The Life of Jefferson Davis

We have sufficiently described those causes, by which the already disproportionate strength of the Confederates, previous to the adoption of the conscription act, and the inception of the more vigorous and stringent military policy of the Confederate Government, was reduced to a condition in most alarming contrast with the enormous preparations of the enemy.

General Joseph E. Johnston still held his position, with a force which, on the first of March, barely exceeded forty thousand men. The command of General Stonewall Jackson, in the Shenandoah Valley, did not exceed thirty-five hundred, embracing all arms. General Magruder held the Peninsula of York and James Rivers, covering the approaches to Richmond in that direction, with eleven thousand men, and General Huger had at Norfolk and in the vicinity not more than ten thousand. The Confederate force in Western Virginia was altogether too feeble for successful defense, and indeed, the Government had some months previous abandoned the hope of a permanent occupation of that region.

The Confederate authorities had long since ceased to cherish hope of offensive movements upon the line of the Potomac. Circumstances imposed a defensive attitude, attended with many causes of peculiar apprehension for the fate of the issue in Virginia. Weeks of critical suspense, and vigilant observation of the threatening movements of the Federal forces, were followed by the transfer of the principal scene of operations to the Peninsula.

The evacuation of the position so long held by General Johnston at Manassas, executed with many evidences of skill, but attended with much destruction of valuable material, was followed immediately by an advance of General McClellan to that place. The necessity of a retirement by General Johnston to an interior line had been duly appreciated by the Confederate Government, though there were circumstances attending the immediate execution of the movement, which detracted from its otherwise complete success. The destruction of valuable material, including an extensive meat-curing establishment, containing large supplies of meat, and established by the Government, which ensued upon the evacuation of Manassas, elicited much exasperated censure. Similar occurrences at the evacuation of Yorktown, a few weeks later, revived a most unpleasant recollection of scenes incident to the retreat from Manassas. The extravagant destruction of property, in many instances apparently reckless and wanton, marking the movements of the Confederate armies at this period, was a bitter sarcasm upon the practice, by many of its prominent officers, of that economy of resources which the necessities of the Confederacy so imperatively demanded.

Not only the weakness of his forces indicated to General Johnston the perils of his position, but the territorial configuration again came to the aid of the enemy, and gave to General McClellan the option of several avenues to the rear of the Confederate army. It is not improbable that McClellan appreciated the extremity of Johnston’s situation, and has, indeed, assigned other reasons for his advance upon Manassas than the expectation of an engagement, where the chances would have been overwhelmingly in his favor. At all events, the retirement of General Johnston to the line of the Rapidan, imposed upon the Federal general an immediate choice of a base from which to assail the Confederate capital. Originally opposed to an overland movement via Manassas, McClellan was now compelled to abandon his favorite plan of a movement from Urbanna, on the Rappahanock, by which he hoped to cut off the Confederate retreat to Richmond, in consequence of Johnston’s retirement behind the Rappahanock. General McClellan promptly adopted the movement to the peninsula, a plan which he had previously considered, but which he regarded “as less brilliant and less promising decisive results.”52

When General Johnston left Manassas, it is probable that he was not fully decided as to the position which he should select. Receiving a dispatch53 from President Davis, he halted the army, and immediately the President left Richmond for Johnston’s head-quarters, for the purpose of consultation. General Johnston’s position now was simply observatory of the enemy. It was yet possible that McClellan might undertake an overland movement; and, indeed, a portion of his force had followed the retreating Confederates. In that event Johnston would occupy the line upon which Lee subsequently foiled so many formidable Federal demonstrations. From his central position he could also promptly meet a serious demonstration against Richmond from the Chesapeake waters or the Shenandoah Valley. When the numerous transports at Fortress Monroe, debarking troops for the peninsula, revealed the enemy’s real purpose, the army of General Johnston was carried to the lines of Magruder, at Yorktown. Johnston was, however, decidedly opposed to the movement to the Peninsula, declaring it untenable, and urging views as to the requirements of the situation, which competent criticism has repeatedly commended.

While the transfer of Johnston’s army to the Peninsula was in process of execution, the situation in Virginia was, in the highest degree, critical. The strength of Magruder was necessarily so divided, that the actual force, defending the line threatened by McClellan with eighty thousand men, was less than six thousand Confederates. Meanwhile the various Federal detachments in other quarters were coöperating with the main movement of McClellan. Banks and Shields were expected, by their overwhelming numbers, to crush Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley, and then, forming a junction with the large force of Fremont, who was required to capture Staunton, it was designed that these combined forces should unite with the army of McDowell, advancing from the direction of Fredericksburg, at some point east of the Blue Ridge. Thus a force, aggregating more than seventy thousand men, threatening Richmond from the north, was to unite with McClellan advancing from the east. Such was, in brief, the Federal plan of campaign, which the North expected to accomplish the reduction of Richmond and the total destruction of the Confederate power in Virginia. It does not devolve upon us to discuss, in detail, the defects of this faulty combination, but the sequel will show how promptly and triumphantly the Confederate leaders availed themselves of the opportunity presented by this crude arrangement of their adversaries.

Happily the bold attitude and skillful dispositions of Magruder were aided by the over-tentative action of his antagonist. The latter, greatly exaggerating the force in his front, and convinced of the hopelessness of an assault upon the Confederate works, permitted the escape of the golden moment, and prepared for a regular siege of Yorktown. In the meantime General Magruder describes his situation to have been as follows: “Through the energetic action of the Government, reënforcements began to pour in, and each hour the Army of the Peninsula grew stronger and stronger, until anxiety passed from my mind as to the result of an attack upon us.”

The untenability of the Peninsula was very soon made apparent, and the important advantage of time having been gained, and the escape of General Huger’s command from its precarious position at Norfolk secured, General Johnston abandoned the works at Yorktown, retreating to the line of the Chickahominy, near Richmond. This movement was made in obedience to the necessities of the situation, and was in accordance with his original desire for a decisive engagement with McClellan, at an interior point, where a concentration of the Confederate forces would be more practicable. General McClellan did not pursue the retreating column with much energy after the decisive blow given his advance at Williamsburg, by Longstreet.

With the arrival of Johnston upon the Richmond lines, the Confederate Government began, with energy and rapidity, the concentration of its forces. The superb command of Huger was promptly transferred to Johnston, and troops from the Carolinas were thrown forward to Richmond as rapidly as transportation facilities would permit. By the last of May the Confederate forces in front of Richmond reached an aggregate of seventy-five thousand men. McClellan had sustained losses on the Peninsula which reduced his strength to the neighborhood of one hundred and twenty thousand.

A cruel necessity of the evacuation of Norfolk and Portsmouth was the destruction of the Confederate iron-clad “Virginia,” which had so long prevented the ascent of James River by the Federal gunboats. So invaluable was this vessel in the defense of Richmond, that McClellan had named, as an essential condition of a successful campaign on the Peninsula, that she should be “neutralized.” It was found impossible to convey the Virginia to a point unoccupied on either shore of the river by the enemy’s forces, and, by order of her commander, the vessel was destroyed. Immediately a fleet ascended the river for the purpose of opening the water highway to the Confederate capital.

The intelligence of the destruction of the “Virginia,” and the advance of the Federal fleet, was received, in Richmond, with profound consternation. No one, unless at that time in Richmond, can realize the sense of extreme peril experienced by the public. There were few who dared indulge the hope of a successful defense of the city against the dreaded “gunboats” and “monitors” of the enemy, which, the people then believed, were alike invulnerable and irresistible.

The wise precautionary measures of the Government, in preparing its archives for removal, in case of emergency, to a point of safety, greatly increased the panic of the public. Rumors of a precipitate evacuation of the city, by the Confederate authorities, were circulated, and there was wanting no possible element which could aggravate the public alarm, save the calm demeanor of President Davis, and the deliberate efforts of the authorities – Confederate, State, and municipal – to assure the safety of the city. The courage and confidence of the President, in the midst of this almost universal alarm, in which many officers of the Government participated, quickly aroused an enthusiastic and determined spirit in the hearts of a brave people. Knowing the critical nature of the emergency, he was nevertheless resolved to exhaust every expedient in the defense of Richmond, and then to abide the issue. His noble and defiant declaration was: “I am ready and willing to leave my bones in the capital of the Confederacy.” In response to resolutions from the Virginia Legislature, urging the defense of the city to the last extremity, he avowed his predetermined resolution to hold Richmond until driven out by the enemy, and animated his hearers by an assurance of his conviction, that, even in that contingency, “the war could be successfully maintained, upon Virginia soil, for twenty years.”54

The accounts of the enemy were required to demonstrate to the citizens of Richmond, that, by the obstructions in the channel of the river, and the erection of the impregnable batteries at Drewry’s Bluff, their homes were again secured from the presence of the invaders. The significance of that brief engagement, during which the guns were distinctly audible in Richmond, was very soon made evident in the loss of their terrors by the Federal gunboats. President Davis was a spectator of the engagement, by which the Confederate capital was rescued from imminent peril of capture.

But the repulse of the gunboats in James River, with its assuring and significant incidents, was the precursor of far more brilliant successes, which, it was evident, would largely affect the decision of the general issue in Virginia. In the months of May and June, 1862, was enacted the memorable “Valley campaign” of Stonewall Jackson – a campaign which, never excelled, has no parallel in brilliant and accurate conception, celerity, and perfection of execution, save the Italian campaign of Napoleon in 1796. General Jackson’s exploits in the Valley of the Shenandoah present an aggregate of military achievements unrivaled by any record in American history.

On the 23d of March, Jackson fought the battle of Kernstown, near Winchester, with three thousand Virginians against eighteen full Federal regiments, sustaining, throughout an entire day, an audacious assault upon Shields’ force, and at dark leisurely retiring with his command, after having inflicted upon the enemy a loss nearly equal to his own strength. Elsewhere has been mentioned the effort made to induce President Davis to remove Jackson, in compliance with the popular dissatisfaction at his failure to achieve, against such overwhelming odds, more palpable fruits of victory. The immediate consequence of Kernstown was the check of Banks’ advance in the Valley, and the recall of a large force, then on the way from Banks to aid McClellan’s designs against Johnston.

Leaving General Ewell, whose division had been detached from Johnston, to intercept any demonstration by Banks in the Valley, or across the Blue Ridge, Jackson united his command with that of General Edward Johnson, a full brigade, and defeating the advance of Fremont, under Milroy, at McDowell, compelled a disorderly retreat by Fremont through the mountains of Western Virginia. Returning to the Valley, he assaulted, with his united force, the column of Banks, annihilated an entire division of the enemy, pursued its fugitive remnants to the Potomac, and threatened the safety of the Federal capital. Alarmed for Washington, Mr. Lincoln halted McDowell in his plans of coöperation with McClellan, and for weeks the efforts of the Federal Government were addressed to the paramount purpose of “catching Jackson.” Eluding the enemy’s combinations, Jackson turned upon his pursuers, again defeated Fremont at Cross Keys, and immediately crossing the Shenandoah, secured his rear, and destroyed the advance of Shields within sight of its powerless confederate. Resuming the retreat, Jackson paused at Weyer’s Cave, and awaited the summons of his superiors to enact his thrilling rôle in the absorbing drama at Richmond. Within the short period of seventy days, Jackson achieved at Kernstown, McDowell’s, Front Royal, Winchester, Strasburg, Harrisonburg, Cross Keys, and Port Republic, eight tactical victories, besides innumerable successful combats. But he had done more. He had wrought the incomparable strategic achievement of neutralizing sixty thousand men with fifteen thousand; he had recalled McDowell, when, with outstretched arm, McClellan had already planted his right wing, under Porter, at Hanover Court-house, to receive the advance of the coöperating column from Fredericksburg.

Meanwhile the lines of Richmond had been the scene of no incident of special interest until the battle of “Seven Pines,” on the 31st of May. After his arrival upon the Chickahominy, McClellan had been steadily fortifying his lines, and wherever an advance was practicable, preparing approaches to Richmond. His line, extending over a space of several miles, was accurately described by the course of the Chickahominy, from the village of Mechanicsville, five miles north of Richmond, to a point about four miles from the city, in an easterly direction. Having partially executed his design of bridging the Chickahominy, McClellan had crossed that stream, and in the last days of May, his left wing was fortified near the locality designated the “Seven Pines.” This initiative demonstration by McClellan, which placed his army astride a variable stream, was sufficiently provocative of the enterprise of his antagonist. To increase the peril of the isolated wing of the Federal army, a thunder-storm, occurring on the night of the 29th of May, had so swollen the Chickahominy as to render difficult the accession of reënforcements from the main body.

Such was the situation which invited the Confederate commander to undertake the destruction of the exposed column of his adversary – a movement which, if successful, might have resulted in the rout of the entire left wing of the enemy, opening a way to his rear, and securing his utter overthrow. Seven Pines was an action, in which the color of victory was entirely with the Confederates, but it was the least fruitful engagement fought by the two armies in Virginia. There was no engagement of the war in which the valor of the Confederate soldier was more splendidly illustrated, though happily that quality then did not require so conspicuous a test. However able in design, it was in execution a signal failure – a series of loose, indefinite and disjointed movements, wanting in coöperation, and apparently in able executive management.

President Davis, in company with General Lee, was present during most of the engagement. Frequently under fire, and in consultation with his generals in exposed positions, he was conspicuous chiefly by his efforts to animate the troops, and his presence was greeted with evidences of the enthusiasm and confidence which it inspired.

The battle of “Seven Pines,” in itself barren of influence upon the decision of the campaign, was nevertheless attended by an incident – the painful and disabling wound received by General Johnston, in all probability decisive of the future history of the Army of Northern Virginia. Leading to an immediate and positive change of policy, it is hardly a bold declaration that this incident determined the future of the war in Virginia.

A disposition has been freely indulged to influence the sentence of history, by placing President Davis and General Johnston in a sort of antithetical juxtaposition, as exponents of different theories as to the proper conduct of the war by the South. In view of the failure of the Confederacy, it has been ingeniously contended that the result vindicated the wisdom of General Johnston’s views. But besides its evident unfairness to Mr. Davis, no criticism could be founded less upon the intrinsic merits of the case. Overzealous and intemperate partisans generally evince aptitude in the exaggeration of minor differences between the leaders, whose interests they profess to have at heart. Such results are not unfrequent in the lives of eminent public men. In the case of General Beauregard, the unhappy effects of officious intermeddling and misrepresentation, from such sources, between the President and that distinguished officer, are especially notable.

But the assumption that events have indicated the wisdom of General Johnston’s views, in their declared antagonism to those of Mr. Davis, is altogether unsustained. The immediate results of a change of commanders, and a consequent inauguration of a different policy55– a policy in accordance with Mr. Davis’ own views, may, with far more reason, be alleged in support of a contrary theory. The vigorous and aggressive policy adopted and executed by Lee not only accorded with the wishes of the President, but fulfilled the long-deferred popular expectation, and agreeably disappointed the public in Lee’s capacity. For despite the general disappointment at the absence of decisive achievements by the Army of Northern Virginia, General Johnston commanded far more of public confidence, than did General Lee at the period of the latter’s accession to command.

Nothing could have been more disadvantageous to Lee, than the contrast so freely indicated between himself and other officers. Johnston was criticised merely because of the absence of brilliant and decisive achievements. Lee was assumed to have proven his incompetency by egregious failure. He was ridiculed as a closet general. His campaigns were said to exist only on paper – to consist of slow methodical tactics, and incessant industry with the spade, and he was pronounced totally deficient in aggressive qualities. A prominent Richmond editor, criticising his North-western Virginia campaign, asserted that the unvarying intelligence from Lee was that he was “hopelessly stuck in the mud,” and an officer was heard to compare him to a terrapin, needing the application of a hot coal to his back to compel him to action. But with the lapse of a fortnight that army, which received the intelligence of Lee’s appointment to command with misgiving and distrust, began to experience renewed life and hope. It was not the few additional brigades given to that army which so soon started it upon its irresistible career of victory. A mighty hand projected its impetus, and directed its magnificent valor against those miles of intrenchments which it had seen grow more and more formidable, itself meanwhile an inactive spectator.

Lee found the army within sight of Richmond; he lifted it from the mud of the Chickahominy, defeated an enemy intrenched and in superior force; pursued the panting and disheartened fugitives to the shelter of their shipping; defeated a second army – then both together – within hearing of the Federal capital; fought an indecisive battle upon the enemy’s soil, and reëstablished the Confederate line upon the frontier. Is it a matter of wonder that the President, the army, and the people recognized the significance of these results, and applauded the substitution of the new system and the new status for the old? A better explanation of so pronounced a contrast is needed than that the “prejudice” or “injustice” of Davis withheld from Johnston, five or even ten thousand men, which he gave to Lee.

Yet there could be no hypothesis more presumptuous, in view of the abundant testimony of competent military judgment, and none more palpably untenable, than that which would deny greatness as a soldier to Johnston. As a consummate master of strategy, in that sense which contemplates the movements of heavy masses, and looks to grand ultimate results, Johnston has probably few equals. His sagacity in the divination of an enemy’s designs is remarkable; and if he be considered as having marked deficiencies, they must be counted as a lack of Jackson’s audacity, of Lee’s confident calculation and executive perfection. The South regards Lee as beyond criticism. Jefferson Davis is accustomed to say “the world has rarely produced a man to be compared with Lee.” Yet in mere intellectuality, it is at least questionable whether Johnston had his superior among the Southern leaders.

But it often happens that qualities, however great, are not those which the occasion demands. That marvelous union of qualities in Lee, which has placed him almost above parallel, probably made him alone adequate to the hazardous posture of affairs at Richmond in the summer of 1862. The result, at least, made evident to the world, the wisdom of the President, in that choice, which was at first declared the undeserved reward of an incompetent favorite.

Whatever may be alleged to the contrary, President Davis at all times, to the full extent of his power, aided General Johnston in the consummation of his designs. To assert that, upon any occasion, he either interposed obstacles to Johnston’s success, or denied him any means in his power to confer, is to question that personal fidelity of Jefferson Davis, which his bitterest enemy should be ashamed to deny. Few Southern men, at least, have yet attained that measure of malignity, or that hardihood of mendacity.

General Lee was not dilatory in his preparations to gratify that longing aspiration which the President, on his own behalf, and in the name of the country, briefly expressed, that “something should be done.” Lee had a carte blanche, but frequent and anxious were the consultations between the President and himself. The world now knows what followed those days and nights of anxious conference, in which were weighed the chances of success, the cost of victory, and the possibilities of defeat. The plan executed by General Lee was one of the most hazardous ever attempted in war, but it was not less brilliant than bold, and at least one precedent had been furnished by the great master of the art of war at Austerlitz. Its perils were obvious, but the sublime confidence of Lee in the success of his combinations went far to secure its own justification.

During the week of engagements which followed, the President was constantly with the army and fully advised of its movements.56 The cordial recognition of this advisory relation between himself and Lee, is indicated by the natural pride, and becoming sense of justice, with which the latter, in the report of his operations against McClellan, mentions the approving presence of the President, during the execution of his plans. This noble harmony between Davis and Lee, equally creditable to each, was never interrupted by one single moment of discord. It was never marred by dictation on one side, or complaint on the other. Unlike other commanders, Lee never complained of want of means, or of opportunity for the execution of his plans. Satisfied that the Government was extending all the aid in its power, he used, to the best advantage, the means at hand and created his opportunities. Lee never charged the President with improper interference with the army, but freely counseled with his constitutional commander-in-chief, whom he knew to be worthy of the trust conferred by the country in the control of its armies. President Davis fully comprehended and respected the jealous functions of military command, and in the exercise of that trust no one would have more quickly resented unauthorized official interference. A soldier himself, he recognized freedom of action as the privilege of the commander; as a statesman, he rendered that cordial coöperation, which is the duty of government.