Jefferson Davis, American

by William J. Cooper

  58. PJD, VII, 30–34.

  59. VD to her mother, April 25 (first and second quotations), May n.d. (third quotation), 1859, JD Papers, UA.

  60. Bowmar, 366–67.

  61. Ibid., 359–61.

  62. JDC, IV, 85–86 (quotation), 250–82 passim; PJD, VI, 278–84.

  63. JDC, IV, 253–54; PJD, VI, 280–81.

  64. On John Brown, see Potter, Impending Crisis, chap. 14; JDC, IV, 99, 107 (quotations), 157–66; PJD, VI, 619–21.

  65. PJD, VI, 228 (first quotation); JDC, IV, 88 (final quotation), 279–80 (next-to-last quotation).

  66. Jackson Mississippian, June 10, 14, July 8, 1859; Ranck, Brown, 168–90, details Brown’s activities.

  67. JDC, IV, 86–87 (first quotation); PJD, VI, 154 (final quotation), 228 (second quotation), 618 (third quotation); JD to Commissioners of Gulf and Ship Island Railroad, August 28, 1858, ibid., 209–12. JD’s caveats appear in all his speeches.

  68. JDC, III, 173 (first quotation), IV, 158 (second quotation).

  69. Ranck, Brown, 168–73; Joseph R. Davis to JD, June 6, 1859, JDC, IV, 54–55; JD to Clement Clay, May 17, 1859, PJD, VI, 251.

  70. PJD, VI, 228; JDC, III, 130–33, 313, IV, 48, 69–71, 521–29; Jackson Mississippian, August 24, 1859.

  71. On the internecine struggle within the Democratic party, the Johannsen, Nichols, and Potter books cited above are essential. My account largely follows them.

  72. JDC, III, 569–88 (first quotation 583); IV, 121–39 (second and third quotations 136, final one 139); JD to William Walthall, February 21, 1880, William Walthall Papers, MDAH.

  73. JD to William Lamb, September 14, 1860, PJD, VI, 363; ibid., 275–76n.; JDC, IV, 348–61. The initial resolutions are in PJD, VI, 273–75, and the revised version in JDC, IV, 203–04.

  74. Robert Toombs to Alexander H. Stephens, February 10, 1860, Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, ed., The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb (Washington, D.C., 1913), 461; Andrew Johnson to George W. Jones, March 13, 1860, PAJ, III, 466. Potter, Impending Crisis, 403–04, and, much more recently, Michael A. Morrison, Slavery and the American West: The Eclipse of Manifest Destiny and the Coming of the Civil War (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1997), 211–12, present the consensual interpretation, but cf. the insightful article by Paul D. Escott, “Jefferson Davis and Slavery in the Territories,” JMH, XXXIX (May 1977), 97–116.

  75. PJD, VI, 218; Vicksburg Daily Whig, October 19, 1858; JDC, III, 569–88, IV, 110–15.

  76. JD to J. L. M. Curry, June 4, 1859, PJD, VI, 253–54, and citations in note 75 above.

  77. JDC, IV, 74–78; Vicksburg Weekly Whig, March 7, 1860; JD to William Lamb, September 14, 1860, PJD, VI, 363.

  78. George C. Hazelton, The National Capitol: Its Architecture, Art and History (New York, 1903), 59, 176–77; PJD, VI, has a seating chart following 72.

  79. PJD, VI, 235–36, 598; JDC, III, 363–76, IV, 1–30, 382–443.

  80. Vicksburg Daily Whig, January 20, 1858; M. D. Haynes to JD, March 31, 1860, JDC, IV, 229; PJD, VI, 589–665 passim (specific examples 577 and 628); JD Papers, TU, has the ledger.

  81. Brown Manuscript Memoirs, J. F. H. Claiborne Papers, UNC; Andrew Butler et al. to JD and Toombs, March 12, 1857, JD to Butler et al., March 12, 1857, along with William Winder to JD, March 30, 1857, PJD, VI, 542.

  82. PJD, VI, 188–95 (initial four quotations 191), 196n. (fifth quotation), 197–99n. (final five quotations); Clement C. Clay to “My Dear Wife,” June 9, 1858, C. C. Clay Papers, DU; Eli N. Evans, Judah P. Benjamin: The Jewish Confederate (New York, 1988), 99 (sixth quotation).

  83. JD to Thomas Lawson, February 1, 1859, PJD, VI, 600; JD to Franklin Pierce, September 2, 1859, JDC, IV, 93; JD to Messrs. Robinson et al., September 12, 1859, Jackson Mississippian, October 5, 1859; Sir Henry Holland, Recollection of a Past Life (New York, 1872), 191; Riley, “Jefferson Davis,” 261–64.

  84. William B. Hesseltine, ed., Three Against Lincoln: Murat Halstead Reports the Caucuses of 1860 (Baton Rouge, La., 1960), 121.

  85. Brady photograph, p. 6; McMlees photograph, p. 303; Memoir, I, 198.

  86. For a splendid general treatment of the election of 1860, see Potter, Impending Crisis, chap. 16; Nichols, Disruption, chaps. 15–16, remains essential for the Democrats.

  87. JD to Edwin DeLeon, January 21, 1860, PJD, VI, 271 (first, second quotations); JD to Sidney Webster, January 9, 1860, Sidney Webster Papers, LC (third quotation, calendared PJD, VI, 626); JD to Pierce, September 2, 1859, January 30, 1860, JDC, IV, 93, 185; J. L. Foster to Stephen A. Douglas, October 17, 1859, Stephen A. Douglas Papers, Department of Special Collections, Henry Regenstein Library, University of Chicago.

  88. Joseph R. Davis to JD, December 13, 1859, PJD, VI, 264, 265n.; Boston Courier, n.d., from Jackson Mississippian, April 18, 1860 (first quotation); Pierce to JD, January 6, 1860, JDC, IV, 118 (second quotation); Benjamin F. Butler to Orville Jones, n.d. [most likely 1868], Benjamin F. Butler Papers, LC; Charles Mason to Robert M. T. Hunter, April 30, 1860, Charles Henry Ambler, ed., Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter, 1826–1876 (Washington, D.C., 1918), 322; W. L. Yancey to C. C. Clay, May 4, [1860], JD to C. C. Clay, November 12, 1875, Clay Papers, DU; Andrew Johnson to George W. Jones, March 13, 1860, PAJ, III, 466–67 (third quotation); JD to Sidney Webster, January 9, 1860, Webster Papers, LC (fourth quotation, calendared PJD, VI, 626); C. C. Clay to JD, October 30, 1875, JD Papers, MC.

  89. JD to Cushing, April 15, 1860, J. D. Andrews to Cushing, April 29, 1860, Cushing Papers, LC; L. Q. C. Lamar to C. H. Mott, May 9, 1860, Edward Mayes, Lucius Q. C. Lamar: His Life, Times, and Speeches, 1823–1893 (2d ed.; Nashville, Tenn., 1896), 83.

  90. JD to Cushing, [May 10, 1860], Cushing Papers, LC; JD et al. to the National Democracy, May [7], 1860, PJD, VI, 289–93 (first quotation 293); JD to Pierce, June 13, 1860, JDC, IV, 296 (second and third quotations).

  91. PJD, VI, 356–57 (first quotation 356), 358–60 (second and third quotations 358), 664; R&F, I, 52–53; Memoir, I, 685 (fourth quotation); JD to C. C. Clay, November 12, 1875, Clay Papers, DU; William C. Davis, Breckinridge: Statesman, Soldier, Symbol (Baton Rouge, La., 1974), 224–27.

  92. JD to J. L. M. Curry, June 4, 1859, PJD, VI, 254.

  93. Ibid., liv, lv, 667–68; JDC, IV, 540–41; Jackson Mississippian, October 17, 1860. Percy Lee Rainwater, Mississippi: Storm Center of Secession, 1856–61 (Baton Rouge, La., 1938), chap. 7, remains the most detailed study (quotation 136).

  94. PJD, VI, 366 (quotations); JDC, IV, 540–41.

  95. PJD, VI, 364–65; Jackson Mississippian, October 31, 1860.

  96. Vicksburg Weekly Whig, November 14, 1860.

  97. Potter, Impending Crisis, chap. 18, has the best general discussion of secession. On Mississippi, see Rainwater, Storm Center, chaps. 8–11, which still has enormous value, and William L. Barney, The Secessionist Impulse: Alabama and Mississippi in 1860 (Princeton, 1974), chaps. 5–7.

  98. JD to Rhett, November 10, 1860, PJD, VI, 368–70.

  99. William Walthall Diary, March 3, 1877, Walthall Papers, MDAH; O. R. Singleton to JD, July 14, 1877, JDC, VII, 560–62; JD to C. C. Clay, November 12, 1875, Clay Papers, DU; Reuben Davis, Recollections of Mississippi and Mississippians (Boston and New York, 1891), 390–91.

  100. New York Herald, December 11, 1860. On congressional matters, see Potter, Impending Crisis, chap. 19, and Potter, Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis ([1942]; Baton Rouge, La., 1995), which is best on the Republicans, and Nichols, Disruption, which is superior on the Democrats. On the most important Republican, consult David Herbert Donald’s superb Lincoln (New York, 1995).

  101. Harper’s Weekly, February 2, 1861; Samuel S. Cox, Union—Disunion—Reunion: Three Decades of Federal Legislation… (Providence, R.I., 1888), 68–69; Bellows Memorandum, Bellows Papers, MaHS; Samuel F. Butterworth to S. L. M. Barlow, December 26, 1860, S. L. M. Barlow Papers, HL; “When the States Seceded, from the Diary of Mrs. Eugene McLean,” Harper’s Monthly Magazine, CXXVIII (January 19
14), 283.

  102. Samuel F. Butterworth to S. L. M. Barlow, November 29, 1860, Barlow Papers, HL (quotation); Memoir, I, 580–83.

  103. Samuel F. Butterworth to S. L. M. Barlow, December 2, 1860, Barlow Papers, HL; Davis, Recollections, 396; PJD, VI, 377.

  104. Powhatan Ellis to Charles Ellis, Jr., November 29, 1860, Munford-Ellis Papers, DU; L. Q. C. Lamar to JD, December 24, 1860, PJD, VI, 673.

  105. JDC, IV, 543–52; “Autobiography,” PJD, I, lxi (quotation); New York Herald, December 4, 1860; Vicksburg Weekly Whig, December 19, 1860; Israel Wash-burne, Jr., to William H. Seward, December 18, 1860, William H. Seward Papers, Rhees Library, University of Rochester.

  106. JD to F. H. Alfriend, August 17, 1867 (copy), Anne and Peter Holland (1995); JD to C. C. Clay, November 12, 1875, Clay Papers, DU, to William Walthall, November 21, 1875, Walthall Papers, MDAH; New York Herald, December 23, 1860; JD to John J. Pettus, December 26, 1860, JDC, IV, 560; JD interview in Baltimore Sunday Herald, July 10, 1887; William M. Browne to S. L. M. Barlow, December 30, 1860, Barlow Papers, HL; Cox, Three Decades, 77; Seward to Lincoln, December 26, 1860, Frederick W. Seward, William H. Seward: An Autobiography from 1801 to 1834; Memoir of His Life, and Selections from His Letters (3 vols.; New York, 1891), II, 485. The record of the committee is in Senate Report 288, 36:2 (serial 1090), though there are no speeches.

  107. JD to F. H. Alfriend, August 17, 1867 (copy), Hollands; Benjamin to S. L. M. Barlow, December 23, 1860, Barlow Papers, HL.

  108. JDC, V, 6 (first quotation); JD to Edwin DeLeon, January 8, 1861, PJD, VII, 6–7 (remaining quotations).

  109. W. H. Trescot and L. M. Keitt to JD, January 9, 1861, James Buchanan Papers, HSP (calendared in PJD, VII, 8); F. W. Pickens to JD, January 9, 1861 (copy), Executive Council Journal Letterbook, 1861, SCA (calendared, PJD, VII, 8); JD et al. to Isaac W. Hayne, January 15, 1861 (quotation), ibid., 10–12; JD to Francis W. Pickens, January 20, 1861, JDC, V, 39–40.

  110. Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes: Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House ([1868]; New York, 1968), 66–67; the letters from JD to Clay and Walthall cited in note 106 above; O.R., ser. 1, I, 442–44, ser. 4, I, 28–29.

  111. JD to Pettus, January 4, 1861, to F. W. Pickens, January 13, 1861, JDC, IV, 564–65, V, 36–37; JD to F. H. Alfriend, August 17, 1867 (copy), Hollands.

  112. PJD, VI, 622–23; JD to Eli Whitney, November 30, 1860, to John Pettus, December 26, 31, 1860, ibid., 374, 559–61; W. A. Thornton to JD, January 2, 1861, ibid., VII, 5; JD to John Pettus, January 4, 9, 1861, JDC, IV, 564–65, 570 (quotation); PJD, VII, 27, for the commission.

  113. Elizabeth Blair Lee to S. P. Lee, December [5], 1860, Virginia Jeans Laas, ed., Wartime Washington: The Civil War Letters of Elizabeth Blair Lee (Urbana, Ill., 1991), 14; VD to JD, November 15, 1860, PJD, VI, 371–72.

  114. Elizabeth Blair Lee to S. P. Lee, December [5], 1860, January 10, 1861, Laas, ed., Wartime, 14, 20; Keckley, Behind the Scenes, 69–71 (first quotation 69); VD to Buchanan, December 25, 1860, Buchanan to VD, January 20, 1861, Buchanan Papers, HSP; VD to unknown, January 1, 1861 (second quotation), in Mrs. Jefferson Davis Letters, IA.

  115. JD to F. H. Alfriend, August 17, 1867 (copy), Hollands; Keckley, Behind the Scenes, 68 (second quotation); Memoir, I, 696; JD to F. W. Pickens, January 13, 1861, JDC, V, 36–37.

  116. JDC, V, 1–35.

  117. JD to C. C. Clay, January 19, 1861, to Anna Ella Carroll, March 1, 1861, PJD, VII, 16, 64–65; ibid., xxxix, 27; JD to Francis Pickens, January 13, 1861, JDC, V, 36–37; see Prologue above.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: “Our Cause Is Just and Holy”

  1. PJD, VII, xxxix, 27 ed.n.; “A Journey with Jefferson Davis,” CV, XI (March 1903), 115–16.

  2. JD to John F. Callan, February 7, 1861, PJD, VII, 34–35.

  3. JD to Alexander M. Clayton, January 30, 1861, ibid., 27–28. The states represented in Montgomery were South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Delegates from Texas, which seceded on February 1, did not reach Montgomery until later in the month.

  4. For Montgomery, I have relied heavily on the excellent, detailed account by William C. Davis, “A Government of Our Own”: The Making of the Confederacy (New York, 1994). Also on the Confederate Constitution, consult George C. Rable, The Confederate Republic: A Revolution Against Politics (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1994), chap. 3 (quotation 59).

  5. Thomas R. R. Cobb to Marion, February 11, 1861, Thomas R. R. Cobb Papers, UGA (all Thomas Cobb citations are from this collection); Howell Cobb to His Wife, February 6, 1861, Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, ed., The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb (Washington, D.C., 1913), 537.

  6. New York Times, January 22, 1861; New York Tribune, January 28, 1861; New York Herald, January 30, February 4, 1861; Thomas R. R. Cobb to Marion, February 3, 1861; J. D. B. DeBow to William P. Miles, February 5, 1861, William Henry Trescot to Miles, February 6, 1861, William P. Miles Papers, UNC; Robert Barnwell to James L. Orr, February 9, 1861, Orr-Patterson Papers, ibid.; Chesnut, 6.

  7. Thomas R. R. Cobb to Marion, February 6, 1861; Howell Cobb to His Wife, February 6, 1861, Phillips, ed., Correspondence, 537; Davis, “Government,” 92–93, chap. 5.

  8. J. H. Campbell to William Walthall, July 16, 1879, W. P. Harris to Walthall, July 17, 1879, J. L. M. Curry to Walthall, July 28, 1879, Duncan Kenner to Walthall, July 28, 1879, James Chesnut to Walthall, January 24, 1880, W. P. Miles to Walthall, January 27, 1880, William Walthall Papers, MDAH; Alexander M. Clayton to Editor, June 17, 1870, Memphis Daily Appeal, June 21, 1870; “Robert Barnwell Rhett Autobiography,” 25–27, Robert Barnwell Rhett Papers, SCHS; John H. Reagan, Memoirs with Special Reference to Secession and the Civil War (New York and Washington, D.C., 1906), 122–23; Thomas R. R. Cobb to Marion, February 11, 1861; JDC, VIII, 461–63. In “Government,” chap. 5, William Davis strives to make the election suspenseful, but I do not find his speculations persuasive.

  9. Memoir, II, 18–19 (quotations); VD to James Buchanan, March 18, 1861, James Buchanan Papers, HSP; “Autobiography,” PJD, I, lxii; George T. Denison, Soldiering in Canada: Recollections and Experiences by Lt. Col. George T. Denison (Toronto, 1890), 70–71.

  10. Vicksburg Weekly Whig, February 13, 1861; New York Herald, February 18, 1861 (quotation); PJD, VII, 43 ed.n.; JDC, V, 47.

  11. New York Herald, February 18, 23 (first quotation), 1861; JDC, V, 47–48 (second quotation).

  12. JDC, V, 48–49.

  13. Davis, “Government,” 152; R&F, I, 231.

  14. PJD, VII, 45–46 ed.n.; New York Herald, February 19, 1861; Howell Cobb to His Wife, February 20, 1861, Phillips, ed., Correspondence, 544; Thomas R. R. Cobb to Marion, February 18, 1861; Davis “Government,” 160; Rod Gragg, ed., The Illustrated Confederate Reader (New York, 1989), 59–60 (quotation).

  15. PJD, VII, 46–50.

  16. New York Herald, February 19, 1861; New Orleans Daily Picayune, February 23, 1861 (quotations).

  17. JD to VD, February 20, 1861, PJD, VII, 54; “Autobiography,” ibid., I, lxii; 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), 157; Reagan, Memoirs, 109–10; S. R. Mallory to Master S. R. Mallory, September 27, 1865, Stephen R. Mallory Papers, UNC (all Mallory citations are from this collection); Robert Barnwell Rhett Journal, Index Rerum, Aiken-Rhett Papers, Charleston Museum. Davis, “Government,” chap. 8, has details.

  18. T. C. DeLeon, Four Years in Rebel Capitals: An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy, from Birth to Death…(Mobile, Ala., 1892), 39–40; William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South (Boston, 1863), 172; VD to C. C. Clay, May 10, 1861 (quotation), C. C. Clay Papers, DU; “Rhett Autobiography,” 56, Rhett Papers, SCHS; Davis “Government,” 196.

  19. Chesnut, 62 (first quotation); JD to Francis Pickens, February 22, 1861 (second quotation), to VD, February 20, 1861 (third quotation), PJD, VII, 58, 53; J. B. Jones, A Rebel Wa
r Clerk’s Diary (2 vols.; Philadelphia, 1866), I, 36; for examples of correspondence, see Albert Lea to JD, February 28, 1861, Andrew J. Lindsay to JD, March 11, 1861, Mrs. E. J. Cromwell to JD, April 29, 1861, PJD, VII, 64, 67, 142.

  20. Russell, Diary, 173–74.

  21. PJD, VII, xl; JD to VD, February 14 (first quotation), 20 (second and third quotations), 1861, ibid., 40–41, 53–54.

  22. Ibid., xl, 54n.; Memoir, II, 37.

  23. Russell, Diary, 177; Chesnut, 62 (second quotation); Charleston Mercury, March 11, 1861 (third quotation); “A Northern Woman in the Confederacy, from the Diary of Mrs. Euguene McLean,” Harper’s Monthly Magazine, CXXVIII (February 1914), 442; VD to C. C. Clay, May 10, 1861, Clay Papers, DU.

  24. Chesnut, 60–61; VD to James Buchanan, March 18, 1861, Buchanan Papers, HSP; VD to C. C. Clay, May 10, 1861, Clay Papers, DU; Judah P. Benjamin to S. L. M. Barlow, April 3, 1861, S. L. M. Barlow Papers, HL.

  25. “Autobiography of Wiley P. Harris,” Dunbar Rowland, Courts, Judges, and Lawyers of Mississippi, 1798–1835 (Jackson, Miss., 1935), 327; JD to Alexander M. Clayton, January 30, 1861, PJD, VII, 28; Reagan, Memoirs, 116–17; Louis T. Wigfall to JD, February 25, 1861, PJD, VII, 60–61; Raphael Semmes to Alexander Stephens, February 27, 1861, Alexander H. Stephens Papers, LC; Davis, “ Government,” chap. 9 passim.

  26. Benjamin to JD, March 14, 1861, PJD, VII, 68; Davis, “Government,” chap. 8 passim.

  27. Louis T. Wigfall to JD, February 18, 1861, PJD, VII, 51. For more detail, see David M. Potter, The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861, comp. and ed. Don E. Fehrenbacher (New York, 1976), chap. 20, and Ludwell Johnson, “Fort Sumter and Confederate Diplomacy,” JSH, XXVI (1960), 441–77. On Lincoln and the Republicans, Potter, Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis ([1942]; Baton Rouge, La., 1995), remains indispensable.

  28. JD to Pickens, January 20, March 1, 18, 1861, JDC, V, 40, 58–59, 60–61, and on February 20, 22 (first quotation), PJD, VII, 55, 57–58; W. P. Miles to Pickens, February 9, 1861, Executive Council Journal, Letterbook 1861, SCA; I. W. Hayne to W. P. Miles, February 19, 1861, Miles Papers, UNC; Pickens to JD, February 27, 1861, JDC, V, 58; Beauregard to Major J. G. Bernard, March 18, 1861 (second quotation), Letterbook, P. G. T. Beauregard Papers, LC.