Jefferson Davis, American

by William J. Cooper

  Judah Benjamin came to occupy a special place among Davis’s counselors. “A stout dapper little man” with a full, olive-colored face and “the brightest large black eyes,” Benjamin had a “lively, agreeable manner” and “elegantly polished speech.” Born in 1811 in St. Croix in the Danish West Indies, of Sephardic Jewish parents, Benjamin as a boy migrated with his family to the United States. In his adopted Louisiana, he became a notable and wealthy attorney as well as a successful politician, rising to the United States Senate. Davis had not been close to Benjamin before 1861. But he valued the Louisianian’s brilliance and early on in the war began to appreciate his absolute personal loyalty, rebuffing all attempts, some accompanied by anti-Semitism, to drive Benjamin from his cabinet. Besides his great intellectual ability and undoubted fidelity, Benjamin brought an optimism, buoyance, almost insouciance, that countered Davis’s heavy sense of responsibility and constant worry and anxiety. His omnipresent smile and wit never withered, no matter the news. By the end of 1861, Benjamin spent many hours with Davis discussing every aspect of Confederate policy. His becoming secretary of state in March 1862 gave him the time to spend on nondepartmental matters, such as congressional messages, for there was little diplomatic business to transact, and even that decreased after 1862.19

  Benjamin was not the only cabinet officer to spend considerable time with the president. Davis spent hours almost daily with his war ministers, Randolph and Seddon. He liked to discuss with his secretary of war all aspects of the war, both important and unimportant; strategy, conscription policy, assignments of full generals, and resignations were all fit topics for president-secretary conferences. Employees in the War Department reported on their bosses’ returning from at times marathon deliberations. Although President Davis made almost every decision, large and small, he wanted to talk them out before deciding.20

  He was a deliberate decision-maker. Although he did not dodge making decisions, he did not act quickly. According to Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory, a close associate over the war years, Davis’s caution and thoroughness made immediate action quite unlikely. Wanting to explore all possible dimensions of any question, Davis sought out discussion. He wanted others’ opinions, and he got them—from his cabinet, from members of Congress, from friends, but most especially from his war ministers along with Benjamin and Lee. Then he decided, and once he had charted a course, he clung to it with barnacle-like tenacity.21

  President Davis also had a private secretary and personal aides to help him carry out his duties. He employed only two private secretaries: Robert Josselyn, a contemporary and veteran of the First Mississippi Regiment, who served for the initial year; and most important, Burton N. Harrison, whom he appointed in February 1862. Born in New Orleans in 1838, Harrison spent his youth mostly with relatives in Maryland because of his father’s death. He gravitated to the University of Mississippi, chiefly at the urging of a kinsman, the noted educator Franklin A. P. Barnard. But, again upon Barnard’s encouragement, he quickly moved on to Yale, where he finished in 1859. Barnard, now president of the Mississippi institution, brought him back as an assistant professor of mathematics. All the while he pursued legal studies. This bright, ambitious, and handsome young man came to Davis’s attention through his fellow Mississippian and ardent supporter L. Q. C. Lamar, who strongly recommended Harrison.

  Burton Harrison was twenty-four years old when he came to the White House. At first, he reported his job as not very taxing, but the pace quickened and never let up—drafting letters for the president, writing letters in the president’s name, delivering documents between the Capitol and the presidential offices, making appointments, greeting visitors. He sat just outside the president’s door overseeing the passageway to Davis’s presence. Not only an essential person in Davis’s public family, Harrison also became part of the private family, living on the third floor of the White House until his marriage in 1864. The president treated him like a grown son when his oldest boy was only five. Varina found him delightful. In the postwar years Harrison became a prominent New York attorney, but he never forgot his unique status with the Davises and remained steadfastly loyal to them until his death in 1904.22

  In addition to Harrison, Davis from the beginning also had personal aides. In April 1862, Congress authorized the president to increase his personal staff to four with the rank of colonel in the Confederate army; later, the number was raised to six. He employed different people in this position, including a nephew, Joseph R. Davis, and Robert E. Lee’s son, George Washington Custis Lee, both of whom went on to become general officers and compile notable war records. There was James Chesnut of South Carolina, former United States senator and husband of the diarist Mary Boykin Chesnut, who became a great friend of Varina; and Francis K. Lubbock, who had been governor of Texas. Others serving in this capacity included Joseph C. Ives, New Yorker, West Pointer, and engineering officer, and the Irish-born William M. Browne, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, and in the late 1850s a pro-southern and pro-Davis journalist in Washington. But without doubt the closest to Davis was William Preston Johnston, son of the lamented Albert Sidney, who joined the president’s staff the month his father died and remained until 1865. Just past thirty, Colonel Johnston, like his fellow Yale alumnus Harrison, was treated like an adopted son by the Davises. Johnston even spoke of the president’s acting “almost fatherly to me.”23

  President Davis employed his aides chiefly in two ways. First he utilized them as secretaries, designating them to draft letters for him and even directing them to respond directly to certain correspondents, always specifying they were writing for the president. In the latter case he provided instructions for the content of the letters. These assignments could keep pens scratching until midnight.24

  The president also used these men as private inspecting officers by dispatching them to various commands to disclose conditions directly to him. Johnston went to the Army of Tennessee in both 1862 and early 1863; Ives visited that same army in December 1863 and Browne in early 1864. In 1863 Chesnut and Lee received orders to proceed to Beauregard’s South Atlantic command. Lee at times also acted as a liaison between his father and the president. The aides were not sent secretly; they always reported to the commanding general and stated their mission. They simply provided Davis with a direct and unobstructed view of a command by someone he trusted. That most of these assignments went to armies and departments commanded by Beauregard or Joseph Johnston underscored the president’s doubts about both generals.25

  Although Davis’s sense of duty and the burden of office consumed him, he did have a passion that relaxed him—horseback riding. His health permitting, he rode late in the afternoon, sometimes for several hours. Varina never knew how long he would be gone. At times he returned long after dark, occasionally as late as 10 or 11 p.m. The military camps dotted around Richmond regularly received unadvertised visits from the commander in chief. He often took an aide, family member, or friend with him, but on many occasions he rode alone. When with a companion, he conversed about favorite subjects such as horses, dogs, and his early army career in the West.

  A superb rider, “graceful and easy in the saddle,” as one observer described him, Davis also displayed surprising physical stamina for a man with his chronic health problems. Neither driving rainstorms nor the ice and slush of winter deterred him. Without hesitation the president would plunge into overflowing streams. Rides of fifteen miles were not uncommon, and he could wear out his young aides.26

  Although Davis sometimes rode alone and varied his human companions, he was always accompanied by a cigar. Despite repeated bouts with bronchial troubles, he never gave up cigars. He smoked them constantly and routinely offered them to visitors. Upon informal occasions and in relaxing moments, they were omnipresent. But in periods of great strain he also puffed away; according to Varina, he smoked most then. Even when sick, he cherished his cigars. Once when ill with dyspepsia, he appeared late to greet two visitors, who commented on his “su
ffering.” Still, he offered cigars—“the strongest, blackest I had ever seen,” said one. After lighting up, the other remarked that with such cigars he was amazed the president “did not suffer from a worse ailment.…”27

  That the president rode without a bodyguard caused some concern about the possibility of assassination. Presidential security was generally lax. A full-time military detail was not formed for the White House until February 1864, though sentinels had been posted earlier. A fire in the basement helped prompt this action, even though its origin was never determined. An interviewer who talked with Davis late in life claimed the former president said he had confronted one suspicious situation in Montgomery and had twice been shot at on rides around Richmond. But in a private letter Davis disputed the accuracy of the published account, leaving the question of real threats unanswered.28

  While Jefferson Davis was directing a great war, his wife strove to make the Executive Mansion a home for him. She presided over a full house: not only her husband and their four children, but usually her sister Maggie and occasionally other relatives of hers and Jefferson’s resided there. For two years Burton Harrison was a permanent resident, and various aides at different times added to the number.

  Varina was a mother with an active brood—Maggie, age eight; Jeff Jr., six; Joe, four; and Billy, not yet two. She gloried in them and in her motherhood. The children were visible in the house, even making unannounced appearances at functions. Jeff wrestled and raced with his little dog, and also had goats that he hooked up to a wagon. He and Maggie adored ponies, and all liked to ride close by their father, or even in his lap. Jeff and Joe had their own Confederate uniforms. A close friend depicted Varina’s “infant family,” commenting on “wonderfully clever and precocious children—but unbroken wills.” One time “the nursery contingent” rose up. “They fought, screamed, laughed. It was bedlam broke loose.” Mother “scolded, laughed, cried.”29

  For assistance the first lady could call on a range of servants. In the Executive Mansion of a slaveholding republic and with the slaveowning background of its occupants, a striking diversity marked the domestic staff. There were slaves, of course, but also free blacks as well as white women. The Davises brought only two slaves from Brierfield, one of them Jim Pemberton, the son of Jefferson’s first slave, longtime companion, and overseer. Over the course of the war, they hired at least six others. In addition, several free blacks and two white women worked for the Davises. These people performed a variety of tasks: manservant, maid, nurse, cook, butler, dining-room servant, coachman, groom for the horses. The impact of the war wrecked the stability of this group. Decamping became so common, especially among those hired, that Mary Chesnut called them “mere birds of passage.” Even the trusted Jim Pemberton ran away to the nearby Federal lines in the summer of 1864. Attempting to cope with the instability and turnover, Varina strove to find replacements, particularly to hire slaves, her task made more difficult by deteriorating Confederate finances.30

  She needed servants, for she was an active hostess. At the White House, she and Jefferson gave numerous receptions. In addition, the president invited cabinet officers, generals, friends, and visitors to informal dinners, and even breakfasts. Varina also entertained her own friends at teas and luncheons. She served eggnog on Christmas Eve and even gave “a matinée musicale.” Her White House was a lively place. Trying to make herself and her stage as attractive as possible, she attempted to obtain clothes and even furniture from Europe, though the blockade made the arrival of such purchases problematical.31

  Her table could be sumptuous, though at other times simple. One meal included gumbo, ducks, liver, chicken in jelly, oysters, claret soup, champagne, salad, and chocolate jelly cake. Another time brains en papillote adorned the table. Guests also noted the plain simple food. In this area Varina did not have a demanding husband, for he cared little about what was put before him. From at least the time of their marriage, Jefferson ate what little he did because his body required food, not because he relished it. By the last months of the war sumptuousness had totally disappeared, with only the “plainest and scantiest of fare” on the table.32

  Varina invariably still received plaudits as a hostess and social companion, but this approbation did not indicate the emergence of a different Varina. “A most refined, accomplished, and excellent lady, bright pleasing and intelligent in conversation and an elegant entertainer,” concluded one who had enjoyed her company. A Confederate official called her “a lady of great good sense and of much more than ordinary cultivation.” A Virginia lady remembered her as “very clever and brilliant in society.…” There were other depictions of a “gracious mistress of a salon” and “a woman of warm heart, and … witty.…” Clever and quick-witted many found her, a cleverness that still often manifested itself in a withering tongue that could “blight with sarcasm.” An Irish visitor recoiled at what he called her “smart sneers.” This caustic mode some observers attributed to a lack of refinement or a deficiency of cultivated manners.33

  The first lady was never imprisoned in the White House or ostracized by Richmond society. Varina recollected “a certain offishness” in Richmond, which she put down to the “inundation” pouring into the city. At the same time she recalled her good fortune in finding friends, some women she had previously known and new ones, including members of the so-called First Families of Virginia. Moreover, she developed friendships among those who, like her, came with the tide of Confederates. Perhaps the most notable of these was the South Carolinian Mary Boykin Chesnut. Varina certainly spoke her mind, and women who would be her friends had to accept that directness.34

  She surely had enemies, women who detested her. Most of this animus was directly related to the personalities and politics of the war and was immediately connected to her husband. Lydia Johnston and Charlotte Wigfall, wives of Joseph E. and Louis T. respectively, who had been prewar friends but turned bitterly against her, were leaders in this brigade.35

  In 1863 Varina was thirty-seven and had borne five children in nine years. She was also caught up in the trials of a great war. Her appearance had become much more matronly. A Richmonder depicted “a tall commanding figure, with dark hair, eyes and complexion, and strongly marked expression.…” Her lips were “firmly set,” though “beautifully softened by the unusually sad expression of her dark, earnest eyes.” This observer thought her “a handsome woman” with presence, “but by no means coming under the description of the feminine adjective ‘pretty.’ ”36

  As a presidential wife in wartime, Varina strove to fulfill her sense of public duty. Like many other Richmond women, she and others in her house were often seen on their porch plaiting straw and making hats and bonnets. She also made every effort to provide food for the many army officers who kept coming and going from the White House. In addition, she distributed provisions collected for families in need. She covered the walls and mantel of her reception room in the White House “with chains and all kinds of knick-knacks of wood, made and presented to her” by prisoners of war. One endeavor that attracted many prominent women in Richmond, visiting and nursing at hospitals, she absented herself from. Her husband believed she should stay away in order “not to expose the men to the restraint my [Varina’s] presence might have imposed.…”37

  Varina found the war and her role in it difficult, even though her experience was different from the great majority of women of her class. They remained in the countryside and, with husbands and sons absent, had to cope with the increasingly arduous problem of providing for families and managing increasingly restive slaves. Varina told her friend Mary Chesnut, “I live in a kind of maze: disaster follows disaster.…” “Nothing,” she said, “seems to do its appointed work.” She fantasized that her husband was a dry goods clerk, and they could “dine in peace on a mutton scrag at three and take an airing on Sunday in a little buggy with no back, drawn by a one eyed horse at fifty cents an hour.” In late 1863, she wondered, “Is [it] self government or self immolatio
n that we are testing?” Although she prayed for Confederate success, she feared she was not “one of those whose righteousness makes their prayer available.”38

  She also worried about her parents, displaced by the fall of New Orleans. They did get to North Carolina in the summer of 1862, but the next year William Howell fell desperately ill in Montgomery. Upon receiving the news, she left promptly by train, accompanied by William P. Johnston. But her father died on March 16, a day before his oldest daughter could reach him. Johnston reported Varina “greatly overwhelmed and grieved.” She had little time to bemoan her dead father, for she found her mother quite sick, “wasted to skin and bones.” Even though she wanted to return quickly to Richmond, she believed her mother’s illness required her to remain in Montgomery. To Jefferson she wrote emotionally of her misery being away from him and her children. “Do kiss my darlings for me especially my daughter and thre[e] little sons,” she beseeched, “and dear Husband believe me your devoted Wife.”39

  A major reason for Varina’s distress about being away from Richmond was her concern over Jefferson’s health. It had been wretched since February and would deteriorate during the spring into summer. Davis could seem like a hospital ward all by himself. Yet again his old nemeses assaulted his fifty-five-year-old body—headaches, fever, bronchitis, laryngitis, an eye infection, dyspepsia, possibly even pneumonia. Absent from his office in the Customs House for almost a month in April and May, Davis was devastated by recurrent illnesses. Feeble and wracked with pain, he kept to his task, telling Joseph in early May, “my official duties have not been suspended at any time,” though he had to defer personal interviews when he lost his voice. At a public ceremony in mid-month, the president appeared “frail in health.” He would improve, then suffer a relapse. Battling so many afflictions, his body could not remain healthy for long. Still, his underlying physical strength plus his absolute determination to meet his duty to the cause kept him going.40