Embattled Rebel: Jefferson Davis as Commander in Chief

by James M. McPherson

  4.

  THE CLOUDS ARE DARK OVER US

  In Braxton Bragg’s Army of Tennessee, the Battle of Murfreesboro produced bitter recriminations about missed opportunities that turned initial success into a retreat. After the Confederate attack on December 31 drove the enemy right back three miles, Union resistance stiffened and stopped the Southern onslaught. Bragg nevertheless telegraphed a report of victory to Richmond, where it caused “great exaltation.” He added that the enemy “is falling back.”1 But the enemy was not. Rejecting the advice of subordinates, Bragg ordered another attack on January 2, which was shredded by Union artillery on high ground across the Stones River. With supplies running short and Union reinforcements arriving, Bragg decided to withdraw south thirty miles to a new base at Tullahoma.

  Twice in three months the Army of Tennessee had apparently snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. And twice Bragg and his senior generals blamed one another. So divisive and open did the contention become that Davis ordered Joseph Johnston to visit the army, “decide what the best interests of the service require, and give me the advice which I need at this juncture.”2 The disaffected generals led by Davis’s friend Leonidas Polk wanted Johnston to replace Bragg. Bragg himself hinted at a willingness to accept this solution.3

  Davis had good reason to believe that Johnston would jump at the chance. He had continued to complain about his anomalous status as a theater commander with responsibility but no authority and to express a desire for a real army command. “I cannot help repining at this position,” which was “little, if any, better than being laid on the shelf,” he told Senator Louis T. Wigfall.4 With no chance of obtaining what he really “repined” for, a return to the Army of Northern Virginia, Johnston nevertheless refused to consider taking command of Bragg’s army. Instead, after inspecting the troops and talking with corps and division commanders, he reported to Davis that the army was in good shape and the disaffection was a tempest in a teapot that was subsiding. The army’s operations under Bragg “evince great vigor & skill,” Johnston assured Davis. “I can find no record of more effective fighting in modern battles than that of this army in december. . . . The interest of the service requires that General Bragg should not be removed,” especially after “he has just earned if not won the gratitude of the country.” Johnston refused to acknowledge that there might have been some reason why Bragg had not won that gratitude. In any event, Johnston insisted that he would be dishonored by accusations of conflict of interest if, after investigating the army’s condition, he were then to take command of it.5

  A stickler for the fine points of honor himself, Davis nevertheless could not see how Johnston would violate that code by replacing Bragg. After all, Johnston’s original assignment as theater commander authorized him to take field command of any of the armies under his jurisdiction when the good of the service required it.6 Davis soon realized that Johnston’s report of reduced tensions within the army was inaccurate. The tempest did not subside. On March 9 the president had Secretary of War Seddon order Johnston to take over the army and send Bragg to Richmond for reassignment.7 But Johnston managed once again to avoid obedience to his commander in chief’s wishes. When he arrived at Tullahoma, Johnston learned that Bragg’s wife was seriously ill, so he could not be sent away. Then Johnston himself fell ill. On April 10 he reported that he was “not now able to serve in the field.”8 For weal or woe, Bragg would remain in command of the Army of Tennessee. And Davis’s main attention shifted to Virginia and Mississippi, where Union armies were once more on the move.

  • • •

  UNION MAJ. GEN. JOSEPH HOOKER LAUNCHED THE FOURTH “On to Richmond” campaign in April 1863. Outnumbering the Army of Northern Virginia by almost two to one (Longstreet was absent with two divisions on a separate campaign south of the James River), Hooker left part of his army at Fredericksburg and crossed the Rappahannock upriver with the rest to come in on Lee’s rear. The Confederate commander daringly divided his army, sent Jackson on a long march to attack the Union flank, caved it in, and drove the befuddled Hooker back across the river by May 6.

  Although ill and abed, Davis was elated by this victory in the Battle of Chancellorsville. He sent official congratulations to Lee “and the troops under your command for this addition to the unprecedented series of great victories which your army has achieved,” although regretting “the good and the brave who are numbered among the killed and wounded.” The most important of these was Stonewall Jackson, who died on May 10 of pneumonia that set in after he was wounded by friendly fire at Chancellorsville. Nevertheless, Lee’s success caused Davis to hope that “we will destroy Hooker’s army and then perform that same operation on the army sent to sustain him.”9

  Braxton Bragg

  But ominous news arrived from Mississippi. Grant had crossed the river below Vicksburg and was advancing on that citadel, which constituted one of the last links between the eastern and western parts of the Confederacy, the other being Port Hudson two hundred river miles downstream. “To hold the Mississippi is vital,” Davis declared. Could Pemberton repeat his checkmate of the first Union attack in December? Davis initially hoped that cavalry raids on Grant’s supply line would stop him, as they had on the previous occasion.10 But Grant had cut loose from his communications and was living off the land this time. Concern mounted in Richmond as the news from Mississippi grew more grave in the second week of May.

  With the front in Virginia apparently stabilized for the time being, several officials suggested sending detachments from Lee’s army to the West. Longstreet proposed to take the two divisions that had been operating south of the James to reinforce Bragg in Middle Tennessee. They could then undertake an offensive against Rosecrans that, if successful, might force Grant to loosen his grip in Mississippi. Secretary of War Seddon wanted to send these two divisions directly to Mississippi—nearly a thousand miles away. Lee opposed this idea vigorously, noting that Hooker still outnumbered his and was being reinforced, so that to weaken the Army of Northern Virginia by Longstreet’s continued absence “is hazardous, and it becomes a question between Virginia and Mississippi.”11

  Lee proposed instead to reincorporate Longstreet’s divisions into the Army of Northern Virginia. With additional reinforcements he would then invade Pennsylvania, where he hoped to win another battle on the scale of Chancellorsville. A successful invasion might drain troops away from both Rosecrans and Grant. It would strengthen the antiwar Northern Copperheads, who might force the Lincoln administration into peace negotiations. Lee came personally to Richmond for meetings with Davis and his cabinet on May 15 and 16. The president had been ill for the past month with inflammation of the throat and a recurrence of severe neuralgia, which threatened the sight of his remaining good eye. For several weeks he had been too weak to come into the office, but he had continued to work from his sickbed in the executive mansion. He roused himself for these conferences, where he wavered between the options of reinforcing Pemberton or invading Pennsylvania. But in the long discussions of these alternatives, Lee carried the day with Davis and most of the cabinet. Postmaster General John Reagan held out for the option of sending Longstreet to Vicksburg. He was from Texas and feared that the loss of the Mississippi River would doom the Confederacy. Davis shared that concern, but so strong was his confidence in Lee that he approved the invasion of Pennsylvania and planned to reinforce Pemberton from other sources.12

  This decision did not mean that Davis thought the Eastern theater was more important than Mississippi. Both were crucial; and because his home (partly destroyed by Union forces) was in Mississippi, he remained preoccupied with that theater. Ordnance Chief Josiah Gorgas wrote in his diary after a conversation with the president in March 1863 that he was “wholly devoted to the defense of the Mississippi, and thinks and talks of little else.”13 After the repulse of the Union navy’s attack on the Charleston defenses on April 7, Davis ordered five thousand men from South Carolina
to Mississippi. He scraped together a few thousand from elsewhere, and on May 9 he had Seddon order Johnston to Mississippi to take personal command of Confederate troops there. Johnston arrived at Jackson on May 13 to find that Grant’s army was about to capture the state capital and was preparing to turn west toward Vicksburg itself. “I am too late,” Johnston wired Richmond.14

  This pessimism set the tone for Johnston’s efforts—or lack thereof—during the next seven weeks. He ordered Pemberton to evacuate Vicksburg and combine his army with Johnston’s small corps to form a mobile force to defeat Grant, after which they could reoccupy Vicksburg. Pemberton was reluctant to do so because Davis had telegraphed him a week earlier that “to hold both Vicksburg and Port Hudson is necessary to our connection with Trans-Mississippi.” Many Southerners were already skeptical of Pemberton because he was a Yankee. He feared that if he obeyed Johnston’s instructions to abandon Vicksburg, he would be accused of treason.15

  In any event, Grant’s victories over most of Pemberton’s army at Champion’s Hill on May 16 and Big Black River on May 17 made the question moot. Pemberton’s remaining troops were driven back into the Vicksburg defenses, where they repulsed Union attacks on May 19 and 22. Grant settled in for a siege, while Davis continued to send dribs and drabs of reinforcements to Johnston and to urge him to break through Grant’s tightening cordon. Persistent illness added to Davis’s frustration, and stress in turn no doubt worsened his health. Almost daily he sent telegrams to Johnston imploring him to do something, messages to Bragg asking if he could spare reinforcements for Johnston, and missives to Governor John Pettus asking him to organize state militia to join Johnston.16

  Little came of these efforts: Bragg could not send any more men without jeopardizing his own position at Tullahoma; Pettus had already scraped the bottom of the militia barrel; and from Johnston came very little information except that the 23,000 troops he had patched together were too few to attack the 30,000 under Sherman that Grant had put in place to protect the rear of his 40,000 besieging Pemberton’s 30,000 at Vicksburg. Davis believed that Johnston had 31,000 men; the actual number of effectives was probably fewer, but more than the 23,000 Johnston claimed.17

  In Vicksburg the hope that Johnston would rescue them buoyed both soldiers and civilians. “We are certainly in a critical condition,” wrote an army surgeon in his diary, but “we can hold out until Johnston arrives with reinforcements and attacks the Yankees in the rear.” Round-the-clock artillery fire from Grant’s batteries on land and navy gunboats on the river drove Southern civilians and soldiers alike into caves carved from the soft loess soil, where they waited for rescue. The Vicksburg newspaper—now being printed on wallpaper—reported that “the undaunted Johnston is at hand. . . . Hold out a few days longer, and our lines will be opened, the enemy driven away, the siege raised.”18

  But Johnston was daunted, and he was not at hand. On June 15 he wired Secretary of War Seddon: “I consider saving Vicksburg hopeless.” A War Department official reported that Davis was “furious with Johnston.” He directed Seddon to reply: “Your telegram grieves and alarms us. Vicksburg must not be lost, at least without a struggle. The interest and honor of the Confederacy forbid it. I rely on you still to avert the loss. If better resource does not offer, you must hazard attack.”19

  But Johnston did not hazard attack. On the verge of starvation, the thirty thousand soldiers and three thousand civilians still in Vicksburg were surrendered on the Fourth of July. When the news reached Richmond, Davis was “bitter against Johnston,” according to Ordnance Chief Josiah Gorgas. “When I said that Vicksburg fell apparently from want alone of provisions, he remarked ‘Yes, from want of provisions inside and a general outside who wouldn’t fight.’”20

  Johnston retreated to Jackson; Sherman pursued and began to surround the city. Hoping to salvage something from “the disastrous termination of the siege of Vicksburg,” Davis urged Johnston to hold the state capital if possible. “The importance of your position is apparent, and you will not fail to employ all available means to ensure success.” But Johnston feared encirclement by Sherman’s force, so he evacuated Jackson on July 16. He left so hastily that he failed to secure some four hundred railroad cars and locomotives, which the Confederacy would sorely miss.21

  With the fall of Vicksburg, Port Hudson became untenable and surrendered on July 9. The Confederacy was cut in two: “The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea” were Lincoln’s felicitous words. Davis was profoundly depressed by these events. “Your letter found me in the depth of gloom in which the disasters on the Mississippi have shrouded our cause,” he wrote to a friend in mid-July. “The clouds are truly dark over us.” But they could not think of giving up. “Can any one not fit to be a slave, and ready to become one, think of passing under the yoke of such as the Yankees have shown themselves to be by their conduct in this war?” he remonstrated. The “sacrifices of our people have been very heavy of both blood and treasure . . . but the prize for which we strive, freedom and independence, is worth whatever it may cost.”22

  Davis relieved Johnston of his theater command, making Bragg independent of him and leaving Johnston in control only of the troops he had evacuated from Jackson. Davis also wrote a fifteen-page letter in his own hand charging Johnston with what amounted to dereliction of duty in the Vicksburg campaign. Johnston replied, heatedly denying the charge. This exchange inaugurated what Johnston’s biographer describes as “a paper war” between the partisans of the two men. Johnston’s ally in Congress, Senator Louis T. Wigfall, called for publication of all the correspondence related to the campaign. Once an ally and confidant of Davis’s, Wigfall had become one of his sharpest critics. He hoped to mine these documents for evidence to embarrass Davis and place the blame on Pemberton.23

  Pemberton’s hundred-page report, not surprisingly, blamed Johnston. Someone in the Davis administration leaked portions of it to the Richmond Sentinel, a pro-administration paper that made its position clear: “With an army larger than won the first battle of Manassas,” Johnston “made not a motion, he struck not a blow, for the relief of Vicksburg. For nearly seven weeks he sat down in sound of the conflict, and he fired not a gun. . . . He has done no more than to sit by and see Vicksburg fall, and send us the news.” Not to be outdone, someone on Johnston’s staff apparently leaked a letter written by his medical officer that praised Johnston and excoriated Pemberton. This letter was published by several newspapers and inspired a vendetta against the general, who was all the more vulnerable because of his Pennsylvania birth.24

  J. C. Pemberton

  Davis regarded these attacks on Pemberton as an attack on himself. He continued to defend the general against the growing opprobrium from all corners of the Confederacy. One newspaper quoted the president (perhaps not with literal accuracy) as stating, “My confidence in General Pemberton has not abated in the least—he is one of the most gallant and skillful generals in the service.”25 Public sentiment and army opinion turned against Davis on this issue, however. Two friendly Mississippi congressmen warned him that Pemberton “has entirely lost the confidence of the country.” Davis failed to understand “the unhappy, disaffected, dangerous sentiment which pervades the whole people” on this matter. “You cannot uphold him. The attempt will only destroy you.”26

  Davis’s opponents in Congress and the press did indeed use the Johnston-Pemberton controversy to undermine him. The vitriolic pen of John Moncure Daniel, editor of the Richmond Examiner, lashed out at Davis’s “flagrant mismanagement.” From “the frigid heights of an infallible egotism . . . wrapped in sublime self-complacency,” Davis “has alienated the hearts of the people by his stubborn follies” and “his chronic hallucinations that he is a great military genius.” Davis “prides himself on never changing his mind; and popular clamor against those who possess his favor only knits him more stubbornly to them. . . . Had the people dreamed that Mr. Davis would carry all his c
hronic antipathies, his bitter prejudices, his puerile partialities into the presidential chair, they would never have allowed him to fill it.”27

  The poison of this conflict seeped into the body politic of the Confederacy. Three months after the fall of Vicksburg, Mary Chesnut wrote in her diary that her husband, a member of Davis’s staff, told the president after an inspection trip “that every honest man he saw out west thought well of Joe Johnston. He knows that the president detests Joe Johnston for all the trouble he has given him. And General Joe returns the compliment with compound interest. His hatred of Jeff Davis amounts to a religion.”28

  • • •

  IF DAVIS HAD NOT PREVIOUSLY GRASPED THE TRUISM THAT when things go wrong in wartime the chief blame will fall on the commander in chief, he certainly realized it now. He was also taking heat for the defeat at Gettysburg and for setbacks in Tennessee and Arkansas. Most disappointing was Lee’s retreat from Pennsylvania after a failed campaign that left more than a third of his army killed, wounded, or captured.

  Lee’s invasion of Pennsylvania had started with great promise. With seventy-five thousand men he swept northward through the Shenandoah Valley, scattered the Union garrison at Winchester and captured almost four thousand of them, and moved into Pennsylvania during the third week of June. Confederate quartermasters gathered thousands of horses, cattle, and hogs and tons of other supplies from Pennsylvania farms. The army also captured scores of black people; claiming they were escaped slaves (many had actually been born in Pennsylvania), officers sent them back to Virginia and slavery. Initial reports of success that reached Richmond caused exultation. Even the Examiner praised “the present movement of General Lee,” which “will be of infinite value as disclosing the . . . easy susceptibility of the North to invasion. . . . Not even the Chinese are less prepared by previous habits of life and education for martial resistance than the Yankees. . . . We can carry our armies far into the enemy’s country, exacting peace by blows leveled at his vitals.”29