherings at friends’ houses, where festivities included the tableaux and pantomimes popular in the capital.19
But during the spring, her upbeat mood faltered. The depreciation of Confederate currency affected even the first family. Acknowledging that “everybody is in trouble,” Varina informed her friend Mary Chesnut that they were going to give up their carriages and horses. Apprehensive about the military situation, she feared a siege of Richmond was inevitable, a forecast that “utterly depressed” her. If that ev
entuality should come to pass, she intended to send her children away to safety.20
Then, on the last day of April, horror struck. During the middle of that Saturday, five-year-old Joe was playing on the piazza on the southeast side of the White House, most probably walking along the railing. For the moment out of sight of his Irish nurse and unseen by anyone else, he fell to the brick pavement twelve feet below. Both his legs were broken, and his skull fractured. The crushed child lived but a short time. His mother had just gone to take some food to her husband’s office in the Customs House. A servant brought news of the accident. Mother and father rushed home to watch and hold their boy in his last moments of life. An eyewitness recorded Varina’s “flood of tears and wild lamentations.” “Unutterable anguish” marked Jefferson’s face, which “seemed suddenly ready to burst with unspeakable grief, and then transfixed into a stony rigidity.” His wife recalled his crying out, “Not mine, oh, Lord, but thine.” Turning away a courier, he moaned, “I must have this day with my little child.” Exercising “terrible self control,” the father with his burden of “heavy sorrow” paced the floor of his bedroom throughout the night.21
Friends rushed to the White House, and Burton Harrison took charge of the arrangements. The funeral was held at Hollywood Cemetery on the western edge of the city overlooking the James River, with many children sprinkled through the large crowd. Flowers covered the new grave. “Passionate in grief,” Varina spoke “in the deepest affliction” of the cherished little boy who was no more.22
Neither Jefferson nor Varina had time to dwell on their horrendous loss. She was again pregnant, and some seven weeks after Joe’s death she gave birth on June 27 to her last child and second daughter, Varina Anne, her namesake. Writing to a friend shortly afterward, she reported herself exhausted and still too unwell to think about the future. Grief and the debility of childbirth sapped her energy and strength. The president once more heard the alarm bells that signaled Federal troops close to the capital, and southward in Georgia he faced yet another crisis in command.23
In Virginia, Lee and Grant still battled. On June 3 at Cold Harbor, less than ten miles from Richmond, Lee bloodily smashed Grant when the Federal general tried to ram his way into the capital. After that setback, Grant moved south across the James River toward Petersburg—Lee and Richmond’s railroad link to the Deep South. Lee was initially unsure about his adversary’s intention, but when he comprehended Grant’s objective and his and his government’s peril, the Confederate commander rushed troops to the endangered town, where Beauregard employed them effectively to hold back Grant. Arriving with his main force in Petersburg, Lee strengthened the Confederate position and prepared to hold the strategic town as long as possible. With both sides manning ever stronger entrenchments and forts, Grant could not drive Lee out of his defenses and Lee could not budge Grant.24
Grant’s successful lodgment south of the James fundamentally altered the Confederate strategic situation in Virginia. If Lee was to protect Richmond, he had to remain at Petersburg in front of Grant. In his defensive lines he no longer had the option of maneuvering his entire army, for such movement would uncover the capital and leave the way open for Federal troops literally to walk into the city. But no evidence indicates at this point that either Lee or Davis seriously considered abandoning it. As the Confederate capital, Richmond had enormous symbolic significance. It was also critically important as a source of essential war matériel, being the leading manufacturing center in the Confederacy, with the country’s largest ironworks. Richmond’s loss would have had a devastating impact on the Confederate war effort.
Lee dreaded this static warfare, which he considered extremely dangerous to his cause. Even before he crossed the James, he remarked that if he were forced to withstand a siege, then his ultimate defeat would be a matter of time. Still hoping that maneuver could loosen Grant’s grip and enable him to strike, Lee tried to replicate the phenomenally successful strategy of 1862 when Stonewall Jackson’s triumphs in the Shenandoah Valley rattled Washington and held up reinforcements intended for McClellan. In mid-June he ordered Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early to the Valley with 10,000 men—soldiers Lee could ill afford to spare. His little army up to 15,000 with the addition of 5,000 troops already defending the Shenandoah, Early threw back a Federal incursion and set off down the Valley toward the Potomac River and Maryland. Crossing the river, the Confederates on July 11 came within sight of Washington, before superior numbers forced them to turn back. Early’s campaign did create a stir within the Federal capital and caused Grant to send an entire corps from the Army of the Potomac. But 1864 was not 1862. Even after dispatching reinforcements to Washington, Grant, with more than twice the strength of Lee, remained far too formidable for any offensive the Confederate general could mount. By the end of summer, Petersburg was clearly under siege.
Through the summer Davis and Lee kept in their usual close touch, and the president approved and supported the decisions his general made. When Lee requested Davis’s views on his plan for Early, he received no countermanding instructions. Always hungering to have his armies on northern soil and have his enemy experience the pain of war, Davis shared his commander’s aspirations for Early’s advance. Davis and Lee also planned a raid on a large Union prisoner-of-war camp at Point Lookout in eastern Maryland, an operation they hoped would coincide with Early’s presence in the state. But the absolute secrecy imperative for success could not be maintained, and the foray was canceled.25
While regular messages continued to pass between Davis and Lee, the proximity of the Army of Northern Virginia to Richmond permitted the two men to meet more often. The general came to the capital, but the president, accompanied by various companions, also rode out to army headquarters. These rides could cover more than twenty miles, and the visits could last far into the night. Sometimes Davis did not leave Lee until the moon was up. Such excursions could also place him in danger. On at least two occasions, despite the presence of guides, the presidential party rode beyond Confederate positions. But in each instance cries from men in gray brought an unharmed president back within friendly lines. Once, visiting a battery on the James, Davis came under fire from Federal units only a few hundred yards away. Seemingly unperturbed, he finally yielded to the pleas of officers, “smiled, turned,” and withdrew.26
Although the commander in chief concurred with Lee’s vigorous thrusts at Grant, he watched with increasing concern Johnston’s retreat toward Atlanta. Davis certainly did not want to yield the city “before manly blows had been struck for its preservation.” Hood’s messages fed his fear that Johnston would not strike at Sherman. He shared his anxiety with a friend who quoted him: “I had hoped & trusted from day to day that I should get news of a general battle, and I felt sure we should succeed but day after day came and went and there was no fight, while the army was still falling back, back, back!” General Bragg and others in the administration had already reached that conclusion. In mid-July a War Department official recorded in his diary: “A very gloomy view of affairs in Georgia prevails in the cabinet.”27
A major reason for the distress permeating the administration was that no one, including Davis, knew Johnston’s intentions. The general had become no more open in his communications to the War Department. He did admit that because of the numerical disparity and the nature of the country, he had been unable to halt Sherman’s progress. Yet, as he told his wife, he reported to Richmond only in “a general way,” and in monumental misjudgment or self-deception he asserted that his superiors took “no interest in any partial affairs that may occur in this quarter.…” After two months of continuous withdrawal, Davis grew anxious to know what his commander intended. The president was also concerned about what he saw as Johnston’s “want of confidence.” Did Johnston plan to fight for Atlanta? Did he contemplate withstanding a siege in the city? Did he envision continued retreat toward Savannah or Mobile? Johnston gave Davis every reason to expect the third alternative when on July 11 he “
strongly recommended” the immediate removal of Federal prisoners of war from Andersonville, some 100 miles south of Atlanta. Then, what chance would Johnston have against Sherman in the plains of central Georgia if he had not been able to stop him in the much more defense-friendly terrain above Atlanta?28
Davis aimed to ascertain Johnston’s purpose, if possible. He sent Bragg to the Army of Tennessee to sound out Johnston. He also had Secretary of War Seddon request from Senator Benjamin Hill an account of a discussion he had had with Johnston. Both general and senator presented similar reports. Hill said that Johnston hoped Sherman would attack him, and if so was confident of victory. Moreover, Hill relayed Johnston’s conviction that he could hold his lines in front of the Chattahoochee River for a month or more. But Hill conveyed to Seddon his opinion that Johnston would not strive to gain the initiative. Hill also journeyed to Richmond to present his account directly to the president. Likewise, Bragg sent word to Richmond that Johnston had “ever been opposed to seeking battle.…” Unknown to Davis, Bragg played a devious role while with the army. He posed as Johnston’s friend but really listened to Hood’s criticisms and sent a negative dispatch back to the War Department. Although he had been duplicitous in his personal dealings with Johnston, that conduct did not fundamentally affect his findings, for Johnston had steadily maintained that he could only react to Sherman.29
Despite the obvious signs of his commander in chief’s anxiety, Johnston remained guarded and recalcitrant, even defensive. In fact, Johnston was a troubled general who shared potentially embarrassing doubts only with his wife, never with his superiors. At the beginning of the campaign in early May, he sounded reasonably confident; he did not believe Sherman could succeed “unless we have bad luck.” But only a week later, his tone changed: “I have been very much disappointed to do so little with so fine an army—& one so devoted to me.” He confided, “I have never been so little satisfied with myself. Have never been so weak.” His relinquishing of so much territory distressed and humiliated him. Confessing his inability to counter what he termed Sherman’s “Engineering system,” he informed his wife on June 18 that he might have to cross the Chattahoochee. With that admission he implored her to burn his letter promptly. Twelve days later he expressed to Senator Hill complete confidence in his defensive position. On the last day of June, he harked back to the self-protective mantra he had employed before. He told his wife that no other general had ever faced his predicament. “Such a warfare was never before waged,” he moaned.30
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