Jefferson Davis, American

by William J. Cooper

  56. On the wound, see PJD, III, 123n., 149n., and Memoir, I, 332.

  57. JD to W. W. S. Bliss, March 2, 1847, PJD, III, 142.

  58. Ibid.; JD to William A. Buck, June 21, 1859, JDC, IV, 56–58.

  59. Wool quotation in Lavender, Climax, 211; JD to W. W. S. Bliss, March 2, 1847, PJD, III, 143.

  60. JD to VD, February 25, 1847, PJD, III, 122; ibid., 122, 143, 149n.; Memoir, I, 332, 359; JD to James L. Power, October 6, [1887], James L. Power Papers, MDAH.

  61. PJD, III, 143, 184; for reports of regimental officers, see ibid., 123–27, 128–39, 151–63 (quotations on 153–54); JDC, I, 176–77, has casualty figures; Taylor’s report is in Senate Executive Document 139, 30:1 (serial 503).

  62. JD to William A. Buck, June 21, 1859, JDC, IV, 56–58. For comments on the effectiveness of artillery, consult Bauer, Taylor, 205; Lavender, Climax, 225–29; Grady McWhiney and Perry D. Jamieson, Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage (University, Ala., 1982), 37–38.

  63. Chance, Davis’s Regiment, 126–27.

  64. PJD, III, 181–82; New Orleans Daily Delta, June 11, 1847.

  65. PJD, III, 183–85; Memoir, I, 358; Natchez Semi-Weekly Courier, June 15, 1847; Vicksburg Whig, June 15, 1847; Chance, Davis’s Regiment, 128–29.

  66. Vicksburg Whig, April 2, 1847; Carnot Posey to Col. George H. Gordon, February 19, 1847 (typescript), Fleming Papers, NYPL; Vicksburg Weekly Sentinel, April 7, 21, July 28 (quoting Aberdeen Advertiser), 1847; JD to Citizens of Jackson, May 7, 1847, PJD, III, 171.

  CHAPTER SEVEN: “At Present All Is Uncertainty”

  1. Jackson Mississippian, March 26, April 23 (quoting Ripley Advertiser), June 11, 1847; Joseph Davis to JD, May 13, 1847, PJD, III, 172.

  2. Milo Milton Quaife, ed., The Diary of James K. Polk During His Presidency, 1845–1849 (4 vols.; Chicago, 1910), III, 28–29; Polk to Robert Armstrong, June 13, 1847, James K. Polk Papers, LC; Polk to JD, May 19, 1847, PJD, III, 175–76.

  3. Joseph Davis to JD, May 21, 1847, PJD, III, 176; Taylor to Dr. R. C. Wood, June 23, July 20, 1847, William H. Samson, ed., Letters of Zachary Taylor from the Battle-Fields of the Mexican War (Rochester, N.Y., 1908), 109, 119, and Taylor to JD, July 27, 1847, PJD, III, 203.

  4. JD to Polk, June 20, 1847, PJD, III, 185–86; also see JD to Robert J. Walker, June 20, 1847, ibid., 186–87.

  5. Vicksburg Whig, May 25, 1847; Vicksburg Weekly Sentinel, June 2, 1847; JD to Stephen Cocke, July 15, 1847, PJD, III, 192; see n. 3.

  6. Henry S. Foote, Casket of Reminiscences ([1874]; New York, 1968), 349–50; Brown to JD, August 10, 1847, JDC, I, 92–93; JD to Brown, August 15, 1847, PJD, III, 207–08; Jackson Mississippian, August 13, 1847; Vicksburg Whig, August 19, 1847.

  7. VD to Margaret Howell, [July] 24, 1847, JD Papers, UA; JD to VD, January 3, 1848, The Am. Scene: A Panorama of Autographs, 1504–1980.

  8. Bowmar, 350, 358.

  9. Ibid., 354–56; VD to Margaret Howell, April n.d., 1848, JD Papers, UA.

  10. JD to VD, January 3, and addendum on January 4, 1848, Am. Scene; Bowmar, 356.

  11. VD to Margaret Howell, November 12, 1847, JD Papers, UA.

  12. JD to VD, January 3, and addendum on January 4, 1848, Am. Scene, and on April 18, 1848, PJD, III, 302–03.

  13. JD to VD, April 18, 1848, PJD, III, 302–03; VD to Margaret Howell, April n.d., 1848, JD Papers, UA.

  14. VD to Margaret Howell, April n.d., 1848, JD Papers, UA. Whatever the details of her response, she has the wrong date, whether by design or because of a confused memory, for her account of the spring of 1848—Memoir, I, 409ff.

  15. Vicksburg Weekly Sentinel, September 27, November 3, 1847; Zachary Taylor to Dr. R. C. Wood, October 27, 1847 (first quotation), Samson, ed., Letters of Taylor, 145; JD to N. D. Coleman and Others, November 2, 1847, JDC, I, 179; Jackson Mississippian, November 12, 1847 (second quotation); Memoir, I, 361; Zachary Taylor to JD, February 16, 1848, and JD to VD, April 18, 1848 (third quotation), PJD, III, 270, 302.

  16. Joseph Davis to JD, May 13, 1847, PJD, III, 172–73; Bowmar, 496–97.

  17. PJD, III, 246n., 250n.

  18. Ibid., seating chart facing 225; The Senate Chamber, 1810–1859 (Washington, D.C., 1976), 5; Christian F. Eckloff, Memoirs of a Senate Page (1855–1859), ed. Percival G. Melbourne (New York, 1909), 5.

  19. Oliver Dyer, Great Senators of the United States Forty Years Ago (1848 and 1849): with Personal Recollections and Delineations… (New York, 1889), 123–34.

  20. PJD, III, xxxv; JD to Stephen Cocke, November 30, 1847, ibid., 249; Taylor to JD, September 18, 1847, ibid., 219.

  21. JD to Stephen Cocke, November 30, 1847, ibid., 248.

  22. Ibid., 249n.; Jackson Mississippian, December 31, 1847.

  23. JD to Stephen Cocke, November 30, 1847, PJD, III, 249; Tompkins to JD and JD to Tompkins, both December 25, 1847, ibid., 252–54; Vicksburg Weekly Sentinel, December 15, 1847.

  24. Vicksburg Daily Whig, February 25, 1848; Jackson Mississippian, January 14, 1848.

  25. Quaife, ed., Polk Diary, III, 269–70.

  26. For general background, see David M. Potter, The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861, comp. and ed. Don E. Fehrenbacher (New York, 1976), chaps. 1–6. The most thorough treatment of Calhoun is Charles M. Wiltse, John C. Calhoun (3 vols.; Indianapolis, 1944–51).

  27. PJD, III, 254–61, 264–65 (quotations on 258 and 265).

  28. Ibid., 277–88 (quotations on 278, 285, 287).

  29. Potter, Impending Crisis, 3–5; Senate Executive Document, 52, 30:1, 18, 36 (serial 509).

  30. PJD, III, 295–301 (quotation on 295).

  31. Ibid., 420, 421, 422, 424–35, 429–30, 431, 432, 436–37; JDC, I, 191.

  32. PJD, III, 332–69, has JD’s Oregon speech; all quotations come from there unless otherwise specified.

  33. On slavery and the Constitution, see especially Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics (New York, 1978), notably part one.

  34. On the congressional struggle and its outcome, see Potter, Impending Crisis, 73–76, and PJD, III, 373n.

  35. Davis defended slavery in the Oregon speech cited above; for the quotation, see PJD, III, 315.

  36. Ibid.

  37. On diffusion, consult Drew R. McCoy, The Last of the Fathers: James Madison and the Republican Legacy (New York, 1989), 265, 267–74; JDC, I, 313, has more on JD and diffusion in 1850.

  38. JD to Dr. Samuel A. Cartwright, June 10, 1849, PJD, IV, 22–23; JDC, I, 316–17, II, 73–75.

  39. JDC, I, 536–37.

  40. Jackson Mississippian, September 1, 1848.

  41. PJD, III, xxxvi; JD to VD, April 18, 1848, to Hugh R. Davis, June 4, 1848, ibid., 302, 325–26.

  42. Taylor to JD, April 20, 1848, ibid., 307–08.

  43. Robert Barnwell Rhett to John C. Calhoun, May 20, 1847, Chauncey S. Brooks and Robert P. Brooks, eds., Correspondence Addressed to John C. Calhoun, 1837–1849 (Washington, D.C., 1930), 377; Frank Blair to Martin Van Buren, February 29, 1848, Martin Van Buren Papers, LC; JD to D. H. Lewis, March 17, 1847, D. H. Lewis Material, Sam Houston Memorial Museum, Huntsville, Texas; JD to Robert Walker, June 29, 1847, to [Simon Cameron], July 26, 1847, PJD, III, 190–91, 196–97; JD to Beverly Tucker, April 12, 1848, ibid., 292–93.

  44. PJD, III, xxxvi, 374–76, 388; JD to Beverly Tucker, April 12, 1848, ibid., 292–93; Jackson Mississippian, September 1, 1848.

  45. JD to Charles J. Searles, September 19, 1847, to Hugh R. Davis, June 4, 1848, to Woodville Citizens, October 23, 1848, PJD, III, 225–26, 325–26, 389; JD to H. R. Davis and Others, October 6, 1848, JDC, I, 214.

  46. On popular sovereignty, see Potter, Impending Crisis, 56–62, and my The South and the Politics of Slavery, 1828–1856 (Baton Rouge, La., 1978), 255–56, 263–64.

  47. Taylor, for example, on April 20, 1848, informed JD that the United States should take no land from Mexico below the Missouri Compromise line–PJD, III, 309.

  48. Jackson Mississippian, November
24, 1848; Vicksburg Weekly Sentinel, December 6, 1848; Taylor to JD, April 20, 1848, PJD, III, 309, and on July 10, 1848, JDC, I, 210; JD to John J. Crittenden, January 30, 1849, PJD, IV, 8–9.

  49. PJD, III, 392n.

  50. For the congressional session, Calhoun, and southern opinion, see Potter, Impending Crisis, 83–87, and my Politics of Slavery, 269–76.

  51. JD to John J. Crittenden, January 30, 1849, PJD, IV, 8–9; ibid. 18n.; Cooper, Politics of Slavery, 272–73, 377–78, discusses the failed Whig effort.

  52. The most thorough treatment of Mississippi politics between 1849 and 1851 remains, amazingly, Cleo Hearon, “Mississippi and the Compromise of 1850,” PMHS, XIV (1914), 7–229.

  53. PJD, IV, 19–20.

  54. Ibid., xxxii–xxxiii, 46–47 ed.n.; JD to VD, October 14, 1849, ibid., 47.

  55. JDC, I, 236–38; Michael F. Holt, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War (New York, 1999), 449.

  56. JD to Stephen Cocke, August 2, 1849, PJD, IV, 26; JD to Malcolm D. Haynes (public letter), August 18, 1849, ibid., 26–44.

  57. Hearon, “Compromise,” 61–68, for the October 3 convention and D. W. Wallace to Whitemarsh Seabrook, October 20, 1849, Whitemarsh Seabrook Papers, LC, for JD’s support.

  58. PJD, IV, 52 ed.n., 120–21n.; JD to James W. Kingsbury, December 15, 1849, ibid., 52; Memoir, I, 409 (although VD dates this in the spring of 1848, the evidence makes clear it is in the fall of 1849); “Plan of Senate Chamber, First Session, Thirty-first Congress,” JD Papers, MC.

  59. JD to Stephen Cocke, August 2, 1849, PJD, IV, 25; Jackson Southron, December 12, 1849.

  60. Lewis L. Taylor to [John Duncan], September 7, 1849 (copy), William Henry McRaven Papers, MDAH; Jacob Thompson to Wm. R. Cannon, December 31, 1849, William R. Cannon Papers, LC.

  61. JD to Stephen Cocke, August 2, 1849, to William R. Cannon, January 8, 1850, PJD, IV, 25, 55–56.

  62. Vicksburg Weekly Whig, February 20, 1850.

  63. JD to John J. Crittenden, January 30, 1849, PJD, IV, 8–9; Taylor to JD, September 11, 1849, quoted in Holman Hamilton, Zachary Taylor (2 vols.; Indianapolis, 1941–51), II, 237–38 (from this letter one can easily infer that JD had been critical).

  64. Memoir, I, 409–18; Dinner List, January 26, 1850, W. W. Corcoran Papers, LC. Again VD places these in the spring of 1848, but she clearly describes events that occurred in 1849 and 1850.

  65. VD to JD, January 25, [1850], and [June] 14, 1850, PJD, IV, 62, 119–20; [Sarah Stickney] Ellis, Guide to Social Happiness (New York: several editions were published in New York, n.d., 1847, 1848, 1850); Anna Butler to Sarah Butler, January 13, 1850 (typescript), Butler Family Papers, LSU (I am grateful to John Sacher for this reference); see photograph, p. 199.

  66. By far the most thorough and most perceptive accounts of the Compromise of 1850 are especially Holt, Whig Party, chaps. 14–15, and Mark J. Stegmaier, Texas, New Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850: Boundary Dispute and Sectional Crisis (Kent, Ohio, 1996). My analysis follows them. Also see Holman Hamilton, Prologue to Conflict: The Crisis and Compromise of 1850 ([1964]; New York, 1966), Potter, Impending Crisis, chap. 5, Cooper, Politics of Slavery, 282–310 (quotation on 284).

  67. James D. Richardson, comp., A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789–1897 (10 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1896–99), V, 9–24.

  68. JD to William R. Cannon, January 8, 1850, PJD, IV, 56.

  69. Mississippi Delegation to John A. Quitman, January 21, 1850, JDC, I, 261; Albert G. Brown to J. F. H. Claiborne, March 15, 1860, J. F. H. Claiborne Papers, MDAH; JD to William R. Cannon, January 8, February 25, 1850, PJD, IV, 56, 82–83.

  70. Holt, Whig Party, chap. 14, is penetrating on Clay.

  71. PJD, IV, 63–70.

  72. JDC, I, 263–308, has the speech; all quotations come from there.

  73. JD to Francis J. Lynch, February 25, 1850, PJD, IV, 84. For correspondence and other relevant material, see ibid., 79–82, 85–86n.; Vicksburg Tri-Weekly Sentinel, March 26, 1850; Anna Butler to Robert O. Butler, February 28, 1850, Butler Family Papers, LSU (I am grateful to John Sacher for this reference).

  74. Reuben Davis, Recollections of Mississippi and Mississippians (Boston and New York, 1891), 101, 322; Wiltse, Calhoun, III, 401–02, 465–66; Hamilton, Prologue, 93. There is no good biography of Foote, but see the biographical sketches in James Daniel Lynch, The Bench and Bar of Mississippi (New York, 1881), 286–88, and DAB, VI, 500–01.

  75. JD to Howell Hinds, September 30, 1856, PJD, VI, 50–52; memorandum by Abraham Venable dated August 8, 1874, in Venable to JD, August 8, 1874, JD Papers, MC. A fanciful tale, with no corroborating evidence, that begins the dispute with Foote’s introducing a young female friend of the Davises to an unsavory character is related in Mary A. A. Fry to Walter Lynwood Fleming, n.d., Walter Lynwood Fleming Papers, NYPL.

  76. JD to Howell Hinds, September 30, 1856, PJD, VI, 52.

  77. Ibid., III, 329–31, details the flag incident.

  78. For Calhoun and the compromise, see Potter, Impending Crisis, 100–02; PJD, IV, xxxiv, 344, and Memoir, I, 462–63, give details about JD and Calhoun’s obsequies.

  79. JD discusses Webster in a letter to William R. Cannon, February 25, 1850, PJD, IV, 82.

  80. JDC, I, 507–08. Also see JD to James Buchanan, March 15, 1850, to Franklin H. Elmore, April 13, 1850, and Buchanan to JD, March 16, 1850, ibid., 318–21, 323.

  81. Robert Barnwell to JD, October 20, 1851, PJD, IV, 227; Stegmaier, Texas, 188.

  82. JDC, I, 482–501, 504–11 (quotation, 485).

  83. Texas: ibid., 418, 474–80, PJD, IV, 109–16; Mexican law: ibid., 109–16; CG, 31: 1, App., pt. 2, 1416–20; fugitive slaves: JDC, I, 512–23 (quotation 518).

  84. James B. Smith to JD, February 2, 1849, PJD, IV, 10 (first quotation); ibid., 84 (second, third quotations), 336, 338–39, 341, 360, 361, 363, 370.

  85. Ibid., 124n.

  86. Stegmaier, Texas, 199; William McWillie to My Dearest Wife, August 11, 1850, McWillie-Compton Papers, MDAH.

  87. Stegmaier, Texas, 326–28; Hamilton, Prologue, 191–92. While most historians view the Compromise as a compromise, Potter in Impending Crisis interprets it as an armistice.

  88. JDC, I, 486, 502–06; PJD, IV, 124; William Walthall Diary, March 4, 1877, William Walthall Papers, MDAH.

  89. JDC, I, 378, 381, 432–33, 509.

  90. JD to Margaret K. Howell, September 15, 1850, PJD, IV, 132.

  CHAPTER EIGHT: “The Cloud Which Had Collected”

  1. PJD, IV, 134–35 ed.n.; VD to Mary Ann Cobb, January 13, 1851, Howell Cobb Papers, UGA.

  2. JDC, I, 543–45.

  3. Jackson Mississippian, May 31, 1850; Vicksburg Weekly Sentinel, October 23, November 13 (quoting Paulding Clarion), 1850; JDC, I, 589–92, 602–03.

  4. PJD, IV, xxxv, 135–45, 373; JDC, I, 579–89, 592–600.

  5. PJD, IV, xxxv, 121n., 135 ed.n.; VD to Mary Ann Cobb, January 13, 1851, Cobb Papers, UGA.

  6. JD to VD, [December] 5, 1850, JD Family Papers, MDAH; VD to Mary Ann Cobb, January 13, 1851, Cobb Papers, UGA; JDC, II, 28–34; on enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, see David M. Potter, The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861, comp. and ed. Don E. Fehrenbacher (New York, 1976), 130–39.

  7. JDC, II, 41–42.

  8. Ibid., 17–18; see also ibid., I, 557–60.

  9. PJD, IV, 16–18, 59–61.

  10. Ibid., 94–100.

  11. Ibid., 3–5, 95, 175, 176n.; JDC, II, 1–9 (quotation on 1).

  12. PJD, IV, 161, 163–64.

  13. Ibid., 176n.

  14. William J. Cooper, Jr., The South and the Politics of Slavery, 1828–1856 (Baton Rouge, La., 1978), 304–10.

  15. P. L. Rainwater, ed., “The Autobiography of Benjamin Grubb Humphreys, August 26, 1808—December 20, 1882,” MVHR, XXI (1934), 242; on Mississippi politics in 1851, Cleo Hearon, “Mississippi and the Compromise of 1850,” PMHS, XIV (1914), 7–229, still has the most detailed accou
nt.

  16. On Quitman, see Robert F. May, John A. Quitman, Old South Crusader (Baton Rouge, La., 1985), chaps. 17–19 passim.

  17. For the Georgia Platform, consult my Politics of Slavery, 307–08.

  18. Hearon, “Mississippi and Compromise,” 166n.

  19. JD to David Yulee, July 18, 1851, PJD, IV, 218–19; Jackson Mississippian, May 9, 1851.

  20. JD to VD, May 8, 1851, PJD, IV, 181; JD to David Yulee, July 18, 1851, ibid., 218–19.

  21. Horatio J. Harris to JD, April 17, 1851, ibid., 179; Jackson Mississippian, May 9, 1851.

  22. PJD, IV, 181 ed.n.

  23. Ibid., 389–92; JDC, I, 415 (quotation), II, 71–82.

  24. Vicksburg Tri-Weekly Sentinel, June 12, 1851 (first quotation); Jackson Mississippian, May 23 (second quotation), 30, 1851.

  25. Vicksburg Weekly Whig, November 6, 1850.

  26. Jackson Mississippian, June 20, 1851; JD to James A. Pearce, August 22, 1852, PJD, IV, 300; Reuben Davis, Recollections of Mississippi and Mississippians (Boston and New York, 1891), 316.

  27. For the gubernatorial struggle, see Davis, Recollections, 315–17; Memoir, I, 466–67; JD to David Yulee, July 18, 1851, PJD, IV, 218; May, Quitman, 258–59.

  28. Jackson Mississippian, July 4, 1851; Davis, Recollections, 317; PJD, IV, xxxvi, 183 ed.n., 183–220, 392; JD to David Yulee, July 18, 1851, ibid., 218; Andrew P. Butler to JD, June 16, 1851, Robert Barnwell to JD, October 20, 1851, ibid., 391, 227.

  29. [?] Sanders to John A. Quitman, July 13, 1851, J. F. H. Claiborne Papers, MDAH; PJD, IV, xxxvii, 183 ed.n.

  30. PJD, IV, xxxvii; Vicksburg Tri-Weekly Sentinel, August 21, 1851 (first and second quotations); Jackson Mississippian, July 4, August 29 (third quotation), 1851.

  31. Jackson Mississippian, August 29, 1851; PJD, IV, xxxvii, 222n.; Memoir, I, 467, 469.

  32. Memoir, I, 469.

  33. Ibid.; JD to Cartwright, September 23, 1851, PJD, IV, 224–25.

  34. JD to Cartwright, September 23, 1851, PJD, IV, 224–25.

  35. For my discussion of JD’s eye problem, I have relied on Dr. Charles S. Bryan to WJC, January 13, March 24, 1997, and Dr. Roderick Macdonald to WJC, January 30, 1997. Pertinent medical literature includes: Gerald L. Mandell et al., eds., Principles and Practice of Infectious Diseases (4th ed.; New York, 1995), 1336–39; Howard M. Leibowitz, Corneal Disorders: Clinical Diagnosis and Management (Philadelphia, 1984), chap. 16; Thomas H. Mader and R. Doyle Stulting, “Viral Keratitis,” Infectious Disease Clinics of North America, VI (December 1992), 831–35; D. Yorston and A. Foster, “Herpetic Keratitis in Tanzania: Association with Malaria,” British Journal of Ophthalmology, LXXVI (October 1992), 582–85. Also see PJD, VI, 170–71n., and Harris D. Riley, Jr., “Jefferson Davis and His Health, Part I: June, 1808—December, 1860,” JMH, XLIX (August 1987), 195–201.