Dixie Betrayed

by David J. Eicher

  Two days later, with Yankees in the neighborhood, the Richmond Tocsin on Capitol Square rang loudly, and members of Congress were thrown into a “patriotic ebullition” that had much in common with near panic. Some wanted to rush to the front to join the fight in the Wilderness. Others wanted to evacuate Richmond and move the entire government to a place of safety. Legislators introduced a flurry of resolutions, amendments, and joint agreements. Members resolved that Congress should form a Congressional Company and take to the field; that Congress should do nothing so as not to alarm the public; that they should formally declare that there was absolutely no danger. Others in Congress pressed for an official explanation that the ringing of the Tocsin did not signal peace, safety, and security; for an exemption of those over fifty from service (which would have included many congressmen); or for an admission that success in the defense of Richmond would depend on everyone—“This is no time for balderdash and jest!” one member snapped. Still others took the floor to suggest that there was no time to refer any response to the Military Affairs Committee, which would only delay any action, or that Congress should rely on the president to tell it what it should do.

  In the cacophony some proposed that members should volunteer in various units, affording a great example but not risking the danger of wholesale capture. Others suggested that no member had the right to place his usefulness to his constituency in danger, that Congress should at least defend Richmond as a body and set a good example for the whole country, and that volunteering to fight with the army would mean a virtual dissolution of the government. At last one member declared that since the members of Congress had shown themselves to be sufficiently patriotic, they should table these resolutions and return to other work. This, finally, was what happened—as the Tocsin continued to ring. 13

  The next day Louis Wigfall treated his fellow senators to a tantrum. With Grant bearing down on Richmond, and with “relatively little business” to transact in committee, several senators thought a day for the session’s adjournment ought to be set. Robert Johnson of Arkansas pushed the point. “During a campaign like the present,” he said, “the whole attention of the President should be free to be devoted to military affairs.” Wigfall objected. He had read the papers, but did “not care whether the President thinks there is much for Congress to do or not. The President is not charged with deciding the question what Congress has to do, but Congress itself is.” Wigfall ranted that “ours is the only army in the world, civilized or savage, that does not have an inspector general . . . [or] a pay department. . . . The habeas corpus law also demands our attention.” He added in a scream, “If Congress has a fault, it is its constant haste to adjourn.” 14

  Other politician-generals were much more in control of their emotions, regardless of the dangers. “The feeling is prevalent here that peace is at hand,” Lawrence Keitt wrote his wife. “If Lee crushes Grant I know that it is.” 15 A week after that letter, however, Keitt was struck down on the battlefield near Gaines’s Mill. “I was with [Keitt] all the time not otherwise engaged from the time I heard of his wound until he died,” wrote A. S. Talley, a surgeon.

  From the field, he was taken to a house near by, where I found him. . . . I told him he was very dangerously wounded but I hoped not mortally. He asked me if there were as many chances for as against him. I told him I thought then the chances were equal. He was in very great pain was pale and extremely prostrated. I gave him whiskey and morphine. . . . I asked him if he had any message to leave with me. He remained silent for a moment, and then said with a tear from his right eye, which was up, “My two children and my wife.” I do not think he spoke after these words. He died quietly. 16

  In the Senate the Braxton Bragg matter would not die. On May 25 James Orr of South Carolina opposed a bill for an additional salary for Bragg while he was charged with military operations in Richmond. Orr despised Bragg, saying the office was “superfluous, and that Bragg is incompetent for the position.” Debate followed, with Edward Sparrow defending the assignment as having been made by Davis, while Wigfall said the two least qualified Confederate generals were Bragg and Pemberton, both of whom were now stationed in Richmond. Sparrow declared the bill needed to be acted on, whether the adviser was Bragg or Lee. Orr said he saw Bragg in person for the first time “a week ago, and concluded that he has neither the head nor the heart to lead our armies to victory.” 17 Consideration of the bill was postponed.

  The next day the matter arose again. Wigfall felt it his duty to say he could not vote for the bill. “The naked question . . . is that there are not two men in the Confederacy more singularly unfit to command armies than Bragg and Pemberton,” he snapped, “yet we have them both here.” 18 Nonetheless, the bill passed and provided for Bragg to be paid the same amount as a general officer commanding a separate army in the field.

  On June 10 the matter came up yet again. Wigfall introduced a bill to repeal the act that would provide a staff and clerical force for Bragg. But with “scarcely more than a dozen members” of the Senate present, Wigfall had no hope of doing anything. Orr agreed with Wigfall but said, “It is too late to do anything with it.” Orr ranted on, saying it was strange that the office once filled by Lee was now filled by Bragg—“that was to this Hyperion to a satyr.” In the old United States, said Orr, there was a parallel: “The position once filled by George Washington is now filled by Abraham Lincoln.” 19

  Beating on Bragg—and by association, Davis—was not Congress’s only activity during this stressful time, however. As the armies grappled in the Wilderness, Wigfall also introduced his fellow senators to a resolution of his own to suspend habeas corpus during time of invasion. Now, what Davis had wanted for so long, Wigfall wanted for himself. The proposed bill also asserted that “State courts, being established by State authority, can in no manner be affected by Confederate legislation” and that “State and Confederate governments are separate, distinct, and co-ordinate governments.” Trying to have it all ways at once, it also stated the Constitution of the Confederate States is a “compact” of the states between them and is “equally supreme and binding to [citizens] as their State Constitution.” 20 On May 11, 1864, Wigfall’s resolution was tabled—yet another piece of proposed legislation that sucked up time and went nowhere.

  Vampirelike, two days later, the subject came up again. In the Senate Albert Brown of Mississippi shared resolutions of the Mississippi legislature, asking Congress to vote for a bill repealing the act to enable suspending habeas corpus. “The people at home have raised the howl that ‘our liberty is in danger,’” said Brown. However, he proclaimed: “I will stand by the president in his heroic efforts to drive back the invaders.” 21 On May 16 Henry Chambers of Mississippi declared it inexpedient to repeal the act suspending the writ of habeas corpus. But Burgess Gaither of North Carolina said the whole matter should be delayed because of the immediate danger to the capital. The whole subject was—surprise, surprise—postponed. 22

  Two days later in the House, Henry Foote, “flanked by legal and documentary reports,” spoke on habeas corpus for two and a half hours. “The country is engaged in a great war for independence,” he said, “the maintenance of State rights and State sovereignty . . . these depend on our failure or triumph in this war. . . . I will do nothing to weaken the Executive arm; nothing to palsy the government vigour; nothing to thwart the common zeal. God forbid!” Foote, quoting from Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights, variously proclaimed, “True, O king!” and “Thank God for James Madison!” He attacked the government for suspending the writ in Richmond and in North Carolina, saying that anyone who called the suspension in those places a necessary act was telling “a garnished lie.” He said, “The suspending act clothes the President with extraordinary powers, executive, legislative, judicial—centering in one human being the Congress and the Court. The whole civil fabric and law is under his feet. Great God! What an exhibition for a free people in this boasted nineteenth century!” The disloyalty the act is intended
to fight is a “phantom, a myth, a vapour,” said Foote, “the mirage arising from a diseased eye. There is no such thing as disloyalty, neither in Richmond nor North Carolina.” William Rives of Virginia attempted to reply to the rambling speech, but was cut short and had to promise to speak again on the subject later. 23 Foote’s resolution was tabled by a vote of fifty-five to twenty-five. 24

  The next day Davis responded. The president favored suspension, he argued, because it had been beneficial more than once, caused no abridgment of the rights of law-abiding citizens, and no good citizens had suffered wrongfully. “In my opinion the reasons given in the special message transmitted to Congress at its last session, recommending the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, still exist in undiminished force and the present juncture especially requires the continuance of the suspension,” he penned. “It would be perilous, if not calamitous, to discontinue the suspension while the armies of the enemy are pressing on our brave defenders.” 25 But many members of Congress responded that Davis’s claims were vague, general, and mysterious.

  As habeas corpus provided fireworks, the old subject of appointments reared its head. In mid-May the Senate Judiciary Committee was asked to rule on whether nominations from the first Senate should still be considered in the second Senate. By a vote of seventeen to zero, the Senate declared all unconfirmed nominations should lapse at the end of the session. This naturally inflamed Davis, who wanted control over such matters. On May 28 the Senate additionally ruled that all nominations not acted upon during a session of the Senate must be renominated (the nomination itself begun again from scratch) and may not be “carried over” to the next session—a step further than the seventeen-to-zero vote. 26

  Matters pertaining to the subject of a general staff bill did not go any more smoothly. Davis insisted on flexibility in staffing to conform to differing requirements in various departments and armies. Specifications for the commissary of subsistence, quartermaster general, adjutant general, inspector general, chief of ordnance, and chief engineer all vary greatly, he argued. Rigid rules for the qualifications of various staff officers would limit those officers for transfer to other assignments. Transfers would be awkward, Davis reasoned, as well as create difficulties for the assignment of aides-de-camp. 27

  Instead of an independent staff corps, with fixed numbers and grades of officers assigned to commanding generals’ staffs, Davis favored assignments based on merit made from anywhere within the army. Officers with such staff assignments would retain their line and/ or staff commissions. When requirements changed, staff officers would revert to their line and/ or staff grades without the loss of relative rank. But Congress disagreed, and the president found himself vetoing the bill they sent forward. 28

  AGAIN and again the leaders of the Confederacy chose to spend their energies on questions of bureaucracy and patronage, circling round and round while the Union swept forward. Nothing, however, was gaining more momentum against the administration this long, hot summer than the splintering of loyalty from state governors. The greatest trouble was growing in Georgia, centered around Aleck Stephens. The fire of the vice president’s disloyalty had many sources, one of which was his friendship with a cranky, antiadministration newspaper editor, Henry Cleveland, who ran the Augusta Constitutionalist. The two struck up a long, detailed correspondence in which they openly discussed the president’s incompetence and what ought to be done about it. The two men also raised the idea of a peace conference that could somehow wrest the war from the hands of Davis and restore tranquillity to the South before the Davis administration ruined it forever.

  On June 8 Cleveland wrote the vice president, “Since my second letter to you, I have received your last, and confess that I did suppose you had hope of terms from Lincoln. For my self (from reasons I will some day give you) I am satisfied that the States can to day get terms and good terms, but Mr. Davis never can.” Continued Cleveland,

  No human power can change Mr. Davis, and consequently, no human power can save the Confederacy from war and speeches. I am satisfied that the immediate secession of Georgia from the Confederate States would be the best thing we could do, and am equally satisfied that nine-tenths of the people of Georgia will follow the lead of the Administration, until our cause is beyond the hand of resurrection. . . . The Stars and Stripes will float over the Government works in Augusta before a year expires, and Mr. Davis be dead or in exile. . . . To win this fight, under this Administration, would be a result without a reason—an effect without a cause. Is this treason? I am afraid you will think so, but it is difficult to look back at all we have suffered, and see blood and life and desperate valor thrown away, and still think calmly. 29

  Local politics and business intervened to muzzle Cleveland’s public discontent. “A letter from Henry Cleveland informs me that the majority of the stock of the Constitutionalist is now owned by Administration men,” wrote Joe Brown, a fellow conspirator, “and that he will be obliged to change his course, keep silent, or be ousted. Could not enough of the stock be purchased to control and keep the paper on the rights lines?” 30 But despite the shift more and more people picked up on an increasing and tangled web of conspiracy in Georgia. “Our Vice President is a dangerous man,” Brig. Gen. Thomas C. Hindman wrote his friend Louis Wigfall, “the more so because of his stealthy policy and his bogus reputation for fairness and honesty. I consider him the head of a faction that is ready to betray the Confederacy and sell the blood of the Army. ‘Crushing him out’ is doing God’s service.” 31

  With Sherman’s army bearing down on Atlanta, the conspiracy took a backseat to more practical matters—though these, too, only added to the discontent. “I fully appreciate the importance of Atlanta,” Jefferson Davis wrote Governor Brown, “as evinced by my past action. I have sent all available reinforcements, detaching troops even from points that remain exposed to the enemy. The disparity of force between the opposing armies in Northern Georgia is less as reported than at any other point.” 32 But Brown wanted more troops, more ammunition, more everything to protect Georgia. “I regret exceedingly that you cannot grant my request as I am satisfied Sherman’s escape with his army would be impossible if ten thousand good cavalry under Forrest were thrown in his rear this side of Chattanooga and his supplies cut off,” Brown raged. “The whole country expects this, though points of less importance should be for a time overrun. . . . If your mistake should result in the loss of Atlanta and the occupation of other strong points in this State by the enemy, the blow may be fatal to our cause and remote posterity may have reason to mourn over the error.” 33

  The president, who was losing patience entirely with Brown, shot back at him sharply. “Your dicta cannot control the disposition of troops in different parts of the Confederate States,” the president snapped. “I will be glad also to know the source of your information as to what the whole country expects, and posterity will judge.” 34

  Brown and Davis had other problems besides the defense of Atlanta. At Andersonville, Georgia, where thousands of Yankee prisoners were starving and held in the stockade (making the prison temporarily the third largest city in the Confederacy, with more than thirty-three thousand residents), John Winder, the hated former provost marshal of Richmond, had a crisis on his hands. “Matters have arrived at that point where I must have reinforcements,” he urgently wrote Howell Cobb. “Now General it is morally certain that if the Government or the people of Georgia don’t come to my relief and that instantly, I cannot hold these prisoners, and they must submit to see Georgia devastated by the prisoners. There is not a moment to spare. . . . Twenty-four hours may be too late.” 35 “It is dreadful. My heart aches for the poor wretches, Yankees though they are,” wrote Eliza Andrews, a nurse, of the prisoners at Andersonville, “and I am afraid God will suffer some terrible retribution to fall upon us for letting such things happen.” 36

  In doubt Davis turned to Lee, as he always seemed to do. “Genl. Johnston has failed and there are strong indications that he w
ill abandon Atlanta,” he wrote. “He urges that prisoners should be removed immediately from Andersonville. It seems necessary to relieve him at once. Who should succeed him? What think you of Hood for the position?” 37 Meanwhile, Johnston, seemingly at a loss about what to do, received direction from the president. “You have all the force which can be employed, to distribute or guard prisoners,” wrote Davis. “Know the condition of the country and the prospects of military operations. I must rely on you to advise Genl. Winder as to the proper and practicable action in relation to U.S. Prisoners.” 38 How should they be taken care of with the Yankees closing in?

  As the situation deteriorated around them, Stephens and Cleveland kept up their correspondence, searching for a newspaper that could be bought and turned into an antagonistic enemy of the administration, perhaps leading to Georgia’s secession. “I enclose a letter which speaks for itself,” wrote Cleveland of a prospective purchase. “The circulation is exactly that of the Constitutionalist. . . . It is the best bargain I have heard of in two years.” 39 Soon afterward he wrote again. “I am ‘in for the war’ against Davis,” he declared, “if I can do any good. Mr. Morse to day for the first time, talks about giving up control of the paper [the Constitutionalist], but asks a week to decide.” 40

  Howell Cobb, meanwhile, still held out hope for Atlanta. “There has been quite a bloody fight at Atlanta resulting favorably to our army,” he informed his wife. “As yet we have very few details and the extent of the victory is wholly unknown. . . . The loss of generals is severe on both sides. Genl. McPherson was the next man to Sherman in the Yankee army and some people regard him as the ablest man of the two. The other Yankee generals killed were small potatoes.” 41

  Cleveland was not so hopeful. “If the Yankees come to Crawfordsville [sic; Crawfordville, between Atlanta and Augusta, where the vice president lived],” he penned to Stephens, “send your effects to my care and come and stay with me. I would be glad of your society for the next ten years. My little twelve year old would not object to a playmate of her own age, but I would not have room for a family.” 42