The Life of Jefferson Davis

It is well known that, upon this subject, there was considerable division among the Democracy. The effort to commit the party, as a unit, to a position which would have inevitably produced war with England signally failed. The country had not then reached its present pitch of arrogant inflation, which emboldens it to seek opportunity for exhibition in the vainglorious role of braggadocio. Mr. Davis, upon this and other occasions, significantly rebuked the demagogical clamor which would have precipitated the country into a calamitous war. His reply, on the 17th of April, 1846, to Stephen A. Douglas, who was among the leading instigators of the war-feeling in the House, is exceedingly forcible and spirited.

The following speech in favor of the resolution of thanks to General Taylor, the officers and men of his army, for their recent successes on the Rio Grande, was delivered May 28, 1846:

“As a friend to the army, he rejoiced at the evidence, now afforded, of a disposition in this House to deal justly, to feel generously toward those to whom the honor of our flag has been intrusted. Too often and too long had we listened to harsh and invidious reflections upon our gallant little army and the accomplished officers who command it. A partial opportunity had been offered to exhibit their soldierly qualities in their true light, and he trusted these aspersions were hushed – hushed now forever. As an American, whose heart promptly responds to all which illustrates our national character, and adds new glory to our national name, he rejoiced with exceeding joy at the recent triumph of our arms. Yet it is no more than he expected from the gallant soldiers who hold our post upon the Rio Grande – no more than, when occasion offers, they will achieve again. It was the triumph of American courage, professional skill, and that patriotic pride which blooms in the breast of our educated soldier, and which droops not under the withering scoff of political revilers.

“These men will feel, deeply feel, the expression of your gratitude. It will nerve their hearts in the hour of future conflicts, to know that their country honors and acknowledges their devotion. It will shed a solace on the dying moments of those who fall, to be assured their country mourns their loss. This is the meed for which the soldier bleeds and dies. This he will remember long after the paltry pittance of one month’s extra pay has been forgotten.

“Beyond this expression of the nation’s thanks, he liked the principle of the proposition offered by the gentleman from South Carolina. We have a pension system providing for the disabled soldier, but he seeks well and wisely to extend it to all who may be wounded, however slightly. It is a reward offered to those who seek for danger, who first and foremost plunge into the fight. It has been this incentive, extended so as to cover all feats of gallantry, that has so often crowned the British arms with victory, and caused their prowess to be recognized in every quarter of the globe. It was the sure and high reward of gallantry, the confident reliance upon their nation’s gratitude, which led Napoleon’s armies over Europe, conquering and to conquer; and it was these influences which, in an earlier time, rendered the Roman arms invincible, and brought their eagle back victorious from every land on which it gazed. Sir, let not that parsimony (for he did not deem it economy) prevent us from adopting a system which in war will add so much to the efficiency of troops. Instead of seeking to fill the ranks of your army by increased pay, let the soldier feel that a liberal pension will relieve him from the fear of want in the event of disability, provide for his family in the event of death, and that he wins his way to gratitude and the reward of his countrymen by periling all for honor in the field.

“The achievement which we now propose to honor richly deserves it. Seldom, sir, in the annals of military history has there been one in which desperate daring and military skill were more happily combined. The enemy selected his own ground, and united to the advantage of a strong position a numerical majority of three to one. Driven from his first position by an attack in which it is hard to say whether professional skill or manly courage is to be more admired, he retired and posted his artillery on a narrow defile, to sweep the ground over which our troops were compelled to pass. There, posted in strength three times greater than our own, they waited the approach of our gallant little army.

“General Taylor knew the danger and destitution of the band he left to hold his camp opposite Matamoras, and he paused for no regular approaches, but opened his field artillery, and dashed with sword and bayonet on the foe. A single charge left him master of their battery, and the number of slain attests the skill and discipline of his army. Mr. D. referred to a gentleman who, a short time since, expressed extreme distrust in our army, and poured out the vials of his denunciation upon the graduates of the Military Academy, He hoped now the gentleman will withdraw these denunciations; that now he will learn the value of military science; that he will see, in the location, the construction, the defenses of the bastioned field-works opposite Matamoras, the utility, the necessity of a military education. Let him compare the few men who held that with the army who assailed it; let him mark the comparative safety with which they stood within that temporary work; let him consider why the guns along its ramparts were preserved, whilst they silenced the batteries of the enemy; why that intrenchment stands unharmed by Mexican shot, whilst its guns have crumbled the stone walls in Matamoras to the ground, and then say whether he believes a blacksmith or a tailor could have secured the same results. He trusted the gentleman would be convinced that arms, like every occupation, requires to be studied before it can be understood; and from these things to which he had called his attention, he will learn the power and advantage of military science. He would make but one other allusion to the remarks of the gentleman he had noticed, who said nine-tenths of the graduates of the Military Academy abandoned the service of the United States. If he would take the trouble to examine the records upon this point, he doubted not he would be surprised at the extent of his mistake. There he would learn that a majority of all the graduates are still in service; and if he would push his inquiry a little further, he would find that a large majority of the commissioned officers who bled in the action of the 8th and 9th were graduates of that academy.

“He would not enter into a discussion on the military at this time. His pride, his gratification arose from the success of our arms. Much was due to the courage which Americans have displayed on many battle-fields in former times; but this courage, characteristic of our people, and pervading all sections and all classes, could never have availed so much had it not been combined with military science. And the occasion seemed suited to enforce this lesson on the minds of those who have been accustomed, in season and out of season, to rail at the scientific attainments of our officers.

“The influence of military skill – the advantage of discipline in the troops – the power derived from the science of war, increases with the increased size of the contending armies. With two thousand we had beaten six thousand; with twenty thousand we would far more easily beat sixty thousand, because the general must be an educated soldier who wields large bodies of men, and the troops, to act efficiently, must be disciplined and commanded by able officers. He but said what he had long thought and often said, when he expressed his confidence in the ability of our officers to meet those of any service – favorably to compare, in all that constitutes the soldier, with any army in the world; and as the field widened for the exhibition, so would their merits shine more brightly still.

“With many of the officers now serving on the Rio Grande he had enjoyed a personal acquaintance, and hesitated not to say that all which skill, and courage, and patriotism could perform, might be expected from them. He had forborne to speak of the general commanding on the Rio Grande on any former occasion; but he would now say to those who had expressed distrust, that the world held not a soldier better qualified for the service he was engaged in than General Taylor. Trained from his youth to arms, having spent the greater portion of his life on our frontier, his experience peculiarly fits him for the command he holds. Such as his conduct was in Fort Harrison, on the Upper Mississippi, in Florida, and on the Rio Grande, will it be wherever he meets the enemy of his country.

“Those soldiers, to whom so many have applied depreciatory epithets, upon whom it has been so often said no reliance could be placed, they too will be found, in every emergency renewing such feats as have recently graced our arms, bearing the American flag to honorable triumphs, or falling beneath its folds, as devotees to our common cause, to die a soldier’s death.

“He rejoiced that the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Black) had shown himself so ready to pay this tribute to our army. He hoped not a voice would be raised in opposition to it – that nothing but the stern regret which is prompted by remembrance of those who bravely fought and nobly died will break the joy, the pride, the patriotic gratulation with which we hail this triumph of our brethren on the Rio Grande.”

A striking feature of these two speeches, as, indeed, of all Mr. Davis’ Congressional speeches, is the strong and outspoken national feeling which pervades them. It is a part of the history of these times, that while Jefferson Davis eloquently avowed a noble and generous sympathy with his heroic compatriots in Mexico, a prominent Northern politician bespoke for the American army, “a welcome with bloody hands to hospitable graves.” When, a few months afterwards, the names of Jefferson Davis and his Mississippi Rifles were baptized in blood amid those frowning redoubts at Monterey, and when, upon the ensanguined plain of Buena Vista, he fell stricken in the very moment of victory, just as his genius and the valor of his comrades had broken that last, furious onset of the Mexican lancers, New England and her leaders stood indifferent spectators of the scene.5 Yet the same New England bounded eagerly to the conquest and spoliation of their countrymen, and the same leaders clamored valiantly for the humiliation, for the blood even, of Jefferson Davis, as a traitor and a rebel. Quosque tandem.

An interesting sequel of this speech was the debate, which it occasioned two days afterwards, between Mr. Davis and Andrew Johnson, now President of the United States. Mr. Johnson, who boasts so proudly of his plebeian origin, and is yet said to be morbidly sensitive of the slightest allusion to it by others, excepted to Mr. Davis’ reference to the “tailor and blacksmith,” warmly eulogized those callings and mechanical avocations in general, and took occasion to expatiate extensively upon the virtue and intelligence of the masses. Mr. Davis, whose language is clearly not susceptible of any interpretation disparaging to “blacksmiths and tailors,” disclaimed the imputation, saying that he had designed merely to illustrate his argument, that the profession of arms, to be understood, must be studied, and that a mechanic could no more fill the place of an educated soldier, than could the latter supply the qualifications of the former. Mr. Johnson, however, was resolved to seize the opportunity for a panegyric upon the populace, and no explanations could avail. The Globe reports this debate as, “in all its stages, not being of an entirely pleasant nature.”

As an appropriate conclusion to this sketch of Mr. Davis’ career in the House of Representatives, we quote the following extract from an interesting work,6 published some years since: “John Quincy Adams had a habit of always observing new members. He would sit near them on the occasion of their Congressional debut, closely eyeing and attentively listening if the speech pleased him, but quickly departing if it did not. When Davis first arose in the House, the Ex-President took a seat close by. Davis proceeded, and Adams did not move. The one continued speaking and the other listening; and those who knew Mr. Adams’ habits were fully aware that the new member had deeply impressed him. At the close of the speech the ‘Old Man Eloquent’ crossed over to some friends and said, ‘That young man, gentlemen, is no ordinary man. He will make his mark yet, mind me.’”

CHAPTER III

THE NAME OF JEFFERSON DAVIS INSEPARABLE FROM THE HISTORY OF THE MEXICAN WAR – HIS ESSENTIALLY MILITARY CHARACTER AND TASTES – JOINS GENERAL TAYLOR’S ARMY ON THE RIO GRANDE, AS COLONEL OF THE FAMOUS “MISSISSIPPI RIFLES” – MONTEREY – BUENA VISTA – GENERAL TAYLOR’S ACCOUNT OF DAVIS’ CONDUCT – DAVIS’ REPORT OF THE ACTION – NOVELTY AND ORIGINALITY OF HIS STRATEGY AT BUENA VISTA – INTERESTING STATEMENT OF HON. CALEB CUSHING – RETURN OF DAVIS TO THE UNITED STATES – TRIUMPHANT RECEPTION AT HOME – PRESIDENT POLK TENDERS HIM A BRIGADIER’S COMMISSION, WHICH HE DECLINES ON PRINCIPLE

The name of Davis is inseparable from those lettered glories of the American Union, which were the brilliant trophies of the Mexican war. In those bright annals it was engraven with unfading lustre upon the conquering banners of the Republic, and his genius and valor were rewarded with a fame which rests securely upon the laurels of Monterey and Buena Vista.

Jefferson Davis is a born soldier. Even if we could forget the glories of the assault upon Teneria and El Diablo, and banish the thrilling recollection of that movement at Buena Vista, the genius, novelty, and intrepidity of which electrified the world of military science, and extorted the enthusiastic admiration of the victor of Waterloo, we must yet recognize the impress of those rare gifts and graces which are the titles to authority. The erect yet easy carriage, the true martial dignity of bearing, which is altogether removed from the supercilious hauteur of the mere martinet, the almost fascinating expression of suaviter in modo, which yet does not for an instant conceal the fortiter in re, constitute in him that imperial semblance, to which the mind involuntarily concedes the right to supreme command. It is impossible, in the presence of Mr. Davis, to deny this recognition of his intuitive soldiership. Not only is obvious to the eye the commanding mien of the soldier, but the order, the discipline of the educated soldier, whose nature, stern and unflinching, was yet plastic to receive the impressions of an art with which it felt an intuitive alliance. This military precision is characteristic of Mr. Davis in every aspect in which he appears. There is the constant fixedness of gaze upon the object to be reached, and the cautious calculation of the chances of success with the means and forces ready at hand; a constant regard for bases of supply and a proper concern for lines of retreat, and, above all, the prompt and vigorous execution, if success be practicable and the attack determined upon. Even in his oratory and statesmanship are these characteristics evinced. In the former there is far more of rhetorical order, harmony, and symmetry, than of rhetorical ornament and display; and in the latter there is purpose, consistency, and method, with little regard for the shifts of expediency and the suggestions of hap-hazard temerity.

The attachment of Mr. Davis for the profession of arms is little less than a passion – an inspiration. True, he voluntarily abandoned the army, at an age when military life is most attractive to men, but the field of politics was far more inviting to a commendable aspiration for fame, than the army at a season of profound peace. But a more potent consideration, of a domestic nature, urged his withdrawal from military life. He was about to be married, and preferred not to remain in the army after having assumed the responsibilities of that relation. His speeches in the House of Representatives, indicating his earnest interest in military affairs, his solicitude in behalf of the army, his enthusiastic championship of the Military Academy, and his thorough information respecting all subjects pertaining to the military interests of the country, show his ambitious and absorbing study of his favorite science.

In common with an overwhelming majority of the Southern people, he had favored the annexation of Texas, and cordially sustained Mr. Polk’s Administration, in all the measures which were necessary to the triumphant success of its policy. While in the midst of his useful labors, as a member of Congress, in promoting the war policy of the Government, he received, with delight, the announcement of his selection to the command of the First Regiment of Mississippi Volunteers. He immediately resigned his seat in Congress and started to take command of his regiment, after obtaining for it, with great difficulty, the rifles which were afterwards used with such deadly effect upon the enemy. Overtaking his men, who were already en route for the scene of action, at New Orleans, by midsummer he had reinforced General Taylor on the Rio Grande.

The incidents of the Mexican war are too fresh in the recollection of the country to justify here a detailed narrative of the operations of the gallant army of General Taylor in its progress toward the interior from the scenes of its splendid exploits at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. For several weeks after the arrival of Colonel Davis and his Mississippians, active hostilities were suspended. When the preparations for the campaign were completed, the army advanced, and reached Walnut Springs, about three miles from Monterey, on the 19th of September, 1846. Two days afterwards began those series of actions which finally resulted in the capitulation of a fortified city of great strength, and defended with obstinate valor. Of the part borne in these brilliant operations which so exalted the glory of the American name, and immortalized the heroism of Southern volunteers, by Colonel Davis and his “Mississippi Rifles,” an able and graphic pen shall relate the story:

“In the storming of Monterey, Colonel Davis and his riflemen played a most gallant part. The storming of one of its strongest forts (Teneria) on the 21st of September was a desperate and hard-fought fight. The Mexicans had dealt such death by their cross-fires that they ran up a new flag in exultation, and in defiance of the assault which, at this time, was being made in front and rear. The Fourth Infantry, in the advance, had been terribly cut up, but the Mississippians and Tennesseeans steadily pressed forward, under a galling fire of copper grape. They approached to within a hundred yards of the fort, when they were lost in a volume of smoke. McClung,7 inciting a company which formerly had been under his command, dashed on, followed by Captain Willis. Anticipating General Quitman, Colonel Davis, about the same time, gave the order to charge. With wild desperation, his men followed him. The escalade was made with the fury of a tempest, the men flinging themselves upon the guns of the enemy. Sword in hand, McClung has sprung over the ditch. After him dashes Davis, cheering on the Mississippians, and then Campbell, with his Tennesseeans and others, brothers in the fight, and rivals for its honors. Then was wild work. The assault was irresistible. The Mexicans, terror-stricken, fled like an Alpine village from the avalanche, and, taking position in a strongly-fortified building, some seventy-five yards in the rear, opened a heavy fire of musketry. But, like their mighty river, nothing could stay the Mississippians. They are after the Mexicans. Davis and McClung are simultaneously masters of the fortifications, having got in by different entrances. In the fervor of victory the brigade does not halt, but, led on by Colonel Davis, are preparing to charge on the second post, (El Diablo,) about three hundred yards in the rear, when they are restrained by Quitman. This desperate conflict lasted over two hours. The charge of the Mississippi Rifle Regiment, without bayonets, upon Fort Teneria, gained for the State a triumph which stands unparalleled.

“Placed in possession of El Diablo, on the dawn of the 23d Colonel Davis was exposed to a sharp fire from a half-moon redoubt, about one hundred and fifty yards distant, which was connected with heavy stone buildings and walls adjoining a block of the city. Returning the fire, he proceeded, with eight men, to reconnoitre the ground in advance. Having reported, he was ordered, with three companies of his regiment and one of Tennesseeans, to advance on the works.

“When they reached the half-moon work a tremendous fire was opened from the stone buildings in the rear. Taking a less-exposed position, Davis was reinforced, and, the balance of the Mississippians coming up, the engagement became general in the street, while, from the house-tops, a heavy fire was kept up by the Mexicans. ‘The gallant Davis, leading the advance with detached parties, was rapidly entering the city, penetrating into buildings, and gradually driving the enemy from the position,’ when General Henderson and the Texan Rangers dismounted, entered the city, and, through musketry and grape, made their way to the advance. The conflict increased, and still Davis continued to lead his command through the streets to within a square of the Grand Plaza, when, the afternoon being far advanced, General Taylor withdrew the Americans to the captured forts.”8

Thus, in their first engagement, the Mississippians and their commander achieved a reputation which shall endure so long as men commemorate deeds of heroism and devotion. Veteran troops, trained to despise death by the dangers of a score of battles, have been immortalized in song and story for exploits inferior to those of the “Mississippi Rifles” at Monterey. Colonel Davis became one of the idols of the army, and took a prominent place among the heroes of the war. The nation rang with the fame of “Davis and his Mississippi Rifles;” the journals of the day were largely occupied with graphic descriptions of their exploits; and the reports of superior officers contributed their proud testimony to the history of the country, to the chivalrous daring and consummate skill of Colonel Davis. A becoming acknowledgment of his conduct was made by General Taylor in assigning him a place on the commission of officers appointed to arrange with the Mexicans the terms of capitulation. The result of the negotiations, though approved by General Taylor, was not approved by the Administration, which ordered a termination of the armistice agreed upon by the commissioners from the respective armies and a speedy resumption of hostilities. The terms of capitulation were assailed by many, who thought them too lenient to the Mexicans; among others, by General Quitman, the warm, personal, and political friend of Colonel Davis. A very important portion of the history of the war consists of the latter’s defense of the terms of surrender and his memoranda of the incidents occurring in the conferences with the Mexican officers.

To sustain the proud prestige of Monterey – if possible to surpass it, became henceforth the aspiration of the Mississippians. But the name of Mississippi was to be made radiant with a new glory, beside which the lustre of Monterey paled, as did the dawn of Lodi by the full-orbed splendor of Austerlitz. All the world knows of the conduct of Jefferson Davis at Buena Vista. How he virtually won a battle, which, considering the disparity of the contending forces, must forever be a marvel to the student of military science; how like Dessaix, at Marengo, he thought there was “still time to win another battle,” even when a portion of our line was broken and in inglorious retreat, and acting upon the impulse rescued victory from the jaws of defeat; saving an army from destruction, and flooding with a blaze of triumph a field shrouded with the gloom of disaster, are memories forever enshrined in the Temple of Fame. Americans can never weary of listening to the thrilling incidents of that ever-memorable day. By the South, the lesson of Buena Vista and kindred scenes of the valor of her children, can never be forgotton. In these days of her humiliation and despair, their proud memories throng upon her, as do a thousand noble emotions upon the modern Greek, who stands upon the sacred ground of Marathon and Plætea.