Jefferson Davis, American

by William J. Cooper

  During these horrendous months Davis also struggled with his health. In December 1864, neuralgia struck another hard blow, and the manifestations plagued him for weeks. In a generally weakened state, he still tried to spend full days at his office in the Customs House. Yet at times he had to remain in the Executive Mansion. On one occasion an ill president lying on a divan met with a worried General Lee. Still, the president refused to let illness hobble him. When he appeared at the African Church rally following the Hampton Roads Conference, a War Department official noted how feeble he looked. But he also had good days when he took the horseback rides that relaxed him, at least briefly.29

  Even with the awful public pressures and the lingering physical maladies, Davis could still impress people. His face, despite thinner and more sallow cheeks, marked a man of “extraordinary determination,” an Irish visitor remarked. Even though he looked “thin and careworn,” with his hair and chin whiskers “bleaching rapidly,” his gray eyes remained “bright & clear.” In March 1865, an eyewitness pictured “a graceful, spirited gentleman.” Davis showed his spirit at a wedding where he gleefully claimed his “tribute kiss” from the blushing bride.30

  During most of the winter and spring President Davis worked with a different lineup at the top of the War Department. On February 1 Secretary James Seddon gave up his office. Taking personally the Virginia legislature’s call for wholesale changes in the cabinet, he felt that as a Virginian he should not stay in because the legislators of his state had lost faith in the official first family. Davis tried to dissuade him, but to no avail. In accepting Seddon’s resignation, the president bid farewell to a trusted, loyal lieutenant. In a demanding job and under difficult circumstances, Seddon for more than two years had ably served his president. Davis recognized that service upon Seddon’s departure: “you have devoted yourself with entire singleness of purpose to the public welfare … your labors have been incessant, your services important and your counsels very valuable.…”31

  Seddon’s successor was a capable man who had solid credentials. Well known to Davis, John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky had been a notable antebellum politician, including service as vice president under James Buchanan and as the southern Democratic candidate for president in 1860. Since 1861 he had served competently as brigadier and then major general in the Confederate army, in both western and eastern theaters. Davis and his new war minister seemed to get along, but Breckinridge did not hold office sufficiently long to demonstrate how the relationship would have developed.

  Even before Seddon left, Davis had reassigned General Braxton Bragg from the position of military adviser to the president to take over command of Confederate forces around Wilmington. Bragg’s leaving in mid-October 1864 occasioned no fundamental changes in the Confederate high command. As military adviser, Bragg had never become a confidant of the president, as Lee had been back in 1861 and 1862. Moreover, Bragg’s presence in Richmond between February and October did not alter Davis’s continued reliance on Lee, not only for Virginia affairs but also for matters reaching far beyond the state.

  Thinking of himself as chief of staff of the Confederate army, Bragg had functioned almost as a co-secretary of war. Drawing on his organizational interests and skills, he devoted much time to such areas as officer ranks and promotions, conscription, prison, and transport. He effected some positive changes, such as reformulation of the authority for conscription. Davis also used him in conveying directives to the Army of Tennessee, and, of course, on special assignment to report on Joseph Johnston before Atlanta. But Bragg’s tenure was too brief and too late to have a fundamental impact on the way Davis ran the War Department. And Bragg never replaced Seddon as a counselor to the president.32

  During the months he had Bragg, and even after the turn of the year when he confronted the disintegration of his armies and his country, Davis continued to immerse himself in a sea of minutiae. His administrative practice did not change at all. He wanted to know why a lieutenant from Louisiana was promoted in a South Carolina artillery unit; he even entered a dispute over seniority between two captains in a Virginia regiment. A plan to promote several captains in General William Hardee’s command generated a directive to the adjutant and inspector general. In early spring 1865 Davis gave directions in a controversy over a local commander’s right to revoke a general order for a special assignment. Late in April he instructed Breckinridge on the promotions of lieutenants on general staffs.33

  Although President Davis’s absorption in detail remained unchanged into the spring, the Confederate military situation changed dramatically. The deterioration that had marked the end of 1864 gained momentum. By late February, Sherman was poised to enter North Carolina, where once again he faced his foe of a year earlier, Joseph E. Johnston. When Congress called for a commanding general of Confederate armies, it also requested that the president reinstate Johnston. Resisting, Davis wanted nothing more to do with a general who he believed had repeatedly failed him and the country. He went so far as to prepare a lengthy memorandum explaining to Congress why he would not recall Johnston. But, exercising restraint and avoiding unneeded confrontation, he did not submit it. Holding the document also saved considerable embarrassment, for a few days later he did reassign Johnston. Lee said Johnston was needed to try to bring order out of chaos in North Carolina. Having no real choice, Davis acquiesced. To a political supporter, he placed the best possible interpretation on his action. He complied with Lee’s wish, Davis wrote, “in the hope that Genl. Johnston’s soldierly qualities may be made serviceable to his country when acting under General Lee’s orders, and that in his new position those defects which I found manifested by him when serving as an independent commander will be remedied by the control of the General in Chief.”34

  General Johnston’s new assignment did not please him. To Mary Chesnut he confided that “he was very angry to be ordered to take command again.” His wife remarked that he “went off in the devil of a bad humor.” Preferring to criticize what he considered mistakes made by Lee and others, Johnston asserted that he was returned only to preside over a surrender. Johnston’s command consisted of the remains of the Army of Tennessee along with troops from Bragg and Hardee, altogether around 20,000 men. This paltry force could at best do no more than briefly delay Sherman’s powerful legions. Johnston did make an effort. In mid-March at Bentonville he actually attacked a portion of Sherman’s army. Although the Confederates gained initial success, numbers soon prevailed. Sherman’s route to Virginia lay open, though Johnston kept his small force intact.35

  In Virginia, Lee was trying to cope with increasingly desperate difficulties. Grant’s continuous extension of his lines gravely endangered Lee’s control of the railroads—utterly essential for the protection of both his army and Richmond. Grant was about to surround him, and Sherman was fast approaching. Lee discerned that his only chance lay in falling back west and south toward North Carolina and uniting with Johnston. With the combined armies, even though still outnumbered, he would strike Sherman, and if he prevailed, he would turn on Grant. Any hope for success required Lee to act before Sherman reached Grant or the latter cut off his escape route.

  Understanding the military reality behind Lee’s design, Davis concurred. The president recalled that he and Lee were of one mind on what had to be done and how to do it. Davis claimed that both men recognized the value of Richmond as a symbol and a manufacturing center. They wanted to hold the city as long as possible, but not risk the capture of Lee’s army. According to Davis, they were ready to abandon Petersburg as early as March, but the combination of mud-softened roads and weak draft animals convinced Lee that he could not move that quickly.36

  Aware that Richmond would soon fall, Jefferson Davis planned accordingly. For the second time he prepared to send his family south, specifically to Charlotte, North Carolina, and if necessary, farther on. The spring of 1862 with the Federal host at the gates of the capital was certainly traumatic, and Davis could not know the outcome. But t
hree years later, conditions were massively different. This time he knew the city would have to be given up. Varina sold some of the furniture in the White House, with the remainder scheduled for packing and storage. An anxious Jefferson checked on the safety of the railroad near Charlotte. He also gave his wife all his gold, save for a single five-dollar piece. In addition, he obtained a pistol for her and showed her how to use it. According to Varina, he instructed her: “You can at least, if reduced to the last extremity, force your assailants to kill you, but I charge you solemnly to leave when you hear the enemy are approaching; and if you cannot remain undisturbed in our own country, make for the Florida coast and take a ship there for a foreign country.” Leave-taking was especially painful, for all realized they might never see each other again. The father found it particularly difficult to part with his children; the two oldest begged to remain and clung to him. On March 29, escorted by Burton Harrison, Varina, the four children—ranging in age from ten years to nine months—her sister Maggie, and two servants left by train.37

  President Davis stayed on. He would not leave until the last possible moment, which came somewhat sooner than expected. Before Lee could orchestrate his withdrawal from Petersburg, Grant on April 2 broke through the Confederate lines. Immediately the news flashed to Richmond. It was a balmy Sunday morning. Postmaster General John Reagan, who had been at the War Department when the telegram arrived, headed to the White House to inform the president. On the way he met Davis en route to church. After listening to Reagan, Davis continued on.38

  When Davis entered St. Paul’s, one who saw him often noted his appearance: “the cold calm eye, the Sunken cheeks, the compressed lip, were all as impenetrable as an iron mask.” During the service, the sexton brought a dispatch to the presidential pew, Lee’s telegram saying that Richmond must be promptly evacuated. Upon reading it, Davis rose and quietly walked out.39

  He went to his office in the Customs House. There he received Lee’s most recent report emphasizing that this night he had to abandon his position. Although Davis had known that Lee would soon give up Petersburg, that it happened so suddenly surprised him. As he later wrote, he did not believe that eventuality “so near at hand.” He called together his cabinet, the governor, and the mayor, and informed them of what had transpired at Petersburg and must happen in Richmond. Preparations were underway to pack up all archives possible and remove the government. Davis also wired Lee asking if he could give any more time before the required evacuation. In front of his staff the hard-pressed general growled that he had given plenty of notice about the extreme fragility of his position. No, read the reply, he could provide no more time.40

  That evening President Davis walked back to the Executive Mansion for the final time. To inquiring citizens who stopped him, he confirmed that the government would leave the city. After gathering up a few belongings he “sat on a divan in his study, sad, but calm and dignified,” conversing with those around him. When the carriage arrived to take him to the Richmond and Danville depot, he lit a cigar and got in. At the station he waited in the office of the railroad’s president until the special train was ready. Then, with General Samuel Cooper and his cabinet, except for Breckinridge who followed later, he climbed aboard, and at 11 p.m. the locomotive chugged out of the city. Davis and his party left a quiet city, but by next morning much of it was on fire, flames spreading from the demolition of ammunition works to engulf entire blocks.41

  Davis’s destination was Danville, some 145 miles southwest of Richmond and just above the North Carolina line. From the capital the train clanked slowly through the night. As the cars passed a rural station early on the morning of the third, a crowd cheered the president, who sat by a window. Acknowledging the notice, he “smiled,” but an eyewitness thought “his expression showed mental and physical exhaustion.” In his diary Secretary Mallory recorded that “general gloom” pervaded the atmosphere. Reaching Danville at 4 p.m., the president was greeted by an enthusiastic assembly of citizens and escorted to the residence of Major William T. Sutherlin, a mansion on the outskirts of town. The Sutherlin house became the new center of the Confederate government.42

  At this point Davis had no thought of surrendering the Confederacy. He did not consider his cause lost. Before leaving Richmond, he had brought up with Lee his cherished vision of troops swarming back to the colors. He told Bragg in North Carolina that his military goal remained the prevention of a junction between Sherman and Grant. He was not certain how long he would stay in Danville, however. Although he had engineers look into constructing defensive works for the town, he wrote his wife he was not ready to decide on a future seat of government. But he did emphasize that he did not want to leave Virginia. He just did not know where the necessary buildings for the executive departments and Congress could be found.43

  His public stance exuded confidence and determination. In a proclamation to the “People of the Confederate States” dated April 4, he declared, “it is my purpose to maintain your cause with my whole heart and soul.” Yet he did not deny that serious reverses had occurred. The seat of government had been temporarily moved to Danville because military exigencies required the evacuation of Richmond. But this setback did not sound the death knell for our “most sacred cause”; instead, it meant “a new phase of a struggle, the memory of which is to endure for all ages, and to shed ever increasing lustre upon our country.” Relieved from protecting fixed points, Confederate armies could defeat in detail enemy forces drawn far from their bases, Davis asserted. Even if events necessitated withdrawal from Virginia or any other state in the upper Confederacy, he promised Confederate divisions would return. “[N]othing is now needed to render our triumph certain, but the exhibition of our own unquenchable resolve. Let us but will it, and we are free.” In his view, the enemy had the “impossible task of making slaves of a people resolved to be free.”44

  Circumstances quickly overtook these stirring words. Davis expected Lee to reach Danville, or at least to position himself to protect the town and especially the government. But the general, now on a desperate march for survival, could not match the speed and power of his foe. Grant’s presence on his southern flank had already forced him due west rather than southwest, making Danville an impossible goal. By April 8 Lee found units of Grant’s army in his front as well; they blocked the way west. Breckinridge had reported to Davis that Lee’s situation was bleak. An officer from Lee slipped through the lines and reached Danville on the night of the eighth. The president was then holding a cabinet meeting in the Sutherlin dining room. Although Davis put the young man at ease upon his arrival, his words shocked: he did not believe Lee could reach safety; he thought surrender imminent. Still, the president sought to get dispatches to Lee. But the young officer was right. On Sunday, April 9, at Appomattox Court House, General Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to General Grant. On the tenth, even though no official news had reached him, Davis informed Joseph Johnston that “little doubt” existed about Lee’s fate.45

  When, later that day, President Davis received reliable information that Lee had indeed surrendered his entire army, the chief executive prepared to move his government. This time the destination was Greensboro, North Carolina, fifty miles south of Danville and close to Joseph Johnston’s headquarters. The presidential train pulled out of Danville around midnight and steamed into Greensboro the following afternoon. Unlike their counterparts in Danville, the citizens of Greensboro did not provide a cheery, warm welcome for the president. Antiwar sentiment had grown, but fear of reprisals from Federal raiding parties also governed conduct.46

  The quarters of the Confederate government and its leader dramatized their plight. Offices were set up in railroad cars; most cabinet members also slept in coaches. Davis’s aide and nephew by his first marriage, the grandson of Zachary Taylor, John Taylor Wood, fitted out an empty room in his lodgings for his uncle. Even though they governed a disintegrating country, these men enjoyed a full commissary in Greensboro, which provided
substantial rations. Secretary Mallory pictured the attorney general with a hoecake in one hand and bacon in the other, the secretary of state dividing his attention between a bucket of stewed apples and a haversack of hard-boiled eggs, and the postmaster general using his bowie knife to cut a ham.47

  At Greensboro, President Davis’s chief goal was to devise a plan to carry on the war. To that end, he called both General Johnston and General Beauregard to confer with him. Although he issued no proclamation as he had done at Danville, he was no less determined. An aide described him as still having “a great deal of fight.” To Governor Vance he implored, “we must redouble our efforts to meet present disaster. An army holding its position with determination to fight on, and manifest ability to maintain the struggle,” he insisted, “will attract all the scattered soldiers and daily and rapidly gather strength.” Davis appealed to the governor to join him in exercising moral leadership “to revive the spirit and hope of the people.” When Beauregard appeared, his interview with the president left no doubt that the commander in chief intended to continue the war.48