Dixie Betrayed

by David J. Eicher

  Strangely, Kilpatrick—who was known for reckless bravery—halted at the outer defenses of Richmond on March 1, even though only a small opposing force met him there. By nightfall Confederate cavalry had caught up with Kilpatrick and attacked him in camp. Kilpatrick retreated, aborted the plan, and left Dahlgren in the lurch.

  At Goochland, twenty miles northwest of the city, Dahlgren split his force and then recombined it, finally reaching a point two and a half miles south of the city on the evening of March 1. After dark General Lee’s forces fought a sharp skirmish with Dahlgren. One day later, during Dahlgren’s retreat, Confederates ambushed his men, capturing ninety-two and killing Dahlgren.

  Then came the controversy. A thirteen-year-old boy named William Littlepage found on Dahlgren’s body papers that disclosed a plan to release fifteen thousand prisoners, who would act as a guard until fresh Federal troops arrived. The papers also contained information about burning the city and killing Jefferson Davis and his cabinet.

  The papers, at the time alleged by some to be either Confederate forgeries or at least not written in Dahlgren’s hand, sparked intense debate in the South. (In modern times the papers have been conclusively judged authentic.) The responses ranged from Confederate Col. Josiah Gorgas’s proposed plan to execute all Yankee prisoners to Robert E. Lee’s more rational and restrained response of sending a letter of inquiry to the Federals. Kilpatrick issued a statement to George G. Meade, his commanding general, that he knew nothing. Therefore, officially, the responsibility for the idea had died with Dahlgren. But in a time of war and heated passions, such plots undoubtedly were contemplated more than once in both Washington and Richmond.

  To coordinate Southern military affairs and prevent such attacks, many Confederate politicians had long wanted a general-in-chief. Jefferson Davis was always reluctant to dilute his nearly absolute power, but in February he came as close as he could get by appointing a special adviser to the president on military affairs—the same role, in essence, that Lee had played before taking command of the Army of Northern Virginia. He now gave that lofty post to none other than Braxton Bragg, his good friend in whom many others, including most congressmen, had almost no faith. Nevertheless, on February 24, 1864, Bragg was “charged with the conduct of military operations in the armies of the Confederacy.” About the same time Congress toyed with two volatile ideas that infuriated Davis. First, the Senate introduced a bill to limit the terms of the president’s cabinet members. The matter was debated to no conclusion, but the discussion sent Davis into convulsions of anger over the assumed power of Congress over the executive branch. Further, Virginian Thomas S. Bocock, Speaker of the House, introduced a vote of no confidence in the administration. This, too, was debated with no significant conclusion.

  There was some cooperation. Congress passed the Third Conscription Act on February 17, which made white men aged seventeen to fifty eligible for service. Now nearly every man would have to report. But while relations between Davis and Congress would work out regarding conscription—most congressmen at this point felt no alternative was left—stormy times lay ahead on the issue of habeas corpus. Davis felt he was losing control. In February, in a mood bordering on paranoia, he had written to Congress of “discontent, disaffection, and disloyalty . . . treasonable design . . . plots to release prisoners . . . conspirators . . . spies . . . deserters . . . Having thus presented some of the threatening evils that exist, it remains to suggest a remedy. And in my judgment, that is only to be found in the suspension of the privilege of the Writ of Habeus [sic] Corpus.” 12

  Other powerful forces continued to work against suspending the writ, however, including Davis’s own vice president. From his bed in Georgia, Stephens wrote:

  I am now comparatively comfortable—free from violent pain and able to sit up. I have great interest in what’s doing in Congress and shall go on just as soon as I feel able. The thing I would say to your great apprehension is beginning to be felt amongst the public here that Congress will pass an act suspending the writ of Habeas Corpus and putting the country under martial law. Such an act would in my judgment be exceedingly [unconstitutional], and I trust if it should pass it will never achieve the executive approval. 13

  Davis continued to work for congressional support on the issue in whatever way he could. He declared,

  While brigade after brigade of our brave soldiers who have endured the trials of the camp and battlefield are testifying their spirit and patriotism by voluntary reenlistment for the war, discontent, disaffection, and disloyalty are manifested among those who, through the sacrifices of others, have enjoyed quiet and safety at home. . . . On one occasion, when a party of officers were laying a torpedo in the James River, persons on shore were detected communicating with the enemy, and were known to pilot them to a convenient point for observing the nature of the service in which the party were engaged. They were arrested and were discharged on habeas corpus, because, although there was moral certainty of their guilt, it could not be proved by competent testimony. . . . In my judgment [a remedy] is to be found only in the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. It is a sharp remedy, but a necessary one. It is a remedy plainly contemplated by the Constitution. 14

  The assumption was clearly that a true patriot would go along with the administration’s position.

  Too many others disagreed, however, and the issue remained at a standstill. Lawrence Keitt flatly stated,

  The act reproaching the Habeas Corpus, I believed, when I read it, to be unconstitutional. For the past year, Congress has been acting under the idea of “Independence now—Liberty hereafter”—If the two are not reconcilable now, they will not be reconciled in the future. Our whole system of government has been gradually passing into a new phase—common abroad—but not known to us in the past—all powers are fast trending to the Executive control. . . . I confess the shameful wish on the part of the Confederate government to overlook, and slight even, the States, bodes not well for the future. 15

  While nothing happened with habeas corpus, another, even more explosive issue was arising. A significant discussion had erupted on the floor of the House on February 1 regarding the use of African American troops in the Confederate army, which to some implied the possibility of a form of emancipation. Joe Johnston wrote to his friend Wigfall, from a position north of Atlanta,

  I propose to substitute slaves for all soldiers employed out of the ranks on detached service, extra duties, as cooks, engineer labourers, pioneers, or on any kind of work. Such details for this little army amount to more than 10,000 men. Negroes would serve for such purposes better than soldiers. The impressment of negroes has been practiced ever since the war commenced, but we have never been able to keep the impressed negroes with an army near the enemy. They desert & their owners, if they do not investigate, do not prevent it. If you can devise & pass a law to enable us to hold slaves or other negroes with armies, this one can, in a few weeks, be increased by the number given above. 16

  Congress agreed on the following terms regarding free African Americans used as soldiers: not using free blacks while using poor whites as soldiers is discriminatory; black soldiers should be used for menial tasks only since those who could read and write might desert to the enemy; blacks make good laborers but poor soldiers; “free negroes . . . are inimical to our cause”; up to twenty thousand African Americans, aged between eighteen and fifty, should be employed for labor on fortifications, government workshops, hospitals, mess tents, etc.; the pay of slaves should go to their masters; and should too few slaves volunteer or be furnished by their masters, they should be impressed.

  In the House Porcher Miles brought up the act, which would increase the army by adding slaves and free blacks to labor in it. All black males between eighteen and fifty would be required to serve. Erasmus Gardenhire of Tennessee asked that if the bill passed, “would it not recognize Lincoln’s right to conscribe our negroes?” Porcher Miles said, “We have a right to do what we please with our s
laves, and Lincoln has no control over them.” Henry Foote said that a difficulty might exist relative to prisoner exchange. “Suppose some of them are taken prisoner,” he asked. “What would be done with them?” Miles reported the committee had not considered that. 17

  A few days later in the Senate, a bill was introduced to place free blacks in the military; it was then referred to committee. By order of the Senate leadership, the committee was discharged from considering the bill on February 5, 1864. Meanwhile, in the House, Miles again reported that he believed the act to employ slaves and free blacks would increase the army by forty thousand men. John Baldwin of Virginia wanted to exempt any free blacks engaged in food production, particularly in the Shenandoah Valley. Ethelbert Barksdale of Mississippi objected, saying that free blacks “are a blot upon our escutcheon, and pernicious to our slave population. . . . [Baldwin] says to the free negro, you shall not bear the burdens of this war—while [the white citizen] must take his place in the army.” 18 After further argument and slight massaging of the language, the bill was passed. Whether African American soldiers would serve in the Confederacy, however—whether they would be armed and whether slaves would be emancipated in compensation—was a thorny topic to be held for another day.Like so many policy and military decisions the South needed to make, it was deferred.

  AS always President Davis found another source of pain and interference, as he saw it, at least. North Carolina seemed to be coming apart at the seams. Wrote Governor Zeb Vance,

  The final plunge which I have been dreading and avoiding, that is to separate me from a large number of my political friends, is about to be made. It is now a fixed policy of W. Holden and others to call a convention in May to take N.C. back to the United States, and the agitation has already begun. Resolutions advocating this course were prepared here a few days ago in the Standard office and sent to Johnson County to be presented at a public meeting next week. If I should go down before the current I shall perish . . . at bay, destroying many a foe. 19

  Anti-Richmond sentiment had been growing in the Tar Heel State, fueled by state rights philosophy and a feeling that the war had worsened lives rather than improved them.

  In response the president warned Vance and his allies against seeking a peace movement away from the military victory of the Confederacy. “Peace [without liberty and independence] is now impossible,” wrote Davis. “This struggle must continue until the enemy is beaten out of his vain confidence in our subjugation. Then and not till then will it be possible to treat of peace.” 20 Vance sought the counsel of his fellow governor Joe Brown in Georgia as well. “While there is no considerable discontent at the action of the Confederate authority in this state,” Brown responded, “and a sincere desire for peace, there is not a great deal of disloyalty, and no despotism manifested to take any course by separate state action to correct the errors or abuses by the Confederate government, at so critical a period in our struggle.” Brown agreed with Vance that the government had done too little to build up Northern groups who were “hostile to the Lincoln policy.” 21

  Davis and Vance then entered into an argumentative correspondence, with Vance asserting that Davis excluded anti-secessionists from the important offices of the government and from army promotions. Vance suggested that “the great body of our people have been suspected by their Government, perhaps because of the reluctance with which they gave up the old Union.” Vance also complained about conscription, which had been “ruthless,” “unrelenting,” and only “exceeded in the severity of its execution by the impressment of property frequently entrusted to men unprincipled, dishonest, and filled to overflowing with all the petty meanness of small minds, dressed in a little brief authority.” In response Davis wrote Vance: “I warned you of the error of warming traitors into active life by ill-timed deference or timid concession, instead of meeting their insidious attempts to deceive the people, by tearing the mask from the faces of the conspirators.” 22 With that, the governor of North Carolina and the leader of the Confederacy let their relationship cool to an icy near-nonexistence.

  Brown, meanwhile, was experiencing increasing paranoia. “I would be obliged if you would mark all your letters private across the seal of the envelope,” he wrote his friend Aleck Stephens, “as I often have to leave my mails to be opened by secretaries and prefer that your letters should always be handed to me unopened.” 23 Brown didn’t want even his own staff to see the thoughts he harbored toward Davis.

  Little Aleck wasted no time in informing his friend that authorities in Richmond were growing tired of his lack of cooperation and wanted to find a way to get rid of him and install a pro-administration governor in the state. “I thank you for your suggestions and for advising me of the prospect of a war to be waged against me at Richmond,” the governor wrote Aleck Stephens. “I regret that such may be the intention of those in authority. If it must come I shall try to be prepared to meet it.” 24

  Davis, aware that North Carolina and Georgia were now attempting to block his policies, if not splinter the Confederacy, heard whispers of hope in the Northern states from his political friends. “There exists in the North West and North a secret political organization,” penned J. W. Tucker, a Mississippi newspaper editor, “having a Lodge in St. Louis, with one thousand members.” The principles of the group included: preservation of state rights, opposition to Republicanism, recognition of the Southern Confederacy, the formation of a “North West Republic,” and making open war against the “perverted government” of the United States. 25 But hoping for assistance from distant cousins when his brothers-in-arms were increasingly against him seemed like foolish behavior on Davis’s part. And the rhetoric of his fellow Confederates was more and more barbed and sharpened. Wrote Bob Toombs, “I am greatly delighted at the vote on Linton’s resolutions concerning the suspension of habeas corpus. . . . I shall certainly give Mr. Davis an early opportunity to make me a victim by advising resistance, resistance to the death, to his law.” 26

  While this splintering of the South has been ignored or downplayed by many Southern historians, subversive, secret societies in the North have received quite a lot of press. Called “dark lanterns” in the 1850s, underground political groups gained momentum as the war grew unpopular among some citizens when casualties mounted after 1863. Such antiadministration groups as the Knights of the Golden Circle, the Order of American Knights, and the Sons of Liberty attempted to thwart the goals of the Lincoln administration and bring about a swift peace movement. The most vocal inciter of this type was the radical Ohio politician Clement Vallandigham, whom Lincoln exiled to the South to quell his rabble-rousing speeches. But the influence of secret societies in the North has been overblown. In the end, as historian Frank Klement has meticulously documented, these societies never amounted to much more than paper-based organizations with vague goals and “little ability to carry them out.”

  A far more skilled orator, the old “father of secession,” Robert Barnwell Rhett, commented on the Davis administration and its military policies in a letter to Louis Wigfall:

  During the war, I cannot advise you to propose in Congress an alteration of the Constitution in any particular; for it is impossible in the condition of the country, to get a hearing, or in the second place to get any efficient cooperation. The greater part of the People are in the army, where a rigid despotism prevails; and men used to it, cannot feel, in the face of the dangers and excitement which surrounds them the insolence of Constitutional provisions to protect liberty, or to correct inadequacies in the Constitution. . . . We will win our liberties and independence, I believe; but it will be in spite of the most terrible incompetency . . . in our Executive, which has ever afflicted a noble people. 27

  The venom went both ways. “I learn that Genl. [Howell] Cobb is getting crazy in the state of fury,” Brown wrote Aleck Stephens. “A friend from Atlanta writes me that he denounced me on the R.R. car between Macon and that place the other day as a traitor, a Tory; said I ought to be hung and
would be soon; that he had never been to a hanging but would go some distance to see it done, etc. . . . He did all he could to serve his master [Davis].” 28 A true Confederate this was not.

  Chapter 16

  Military Highs and Lows

  IN the east the armies were positioning themselves for what might be the decisive campaign of the war. The Federal command now understood fully that geography was not the issue—destruction of the enemy armies and their ability to wage war was. Particular cities were subtext. “Lee’s army will be your objective point,” wrote Grant at Culpeper Court House on April 9 to George Meade. “Wherever Lee goes, there you will go also.” 1

  By the first days of May, with the onset of warm weather, Grant’s 119,000 men were spread north of the Rapidan from Culpeper Court House to Manassas Junction in Virginia. Lee’s 64,000 lay south of the river from Gordonsville to near the Wilderness, the forested area west of Fredericksburg, with Stuart’s cavalry south of Fredericksburg. Without risking staggering casualties, Lee’s position could not be attacked frontally. Instead, Grant would need to turn Lee’s right, interposing his army between Lee’s army and Richmond, to preserve his own line of communications and force Lee to retreat southward. The stage was set for what would become the Wilderness, or Overland, campaign. So on May 3 Grant ordered the army corps under Maj. Gens. Winfield Scott Hancock, John Sedgwick, and Gouverneur Warren south to Germanna Ford and Ely’s Ford on the river, where they would cross and move into the Wilderness.

  Just after midnight on May 4, Hancock’s Second Army Corps and Warren’s Fifth Army Corps crossed the fords and moved into the Wilderness, unsupported by artillery or cavalry. Grant hoped to move the men through the brushy, heavily wooded region quickly, but by early afternoon Warren had halted at Wilderness Tavern, three miles west of Chancellorsville, and Hancock near Chancellorsville itself. Meanwhile, Confederates under Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell were approaching Warren, and those under Lt. Gen. A. P. Hill were nearing Hancock. Longstreet was approaching, too, but farther behind. “You will already have learned that the army of Gen Meade is in motion, and is crossing the Rapidan on our right, whether with the intention of attacking, or moving towards Fredericksburg, I am not able to say,” Lee reported to Jefferson Davis on May 4. “But it is apparent that the long threatened effort to take Richmond has begun, and that the enemy has collected all his available force to accomplish it.” 2