Jefferson Davis, American

by William J. Cooper

  In his best-known enterprise designed to draw on European examples and expertise, in 1855 Davis dispatched three officers across the Atlantic on what one scholar terms “the most ambitious military mission of the antebellum era.” Prompted by the ongoing Crimean War, Davis charged his team to tour the principal nations of Europe—he specified England, France, Prussia, Austria, and Russia—and study their military systems. The secretary’s instructions called for attention to particular matters, including the organization of armies, rifled arms, ordnance with emphasis on recent changes, transport for men and horses, and permanent fortifications. Once in Europe, the Americans could not abide by Davis’s wish that they start out at the seat of war in the Crimea; because Russia would not permit a visit within its lines, the Americans finally reached the battle zone only after the Russians had evacuated their major stronghold. Observing and studying, the mission remained abroad for a year, not returning to the United States until April 1856. Its report to Davis constituted an important installment in the struggle to upgrade and modernize the U.S. Army, though it by no means became a plan of action dictating immediate change.39

  Another element in Davis’s attention to the army’s intellectual condition involved West Point. Always defending his alma mater as a force for national sentiment and as essential for the country’s security, Davis regarded it as the critical training ground for the officer corps that would lead the army. As secretary, he participated actively in the governance of the Military Academy. In 1854 and in 1856 he visited West Point for detailed inspections. More important, in 1854 he approved and instituted a major curricular change adding a fifth year to the program, an altered design that lasted until 1861. Although the required subjects remained heavily concentrated in technical areas, the added courses emphasized the humanities and military topics. The extent of Davis’s involvement even included advice on where individual courses should be placed in the curriculum. Davis believed the extra year would produce a better-educated graduate and a better-prepared officer.40

  Jefferson Davis made his chief concern the great American West, for in it so many of his interests overlapped and intersected. Defending that vast area, especially the settlers stretched out from the prairies to the Rockies and on to the Pacific, Davis accepted as a basic responsibility. Moreover, he gloried in the West as emblematic of American strength and progress, asserting that for many peoples the great distances and imposing mountains would destroy unity, but for determined and ingenious Americans those seeming obstacles would become powerful signs of national greatness.41

  Davis argued that the only feasible way to defend over such enormous distances mandated significant improvements in land transportation. He testified that a strong naval enemy could devastate Pacific ports before any reinforcements could arrive via the lengthy, time-consuming water route. He also maintained that the troops and posts guarding the ever longer line of settlements and the growing number of settlers heading west had to have more effective transport for communications, supply, and operations. To Davis, a transcontinental railroad provided the only sensible solution to the problems of topography and distance.

  Advocating that the federal government itself construct the railroad in the national territories, Davis differed with a number of his traditional political and constitutional allies. While they found the federal government as railroad-builder a sharp departure from strict construction, Davis perceived no such interpretive difficulty. He built his case on three main points: the Constitution gave to the federal government the responsibility for national defense; the federal government owned the territories; the railroads would be constructed on federal property chiefly for military purposes and would not discriminate against any citizen or part of the nation. As a result, Davis could discern in his stance no problem for disciples of strict construction and states’ rights. Just as Davis did not convince all his detractors, his railroad never got built, for Congress could never decide on a route, much less on the appropriate role of the federal government in building the projected line.42

  The transcontinental railroad turned into a volatile political issue. Because everyone assumed that, at least for some time, only one railroad would be built, intense competition erupted among cities and states in the Mississippi Valley, all desiring to reap the expected economic rewards of becoming the iron tracks’ eastern terminus. This struggle then was swept up in the larger sectional contest between North and South, with the battle becoming so fierce that Congress could not agree on where to place the railroad. Facing its inability to act, Congress directed the War Department to investigate several likely routes and report on the most feasible. Where the political will had failed, science would make action possible.43

  Jefferson Davis relished this assignment because he thought he knew what the studies would reveal. Since the Mexican War, the Topographical Engineers had devoted considerable resources to surveying and mapping the newly acquired Southwest in order to find the best route between Texas and California. The results convinced the chief of the Topographical Engineers that his men had charted a superb path all the way to the Pacific—from San Antonio westward across Texas to El Paso, then along the 32nd parallel through southern New Mexico to California and the Pacific. He shared this conclusion with numerous pro-railroad groups and politicians. Concurring, the Pierce administration in late 1853 bought from Mexico the Gadsden Purchase, an additional tract of land extending New Mexico farther south to ensure the straightest track. Jefferson Davis eagerly accepted this determination. Not only was it based on scientific exploration, it also took the most southerly line across the continent and would surely benefit the South. He could see no reason for anyone to deprive his section of what seemed to him simply a natural advantage.

  During his first year as secretary, Davis sent four separate reconnaissance parties into the field. The routes to be checked stretched from the far north down to the 35th parallel. Initially, the 32nd parallel option was omitted because of all the work already done on it, but realizing gaps existed in the desired information, Davis directed another group to fill them. The chosen four possibilities did not come solely from the secretary or the Topographical Engineers; rather, they largely represented the possibilities with the strongest political backing. Determined to preclude the appearance of sectional favoritism, Davis mostly stayed away from southern partisans in his assignments of officers to these teams. He expected science to confirm what he thought he already knew.

  But when the reports came in, they did not settle the question. Basically reconnaissances rather than detailed surveys of railroad lines, they suggested, but did not definitively point to, the best and most cost-effective way west. While presenting much valuable scientific and geographic information, they showed that several routes were practicable, not just the 32nd parallel line. Thus, science had not provided the conclusive answer Davis had expectantly awaited. Still, he informed Congress that the 32nd parallel remained the best choice, emphasizing the negative features in all its competitors while downplaying them in his favorite. Just as the surveys did not change Davis’s mind, they altered few other opinions. Political gridlock continued to immobilize Congress, ensuring that no transcontinental railroad project would commence before 1861.

  Although convinced that railroads provided the long-term solution to the problems of distance and topography in the West, Davis also moved to improve in the short term the army’s ability to cope with each. As early as 1851 in the Senate, he advocated using camels in the Southwest, persuaded that they would prove superior to horses and mules in that region’s desertlike conditions. Upon becoming secretary of war, he obtained congressional authorization to purchase and employ camels, and in 1855 sent an expedition to the Middle East to buy and bring back the beasts. This was not some fanciful scheme, for he knew that Napoleon had used camels in his Egyptian campaign, that Arabs and Turks used them, and that the contemporary French army had experimented with them. The record makes clear that Davis had two goals for his camel force
: basic transportation and direct military involvement against Indians, when camels could carry light cannon and infantry as well as substitute for cavalry horses. He believed camels would give American troops, and thereby American settlers, an advantage against both the topography and the Indians in the vast arid area stretching westward from central Texas.44

  The experience with camels proved Davis’s judgment sound, even though experimentation was not completed until after he left the cabinet. The officers who handled the trial trek from Texas to California rendered enthusiastic reports. Those positive reactions pushed Davis’s successor in the War Department to urge continued congressional support, but Congress did not see fit to do so. Although the camel corps never became as important as Davis envisioned and railroads would soon make the concept obsolete, this short-lived affair underscored his willingness to innovate.

  The possible use of camels was an example of Davis’s attempt to generate discussion on the best methods for the army to employ in fighting hostile Indians. Taking for granted that the Indians would have to give way in the face of white migration, Davis wanted to use the army as effectively as possible. He even sent troops into southern Florida to herd the hardy, resilient Seminoles across the Mississippi River to the Indian Territory, but his concentration focused on the West. He suggested altering the army’s basic tactical approach because he did not think the increasing number of small posts with equally small garrisons could do much more than protect themselves. Instead, he wanted fewer but larger forts accessible by railroads or navigable rivers that would become bases for strong columns sent into Indian country during the campaigning season. Davis’s plan was never fully adopted but in all likelihood would not have proved any more successful than the program he criticized. The fundamental American problem lay not in tactics but in manpower. There were never enough soldiers to protect and guard everyone and everything, as Davis recognized when he admitted to Congress that concentrating troops in certain areas would expose “portions of the frontier to Indian hostilities without any protection whatever.”45

  Far away from the frontier, Secretary Davis’s involvement in public works helped persuade him that the federal government should retain tight control over certain tasks he considered critical. In 1853, President Pierce gave Davis direct responsibility for two notable public works projects: the construction of the Washington Aqueduct, designed to carry water from near the Great Falls on the Potomac River above Washington into the city, and the tremendous expansion of the Capitol. Although neither was completed during Davis’s time as secretary, he pushed the work forward on both, closely overseeing the supervising officer from the Corps of Engineers. He even took approval of artistic decisions under his purview.46

  Davis’s convictions about the need for government monopoly extended beyond public structures in the federal district. He successfully resisted congressional pressure to shut federal armories and purchase all arms from private contractors, maintaining that efficiency and innovation would be best guaranteed by federal manufacture of all arms. He was unsuccessful, however, when he advocated congressional funding for a national armory. Refusing to support private contracting for clearing western rivers, Davis left no doubt about his reasons: “… the public interests will be best subserved by entrusting public works to specially instructed and experienced officers, who, in the execution of their duty, have no interest adverse to that of the Government—whose professional reputation, gained by long years of toil and exposure, is staked on the skillful and successful completion of the works; whose hope of honorable employment and future advancement in the public service, to which their lives are devoted, give assurance of vigilance and zeal; who have no pecuniary inducement to slight the work, who are urged by all the highest motives—that influence men to the faithful execution of the trusts confided to them.”47

  While Jefferson Davis strove to implement his policies in the War Department, he had his family with him. Varina came up in the summer of 1853 with Samuel and two of her younger siblings. Because, unlike Congress, an administration did not adjourn, the Davises searched for a full-time residence. Starting out in the house Jefferson had rented on 13th Street, in the fall they moved to 14th Street between F and G, only one block east of the White House, before finally settling in late 1854 in an imposing mansion at the corner of 18th and G Streets, just a block west of the War Department. Davis paid an annual rent of $1,500 for this three-story, twenty-room house with hot and cold running water. Although 18th and G remained the Davis home address for the duration of his stay in the cabinet, the Davises engaged summer places just outside the city to escape Washington’s heat during that season.48

  Whether in their town houses or summer country homes, husband and wife enjoyed a close, affectionate relationship. On a trip away from Washington, Jefferson wrote: “Farewell for a little while my dear Wife and be assured that in the mean time whether sleeping or waking the fondest affections are with you which can be offered by the heart of YOUR HUSBAND.” Varina matched him, writing lovingly about him to her mother, and sharing her deep feelings about her Jeff with a close friend. She also remembered shared pleasures in dinner parties and stimulating conversations. She worried for a time about his recurring anxiety, which she attributed to his difficulties with Joseph, but she thought his health generally improving, though he remained quite thin.49

  Concern about health prompted a three-week excursion Davis took in the late summer of 1853. In company with Alexander D. Bache, whom Davis had known at West Point and who had superintended the Coast Survey, Davis left Washington on August 17 for his first recorded trip to New England. Stopping in Boston, the secretary and Bache visited the Bunker Hill Monument, the Charleston Navy Yard, Faneuil Hall, and Harvard College. Then they headed north for the White Mountains of New Hampshire, where they spent several days, including one night on the summit of Mount Washington. Finally, on August 27, the party reached its ultimate destination, the Coast Survey camp at Blue Mountain, Maine, at an altitude of 3,000 feet and some eighty miles north of Portland. Davis reported to Varina that he was “far up in the mountains and ‘far down east’ in Maine, the wind sweeps over the tent with the chilly feeling and hollow sound of wintry weather, but every thing is so well arranged that the portable stove renders the inside of canvass very comfortable.” After some time at Blue Mountain, a refreshed Davis headed back to Washington, reaching the city on September 9.50

  The great joy of both Jefferson and Varina was young Samuel, but a year old when he and his mother joined his father. For Varina, the pride of motherhood and the pleasure of having her own baby were palpable. She described Samuel to her family as “the sweetest thing you ever saw.” Gleefully, she recounted his antics, such as learning “to fight and scratch,” and crowing and flapping his arms to signal he wanted the chicken he saw on the table. His early words like “Aam” for his name and “mammam” for Mama delighted her. Taking him for rides pleased her greatly. The proud father beamed about “Le man,” who would run to his father when called. Once, Jefferson told Varina that he wanted “to run back and kiss the dear boy.” Varina remarked that her husband was “absorbed” in the child “to a fearful extent.”51

  In the summer of 1854, great joy turned into massive sadness. Although young Sam experienced his share of childhood ailments, he appeared vigorous and healthy. Then, in June, an unknown illness struck him; possibly he had been exposed to measles. Jefferson called in the best physicians in the city, but to no avail. Varina reported that her “child suffered like a hero,” always wanting his mother by his side, but not crying before he died, not yet two, on June 13. Two days later the funeral was held at the Davis house, followed by burial in Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown. Friends and officials, including the president and other cabinet members, attended what an eyewitness termed “a very affecting scene.”52

  Mother and father were devastated. Varina depicted herself as “tortured,” while Jefferson spoke of her “irreperable grief” that caused periods of “p
ainful depressions.” An acquaintance portrayed Jefferson as “overwhelmed with affliction and look[ing] worse than I have seen him for many years.” He had not faced such an emotional trauma since Sarah Knox’s death almost two decades before. Varina recalled an anguished man who “walked half the night and worked fiercely all day.” “A child’s cry in the street well-nigh drove him mad,” she wrote. To the end of his life he never forgot the brief existence of his firstborn.53

  During this time of extreme anguish, no record indicates that Jefferson Davis turned to religion for special comfort and consolation. Davis identified himself as a Christian, and he certainly knew his Bible, allusions to it often appearing in his speeches. Late in life, Varina said his knowledge of the Bible surpassed any other layman’s she knew and matched most ministers’. Even so, no evidence suggests that at this point Christianity was central in his life. Raised in a Baptist home, educated initially in a Roman Catholic academy, married twice to Episcopalian women by clergymen of that denomination, Davis did not fervently embrace any of these creeds. Unlike his eldest brother, Joseph, a stalwart of the Natchez Episcopal Church when he lived in that town, Jefferson did not become a church leader. When at Davis Bend, he attended services held by an Episcopalian chaplain brought by Joseph to Hurricane. From 1845 to 1861 when in Washington, he went to the Episcopalian Church of the Epiphany at 1317 G Street, and in 1857 bought a pew when they were offered for sale. Yet before the Civil War he was never confirmed in that or any other congregation. Jefferson Davis’s finding of a personal God active in his life awaited an even greater trial.54

  Having experienced the death of a young child, as did so many parents of their time, Jefferson and Varina found their grief assuaged by the arrival of new Davises. Although Varina had been married for seven years prior to Samuel’s birth, her second baby arrived on February 25, 1855. Margaret Howell Davis (Maggie) was named for her maternal grandmother. Then, on January 16, 1857, less than two years later, Varina gave birth to Jefferson Davis, Jr., but only after a difficult pregnancy. Both parents delighted in these additions to their once depleted household.55