Bloody Crimes: The Funeral of Abraham Lincoln and the Chase for Jefferson Davis

by James L. Swanson

Davis and Lincoln each revered the federal union, but Davis, who had traveled the country and territories more extensively than had Lincoln, possessed far more personal knowledge of its varied geography and vast territorial expanse. Both honored the law, Lincoln pursued it as a calling and Davis thought of doing the same. He wrote a letter saying that he might purchase the books, read law, and become an attorney. Law was a well-established route to political advancement. As young men, each feared that he might amount to nothing. Lincoln wrote that if he failed to make something of himself, it would be as though he had never lived. Davis, on his twenty-second birthday, expressed similar fears. Both yearned to be remembered.

  In time, both men rediscovered love. Ten years after the death of Sarah Knox Taylor, Jefferson Davis, thirty-seven years old, married Varina Howell, an eighteen-year-old, educated, savvy, and independent daughter of a fine Mississippi family. When Joseph Davis decided that his long-mourning brother should end his brooding and rejoin society, he introduced Jefferson to Varina. Their first meeting did not go well. She wrote a letter to her mother about it the next day. Mr. Davis, she confided, had an “uncertain temper, and…a way of taking for granted that everybody agrees with him when he expresses an opinion, which offends me.” And then there was the age difference: “He is old, from what I hear he is only two years younger than you are.” But Varina also recognized his qualities and was intrigued. Jefferson had an “agreeable manner” and possessed “a peculiarly sweet voice and winning manner of asserting himself.” Her parents did not favor the match, knowing how deeply Knox’s death had hurt—and changed—him. They feared that he would never recover from the loss and that no woman, even their daughter, could win his love. But Jefferson made peace with Knox Taylor’s ghost and married Varina Howell on February 26, 1845. Theirs was an adoring marriage, a passionate and intellectual union that produced six children. For the rest of his life Jefferson depended upon Varina’s love, advice, support, and loyalty. Indeed, two decades later, during his greatest trial and most profound despair, Varina rallied to save her husband, and she rose to the historic occasion.

  Abraham Lincoln was not as lucky in marriage. After a few bungled attempts at courting other women, he married Mary Todd of Lexington, Kentucky, on November 4, 1842. They had met in Springfield, Illinois, when Lincoln was a young, hungry lawyer on the rise and Mary was a well-educated, politically savvy woman searching for a husband. It was an ill-starred union that plagued Abraham’s peace of mind and domestic happiness for much of his life, and it climaxed finally in epic conflicts during his presidency.

  Mary possessed few of the qualities that defined Varina Davis, who was everything—honest, dignified, courteous, and brave—that Mary Lincoln was not. Perhaps the only thing they had in common was a dressmaker, a free black woman, Elizabeth Keckly, who made frocks for Varina in antebellum Washington and later for Mary during her White House years, and who went on to write a controversial book about her strange wartime role as Mrs. Lincoln’s confidante.

  During the war Varina sold many of her fine garments for the sake of the cause, while Mary’s extravagant purchases, the trademark of a compulsive shopper, failed to satisfy her unquenchable taste for luxury. The real Mary Lincoln was mercurial, jealous, insulting, rude, selfish, deceitful, paranoid, financially dishonest, and, without doubt, mentally unbalanced. During the Civil War, Jefferson Davis’s White House was a sanctuary for the beleaguered president. For Abraham Lincoln, his White House was often a place of unrest and unpredictable marital discord.

  During the Civil War both presidents had trouble with several of their general officers who sought to embarrass, defy, and undermine them. Both men mourned their losses in battle, and each experienced death in his White House. Jefferson Davis had lost one son in infancy, and in 1864, another son fell to his death at the Richmond White House. Lincoln too lost a young son long before the war, and his favorite boy, Willie, had succumbed to illness in the Washington White House in 1862.

  Neither president enjoyed the universal love and support of his people. Both Davis and Lincoln experienced savage attacks by opponents who criticized their every decision. Mocked, lampooned, caricatured, second-guessed, and despised by segments of their own electorate throughout the war, Davis and Lincoln persevered for four years, each seeking to win his war.

  Both men loved books. Davis enjoyed the privilege of a man of his class and built an extensive library. Better educated than Lincoln, he read politics, history, literature, and science, and after Knox’s death it was the companionship of his brother—and a rigorous reading program—that kept him sane. Books were rare in the world of Lincoln’s youth. He did not come from a family of readers—he once wrote that his father could only “bunglingly” sign his own name. Lincoln treasured the few he could obtain. As an adult, he never read as widely as Davis, but he read his favorite texts—Shakespeare, the Bible, and others—deeply and many times to enjoy their language and decode their meaning.

  On the nature of man, Lincoln and Davis would never agree. Davis believed that one race of people was fitted by nature for slavery and was destined to remain the inferior race for all future time. Blacks would never enjoy the same legal rights as white men. Lincoln rejected that cruel fatalism and came to believe that the institution of bondage itself, and not nature, had temporarily “clouded” the minds of its victims. Once freed, the former slaves, Lincoln believed, would rise through work, ambition, and talent as they enjoyed equal rights under the law.

  Lincoln accepted mankind with all its faults. His years as a lawyer had schooled him in the book of human behavior. He had sued—and defended—liars, cheats, thieves, deadbeats, adulterers, slanderers, and murderers. For nearly a quarter of a century, he had immersed himself in a world of vexatious disputes. Lincoln’s experiences had made him resigned and forgiving, not callous and bitter. He rarely held a grudge. He was a skeptic who believed that, with the possible exceptions of his heroes George Washington and Henry Clay, there were no perfect men. Of the first president, Lincoln had once said: “Let us believe, as in the days of our youth, that Washington was spotless. It makes human nature better to believe that one human being was perfect—that human perfection is possible.” When Lincoln was president, he was willing to do business with imperfect men if they could serve his purpose. Lincoln employed and trusted men despite their high opinions of themselves.

  Davis lived by a different code and judged men more harshly than Lincoln did. He defined himself as a man of integrity who had conducted himself in politics and on the battlefield in principled ways. Davis tried to be a courteous, loyal, honest man who never stole, accepted graft, or sold his office for personal gain. He was a gentleman proud of the fact that he had never raised the whip to or been cruel to a slave. He could not abide men who failed to live up to the standards he set for himself. As president of the Confederacy, his commitment to the cause was total. He sacrificed all he had—his mind, body, health, and wealth, and the life of one of his sons—to the South, and it was by those benchmarks that he judged others. Because he acted without self-interest, so should others, he believed, including his generals, his cabinet officers, and the state governors. To disagree with him was to question his integrity and devotion and to risk his wrath. Often, to his disadvantage, Davis interpreted criticism or even helpful advice as an attack on his personal integrity, or as evidence of disloyalty. In turn, critics accused him of being remote, stubborn, and proud. He could be all of those things, but he also brought to his office many superb talents, and a total and relentless commitment to Southern independence. Many men criticized Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee once noted, but no man, he said, could have done better.

  These, then, are the stories that made the two men who would, in the spring of 1865, preside over the destiny of two nations. Both were fifty-six years old—born ten months apart—and for most of the Civil War, they had laid their heads on their pillows each night in mansions less than one hundred miles apart, each dreaming of saving his cause and cou
ntry.

  Abraham Lincoln told Thomas Graves that he wanted to see the rest of Jefferson Davis’s mansion. “At length he asked me if the housekeeper was in the house. Upon learning that she had left he jumped up and said, with a boyish manner, ‘Come, let’s look at the house!’ We went pretty much over it; I retailed all that the housekeeper had told me, and he seemed interested in everything. As we came down the staircase General Weitzel came, in breathless haste, and at once President Lincoln’s face lost its boyish expression as he realized that duty must be resumed.”

  Lincoln quickly put Davis’s home to official use and conducted a meeting there with John Archibald Campbell, a former justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and Joseph Reid Anderson, two leading Confederate citizens who arrived to see him.

  Admiral Porter admired the mansion but judged it less grand than its Washington counterpart. It was “quite a small affair compared with the White House, and modest in all its appointments, showing that while President Davis was engaged heart and soul in endeavoring to effect the division of the States, he was not, at least, surrounding himself with regal style, but was living in a modest, comfortable way, like any other citizen.”

  With the fall of the city, Richmond’s photographers had lost their prime business—portrait photographs of Confederate political leaders, government officials, generals, officers, and soldiers. Those customers had fled. But George O. Ennis, an enterprising photographer, figured out a way to make money under the Union occupation. Ennis set up his camera and photographed the White House of the Confederacy, and his publisher, Selden & Co., “news and book agents, dealers in photographic and stereoscopic views, fancy articles, & etc.,” located at no. 836 Main Street, packaged it as a carte de visite with a caption sure to attract Union buyers. Selden promoted the former home of Jefferson Davis as the new headquarters of the Yankee occupiers: “JEFF. DAVIS MANSION. This building is beautifully situated, on the corner of Clay and 12th streets, and is noted as being the residence of the late Chief Magistrate of the Confederate States. It is now, and has been since the evacuation, the residence and headquarters of the General commanding this Department.”

  On this day, General Weitzel, who was now in command of the former Confederate capital, asked Lincoln what policies he should adopt in dealing with the conquered rebels. Thomas Graves overheard the conversation, and Lincoln’s answer became an American legend. “President Lincoln replied that he did not want to give any orders on that subject, but, as he expressed it, ‘If I were in your place I’d let ’em up easy, let ’em up easy.’ ”

  This was one of the most remarkable statements ever spoken by a commander in chief. During his time in Richmond, Lincoln did not order the arrests of any rebel leaders who remained there, nor did he order their property seized. And he uttered no words of vengeance or punishment. Even while he sat in Jefferson Davis’s own home, he did not disparage or defame the Confederate president. Nor did he order an urgent manhunt for Davis and the cabinet officers who had evacuated the city less than two days before. It was a moment of singular greatness. It was Abraham Lincoln at his best.

  After Lincoln left the Confederate White House, he toured Richmond in a buggy. Blacks flocked to him and rejoiced, just as they had at the river landing and during his walk to Davis’s mansion. His triumphant tour complete, he returned to the wharf for the journey back to City Point. As he left a black woman warned him to be careful. “Don’t drown, Massa Abe, for God’s sake!” If he had heard her, any man possessing Abraham Lincoln’s sense of humor would have enjoyed laughing at that heartfelt, urgent, yet comical plea.

  Death by drowning was not the greatest threat Lincoln faced that day. Not all of Richmond welcomed him to the ruined capital. Most whites stayed in their homes behind locked doors and closed shutters, with some glaring at the unwelcome conqueror through their windows. It was a miracle that not one embittered Confederate—not a single one—poked a rifle or a pistol through an open window and opened fire on the despised Yankee president. No one even shouted epithets. Lincoln knew the risk: “I walked alone on the street, and anyone could have shot me from a second-story window.” The Richmond tour was one of Lincoln’s most triumphant days—certainly the most important day of his presidency. But it was also one of the most dangerous days of his life. No American president before or since has ever placed himself in such a volatile and dangerous environment.

  Lincoln left no written account of his journey to Richmond. He was a splendid writer with a fine analytical mind and keen powers of observation, but he did not possess a diarist’s temperament nor had he ever kept a journal. It was unlikely that he would have written his memoirs after he left office in March 1869. With less than a year of formal schooling, he came to writing as a utilitarian, employing it to plead a legal case, convey information, make an argument, reply to an inquiry, propose a policy, justify an action, or persuade the reader. Only a few times in his life did he write to reminisce, to entertain, to regale, or to amuse with a story or a joke. His storytelling art was oral and ephemeral. Lincoln was a superb and—when the occasion demanded—eloquent writer, and an equally talented narrative speaker.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Unconquerable Hearts”

  While Lincoln toured her home on April 4, Varina Davis had just reached Charlotte, North Carolina. She had declined an invitation to remain in Danville, electing instead to press on. She remembered the journey as being incredibly miserable: “The baggage cars were all needing repairs and leaked badly. Our bedding was wet through by the constant rains that poured down in the week of uninterrupted travel which was consumed in reaching our destination. Universal consternation prevailed throughout the country, and we avoided seeing people for fear of compromising them with the enemy, should they overrun North Carolina.”

  Varina, her children, and their small group of traveling companions settled into a rented house in Charlotte, where they awaited word from Jefferson Davis. Colonel Burton Harrison, his escort mission accomplished, headed north to Danville to rejoin his chief in the new, temporary Confederate capital.

  For Davis to maintain command over the forces of the Confederacy, and to order them into action, he needed military intelligence, especially from General Lee. The sudden evacuation of Richmond had disrupted Davis’s regular channels of communication and had left him blind. He spent much of April 4 sending and receiving messages. He wrote to General P. G. T. Beauregard: “Please give me any reliable information you have as to movements of enemy and dispositions to protect the Piedmont R.R. I have no communication from Gen’l Lee since Sunday.”

  Beauregard replied at 3:30 P.M. from Greensboro, North Carolina. He knew nothing of Lee. “I consider R.R. from Chester to Danville safe at present. Will send today 600 more men to latter point. Twentyfive hundred more could be sent if absolutely needed but they are returned men from various commands in Army of Tennessee temporarily stopped here & organized here. General Johnston has ordered here some cavalry which I have diverted from Hillsborough to Danville. No news from Lee or Johnston.”

  Davis replied promptly. “The reports in regard to the raiders very contradictory. But evidence indicates that they have not been at Madison. The cavalry you have ordered here, will be of especial value at this time, and with the Infantry en route will probably serve the immediate necessity. Have sent courier to Gen’l Lee from whom I have no communication.” The present status of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia two days after the evacuation of Richmond was central to Davis’s plans, and the lack of intelligence frustrated the president.

  Later that day, bad news arrived from other regions of the Confederacy. Howell Cobb, former governor of Georgia and a major Confederate leader, sent word to Davis of multiple disasters: “Selma has fallen—The Enemy threatens Montgomery and it is believed will march upon Columbus Georgia. I submit for your consideration that Woffords command should be kept in Georgia & ordered to report to me. Please answer as Wofford is preparing to move towards Chattanooga and Knoxville Road East Tenn
essee & Georgia Railroad.”

  Davis heard about more setbacks from his nephew Joseph R. Davis: “My Brigade was lost except about twenty men all captured; I went to Richmond to join you—arrived too late. I came to this place [Powhatan Courthouse] on foot. On the capture of my command lost everything. I will join the army and remain with it in some capacity. I deeply regret having missed you as I hoped in an humble way to have served you. Remember me in love to aunt and the children.”

  Davis knew he had to inspire the people of the Confederacy and make them realize that his move to Danville was not a shameful flight to save himself but instead was a strategic retreat. He sought, by personal example, to make them believe that he had not abandoned them, that the cause was not lost, that he would never surrender, and that he would lead them to victory and independence. He drafted a presidential proclamation for the whole South to read. Issued the same day that Abraham Lincoln toured Richmond, the text was published as a one-page broadside on the printing press of the local Danville newspaper. Remembered only by students of the Civil War, and rarely quoted in full, the remarkable Danville Proclamation provides unfiltered insights into the mind of the retreating but unbowed president.

  To the People of the Confederacy

  Danville, Va.,

  April 4, 1865

  The General-in-Chief of our Army has found it necessary to make such movements of the troops as to uncover the Capital, and thus involve the withdrawal of the Government from the city of Richmond.

  It would be unwise, even if it were possible, to conceal the great moral, as well as material injury to our cause that must result from the occupation of Richmond by the enemy. It is equally unwise and unworthy of us, as patriots engaged in a most sacred cause, to allow our energies to falter, our spirits to grow faint, or our efforts to become relaxed, under reverses however calamitous. While it has been to us a source of national pride, that for four years of unequalled warfare, we have been able, in close proximity to the centre of the enemy’s power to maintain the seat of our chosen Government free from the pollution of his presence; while the memories of the heroic dead, who have freely given their lives to its defence, must ever remain enshrined in our hearts; while the preservation of the capital, which is usually regarded as the evidence to mankind of separate existence, was an object very dear to us, it is also true, and should not be forgotten, that the loss which we have suffered is not without compensation.