Black Americans were not the only group being oppressed—although they obviously had the worst situation. In the House on January 14, the matter of enlisting Marylanders who resided in the Confederacy, and particularly those of Jewish heritage, arose. George Vest of Missouri suggested that displaced Marylanders living in the Confederacy should be compelled to serve in the military. He yelled out that Richmond held plenty of “roughs,” “shoulder-hitters,” and “blood tubs” who stood on the street corners in fine clothes, always ready to break out in the strain of “Maryland, My Maryland” but unwilling to strike a blow for the Confederacy. This drew considerable laughter. Henry Foote turned the question of “foreigners” within the Confederacy to Jews, who he said had “deluged” the Confederacy and controlled “nine-tenths of the trade in each city.” If the present trend continued, Foote announced, “the end of the war would probably find nearly all the property of the Confederacy in the hands of Jewish shylocks.” 14
The most prominent shots fired across the bow of the Confederate White House, however, were saved for matters of military operations—chiefly those felt to be failures. Congress seemed hell-bent on destroying the reputation of Braxton Bragg, whom they squarely blamed for the outcome of the battle of Stones River, also known as Murfreesboro, fought December 31, 1862, through January 2, 1863, in Tennessee. Despite Bragg’s and Davis’s declarations of glory associated with the fight, the Confederate retreat from the field engendered great debate and anger on the House and Senate floors.
At the end of February, in the House, discussion arose a day after Bragg had been given a vote of thanks by Congress, a prestigious recognition, for the Murfreesboro campaign. Henry Foote rose to clarify some newspaper reporting of the events. He did not “commend General Bragg’s skill in commanding armies,” as the papers reported. Foote had “never regarded him as capable of commanding a large army in the field.” He had only voted for the resolution because of the recommendation of Joe Johnston, he explained, out of respect for the latter. 15 Three Kentucky congressmen—Robert Breckinridge, James Chrisman, and Willis Machen—said they would now change their votes against Bragg if possible.
With Bragg’s reputation falling, Johnston felt his growing, and he tried to direct his good friend to set things straight for him in Richmond. “I am told that the president & secretary of war think that they have given me the highest military position in the Confederacy,” Johnston wrote Wigfall, “that I have full military power in all this western country. . . . If they do so regard it ought not our highest military officer to occupy it? It seems so to me. That principle would bring Lee here. I might then, with great propriety, be replaced in my old command.” He then complained about how far apart the troops of Pemberton and Bragg were and how impractical it would be to coordinate their efforts together. “Now you, who are a military man, can understand this case, which Mr. Seddon apparently can not. I want you to convince him. . . . If the government cannot be convinced of the correctness of my views, it seems to me that the assignment of Lee to this command, & of me to my old army, would be a good & pleasant solution.” 16 It was all further evidence of the undercurrent of ego that ran through the Confederate effort.
In early February discussions arose in the House over the fall of New Orleans the previous year and exactly who should be held responsible. The answer came through loud and clear: “The main offenders who were responsible for the catastrophe at New Orleans were the former Secy. of War and the present Secy. of the Navy.” Although representatives named Randolph and Mallory, their attack was a very thinly veiled one at the president, who had stood by the two cabinet members as their friend. 17
Davis himself had it out for certain officers. One of them was Bob Toombs, the Georgia politician and friend of Little Aleck Stephens and the Georgia clan of anti-Davis agitators. Frustrated, Toombs finally reached a boiling point. “I have resigned my commission as Brigadier General in the Provisional Army of the Confederate States,” he wrote in a proclamation to his soldiers. “This separation from you is deeply painful to me. . . . It is only necessary now for me to say, that, under existing circumstances, in my judgment, I could no longer hold my commission under President Davis with advantage to my country.” 18 Toombs went home to Georgia to take up criticizing Davis as a full-time enterprise.
Given the close scrutiny from the public and from the press, Davis had to tend house. One day he sent Abraham Myers, the much-criticized quartermaster general, an article from the Richmond Examiner lambasting officers for supposedly selling excess army fabric to stores at a profit when enlisted men were short of proper clothing. “The enclosed slip cut from a morning paper is sent to you for your attention,” wrote the president. “If the abuse described exists it should be promptly corrected and the offenders held to a due responsibility.” 19 But such interventions did virtually nothing to pacify his critics.
While Davis was busy trying to mend fences, others spent their time second-guessing strategic and tactical decisions sent from Richmond to the battlefront. “If we had [an engineer] corps now, with pontoons,” wrote John Bell Hood to his mentor, Wigfall, “I believe we could destroy the Yankee army in our front.” 20 Wigfall also heard more from Joe Johnston, who softly criticized the strategy under way in the west. Johnston wrote:
It is unfortunate that [Edmund] Kirby Smith was not sent across the Mississippi in September. In that event, both Grant & Rosecrans would probably have been beaten. . . . At present we can’t do otherwise than stand on the defensive on the Missi. The whole of its valley is said to be impassable for large wagon trains, while the enemy, on the river, can avoid without difficulty, any movement of ours. . . . I don’t think the government appreciates the value of our position in Middle Tennessee. If we lose it East Tennessee can not be held. It is not considered in Richmond either, that Rosecranz’ N. Western troops are worth double their number of Yankees. . . . Troops of ours from Va. ought to reinforce Bragg. Tell Mr. Seddon so. 21
FOR most Confederate civilians on the home front, the war seemed to be making matters far worse, not better. Sons and husbands were being killed by the scores, fear and disorganization dominated everywhere, the economy virtually had collapsed, and food was getting scarce. So serious a problem was this as 1863 opened that the Georgia legislature enacted laws prohibiting the growing of cotton in the state and requiring the growth of food crops to supply the Confederate army. Why supply the army and not the home front? President Davis pressed the matter hard with the governors. “The possibility of a short supply of provisions presents the greatest danger to a successful prosecution of the war,” he wrote Joe Brown of Georgia. 22
Brown was so disgusted with Davis and the national government in Richmond he considered melting away from public life altogether. “I do not intend to be a candidate for election to another term in the Executive office,” he wrote Aleck Stephens. “But I feel a deep interest in seeing someone elected who, while he does his whole duty to the Confederacy, will contend for and sustain to the extent of his ability the rights and sovereignty of the state. . . . In looking over the field for such a man my mind rests upon your brother [Linton] as my first choice.” 23 Two weeks later, informed that Linton Stephens might not be a viable candidate, Brown suggested that Bob Toombs should run. The politics of Georgia would continue in flux for weeks to come. Davis, meanwhile, wanted to see if some of the war debt could be transferred to state governments, which Aleck Stephens violently opposed. “You are right in opposing the assumption of Confederate debt to the States,” his friend Toombs wrote. “I would not endorse a dime of it. It is puerile and disastrous. . . . As to Geo[rgia], I suppose Joe Brown will run again.” 24 In the end Toombs was right: Brown would run again.
In the House of Representatives, a lengthy discussion about state rights occurred centered on North Carolina’s loyalty. Because of pro-Union sentiment scattered around the state, Southerners sometimes questioned whether North Carolina favored a restoration of the Union. Burgess Gaither and William Lander, r
epresentatives from North Carolina, reassured the House that the state would remain loyal to the Confederacy. 25
North Carolina was not the only state wavering. “I take the liberty of informing you of the condition of affairs in this State,” wrote Col. Guy Bryan, an aide of Lt. Gen. Theophilus H. Holmes’s, to President Davis, from Waco, Texas. “There is a growing feeling of discontent among the people at what is regarded as ‘the unwarranted exercise of powers by the military authorities, and the unwise and illegal interference of the same with the rights of the citizen and civil authorities.’” 26
Arkansas also offered a bubbling controversy. On March 30, 1863, Davis wrote the senators and representatives from Arkansas, telling them he had already or would look after their requests about the Trans-Mississippi being cut off and most of their state being occupied by the Yankees. Davis reported he had placed Kirby Smith in command of the Trans-Mississippi, as they had wished; that Thomas C. Hindman had been withdrawn from command of the army in Arkansas, as they had wished; that arms and ammunition should be sent at every possible opportunity; and that Lt. Gen. Theophilus H. Holmes should be continued in service in that theater. “It is not in my opinion wise or proper to encourage the idea of retaining in each State its own troops for its own defence,” Davis added, “and thus giving strength to the fatal error of supposing that this great war can be waged by the Confederate States severally and unitedly, with the least hope of success. Our safety—our very existence—depends on the complete blending of the military strength of all the States into one united body, to be used anywhere and everywhere as the exigencies of the contest may require for the good of the whole.” 27 That the statement sounded like a straight call for a national—even “federal”— government was an irony lost on few.
While Davis was hoping that all politicians, local and national, would join to form one grand effort for war, some politicians began to walk in another direction. On March 11, 1863, in the House, Charles Conrad of Louisiana introduced a resolution for the restoration of peace. The states of the Confederacy and the Union, he said, “must ever be intimately connected by identity of race, of language and of religion, and by the unalterable laws of geographical affinity and of mutual demand and supply.” 28 The resolution was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs. It was the second time any such peace offering came to the floor of Richmond’s government and the first time it seemed to be taken seriously—at least by some. It would not be the last.
Chapter 12
Politics Spinning Out of Control
WHILE a major war transformed the nation, spreading death to countless battlefields and gloom over the civilians of Richmond, everyday life in the Confederate capital continued. The ladies of Richmond would settle for nothing less.
Many women in the Confederate capital not only operated their households, looked after the events on the military side, and paid careful attention to the politics of what was happening in the halls of Congress but also carried on full social schedules during the war. This was particularly true of the high social circles of Richmond, where soul mates of top Confederate officials mingled with an exclusive set of friends and wondered among their politically connected friends where the war would take them.
The ladies of Richmond had matured and stiffened by now, having passed through a first, intoxicating summer of life among the elite during a period when no one knew what the war would bring. They next settled into a routine, accepting the hardships and uncertainty of war. During the second autumn and winter of the conflict, the ladies seemed to come to peace with themselves, their roles solidifying as mates of the esteemed and privileged, hostesses to a growing variety of social events, nurses to the sick and wounded, and cheerleaders to a republic. “In various offices under the government,” Sallie Putnam wrote, “and particularly in those of the Treasury Department,” the services of females were found useful. “Employment was given and support secured to hundreds of intelligent and deserving women of the South, who, by the existence of the war, or other misfortunes, had been so reduced in the means of living as to be compelled to earn a support.” 1
A relatively small number of women, probably several hundred, took a far more creative and aggressive approach to warfare. They impersonated men and enlisted as soldiers, fighting in the Civil War. One of these ladies, Loreta Janeta Vasquez, a Cuban who was just twenty-five, aspired to be a “second Joan of Arc” after her husband died in Confederate service. She raised and equipped a cavalry company, the “Arkansas Grays,” and, dressed as a man, called herself “Lieutenant Buford,” leading the company into battle. After fighting at First Manassas, Vasquez traveled to fight in Kentucky and Tennessee and was wounded twice.
Late in 1862 Vasquez came to Richmond to find out what she could do to help further the Confederate cause. She recalled,
Richmond was a very different place from what it was on my first visit to it [in 1861], as I soon found out to my cost. Martial law was in force in its most rigorous aspect, and General Winder, the chief of the secret service bureau, and his emissaries, were objects of terror to everybody, rich and poor. . . . It is not surprising, therefore, that almost immediately upon my arrival in Richmond I fell under the surveillance of Winder as a suspicious character, and was called upon to give an account of myself.
Imprisoned, Vasquez confessed her soldierly activities and was urged not to repeat such unladylike functions and released on an assignment to carry dispatches to Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn. 2
The Confederacy’s girls also had varied and amazing experiences in Richmond. The daughter of Senator Louis Wigfall, Louise, was a schoolchild in Richmond during the last part of 1862. In spending time with her parents (and undoubtedly hearing a great deal about the machinations of Congress), Louise counted Gen. and Mrs. Joe Johnston as housemates, as Johnston was still recovering from his wound received at Seven Pines the previous spring. Shortages of fuel and goods were enough to put their mark on the little girl: “Mama says as soap is $1.25 a cake you must economize!” she wrote her brother Halsey in the army. 3
The center of the social galaxy of the Confederacy was the White House, and its chief star, from a social standpoint, was Varina Davis. In the Davis White House, receptions occurred weekly or every other week, with most of them taking place during the winter months. Some were so-called levees, which invited the public. The most important of these was the New Year’s event, which took place from noon to 3 p.m. on the first day of January. After paying respects to the first family of the Confederacy, callers then would move on to other houses, in a sort of crawl around the city. At the White House a band serenaded visitors, who entered the house on the Clay Street side. The first to greet—and announce—the guests were the president’s aides, including Joseph R. Davis, the president’s nephew, and later William M. Browne and Joseph C. Ives, who acted as secretaries for the president. After being received and saying hello to the president and Varina, visitors moved through the parlor and then back out through the entrance hall. Most presidential receptions, however, accommodated a more select set of guests and were held on Tuesday nights from 8 to 10 p.m.
Accounts of the frequency of other White House receptions vary, but it’s clear the Davises held many events. Mary Chesnut assisted Varina Davis with a levee as early as March 1861, when the government was still in Montgomery. On moving to Richmond the Davis family was caught up in a social scene that revolved around activities at the Spotswood Hotel. Richmond socialite Mary Tucker Magill recalled a Christmas reception at the White House late in the war as “a wide hall brightly lighted,” in which she waited with “the masses of people” and various officers as she listened to “the voice of our master of ceremonies murdering our names most atrociously.” After moving into the house, Magill recalled “a gentleman in the uniform of a Colonel ask our names and [took] us into the presence and the acquaintance of the President.” The crowd was filled with military and civilian celebrities. 4
Thomas Cooper DeLeon, who wrote a book filled with
his observations about the social life of wartime Richmond, claimed “bimonthly levees” were held at the White House at which Davis and Varina received guests openly, but they seemed “a Washington custom and smacked too much of the ‘old concern’ to become very popular.” (DeLeon’s writings suggest the big levees were rare during the middle period of the war but reawakened in 1864, when a sense of togetherness in the cause fired a new social life into the city.) “Evenings” and “drawing rooms” hosted regularly by Varina would bring together “a staff that numbered some of the most noted men and brilliant women both of the stranger and resident society [and] assured all her varied guests a warm welcome and a pleasant visit.” After finishing his business for the day, the president would join the group for an hour’s relaxation before rejoining his business at candlelight deep into the night. 5
Informal get-togethers were fairly common as well, and the Davises sometimes hosted meals in the White House, but after a time the president decided that government should come first, and according to Varina, “We ceased to entertain, except at formal receptions or informal dinners and breakfasts given to as many as Mr. Davis’s health permitted us to invite.” Late in the war, as social events were on the upswing, Varina hosted a great many of these breakfasts and luncheons. Mary Chesnut recorded the fare included “gumbo, ducks, and olives, supreme de voaille, chickens in jelly, oysters, lettuce salad, chocolate jelly cake, claret soup, champagne, etc., etc.” 6 While Jefferson Davis’s workaholic nature and frequent bouts of illness held in check the social life of the White House, events did carry on without him. Davis also sometimes held breakfasts with cabinet members.
Dixie Betrayed Page 18