Jefferson Davis, American

by William J. Cooper

  52. JD to W. B. Tebo, August 22, 1849, JDC, I, 245–46; Memoir, I, 89–90.

  53. JD to Jones, February 9, 1839, PJD, I, 455.

  54. Vicksburg Daily Sentinel, August 31, 1840; PJD, II, 15.

  55. PJD, II, 35–37, 697.

  56. Vicksburg Daily Sentinel, November 15, 1843; Vicksburg Whig, November 3, 1843.

  57. PJD, II, 43–45, 698.

  58. On banks and repudiation, consult Bradley G. Bond, Political Culture in the Nineteenth Century South: Mississippi, 1830–1900 (Baton Rouge, La., 1995), 82–89 (quotation on 83), and James Roger Sharp, The Jacksonians Versus the Banks: Politics in the States After the Panic of 1837 (New York, 1970), chaps. 3–4.

  59. PJD, II, 698. JD to Editor, August 29, 1849, Jackson Mississippian, September 7, 1849; JD to Ritchie, September 3, 1875, JD Papers, DU.

  60. PJD, II, 49.

  61. Ibid., 45, 47.

  62. Ibid., 58, 76, 697 (quotation).

  CHAPTER FIVE: “It Was What I Wished”

  1. Memoir, I, 187–88, 190–91. On the Howell family and Varina, see Eron Rowland, Varina Howell: Wife of Jefferson Davis (2 vols.; New York, 1927–31), and Ishbel Ross, First Lady of the South: The Life of Mrs. Jefferson Davis (New York, 1958).

  2. Memoir, I, 189.

  3. See photograph, p. 97.

  4. Varina Howell to Margaret Howell, December 19, 1843, PJD, II, 52–53.

  5. William P. Johnston to “My Dear Rosa,” July 23, 1862, Johnston Family Papers, FC; Memoir, I, 191.

  6. Ross, First Lady, 8–9; Rowland, Varina Howell, I, 75–76; JD to VD, March 8, 1844, PJD, II, 121.

  7. Ross, First Lady, 11; JD to VD, March 8, 15, 1844, PJD, II, 120–21, 127–28.

  8. JD to VD, March 8, 15, 1844, PJD, II, 120–21, 127–28.

  9. JD to VD, March 15, September 6, 1844, and two undated letters, ibid., 128, 208, 704, 705.

  10. JD to VD, March 15, 1844, ibid., 127–28.

  11. JD to VD, March 8, 15, December 11, 1844, ibid., 121, 127–28, 234, and September 27, 1844, ibid., VIII, 597.

  12. JD to VD, March 8, September 6, 1844, and undated, ibid., II, 120, 208, 705.

  13. JD to VD, November 22, 1844, ibid., 224–25.

  14. JD to VD, March 8, 1844, ibid., 121, and February 25, 1845, Special Collections, Mississippi State University. For insightful treatments of husband-wife roles, see Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South (New York, 1982), chap. 8, and George C. Rable, Civil Wars: Women and the Crisis of Southern Nationalism (Urbana, Ill., 1989), chaps. 1–2.

  15. See JD’s wedding picture, p. 103.

  16. JD to VD, February 25, 1845, Special Collections, Mississippi State University.

  17. Memoir, I, 199–200; Rowland, Varina Howell, I, 98–99; Ross, First Lady, 18–19 (quotation). PJD, II, 235–37, has the marriage bond and marriage certificate.

  18. Memoir, I, 200; Rowland, Varina Howell, I, 102–03; Ross, First Lady, 19–21; VD to Margaret Howell, March 9, 1845, JD and Family Papers, MDAH.

  19. Memoir, I, 200–02.

  20. For the convention, see PJD, II, 68–76.

  21. Reuben Davis, Recollections of Mississippi and Mississippians (Boston and New York, 1891), 193.

  22. The most perceptive study of political culture in Mississippi during Davis’s time is Bradley G. Bond, Political Culture in the Nineteenth Century South: Mississippi, 1830–1900 (Baton Rouge, La., 1995).

  23. VD to William E. Dodd, March 10, 1905, William E. Dodd Papers, LC; JD to Martin Van Buren, March 25, 1844, to William Allen, March 25, 1844, PJD, II, 130–31, 139–40.

  24. JD to William Allen, March 25, 1844, and to VD, June 22, 1844, PJD, II, 131, 173.

  25. Davis, Recollections, 69.

  26. JD to VD, September 6, 1844, PJD, II, 207; ibid., 165–66, 176.

  27. Ibid., 179–80, 185.

  28. Ibid., 196–98, 202, 216. “Coon” was a derisive appellation that Democrats applied to Whigs.

  29. Ibid., 202; Davis, Recollections, 196–97.

  30. PJD, II, xxxiv–xxxv, 165–216 passim; the quotation comes from a speech fragment, JD Papers, TR.

  31. On the Texas issue in the South, see my The South and the Politics of Slavery (Baton Rouge, La., 1978), chap. 6, and William W. Freehling, The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776–1854 (New York, 1990), part VI.

  32. PJD, II, 119, 142, 169, 165–216 passim.

  33. Speech fragment, JD Papers, TR.

  34. Jackson Mississippian, September 6, 1844, PJD, II, 220–21 (election results), 226; Davis, Recollections, 193.

  35. H. S. Foote et al. to Polk, December 4, 1844, JD to Robert J. Walker, February 22, 1845, PJD, II, 232, 235.

  36. Memoir, I, 202–03; JD to Margaret Howell, April 25, 1845, PJD, II, 244.

  37. Memoir, I, 203–04.

  38. JD to Margaret Howell, April 25, 1845, PJD, II, 243–44.

  39. JD to G. E. Payne, February 14, 1845 (copy), Harold A. Frey, Jr., Tom’s River, N.J. (1986).

  40. PJD, II, 256-59; Vicksburg Sentinel, July 11, 1845.

  41. PJD, II, 295–97. The year 1845 marked the final general-ticket election in Mississippi. Three years earlier Congress had mandated single-member districts, but it took some time for that system to be put in place. See Kenneth C. Martis, The Historical Atlas of Parties in the United States Congress, 1789–1989 (New York, 1989), 4–7, 98–101.

  42. Vicksburg Sentinel, June 30, 1845, and James Roger Sharp, The Jacksonians Versus the Banks: Politics in the States After the Panic of 1837 (New York, 1970), 85.

  43. PJD, II, 284–87, 290–91n.; Memoir, I, 205–06.

  44. Vicksburg Sentinel, July 11, 1845.

  45. PJD, II, 265–66; JD to W. B. Tebo, August 22, 1849, JDC, I, 246.

  46. PJD, II, 263; ibid., 266–81, has the address as printed.

  47. JD and Quitman to the Public, July 10, 1845, ibid., 304–05; Jacob Thompson to J. F. H. Claiborne, June 3, 1878, P. L. Rainwater, ed., “Letters to and from Jacob Thompson,” JSH, VI (February 1940), 103. Also see JD to J. F. H. Claiborne, April 24, n.d., J. F. H. Claiborne Papers, MDAH.

  48. VD to Margaret Howell, September 5, 1845, PJD, II, 329; W. P. Johnston to “My Dear Rosa,” July 23, 1862, Johnston Family Papers, FC; PJD, II, xxxvi–xxxvii; Vicksburg Whig, October 15, 1845.

  49. Vicksburg Sentinel, August 4, 18, 25, 1845; Jackson Mississippian, August 6, 1845.

  50. PJD, 307–10, 312–13, 315–17, 324–25, 327–28, 336–40, 343–44, 347–53, 355–56.

  51. Ibid 317, 336, 338, 344, 347, 355, 356.

  52. Ibid., 351–52, 356.

  53. Ibid., 357–59.

  54. Ibid., 361, 365, 370; JD to Wilson Hemingway, November 11, 1845, ibid., 363–65; Memoir I, 208. In my research I have found no evidence for a close relationship; neither is there any in the massive archive collected for the publication of Calhoun’s papers. Clyde Wilson (editor of the John C. Calhoun Papers) to WJC, September 10, 1993.

  55. Memoir, I, 208–09, 211–12; PJD, II, 370; Vicksburg Whig, November 20, 1845.

  56. Memoir, I, 198; PJD, II, xxxvii, 370–71.

  57. Joseph Howell to Margaret Howell, November 21, 1845, PJD, II, 375–76.

  58. JD to VD, August 1, 1845, PJD, VIII, 597; VD to Margaret Howell, September 5, 1845, ibid., II, 329–30; Joseph Howell to “Dear Father,” September 5, 1845, William B. Howell Papers, MDAH; Eliza Davis to Mary Davis, September 13, 1845, Lise Mitchell Papers, TU.

  59. VD to “My dear Mother,” November 14, 1845, Old Courthouse Museum, Vicksburg.

  60. JD to Charles M. Price and George R. Fall, December 16, 1845, PJD, II, 384–85; VD to “My Dear Parents,” December 11, 1845, JD and Family Papers, MDAH; Memoir, I, 215–20.

  61. Charles Dickens, American Notes ([1842]; Gloucester, Mass., 1968), 140; Allan Nevins, Ordeal of the Union (2 vols.; New York, 1947), I, 39–40; Constance M. Green, Washington (2 vols.; Princeton, 1962), I, 155–64.

  62. Memoir, I, 220; John Carl Parish, George Wallace Jones (Iowa
City, 1912), 268.

  63. Dickens, American Notes, 140; Glenn Brown, History of the United States Capitol (2 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1900), I, 67–68; George C. Hazelton, The National Capitol: Its Architecture, Art and History(New York, 1903), 218–19.

  64. Henry W. Hilliard, Politics and Pen Pictures: At Home and Abroad (New York and London, 1892), 132; PJD, II, 438–63. For full discussions of the Oregon issue and Manifest Destiny, see two books by Frederick Merk, Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History (pb. ed.; New York, 1963), and The Oregon Question: Essays in Anglo-American Diplomacy and Politics (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), along with David M. Pletcher, The Diplomacy of Annexation: Texas, Oregon, and the Mexican War (Columbia, Mo., 1973), and Rush Welter, The Mind of America, 1820–1860 (New York, 1975), 66–74.

  65. PJD, II, 395–96, 564.

  66. Ibid., 498–515, 519.

  67. Ibid., 615–18, 621–25, 627–28, 632–33, 634n.

  68. Ibid., 390, 463.

  69. VD to Margaret Howell, January 30, April 3, 1846, ibid., 419–21, 533–35; Memoir, I, 225, 263–64.

  70. Vicksburg Whig, January 6, 1846; PJD, II, 383, 404, 409, 411, 434, 484, 549; JD to George Bancroft, December 12, 1845, to Eli Abbot, December 21, 1845, to Wilson Hemingway, November 11, 1845, ibid., 384, 399, 364.

  71. PJD, II, 424–27, 690–91; ibid., 569, 649–54, 700; Memoir, I, 245, 252.

  72. VD to “My dear parents,” December 11, 1845, JD and Family Papers, MDAH; VD to Margaret Howell, January 30, April 3, 1846, PJD, II, 419–20, 534; Memoir, I, 220–27, chaps. 21–22 passim (quotation on 259).

  73. VD to Margaret Howell, January 30, April 3, 1846, PJD, II, 419–21, 533–35.

  74. JD to VD, June 22, 1846 (copy), Robert E. Cannon, Houston (1979, calendared PJD, III, 457–58); VD to JD, [June] 14, 1850, ibid., IV, 119.

  CHAPTER SIX: “It May Be That I Will Return with a Reputation”

  1. For thorough accounts of Polk’s goals and the coming of the war, see K. Jack Bauer, The Mexican War, 1846–1848 (New York, 1974), chaps. 1–5; David M. Pletcher, The Diplomacy of Annexation: Texas, Oregon, and the Mexican War (Columbia, Mo., 1973), chaps. 9–10, 12; and Charles G. Sellers, James K. Polk: Continentalist, 1843–1846 (Princeton, 1966), chap. 10.

  2. JD to Polk, May 19, 1846, PJD, II, 600–01; David E. Twiggs to JD, May 4, 1846, ibid., 577; ibid., 583, 660, 661n.

  3. Yazoo City Whig, May 29, 1846, quoted in Joseph E. Chance, Jefferson Davis’s Mexican War Regiment (Jackson, Miss., 1991), 3, also 4–12; John G. Poindexter to Jacob Thompson and JD, May 1, 1846, PJD, II, 584.

  4. Jesse Speight et al. to Polk, June 3, 1846, PJD, II, 636; JD to “A Gentleman in Vicksburg,” May 12, 1846, ibid., 590.

  5. Ibid., 589–90; Vicksburg Whig, May 26, 1846.

  6. PJD, II, 670–71, 673n.; Chance, Davis’s Regiment, 11–12. Bradford evidently acted from personal conviction and nothing else; no evidence exists to suggest any arrangement between him and Davis or any of Davis’s friends.

  7. VD to Margaret Howell, June 6, 1846, PJD, II, 641–42.

  8. Ibid., 675, 694n.; Memoir, I, 284.

  9. JD to Lucinda Stamps, July 8, 1846, PJD, II, 695. The “circumstances” Davis referred to are not known; possibly the relatively small size of Rosemont, where the Stamps family lived, was involved.

  10. Ibid., III, 3–9.

  11. Memoir, I, 284; JD to Lucinda Stamps, July 8, 1846, PJD, II, 695.

  12. PJD, II, 693; Chance, Davis’s Regiment, 20.

  13. Memoir, I, 284–85; VD to Margaret Howell, January n.d., 1847, JD Papers, UA.

  14. Chance, Davis’s Regiment, 20; Carnot Posey to Col. George H. Gordon [1846] (typescript), Walter Lynwood Fleming Papers, NYPL; Vicksburg Whig, July 25, 1846 (quotation).

  15. JD to Robert J. Walker, July 22, 1846, PJD, III, 11–12n.

  16. Jackson Mississippian, June 24, July 15, 1846; Joseph Davis to JD, [October] 7, 1846, PJD, III, 55–56n.

  17. JD to Robert J. Walker, July 22, 1846, PJD, III, 11–12. For full discussions of the government’s initial policy of invasion, see K. Jack Bauer, Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest (Baton Rouge, La., 1985), 166–74; David Lavender, Climax at Buena Vista: The American Campaigns in Northeastern Mexico, 1846–47 (Philadelphia, 1966), 82–92; Pletcher, Diplomacy, chap. 14; and Sellers, Polk, chap. 10.

  18. Eleanor Damon Pace, ed., “The Diary and Letters of William P. Rogers, 1846–1862,” SHQ, XXXII (April 1929), 261; John A. Quitman to Eliza, August 14, 1846, Quitman Family Papers, UNC; Archibald Burns Journal, DU; Chance, Davis’s Regiment, 24.

  19. JD to Robert J. Walker, August 24, 1846, to John McNutt, August 20, 1846, PJD, III, 18–19, 16–17; Joseph E. Chance, ed., The Mexican War Journal of Captain Franklin Smith (Jackson, Miss., 1991), 9; Chance, Davis’s Regiment, 26.

  20. JD to VD, July 18, 29, August 16, 1846, PJD, III, 11, 13–14, 16.

  21. Taylor to JD, August 3, 1846, ibid., 14–15; Memoir, I, 199; Bauer, Taylor, 113–14.

  22. PJD, III, 15n.; Chance, ed., Smith Journal, 13.

  23. Bauer, Taylor, 175; Lavender, Climax, 93.

  24. Chance, Davis’s Regiment, 26–27.

  25. Bauer, Taylor, 165; Pace, ed., “Rogers Diary,” 262.

  26. On Taylor’s plans and organization, see Bauer, Taylor, 175–76, and Lavender, Climax, 92–98.

  27. Pace, ed., “Rogers Diary,” 263.

  28. For detailed studies of the battle, see Bauer, Taylor, chap. 9, Chance, Davis’s Regiment, chaps. 4–5, and Lavender, Climax, chap. 6. My account is drawn from them.

  29. PJD, III, 47–48.

  30. Joseph Howell to “Dear Mother,” September 25, 1846, William B. Howell Papers, MDAH. The best depictions of JD in battle come from reports of regimental officers, e.g., PJD, III, 48, 51, 64–68.

  31. For a marvelous contemporary description of the houses and streets, see William B. Campbell to His Wife, October 10, 1846, Campbell Family Papers, DU.

  32. JD to Joseph, September 25, 1846, to Thomas Ritchie, January 6, 1847, PJD, III, 24, 110–12; Memoir, I, 304.

  33. JD to Joseph, September 25, 1846, PJD, III, 24; JD to Quitman, September 26, 1846, ibid., 25–29, 35–38 (quotations on 27 and 35); JD to Walker, October 12, 1846, ibid., 61–62; JDC, I, 147–48, has casualty figures. For an insightful discussion of the attitude of Americans in Mexico, including their confidence, consult Robert Johannsen’s splendid To the Halls of the Montezumas: The Mexican War in the American Imagination (New York, 1985).

  34. Joseph Howell to “Dear Mother,” October 13, [1846], JD Papers, MC; PJD, III, has battle reports, e.g., 48, 51, 64–76.

  35. JD to Joseph, September 25, 1846, PJD, III, 24; John A. Quitman to “My dearest Wife,” October 19, 1846, Quitman Family Papers, UNC; PJD, III, 74. The leave itself, dated October 18, 1846, is in the John A. Quitman Papers, MDAH.

  36. VD to JD, [September 1846], PJD, III, 53.

  37. Bowmar, 346–47.

  38. Ibid., 349–51, 357–61; Memoir, I, 311; VD to Margaret Howell, January n.d., 1847 (quotation), JD Papers, UA; Hudson Strode, Jefferson Davis (3 vols.; New York, 1955–64), I, 174.

  39. “Christmas 1846” in “Christmas Days” by Mrs. M. P. H. Roach, Eggleston-Roach Papers, LSU. On the importance of motherhood, see Sally G. McMillen, Motherhood in the Old South: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Infant Rearing (Baton Rouge, La., 1990), and George C. Rable, Civil Wars: Women and the Crisis of Southern Nationalism (Urbana, Ill., 1989), chap. 1 passim.

  40. JD to VD, December 10, 1846, PJD, III, 93–95.

  41. JD to Joseph, January 26, 1847, ibid., 116.

  42. Vicksburg Whig, October 29, 1846, for commendation and on October 24, November 3, 10, 12, 1846, for squabble.

  43. Ibid., November 12, 1846; PJD, III, 79–83, has the speech.

  44. The preponderant evidence places the Rifles first in the fort; see PJD, III, 42–43n.

  45. JD to Balie Peyton, November 1, 14, 1846, and Peyton to JD, November 3, 1846, ibid., 77–78, 84–85;
ibid., 79–83, 86–88, has JD’s speech and his public letter; Peyton to William B. Campbell, November 5, 1846, Campbell Family Papers, DU.

  46. The best study of Quitman is Robert F. May, John A. Quitman, Old South Crusader (Baton Rouge, La., 1985).

  47. JD to Quitman, September 26, 1846, PJD, III, 25–29, 35–38; Quitman to “My beloved Wife,” February 20, 1847, Quitman Family Papers, UNC.

  48. Louisa Quitman to “My dearest Father,” November 9, 17, 1846, Eliza Quitman to Quitman, November 18, 1846, January 2, 1847, Quitman to Louisa Quitman, January 6, 1847, Quitman Family Papers, UNC; Quitman to “My dear Son,” January 11, 1847, Quitman Papers, MDAH.

  49. PJD, III, 42, 43n.; May, Quitman, 220. On JD’s unhappiness with Quitman, see JD to Joseph Davis, January 26, 1847, PJD, III, 115.

  50. JD to Walker, November 30, 1846, PJD, III, 89–91.

  51. On Taylor’s plans and views, consult Bauer, Taylor, 186–93, and Lavender, Climax, chap. 7.

  52. The Buena Vista campaign is thoroughly covered in Bauer, Taylor, 194–214, Chance, Davis’s Regiment, chaps. 7–8, and Lavender, Climax, chaps. 8–12. My account is drawn chiefly from them. PJD, III, 139–47, has JD’s official report. On the pride of the Rifles, see Carnot Posey to Col. George H. Gordon, February 19, 1847 (typescript), Fleming Papers, NYPL.

  53. JD to VD, [February 8, 1847], PJD, III, 118.

  54. Pace, ed., “Rogers Diary,” 272, 274; Capt. W. S. Henry, Campaign Sketches of the War with Mexico (New York, 1847), 276.

  55. JD to W. W. S. Bliss, March 2, 1847, and Alexander Bradford to JD, March 2, 1847, PJD, III, 141, 144, 152; James Henry Carleton, The Battle of Buena Vista, with the Operations of the “Army of Occupation” for One Month (New York, 1848), 77; Capt. T. W. Gibson, Letter Descriptive of the Battle of Buena Vista, Written upon the Ground…(Lawrenceburgh, Ind., 1847), 4.