Even though preoccupied with the situation along the Potomac, President Davis had to be ready for the third session of the Provisional Congress, scheduled for June 20, the first meeting of Congress in Richmond. At the same time, during the first half of June he battled manifestations of his old comrade, malaria, with what Varina called “congestive chills” striking him a dreadful blow. Yet he struggled to keep up with his work. When Congress convened, Davis presented a brief, upbeat message. Reporting that North Carolina and Tennessee had joined the Confederacy, he also asserted in an overstatement that the border states would have done likewise but for Lincoln’s subversion of civil authority and declaration of martial law. Noting the probable invasion of Virginia, he expressed confidence that the patriotism of the Confederate army would thwart the enemy. In conclusion, he applauded the Confederate people for their “attitude of calm and sublime devotion to their country,” praising the “courage with which they are already preparing to meet the threatened invasion in whatever proportions it may assume.”47
While dealing with essential military and civil matters and in spite of illness, Davis made himself quite visible in Richmond, regularly visiting army units camped in and near the capital city on their way to the front. Obviously enjoying himself, and occasionally accompanied by aides and other dignitaries like Governor Letcher, he rode to the encampments, spoke to the soldiers, and mingled with them. Hurrahs and cheers greeted his appearance. A perceptive observer noted that “Jeff Davis is very good at that sort of thing”—making the president and commander in chief a real person to the men in the ranks.48
The War Department kept those units moving north as rapidly as possible, for conflict seemed imminent. On July 16 the Federal army under Brigadier General Irwin McDowell advanced toward Beauregard, who informed Richmond and prepared to strike the Federals. Immediately Davis ordered Johnston to travel by train from the Valley and link up with Beauregard. But on July 21 before Beauregard could mount his attack, McDowell assaulted the Confederates.49
President Davis wanted to do more than deploy armies; he wanted to participate with them on the battlefield. On the morning of July 21, with his nephew and aide-de-camp Joseph R. Davis, he left Richmond by special train. Although many believed the president would take the field and actively direct the fighting, Davis gave no indication of any such intention. By the time he reached Manassas Junction, the sounds of battle could be heard. At Confederate headquarters, Davis and his nephew were furnished horses and guided toward the action. As Davis rode forward, the initial and accurate reports of a Confederate defeat turned into news of Confederate victory. The timely arrival by rail of Johnston’s brigades enabled the hard-pressed Confederates to turn the Federals back and put them to flight. Witnessing the signs of the Confederate triumph, Davis waved his hat to all he met, made several short, impromptu speeches as he rode along the lines, and received cheers from his troops.
After nightfall, Davis met with his two generals at Beauregard’s headquarters. They exchanged congratulations; the president promoted Beauregard to full general and asked about plans for pursuit. After some discussion, the three men recognized the impossibility of pressing forward in any organized fashion. The First Battle of Manassas, or in Union terminology the First Battle of Bull Run, was over. After this battle as after so many Civil War battles to follow, the victorious army was too spent and too disorganized to follow up its tactical victory with effective pursuit. Later, looking back at what seemed a missed opportunity, each commander tried to blame the others for failing to order an advance. But on the night of July 21, the president and his two generals recognized and accepted reality. Davis did want to announce the victory, and he sent a dispatch proclaiming, “Our forces have won a glorious victory,” killing many of the enemy as well as taking numerous prisoners and capturing much matériel. He declared, “Too high praise cannot be bestowed whether for the skill of the principal officers or for the Gallantry of all the Troops.”50
Davis spent the next day touring the battlefield, conferring with generals, and visiting encampments. He particularly searched for a seventeen-year-old stepnephew reported as seriously wounded, but he did not find the young soldier before he succumbed to his wounds. After spending a second night, Davis left for Richmond at mid-morning on July 23. “A vast concourse” had gathered at the Virginia Central depot to meet the train coming from Manassas. When the crowd learned that the president had arrived, it rushed to find him. Even though tired, Davis responded with “fervid eloquence” to the “enthusiastic citizens.” He passed “the highest encomiums upon our heroic soldiers, and particularly the two eminent men in command—Beauregard and Johnston. Too much praise cannot be bestowed on officers and men,” he exclaimed, “for all determined to conquer or die.” He “paid a glowing tribute” to the “honoured dead,” which according to a reporter on the scene, “could not fail to dim with tears the eyes of the least feeling among his hearers.” Brave men had preserved “the sacred soil of Virginia,” and Davis predicted “a yet bloodier and far more fatal lesson awaits [our enemies] unless they speedily acknowledge that freedom to which you were born.”51
Yet Davis had no illusions about the difficulties ahead. In a conversation with a friend, he said he believed the Confederates would do “all that can be done by pluck and muscle, endurance and dogged courage—dash and red-hot patriotism, & C.” Still, Mary Chesnut reported, a “sad refrain” ran through his remarks. Davis expected a long war in which Confederates “would have many a bitter experience.” In his mind, “only fools” could doubt the courage or the determination of the North. Yet he did not doubt his own courage or determination or that of his countrymen.52
Jefferson Davis recognized that he faced an absolutely committed foe; he also knew that the material resources on his side did not match those of his enemy. His experience in national affairs, especially in military matters, made him acutely aware of the equipment available to the Union army, as well as the war-making potential of the northern economy. In addition, he was aware that the Confederacy had far fewer men of military age.
Eastern Theater, 1861-July 1862.
From W. J. Cooper and T. E. Terrill, The American South: A History (2d ed.), with permission of the McGraw-Hill Companies
In fact, substantial disparities existed between the two sides. In 1860 the total population of the Confederate States was just over 9 million, while the Union total exceeded 22 million. In the most crucial category, white males aged eighteen to forty-five, the North enjoyed an advantage of around three to one. As it began its struggle for independence, the Confederacy commanded but 10 percent of the industrial capacity of the Union. In 1860 the North had produced over 90 percent of the country’s firearms, pig iron, locomotives, cloth, boots, and shoes. The Union also had twice the density of railroads per square mile, as well as considerably more mileage of canals and macadamized roads. Moreover, almost all of the rails within the Confederacy had been purchased from the North or Great Britain.53
Davis undoubtedly expected a long war, but his activity on the financial front gave no indication of that expectation. He had little understanding of public finance, and his treasury secretary, Christopher Memminger, no more. Neither grasped the magnitude of the financial requirements of fighting a great war. Although both believed that King Cotton would ensure British help, they did not think concretely about how that assistance would translate into defraying the cost of their war. Davis rightly deemed as impractical proposals for the government to purchase the cotton crop and transport it to Europe in order to build up Confederate monetary reserves. Most of the 1860 crop had already been sold and the 1861 crop would not be available until the autumn. A lack of ships made for an equally fundamental problem, besides the naval one of getting a large, unescorted transport fleet past Union warships. Davis would not support a government squadron of blockade-runners, for until late in the war he considered blockade-running a private affair.54
There are three major methods of financing a war
: taxation, borrowing, and fiat money, with taxation the least inflationary. But antebellum Americans had been very lightly taxed, and on a per-capita basis southerners even less than northerners. Confederate authorities never embraced taxes. At the outset Congress was unenthusiastic, and initially Davis did not make a strong case for the necessity of taxation. Taxes would eventually be levied, but too late to have a positive impact on the financial situation.
The Confederate government preferred borrowing. Because European loans never provided sufficient funds, the government had to depend on its own citizens. In 1861 Congress authorized the issuance of $115 million in bonds. Yet, with most of its capital tied up in land and slaves, the amount of liquid capital to invest in bonds never met the demands. Recognizing the problem presented by illiquidity, Congress permitted investors to pledge the proceeds from their crops for bonds, the so-called “produce loans.” Even so, most of the bonds were bought with treasury notes, or fiat money. Moreover, the sums generated were woefully inadequate. Paper money became the porous, crumbling financial foundation of the Confederacy. To pay its war bills Congress in 1861 authorized $170 million worth of treasury notes, redeemable in specie at face value within two years after the close of the war. But they never became legal tender as they did in the Union because a majority of Congress, along with the president and secretary of the treasury, envisioned constitutional and practical difficulties. The printing presses ran faster and faster, eventually pouring out a paper money avalanche of $1.5 billion. States and even localities also issued their own notes. Inflation kept pace, accelerating continuously, until by 1863 it was hurtling forward at runaway speed. In 1861 the price index went up some 60 percent; the next year, 300 percent; and by 1863 the Confederate economy had become unmanageable. In January 1864 the inflation rate exploded past 600 percent. The Confederacy literally drowned in a sea of paper money. President Davis never comprehended the dimensions of the disaster.
Preparing for war, the Confederacy confronted a unique social situation. Neither secession nor the formation of the Confederate States of America was conceivable without slavery, and the more than 3.5 million slaves within the Confederacy’s borders formed a key part of the Confederate war effort. Their availability for agricultural work would enable almost all potential white soldiers to don a uniform. Moreover, slaves could perform essential labor on fortifications and other military construction, permitting most whites to serve in the combat arms. Yet a potential liability existed. Throughout the long history of slavery in the South, white men had always been omnipresent on farms and plantations. If demands of the war denuded the countryside of that group, no one could foretell the influence on order, discipline, and subordination within the slave force.
Cognizant of the dangerous war in which he found himself, Davis considered his country. Its huge size, stretching over 1,000 miles from the Atlantic Ocean westward to the vastness of Texas, and totaling some 800,000 square miles, was surely an asset, yet also a liability. To defeat the Confederacy, the Union would have to invade and occupy its territory, a formidable task. But Davis would have to defend his extensive borders.
President Davis often talked about the unity predominating among southerners. In his mind, “the magnitude and supreme importance of the present crisis” overrode and replaced all previous distinctions among those who became Confederates. Yet he recognized that a “national character” had not predated the formation of the new country, that one would have to be developed while fighting the war. In the autumn of 1861 he urged the brigading of troops by state because he saw “state pride” as “the highest incentive for gallant and faithful service.” The lack of national feeling also convinced Davis that he must temper the military maxim of concentration. He believed he had to maintain a visible military presence throughout his country, or he would face “dissatisfaction, distress, desertion of soldiers, opposition of State Govts.” In the midst of the war he told one of his commanders, “the general truth, that power is increased by the concentration of an army, is, under our peculiar circumstances, subject to modification. The evacuation of any portion of territory,” he continued, “involves not only the loss of supplies, but in every instance … troops.” He could envision a reaction so vigorous it could result in the “collapse” of the Confederacy. He struggled constantly with the difficult problem of concentration.55
Davis thought about more than defense. From the beginning, he emphasized that the Confederacy wanted to be left alone, but Abraham Lincoln would not grant his wish. With war upon his country, Davis was eager for his enemy to feel the pain and horrors brought by the conflict. He agreed with the many Confederates who pressed him to take the fight into the North. He informed his brother Joseph he would much rather have Confederate armies on the Susquehanna River than the Potomac. His desire to invade the North did not mean he wanted to capture territory, however. “My early declared purpose and continued hope,” he wrote a supporter, “was to feed upon the enemy and teach them the blessings of peace by making them feel in its most tangible form the evils of war.”56
Despite his undenied desire to order his generals beyond his borders, Davis could not do so. Reality constrained him. He knew quite well his War Department could not arm all the troops that had flocked to the Confederate standard. He could see no use in proclaiming that the Confederacy had shifted to the offensive when he could not back up his words with actions. Even in the face of criticism, he did not think he could explain his reasoning. “I have borne reproach in silence, because to reply by an exact statement of facts would have exposed our weakness to the enemy.” Thus, he could only “pine for the day when our soil should be free from invasion and our banners float over the fields of the Enemy.…”57
Even though he could not send all Confederate armies northward, Davis was clearly an aggressive commander in chief, who wanted to strike the enemy whenever possible. As he instructed one of his generals, Confederates should grasp “the opportunity to cut some of his lines of communications, to break up his plan of campaign; and defeating some of his columns to drive him from the soil.…” He was forced to opt for a fundamentally defensive strategy, but he never accepted a static defense. And he always desperately desired to turn the tables and take the offensive.58
From the outset Davis personally directed the Confederate military machine. He believed he had real military ability, as did many other Confederates, who commented both on his opinion of himself and on his broad knowledge. He did employ advisers and assistants, but rarely did they become policy-makers. The highest-ranking Confederate officer, Adjutant and Inspector General Cooper, oversaw implementing regulations and maintaining the official record. He had occupied the same position in the pre-1861 U.S. Army, where Davis knew him well. The president trusted Cooper, an encyclopedia of military rules and procedures, and relied on his advice on interpreting regulations in areas like promotion; but Cooper did not have an influential voice in formulating policy.
From the earliest days in Montgomery, Davis basically acted as his own secretary of war. Considering no matter too trivial for his attention, he did not assign Secretary Walker primary responsibility for any activity. Much correspondence and many directives went out over Walker’s signature, but all the major decisions, and many minor ones, were Davis’s. That situation did not change with the move to Richmond. As the war became larger and the demands upon the War Department even greater, Davis’s involvement remained so total that no room existed for Walker to act independently. The president’s hand was on almost everything, including a Virginia civilian’s offer of his home to care for wounded and a private’s request for transfer to be near his brother.59
Even though Walker had little responsibility, the administrative demands of his job simply overwhelmed him. He had no pertinent experience and but limited ability. By midsummer Davis concluded that Walker could not handle his duties, a judgment in which other cabinet members concurred. Even more important, lawmakers had lost confidence in Walker, and when Congress adjou
rned on August 31, it left behind a committee to look into the operations of the War Department. Davis knew Walker had to go. To ease his departure the president refrained from officially communicating displeasure with his service and offered a foreign post, which Walker declined. He preferred appointment as a brigadier general and returning to Alabama. Agreeing, Davis made him a general and sent him back to Alabama, but with an empty assignment. Even though he soon resigned his commission, Walker never wavered in his support of the president.60
When Walker resigned on September 16, Davis had no ready replacement in mind. He did question whether any civilian could do the job, and some wondered whether he would appoint a general. Davis decided to make an interim appointment; on September 17 he made Attorney General Judah Benjamin acting secretary of war.61
While President Davis had found his secretary of war not up to his task, he had no qualms about his chief adviser in uniform. Upon reaching Richmond, Davis kept Robert E. Lee by his side. Although the general did not have a formal title after Virginia forces were placed under Confederate authority, he acted as Davis’s adviser. The two men had known each other since West Point, where Davis was a year ahead of Lee. They had never been close, but their paths did cross. Still on active duty in late 1849, Lee sought Senator Davis’s counsel on whether he should accept command of a proposed, privately sponsored assault on Cuba. Lee turned down the offer. As secretary of war, Davis worked in harmony with Lee, who served as superintendent of West Point from 1852 until 1855. The secretary made clear his opinion of the Virginian when in 1855 he had Lee appointed to the permanent rank of lieutenant colonel and named assistant commander of the Second Cavalry, one of the new regiments created by Congress.62
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