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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43979 ***
+
+THE REAL JEFFERSON DAVIS
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Jefferson Davis
+
+(From a photograph taken in 1865)]
+
+
+
+
+  The Real Jefferson Davis
+
+
+  _By_ LANDON KNIGHT
+
+
+  "Where once raged the storm of battle now
+  bloom the gentle flowers of peace, and
+  there where the mockingbird sings her night
+  song to the southern moon, sweetly sleeps
+  the illustrious chieftain whom a nation
+  mourns. Wise in council, valiant in war, he
+  was still greater in peace, and to his
+  noble, unselfish example more than to any
+  other one cause do we owe the indellible
+  inscription over the arch of our union,
+  '_Esto perpetua_.'"
+
+
+  PUBLISHED BY
+  THE PILGRIM MAGAZINE COMPANY
+  BATTLE CREEK, MICH.
+  1904
+
+
+
+
+  Copyright, 1904,
+  THE PILGRIM MAGAZINE CO.
+  Battle Creek, Mich.
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+
+_To My Wife_
+
+Is dedicated this little volume in appreciation of that innate sense of
+justice which has ever loved and followed the right for its own sake.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                                             PAGE
+
+      I Birth and Education                                             11
+
+      II Service in the Army                                            21
+
+     III His Life at Briarfield                                         29
+
+      IV First Appearance in Politics                                   35
+
+       V Enters Mexican War                                             41
+
+      VI The Hero of Buena Vista                                        45
+
+     VII Enters the Senate                                              49
+
+    VIII Becomes Secretary of War                                       53
+
+      IX He Re-enters the Senate                                        59
+
+       X Still Hoped to Save the Union                                  67
+
+      XI President of the Confederacy                                   75
+
+     XII His First Inaugural                                            79
+
+    XIII Delays and Blunders                                            85
+
+     XIV The Bombardment of Sumter                                      91
+
+      XV Conditions in the South                                        97
+
+     XVI The First Battle                                              101
+
+    XVII A Lost Opportunity                                            105
+
+   XVIII The Quarrel with Johnston                                     111
+
+     XIX The Battle of Shiloh                                          115
+
+      XX The Seven Days of Battle                                      121
+
+     XXI Butler's Infamous Order 28                                    125
+
+    XXII Mental Imperfections                                          131
+
+   XXIII Blunders of the Western Army                                  135
+
+    XXIV Davis and Gettysburg                                          139
+
+     XXV The Chief of a Heroic People                                  145
+
+    XXVI Sherman and Johnston                                          151
+
+   XXVII Mr. Davis' Humanity                                           155
+
+  XXVIII General Lee's Surrender                                       161
+
+    XXIX The Capture of Davis                                          167
+
+     XXX A Nation's Shame                                              173
+
+    XXXI Efforts to Execute Mr. Davis                                  177
+
+   XXXII Indictment of Mr. Davis                                       183
+
+  XXXIII Why Davis Was Not Tried for Treason                           187
+
+   XXXIV Freedom--Reverses--Beauvoir                                   193
+
+    XXXV Death of Mr. Davis                                            199
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                                               FACING PAGE
+
+  Jefferson Davis                                             Frontispiece
+
+  Jefferson Davis' Birthplace, at Fairview, Ky.                         15
+
+  Where Jefferson Davis Boarded While in Lexington                      17
+
+  Transylvania College at Lexington                                     19
+
+  Jefferson Davis at Thirty-five                                        31
+
+  Briarfield, Jefferson Davis' Home                                     33
+
+  The Room in the Briars in Which Jefferson Davis Was Married           37
+
+  General Taylor and Colonel Davis at Monterey                          43
+
+  The Charge of Colonel Davis' Regiment at Buena Vista                  47
+
+  Jefferson Davis as United States Senator in 1847                      51
+
+  Jefferson Davis as Secretary of War                                   57
+
+  The Capitol at Richmond                                               77
+
+  Interior of Fort Sumter after the Surrender                           93
+
+  Henry Clay Addressing the Senate on the Missouri Compromise           99
+
+  Edward Ruffin                                                        103
+
+  Robert Toombs                                                        107
+
+  General Joseph E. Johnston                                           111
+
+  Generals Lee, Jackson and Johnston                                   113
+
+  C. G. Memminger                                                      119
+
+  The Site of the Prison Camp on the James River Below Richmond        133
+
+  On the Field of Cold Harbor Today                                    137
+
+  The Battle of the Crater                                             143
+
+  Mr. and Mrs. Davis in 1863                                           147
+
+  The Davis Children in 1863                                           153
+
+  The Famous Libby Prison as It Appeared at the Close of the War       157
+
+  The Surrender of Lee                                                 163
+
+  Richmond as Gen. Weitzel Entered It                                  169
+
+  The Davis Mansion                                                    195
+
+  The Davis Monument at Richmond                                       201
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+For four years Jefferson Davis was the central and most conspicuous figure
+in the greatest revolution of history. Prior to that time no statesman of
+his day left a deeper or more permanent impress upon legislation. His
+achievements alone as Secretary of War entitle him to rank as a benefactor
+of his country. But notwithstanding all of this he is less understood than
+any other man in history. This fact induced me a year ago to compile a
+series of magazine articles which had the single purpose in view of
+painting the real Jefferson Davis as he was. Of course, the task was a
+difficult one under any circumstances, and almost an impossible one in the
+restricted scope of six papers, as it appeared in _The Pilgrim_. However,
+the public according to these papers an interest far beyond my
+expectation, I have decided to revise and publish them in book form.
+
+This work does not attempt an exhaustive treatment of the subject but, as
+the author has tried faithfully and without prejudice or predilection to
+paint the soldier, the statesman, the private citizen as he was, he trusts
+that this little volume may not be unacceptable to those who love the
+truth for its own sake.
+
+L. K.
+
+_Akron, Ohio, Aug. 16, 1904._
+
+
+
+
+The Real Jefferson Davis
+
+
+
+
+I. Birth and Education
+
+
+Almost four decades have passed since the surrender at Greensboro of
+Johnston to Sherman finally terminated the most stupendous and sanguinary
+civil war of history. Few of the great actors in that mighty drama still
+linger on the world's stage. But of the living and of the dead,
+irrespective of whether they wore the blue or the gray, history has, with
+one exception, delivered her award, which, while it is not free from the
+blemish of imperfection, is nevertheless, in the main, the verdict by
+which posterity will abide. The one exception is Jefferson Davis. Why this
+is so may be explained in a few words.
+
+Occupying, as he did, the most exalted station in the government of the
+seceding states, he became from the day of his accession to the
+presidency, the embodiment of two diametrically opposite ideas. The loyal
+people of the North, disregarding the fact that the Confederacy was a
+representative government of limited powers, that a regularly elected
+congress made the laws, often against the judgment of the chief executive,
+that many of the policies most bitterly condemned by them were inaugurated
+against his advice, transformed the agent into the principal and visited
+upon him all of the odium attaching to the government that he represented.
+Nay, more than this. The bitter passions engendered in the popular mind by
+the conflict clothed him with responsibility, not only for every obnoxious
+act of his government, but, forgetful of the history of the fifty years
+preceding the Civil War, saddled upon him the chief sins of the very
+genesis of the doctrine of secession itself. Thus confounded with the
+principles of his government and the policies by which it sought to
+establish them, the acts for which he may be held justly responsible have
+been magnified and distorted while the valuable services previously
+rendered to his country, were forgotten or minimized, and Jefferson Davis
+as he was disappeared, absorbed, amalgamated, into the selfish arch
+traitor intent upon the destruction of the Union to gratify his
+unrighteous ambition.
+
+The masses of the Southern people, on the other hand, holding in proud
+remembrance the gallant soldier of the Mexican War and deeply appreciative
+of his able advocacy of principles which they firmly believed to be
+sacredly just, regarded their chief magistrate as the sublimation of all
+the virtues inherent in the cause for which they fought. When the
+Confederacy collapsed, the indignities heaped upon its chief, his long
+imprisonment and the fact that he alone was selected for perpetual
+disfranchisement added the martyr's crown to the halo of the hero, thus
+creating in the South an almost universal mental attitude of affection and
+sympathy, which was as fatal to the ascertainment of the exact and
+unbiased truth of history as were the rancor and bitterness that prevailed
+at the North. That this prejudice and predilection still exist cannot be
+doubted. But time has plucked the sting of malice from the one and has
+dulled the romantic glamor of the other sufficiently to enable us to
+examine the events that gave birth to both with that calm and
+dispassionate criticism which subrogates every other consideration to the
+discovery of truth. I do not underestimate the difficulties that beset the
+self-imposed task, but to the best of my humble ability and free from
+every motive except that of portraying the impartial truth, I shall
+endeavor to delineate the life of the real Jefferson Davis.
+
+[Illustration: Jefferson Davis' Birthplace, at Fairview, Ky.]
+
+Contrary to the belief still somewhat prevalent, Jefferson Davis was not
+descended from a line of aristocratic progenitors, but sprang from the
+ranks of that middle class which has produced most of the great men of the
+world. About the year 1715 three brothers came to this country from Wales,
+and located in Philadelphia. The younger, Evan Davis, eventually went to
+the colony of Georgia and there married a widow by the name of Williams.
+The only child of that union, Samuel Davis, enlisted at the age of
+seventeen as a private soldier in the War of the Revolution. Later he
+organized a company of mounted men and at its head participated in most of
+the battles of the campaign that forced Lord Cornwallis out of the
+Carolinas. At the close of the war he married Jane Cook, a girl of
+Scotch-Irish descent, of humble station, but noted for strength of
+character and great personal beauty, and they settled on a farm near
+Augusta, Ga. In 1804 Samuel Davis removed with his family to southwestern
+Kentucky to engage in stock raising and tobacco planting, and there, in a
+modest farmhouse, which was then in Christian County and not many miles
+from the cabin where a few months later Abraham Lincoln opened his eyes
+upon the light of the world, Jefferson Davis was born, June 3, 1808. The
+spot is now in Todd County, and upon it stands the Baptist church of
+Fairview. While he was still an infant, the hope of there better providing
+for a numerous family caused his father to seek a new home on Bayou Teche
+in Louisiana. The country, however, proved unhealthful, and he remained
+but a few months. He finally bought a farm near Woodville in Wilkinson
+County, Miss., where he spent the remainder of his long life, poor, but
+respected and esteemed as a man of fine sense and sterling character.
+
+[Illustration: Where Jefferson Davis Boarded While in Lexington]
+
+Jefferson Davis' first tuition was at a log schoolhouse, near his home,
+but the educational advantages of that time and place were so meager that
+when seven years old he was sent to a Catholic institution known as St.
+Thomas' College, and there, under the guidance of that truly good man and
+priest, Father Wallace, afterward Bishop of Nashville, his education
+really began. After some years in this school, he entered Transylvania
+University, at Lexington, Ky., then the principal collegiate institution
+west of the Alleghanies and famous many years thereafter as the alma mater
+of a distinguished array of soldiers and statesmen. In November, 1823,
+when in his senior year at Transylvania, through the efforts of his
+brother, Joseph Davis, he was appointed by President Monroe a cadet at
+West Point. The following year he entered that institution and after
+pursuing the customary course of four years, was graduated in July, 1828,
+with a very low class standing.
+
+[Illustration: Transylvania College at Lexington]
+
+He was then in his twenty-first year. The period in which the principal
+foundations of character are laid had passed. What this important period
+of life had developed is, therefore, both interesting and instructive.
+Fortunately, this information is obtainable through evidence which is
+conclusive. More than a half score of his classmates at Transylvania and
+at West Point, who subsequently played important parts in the history of
+the country, have left us their impressions of Jefferson Davis during that
+period of his life. This information is supplemented by his instructors at
+both institutions. All of this testimony was recorded previous to the
+occurrence of any of the later events in his life which might have biased
+the judgment, and all of the witnesses corroborate each other. Without
+entering into any extended discussion of this evidence, we may safely
+conclude from it that in his youth he was one of those peculiarly normal
+characters whose well-ordered existence leaves but little material for the
+biographer. Few inequalities and no excesses are discoverable. He seems to
+have possessed one of those refined natures that abhor vice and immorality
+of every kind. While he made no pretensions to piety, and, apparently
+selected no associations with this view of avoiding contamination, his
+moral character was without a blemish. Nor was he, as has been
+represented, haughty, impulsive and domineering, but, on the contrary, his
+nature seems to have been remarkably gentle and his bearing free from
+pretensions of every kind. He had opinions, and his convictions were
+strong, but he neither reached them hastily nor maintained them with
+arrogance. He was serious, somewhat reserved, always cheerful, sometimes
+gay. In his manner he was thoroughly democratic, but free from any
+suggestion of demagoguery. He was slow to anger, easily mollified, without
+malice and possessed in a remarkable degree that ingenuous and credulous
+nature which a long and eventful life never impaired and which was
+responsible, in no small degree, for many of the fatal mistakes of later
+years. If at this time he possessed any of those mental powers which later
+in life won the admiration even of his enemies, he gave no indication of
+the fact. He was an indifferent student, always somewhat deficient in
+mathematics, and never particularly proficient in any other branch,
+impressing those who knew him best as an ordinary youth of fair capacity
+and of about the attainments requisite to pass the examinations.
+
+
+
+
+II. Service in the Army
+
+
+Thus equipped by nature and education, Jefferson Davis was commissioned,
+upon leaving West Point, a second lieutenant, and was assigned to duty
+with the First Regiment of Infantry at Fort Crawford. The life of a second
+lieutenant on a frontier post in time of peace, unless under exceptional
+circumstances, is not likely to provide many incidents of a nature to
+illuminate his character, test his higher capacity or to greatly interest
+posterity. The circumstances in this case were not exceptional, and during
+the next seven years there was nothing in the career of Lieutenant Davis
+worthy of preservation that cannot be recorded in few words. It was the
+most barren period of his life. At Fort Crawford, at the Galena lead mines
+and at Winnebago he was employed in the police duty that our army at that
+time performed on the frontier which consisted chiefly of building forts
+and trying to preserve the peace between the Indians and encroaching
+settlers. In the performance of all of the duties to which he was
+assigned, he acquitted himself creditably and earned the reputation of
+being a conscientious, intelligent and efficient officer. At one time
+during this service an opportunity to win distinction seemed imminent.
+Black Hawk, driven to desperation by the continuous encroachment of the
+pioneers upon the hunting grounds of his people, formed what was then
+believed to be a powerful coalition of all of the Indian tribes of the
+Northwest. But the coalition soon fell to pieces, and the war, with its
+few slight skirmishes, turned out to be nothing more serious than an
+Indian raid, which was speedily terminated. An incident happened at the
+beginning of these troubles which, in the light of subsequent events, is
+perhaps, worthy of preservation. The governor of Illinois called out the
+state forces and mobilized them at Dixon. General Scott sent there from
+Fort Snelling two lieutenants of the regular army to muster them into
+service. One of them was Lieutenant Davis and the other was the future
+major who so gallantly sustained the fire of Beauregard's heavy guns
+against the old walls of Fort Sumter. Among the captains of the companies
+to be mustered in was one who was hardly the ideal of a soldierly figure.
+He was tall, awkward and homely, and was arrayed in a badly fitting suit
+of blue jeans, garnished with large and resplendent brass buttons. He
+presented himself and was sworn in and thus probably the first time in his
+life that Abraham Lincoln ever took the oath of allegiance to the United
+States it was administered to him by Jefferson Davis.
+
+Soon after the engagement at Stillman Run, Black Hawk and several of his
+more troublesome warriors surrendered to the United States forces and were
+sent as prisoners in charge of Lieutenant Davis to Jefferson Barracks. In
+his autobiography the old chief describes this journey in a way that
+leaves nothing to be guessed of the bitterness he felt, but he does not
+fail to express his appreciation of "the young white chief who alone
+treated me with the courtesy and consideration due to an honorable,
+vanquished enemy." About a year after Lieutenant Davis' return from this
+mission to Fort Crawford, an incident occurred, which, while unimportant
+in itself, was destined to produce far-reaching consequences. Col. Zachary
+Taylor was assigned to the command of the First Regiment, and with him
+came his family to Fort Crawford. His daughter, Miss Sarah Taylor, and
+Lieutenant Davis soon conceived an ardent affection for each other, and
+their marriage would have followed within the year had it not been
+prevented by Colonel Taylor. The cause of his opposition to the marriage
+has been the source of much speculation and of many absurd stories. The
+bare fact of the case is that Taylor's opposition to Davis as a son-in-law
+was based solely upon the privations that confronted the wife of a
+soldier,--a not altogether unreasonable objection when we consider army
+life on the frontier at that time. Convinced of the fact, however, that
+his own family considered the reasons of his opposition unsound, he
+determined to find what, at least to him, would prove weightier ones, and
+proceeded to seek a quarrel with his daughter's suitor. He found a pretext
+in a court martial, where, upon some trivial point, Davis voted against
+Taylor with a certain Major Smith. Taylor and Smith were not upon friendly
+terms, and thereupon the former flew into a violent rage, and in language
+which needed no additional strength to convince one that he fully deserved
+his sobriquet of Old Rough and Ready, he swore that Davis should never
+marry his daughter, and forbade him to enter his house as a visitor. In
+striking contrast to his intended father-in-law, Davis comported himself
+throughout this affair as a gentleman, and during the next two years
+sought in a manly way to reverse the irate old warrior's decision.
+However, all of his efforts were unavailing, and finally convinced that
+the task was a hopeless one, but resolved to remove the only substantial
+objection, he in the summer of 1835, resigned his commission in the army.
+A few weeks later he and Miss Taylor were married at the home of one of
+her aunts in Kentucky. But his new-found happiness was destined to a sad
+and untimely end, for in September of the same year, while visiting his
+sister near Bayou Sara, in Louisiana, both he and his bride were
+simultaneously stricken down with malarial fever and in a few days she
+succumbed to the disease. He was passionately devoted to his wife, and her
+death inflicted a blow from which he did not finally recover for many
+years. The winter following the death of his wife was spent in Havana and
+at Washington, and in the spring of 1836 he returned to Mississippi to
+take up with his brother, Joseph, the threads of a new life, the influence
+of which upon his future destiny has never been properly estimated.
+
+
+
+
+III. His Life at Briarfield
+
+
+Joseph Davis was in many respects a remarkable man. Educated for the bar,
+he abandoned the practice of law, after a successful career, when he was
+still a young man, and embarked in the business of cotton planting. He
+succeeded, acquired two large plantations known as "The Hurricane" and
+"Briarfield," and soon became a wealthy man. But he was something more
+than a rich cotton planter. He was a man of great strength and force of
+character, a student possessed of a vast fund of information, and a clear
+and logical reasoner. He read much and thought deeply, if not always
+correctly, along the lines of political government and economic science.
+Always refusing to take an active part in politics, it was, nevertheless,
+a subject in which he was deeply interested. He was partially in sympathy
+with the principles of the democratic party, but in that academic, strict
+and literal construction of the Constitution and upon the question of
+state rights he occupied a position far in advance of that political
+organization--a position even beyond that assumed by Mr. Calhoun in his
+advocacy of the doctrine of nullification.
+
+[Illustration: Jefferson Davis at Thirty-five]
+
+From this brother Jefferson Davis purchased "Briarfield," and arrangements
+were made by which they lived together and jointly managed the
+plantations. Owning a large number of slaves, they inaugurated a policy
+for their management which is no less interesting in itself than for the
+results attained. It was based upon the political maxim of the elder
+brother that the less people are governed, the better and stronger and
+more law-abiding they become. All rules that involved unnecessary
+supervision and espionage of any kind were abolished. The slaves were
+placed upon honor and were left free to go and come as they pleased.
+Corporal punishment was only inflicted in cases involving moral turpitude,
+and only then after the trial and conviction of the accused by a jury of
+his peers, during the process of which all of the rules governing the
+production and admission of evidence observed in a court of justice, were
+scrupulously adhered to. The pardoning power alone was retained by the
+masters, and that they frequently exercised. Whenever a slave felt his
+services were more valuable to himself than they were to his master, he
+was allowed by the payment of a very reasonable price for his time to
+embark in any enterprise he wished, the brothers counseling and advising
+him, frequently loaning him money and always patronizing him in preference
+to other tradesmen. A copy of a page from one of the books of a slave,
+bearing the date of Sept. 24, 1842, is before me, and upon it J. E. and J.
+Davis are credited with $1,893.50. Another slave usually purchased the
+entire fruit crop of the two plantations, and there were still others who
+conducted independent and successful business operations. Some of those
+slaves in after years became respected and substantial citizens, one of
+them purchasing the plantations for something less than $300,000, which
+had been offered by a white competitor.
+
+In their intercourse with their slaves, the brothers observed the utmost
+courtesy. With the idea that it involved disrespect, they forbade the
+abbreviation of Christian or the application of nicknames to any of their
+servants. Jefferson Davis' manager, James Pemberton, was always received
+on his business calls in the drawing-room, and the dignified master met
+the equally dignified slave upon exactly the same plane that he would have
+met his broker or his lawyer. From the practice of this system two
+results followed: A large fortune was accumulated and the slaves became
+thoroughly loyal and devoted to their masters.
+
+[Illustration: Briarfield, Jefferson Davis' Home]
+
+But, as great as must have been the influences of this life in forming the
+character of Jefferson Davis, still greater and of more importance,
+perhaps, must be regarded the rigorous mental training which he derived
+from it. During the period of their residence together, the time not
+required by business the brothers devoted to reading and discussions.
+Political economy and law, the science of government in general and that
+of the United States in particular, were the favorite themes. Locke and
+Justinian, Mill, Adam Smith and Vattel divided honors with the Federalist,
+the Resolutions of Ninety-Eight and the Debates of the Constitutional
+Convention. It was said they knew every word of the three latter by
+memory, and it is certain that year after year, almost without
+interruption, they sat far into the night debating almost every
+conceivable question that could arise under the Constitution of the United
+States.
+
+
+
+
+IV. First Appearance in Politics
+
+
+The first appearance of Jefferson Davis in politics would be hardly worthy
+of mention, if it were not for the fact that the event was used in after
+years to lend color to a baseless calumny. The Democratic party of Warren
+County nominated Mr. Davis for the Legislature in 1843, and although the
+normal Whig majority was a large one, he was defeated only by a few votes.
+Some years previous to that time the state had repudiated certain bank
+bonds which it had guaranteed, and in that canvass this question was an
+issue. Mr. Davis assumed the position that as the Constitution provided
+that the state might be sued in such cases, the question as to whether the
+bonds constituted a valid debt was one primarily for the courts rather
+than for the Legislature to decide. Referring to this controversy,
+General Scott in his autobiography says, "These bonds were repudiated
+mainly by Mr. Jefferson Davis;" and during the Civil War the same
+propaganda was urged in England by Robert J. Walker. The well-known
+imperfection of General Scott's knowledge on most matters political
+serves, in some measure, to palliate his error; but as General Walker was,
+at that time, a senator in Congress from Mississippi, it is difficult to
+believe that he erred through lack of information or that he was ignorant
+of the fact that when the Legislature finally refused to heed the mandate
+of the courts and provide for the payment of those obligations, Mr. Davis,
+as a private citizen, advocated a subscription to satisfy the debt, and
+that this very act was later used by the repudiators as their chief
+argument against his election to Congress.
+
+Mr. Davis took a conspicuous part in the presidential campaign of 1844,
+and was chosen one of the Polk electors. Before this campaign he was but
+slightly known beyond his own county; but at its conclusion his popularity
+had become so great that there was a general demand in the ranks of his
+party that he should become a candidate for Congress in the following
+year.
+
+[Illustration: The Room in the Briars in Which Jefferson Davis Was
+Married]
+
+On February 26, 1845, he was united in marriage to Miss Anna Varina
+Howell, of Natchez, and in the following month entered upon the canvass
+which resulted in his election by a large majority. He took his seat in
+the Twenty-Ninth Congress, December 8, 1845.
+
+In that body were many men whose lives were destined to exert an influence
+upon his own fate in no small degree. Among them was that ungainly captain
+of volunteers to whom we have seen him administering the oath of
+allegiance at Fort Snelling, and a strong rugged, wilful man, who, in his
+youth, had been the town tailor of the little village of Greenville, in
+Tennessee.
+
+Practically the only question involved in the campaign of 1844 was the
+admission of the Republic of Texas as a state of the Union. Mexico had
+declared that she would regard that act as tantamount to a declaration of
+war, and all parties in the Twenty-Ninth Congress now recognized the
+conflict as inevitable. Nor was it long delayed. One of President Polk's
+first official acts was to order General Taylor to proceed to the Rio
+Grande and defend it as the western boundary of the United States.
+Proceeding to a point opposite Matamoras, he was there attacked by the
+Mexicans, whom he defeated, drove back across the river and shelled them
+out of their works on the opposite side.
+
+In the war legislation that was now brought forward in Congress, Mr.
+Davis' military education enabled him to take a conspicuous part. His
+first speech seems to have left no doubt in the minds of the best judges
+that henceforward he was a power to be reckoned with. John Quincy Adams,
+it is said, paid the closest attention to this maiden effort, and at its
+conclusion shouted into the ear trumpet of old Joshua Giddings: "Mark my
+words, sir; we shall hear more of _that_ young man!" But this speech,
+which was a reply to an attack made by Mr. Sawyer, of Ohio, on West Point,
+did something more than win the admiration of Mr. Adams. Contending for
+the necessity of a military education for those who conduct the operations
+of war, and ignorant that any member of either avocation was present, he
+asked Mr. Sawyer if he thought the results at Matamoras could have been
+achieved by a tailor or a blacksmith. Mr. Sawyer good-naturedly replied
+that, while he would not admit that some members of his craft might not
+have rivaled the exploits of General Taylor, that when it came to
+reducing things he himself preferred a horse shoe to a fort any day.
+Andrew Johnson, however, took the matter as a personal insult, and as long
+as he lived cherished the bitterest hatred for Mr. Davis.
+
+
+
+
+V. Enters Mexican War
+
+
+But as promising as Mr. Davis' congressional career began, it did not long
+continue. Soon after war was declared, he received notice of his election
+as colonel of the First Mississippi Regiment, and early in June resigned
+his seat in Congress and accepted that office. President Polk, learning of
+his resignation, sent for Mr. Davis and offered him an appointment as
+brigadier-general. There is no doubt that he greatly coveted that office,
+but such, even at that time, was his attachment to the doctrine of state
+rights, that, frankly informing the President of his conviction that such
+appointments were the prerogatives of the states, he declined the offer.
+Hastening to New Orleans, Colonel Davis joined his regiment, and at once
+inaugurated that course of training and discipline which, in a few
+months, made of it a model of efficiency.
+
+In August he joined General Taylor's army just as it moved forward into
+Mexico. On Sept. 19, 1846, General Taylor with six thousand men reached
+the strongly-fortified city of Monterey, garrisoned by ten thousand
+Mexican regulars under command of the able and experienced General
+Ampudia. Two days later the attack began, and at the close of a sharp
+artillery duel, General Taylor gave the order to carry the city by storm.
+The Fourth Artillery, leading the advance, was caught in a terrific cross
+fire, and was speedily repulsed with heavy losses, producing the utmost
+confusion along the front of the assaulting brigade. The strong fort,
+Taneira, which had contributed most to the repulse, now ran up a new flag,
+and amidst the wild cheering of its defenders redoubled its fire of grape,
+canister and musketry, under which the American lines wavered and were
+about to break.
+
+[Illustration: General Taylor and Colonel Davis at Monterey]
+
+Colonel Davis, seeing the crisis, without waiting for orders, placed
+himself at the head of his Mississippians, and gave the order to charge.
+With prolonged cheers his regiment swept forward through a storm of
+bullets and bursting shells. Colonel Davis, sword in hand, cleared the
+ditch at one bound, and cheering his soldiers on, they mounted the works
+with the impetuosity of a whirlwind, capturing artillery and driving the
+Mexicans pell mell back into the stone fort in the rear.
+
+In vain the defeated Mexicans sought to barricade the gate; Davis and
+McClung burst it open, and leading their men into the fort, compelled its
+surrender at discretion. Taneira was the key of the situation, and its
+capture insured victory. On the morning of the twenty-third, Henderson's
+Texas Rangers, Campbell's Tennesseeans and Davis' Mississippians the
+latter again leading the assault, stormed and captured El Diabolo, and the
+next day General Ampudia surrendered the city.
+
+
+
+
+VI. The Hero of Buena Vista
+
+
+Two months later, General Taylor again moved forward toward the City of
+Mexico, and on February 20 was before Saltilo. Santa Anna, the ablest of
+the Mexican generals, with the best army in the republic, numbering twenty
+thousand men, there appeared in front. Taylor could barely muster a fourth
+of that number, and for strategic purposes fell back to the narrow defile
+in front of the hacienda of Buena Vista, where, on the twenty-third, was
+fought the greatest battle of the war.
+
+The conflict began early in the morning, and raged with varying fortunes
+over a line two miles long, until the middle of the afternoon when the
+furious roar of musketry from that quarter apprised General Wool that
+Santa Anna was making a desperate effort to break the American center.
+Colonel Davis was immediately ordered to support that point, and the
+Mississippians went forward at a double quick. As they came upon the
+field, the wildest disorder prevailed, and only Colonel Bowles' Indiana
+regiment held its ground. After trying in vain to rally the fugitives of a
+routed regiment, Colonel Davis speedily formed his own into line of battle
+and rapidly pushed forward across a deep ravine to the right of the
+Indianians just in time to meet the shock of a whole brigade, which the
+two commanders succeeded in repulsing with great gallantry.
+
+But the battle was not over. Under cover of the smoke, Santa Anna's full
+brigade of lancers flanked the Americans, and now at the sound of their
+trumpets, the Mexican infantry advanced once more to the charge. Thus
+assailed on two sides by overwhelming numbers, the situation was truly
+critical, but Colonel Davis, forming the two regiments into the shape
+of a re-entering angle, awaited the assault.
+
+[Illustration: The Charge of Colonel Davis' Regiment at Buena Vista]
+
+With flying banners and sounding trumpets the gailey caparisoned lancers
+came down at a thundering gallop until a sheet of flame from the angle
+wrapped their front ranks and bore it down to destruction. Quickly
+recovering, the survivors, with the fury of madmen, threw themselves again
+and again upon those stubborn ranks, which, now assailed on two sides,
+refused to give an inch, and met every onslaught with a withering fire,
+which soon so cumbered the ground with the dead that it was with
+difficulty the living could move over it.
+
+At last utterly demoralized by the awful carnage, the Mexican lines broke
+and fled from the field. The day was over. Buena Vista was won, and
+Colonel Davis had accomplished a feat which, when Sir Colin Campbell
+imitated it at Inkerman two years later, he was sent by England to
+retrieve her fallen fortunes in India.
+
+Notwithstanding the fact that Colonel Davis' right foot had been shattered
+early in the morning, he had refused to leave the field for aid, but now
+at the close of the action he fell fainting from his horse. The wound was
+a dangerous one, and as the surgeons were of the opinion that more than a
+year must elapse before he could hope to walk, as soon as he was able to
+travel, General Taylor insisted on his going home, and thus closed his
+career in the Mexican War.
+
+
+
+
+VII. Enters the Senate
+
+
+This exploit at Buena Vista created the profoundest enthusiasm throughout
+the country, and the Legislatures of several states passed resolutions
+thanking him for his services. Governor Brown of his own state, in
+obedience to an overwhelming popular sentiment, a few weeks after his
+return, appointed Colonel Davis to fill a vacancy that had occurred in the
+Senate--an appointment which was speedily ratified by the Legislature.
+
+When, in 1847, Mr. Davis took his seat in the Senate, that irrepressible
+conflict, inevitable from the hour that the Constitutional Convention of
+1787 sanctioned slavery as an institution within the United States, had
+reached a crisis which was threatening the very existence of the Union.
+The Missouri Compromise prohibiting slavery north of 36° 30' had failed
+to sanction it in express terms south of that parallel, and while in 1820
+probably no one would have denied that this was the logical and obvious
+meaning of that measure, such was not the case thirty years later. The
+Abolitionists had opposed the annexation of Texas, believing, as Mr. Adams
+declared, that such an event would justify the dissolution of the Union.
+
+In finally accepting Texas with bad grace, they served notice that it was
+their last concession. Therefore when the application of the Missouri
+Compromise to the vast territory acquired from Mexico would have given
+over a large portion of it to slavery, they brought forward the Wilmot
+Proviso, a measure, the effect of which was to abrogate the Missouri
+Compromise in so far as it affected slavery south of that line, while
+leaving its prohibition as to the north side in full force.
+
+[Illustration: Jefferson Davis as United States Senator in 1847]
+
+Mr. Davis participated in the discussion of these questions and at once
+became the ablest and most consistent of those statesmen who, contending
+for the strict construction of the Constitution and the broadest
+principles of state sovereignty, sought to prevent Congress from violating
+the one by infringing on the prerogatives of the other. Holding that the
+Constitution sanctioned slavery, that Congress had specified its limits,
+that the territories belonged in common to the states, he contended that
+the South could not accept with honor anything less than that the Missouri
+Compromise extended to the Pacific Ocean.
+
+Reasoning from these premises, his speeches were masterpieces of logic,
+and whatever one may think of their philosophy, all must agree that they
+were among the greatest ever delivered in any deliberative body. Had the
+leaders of his party stood with him in that great battle, they would have
+been able to force some definite legislation which would have postponed
+the Civil War for many years--possibly beyond a period when the operation
+of economic laws might have effected the abolition of slavery as the only
+salvation of the South--but Henry Clay's dread of a situation that
+endangered the Union prompted him to bring forward his last compromise
+measures, which he himself declared to be only a temporary expedient.
+Calhoun, equally strong in his love for the Union, anxious to preserve it
+at all costs, abandoned his former position, and against the warnings of
+Jefferson Davis, soon to become prophetic, his party accepted the measure
+which, as he declared, guaranteed no right that did not already exist,
+while abrogating to the South the benefits of the Compromise of 1820.
+
+
+
+
+VIII. Becomes Secretary of War
+
+
+With temporary tranquillity restored, Mr. Davis soon afterward resigned
+his seat in the Senate to become a candidate for governor of his state--a
+contest in which he was defeated by a small plurality. He retired once
+more to Briarfield, and there is little doubt that he at that time
+intended to abandon public life. However, in 1853, he yielded to the
+insistence of President Pierce, and reluctantly accepted the portfolio of
+war in his cabinet.
+
+Only a brief summary is possible, but if we may judge by the reforms
+inaugurated, the work accomplished during the four following years,
+Jefferson Davis must be considered one of our greatest secretaries of war.
+The antiquated army regulations were revised and placed upon a modern
+basis, the medical corps was reorganized and made more efficient, tactics
+were modernized, the rifled musket and the minie ball were adopted, the
+army was increased and at every session he persistently urged upon
+Congress the wisdom of a pension system and a law for the retirement of
+officers, substantially as they exist at present.
+
+But more enduring and farther reaching in beneficent results were those
+great public works originated or completed under his administration,
+prominently among which may be mentioned the magnificent aqueduct which
+still supplies Washington with an abundance of pure water; the completion
+of the work on the Capitol, which had dragged for years; and the founding
+of the Smithsonian Institute, of which he was, perhaps, the most zealous
+advocate and efficient regent.
+
+Transcontinental railways appealed to him as a public necessity. He
+therefore had two surveys made and collected the facts concerning
+climate, topography and the natural resources of the country, which
+demonstrated the feasibility of the vast undertaking, which was
+subsequently completed along the lines and according to the plans that he
+recommended.
+
+From his induction into office he set at naught the spoils system of
+Jackson, and may very justly be regarded as a pioneer of civil service
+reform, for he altogether disregarded politics in his appointments, and
+when remonstrated with by the leaders of his party, informed them that he
+was not appointing Whigs or Democrats, but servants of the government who,
+in his opinion, were best qualified for the duties to be performed. The
+same principle he adhered to in matters of the greatest moment, as he
+demonstrated in the Kansas troubles. A state of civil war prevailed
+between the advocates and opponents of slavery, and it could not be
+doubted where his own sympathies were in the controversy. From the nature
+of the case, the commander of federal troops in Kansas must be armed with
+practically dictatory powers. The selection remained altogether with
+himself, and he sent thither Colonel Sumner, an avowed abolitionist, but
+an officer whose honor, ability and judgment recommended him as the best
+man for the difficult duty.
+
+How the absurd story ever originated that Mr. Davis used the power of his
+great office to weaken the North and prepare the South for warlike
+operations, is inconceivable to the honest investigator of even ordinary
+diligence. No arms or munitions of war could have been removed from one
+arsenal to another or from factory to fort without an order from the
+Secretary of War. Those orders are still on record, and not one of them
+lends color to a theory which seems to have been adopted as a fact by Dr.
+Draper, upon no better proof than that afforded by heresay evidence of the
+most biased kind. In fact, arsenals in the South were continuously
+drawn upon to supply the Western forts during his term of office, and at
+its close, while all defenses and stores were in better condition than
+ever before, those south of the Potomac were relatively weaker than in
+1853.
+
+[Illustration: Jefferson Davis as Secretary of War]
+
+Other less serious charges are equally baseless, and the historian who
+would try Mr. Davis upon the common rules of evidence must conclude that
+his administration was not only free from dishonor but was characterized
+by high ability and unquestioned patriotism--a verdict strengthened by the
+fact that contemporaneous partisan criticism furnished nothing to question
+such a conclusion.
+
+
+
+
+IX. He Re-enters the Senate
+
+
+When, in 1857, Mr. Davis was again elected to the Senate, the Compromise
+of 1850 had already become a dead letter, as he had predicted that it
+would. The anti-slavery sentiment had, like Aaron's rod, swallowed all
+rivals, and party leaders once noted for conservatism, had resolved to
+suppress the curse, despite the decision of the Supreme Court statute, of
+law, of even the Constitution itself. Those who have criticised Mr. Davis
+most bitterly for his attitude at that time have failed to appreciate the
+fact that he then occupied the exact ground where he had always stood.
+
+Others had changed. He had remained consistent. He had never countenanced
+the doctrine of nullification; he had always affirmed the right of
+secession. Profoundly versed, as he was, in the constitutional law of the
+United States, familiar with every phase of the question debated by the
+Convention of 1787, his logical mind was unable to reach a conclusion
+adverse to the right of a sovereign state to withdraw from a voluntary
+compact, the violation of which endangered its interests. He believed that
+the compact was violated by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise; he felt
+that it was being violated now, but as in 1850 he had declared that
+nothing short of the necessity of self-protection would justify the
+dissolution of the Union, he now pleaded with the majority not to force
+that necessity upon the South. Secession he frankly declared to be a great
+evil, so great that the South would only adopt it as the last resort; but
+at the same time he warned the abolitionists that if the guarantees of the
+Constitution were not respected, that if the Northern states were to defy
+the decrees of the Supreme Court favorable to the South, as they had done
+in the Dred Scott decision, that if his section was to be ruled by a
+hostile majority without regard to the right, the protection thrown around
+the minority by the fundamental law of the land, that the Southern states
+could not in honor remain members of the Union, and would therefore
+certainly withdraw from it.
+
+He undoubtedly saw the chasm daily growing wider, and had he possessed
+that sagacious foresight, that profound knowledge of human nature, in
+which alone he was lacking as a statesman of the first order, he would
+have realized then, as Abraham Lincoln had before, that the die was cast
+and that the Union could not longer endure upon the compromises of the
+Constitution which had implanted slavery among a free, self-governing
+people, a majority of whom were opposed to it. But there is no recorded
+utterance of Jefferson Davis, no act of his, that would lead one to
+believe that he had despaired of some adjustment of matters, or that
+secession was wise or desirable, until after the nomination of Mr.
+Lincoln. Then, for the first time, he declared before a state convention
+at Jackson, Miss., that the Chicago platform would justify the South in
+dissolving the Union if the Republican party should triumph at the coming
+election. But he did not expect that triumph. Shortly previous to that
+speech, he had introduced resolutions in the Senate embodying the
+principles of the constitutional pro-slavery party.
+
+They affirmed the sovereignty of the separate states, asserted that
+slavery formed an essential part of the political institutions of various
+members of the Union, that the union of the states rested upon equality of
+rights, that it was the duty of Congress to protect slave property in the
+territories, and that a territory when forming a constitution, and not
+before, must either sanction or abolish slavery. The resolution passed the
+Senate, and Mr. Davis hoped to see it become the platform of a reunited
+party, which would have meant the defeat of the Republican ticket and a
+consequent postponement of the war.
+
+The foregoing facts alone make ridiculous the assertions of Mr. Pollard
+that during this Congress Jefferson Davis, with thirteen other senators,
+met one night in a room at the Capitol, and perfected a plan whereby the
+Southern states were forced into secession against the will of the people
+thereof.
+
+What the plan was, how it was put into operation so as to circumvent the
+will of the people of eleven states who more than a year later decided the
+question of secession by popular vote, why Mr. Davis later introduced the
+above resolution and why he worked so zealously thereafter to prevent the
+threatened disruption and why he sought to induce the Charleston
+Convention to adopt his resolution as the principles of the party, Mr.
+Pollard does not attempt to explain. In fact, any rational explanation
+would be impossible, for at every point the evidence refutes the
+allegation.
+
+Then, again, those who, like Mr. Pollard, have sought to saddle the chief
+responsibility of secession upon Jefferson Davis have overlooked the fact
+that while not an avowed candidate, he nevertheless hoped to be the
+nominee of his party in 1860 for the presidency, and that much of his
+strength lay in Northern states, as Massachusetts demonstrated by sending
+him a solid delegation to the Charleston Convention. His conduct during
+his last year in the Senate is consistent with this ambition, but the
+ambition is wholly inconsistent with the theory that he had long planned
+the destruction of the Union. The truth is that the impartial historian
+must conclude from all of his utterances, from his acts, from the
+circumstances of the case, that in so far from being the genius and
+advocate of disunion, he deprecated it and sought to prevent it, until
+political events rendered certain the election of Mr. Lincoln. Then,
+sincerely believing the peculiar institutions of the South to be
+imperiled, and never doubting the right of secession, he advocated it as
+the only remedy left for a situation which had become intolerable to the
+people of his section.
+
+His advocacy, however, was in striking contrast to that of many of his
+colleagues. Always free from any suggestion of demagoguery, always
+conservative, his utterances on this subject were marked with candor and
+moderation. Nor did the ominous shadows that descended upon the next
+Congress disturb his equanimity or unsettle his resolution to perform his
+duty as he saw it. For days the impassioned storm of invective and
+denunciation raged around him, but he remained silent. At last the news
+came that his state had seceded. He announced the event to the Senate in a
+speech, which in nobility of conception has probably never been surpassed.
+He defined his own position and that of his state, and as he bade farewell
+to his colleagues, even among his bitterest opponents there was scarcely
+an eye undimmed with tears, and whatever others thought in after years,
+there was no one in that august assemblage who did not accord to Jefferson
+Davis the meed of perfect sincerity and unblemished faith in the cause
+which he had espoused.
+
+
+
+
+X. Still Hoped to Save the Union
+
+
+On the evening of the day Mr. Davis retired from the Senate, he was
+visited by Robert Toombs of Georgia, who informed him that it was reported
+from a trustworthy source that certain representatives, including
+themselves, were to be arrested. He had intended to leave the capital the
+following day, but changed his plans to await any action the government
+might take against him.
+
+To his friends he declared the hope that the rumor might be well founded,
+for should arrests be made, he saw therein the opportunity to bring the
+question of the right of a state to secede from the Union before the
+Supreme Court for final adjudication. Nothing of the kind happened, and
+after waiting for about ten days, Mr. Davis left Washington.
+
+During his stay he freely discussed the situation with the leading
+Southern statesmen who called upon him. The general opinion was the first
+result of secession, which most of them assumed to be final, must be the
+formation of a new federal government, and the consensus of opinion
+designated Mr. Davis as the fittest person for the presidency. On the
+first proposition he did not agree with his colleagues. He expressed the
+belief that the action of the states in exercising the right of secession
+would serve to so sober Northern sentiment that an adjustment might be
+reached, which, while guaranteeing to the South all of the rights
+vouchsafed by the Constitution, would still preserve the Union. He
+therefore sought to impress upon them--especially the South Carolina
+delegation--the necessity of moderation, the unwisdom of any act at that
+time which might render an adjustment impossible.
+
+The second proposition he refused to consider at all, and begged those who
+might be instrumental in the formation of a new government, if one must be
+created, not to use his name in connection with its presidency. That he at
+this time entertained a sincere desire for the preservation of the Union
+can be doubted by no one familiar with his private correspondence. In a
+letter dated two days after his resignation from the Senate he defends the
+action of his state, it is true, but at the same time deplores disunion as
+one of the greatest calamities that could befall the South.
+
+In another letter written three days later, he uses this significant
+language: "All is not lost. If only moderation prevails, if they will only
+give me time, I am not without hope of a peaceable settlement that will
+assure our rights within the Union." That he did not abandon that hope
+until long afterward, that he clung to it long after it became a delusion,
+is very probable, as we shall see.
+
+Nothing could be farther from the truth than the theory so often advanced
+that presidential ambition was responsible for Mr. Davis' attitude on the
+question of secession. This I have indicated in the last chapter. The
+truth of this position is established if he were sincere in his
+declarations that he did not covet the honor of the presidency of the new
+government. Those declarations were made to the men who, of all others,
+could further his ambition; they knew his stubbornness of opinion,
+understood how likely it was that he would never abandon that or any other
+position; there were other aspirants whom he knew to be personally more
+acceptable to a majority of these statesmen, and his attitude, of course,
+released them from any responsibility imposed by popular sentiment in his
+favor in the South. If one is still inclined to accept all this, however,
+as another instance of Cæsar putting the crown aside, the question
+arises, Why did he assume the same attitude with those who possessed no
+power to influence his fortunes? Why in his letters to his wife, to his
+brother, to his friends, in private life, did he express the strongest
+repugnance to accepting that office should it be created and offered? But
+even stronger evidence that he did not seek or want it is afforded by
+another circumstance. Mississippi, in seceding from the Union, had
+provided for an army. The governor had appointed him to command it, with
+the rank of major-general. In the event of war, that position opened up
+unlimited possibilities in the field, which was exactly what he desired;
+for, unfortunately, he then and always cherished the delusion that he was
+greater as a soldier than he was as a statesman. All of this is consistent
+with his sincerity--inconsistent with any other reasonable theory.
+
+Mr. Davis must also be acquitted of the charge made by no inconsiderable
+number of the Southern people that he first failed to anticipate war and
+later underestimated the extent and duration of the approaching conflict.
+On his way from Washington to Mississippi, he made several speeches. All
+of them were marked by moderation, but to the prominent citizens who on
+that journey came to confer with him, he declared in emphatic terms that
+the United States would never allow the seceded states to peacefully
+withdraw from the Union, and warned them that unless some adjustment were
+effected, they must expect a civil war, the extent, duration and
+termination of which no one could foresee.
+
+At Jackson he reiterated those views, along with a hope for
+reconciliation, in a speech delivered before the governor and Legislature
+of his state. Peaceful adjustment he declared not beyond hope, yet if war
+should come, he warned them that it must be a long one, and that instead
+of buying 75,000 stands of small arms, as proposed, that the state should
+only limit the quantity by its capacity to pay. Those views, it may be
+here remarked, were not coincided with by his own state or the people of
+the South generally. They were far in advance of their representatives on
+the question of secession, but the belief was generally prevalent at even
+a much later date that no attempt would be made to coerce a seceding
+state.
+
+
+
+
+XI. President of the Confederacy
+
+
+The convention of the seceding states met at Montgomery, Feb. 4, 1861, and
+proceeded to adopt a constitution as the basis for a provisional
+government. The work was the most rapid in the history of legislative
+proceedings, being completed in three days. With the exceptions of making
+the preamble read that each state accepting it did so in "its sovereign
+and independent capacity," fixing the president's and vice-president's
+term of office at six years and making them ineligible for re-election,
+prohibiting a protective tariff, inhibiting the general government from
+making appropriations for internal improvements, requiring a two-thirds
+vote to pass appropriation bills and giving cabinet officers a seat, but
+no vote, in Congress, the Confederate constitution was, practically, a
+reaffirmation of that of the United States.
+
+It was adopted on the eighth, and the provisional government to continue
+in force one year, unless sooner superseded by a permanent organization,
+was formally launched upon the troubled waters of its brief and stormy
+existence. The following day, an election was held for president and
+vice-president, the convention voting by states, which resulted on the
+first ballot in the selection by a bare majority of Jefferson Davis and
+Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia. Mr. Davis, as we have seen, was not a
+candidate. He was not in, nor near, Montgomery at the time, and took no
+part, by advice or otherwise, in the formation of the new constitution.
+
+His selection over Mr. Toombs was the result of a single set of
+circumstances. Mr. Davis' military education, his experience in the field,
+his services as secretary of war, a widespread popular belief in his
+ability as a military organizer, and his known capacity as a statesman
+in times of peace, all marked him as the fittest man for a place which
+evidently required a combination of high qualities. Had Mr. Toombs
+possessed either military education or experience, there is scarcely a
+doubt that he would have been chosen.
+
+[Illustration: The Capitol at Richmond]
+
+The news of his election reached Mr. Davis while working in his garden,
+and is said to have caused him genuine disappointment and grief. That the
+convention was uncertain of his acceptance is indicated by the fact that
+with the notification was sent an earnest appeal to consider the public
+welfare, rather than his own preferences, in considering the offer of the
+presidency. Upon this ground he based his action in accepting the office
+and hastening to Jackson, he resigned his position in the state army,
+expressing the hope and belief that the service would be but temporary.
+
+All along the route to Montgomery, bands and bonfires, booming cannon and
+the peals of bells heralded his approach, and vast concourses greeted him
+at every station.
+
+What purported to be an account of this journey was printed in the leading
+papers of the North, which pictured Mr. Davis as invoking war, breathing
+defiance and threatening extermination of the Union. Nothing of the kind,
+however, occurred. The speeches actually delivered were moderate,
+conservative and conciliatory. So much so, in fact, that they were
+disappointing to his enthusiastic audiences, and there are yet living many
+witnesses to the frequent and repeated declaration of the fear that "Jeff.
+Davis has remained too long amongst the Yankees to make him exactly the
+kind of president the South needs."
+
+
+
+
+XII. His First Inaugural
+
+
+Monday, Feb. 18, 1861, there assembled around the state capitol at
+Montgomery such an audience as no state had ever witnessed--as perhaps
+none ever will witness. Statesmen, actual and prospective; jurists and
+senators; soldiers and sailors; officers and office-seekers, the latter,
+no doubt, predominating; clerks, farmers and artisans; fashionably attired
+women in fine equipages decorated with streamers and the tri-colored
+cockades; foreign correspondents--in fact, representatives from every
+sphere and condition of life, each eager to witness a ceremonial which
+could never occur again.
+
+At exactly one o'clock Mr. Davis and Mr. Stephens appeared upon the
+platform in front of the capitol, and when the mighty wave of applause
+had subsided, Howell Cobb, President of the Constitutional Convention,
+administered to them the oath of office. Then in that peculiarly musical
+voice which had never failed to charm the Senate in other days, a voice
+audible in its minutest inflections to every one of the vast throng, Mr.
+Davis delivered his inaugural address.
+
+Strangely enough, both sections of the divided country then and thereafter
+attached a widely varying value to the address. It was so simple, clear
+and direct that it is amazing two interpretations should have been placed
+upon it. As an exposition of the causes leading to secession, it was a
+masterpiece. It is impossible to read it today without feeling that in
+every sentence it breathed a prayer for peace.
+
+Viewed in connection with the events that produced it, as the first
+official advice of the chief executive of a new nation beset with the most
+stupendous problems, confronted by the gravest perils, it certainly added
+nothing to Mr. Davis' reputation as a statesman. Beyond the declaration
+that the Confederacy would be maintained, a desire for peace and freest of
+trade relations with the United States, he outlined no policies and
+offered neither suggestions nor advice.
+
+Mr. Davis, now more than perhaps any other Southern statesman, should have
+realized that "the erring sisters" would not be permitted to depart in
+peace, and yet beyond the barest general statement that an army and a navy
+must be created, he dismissed the matter, to plunge into an academic
+discussion of the prosperity of the South and the _moral sin_ that would
+be committed by the United States should it perversely and wickedly
+disturb this condition and curtail the world's supply of cotton!
+
+The question of revenue was, of course, of paramount importance, but no
+idea, no plan, no suggestion was offered along that line. The more one
+studies that remarkable production, the more puzzling it becomes, if we
+assume that Mr. Davis was altogether sincere in his declaration that the
+severance was final and irremediable.
+
+If he were not, if he still hoped for some adjustment that would reunite
+the severed union, one may readily understand why he refrained from
+assuming the vigorous attitude that the occasion demanded, but which might
+have placed compromise beyond the pale of possibility. The significant
+omissions were not compatible with Mr. Davis' well-known views of official
+duty. Nor is the matter in any way explained by assuming that as Congress
+was charged with the performance of all of these important matters, that
+it was not Mr. Davis' duty to suggest plans and methods. His office
+invested him with those powers and he was elected to it for the express
+reason that he was supposed to be eminently qualified in all practical
+administrative and legislative details, especially those of a military
+nature.
+
+While Mr. Davis must be absolved from the charge that his cabinet
+appointments were the result of favoritism, they were, nevertheless, for
+the most part, unfortunate. The portfolio of the treasury, undoubtedly the
+most important place in the cabinet, was intrusted to Mr. Memminger, of
+South Carolina, an incorruptible gentleman of high principles and mediocre
+ability, a theorist, devoid of either the talents or experience that would
+have fitted him for the difficult place. Toombs, Benjamin and Reagan were
+better selections. The others were men honest, sincere of purpose, but
+little in their antecedents to recommend them for the particular positions
+which they were called upon to fill. With at least two of them, Mr. Davis
+was not previously personally acquainted, and political considerations
+probably secured their appointment.
+
+
+
+
+XIII. Delays and Blunders
+
+
+One of the president's first official acts was to appoint Crawford,
+Forsyth and Roman as commissioners "to negotiate friendly relations" with
+the United States. They were men of different political affiliations, one
+being a Douglas Democrat, one a Whig and the other a lukewarm
+secessionist. All were conservative and shared fully in the president's
+desire for peace on any honorable terms.
+
+But while trying to secure peace, Mr. Davis was not insensible to the
+necessity of an army, and on this point the first difference arose between
+him and Congress. Beyond the small and inefficient militia maintained by
+the different states, there was neither army nor guns, and ammunition with
+which to equip one. He therefore urged Congress to provide for the
+purchase of large quantities of warlike material, but that body,
+infatuated with the idea that there would be no war, proceeded to debate
+whether it were advisable to add anything to the stock owned by the
+states, which at that time was insufficient to arm one-thirtieth of the
+population subject to military duty.
+
+Mr. Toombs once assured the writer that after the loss of valuable time it
+was decided to send an agent abroad, it was proposed to purchase but eight
+thousand Enfield rifles and that it was with the utmost difficulty that he
+prevailed upon the government to increase the order to ten thousand.
+
+From this circumstance the extent of the infatuation may be inferred. The
+peace delusions of Congress seem to have been fully shared by the
+secretary of the treasury.
+
+At the time of the inauguration of the Confederate government and for
+months thereafter, merchants and banks of the South held quantities of
+gold, silver and foreign exchange which they were anxious to sell at very
+nearly par for government securities, and yet this opportunity was
+neglected. But as grave as that blunder was, it was, nevertheless,
+insignificant when compared to another. There were then in the South about
+three million bales of cotton which the owners would have sold for ten
+cents a pound in Confederate money.
+
+The president accordingly suggested to Mr. Memminger that the government
+buy this cotton, immediately ship it to Europe and there store it to await
+developments. His theory was that if war should come, it must be a long
+one and that in less than two years this cotton would be worth from
+seventy to eighty cents a pound, which would then give the government
+assets, convertible at any time into gold, of at least a billion dollars.
+The plan was sound and feasible, for a blockade did not become seriously
+effective until more than a year after the beginning of war, and we know
+the price of cotton went even beyond Mr. Davis' figures. The secretary,
+however, engrossed in the puerile plans of fiat money, which the history
+of almost any revolution, from the days of Adam, should have proved a
+warning, turned a deaf ear to this suggestion which at once combined
+profound statesmanship and admirable financial sagacity, and the matter
+came to naught.
+
+But this was only one of the many serious blunders and lapses which
+retarded the adequate preparation which all at a later day recognized
+should have been made by the Confederacy.
+
+When the stern logic of events portrayed this neglect as the parent of
+failure, the spirit of criticism emerged even in the South and failed not
+to spare Mr. Davis. But these critics have, for the most part, overlooked
+the very important fact that it was impossible for the president to
+accomplish a great deal without the co-operation of his Congress.
+
+The states' rights ideas, we must remember, were the predominant ones
+entertained by the people and their representatives, and that they, more
+than anything else, paralyzed action, promoted delays and fostered
+confusion, can admit of no doubt. The forts, arsenals, docks and shipyards
+belonged to the states, and although Mr. Davis early in his administration
+urged that they be ceded to the general government, it was not until war
+became a certainty that a reluctant consent was yielded and this most
+necessary step consummated. Another weakness lay in the fact that the
+provisional army, in so far as one existed, was formed on the states'
+rights plan.
+
+That is to say, it was composed of volunteers, armed and officered by the
+states, who alone possessed power over them. Any governor might at any
+time without any reason withdraw the troops of his state from the most
+important point at the most critical moment, without being answerable to
+any power for his action. These are but two examples of many that might be
+adduced, but they will serve to demonstrate how impossible it was for any
+man, whatever his influence or position, to make the preparations demanded
+by the situation while hedged about by such fatal limitations. And,
+whatever Mr. Davis' failures may have been in this regard, they are
+chargeable to the system adopted by the people themselves, rather than to
+any serious derelictions on his part.
+
+
+
+
+XIV. The Bombardment of Sumter
+
+
+The bulk of the Confederate army was mobilized at Charleston, where, if
+hostilities were to occur, they were likely to begin, owing to the fact
+that a Federal garrison still held Fort Sumter. Mr. Davis, realizing the
+critical nature of this situation, impressed upon the peace commissioners
+that, failing to secure a treaty of friendship, they were to exhaust every
+effort to procure the peaceful evacuation of Sumter.
+
+The history of those negotiations is too well known to need repetition
+here. Mr. Seward's disingenious methods served their purpose of inspiring
+a false hope of peace, and it is very probable that Mr. Davis suspected no
+duplicity until fully advised of the details and destination of the
+formidable fleet that was being fitted out at New York. When it sailed,
+and not before, ended his long dream of peace.
+
+The attempt to reinforce a stronghold in the very heart of the Confederacy
+was express and unmistakable notice to the world that the United States
+did not propose to relinquish its sovereignty over the seceded states. To
+allow the peaceful consummation of the attempt was to acquiesce in a claim
+fatal to the existence of the new government. Therefore, if the
+Confederacy was to be anything more than a futile attempt to frighten the
+Federal government into granting concessions, the time had now come to
+act. The president did not hesitate. General Beauregard was instructed to
+demand the surrender of Sumter, and, failing to receive it, to proceed
+with its reduction.
+
+The story of that demand and its refusal, of how at thirty minutes past
+four o'clock on the morning of April 12, 1861, the quiet old city of
+Charleston was aroused from its slumbers by that first gun from Fort
+Johnston "heard around the world," and how the gallant Major Anderson, Mr.
+Davis' old comrade in arms of other days, maintained his position until
+the walls of the fortifications were battered down and fierce fires raged
+within, are all history, and need no further comment or elaboration at
+this time.
+
+[Illustration: Interior of Fort Sumter After the Surrender]
+
+There as at Matanzas in the beginning of the war with Spain, the first and
+only life sacrificed was that of a mule. When Mr. Davis learned this, he
+exclaimed: "Thank heaven, nothing more precious than the blood of a mule
+has been shed. Reconciliation is not yet impossible." But he was hardly
+serious in that declaration. The die was now cast, and for the first time
+the North realized that the South was in earnest--the South, that war was
+inevitable.
+
+Mr. Lincoln's call for volunteers to coerce the seceding states aroused a
+perfect frenzy of patriotism throughout the South, and the full military
+strength of the Confederacy could have been enlisted in thirty days, but
+it is hardly necessary to say that a government which had reluctantly
+ordered ten thousand rifles was in no position to take advantage of that
+opportunity.
+
+The president immediately called an extra session of Congress. It convened
+on April 29, and received his special message, which was in marked
+contrast to his inaugural. There were no dissertations on agriculture and
+morality now, but with that forceful perspicacity which usually
+characterized his utterances, he marked out sensibly and well what should
+be done, and suggested definite methods. This message was the first
+utterance, public or private, which clearly demonstrated that his dream of
+compromise was over.
+
+His recommendations embraced the creation of a regular army upon a sane
+plan, the immediate purchase of arms, ammunition and ships, the
+establishment of gun factories and powder mills, and a number of other
+subjects, which leave no doubt that he saw the situation in its true
+proportions, and was resolved to use the resources of the Confederacy to
+meet it. That these resources were meager when compared with those of his
+powerful adversary, is beyond question. But neither in point of wealth nor
+population were the odds so great against the South as those over which
+Napoleon twice triumphed, or those opposed to Frederick the Great in a
+contest from which he emerged triumphant; and the conclusion so freely
+indulged in of late years that the Confederacy was foredoomed from the
+beginning would seem to rest rather upon an accomplished fact than upon
+sound reasoning, if in the beginning the resources of the South had been
+used to the best advantage. That they were not, was known by every
+statesman and general of the Confederacy whose achievements entitle his
+opinion to consideration. But it is eminently unfair to seek to saddle all
+or the greater part of this failure upon Mr. Davis, as has been attempted,
+in some cases, by the delinquents who themselves, contributed largely to
+that result. Some of the causes of that failure we have seen. Another, and
+perhaps the most potent cause, the writer believes, may be traced to
+conditions which have been very generally overlooked.
+
+
+
+
+XV. Conditions in the South
+
+
+Previous to the Civil War, the large slaveholders constituted as distinct
+an aristocracy as ever existed under any monarchy. Educated in Northern
+colleges and the universities of Europe, it produced a race of men who in
+many respects has never been surpassed by those of any country in the
+world. It was small, but it was the governing class of the South, in which
+the people, except those in the more northerly section, placed implicit
+confidence.
+
+A majority of the latter were not slaveholders nor were they in sympathy
+with slavery, and at heart they were unfriendly to the governing class,
+its policies and politics--a fact which was responsible for giving to the
+Union from the seceded states almost as many soldiers as enlisted for the
+Confederacy.
+
+The educated class, of course, understood all sections of the country, but
+at this time it is almost impossible to understand how little the rank and
+file of the Southern people knew of the North, its resources and, above
+all, of the motives that actuated its citizens. In a word, two sections of
+a country separated by no natural barrier, speaking the same language and
+in the main living under the same laws, were to all intents and purposes
+as much foreigners as though a vast ocean had divided them.
+
+Nursed upon the theories of state sovereignty, the Southern people could
+not at first understand how a seceding state could be coerced, and when
+that delusion was dispelled, their attitude was one of angry contempt.
+From colonial days, conditions in the South had been such as to develop
+courage, resourcefulness and self-reliance in the individual. The idea of
+coercion was to them ridiculous. Numerically inferior as they were,
+they felt self-sufficient. So much so, in fact, that they took no trouble
+to conciliate that class before referred to which, while out of sympathy
+with them on slavery, were held by other ties which at first inclined them
+rather to the South than to the North. What mattered it? Let them join the
+Yankees, and they would whip both. This same confidence saw in the
+approaching conflict a short affair, and among this people, naturally as
+warlike as the Romans under the republic, there grew up the widespread
+fear that the war would not last long enough for all to take a hand.
+Valorous the attitude undoubtedly was, but at the same time the spirit
+that gave it birth was fatal to that careful preparation which alone would
+have insured a chance for success.
+
+[Illustration: Henry Clay Addressing the Senate on the Missouri
+Compromise]
+
+This spirit invaded even the Congress, where strong opposition developed
+to long enlistments. In fact, this body seems to have seriously believed
+that the volunteers would be sufficient to maintain the struggle, and
+while Mr. Davis saw the error and danger involved in both theories, the
+most that could be secured was legislation which provided for a twelve
+months' enlistment. This, in all truth, was bad enough, but it is doubtful
+if it was so pernicious as the methods provided for fixing the rank of
+officers by the relative position formerly held by them in the United
+States army--a measure which from its inception proved a perfect Pandora's
+box of discord and dissension.
+
+
+
+
+XVI. The First Battle
+
+
+The next step of Congress was unquestionably a fatal blunder. This was the
+removal of the capitol from Montgomery to Richmond. From the very nature
+of the situation, it was evident that the chief goal of the enemy would be
+the capture of the capital and the moral effect of such a result must
+prove extremely disastrous, by elating the North, discouraging the South
+and impairing confidence abroad.
+
+Left at Montgomery, it would have compelled the enemy to operate from a
+distant base of supplies, necessitating his keeping open lines of
+communication eight hundred miles long, while it would have liberated to
+be used as occasion demanded, a magnificent army which was constantly
+required for the defense of Richmond. Located as that place is, within
+little more than one hundred miles of the enemy's base, upon a river
+which permitted the ascent of formidable war crafts and within a short
+distance of a strong fortress on a fine harbor, it was a constant
+invitation for aggressions which required all of the energies and most of
+the resources of the South to meet and defend.
+
+When in May the president reached Richmond, its defense was already
+demanding attention. The states had sent forward troops to the aid of
+Virginia and these were divided into three armies. One of these was posted
+at Norfolk. Another, under General Joseph E. Johnston, guarded the
+approach to the Shenandoah Valley, and the third, under General
+Beauregard, covered the direct approach to the capital from near Manassas.
+The day the Federal army moved forward to the invasion of the South, Mr.
+Davis was advised of the fact by one of his secret agents in Washington,
+and he wired Johnston to abandon Harper's Ferry and effect a junction with
+Beauregard--an order executed with the celerity and effectiveness which
+could not have been surpassed by the seasoned troops of a veteran army.
+But a difficulty now arose. Johnston and Beauregard were commanding
+separate armies, and in the face of impending battle it was certainly
+necessary to know who exercised supreme command.
+
+[Illustration: Edward Ruffin, who Fired the First Gun at Sumter]
+
+Under the law of Congress, it was doubtful if either exercised those
+functions, Johnston therefore wired an inquiry and received from Mr. Davis
+only the reply that he was general in the Confederate army. However, the
+anomalous situation and perhaps another motive, which will be hereafter
+noticed, induced the president to hasten forward, so as to be himself
+present upon the field of battle. When he reached Johnston's headquarters,
+the hard-fought day was closing, the storm of battle was dying away to the
+westward and General McDowell's army, routed at every point, was
+retreating in wild disorder toward Washington.
+
+
+
+
+XVII. A Lost Opportunity
+
+
+No man influential in the making of history ever knew less of the art of
+divining character than Jefferson Davis. Entirely ingenous himself, he
+persisted in attributing that virtue to every one else, utterly failing to
+understand the mixed motives that influence all men in most of the affairs
+of life. If he perceived one trait of character, real or imaginary, which
+appealed to his admiration, it was quite sufficient, and forthwith he
+proceeded to attribute to its possessor all of the other qualities which
+he wished him to possess. That conclusion once reached, no amount of
+evidence could overthrow it or even shake his confidence in its
+correctness.
+
+That peculiarity, in some ways admirable in itself, was responsible for
+many of his mistakes and misfortunes. The first vital one attributable to
+that cause was Mr. Davis' selection of the head of the commissary
+department of the Confederate army. Early in his military career, while
+stationed at Fort Crawford, a warm friendship had sprung up between
+himself and Lieutenant Northrop. About the time he resigned his commission
+an accident befell Northrop which compelled him to retire from the army
+also. Thereupon he studied medicine and afterward locating in Charleston
+became a zealous convert to the Catholic faith and beyond the spheres of
+church quarrels and religious polemics, remained an unimportant factor in
+his community. Indeed he seems to have been unable to manage his own small
+affairs with any degree of success, and many of his neighbors and friends
+believed him to be of unsound mind. Mr. Davis had not seen him, and
+probably knew little of his life since he left the army, a quarter of a
+century before. A superficial inquiry must have demonstrated that Dr.
+Northrop was wholly unfitted by education, temperament and experience for
+a position which required business training and executive ability of the
+first order. However, Mr. Davis, remembering the man as he had supposed
+him to be years before, proceeded to appoint him to the most important and
+difficult position under the government.
+
+[Illustration: Robert Toombs]
+
+Colonel Northrop, of course, had ideas of his own and he proceeded to
+execute them without the slightest regard for the wishes or opinions of
+the able and experienced generals who commanded the Confederate armies in
+Northern Virginia.
+
+Near Manassas, where Johnston and Beauregard had been ordered to form a
+junction, a railroad branched off from the main line and traversed the
+famous Shenandoah Valley, then and afterward known as the granary of the
+South. To have supplied the armies with provisions by the use of that line
+whose rolling stock was then comparatively idle would have been one of the
+easiest of military problems; but instead of following that course,
+breadstuffs were transported first from the Valley to Richmond and thence
+over the sadly overtaxed main line to the army at Manassas. But one result
+was possible which, of course, was the almost complete failure of the
+commissary department. Most of the Southern troops went hungry into the
+battle of Bull Run, and not until ten o'clock at night could meager
+rations be procured for the exhausted army. This fact was the real reason
+why General Johnston did not pursue the routed army of McDowell. Johnston,
+Beauregard and President Davis all concurred in the necessity of following
+up the victory, and the latter actually dictated the order to Colonel
+Jordan, but as the commissary department had completely gone to pieces,
+no forward movement was possible then, or, indeed, for months afterward.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XVIII. The Quarrel with Johnston
+
+
+A greater calamity than this, which practically nullified the fruits of
+the victory, soon occurred in the beginning of that unnecessary and
+calamitous quarrel between the President and General Johnston. Much that
+is untrue has been written about its origin, but the facts as learned from
+the principals themselves, and all the records in the case, refer it to a
+single cause which may be stated in few words.
+
+[Illustration: General Joseph E. Johnston]
+
+In March, 1861, the Confederate Congress enacted that the relative rank of
+officers should be determined in the new army by that which they held in
+that of the United States. General Johnston alone of those who resigned
+from the old army held the rank of Brigadier-General and therefore, it
+would seem, should have become the senior general in the Confederate
+armies. In fact, he was recognized as such by the government until after
+the battle of Bull Run.
+
+However, on the Fourth of July the President nominated five generals,
+three of whom took precedence over Johnston, thus reducing him from the
+first general to that of fourth, and in August Congress confirmed the
+nominations as made. Upon learning what had been done, General Johnston
+wrote the President, protesting against what he conceived to be a great
+injustice. His language was moderate and respectful, and it is impossible
+to read his argument without acknowledging its faultless logic. The
+President, however, indorsed upon the document the single word
+"Insubordinate," and sent to the writer a curt, caustic note, which
+without attempting any answer or explanation summarily closed the matter.
+That Johnston was deeply wounded admits of no doubt, but he was too
+great a soldier and man to allow this snub to influence his devotion and
+service, and his attitude toward the President remained throughout the
+struggle eminently correct. Mr. Davis however, was never able to
+understand those who differed from his views. General Johnston often did
+so; wisely as the sequel always proved, but the President invariably
+attributed this difference to the wrong cause. The breach was thereby kept
+open and with what results we shall see.
+
+[Illustration: Generals Lee, Jackson and Johnston]
+
+The most important result of the victory of Bull Run was the tremendous
+enthusiasm that it stirred throughout the South. Volunteers came forward
+so rapidly that they could not be armed and the belief became general that
+it was to be "a ninety days' war." President Davis, however, nursed no
+such delusions. He knew the temper of the great and populous states of the
+North, and he fully realized that defeat would teach caution while
+arousing stronger determination. He, therefore, sought to impress upon
+Congress the necessity of stopping short enlistments and the advisability
+of passing general laws which would place the country in position to
+sustain a long war. But the times were not propitious for that kind of
+advice, and it was lost upon a body whose enthusiasm had temporarily
+exceeded its judgment and discretion.
+
+
+
+
+XIX. The Battle of Shiloh
+
+
+In the fall of 1861 Mr. Davis was elected President of the Confederate
+States for a term of six years, and on the 21st of February in the
+following year he was inaugurated. This message may hardly be called a
+state paper, as it was devoted rather to a recapitulation of the events of
+the war than to discussion of measures or the recommendation of policies.
+
+The tone of the message was hopeful, for notwithstanding the fall of Forts
+Donelson and Henry, and the evacuation of Bowling Green, the fortunes of
+war were decidedly with the South.
+
+However, in those catastrophes, which Mr. Davis passed lightly over, the
+ablest generals in the Southern army saw the first results of the fatal
+policy of attempting with limited resources to defend every threatened
+point of a vast irregular frontier reaching from the Rio Grande to the
+Potomac. The three hundred thousand men in the Confederate army at that
+time could have captured Washington or localized the whole Federal army in
+its defense, but scattered over an area of more than fifteen hundred
+miles, strength was dissipated and at every point they were too weak to
+attempt more than a defensive policy. Upon this point, however, Mr. Davis
+was inflexible, and absolutely refused to abandon any place however
+insignificant from a strategic point of view, even when the soldiers
+holding it might have been used most effectively elsewhere.
+
+The Federal government soon perceived that this was to be the fixed policy
+of the Confederate President and proceeded to make the most of it.
+McClellan's preparation for a blow at Richmond diverted attention from
+the West where General Albert Sidney Johnston was left without hope of
+succor to deal with the armies of Grant and Buell. That great soldier,
+however, was equal to any emergency and prepared to strike before Grant
+and Buell could effect a junction. Fatally hampered as he was by the
+Commissary General's lack of foresight or preparation and with a staff too
+small and inexperienced to render the required services, he forced General
+Grant into the battle of Shiloh. More brilliant generalship was never
+shown upon any field than was that day displayed by the great Texan, who
+drove the Federal army back upon the river in the wildest confusion and
+disorder. At two o'clock the battle was won. A half hour later Johnston
+was dead--a victim of the foolish practice of the Southern generals of
+remaining on the firing line. The command devolved upon Beauregard who,
+instead of completing the victory, stopped the battle while more than two
+hours of daylight remained. He thereby lost all that had been gained and
+insured his own defeat, for during the night, Buell's corps crossed the
+river and easily routed his army on the following day.
+
+What motives actuated Beauregard in this matter can only be conjectured.
+His amazing conduct was never even plausibly explained by himself. It was
+certainly not treachery, for his patriotism was unbounded. It was not
+incompetency, for tried by the usual standards, he was not lacking as a
+general.
+
+He at that time was not on good terms with the President, and then and
+ever he was vain and covetous of honors and fame. Had he completed the
+victory, the administration, the world, history would have credited it to
+Johnston. Had he succeeded in winning it on the following day, it would
+have been his own. From all that can be learned some such reason must have
+influenced him in halting a victorious army in the moment of its
+triumph.
+
+[Illustration: C. G. Memminger]
+
+When the news of the fatal affair at Shiloh reached Davis, his rage knew
+no bounds, but instead of relieving Beauregard of his command and bringing
+him promptly before a court martial, as Frederick or Napoleon would have
+done, he allowed him to remain at the head of the Western army without
+even administering a reprimand. In fact, not until Beauregard had left the
+army on sick leave about a month later did the President express any
+disapprobation. Then he declared that nothing would ever induce him to
+restore the offender to any command. But in most cases Mr. Davis' anger
+was short lived, and while we must admire that gentleness which
+undoubtedly was responsible for his never punishing any offender, it was
+nevertheless a weakness in the South's Chief Executive from which it was
+destined to suffer greater ills than flowed from the oblivion which soon
+shrouded the offenses of this particular general.
+
+
+
+
+XX. The Seven Days of Battle
+
+
+The gloom cast over the South by the reverses of the West by no means
+discouraged President Davis, and taking the field in person he aided and
+directed his generals in preparing for the defense of Richmond against the
+impending attack of McClellan.
+
+The seven days' battle before Richmond are particularly interesting to the
+military critic by reason no less of the valor displayed upon both sides
+than for the masterly strategy used by the two great antagonists.
+
+General Johnston, who had been severely criticised by the President,
+remained long enough on the field of Seven Pines to demonstrate the
+soundness of his plans by winning a great victory before he was stricken
+down and borne unconscious to the rear. General Lee succeeded Johnston,
+and being reinforced by the indomitable Stonewall Jackson, whose soldiers
+were inspired by a series of recent magnificent victories in the Valley of
+Virginia, drove McClellan back so rapidly through a strange and difficult
+country that the wonder is he did not lose his entire army.
+
+For this feat, which must be regarded as one of the most brilliant pieces
+of maneuvering in history, General McClellan was held up to execration and
+even his patriotism was questioned. In fact, the belief is still general
+that he lost the opportunity to capture Richmond, when as a matter of fact
+he could not have done so with an army of twice the size he commanded, as
+must be evident to any one who will remember that it took Grant, with an
+army of 200,000 men, more than a year to accomplish that result when
+confronted not by 100,000 of the best troops the world ever saw led by a
+dozen generals, either one of whom Napoleon would have delighted to have
+made a marshal, but by less than 40,000 worn, starved and ragged veterans
+whose great commanders with one or two exceptions, had fallen in battle.
+President Davis was not an ungenerous enemy and at the time, as well as
+frequently in later life, expressed warm admiration for the soldierly
+qualities that enabled McClellan to extricate himself from a situation
+which must have proved fatal to a less able commander.
+
+
+
+
+XXI. Butler's Infamous Order 28
+
+
+This series of victories in some measure offset the blow the South
+sustained in the fall of New Orleans, and immediately thereafter the
+President attempted to deal with the situation in that quarter in a way
+which will serve to throw a strong side light upon another phase of his
+character. General Butler had hanged a semi-idiotic boy by the name of
+Munford for hauling down the flag from the mint. The act was one of
+impolicy, if not of wanton barbarity, and it aroused a storm of
+indignation throughout the South. This was, in a few days, followed by the
+infamous "Order No. 28," which in retaliation for snubs received at the
+hands of the women of New Orleans, licensed the soldiers, upon repetition
+of the offense, "to greet them as women of the town plying their
+avocation."
+
+President Davis at once issued a proclamation declaring Butler an outlaw,
+and placing a price upon his head and commanding that no commissioned
+officer of the United States should be exchanged until the culprit should
+meet with due punishment. The officers in Butler's army were also declared
+to be felons, their exchange was prohibited and they were ordered to be
+treated as common criminals.
+
+As to the justice of the proclamation so far as it related to Butler
+himself few North or South at this day who have read "Order No. 28" will
+be inclined to question. But to attempt to attain to the officers of a
+numerous army with the guilt of a personal act of its commander must, upon
+due reflection, have appeared as absurd to the President as it did to the
+rest of the country. As a matter of fact the proclamation was never
+attempted to be executed although abundant chances were presented, and it
+is very probable that had Butler himself fallen into the hands of the
+Confederates he would have had nothing worse than imprisonment to fear had
+his fate been left to the President.
+
+Mr. Davis, as we all know, issued some very sanguinary proclamations in
+his time, but they were altogether sound and fury, "signifying nothing,"
+and not one of them was ever enforced. He no doubt hoped that their
+terrible aspect would operate as a deterrent and no doubt they did at
+first. But gradually their seriousness came to be questioned and then they
+became a subject of amusement to both friend and foe. During his most
+eventful administration, although hundreds of death warrants of criminals,
+who richly deserved the extreme punishment, came before him he never
+signed one of them or permitted an execution when he had the slightest
+opportunity to interfere.
+
+This, of course, was charged by Pollard and other enemies to his desire
+to save himself, in the event the Confederacy should fail, but no motive
+could have been further from the correct one than this view of the case.
+The truth is that Jefferson Davis was as kindly, tender, gentle and
+considerate as a woman, and it was quite impossible for him to assume the
+responsibility of inflicting serious punishment or suffering of any kind
+upon any of God's creatures, human or otherwise. Had he hanged a few
+prisoners upon one or two occasions, it would have been of inestimable
+benefit to the South; had he executed one or two deserters in 1864, he
+would at once have checked an evil which was threatening the very
+existence of the Confederacy, but he did neither, although fully realizing
+the impolicy of his course. And whatever we may think of his strength of
+character we can but love the man whose humanity triumphed over passions,
+prejudice, policy and wisdom and brought him through those awful times
+that frightfully developed the savage instinct in the best of men without
+the taint of bloodshed upon his conscience.
+
+
+
+
+XXII. Mental Imperfections
+
+
+History must finally charge all of Mr. Davis' blunders to no moral
+defective sense but rather to imperfect mental conceptions augmented and
+intensified by a strong infusion of self-confidence and stubbornness which
+frequently destroyed the perspective and blinded him to the truth apparent
+to other men of far less capacity. Criticism, however well meant, never
+enlightened him to his own mistakes.
+
+If he made a bad appointment, he saw in the objection to his protege
+ignorance of his merit, jealousy, a disposition to persecute, in fact
+anything rather than the possibility that he himself might have made a
+mistake.
+
+This unfortunate mental attitude, combined with the fixed idea that his
+genius was that of the soldier was responsible for the most unfortunate
+acts of his life. What his real merits as a soldier were we can only
+conjecture. In the Mexican War he demonstrated first-rate ability, but his
+highest command was that of a regiment. Although he constantly interfered
+with some of his generals with suggestions, sometimes tantamount to
+commands, he never exercised the military prerogative in directing troops
+in the field. We know that those suggestions were often wrong, but before
+concluding that his capacity as an active commander must be determined by
+them, we must remember that they were given usually at a great distance,
+and that they might have been otherwise had he understood the situation as
+thoroughly as he supposed he did. There is probably no doubt that he would
+have proved a splendid brigade commander, but it is more than doubtful if
+he could ever have understood the science of war as Lee or Johnston or
+Jackson knew it.
+
+[Illustration: The Site of the Prison Camp on the James Below Richmond]
+
+In Virginia, where President Davis did not attempt to interfere with his
+generals, the most brilliant triumphs of the South were won, and while
+this is not assigned as the only reason, the fact is nevertheless
+significant. From second Manassas, where the vain, boastful General Pope,
+who had won notoriety at Shiloh by reporting the capture of 10,000
+Confederates whom he must also have eaten as they never figured in parol,
+prison or exchange lists--was annihilated by Jackson, to the brilliant
+victory of Chancellorsville where the great soldier sealed his faith with
+his life-blood, the army of Northern Virginia was handled with that
+consummate generalship and displayed a degree of heroism which must ever
+challenge the admiration of mankind as the most perfect fighting machine
+in the world's history.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII. Blunders of the Western Army
+
+
+During this time the Western army suffered one disaster after another in
+such rapid succession that the warmest friends of the Confederacy began to
+despair of its future. Thoroughly alarmed. President Davis overcame his
+animosity sufficiently to send General Johnston to the rescue, but instead
+of giving him full authority over one or both of the armies he designated
+him as the commander of a geographical department with little more than
+the power usually invested in an inspector general.
+
+Bragg, the most unfortunate of all the Southern generals, commanded in
+Tennessee, where he was out-generaled and defeated at Murfreesboro when he
+held all of the winning cards in his own hands. His blunders upon that
+field so enraged his officers that they were almost in revolt against him.
+However, in his fidelity to his old friend and comrade, Mr. Davis failed
+to discover what was evident to every intelligent lieutenant in the army,
+and Bragg was continued in command to perpetrate other blunders still more
+costly and unpardonable.
+
+The Southern corps of the Western army was still worse handled. The
+Mississippi River, after the fall of New Orleans and Memphis, was of
+little or no use to the Confederacy, but Mr. Davis conceived the idea that
+it must be defended although that course, necessarily would weaken Bragg
+and render success impossible to either corps.
+
+To the command of the Southern corps, Mr. Davis appointed General
+Pemberton, a theoretical soldier who it was alleged had never witnessed
+any considerable engagement. However this may be, his conduct fully
+sustained the allegation, for, from start to finish, he seems to have
+been mystified by the tactics of Grant and Sherman, and after a series of
+marches and countermarches in which he lost much and gained nothing he
+fell back on Vicksburg, perhaps the most indefensible city in America, and
+prepared to sustain a siege, the outcome of which could not be doubtful
+for a moment.
+
+[Illustration: On the Field of Cold Harbor Today]
+
+Being safely driven into a position from which there was but one line of
+retreat, Pemberton appealed to the President for aid, and General Johnston
+was instructed to furnish it. His soldierly mind saw at a glance that the
+proper thing to do was to abandon Vicksburg, and he accordingly ordered
+Pemberton to do so. That officer protested and appealed to Mr. Davis, who
+sustained him and notified Johnston that under no circumstances must
+Vicksburg be abandoned. That decision sealed the fate of Pemberton's army,
+and on the day General Grant invested it he telegraphed to Washington
+that its fall was only a question of time. How that prediction was
+verified by the surrender of Pemberton's army of 30,000 men, thus leaving
+Grant and Sherman free to double back on Bragg, are too well known to need
+any discussion at this time. All thinking men realized that it sealed the
+doom of the Confederacy unless the Northern campaign of General Lee should
+prove successful.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV. Davis and Gettysburg
+
+
+The conception of the Gettysburg campaign has been properly attributed to
+Mr. Davis, but much of the criticism that it has evoked is unfair being
+based upon a misconception of the object sought to be attained. If one
+will consider the moral effect that the victory of Chancellorsville
+produced throughout the North, that many influential leaders and a large
+part of the press openly declared that another such calamity must be
+followed by the recognition of the Confederacy, the idea of this Northern
+campaign, it must be conceded, was founded upon sound military principles.
+Military critics are very generally agreed that Gettysburg would have been
+a Confederate instead of a Union victory had the Southern troops occupied
+Little Round Top on the evening of the first day. That they did not is a
+fortuitous circumstance, which can militate nothing against the soundness
+of the idea involved in the campaign, while the fact that a victory so
+great as to have been decisive lay within easy grasp of the Confederates
+would seem to amply justify the hazard on the part of President Davis.
+
+The last reasonable hope of success was over when Lee retreated from
+Pennsylvania, but if Mr. Davis recognized that fact he gave no indication
+of it. On the other hand, adversity had begun to develop that real
+strength of character which a little later was destined to win the respect
+of his enemies and the admiration of the rest of the world.
+
+Confederate finances had now sunk to so low an ebb that a collapse seemed
+inevitable. Congress passed one futile piece of legislation after another,
+each worse than its predecessor, and matters went from bad to worse with
+startling rapidity. Mr. Davis was not a financier, but he brought forward
+a plan which, while it laid perhaps the heaviest burden of taxation ever
+placed upon a people, nevertheless served for a time to stem the fast
+rising tide of national bankruptcy.
+
+About the same time, deeply impressed with the suffering of Federal
+prisoners caused by the cruel policy of refusing exchanges, he attempted
+to send Vice-President Stephens to Washington to negotiate a general
+cartel with President Lincoln, but Stephens was allowed to proceed no
+farther than Fortress Monroe, and nothing came of the mission which was
+conceived by Mr. Davis purely in the interest of humanity.
+
+As the fall drew on, Bragg was being pressed steadily back by an
+overwhelming force under Rosecrans, and it became apparent that another
+disaster was impending over the Confederacy. To avert it President Davis
+hurried Longstreet's corps forward as reinforcements, a policy the
+soundness of which was demonstrated a little later by the great victory of
+Chickamauga.
+
+But again Bragg failed to measure up to the situation, and instead of
+capturing or destroying his antagonist, which a prompt pursuit must have
+insured, he actually refused to understand that he had won a victory until
+its fruits were beyond his reach. Not even that costly piece of stupidity
+could quite shake the confidence of the President in his old friend, and
+it was not until Bragg had insured and received his own disastrous defeat
+at Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain, by sending Longstreet's whole
+corps away on a wild-goose chase against Knoxville, that his resignation
+was accepted; and even then he was taken to Richmond and duly installed as
+the military adviser of the Chief Executive.
+
+[Illustration: The Battle of the Crater]
+
+The fortunes of the Confederacy were now at a low ebb. The Western army
+was demoralized and so hopeless seemed the task of reorganization that one
+general after another refused to undertake it, until in his dilemma the
+President turned once more to General Johnston. That splendid soldier,
+forgetting past injuries, accepted the command and soon succeeded in
+creating an army whose very existence infused new courage throughout the
+Confederacy. In the meantime, Mr. Davis' resolution rose superior over the
+reverses that were everywhere overwhelming his government, and our
+admiration for the man vastly increases as we see him steering, wisely
+now, his foundering nation into that dark year 1864, destined to reveal to
+us a great man growing greater, better and more lovable under the heavy
+accumulation of terrible misfortune.
+
+
+
+
+XXV. The Chief of a Heroic People
+
+
+The world has never witnessed a more sublime spectacle than that presented
+by the Southern people at the beginning of 1864. The finances of the
+government had gone from bad to worse until it required a bursting purse
+to purchase a dinner. Or, rather it would have done so had the dinner been
+procurable at all, which in most cases it was not. Gaunt famine stalked
+through a desolate land scarred by the remains of destroyed homes and
+drenched in the blood of its best manhood. Scarcely a home had escaped the
+besom of death and destruction, and, on the lordly domains where once a
+prodigal and princely hospitality had been daily dispensed, children cried
+in vain for the bread that the broken-hearted mother could no longer give.
+That such terrific desolation should have failed to force submission is
+almost beyond understanding, but it produced exactly the opposite result.
+
+Delicately nurtured women, reared in ease and luxury, cheerfully chose to
+starve in thread-bare garments while they sent their silver and jewels to
+the government to enable it to continue the struggle. They bade their
+husbands and sons and brothers to remain at the front and never sheathe
+their swords unless in an honorable peace; and forthwith the stripling of
+tender years and the gray-bearded grandsire, bowed with the infirmities of
+time, went forth to perform prodigies of valor upon the last sanguinary
+fields of the dying Confederacy.
+
+The President of the Confederacy was too wise a man not to realize the
+significance of the situation at that time. He fully realized the awful
+suffering of his people. He saw his armies driven from the West, the
+lines of the Confederacy daily contracting. He saw the last hope of
+foreign intervention die and he witnessed the birth, even in the
+government, of a strong spirit of hostility to himself. What this must
+have meant to a man of his sensitive, kindly nature we may readily guess,
+but to the world his attitude was most admirable. Calm, resolute, majestic
+he stood at the helm, steering the foundering craft of state through the
+last storm as steadily, as resolutely as though he knew a haven of safety
+instead of destruction to lie just beyond.
+
+[Illustration: Mr. and Mrs. Davis in 1863]
+
+Early in 1864 it became apparent that such an effort as had never been
+made before to crush the Confederacy was impending. General Grant was
+transferred to the East, and early in the spring with a magnificent army
+of 162,000 began his advance upon Richmond. The great Confederate
+chieftain, Lee, with a force one-third as great confronted him, and then
+began that mighty duel which must always remain the wonder and admiration
+of the world. In the Wilderness Lee struck a staggering blow, which halted
+the advance and doubled up the Federal army. Grant announced that he
+proposed to fight it out on that line if it took all summer, straightened
+his lines and began the campaign, which one may more readily understand if
+he will imagine some Titan armed with a ponderous hammer, confronting a
+wily, agile antagonist, who must rely upon a rapier sharp, indeed, but
+slender to a dangerous degree. Incessantly through those spring days the
+forests rang with the clamor of blows. At Culpepper and Spottsylvania and
+North Anna the hammer fell and was parried by the rapier, Grant always
+moving by the flank and seeking to out-maneuver his antagonist and always
+failing to do so. By June, the two armies in their side-stepping tactics
+had reached Cold Harbor, where Grant in a great frontal attack lost 13,000
+men in a few moments, which must have convinced him that it would take
+longer than all summer to fight it out on that line, as he then and there
+abandoned it and adopted a new one. In three months he had lost 150,000
+men and was not so near Richmond as McClellan had been in 1862.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI. Sherman and Johnston
+
+
+In the meantime that campaign which was destined to place Sherman and
+Johnston in the very front rank of the world's great commanders, was in
+progress. Both were masters of military strategy and each fully
+appreciated the ability of the other. Sherman ever seeking to draw
+Johnston into a pitched battle was constantly thwarted. At Dalton, Resaca
+and Marietta Johnston delivered hard blows, falling back before his
+antagonist could use his superior numbers to any advantage.
+
+By this means he reached Atlanta with a larger army than he had in the
+beginning of the campaign, while that of Sherman had decreased from one
+hundred to little more than fifty thousand. Johnston's tactics of wearing
+out the enemy by drawing him through a hostile country away from his base
+of supplies is now admitted by military critics to have been a piece of
+masterly strategy. It is also generally conceded that Sherman could not
+have captured Atlanta by siege with three times his force. But although
+Johnston had repulsed every assault upon his works and was daily growing
+stronger, President Davis was greatly displeased with this defensive
+policy and constantly importuned him to give battle. This Johnston refused
+to do and was relieved of the command by the President, who appointed
+General Hood, whom he declared "would at least deliver one manly blow for
+the South."
+
+In so far as the delivery of the blow was concerned he was destined not to
+be disappointed, but very greatly so in the result.
+
+[Illustration: The Davis Children in 1863]
+
+The very day that he took command, Hood, a brave, impetuous man of slight
+ability and poor judgment, left his works, furiously assaulted Sherman,
+and was promptly cut to pieces. The Confederate army was practically
+annihilated, and the fall of Atlanta made certain the success of that
+famous march to the sea which alone would have doomed the Confederacy.
+
+General Johnston, too great to cherish resentment, once more yielded to
+the appeals of the President and took command of the shattered army. But
+the time had passed when he might have accomplished any substantial
+results and henceforth even his genius could not serve to postpone the
+end.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII. Mr. Davis' Humanity
+
+
+In the meantime, amidst these disasters and the gloomy forebodings that
+were settling over the South, Mr. Davis did not forget the sufferings of
+the army of captives that languished in Southern prisons. Time and again
+he had sought to establish a cartel for the exchange of all prisoners but
+it had never been faithfully observed by the Federal government, and at
+last General Grant had refused to exchange upon any terms, declaring that
+to do so would ensue the defeat of Sherman's army. The result was that the
+Southern prisons were rapidly filled, and as supplies and medicines
+failed, the sufferings in some places, notably Andersonville, became
+intense. The prisoners were placed upon the same rations as the
+Confederate soldiers, but they had never been used to such fare and it
+meant starvation to them. The ravages of malaria among them was appalling,
+and yet as the Federal government had made quinine contraband of war not
+an ounce of it could be procured for their use.
+
+Mr. Davis, whose strongest trait of character was gentleness and humanity,
+felt keenly this state of affairs, and sought by every power at his
+command to ameliorate it. When the proposition to exchange was rejected,
+he asked that medicines and supplies be sent for the exclusive use of
+Northern prisoners. When that was refused, he asked that doctors and
+nurses be furnished from the Federal army. That also failing, and the
+condition of the sufferers at Andersonville growing worse he finally
+offered to liberate them provided the government would take them out of
+the South--a proposition which was not accepted until after many months of
+useless delay which cost thousands of lives.
+
+[Illustration: The Famous Libby Prison as It Appeared at the Close of the
+War]
+
+Thus it will be seen how baseless was that calumny which yet survives in
+some quarters that Jefferson Davis was responsible for the sufferings of
+those poor unfortunates who in reality were sacrificed by an indifferent
+government, which feared to recruit the ranks of the Confederate army by
+the exchange of prisoners although such a course was dictated by the laws
+of civilized warfare no less than by motives of humanity. In reality Mr.
+Davis did far more than required by the laws of nations, and the verdict
+of history not only acquits him of any share in that great iniquity, but
+places him in marked contrast to his antagonists who chose to sacrifice
+their soldiers rather than jeopardize the prospects of an early final
+victory.
+
+The brilliant victory of Colquitt at Ocean Pond, of Forest at Fort Pillow,
+and other minor successes gained by the Confederate leaders added scarcely
+a transient ray of hope. Clouds of smoke by day, a pillar of fire by
+night, marked the advance of Sherman through Georgia. The most fruitful
+region of the South was left a charred and desolate ruin. Tilly, the Duke
+of Alva, nor Wallenstein ever left destruction so complete and
+irremediable as that which marked the path of that great soldier who
+declared war was hell and fully lived up to that harsh conviction.
+
+After the fall of Savannah, the blue legions now irresistible, turned
+northward, and it became apparent that the vitals of the Confederacy lay
+between the two huge iron jaws of Grant's and Sherman's armies which were
+closing with a steady force that nothing could resist.
+
+Day and night Grant rained his mighty sledge-hammer blows upon the
+defenses of the devoted capital, which Lee met and parried with the skill
+of consummate military genius. But the blade of the rapier was growing
+thinner and the time must come when it would break. Holding works forty
+miles in length with less than a thousand soldiers to the mile, he
+inflicted repulse after repulse until the Southern people came to regard
+him as invincible.
+
+Even Mr. Davis, who was now almost constantly with his great Captain,
+seems to have shared the delusion, and despite his warnings that the end
+must soon come delayed his departure from Richmond.
+
+At last on Sunday, April 2, 1865, a courier entered old St. John's in the
+midst of services and handed the President a telegram. It was General
+Lee's notice that he could no longer hold his lines. Mr. Davis quietly
+left the church, but all understood and soon a panic reigned in the quiet
+old city. This was increased by the terrific explosions that came from the
+river and arsenals where warships and military supplies were being
+destroyed. That night the fires from burning warehouses lighted the train
+that bore out of the doomed city the President and his cabinet and the
+archives of the fugitive government. Whether from the sparks of the
+burning arsenals or from the torches of incendiaries will never be known,
+but that night a fierce conflagration swept over the city, and when in the
+gray dawn of the next morning General Godfrey Weitzel's cavalry rode
+through the smoldering streets and raised the stars and stripes over
+Virginia's ancient and the Confederates' recent capital, it floated over a
+scene of desolation only a little less complete than Napoleon beheld when
+he looked for the last time from the ancient Krimlin upon destroyed
+Moscow.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII. General Lee's Surrender
+
+
+History has fully recorded the last scenes of the heroic effort of the
+peerless Lee to fall back upon Danville and effect a junction with General
+Johnston and it is unnecessary here to relate how surrounded by
+overwhelming numbers and reduced to starvation he finally at Appomattox
+surrendered the remaining 7,500 of that superb army which, without doubt,
+had been the most magnificent fighting machine in the world's history.
+
+In the meantime the fugitive government reached Danville in a pouring
+rain. There were no accommodations for the officials, no place to install
+the executive machinery. General Breckenridge, sitting upon a camp stool
+in front of the damp dingy little station, studied a map and drew the
+lines along which Johnston and Lee should advance. The Secretary of
+State, reclining upon a knapsack, talked hopefully of the recognition that
+was certain to arrive from England and France in a few days. Mr. Reagan
+chewed a straw and said nothing. It was a dull day in the department of
+justice, and the Attorney-General paced the platform and looked
+thoughtfully toward Canada. At last it was decided to begin work and the
+clerks seated themselves around tables in the cars, and the government was
+soon once more issuing all kinds of orders. Mr. Davis, calm and tranquil
+as usual, had made up his mind never to surrender as long as resistance
+was possible unless he could secure favorable terms for his people. For
+himself he asked nothing, but he believed it his duty to continue the
+struggle until the fundamental principles of a free people should be
+secured for the South. This he did not doubt could be accomplished by the
+junction of Lee and Johnston. It was, of course, a great blow to his
+hopes when the news of Lee's surrender reached him, but he belonged to
+that rare type of man whose courage and resolution grow stronger in the
+face of adversity. His only hope now lay in Johnston's army, but with it
+he declared the South could conquer an honorable peace against the world
+in arms.
+
+[Illustration: The Surrender of Lee]
+
+With this idea in view the wandering government moved on to Greensboro.
+There, the President was informed by General Johnston of the utter
+hopelessness of longer continuing the struggle. That the old veteran was
+right now admits of no doubt, but Mr. Davis combated the idea most
+vigorously. Johnston assured him that while a surrender was a matter of
+days in any event that Sherman would sign an agreement guaranteeing the
+political rights of the people in the subjugated states. This Mr. Davis
+rightfully believed the Federal government would repudiate, but left his
+general full discretion in the matter, moving on southward, intending to
+cross the Mississippi, join the army of Kirby Smith and continue the war
+in Texas.
+
+Just as he was leaving Greensboro he received the news of President
+Lincoln's assassination. None who ever really knew Mr. Davis can doubt
+what his feelings were upon that occasion. General Reagan, who was with
+him, says his face expressed surprise and horror in the most unmistakable
+manner. "It is too bad, it is shocking, it is horrible!" he declared, and
+then after a moment's reflection added, "This is bad for the South. Mr.
+Lincoln understood us and at least was not an ungenerous foe."
+
+That very morning the little daughter of his host came running in and in
+wide-eyed terror said that some one had told her that "Old Lincoln was
+coming to kill everybody." Mr. Davis, taking her upon his knees, said
+soothingly: "You are wrong, my dear, Mr. Lincoln is not a bad man. He
+would not willingly harm any one, and he dearly loves little girls like
+you." These incidents, trivial enough in themselves, are nevertheless
+interesting as indices of Jefferson Davis' opinion of Mr. Lincoln.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX. The Capture of Davis
+
+
+Proceeding to Charlotte, Mr. Davis there learned of the surrender of
+General Johnston. Determining to make his way to Texas he decided to take
+a southerly route which he hoped to find free from Federal troops. A
+cavalry force of about two thousand accompanied him as far as the Savannah
+River, but there discovering General Wilson's brigade to be in the country
+in front it was deemed advisable for the force to disband and Mr. Davis,
+with Burton Harrison, his secretary, and a few others to go forward in the
+hope of escaping discovery.
+
+At Irwinsville, Ga., he learned that his family, which was also proceeding
+westward, was but a few miles away and he was advised that the country was
+filled with marauders who were rifling and robbing all strangers whose
+appearance indicated the possession of valuables. This information,
+coupled with the story that Mrs. Davis' party was believed to possess a
+valuable treasure, so alarmed Mr. Davis for the safety of his family that
+he resolved to join it at all hazards. This resolution cost him his
+liberty.
+
+Perhaps no event of history has ever been so grossly and malignantly
+misrepresented as the capture of Jefferson Davis. At the time an absurd
+story was published along with a cartoon in even so respectable a paper as
+_Harper's Weekly_, which represented Mr. Davis at the time of his capture
+arrayed in shawl, bonnet and hoop-skirts, and, strange as it may seem,
+this ridiculous screed is still accepted by thousands of intelligent
+people as correct history. The true facts of the case, as learned from Mr.
+Davis and corroborated by both General Wilson and Mr. Burton Harrison, are
+as follows:
+
+[Illustration: Richmond as Gen. Weitzel Entered It]
+
+The Confederate President reached the spot where his wife's party had
+pitched its tent after nightfall. During the evening it was decided that,
+to avoid discovery, he would leave the party on the following day and
+thenceforward would proceed westward alone. About daylight the travelers
+were awakened by firing across a nearby stream, and Mr. Davis thinking it
+an attack from marauders remarked to his wife that he hoped he still had
+enough influence with the Southern people to prevent her robbery and
+stepped out of the tent. Almost immediately he returned saying it was not
+marauders but Federal soldiers. Mrs. Davis, frantic with fright, begged
+him to fly. In the darkness of the tent he picked up a light rain coat,
+which he supposed to be his own but which belonged to his wife, and she
+threw a shawl around his shoulders. His horse stood saddled by the
+roadside and he ran toward it, but before he could reach it a trooper
+interposed and with leveled carbine bade him surrender. Intending to place
+his hand under the foot of the soldier and topple him out of the saddle he
+gave a defiant answer and rushed forward. Mrs. Davis, however, now
+interposed and Mr. Davis seeing the opportunity lost walked back to the
+tent, where a few moments later he surrendered to Colonel Pritchard of the
+Fifth Michigan Cavalry.
+
+No soldier who took part in the capture of Mr. Davis ever supposed that he
+attempted to disguise himself, and the story of the bonnet and the
+hoop-skirts is, of course, pure fiction. The picture of the illustrious
+captive, presented in this edition, represents him exactly as he appeared
+at the time of his capture, when divested of the shawl and raglan, which
+in no way served to conceal his identity, much less his sex.
+
+Despite the efforts of Colonel Pritchard to spare Mr. Davis all
+indignities, many insults were heaped upon him enroute to Macon. Once
+arrived at that point he was furnished with a comfortable suite of rooms
+and after a time General Wilson sought an interview, during the course of
+which Mr. Davis first learned that he was accused of complicity in the
+assassination of President Lincoln, and of Andrew Johnson's proclamation
+offering $100,000 reward for his apprehension.
+
+Those who knew Mr. Davis will remember him best by his habitual expression
+of calm dignity and benign gentleness. One would imagine that scorn or
+contempt could never disturb that face, but General Wilson says that when
+he imparted the above information that his lips curved in contempt, that
+his brows were knitted and that there was a deep gleam of anger in his
+eyes which, however, soon softened away as he remarked, with a half rueful
+smile, that there was at least one man in the United States who knew that
+charge to be false. General Wilson, of course, asked who it was, and Mr.
+Davis replied, "The author of the proclamation himself, for he, at least,
+knows that of the two I would have preferred Lincoln as president."
+
+From Macon Mr. Davis was sent under guard to Augusta, and from thence on a
+river tug in company with Clement C. Clay and Alexander H. Stephens, to
+Port Royal, where they were transferred to a steamer which conveyed them
+to Fortress Monroe. During the time they were anchored off shore crafts of
+all descriptions swarmed around, and the insults and gibes of the morbid
+sight seekers keenly annoyed the illustrious prisoner, and it was a relief
+when a file of soldiers came to escort him ashore. He requested permission
+from General Miles for his family to proceed to Washington or Richmond,
+but this was curtly refused and they were sent back to Savannah.
+
+
+
+
+XXX. A Nation's Shame
+
+
+In fortress Monroe, Mr. Davis was confined in a gun room of a casement
+which was heavily barricaded with iron bars. Two sentries with loaded
+muskets and fixed bayonets were posted in the room, while two others paced
+up and down in front of his cell.
+
+Escape would have been impossible for any one, however strong and
+vigorous, and he, now an old man, was weak, feeble and emaciated.
+
+Yet on the third day after his incarceration, while the victorious troops
+of the republic were passing in solemn review before the President and
+generals of a great nation, there was enacted in that little cell at
+Fortress Monroe a scene which must forever cause the blush of shame to
+mantle the brow of every American at its mere mention. A file of soldiers
+entered the cell and Captain Jerome Titlow, with evident pain and
+reluctance informed Mr. Davis that he had a most unpleasant duty to
+perform, which was to place manacles upon him. Mr. Davis demanded who had
+given such an order, and upon being informed that it was General Miles,
+asked to see him. This was refused by Captain Titlow, who sought to induce
+him to submit peaceably to the inevitable. "It is an order which no
+soldier would give and which none should obey. Shoot me now and end at
+once this miserable persecution!" At the same time the fallen chieftain
+drew himself up to his full height and faced the soldiers, his hands
+clenching in convulsive grasps and his eyes gleaming like those of a
+hunted tiger driven to bay. A word from Captain Titlow and a soldier with
+the shackles in hand advanced, but before he could touch the captive he
+dealt him a blow which felled him upon the floor. Necessarily the struggle
+was a short one and in a few moments heavy irons were riveted upon his
+ankles and one of the foremost of living statesmen lay upon a miserable
+straw mattress chained as though he had been the vilest of desperate
+criminals.
+
+Had Garibaldi or Napoleon after Sedan been subjected to the crowning
+indignity inflicted upon Jefferson Davis all Europe would have rung with
+the infamy of the brutal act, and yet the whirlwind of sectional strife
+had so fanned the fires of prejudice and hatred that the act was generally
+applauded at the North, and the officer responsible for this crime against
+civilization for many years exhibited the shackles as though they had been
+a trophy of honorable victory.
+
+Let us as Americans be thankful that such perverted sentiment was short
+lived, and that a day came when the infamous act was repudiated as
+wantonly cruel and brutal, and its perpetrators were more anxious to avoid
+the responsibility for it than formerly they had been to assume it. There
+is now no longer any doubt as to the person who is responsible for placing
+Jefferson Davis in irons, but it is only fair to General Miles to say that
+he was very young at the time. The grave charges against Mr. Davis, no
+doubt, served to mislead his immature judgment, and from the fact that
+Louis Napoleon had recently escaped from a fortification in France he, no
+doubt, believed that the extreme and cruel measure was necessary.
+
+In justice it should be further stated that as soon as General Miles
+believed the danger of escape no longer great he gave orders for the
+removal of the shackles, and thereafter treated Mr. Davis with much
+kindness. The story of Mr. Davis' two years' imprisonment at Fortress
+Monroe is too well known from Dr. Craven's impartial, if somewhat
+fragmentary, account to need further repetition here.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI. Efforts to Execute Mr. Davis
+
+
+It is a difficult matter at this distance of time to realize the attitude
+of public sentiment against Jefferson Davis the state prisoner of Fortress
+Monroe. As the chief executive of the late Confederacy, he was, in popular
+estimation, the incarnation, if not the proximate cause, of all the sins
+and suffering of Rebellion, but worse than all the administration which in
+feverish, puerile haste had declared him an accessory to the assassination
+of Mr. Lincoln and upon that score had paid out of the public treasury
+$100,000 for his capture, could not, or rather dared not reverse its
+attitude and speak the truth. The result was, of course, that the vast
+majority of the people at the North believed Mr. Davis to be as guilty of
+murder as he was of treason, and consequently there was a mighty clamor
+for his summary execution.
+
+Had there been a scintilla of evidence, nay, had there been any fact which
+human ingenuity could have tortured into a plausible resemblance to guilty
+knowledge of Mr. Lincoln's death, no one will now doubt that Jefferson
+Davis would have been murdered as was Mrs. Serrat.
+
+Andrew Johnston within ninety days after he had issued his ridiculously
+false proclamation admitted it to be without foundation--a fact which all
+along was fully realized by every member of the government who had
+personally known the accused. And yet a coterie of radicals, headed by a
+conspicuous member of the Cabinet, continued to search by such
+questionable means for incriminating evidence that it disgusted the just,
+conservative men of all parties, and they demanded that the senseless
+accusation be dropped for all time.
+
+However, a chance yet remained to dispose of the fallen chieftain without
+incurring any of the trouble and risk that must arise from a trial
+according to the laws of the land.
+
+Thousands of Federal prisoners had starved and died at Andersonville and
+throughout the North this tale of suffering had inspired such horror and
+indignation that there was a general demand for the punishment of those
+who were supposed to be responsible for it. Captain Wirz, the commandant
+of Andersonville, was accordingly haled before a drum-head court martial
+and, despite the fact that he conclusively demonstrated that conditions
+responsible for the horrors of that pest hole were beyond his own control,
+or that of any man or number of men in the Confederacy, he was promptly
+convicted and was sentenced to death.
+
+Then a serviceable, if not honorable, idea seized the hysterical radicals,
+which was nothing less than the feasibility of holding Jefferson Davis
+responsible for the horrors of Andersonville. But there again the
+ingenuity of malice failed to discover any evidence except that which was
+highly creditable to the intended victim.
+
+All that followed in the nefarious plot is not and never will be fully
+known, but from the declaration of the priest, who was Captain Wirz's
+spiritual adviser, as well as from other authentic information, there is
+no room whatever to doubt that the condemned man was offered his life and
+liberty if he would swear that in the management of the prison he had
+acted under the direction of Jefferson Davis. Captain Wirz, however, was a
+brave and honorable man and scorning to purchase his life with such a lie,
+he met his fate like a soldier. This left but one other course open. If
+Mr. Davis were to be punished at all, it must be for treason. The idea
+appealed to the radicals with something of the same zest that a child
+experiences from its first gaudy toy, and for a time they fairly reveled
+in visions of a court martial which, unincumbered of the troublesome rules
+of evidence observed in courts of law, would speedily give the desired
+result.
+
+But fortunately for the American people, there were men in the Cabinet and
+in Congress, who knowing the law, clearly saw that such a course of
+procedure must shock the whole civilized world and reduce the guarantees
+of the Constitution to a parity with the so-called organic law of the
+revolutionary despotisms of Central American and South America. Against
+this sentiment the ravings of the vindictive cabal availed nothing, and,
+as the months went by, it became evident that if a trial ever came, it
+must be according to the laws of the land.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII. Indictment of Mr. Davis
+
+
+In the meantime Mr. Davis was constantly demanding that he be given the
+speedy and impartial trial provided in such cases by the Constitution.
+
+Charles O'Connor, then the greatest of living lawyers, Henry Ould and many
+other leading members of the bar from the Northern states volunteered to
+defend Mr. Davis, while Thaddeus Stevens proffered his services to Clement
+C. Clay. Horace Greeley, through the columns of the _Tribune_, constantly
+demanded that Mr. Davis be either liberated or brought to trial, and by
+the spring of the year 1866 he had created such a sentiment throughout the
+country in favor of his contentions that the government could no longer
+delay some action.
+
+Accordingly in May an indictment was procured, charging Jefferson Davis
+with high treason against the United States, and in June of the same year
+Mr. Boutwell offered a resolution in Congress that the accused should be
+tried according to the laws of the land, which passed that body by a vote
+of 105 to 19.
+
+But despite that resolution, there were those who clearly foresaw the
+danger involved in it, and hoping that time might dispose of the necessity
+for any trial at all, urged delay as the wisest measure. Consequently,
+despite the efforts of Greeley and Gerritt Smith, and other great men of
+the North, the trial was postponed until May, 1867.
+
+Mr. Davis, weak pale and emaciated, appeared before Chief Justice Chase
+sitting with Justice Underwood in the Circuit Court at Richmond. The
+court-room was crowded to its utmost capacity and despite the stern
+discipline sought to be enforced it was with the greatest difficulty that
+the applause could be suppressed that from time to time greeted the
+profound logic and masterly eloquence of Charles O'Connor's great speech
+on a motion to quash the indictment. The arguments lasted two days and at
+their conclusion Chief Justice Chase voted to quash the indictment, while
+Justice Underwood voted to sustain it, thus necessitating a reference of
+the matter to the Supreme Court of the United States for final decision.
+In accordance with a previous arrangement Mr. Davis was soon afterward
+admitted to bail, Horace Greeley, Gerritt Smith, Augustus Schell and a
+number of other former political enemies becoming his bondsmen.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII. Why Davis Was Not Tried for Treason
+
+
+From that moment the administration knew that Jefferson Davis would never
+be tried for treason and drew a long breath of relief. Yes, the
+administration knew, but the general public, beyond the gilded vagaries
+about humanity and the magnanimity of a great nation to a vanquished foe,
+sedulously promulgated to obscure the real reason, has never understood
+why Jefferson Davis was never tried for the high crime which it was
+alleged that he had committed against the United States.
+
+Unfortunately the restricted space at this time at the disposal of the
+author precludes anything more than setting forth the conclusions based
+upon the evidence now in his possession, of why this charge was so
+joyously abandoned by an administration which less than two years before
+had moved heaven and earth to discover any pretext which might lend the
+color of justice to the summary execution of the illustrious chieftain of
+the Confederacy.
+
+To one in any way acquainted with popular sentiment, with the temper of
+the administration even in 1867, all declarations of magnanimity,
+generosity and abhorrence of extreme measures must seem the merest cant.
+It is, of course, not beyond the pale of possibility that those who in
+1865 were willing to descend to any depths of infamy to secure a pretext
+for the execution of Mr. Davis _might_ have experienced a change of heart
+in two years sufficiently marked to create conscientious scruples against
+putting him upon a fair trial in a court of justice on the charge of
+treason. But that theory of the case would be altogether unlikely even if
+we did not know that the desire of the administration to hang Jefferson
+Davis was just as intense in 1867 as it was two years before. That it did
+not attempt to accomplish that result through the regular channels of
+justice, is due entirely to the fact that such a trial would have opened
+up the whole question of secession for final adjudication by our highest
+court of last resort. It would have been a trial not so much of Mr. Davis
+as of the question of state rights, and the able lawyers of the
+administration, partisans as they were, had no desire to see the highest
+judicial body of the land reverse an issue which had been satisfactorily
+decided by the sword.
+
+Charles O'Connor's bold declaration that Jefferson Davis could never _be_
+convicted of treason under the Constitution as it then stood first aroused
+the administration to the dangers of the task that it had assumed. Mr.
+Johnson sent for his attorney-general and had him prepare an opinion on
+the case. In due time it was submitted. It was a veritable bombshell which
+fairly demolished every theory upon which Jefferson Davis might have been
+convicted of treason or any other crime.
+
+Mr. Johnston then called to his aid two of the greatest constitutional
+lawyers of the age, and they agreed with the conclusions of Mr. Stanberry.
+Not satisfied with this, he invited the chief justice to a conference for
+a full discussion of the matter.
+
+If there was ever a partisan, it was Salmon P. Chase, but at the same time
+he was a great lawyer and an honest and fearless man. "Lincoln," he said,
+"wanted Jeff. Davis to escape. He was right. His capture was a mistake,
+his trial will be a greater one. We cannot convict him of treason.
+Secession is settled. Let it stay settled!" Significant words truly from
+that source, and they explain the vote of the great judge who would have
+quashed the indictment against Mr. Davis no less than the question so
+often asked, "Why was Jefferson Davis never tried for treason?"
+
+Immediately after Mr. Davis' release on bond, he went with his family to
+New York, and a few weeks later to Montreal, where he continued to reside
+until May of the following year when he again appeared before the Circuit
+Court in Richmond for trial. But despite the efforts of his counsel to
+force a trial of the case, it was dismissed by the government and thus
+ended ingloriously the boast of the government that it intended "in the
+arch traitor Davis to make treason odious."
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV. Freedom, Reverses, Beauvoir
+
+
+Impaired in health and longing for rest far away from the tragic scenes of
+the past few years, Mr. Davis accepted the invitation of English friends
+to visit them. But it was soon discovered that his visit was to be a
+continuous ovation. Everywhere he was greeted as though he had been the
+conqueror instead of the vanquished. The spirit that prompted those
+manifestations he appreciated, but it revived sad memories of the cause
+for which he had staked all and lost, and to avoid this lionizing he took
+up his residence in Paris.
+
+The cordiality of the Frenchmen, however, surpassed that of their English
+brethren, and Mr. Davis soon found himself so much in the public eye that
+he decided to return to England. Before quitting Paris, the emperor
+conveyed his desire for an audience, which Mr. Davis courteously refused.
+Napoleon, he conceived, had acted in bad faith with the South and such was
+the moral rectitude of the man that he could never disguise his contempt
+for any one, of however exalted station, whom he believed to be guilty of
+double dealing of any kind.
+
+As the guest of Lord Leigh and the Duke of Shrewsbury in Wales, Mr. Davis'
+health gradually improved until he felt himself once more able to enter an
+active business of life. The war had left him a poor man, and when a life
+insurance company of Memphis offered him its presidency with a fair salary
+he accepted, and with his family returned to America. The people of
+Memphis soon after his arrival presented him a fine residence, but this he
+refused.
+
+Mr. Davis was probably a very poor business man and his associates of the
+insurance company were in no way superior, for its affairs soon became
+anything but prosperous. All of his available capital was invested in it,
+but this he gladly sacrificed in order to sell his own company to a
+stronger one which could protect the policies of the former.
+
+[Illustration: The Davis Mansion]
+
+The people of Texas, learning of Mr. Davis' losses offered to give him an
+extensive stock farm in that state, but this he also refused.
+
+Upon the Gulf of Mexico, near the little station of Beauvoir, Mr. Davis
+owned a tract of land which he conceived would support his family, and
+there, far from the strife of the busy world, he resolved to spend the
+declining years of his life. However, retirement at best could only be
+partial, for a man loved and venerated as Mr. Davis was throughout the
+South, and Beauvoir accordingly became the shrine of the public men who
+sought the counsel of its sage. But with the modesty characteristic of the
+man he refused to advise any one upon measures of national import, since
+by the action of Congress he was forever disfranchised.
+
+He would not ask pardon, sincerely believing that he had done no wrong,
+and when the people of Mississippi would have elected him to the United
+States Senate he declined the honor in words which should be perused by
+all who know the man as he was, during this period of his life: "The
+franchise is yours here, and Congress can but refuse you admission and
+your exclusion will be a test question," ran the invitation to which Mr.
+Davis replied: "I remained in prison two years and hoped in vain for a
+trial, and now scenes of insult and violence, producing alienation between
+the sections, would be the only result of another test. I am too old to
+serve you as I once did and too enfeebled by suffering to maintain your
+cause."
+
+Any word that might serve to still further increase that alienation never
+passed the lips of the gentle, kindly old man, who still the idol of his
+people, preferred to all honors the quiet life there among the pines,
+where amidst his flowers he played with his children and their little
+friends, and far into the night, surrounded by his books, he worked
+assiduously upon his only defense, "The Rise and Fall of the Confederate
+States of America." The concluding paragraph of that book, written in the
+gray dawn of a summer morning after a night of continuous labor, should be
+read by every one who would understand the motives that actuated Jefferson
+Davis in the great part that he played in the world's history.
+
+"In asserting the right of secession it has not been my wish to incite to
+its exercise. I recognize the fact that the war showed it to be
+impracticable, but this did not prove it to be wrong; and now that it may
+not be again attempted, and the Union may promote the general welfare, it
+is needful that the truth, the whole truth, should be known so that
+crimination and recrimination may forever cease, and then on the basis of
+fraternity and faithful regard for the rights of the states there may be
+written on the arch of the Union 'Esto perpetua.'"
+
+It is the voice of the soul in defeat, yet strong and conscious of its own
+integrity, recognizing the inevitable and praying for peace and the
+perpetuation of that Union which Jefferson Davis still loved.
+
+
+
+
+XXXV. Death of Mr. Davis
+
+
+His life's work was done with the completion of his book, and trusting to
+impartial posterity for that vindication of his motives which he realized
+must come some day, he turned away from the scenes of controversy and
+contentions, seeking in books, the converse of his friends, in long
+rambles with his children across wood and field, for oblivion of all
+painful memories. Defeat and persecution never embittered him. Cruel and
+false accusations found their way to his sylvan retreat. That they
+grievously wounded can be doubted by no one who knew his proud spirit,
+supersensitive to every insinuation of dishonor, but with the gentle smile
+of a philosopher he passed them by, fully realizing that his beloved
+people of the South, at least, would understand the stainless purity of
+all his motives.
+
+A harsh or an unkind word never passed his lips concerning any of his
+personal or political enemies. In fact, it would be no more than the truth
+to say that this gentle old man cherished no sentiment of enmity toward
+any of God's creatures. The storm and stress of life were over, its hopes
+and its passions were dead, and grandly, majestically this man, who at
+once embodied the highest type of American manhood and all of the virtues
+of the perfect Christian gentleman, calmly awaited the end. It came on the
+6th of December, 1889, in New Orleans, at the home of Judge Fenner, his
+life-long friend. When the news of his death went forth, even the voice of
+malice was subdued, and many of those who had sought to fix everlasting
+infamy upon his name ceased for a time to be unjust and agreed that a
+majestic soul had passed. Over the bier of the dead chieftain the whole
+South wept and nine of its governors bore him to the grave.
+
+[Illustration: The Davis Monument at Richmond]
+
+No proper estimate of the life and character of Jefferson Davis is
+possible in the restricted scope of this work, but lest I should be
+accused of partiality I shall here append the conclusion of Ridpath, the
+historian, written after a residence of almost a year under the same roof
+with Mr. Davis, which I heartily endorse as a correct estimate of the man.
+
+"Before I had been with Mr. Davis three days every preconceived idea
+utterly and forever disappeared. Nobody doubted Mr. Davis' intellectual
+capacity, but it was not his mental power that most impressed me. It was
+his goodness, first of all, and then his intellectual integrity. I never
+saw an old man whose face bore more emphatic evidences of a gentle,
+refined and benignant character. He seemed to me the ideal embodiment of
+'sweetness and light.' His conversation showed that he had 'charity for
+all and malice toward none.' I never heard him utter an unkind word of any
+man and he spoke of nearly all of his famous opponents. His manner may be
+best described as gracious, so exquisitely refined, so courtly, yet heart
+warm. Mr. Davis' dignity was as natural and charming as the perfume of the
+rose--the fitting expression of a serene, benign and comely moral nature.
+However handsome he may have been when excited in battle or debate, it
+surely was in his own home, with his family and friends around him, that
+he was seen at his best; and that best was the highest point of grace and
+refinement that the Southern character has reached."
+
+Lest any foreigner should read this statement, let me say for his benefit
+that there are two Jefferson Davises in American history--one is a
+conspirator, a rebel, a traitor and "the Fiend of Andersonville"--he is a
+myth evolved from the hell-smoke of cruel war--as purely an imaginary a
+personage as Mephistopheles or the Hebrew Devil; the other was a statesman
+with clean hands and pure heart, who served his people faithfully from
+budding manhood to hoary age, without thought of self, with unbending
+integrity, and to the best of his great ability--he was a man of whom all
+his countrymen who knew him personally, without distinction of creed
+political, are proud, and proud that he was their countryman.
+
+This is a conclusion by no means extravagant, a conclusion which, despite
+the fact of some mental faults that prevented him from quite attaining to
+the first rank of the greatest statesman, nevertheless leaves him
+pre-eminent as one of the purest and best of the men who has played a
+conspicuous part in the world's history.
+
+
+FINIS.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Real Jefferson Davis, by Landon Knight
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43979 ***