Davis chose to unite the two parties, even though the combination would slow him down. On Sunday, the seventh, he rode with Varina in her ambulance. The surroundings matched the desolation of the fleeing family. They journeyed through sparsely settled piney woods, with little cultivation and houses ten to fifteen miles apart. A member of the escort described one campsite as a “miserable piece of woods very confined & bad water.” During the day information reached the caravan that former soldiers in Dublin planned to raid the wagons on the pretext that they hauled government property. Members of the escort rode into the village and stymied the plot by announcing they would fight any attackers. In the night came a report that the Federal military had learned Jefferson Davis was traveling with his wife in a single wagon train. Davis decided that once more he would have to separate himself from his family in order to dash ahead.
By this time no organized Confederate resistance existed east of the Mississippi, though Davis did not know it. On May 4 General Richard Taylor had surrendered all the forces in his department, and five days later General Nathan Forrest bade his men farewell. Only Edmund Kirby Smith in the Trans-Mississippi kept the Confederate flag flying. For Jefferson Davis that banner had become his rainbow in the West.
As Confederate commands disappeared, the U.S. Army increased the intensity of its search for Jefferson Davis. In the aftermath of Lincoln’s death, President Johnson issued a proclamation calling for Davis’s arrest and offering a reward of $100,000 in gold. The Johnson administration accused Davis of complicity in planning Lincoln’s assassination. In southern Georgia the search for Davis was directed by Major General James H. Wilson from his headquarters in Macon. On May 6 Wilson discovered Davis had been in Washington, and he realized that the only possible escape route ran through southern Georgia. The next evening the Federals heard that the Davis party had passed Dublin.
Davis surely wanted to escape the Federal cavalry patrols fanning out all around him. At dawn on the eighth he and his escort departed, leaving Varina and Burton Harrison to plug along with their vehicles and encumbrances. But heavy rains and high water slowed the president and his men. By evening Varina’s group caught up with Jefferson at the hamlet of Abbeville, where everyone prepared to spend the night. Around midnight Davis received information about nearby Federal mounted units. He immediately instructed Burton Harrison to get the wagons underway, and Harrison did so in the midst of a terrible rainstorm. The president said he and his people would come on as soon as their horses were rested. Before daylight on May 9 the president’s party rejoined his wife’s. Early that morning both husband and wife washed in a creek before renewing their migration.
The trek continued until late afternoon, when the tired journeyers halted in a clearing by a stream a mile north of the tiny village of Irwinville. According to John Wood, they had come 202 miles from Washington. After resting men and animals, Davis intended to ride on during the night. Then reports that plunderers were about to storm the camp caused him to delay. If no attack took place, he still intended to leave at dawn. In the tent he shared with Varina he went to bed fully clothed. But in the drizzly predawn light, firing broke out along the creek. A servant sounded the alarm. Some thought marauders had struck, when suddenly Federal cavalry burst into the camp. Then the musketry became brisk. Two regiments, the Fourth Michigan and the First Wisconsin, had approached the camp from different directions and were shooting at each other. At this moment John Wood went to the Davis tent, where he told Varina the enemy did not know for sure of his chief’s presence and during the confusion he might be able to reach the woods and escape.
Davis agreed. When he emerged from the tent, he was wearing a water-repellent cloak with wide, loose sleeves and a black shawl that Varina had thrown around his shoulders. She then directed her maid to grab a bucket and walk with her husband to make it appear they were going to the creek for water. But a cavalryman saw them walking and ordered them to halt. In response they changed direction, yet kept heading toward the woods. Another horseman rode toward them, shouting that he would shoot. Davis turned, flung off the shawl, and advanced toward the trooper. Later he claimed he intended to use a trick he had learned from the Indians—walk up, grab the rider’s heel, upend him out of the saddle, mount the horse, and attempt to escape. He believed his chances good, he said, because it was difficult for a man on horseback to fire down accurately on a target so close. But he never made the attempt, for at that instant, thinking he was about to be shot, Varina rushed to him, threw her arms around his neck, and begged the soldier not to fire. The last possible chance to get away was gone. Finally, it was all over. The journey that had begun in the garden at Brierfield ended in the piney woods of south Georgia. It had lasted exactly fifty-one months—February 10, 1861, to May 10, 1865.69
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“I Have Not Sunk Under My Trials”
The shooting eventually stopped. The Federals realized that their two regiments on opposite sides of the camp were firing at each other. Two cavalrymen in blue lay dead, and several were wounded. During the melee a few fugitives managed to slip away, including John Taylor Wood. Upon restoration of order, the soldiers gathered their prisoners together and pillaged the bivouac. Davis berated the commanding officer for permitting the looting, though his remonstrations did no good. After a brief time the assemblage got underway to General Wilson’s headquarters at Macon. Davis was allowed to accompany his family in one of the wagons.
Jefferson Davis was being introduced to captivity. As the prisoners approached Macon, Union troops lining the road jeered the president and his entourage. Along the way Davis had learned about Andrew Johnson’s presidential proclamation accusing him of complicity in Lincoln’s assassination and putting a price on his head. A heavy guard accompanied the caravan into Macon, where an immense but orderly crowd awaited the former leader. In town, General Wilson treated his star prisoner with courtesy and invited Davis, his aides, and John Reagan to dine with him. And before sending them on, the general also agreed that Davis could take his family east with him.
On the evening of May 13 the captives left Macon for their assumed destination, Washington, D.C. Their route would take them by train to Atlanta and over to Augusta, then by water down the Savannah River and on up the Atlantic. At Macon, Clement Clay, who had been arrested for alleged involvement in the plot to kill Lincoln, and his wife, Virginia, joined the group. Both were longtime friends of the Davises. Virginia Clay remembered that as she entered the railcar, Davis rose, embraced her, and said, “This is a sad meeting, Jennie.” In Augusta on May 14, the party was placed on a small steamer for the trip downriver to Savannah, where they were transferred to a similar vessel for a brief jaunt up to Hilton Head, South Carolina. There crowds of Federal soldiers and civilians mocked the captives. On the sixteenth all of the captives—including Alexander Stephens, who had been added at Augusta—were placed aboard the steamer William P. Clyde for their ocean voyage.
Davis had a difficult trip. Between Augusta and Savannah, recurrence of an eye inflammation caused intense suffering. But more than physical pain affected him. Virginia Clay described him as “extremely depressed” and moving restlessly about the Clyde. According to Stephens, Davis was also emotional. Although the former executive officers initially retained their wartime distance, they became more cordial as they traveled. By the end, an empathetic Stephens reported that Davis’s “tone evinced deep feeling.” Yet throughout, Davis exercised self-control. All the former Confederates respected Davis’s position. At dinner all stood until Davis, at the head of the table, and his wife were seated.
The Clyde entered Hampton Roads on May 20 and anchored. The destination had been changed. Stephens, Reagan, and the aides were removed to continue on to their places of imprisonment. After the others had waited two days, precipitate action occurred. With practically no warning—Varina claimed five minutes—Davis and Clay were taken away. The two men were herded into a small boat bound for Fortress Monroe, which overlooked
the meeting of the James River and Chesapeake Bay.1
The U.S. War Department had planned carefully for imprisoning Davis, whom it designated a “state prisoner.” Assistant Secretary of War Charles A. Dana even came down from Washington to oversee Davis’s incarceration. The post itself had a new commander, Major General Nelson A. Miles, a twenty-six-year-old war hero. According to Dana, when Davis strode into the fort on May 22, “his face was somewhat flushed, but his features were composed and his step firm”; Dana also discerned “a haughty attitude.” The Federal authorities had two overriding concerns: they feared either an escape plot or a suicide attempt. These cares prompted extraordinarily tight security. Miles even had authority to place his prisoner in irons, if he deemed it appropriate.
The cells prepared for Davis and Clement Clay were not in the post stockade but in the casemate, or outer wall, of the fort. Each prisoner occupied an inner room in the casemate, with the windows heavily barred. Because the grated iron door to the outer room had not been completed, the wooden door was barred and secured from the outside. A sentry stood within the cell, and two more outside the door. Davis and Clay were under constant observation; as Clay complained to his wife, even bathing and “all the acts of nature” took place within the guard’s view. The furnishings were sparse: a hospital bed with iron bedstead, a chair and table, a movable stool chest, a Bible, and within days an Episcopal prayer book. They ate food prepared in the hospital, not ordinary rations, though they were allowed neither knives nor forks. A lamp burned constantly. The omnipresent light, the changing of the guard every two hours, and the incessant tramping of the sentinels made normal sleep impossible.
On the twenty-third, General Miles ordered that manacles be placed on Davis’s ankles. The ostensible reason was to secure him during the replacement of the wooden door, but in the same circumstances Clay was left unshackled. The clear intention was humiliation. When an officer appeared with the manacles, Davis, who thought the irons insulting, responded forcefully. As the blacksmith stooped to affix them, Davis flung him to the floor. Soldiers cocked muskets, but the officer in charge said no firing. He commanded that four strong men be brought in to subdue Davis. They pinned him down. Still, Davis initially managed to kick the blacksmith away. Finally the shackles were riveted around his ankles and locked together. Davis lay on his bed and covered himself with his blanket.
Within three days newspapers carried the story that Davis had been placed in irons. Many northerners, including some prominent Republicans, protested. On May 28 Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton wired Miles inquiring about the shackles and directing their removal. Responding on the same day, Miles told the secretary they had been removed. Davis was shackled for at most five days.
Two months after Davis’s imprisonment the War Department improved his circumstances. The night lamp and the guard were removed from his cell. He could also exercise outdoors, though he could never be alone and still could not communicate with anyone but official personnel. When Davis and Clay saw each other on their walks, they could not speak to each other.
In October another marked improvement occurred. With the approach of winter, Davis’s attending physician, Dr. John J. Craven, recommended to General Miles that the prisoner be moved out of the dank casemate. The general concurred and received approval from the War Department to implement the recommendation. Cells were prepared for Davis as well as for Clay in Carroll Hall, where officers’ quarters were located. Davis described his corner room on the second story as about 18 by 20 feet, with a fireplace, which he relished. The door leading to the gallery had a fixed iron grating; the other door, which opened into the room occupied by the officer of the guard, also had an iron grating and locked on the outside. His bed was in one corner; on the opposite side were water basin, pitcher, and a folding screen, which meant he could tend to personal matters unobserved. There was a shelf for books and a peg for clothes. Although the night lamp did not return, the tread of the guards, who could view the cell, never ceased.
Even though Davis remained in close confinement and under constant guard, his jailers did permit him to receive gifts from family and friends. Varina sent cochineal shirts, which he used every night, and an overcoat. He also received cigars and brandy, which he enjoyed. These items certainly made his captivity less spartan.
Though Davis’s incarceration did not help his health, his physical condition did not deteriorate as sharply as his medical history might have predicted. He fared about as well as he did for most of his adult life. Neuralgia and boils plagued him, as did erysipelas on his face. Yet he complained more about interrupted sleep than physical maladies. He received close and careful medical attention both from Dr. Craven and from physicians sent occasionally from Washington. The U.S. government had no interest in leaving itself open to the charge that it had intentionally disregarded Davis’s physical well-being. Dr. Craven and his patient developed a close tie, forming a personal as well as professional relationship. The doctor literally ministered to Davis, who spoke of Dr. Craven’s kindness and solicitude. In December 1865 Craven was replaced by Dr. George E. Cooper, who equaled Craven in both the medical care given and the personal concern exhibited. Dr. Cooper improved Davis’s diet and taught him to make coffee in a pot provided by Virginia Clay, who reported both Dr. and Mrs. Cooper as fast friends of her husband and Davis.2
The state prisoner had few visitors. In late summer Richard Taylor appeared at Fortress Monroe. Davis’s former brother-in-law had spent weeks in Washington hounding President Johnson for permission to see Davis. Finally Johnson relented. Taking a steamer down Chesapeake Bay from Baltimore, Taylor remembered his full emotions as he approached Davis’s casemate. Silently the two men shook hands. After a time Davis said, “this is kind, but no more than I expected of you.” Taylor found him worn and with an ophthalmological inflammation. Although Davis did not complain, he indicated that the constant light and noise of the guards prevented decent sleep. He made no mention of his having been shackled. He wanted to know about his family in particular and about conditions in the South in general. Taylor wrote that he responded as positively as he could. He ended his stay by telling Davis his imprisonment had endeared him to southerners. “I think he derived consolation from this view,” Taylor concluded.3
In the fall President Johnson dispatched Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch to check on Davis’s treatment. Upon their meeting, McCulloch recorded that Davis’s “gait was erect, his step elastic.” The prisoner seemed “neither depressed in spirits nor soured in temper.” Questioned, Davis did answer that in the beginning he had been “barbarously” treated but now had no real complaint. McCulloch gave a full assessment: “He had the bearing of a brave and high-bred gentleman, who, knowing that he would have been highly honored if the Confederate States had achieved their independence would not and could not demean himself as a criminal because they had not.”4
Besides Taylor’s single appearance, Davis saw only one other person he counted as a friend. Although by the end of 1865 Virginia Clay had won permission to visit her husband, she was not allowed to see Davis. Yet by that time the authorities permitted the Reverend Charles A. Minnigerode, Davis’s former pastor at St. Paul’s in Richmond, to spend time at Fortress Monroe. Davis enjoyed Minnigerode’s visitations. They prayed together, and the minister celebrated communion with the prisoner. The two men could talk, and Minnigerode brought welcome news of friends and associates.5
As Davis tried to adjust to his captivity, preparations were underway to defend him against whatever charge or charges the United States might decide to bring against him. At the center of this effort stood Charles O’Conor, a native of Ireland who had immigrated to America as a small child and had become a luminary of the New York City bar. Soon after news of Davis’s capture reached him, the sixty-four-year-old O’Conor decided to offer his considerable legal talents to the state prisoner’s defense. An ardent states’ rights Democrat and a classical strict-constructionist, O’Conor believed that D
avis and his fellow seceders had properly interpreted the Constitution. Moreover, he was convinced that lovers of constitutional government had to thwart what he saw as the Republican rush to trample the Constitution and punish former Confederates by whatever means possible.
Volunteering to be Davis’s counsel was not a simple matter. On May 31 O’Conor wrote Secretary of War Stanton saying that he intended to represent Davis and requesting permission to inform his prospective client. Stanton replied that O’Conor could do so by sending an open letter to Davis through the U.S. attorney general in Washington. On June 2 the lawyer followed Stanton’s instructions. Davis accepted and was given writing materials to frame a response, which he forwarded through General Miles and the attorney general. The latter sent Davis’s letter back for revisions, but Davis never got the opportunity to revise it. Despite several attempts, O’Conor never received a written agreement from Davis, nor was he permitted to visit Fortress Monroe. In the end O’Conor simply asserted that he represented Davis, a role that everyone on both sides accepted.6
In his determination to provide Davis the best possible legal defense, O’Conor had important northern allies. Most had been well-known figures in the prewar Democratic party, including some who had been close to Davis. Prominent among them were Caleb Cushing, Franklin Pierce, and Jeremiah Black, who had served in James Buchanan’s cabinet. These men maintained contact with one another, and all concurred that O’Conor should take the legal lead. From the opposite political side came Francis Blair, Sr., who had turned to the Republicans in the 1850s but was now in the process of moving his allegiance back to the Democrats. An enthusiastic enlistee from the Republican camp, Horace Greeley, the influential editor of the New York Tribune, who had participated in the futile peace conversations with Clay in Canada, made every effort to aid Davis’s counsel.7
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