The Life of Jefferson Davis

The censure of General Early by the public and the newspapers was unsparing. Most unworthy allegations, totally unsupported, were circulated in explanation of his disasters. That such a man as Early, whose every promotion had been won by a heroism and efficiency inferior to those of none of Lee’s subordinates, should have been recklessly condemned for reverses, which were clearly the results of no errors or misconduct of his own, is now a striking commentary upon that sullen despondency into which the Southern mind was fast settling. A victory, in any quarter, was now almost the last expectation of the public, and still Early was recklessly abused for not winning victories, with a demoralized army, against forces having four times his own strength. Neither President Davis nor General Lee ever doubted General Early’s efficiency; and the letter of the commanding general to Early, written in the last hours of the Confederacy, constitutes a tribute to patriotic and distinguished services, which the old hero may well cherish in his exile, as a worthy title to the esteem of posterity.

The defeat of Early at Cedar Creek, late in October, was the decisive event of the last campaign in the Shenandoah Valley. In December nearly all Early’s forces were transferred to General Lee’s lines, and the bulk of the Federal army in the Valley returned to General Grant. General Early remained in the Valley with a fragmentary command, which Sheridan easily overran on his march from Winchester to the front of Petersburg.

Events in the Valley had a marked influence upon the situation near Richmond. The Confederate authorities had hoped for such a successful issue in the Valley as should relieve Richmond of much of Grant’s pressure. The disappointment of this hope left the Federal frontier secure, and gave Grant a large accession of strength, for which Lee had no compensation, except the débris of a defeated and dispirited army.

The aggregate of military disasters with which the year 1864 terminated, established the inevitable failure of the Confederacy, unless more vigorous measures than the Government had ever yet attempted should be adopted, and unless the people were prepared for sacrifices which had not yet been exacted. The reserves of men, which the various acts of conscription were designed to place in the field, were exhausted, or beyond the reach of the Government, and the supplies of the army became more and more precarious each day. There was, indeed, nothing fatal as affecting the ultimate decision of the contest, in the military events of the past year, if unattended by a decay of public spirit. It was not until the winter of 1864-1865 that any considerable body of the Southern people were brought to the conviction that their struggle was a hopeless one. The waste of war is in nothing more continuous than in its test of the moral energy of communities. In the last winter of the war the distrust of the popular mind was painfully apparent. The South began to read its fate when it saw that the North had converted warfare into universal destruction and desolation, and when it exchanged the code of civilized war for the grim butchery of Grant, and the savage measures of Sherman and Sheridan. It was plain that while the losses of the Federal army were shocking, and were sufficient to have unnerved the army and the people of the North, the “attrition” of General Grant had caused a fearful diminution of the Confederate armies.

The facility of the Federal Government in repairing its losses of men, baffled all previous calculation in the Confederacy, and it had long since become evident that the resources of the North, in all other respects, were equal to an indefinite endurance. Indeed, it has been justly said that the material resources of the North were not seriously tested, but merely developed by the war. Peculiarly disheartening to the South was the triumph of the Republican party in the reëlection of Mr. Lincoln – an event plainly portending a protraction of the war upon a scale, which should adequately employ the inexhaustible means at the command of the Federal Government.

It would be needless to speculate now as to the material capacity of the South to have met the demands of another campaign. The military capacity of the Confederacy in the last months of the war, is not to be measured by the number of men that still might have been brought to the field, or by the material means which yet survived the consumption and waste of war. These considerations are admissible only in connection with that moral condition of the public, which fitted or disqualified it for longer endurance of the privations and sacrifices of the war. Long before the close of winter, popular feeling assumed a phase of sullen indifference which, while yet averse to unconditional submission to the North, manifestly despaired of ultimate success, viewed additional sacrifices as hopeless, and anticipated the worst.

Only a hasty and ill-informed judgment could condemn the Southern people for the decay of its spirit in this last stage of the war. No people ever endured with more heroism the trials and privations incidental to their situation. Yet these sacrifices appeared to have been to no purpose; a cruel and inexorable fate seemed to pursue them, and to taunt them with the futility of exertion to escape its decree. Victories, which had amazed the world, and again and again stunned a powerful adversary, and which the South felt that, under ordinary circumstances, should have secured the reward of independence, were recurred to only as making more bitter the chagrin of the present. Previous defeats, at the time seeming fatal, had been patiently encountered, and bravely surmounted, so long as victory appeared to offer a reward which should compensate for the sacrifice necessary to obtain it. But, now, even the hope of victory had almost ceased to be a source of encouragement, since any probable success would only tend to a postponement of the inevitable catastrophe, which, perhaps, it would be better to invite than to defer.

It must be confessed, too, that the people and the army of the Confederacy, in this crisis, found but little source of reanimation in the example of a majority of its public men. Long before the taint of demoralization reached the heart of the masses, the Confederate cause had been despaired of by men whose influence and position determined the convictions of whole communities. In President Davis and General Lee the South saw conspicuous examples of resolution, fortitude, and self-abnegation. It is not to be denied that the impatient and almost despairing temper of the public was visibly influenced by the persistent crimination of Mr. Davis, by the faction which sought to thwart him even at the hazard of the public welfare. But when it was discovered that the unity of counsel and purpose which had animated the President and General Lee at every stage of the struggle, was still maintained, popular sympathy still clung to the leader, whose unselfish devotion and unshaken fortitude should have been a sufficient rebuke to his accusers.

A vast deal of misrepresentation has been indulged to show that Mr. Davis had become unpopular in the last stage of the war, and that he was the object of popular reproach as chiefly responsible for the condition of the country. To the contrary, there were many evidences of the sympathy which embraced Mr. Davis as probably the chief sufferer from apprehended calamities. His appearance in public in Richmond, was always the occasion of unrestrained popular enthusiasm. Even but a few weeks before the final catastrophe, there were signal instances of the popular affection for him, and it was painfully evident to those who knew his character, that these demonstrations were accepted by him as an exhibition of popular confidence in the success of the cause. Indeed, the very confidence which these exhibitions of popular sympathy produced in the mind of Mr. Davis, has been urged as an evidence of a want of sagacity, which disqualified him for a clear appreciation of the situation of affairs.

Perhaps with more color of truth than usual, this view of Mr. Davis’ character has been presented. That he did not fully comprehend the wide-spread demoralization of the South in the last months of the war, is hardly to be questioned. Judging men by his own exalted nature, he conceived it impossible that the South could ever abandon its hope of independence. He did not realize how men could cherish an aspiration for the future, which did not embrace the liberty of their country. No sacrifice of personal interests or hopes were, in his view, too great to be demanded of the country in behalf of a cause, for which he was at all times ready to surrender his life. Of such devotion and self-abnegation, a sanguine and resolute spirit was the natural product, and it is a paltry view of such qualities to characterize them as the proof of defective intellect. Just such qualities have won the battles of liberty in all ages. Washington, at Valley Forge, with a wretched remnant of an army, which was yet the last hope of the country, and with even a more gloomy future immediately before him, declared that in the last emergency he would retreat to the mountains of Virginia, and there continue the struggle in the hope that he would “yet lift the flag of his bleeding country from the dust.” In the same spirit Jefferson Davis would never have abandoned the Confederate cause so long as it had even a semblance of popular support.

Almost to the last moment of the Confederacy, he continued to cherish the hope of a reaction in the public mind, which he believed would be immediately kindled to its old enthusiasm by a decided success. It was in recognition of this quality of inflexible purpose, as much as of any other trait of his character, that the South originally intrusted Davis with leadership. Fit leaders of revolutions are not usually found in men of half-hearted purpose, wanting in resolution themselves, and doubting the fidelity of those whom they govern. Desperate trial is the occasion which calls forth the courage of those truly great men, who, while ordinary men despair, confront agony itself with sublime resolution.

If ingenuity and malignity have combined to exaggerate the faults of Mr. Davis, the love of his countrymen, the candor of honorable enemies, and the intelligence of mankind have recognized his intellectual and moral greatness. The world to-day does not afford such an example of those blended qualities which constitute the title to universal excellence. For one in his position, the leader of a bold, warlike, intelligent, and discerning people, there was demanded that union of ardor and deliberation which he so peculiarly illustrated. Revolutionary periods imperatively demand this union of capacities for thought and action. The peculiar charm of Mr. Davis is the perfect poise of his faculties; an almost exact adjustment of qualities; of indomitable energy and winning grace; heroic courage and tender affection; strength of character, and almost excessive compassion; of calculating judgment and knightly sentiment; acute penetration and analysis; comprehensive perception; laborious habits, and almost universal knowledge. Of him it may be said as of Hamilton: “He wore the blended wreath of arms, of law, of statesmanship, of oratory, of letters, of scholarship, of practical affairs;” and in most of these fields of distinction, Mr. Davis has few rivals among the public men of America.

But it is altogether a fallacious supposition that the military situation of the Confederacy, in the last winter of the war, was beyond reclamation. The most hasty glance at the situation revealed the feasibility of destroying Sherman, when he turned northward from Savannah, with a proper concentration of the forces yet available. President Davis anxiously sought to secure this concentration, but was disappointed by causes which need not here be related. With Sherman defeated, the Confederacy must have obtained a new lease of life, as all the territory which he had overrun, would immediately be recovered, and the worthless title of his conquests would be apparent, even to the North. There were indeed many aspects of the situation encouraging to enterprise, could an adequate army be obtained, and the heart of the country reanimated. President Davis was not alone in the indulgence of hope of better fortune. Again he had the sanction of Lee’s name in confirmation of his hopes, and in support of the measures which he recommended.

But the resolution of the President was not sustained by the coöperation of Congress. The last session of that body was commemorated by a signal display of timidity and vacillation. Congress assembled in November, and at the beginning of its session its nerve was visibly shaken. Before its adjournment in March, there was no longer even a pretense of organized opinion and systematic legislation. Its occupation during the winter was mainly crimination of the President, and a contemptible frivolity, which at last provoked the hearty disgust of the public. The calibre of the last Confederate Congress may be correctly estimated, when it is stated that as late as the 22d of February, 1865, less than sixty days before the fall of Richmond, that body was earnestly engaged in devising a new flag for the Confederacy.

Not a single measure of importance was adopted without some emasculating clause, or without such postponement as made it practically inoperative. Of all the vigorous suggestions of Mr. Davis for recruiting the army, mobilizing the subsistence, and renovating the material condition of the country, hardly one was adopted in a practicable shape. Congress had clearly despaired of the cause. It had not the courage to counsel the submission, of which it secretly felt the necessity, and left the capital with a declaration that the “conquest of the Confederacy was geographically impossible,” yet clearly attesting by its flight a very different view of the situation.

The history of the Congress of the Confederate States is a record of singular imbecility and irresolution. It was a body without leaders, without popular sympathy, without a single one of those heroic attributes which are usually evoked in periods of revolution. It may safely be asserted that in the history of no other great revolution does the statesmanship of its legislators appear so contemptible, when compared with the military administration which guided its armies. Whatever may be the estimate of the executive ability of the Confederate administration, it can not be denied that its courage was abundant; nor can it be questioned that the courage of Congress often required the spur of popular sentiment. In the wholesale condemnation of Mr. Davis by a class of writers, it is remarkable that the defective legislation of the Confederacy should be accredited with so little influence in producing its failure. If he was so grossly incompetent, what must be the verdict of history upon a body which, for four years, submitted to a ruinous administration when the corrective means were in its own hands?

Of Mr. Davis’ relations with Congress, Ex-Secretary Mallory writes as follows:

“I have said that his relations with members of Congress were not what they should have been, nor were they what they might have been. Towards them, as towards the world generally, he wore his personal opinions very openly. Position and opportunity presented him every means of cultivating the personal good-will of members by little acts of attention, courtesy, or deference, which no man, however high in his position, who has to work by means of his fellows, can dispense with. Great minds can, in spite of the absence of these demonstrations towards them in a leader – nay, in the face of neglect or apparent disrespect – go on steadily and bravely, with a single eye to the public welfare; but the number of these in comparison to those who are more or less governed by personal considerations in the discharge of their public duties is small. While he was ever frank and cordial to his friends, and to all whom he believed to be embarked heart and soul in the cause of Southern independence, he would not, and, we think, could not, sacrifice a smile, an inflection of the voice, or a demonstration of attention to flatter the self-love of any man, in or out of Congress, who did not stand in this relation. Acting himself for the public welfare, regardless of self or the opinions of others, he placed too light a value upon the thousand nameless influences by which he might have brought others up, apparently, to his own high moral standard. By members of Congress, who had to see him on business, his reception of them was frequently complained of as ungracious. They frequently, in their anxiety amidst public disaster, called upon him to urge plans, suggestions, or views on the conduct of the war, or for the attainment of peace, and often pressed matters upon him which he had very carefully considered, and for which he alone was responsible.

“Often, in such cases, though he listened to all they had to say – why, for example, some man should be made a brigadier, major or lieutenant-general, or placed at the head of an army, etc. – and in return calmly and precisely stated his reasons against the measure, he at times failed to satisfy or convince them, simply because, in his manner and language combined, there was just an indescribable something which offended their self-esteem. Some of his best friends left him at times with feelings bordering closely upon anger from this cause, and with a determination, hastily formed, of calling no more upon him; and some of the most sensible and patriotic men of both Houses were alienated from him more or less from this cause. The counsel of judicious friends upon this subject, and as to more unrestrained intercourse between him and the members of the Senate and the House, was vainly exerted. His manly, fearless, true, and noble nature turned from what to him wore the faintest approach to seeking popularity, and he scorned to believe it necessary to coax men to do their duty to their country in her darkest hour of need.”

When Congress assembled in November it was plain that the army must have other means of recruiting than from the remnant yet left by the conscription. There was but one measure by which the requisite numbers could be supplied, and that was the extension of the conscription to the slave population. Public sentiment was at first much divided upon this subject, but gradually the propriety of the measure was made evident, and something like a renewal of hope was manifested at the prospect of making use of an element which the enemy so efficiently employed. President Davis had, for months previous, contemplated the enlistment of the slaves for service in various capacities in the field. In the last winter of the war he strongly urged a negro enrollment, as did General Lee, whose letter to a member of Congress eventually convinced the country of its necessity.

Whatever may have been the merits of the proposition to arm the slaves, as a means of renovating the military condition of the Confederacy, the dilatory action of Congress left no hope of its practical execution. The discussion upon this subject continued during the entire session, and was at last terminated by the adoption of a bill providing for the reception of such slaves into the service as might be tendered by their masters. Mr. Davis and General Lee both advocated the extension of freedom to such of the slaves as would volunteer, and this was clearly the only system of enrollment upon which they could be efficiently employed. But even though the slave-holding interest had not thus emasculated the measure, by refusing emancipation, it was too late to hope for any results of importance. The bill was not passed until three weeks before the fall of Richmond.

But Congress found congenial employment in giving vent to its partisan malignity, by the adoption of measures plainly designed to humiliate the Executive, and with no expectation of improving the condition of the Confederacy, which most of its members believed to be already beyond reclamation. In this spirit was dictated the measure making General Lee virtually a military dictator, and that expressing want of confidence in the cabinet. All of this action of Congress was extra-official, and subversive of the constitutional authority of the Executive, but it utterly failed in its obvious design.

President Davis never made a more noble display of feeling, than in his response to the resolution of the Virginia Legislature recommending the appointment of General Lee to the command of the armies of the Confederacy. Said he: “The opinion expressed by the General Assembly in regard to General R. E. Lee has my full concurrence. Virginia can not have a higher regard for him, or greater confidence in his character and ability, than is entertained by me. When General Lee took command of the Army of Northern Virginia, he was in command of all the armies of the Confederate States by my order of assignment. He continued in this general command, as well as in the immediate command of the Army of Northern Virginia, as long as I could resist his opinion that it was necessary for him to be relieved from one of these two duties. Ready as he has ever shown himself to be to perform any service that I desired him to render to his country, he left it for me to choose between his withdrawal from the command of the army in the field, and relieving him of the general command of all the armies of the Confederate States. It was only when satisfied of this necessity that I came to the conclusion to relieve him from the general command, believing that the safety of the capital and the success of our cause depended, in a great measure, on then retaining him in the command in the field of the Army of Northern Virginia. On several subsequent occasions, the desire on my part to enlarge the sphere of General Lee’s usefulness, has led to renewed consideration of the subject, and he has always expressed his inability to assume command of other armies than those now confided to him, unless relieved of the immediate command in the field of that now opposed to General Grant.”

A striking indication of the feverish condition of the public mind of both sections, during the last winter of the war, was the ready credence given to the most extravagant and improbable rumors. Washington correspondents of Northern newspapers declared that the air of the Federal capital was “thick with rumors of negotiation.” At Richmond this credulous disposition was even more marked. Men were found as late as the middle of March, who believed that President Davis had actually formed an alliance, offensive and defensive, with the French Emperor. In the month of January the rumors as to peace negotiations assumed a more definite shape, in the arrival of Mr. Francis P. Blair at the Confederate capital.

It is remarkable that the “Blair mission” and its sequel, the Hampton Roads conference, though palpably contemplating only the discussion of such mere generalities as belong to other efforts at peace at different stages of the war, and, indeed, introducing nothing in the shape of formal negotiation, should have been dignified as a most important episode. Equally remarkable, in view of the published proceedings of the Hampton Roads conference, is the disposition to censure President Davis for having designedly interposed obstacles to the consummation of peace. Mr. Blair visited Richmond by the permission of President Lincoln, but without any official authority, and without having the objects of his mission committed to paper. In short, Mr. Blair’s mission had no official character, and he came to Richmond to prevail upon Mr. Davis to encourage, in some manner, preliminary steps to negotiation. In his interviews with the Confederate President, Mr. Blair disclaimed the official countenance of the Federal authorities for the objects of his visit. It was known to the world, that Mr. Davis, upon repeated occasions, had avowed his desire for peace upon any terms consistent with the honor of his country, and that he would not present difficulties as to forms in the attainment of that object, at this critical period. Hence, despite the unauthorized nature of Mr. Blair’s conciliatory efforts, Mr. Davis gave him a letter, addressed to himself, avowing the willingness of the Confederate authorities to begin negotiations, to send or receive commissioners authorized to treat, and to “renew the effort to enter into a conference, with a view to secure peace between the two countries.”