36. See chapter ten below.
37. Hearon, “Mississippi and Compromise,” 209n.; JD to David Yulee, July 18, 1851, PJD, IV, 218–19; Powhatan Ellis to Margaret Ellis, October 8, 1851, Mumford-Ellis Papers, DU; Davis, Recollections, 317–18.
38. May, Quitman, 260–63.
39. Hearon, “Mississippi and Compromise,” 209n.
40. Powhatan Ellis to Margaret Ellis, October 8, 1851, Mumford-Ellis Papers, DU; Ethelbert Barksdale to JD, September 19, 1851, PJD, IV, 222–23; E. C. Wilkinson to the People of Mississippi, September 16, 1851, JDC, II, 85–86; Memoir, I, 470.
41. JD to E. C. Wilkinson, September 17, 1851, JDC, II, 86; JD to John I. Guion, September 23, 1851, ibid., 84–85; Collin S. Tarpley to JD, May 6, 1853, ibid., 213.
42. Jackson Mississippian, September 19, October 3, 1851; Davis, Recollections, 320.
43. Memoir, I, 469; JDC, II, 88–107.
44. Ethelbert Barksdale to JD, September 19, 1851, PJD, IV, 223; [Collin S. Tarpley], A Sketch of the Life of Jeff. Davis, the Democratic Candidate (Jackson, Miss., 1851). The title page lists “a Citizen of Mississippi” as author, but the sketch of Tarpley in James Daniel Lynch, The Bench and Bar of Mississippi (New York, 1881), 366–69, identifies him as the author.
45. Ethelbert Barksdale to JD, September 19, 1851, PJD, IV, 223; Rainwater, ed., “Humphreys Diary,” 242; Vicksburg Weekly Whig, September 17, 1851.
46. Memoir, I, 470; Jackson Mississippian, October 24, 1851; PJD, IV, xxxviii.
47. PJD, IV, 231–32.
48. Hearon, “Mississippi and Compromise,” 215; Journal of the House of the State of Mississippi (1852), 256; Davis, Recollections, 320; Reuben Davis to JD [November n.d., 1851], PJD, IV, 233; Jackson Mississippian, November 14, 1851; Rainwater, ed., “Humphreys Diary,” 242.
49. Reuben Davis to JD [November n.d., 1851], PJD, IV, 233; also see Jackson Mississippian, November 14, 1851.
50. Hearon, “Mississippi and Compromise,” 215.
51. JD to John M. Clayton, November 22, 1851, JDC, II, 108.
52. Bowmar, 259, 493–94; William Ziegler to JD, February 25, 1849, PJD, IV, 12–13.
53. Bowmar, 259–60; PJD, IV, 237. For more detail on the house, consult Frank Edgar Everett, Jr., Brierfield: Plantation Home of Jefferson Davis (Jackson, Miss., 1971), chap. 5.
54. VD to Mary Ann Cobb, January 13, 1851, Cobb Papers, UGA.
55. Memoir, I, 469, 475–76.
56. Asbury Dickins to JD, October 27, 1851, PJD, IV, 229–30; “Library of Congress Loan Record,” ibid., 173–74.
57. Bowmar, 363; Memoir, I, 476; PJD, IV, 293n.
58. Bowmar, 350, 363.
59. Ibid., 348–49, 469; Eliza Davis to JD, [1852], William B. Howell Papers, MDAH.
60. VD to Margaret K. Howell, May 25, 1852, PJD, IV, 301n.; JD to James A. Pearce, August 22, 1852, ibid., 300; Cartwright to JD, October 16, 1852, ibid., 302–04; ibid., 302 ed.n.; JD to Dr. Cartwright, January 20, 1853, ibid., 301n.; Jackson Mississippian, October 29, 1852.
61. U.S. Manuscript Census, 1850 and 1860, Warren County, Mississippi: Agriculture Schedules, NA; Joseph M. Stephenson to JD, January 5, 1852, PJD, V, 481.
62. Joseph Davis to JD, [October] 7, 1846, PJD, III, 56; JD to Payne & Harrison, November 16, 1857, ibid., VI, 550; Nicholas E. Barnes to JD, December 16, 1861, ibid., VII, 440; Bowmar, 168, 289; VD to William E. Dodd, June 16, 1905, William E. Dodd Papers, LC.
63. Manuscript Census, 1860, Warren County, Mississippi: Slave Schedules, NA; John Hebron Moore, The Emergence of the Cotton Kingdom in the Old Southwest: Mississippi, 1770–1860 (Baton Rouge, La., 1988), 108–09, 124.
64. The best study of factors is Harold D. Woodman, King Cotton and His Retainers: Financing and Marketing of the Crop of the South, 1800–1925 (Lexington, Ky., 1968).
65. Bowmar, 155–56, 167–68, 228–29.
66. PJD, IV, 237–40, 275; Payne & Harrison to JD, August 3, 9, 1852, ibid., 299, 399; JD to Payne & Harrison, November 23, 1857, ibid., VI, 163.
67. William Ziegler to JD, February 25, 1849, PJD, IV, 13; James Roach Diary, May 29, 1858, April 9, 21, 1859, Roach-Eggleston Papers, UNC; JD to Margaret K. Howell, March 28, 1859, to William B. Howell, April 18, 24, 1859, and to Clement C. Clay, May 17, 1859, PJD, VI, 241–42, 242n., 246, 247, 251; Bowmar, 308–12.
68. Manuscript Census, 1850: Agriculture Schedules, NA; PJD, III, 414; IV, 378; V, 286; VI, 130n., 546, 549; JD to Payne & Harrison, March 10, 1860, ibid., VI, 548. For the value of slaves, see Michael Tadman, Speculators and Slaves: Masters, Traders, and Slaves in the Old South (Madison, Wis., 1989), 283–91.
69. VD to William E. Dodd, June 16, 1905, Dodd Papers, LC; Lewis C. Gray, History of Agriculture in the Southern United States ([1933]; 2 vols.; Gloucester, Mass., 1958), II, 1027 (cotton prices); Robert William Fogel, Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery (New York, 1984), 85 (per capita income); Bowmar, 163; PJD, V, 123n.
70. The basic study of the overseer remains William K. Scarborough, The Overseer: Plantation Management in the Old South (Baton Rouge, La., 1966); JD to VD, July 20, 1857, PJD, VI, 129; JD to VD, July 27, 1857, JD Papers, TR; Joseph Davis to Payne & Harrison, July 12, 1858 (copy), Bowmar, 185.
71. Bowmar, 325–27, 329, 333–34, 345–46; PJD, II, 59–60n.
72. Bowmar, 189–90, 208; JD to Joseph Davis, September 22, 1855, PJD, V, 122; JD to William B. Howell, June 14, 1855, ibid., 113; JD to VD, July 20, 1857, ibid., VI, 129; Nicholas Barnes to JD, December 16, 1861, ibid., VII, 440; ibid., VI, 549 (investments).
73. Manuscript Census, 1850 and 1860: Slave Schedules, NA, has details on JD’s slaveholdings.
74. Robert W. Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman, Time on the Cross (2 vols.; Boston, 1974), I, 125 (life expectancy); Manuscript Census, 1860: Slave Schedules (Joseph’s slaves); Old Bob (sometimes Old Rob) is often mentioned, e.g., Memoir, I, 179–80, and JD to Joseph Davis, September 22, 1855, PJD, V, 123.
75. JD to Hugh R. Davis, June 4, 1848, PJD, III, 326; Bowmar, 215.
76. Payne & Harrison to JD, August 3, 9, 1852, PJD, IV, 299 (first quotation), and JDC, II, 176–77 (second quotation).
77. JD to Payne & Harrison, November 23, 1857, PJD, VI, 163; Joseph Davis to Payne & Harrison, December 22, 1857, and JD to Payne & Harrison, November 16, 1857 (copies), Bowmar, 185–86, 191–92.
78. On slavery and the master-slave relationship, see Eugene Genovese’s important and influential Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York, 1974), and Peter Kolchin’s excellent synthesis, American Slavery, 1619–1877 (New York, 1993).
79. VD to William B. Howell, April 11, 1845, JD Papers, Alabama; Memoir, I, 179; JD to Joseph Davis, August 25, 1855, August 30, 1857, PJD, V, 117, VI, 136–37; JD to William B. Howell, April 18, 24, 1859, ibid., VI, 246–47; JD to Cartwright, April 25, 1859, ibid., 249.
80. Memoir, I, 179–80; VD to William E. Dodd, March 8, 1905, Dodd Papers, LC; Everett, Brierfield, 49.
81. Bowmar, 215; Memoir, I, 180; JD to William B. Howell, April 24, 1859, PJD, VI, 247; Semi-Centennial Celebration, Mound Bayou, Mississippi (n.p., n.d.), 19, booklet, Benjamin Montgomery Family Papers, LC; Janet Sharp Hermann, Joseph Davis: Plantation Patriarch (Jackson, Miss., 1990), 57–60.
82. JD to Joseph, August 25, 1855, PJD, V, 117; Harper’s Weekly, September 15, 1866.
83. Memoir, I, 176–78; Ben Montgomery to JD, August 1, 1859, JDC, IV, 92–93; PJD, VIII, 599.
84. Memoir, I, 178.
85. JD to Campbell Brown, June 14, 1886, Civil War Collection (CW 82), HL; PJD, V, 123n.
86. Memoir, I, 175–76; VD to William E. Dodd, March 8, June 16, 1905, Dodd Papers, LC; Lise M. Hamer to Walter Lynwood Fleming, n.d. [1907?], January 30, 1908, Walter Lynwood Fleming Papers, NYPL. Also see Walter Lynwood Fleming, “Jefferson Davis, the Negroes and the Negro Problem,” Louisiana State University Bulletin, Series VI (October 1908, no. 4), especially 6–7, and [Mahala Roach] to Thomas R. Roach, August 22, 1897, Roach Letters, MDAH.
87. Petition quoted in Mary Se
aton Dix, “Jefferson Davis and Slavery: A Personal and Political Conflict” (unpublished paper presented to the Southern Historical Association, November 3, 1990), 3; George P. Rawick, ed., The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Series I (19 vols.; Westport, Conn., 1972), VII, 91–94, and Supplementary Series I (12 vols.; Westport, Conn., 1977), VIII, 993–95, 1157–60, 1328–39 passim. Also see Thornton Montgomery to Lise Hamer, December 11, 1907, Lise Mitchell Papers, TU; “Talking with a Colored Fellow about Jefferson Davis,” Mound Bayou, Mississippi, 1942, Folklore Division, LC, and “Speech of Isaiah Montgomery,” newspaper clipping (typescript) dated February 16, 1902, Fleming Papers, NYPL.
88. Memoir, I, 177; David D. Porter to Lorenzo Thomas, October 21, 1863, Ira Berlin et al., eds., The Wartime Genesis of Free Labor: The Lower South (New York, 1990), 746–48.
89. JD to Joseph Davis, September 22, 1855, PJD, V, 122; JD to VD, July 20, 1857, ibid., VI, 129.
90. L. M. Blackford to Wm. M. Blackford, November 27, 1863, Blackford Family Papers, UVA (in this letter Blackford writes that he has just spent time with W. F. Howell, VD’s brother, who was undoubtedly the source of the slave material; I am grateful to Joseph T. Glatthaar for this reference); Joseph Davis to JD, January 2, 1861, PJD, VII, 3. Also see the suggestive entry on manacled runaway slaves in the William Holcombe Diary, June 2, 1855, William H. Holcombe Papers, UNC.
91. JD to William B. Howell, June 14, 1855, PJD, V, 113; VD to Margaret K. Howell, May n.d., 1857, JD Papers, UA.
92. VD to William E. Dodd, March 8, 1905, Dodd Papers, LC; Memoir, I, 311–12. For an introduction to Cartwright, see Eric L. McKitrick, ed., Slavery Defended: The Views of the Old South (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963), 139–47.
93. VD to William E. Dodd, March 8, 1905, Dodd Papers, LC.
CHAPTER NINE: “I … Have a Field of Usefulness”
1. JD to John M. Clayton, November 22, 1851, JDC, II, 108; Vicksburg Tri-Weekly Whig, December 2, 1851; Ethelbert Barksdale to JD, December 28, 1851, PJD, IV, 236.
2. Michael F. Holt, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War (New York, 1999), chap. 17; Ethelbert Barksdale to JD, December 28, 1851, PJD, IV, 234–35.
3. Ethelbert Barksdale to JD, December 28, 1851, PJD, IV, 235.
4. JDC, II, 117–25; JD to Barksdale and Jones, February 2, 1852, PJD, IV, 248.
5. Jackson Mississippian, January 9, 1852.
6. JDC, II, 117; JD to? [August—October 1852], PJD, IV, 297.
7. JD to? [August—October 1852], PJD, IV, 293 (first quotation); JD to Barksdale and Jones, February 2, 1852, ibid., 241–49 (second quotation on 241); Barksdale and Jones to JD, February 7, 1852, ibid., 250–51; C. J. Searles to JD, April 8, 1852, ibid., 253–54 (third and final quotations); ibid., 253n.
8. Ibid., 237n.; F. C. Jones to JD, March 19, [1852], ibid., 252.
9. Ibid., 259.
10. Ibid., 258–71; Jackson Mississippian, June 11, 1852; Geo. H. Gordon to Carnot Posey, June 9, 1852 (copy), Walter Lynwood Fleming Papers, NYPL. Also see James A. Seddon to Robert M. T. Hunter, February 7, 1852, Charles Henry Ambler, ed., Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter, 1826–1876 (Washington, D.C., 1918), 137–39.
11. Jackson Mississippian, July 30, 1852; JDC, II, 174–76 (Scott quotation on 175); Vicksburg Weekly Whig, September 16, 1852; JD to J. F. H. Claiborne, October 24, 1852, PJD, IV, 304–07.
12. Pierce to JD, December 7, 1852, January 12, 1853, PJD, IV, 307–08, 308n. W. Dean Burnham, Presidential Ballots, 1836–1892 (Baltimore, 1955), 245, 352, 887, has the election results.
13. Larry Gara, The Presidency of Franklin Pierce (Lawrence, Kans., 1991), 44–47; Roy Franklin Nichols, Franklin Pierce: Young Hickory of the Granite Hills (rev. ed.; Philadelphia, 1958), 218–23, 227–30, 237–38; Brown to JD, January 1, 1853, PJD, V, 3–4.
14. Albert Brown to JD, January 1, 1853, PJD, V, 3; C. G. Greene to JD, February 2, 18 (quotation), 1853, and JD to C. G. Greene, February 13, 1853 (all telegrams), ibid., 151, 5; Vicksburg Tri-Weekly Whig, February 19, 1853; PJD, V, xxxvii, 5n.; ibid., VI, 141; JD to Stephen Cocke, December 19, 1853, JDC, II, 335–37.
15. PJD, V, 11n.; Lurtan D. Ingersoll, A History of the War Department of the United States (Washington, D.C., 1879), 110–11.
16. Photograph, p. 263; Edward K. Eckert and Nicholas J. Amato, eds., Ten Years in the Saddle: The Memories of William Woods Averell (San Rafael, Calif., 1978), 42; Sir Henry Holland, Recollections of Past Life (New York, 1872), 191; Donald B. Cole and John J. McDonough, eds., Benjamin Brown French: Witness to the Young Republic, A Yankee’s Journal, 1828–1870 (Hanover, N.H., and London, 1989), 254; George Wallis Journal, June 24, 1853, LC; Virginia Clay-Clopton, A Belle of the Fifties: Memories of Mrs. Clay of Alabama, Covering Social and Political Life in Washington and the South, 1853–1866… (New York, 1905), 68.
17. On the War Department and army, see Edward M. Coffman, The Old Army: A Portrait of the American Army in Peacetime, 1784–1860 (New York, 1986); William B. Skelton, An American Profession of Arms: The Army Officer Corps, 1784–1861 (Lawrence, Kans., 1992); and Leonard P. White, The Jacksonians: A Study in Administrative History, 1829–1861 (New York, 1954), chap. 10. Those scholars are generally positive about Davis’s performance as secretary of war. Cf. John Muldowny, “The Administration of Jefferson Davis as Secretary of War” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1959), which remains the most detailed account of Davis’s secretaryship.
18. On Scott, Charles Winslow Elliott, Winfield Scott: The Soldier and the Man (New York, 1937), is the most detailed.
19. Nichols’s Pierce is still the most thorough on Pierce’s administration, but the more recent and briefer Gara, Pierce, also has value.
20. VD to Margaret Howell, March 3, 6, 1854, JD Papers, UA; Memoir, I, 530 (Pierce statement), 559 (first quotation), 571; “Notes of Oral Discourse of Ex-President Davis: 20 October 1877,” William Walthall Papers, MDAH; JD to W. P. Northend, August 28, 1883, Montague Collection, NYPL.
21. Memoir, I, 533–34; “Notes of Oral Discourse of Ex-President Davis,” Walthall Papers, MDAH.
22. JD to VD, April 17, May 27, 1853, PJD, V, 10–11, 17.
23. Clay-Clopton, Belle of the Fifties, 69; Virginia Clay-Clopton, “A Leaf from my Diary,” C. C. Clay Papers, DU.
24. Malie B. Brodhead to VD, May 7, 1853, Howell Family Papers, MDAH; PJD, V, 17n.; Memoir, I, 563–64; JD to Rose Greenhow, January 26, 1856, PJD, VI, 406.
25. For a sense of the papers, consult PJD, V, 154–474 passim, and ibid., VI, 379–540 passim. For specific examples, see V, 104–05, 406, 407, 465, 466, 467, 471, and VI, 497, 514, 517–18 (West Point incident).
26. JD to [Robert Carter], February 9, 1859, ibid., VI, 240, and “Autobiography,” ibid., I, lx. My discussion of JD as secretary relies heavily on his four annual reports, all published in JDC, II, 292–333 (1853), 389–419 (1854), 552–71 (1855), III, 68–98 (1856). The final one is also in PJD, VI, 62–91. Other citations are given only for quotations or special documents.
27. In general, see Coffman, Old Army, and Skelton, Profession of Arms.
28. Coffman, Old Army, 60; Skelton, Profession of Arms, 146; JD to Ethan A. Hitchcock, June 3, 1853, PJD, V, 18; William Walthall Diary, April 11, 1877, Walthall Papers, MDAH.
29. JD to Charles J. Faulkner, January 25, 1855, to Robert M. T. Hunter, March 19, 1856, PJD, V, 97–98, VI, 17–18; Douglas to JD, March 30, 1855, Robert W. Johannsen, ed., The Letters of Stephen A. Douglas (Urbana, Ill., 1961), 336; David L. Yulee to JD, March 27, 1855, and JD to Douglas, April 5, 1855, JDC, II, 445–46, 448–50.
30. JDC, II, 22–28; Memoirs of Lieut.-General Scott, LL. D. Written by Himself (2 vols.; New York, 1864), II, 589–90, 593. On JD and Scott generally, see Elliott, Scott, 648–59, and especially Senate Executive Document 34, 34:3 (serial 880), which contains the complete correspondence between the two men.
31. Scott to JD, August 6, 1855, March 20, May 21, 1856, JDC, II, 488, and III, 11, 36.
&nbs
p; 32. JD to Scott, February 29, 1856, ibid., III, 10.
33. George T. Denison, Soldiering in Canada: Recollections and Experiences by Lt. Col. George T. Denison (Toronto, 1890), 73–74.
34. JDC, II, 262.
35. On this matter, Grady McWhiney and Perry D. Jamieson, Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage (University, Ala., 1982), 48–49, is helpful.
36. Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes, Jr., General William J. Hardee: Old Reliable (Baton Rouge, La., 1965), chap. 4, provides details; on publication, see PJD, V, 341.
37. JD to Edouard Stoeckl, May 15, 1855, to James Buchanan, July 23, 1855 (quotation), PJD, V, 106–07, 115; ibid., VI, 55–56; Richard Delafield to George B. McClellan, October 21, 1856, George B. McClellan Papers, LC.
38. JD to John Wiley, March 11, 1854, to Alexandre Vattemare, May 15, 1855, PJD, V, 62, 103.
39. Skelton, Profession of Arms, 241 (quotation); JD to R. Delafield, A. Mordecai, and George B. McClellan, April 2, 1855, to James Buchanan, April 9, 1855, JDC, II, 446–48, 450–52. For a detailed discussion, consult Matthew Moten, “Mission to the Crimea: The American Military Commission to Europe and the Crimean War, 1855–1856” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Rice University, 1991).
40. JD to Charles J. McDonald, April 13, 1854, JDC, II, 350–51; JD to Joseph G. Totten, August 19, 1854, PJD, V, 82–83n.; Richard Delafield to George McClellan, October 21, 1856, McClellan Papers, LC.
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