The distant husband and father was eager for his family to join him. He confessed to Varina that he missed her and was “ever full of love” for her, and as for young Sam, or “le man,” an ancient endearment meaning sweetheart, the doting father wanted the little boy “to run to his daddy as fast as he can.” Even though he anticipated their arrival, he cautioned Varina to wait for warmer weather in Washington so that she and the child would not have to endure a change of climate. In the meantime his niece, Mary Jane (Malie) Bradford Brodhead, and her husband, a Democratic senator from Pennsylvania, kept house for him until Varina’s arrival in the summer.22
Davis started out and remained a hands-on secretary, seeking involvement in all aspects of his department’s operations. A man as dedicated and as ambitious as Davis, who also had a vision of what he wanted to accomplish, could master the small domain of the antebellum U.S. Army. No doubt existed about his placing his imprint on the War Department. According to a contemporary observer, Davis knew “every detail of his office from ‘brass howitzers to brass buttons.’ ” Another made the same point, asserting that “the Government could never be cheated out of the value of a brass button or a cadet’s jacket while Davis remained Secretary of War.”23
At the outset Davis put in long hours. He left home between 9 and 10 a.m., not returning until after 6 p.m. After some two months he was confined to his room with facial neuralgia, which his niece attributed to overwork. Upon recovery, he began returning to his house at four and taking long walks in the evening. Whatever the precise reason, Malie Brodhead believed that her uncle looked “better, far better,” with a healthier complexion, and “his face fuller.” Formal office hours at the department were certainly not too taxing. Although Congress had instructed the war office to remain open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., the department did not adhere to that schedule. Winter hours were officially 8–4, but were often shorter, while the so-called summer hours in effect from April 1 to October 1 were 8–3. Of course, the secretary could remain after the front door closed, and Davis’s drive and energy wore down some of his subordinates. At times his lunch was sent from home to his office. As late as 1856 Davis still complained, “My days belong to everyone more than to myself.”24
The papers that crossed Davis’s desk and received his personal attention ranged from the most essential to the extraordinarily trivial. The critical documents included departmental budgets, major reports, general policy, congressional requests for information, directives to generals and other key subordinates, and politics. While he dealt with these substantial matters, he also devoted considerable time to massive amounts of marginal material. He commented on an incredible number of topics. He placed an endorsement on seemingly every letter to the department involving military or civil appointments, whether for an officer’s commission, for a place at West Point, or for a watchman. He also monitored assignments of officers made by bureau chiefs and commanders, even acting on requests by junior officers to transfer from one duty to another. The issues Davis regularly ruled on were legion: the number of horses that would be allowed on a cavalry expedition into Sioux country; whether soldiers working on a military road would receive extra pay; the hiring of counsel for a lieutenant facing a court-martial; complaints about a former military storekeeper at an arsenal. In 1855, when a group of West Point seniors requested permission to grow beards, the secretary himself gave the answer. Responding negatively, Davis declared that beards would disrupt “the uniform appearance of the corps,” reminding the future officers that the country’s most distinguished soldiers—Washington, Jackson, Taylor, and Scott—had all been cleanshaven. In the War Department, Davis developed an administrative style of seeing everything, of paying attention to the smallest detail, and of personally acting on almost all matters. He saw himself as responsible for the department, and either could not or would not delegate that responsibility.25
Yet even as he immersed himself in all the details, Davis did have priorities. On at least two occasions after leaving the War Department, the first in 1859 and the second in the final year of his life, Davis listed what he deemed his most notable accomplishments as secretary. In both instances, the specific items can be grouped together under four general rubrics: technological innovation, intellectual environment, defense and exploration of the West, and strengthening the regular army. Davis’s judgments expressed over the decades basically correlate with those he made in office. He omitted only one important area, his strenuous effort to bring about army reorganization, perhaps because he had such limited success.26
Secretary Davis strove mightily to reform the organization and structure of the army, aiming toward greater efficiency, enhanced professionalism, and a clear, unified chain of command. Believing the total separation between the bureaus or staff and the line units harmful because it underlay inefficiency and spawned insular views, especially among officers, Davis advocated change. He wanted to reduce the number of bureaus, placing the commanding general over all and having officers move back and forth between staff and line assignments. Although he never backed away from this goal, he failed to persuade Congress to act, unable to overcome inertia and the entrenched power of the bureau chiefs. He could not even obtain the union of two most closely allied bureaus, the Engineers and the Topographical Engineers. In fact, the bureaus remained untouched until 1903. Davis also wanted Congress to create a retired list for regular officers to break the suffocating stranglehold of seniority and make room for new men and ideas. This proposal failed, too.
While reorganization foundered, Davis did succeed on two other fronts. Noting the size of the army in his first annual report, Davis acknowledged that Congress had authorized a force of 13,821, but pointed out that the actual strength was only 10,417. In the secretary’s opinion, even with full ranks the army could not possibly fulfill its mission. Though he argued that Congress should authorize an increase in the size of the regular army, he also realized salary levels had to go up in order to attract officers and men to fill the additional positions. The resignations of officers and desertions of enlisted men were already serious problems. In 1855 Congress responded, creating four new regiments and enacting a higher pay scale. Scholars of the antebellum army concur that these two measures notably affected both the capability and the morale of the army.27
Davis has also generally received accolades for the quality of the officers he named to the new regiments. From the outset he maintained that “military merits alone” would govern the selection and assignment of regular officers, assuring one general he would not be looked at through “a political medium.” The top positions in the newly created units went mostly to professionals on active duty or to graduates of West Point and veterans of the Mexican War who had left the service. On one colonelcy Davis held out for his selection against considerable political pressure from the president himself for another candidate. Finally, he told Pierce that he would submit the name, but would not sign the recommendation. Facing such opposition, Pierce relented, and Davis got his choice as colonel of the Second Cavalry Regiment, Albert Sidney Johnston, his friend from West Point days.28
Despite his concern for professional qualifications in senior officers, Secretary Davis clearly realized that he operated in a political environment. As a former chairman of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs, he knew full well that maintaining good relations with Congress was critical. After all, he would have to obtain congressional approval for much of what he hoped to accomplish. And he did consult with key representatives and senators in shaping legislation and in attempting to get it passed, though he certainly did not succeed in all cases. When the four new regiments were added to the army, he also understood the political dimension involved in filling the ranks of the junior officers. His actions would have an impact on his and the administration’s relations with Congress. Davis took seriously the recommendations of major congressional figures when they made plain their wishes. When criticized by Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois for not naming individ
uals he preferred, Davis replied that he would have certainly paid attention to the senator’s preferences, if only they had been made clear before appointments had been made.29
Davis made his imprint in another crucial area, though in so doing he jettisoned his political instincts and stained his imprint with an unsightly blemish. He entered the War Department concerned about command; he wanted to exert his authority over the entire army, the commanding general included. But aiming at this target guaranteed an intense struggle, for Winfield Scott would relinquish no independence or authority without a strenuous fight. And the two strong-willed men did not begin as comrades.
Davis’s antipathy toward the commanding general dated back to the Mexican War, when he had seen Scott through Zachary Taylor’s eyes. Taylor was convinced that Scott had conspired against him by depleting his command and leaving his army perilously exposed. Davis shared that conviction, and since 1847 nothing had occurred to shake it. When the Senate in 1851 attempted to give Major General Scott the rank of brevet lieutenant general for his services in Mexico, Senator Davis objected, averring that Zachary Taylor, who first defeated the Mexican army and Santa Anna, was just as central to the American triumph as Scott. In addition, he condemned the positive comparison made by Scott’s supporters between their hero and George Washington. The promotion failed, and Scott correctly viewed Davis as working to deprive him of the rank he eagerly desired and believed he merited. Then, in the presidential campaign of 1852, Davis publicly excoriated the general as a man, though he did admit that Scott was a good soldier.30
Scott did not look forward to having Davis as the new secretary of war. When his former subordinate and rival Zachary Taylor had occupied the White House, Scott had transferred his headquarters to New York City. After Taylor’s death he moved back to Washington, but in January 1853, President-elect Pierce was unwilling to force his defeated opponent to remain in the capital and acceded to the general’s wish to return to New York City. By the time Davis was sworn in as secretary of war, army headquarters had once again been removed.
But though the general was not physically present, he clearly occupied much of the secretary’s attention. Davis was determined to demonstrate that in the chain of command he, not Scott, came immediately after the president. Instead, however, of sitting down with Scott to discuss the matter of proper command arrangements, he began by forcing Scott to comply with regulations that the commanding general had customarily bypassed. Davis directed that Scott’s travel vouchers be rejected unless the travel had been authorized by a superior, just as was required for every other officer. Davis also demanded that Scott explain why he had authorized a leave of absence for a regimental commander in circumstances violating army policy. In these instances, the secretary of war was insisting that as the constitutional commander in chief’s personal choice to run the War Department, he had command authority over the commanding general.
The problem was that in his dealings with Scott, Davis permitted personal animus to become entangled with his more valid concerns. In 1855, when Congress did create the rank of brevet lieutenant general for Scott, to date from 1847, the general legitimately applied for his back pay. Even though making the payment was clearly the intention of Congress, Davis opposed it so vigorously that an opinion from the attorney general was required before he relented. A year earlier, in clearing up Scott’s Mexican War accounts, Davis challenged the general’s final claim and referred the matter to President Pierce. Even after the president found in part for Scott, Davis kept probing and recalculating until he persuaded Pierce to deprive the general of almost the entire sum.
Scott met Davis at every turn. The general refused to accept voluntarily Davis’s version of the chain of command, contending that the secretary could give him orders only when acting upon an express presidential directive. The contest went to Pierce for decision. Acting upon an opinion of the attorney general which supported Davis’s position, the president made clear that the secretary of war had command authority over the commanding general of the army.
Jefferson Davis had won a satisfying victory and had established an important precedent, but he could not affirm that in doing so he had always acted appropriately. Attempting to besmirch each other, the two men ranted like spoiled adolescents. Scott informed Davis that he would treat all of Davis’s letters as official, “whether designed as private and scurrilous, or public missives of arrogance and superciliousness.” He characterized them as “examples of chicanery and tergiversation, of prodigality in assertion and utter penury in proofs and probabilities.” At one point, Scott declared: “My silence, under the new provocation, has been the result, first, of pity, and next, forgetfulness. Compassion is always due to an enraged imbecile, who lays about him in blows which hurt only himself, or who, at the worst, seeks to stifle his opponent by the dint of naughty words.”31
Davis likewise leaped into the epistolary gutter. “Your petulance, characteristic egotism and recklessness of accusation have imposed on me the task of unveiling some of your deformities.…” Davis went on to tell the general that his reputation had been “clouded by grovelling vices” such as “querulousness, insubordination, greed of lucre and want of truth.” Although Davis’s depictions of Scott were apt, he was seemingly unaware that he had descended to his antagonist’s level. To Davis, Scott matched Foote in vileness. To make matters even more embarrassing, Congress in December 1856 called for all the correspondence, publishing it in a volume of more than 250 pages for the entire country to see personal hostility and professional jealousy turned into acrimonious hatred.32
In his campaign to belittle Scott, Davis evidently had a willing ally. Afterwards, Varina related the story of a dinner party she gave with General Scott among the guests. Scott was an acknowledged gourmand, and according to her, if he disliked a dish, he made his displeasure plainly known, with no regard for the feelings of his hostess. On the day of her dinner, she went to the general’s cook and paid him $5 to make one of Scott’s favorite soups. At the table, when Scott tasted the soup, he muttered unpleasantly. When Varina questioned his remarks, he replied, “It is not good,” professing that only his own cook could properly prepare the particular recipe. To Scott and the assembly, Varina responded that the soup had come from his own cook. “I am very sorry,” she said, “that my efforts have been a failure.” In Varina’s recounting, Scott made no more complaints, but she admitted that their relations were “strained.”33
As Davis confronted organizational challenges and dragged himself down into a nasty personal squabble, he also devoted attention to the technological status and intellectual environment of the army. Technology had always fascinated him; technological advance was a desirable dimension of the progress he embraced, equating it with his country. Commenting on machine tools he had seen in operation, he observed that “the ingenuity of man has set in motion complicated machinery which seems to be endowed with reason.” He called them “wonderful.” And he was surely determined to ensure that the army benefited in every possible way from new technology and innovative ideas.34
The advent of the rifle underlay a major change in weaponry. It had been well known that shoulder arms with rifled barrels overmatched smoothbore muskets in both accuracy and range, but primitive bullets negated their advantage. Thus, when Davis entered the War Office, the musket remained the basic infantry weapon in the U.S. Army. By the mid-1850s, however, advances in bullet design heralded the triumph of the rifle. As secretary of war, Davis ordered tests that confirmed the superiority of the rifle with new ammunition. In 1855 he ended the manufacture of smoothbores in all government armories, converting them to the production of rifles. This shift did not signify the sudden disappearance of muskets, but it did mean that only rifles would be produced in the future. Experiments by the Ordnance Bureau also led to substantial improvement in the metallic composition of cannon. In addition, Davis took great pride in having iron substituted for wood in gun carriages.35
Aware that rifled weapons
would alter the battlefield, Davis believed the army needed a new tactics manual. The person named to prepare it was Captain William J. Hardee, a promising young officer who had studied tactics in France and had earned a fine reputation in the Mexican War. From late 1853 into the summer of 1854, Hardee worked diligently, often in close collaboration with Secretary Davis, who consulted with him almost daily. Borrowing heavily from French thinking, Hardee’s treatise emphasized speed and fluidity in tactical formations enabling infantry to maneuver more rapidly and effectively. Upon the completion of Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics, Davis arranged for its publication and for distribution throughout the army and even to state militias.36
Because Davis encouraged innovation in general, whether old-fashioned ingenuity or technological advances, inventors found a ready welcome in his office. He wrote a political associate that new projects came to him weekly and often even daily. He considered them all, even though many would lead to “the more rapid and certain killing of our fellow men.” Not all, however, directly involved human destruction. The development of a wagon body that could also be used as a pontoon or a boat excited him. After personally witnessing trials of this wagon-boat, he supplied them to units in the West, where they performed effectively. His positive reaction to suggestions for improvements on items ranging from stirrups to bridles and bits for cavalry to scabbards for swords evinced his receptiveness to new ideas and ways of accomplishing time-honored tasks.37
Aware of the stultifying intellectual atmosphere pervading the War Department, Davis wanted the American army to learn from experiences and practices of more sophisticated forces. As did most military authorities of his time, Davis believed the French army the best in the world and French military thought the most advanced. When he presented his case for organizational reform to Congress, he often drew upon French examples to buttress his arguments. For the edification of his office, he ordered for the War Department library publications by both French and German authors on various military topics.38
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