Jefferson Davis, American

by William J. Cooper

  29. William M. Browne to S. L. M. Barlow, March 18, 1861, Judah P. Benjamin to Barlow, April 3, 1861, Barlow Papers, HL; James M. Mason to JD, February 12, March 25, 1861, Louis T. Wigfall to JD, February 16, 1861, PJD, VII, 39, 81, 43; William Henry Trescot to W. P. Miles, February 17, 1861, Miles Papers, UNC; M. J. Crawford to Stephens, March 16, 1861, Stephens Papers, LC; Campbell to JD, April 3, 1861, PJD, VII, 88–89.

  30. Lincoln quotation in Potter, Impending Crisis, 579.

  31. Robert Toombs to Alexander Stephens, April 6, 1861 (first quotation), Alexander H. Stephens Papers, EU; JD to John A. Campbell, April 6, 1861 (intervening quotations), PJD, VII, 92–93; New York Citizen, May 4, 1867 (final quotation). On Fort Pickens, see Grady McWhiney, “The Confederacy’s First Shot,” CWH, XIV (1968), 5–14.

  32. JD to Braxton Bragg, April 3, 1861, PJD, VII, 85.

  33. O.R., ser. 1, I, 297, 300–01 (all citations in chapters eleven through fifteen are to ser. 1, unless otherwise noted).

  34. JD to John A. Campbell, April 6, 1861, PJD, VII, 92.

  35. Benjamin to S. L. M. Barlow, April 16, 1861, Barlow Papers, HL. Davis, “Govern-ment,” chaps. 13–14, has details on JD’s activities in Montgomery.

  36. M&P, I, 63–82 (quotations on 63, 73, 81, 82).

  37. PJD, VII, xl; Davis, “Government,” 323, 327, 373–74; DeLeon, Four Years, 69–70 (the review).

  38. PJD, VII, xl, xli, 183 ed.n.; Richmond Enquirer, May 31, 1861 (quotations).

  39. Ernest B. Furgurson, Ashes of Glory: Richmond at War (New York, 1996); Michael B. Chesson, “Richmond,” in Richard N. Current et al., eds., Encyclopedia of the Confederacy (4 vols.; New York, 1993), III, 1329–33; Charles Dickens, American Notes ([1842]; Gloucester, Mass., 1968), 159 (quotation).

  40. Richmond Examiner, May 30 (first two quotations), 31 (last two quotations), 1861; Richmond Enquirer, May 31, 1861.

  41. Richmond Examiner, June 3, 1861.

  42. PJD, VII, 184–85.

  43. Lee to JD, May 7, 1861, JD to Lee, May 11, 28, 1861, ibid., 155, 163, 179; T. Harry Williams, P. G. T. Beauregard: Napoleon in Gray (Baton Rouge, La., 1955), 65–67; Craig L. Symonds, Joseph E. Johnston: A Civil War Biography (New York, 1992), 98.

  44. On the governors, see Davis, “Government,” chap. 14 passim; PJD, VII, 162–242 passim has numerous letters from mid-May to mid-July.

  45. Brown to Alexander Stephens, February 16, 1861, Stephens Papers, EU; Howell Cobb to His Wife, May 18, 1861, quoted in Davis, “Government,” 357. For Brown, see Joseph H. Parks, Joseph E. Brown of Georgia (Baton Rouge, La., 1977).

  46. OntheearlywarinVirginia, consultSymonds, Johnston, chaps. 8–9, and Joseph L. Harsh, Confederate Tide Rising: Robert E. Lee and the Making of Southern Strategy, 1861–1862 (Kent, Ohio, 1998), chap. 1; Leeto Johnston, June 7, 1861 (JO200), Joseph E. Johnston Papers, HL.

  47. Chesnut, 102; VD to Her Mother, June n.d., 1861, JD Papers, UA; M&P, I, 117–24.

  48. Richmond Examiner, June 3, 11, 1861; Richmond Enquirer, June 19, 1861; Chesnut, 123 (quotation).

  49. On First Manassas, consult Symonds, Johnston, chap. 12, and William C. Davis, Battle at Bull Run: A History of the First Major Campaign of the Civil War (Garden City, N.Y., 1977). On JD, see PJD, VII, 258 ed.n., and JD to Beauregard, July 18, 21, 1861, ibid., 251, 258.

  50. PJD, VII, 259.

  51. Richmond Examiner, July 24, 1861 (first three quotations); PJD, VII, 261–63 (remaining quotations).

  52. Chesnut, 83.

  53. A good discussion is in James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York, 1988), 318–19, 321–22.

  54. Ibid., 437–42, has an excellent brief synopsis of the financial situation; Reagan, Memoirs, 115–16. Thorough and at times provocative, albeit polemical, is Douglas B. Ball, Financial Failure and Confederate Defeat (Urbana, Ill., 1991).

  55. JD to Isham G. Harris, July 17, 1861 (first quotation), to J. E. Johnston, [May 29, 1862], PJD, VII, 246, and VIII, 201, to P. G. T. Beauregard, October 20, 1861, to Edmund Kirby Smith, November 19, 1863 (sixth quotation), JDC, V, 147, VI, 85–87; JD to Jubal Early, April 7, 1878 (second, third, and fourth quotations), JD Papers, DU; JD to William P. Johnston, November 18, 1877 (fifth and final quotations), Arthur Marvin Shaw, ed., “Some Post-War Observations of Jefferson Davis Concerning Early Aspects of the Civil War,” JSH, X (1944), 211. For insightful discussions of Confederate nationalism, see Drew Gilpin Faust, The Creation of Confederate Nationalism (Baton Rouge, La., 1988), and Gary W. Gallagher, The Confederate War: How Popular Will, Nationalism, and Military Strategy Could Not Stave Off Defeat (Cambridge, Mass., 1997), chap. 2, which emphasizes the critical role of the army.

  56. JD to Joseph Davis, June 18, 1861, to John Forsyth, July 18, 1862, PJD, VII, 203, VIII, 293. Rable, Confederate Republic, 81, discusses the pressure to attack the North.

  57. JD to L. Polk, September 2, 1861, to William M. Brooks, March 15, 1862 (first quotation), to John Forsyth, July 18, 1862 (second quotation), PJD, VII, 318, and VIII, 100, 294.

  58. JD to A. S. Johnston, March 12, 1862, ibid., VIII, 93. In assessing JD’s basic strategic outlook, most historians have utilized some form of the “offensivedefensive” characterization vigorously presented by Frank Vandiver’s “Jefferson Davis and Confederate Strategy,” in Avery O. Craven and Frank E. Vandiver, The American Tragedy: The Civil War in Retrospect (Hampden-Sydney, Va., 1959), 19–32. In these discussions, defensive usually outweighs offensive, but cf. Harsh, Confederate Tide.

  59. S. R. Mallory to Master S. R. Mallory, December 8, 1865; Pvt. E. C. Harvey to JD, June 20, 1861, RG109, m437, r4, f219, and J. Robert Briggs to JD, ibid., r6, f236, NA.

  60. S. R. Mallory Diary, September 4, 16, 1861; JD to Walker, September 9, 1861, Walker to JD, September 10, 1861 (two letters), August 13, 1864, PJD, VII, 333–34, 336, X, 610; ibid., VII, 72n.

  61. PJD, VII, 344.

  62. On the Cuban matter, see ibid., IV, 59n., and Emory M. Thomas, Robert E. Lee: A Biography (New York, 1995), 148.

  63. Jacob Thompson to JD, September 6, 1861, Neill Brown to JD, September 22, 1861, PJD, VII, 329–30, 347.

  64. JD to L. Polk, May 22, 1861, ibid., 174.

  65. Polk to JD, May 14, 1861, ibid., 167. The standard biography of Polk is Joseph H. Parks, General Leonidas Polk, C.S.A.: The Fighting Bishop (Baton Rouge, La., 1962).

  66. JD to Polk, May 22, 1861, PJD, VII, 174; Steven E. Woodworth, Jefferson Davis and His Generals: The Failure of Confederate Command in the West (Lawrence, Kans., 1990), 32.

  67. Woodworth, Davis, 36–39, has details.

  68. Harris to JD, September 5, 1861, Polk to JD, September 4, 1861, PJD, VII, 325–26.

  69. JD to Polk, September 6, 1861, ibid., 327. Cf. Woodworth, Davis, 39–41.

  70. Mallory Diary, September 1, 4, 1861; JD to Polk, September 2, 1861, PJD, VII, 318; JDC, VIII, 232 (quotation).

  71. JDC, IX, 206–07; Woodworth, Davis, 46–51; W. P. Johnston to Rosa, August 24, 1862 (quotation), Johnston Papers, TU. On Johnston, see Charles P. Roland, Albert Sidney Johnston: Soldier of Three Republics (Austin, Tex., 1964).

  72. Thomas Reynolds to JD, August 19, 1861, PJD, VII, 289–93; ibid., 293–94n.

  73. JD to VD, October 2, 1861 (quotation), ibid., 352; ibid., ed.n. and 353n.; Harsh, Confederate Tide, 28.

  74. JD to William Preston Johnston, November 18, 1877, Shaw, ed., “Observations,” 211.

  75. Richmond Enquirer, June 13, 1861; Mallory Diary, September 1, 1861; see also Jones, Diary, I, 64; John L. Letcher to James D. Davidson, September 14, 1861, F. N. Boney, “Governor Letcher’s Candid Correspondence,” CWH, X (1964), 173; Herschel Johnson to Alexander Stephens, May 8, 1861, Herschel Johnson Papers, DU.

  76. Brown to Stephens, August 22, 1861, Stephens Papers, EU; Richmond Examiner, September 16, 1861; Rable, Confederate Republic, 90.

  77. Stephens to Herschel Johnson, August 15, 1861, Johnson Papers, DU. Superb and perceptive on Stephens is Thomas Schott, Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia: A Biography(Baton
Rouge, La., 1988).

  78. Chesnut, 142; Davis, “Government,” 273, 367 (quotations); “Rhett Autobiography” passim, Rhett Papers, SCHS; Charleston Mercury, March—December 1861 passim.

  79. Thomas W. Thomas to Stephens, October 10, 1861, Phillips, ed., Correspondence, 580–81.

  80. Davis, “Government,” 352; correspondence between Foote and JD on April 24, 27, 29, 1861, PJD, VII, 121, 133, 142; JD to Thomas A. R. Nelson, August 13, 1861, ibid., 282.

  81. Harris to JD, July 13, 1861, Isham Harris Papers, TSLA (calendared PJD, VII, 241), and JD to Harris, July 17, 1861, ibid., 245–48.

  82. O.R., ser. 4, I, 127–31; PJD, VII, 314; Memoir, II, 156–58.

  83. Johnston to JD, September 12, 1861, O.R., ser. 4, I, 605–08 (calendared PJD, VII, 336); Symonds, Johnston, 128; JD to Johnston, September 14, 1861, PJD, VII, 340 and 340n.; Mallory Diary, September 13, 16, 1861.

  84. Williams, Beauregard, 96–107. For examples, see JD to Beauregard, August 4, October 20 (quotation), 25, 1861, JDC, V, 120–21, 146–48, 150–51, October 16, 1861, PJD, VII, 358–60.

  85. O.R., II, 484–504, has the report; Williams, Beauregard, 98, 105–06; PJD, VII, 383–84 ed.n., 384–85, 387–94, 407; JD to Beauregard, October 30, 1861, JDC, V, 156–57 (quotations); J. J. Seibels to His Wife, December 8, 1861, Seibels Family Papers, SCL.

  86. PJD, VII, 266.

  87. Ibid., 417 (quotation), 454, and Mann to JD, January 18, 1862, ibid., VIII, 20–22. Howard Jones, Union in Peril: The Crisis over British Intervention in the Civil War (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1992), is excellent, and chap. 4 has a good discussion of the Trent affair; also see Charles M. Hubbard, The Burden of Confederate Diplomacy (Knoxville, Tenn., 1998), chap. 5.

  88. VD to Her Mother, June n.d. (received on 15th), 1861, JD Papers, UA.

  89. PJD, VII, xlii; Memoir, II, 198 (quotation); for detail, see White House of the Confederacy: An Illustrated History (Richmond, Va., [1993]).

  90. [Eliza Davis] to Mattie, August 10, 1861, Lise Mitchell Papers, TU; VD to Her Mother, June n.d. (received on 15th), 1861, JD Papers, UA; Chesnut, 83, 109, 159; Lise Mitchell Journal, July 1862, Mary E. Mitchell Papers, UNC; PJD, VII, xliii.

  91. Elizabeth Blair Lee to Phil, June 14, 1861, Virginia Jeans Laas, ed., Wartime Washington: The Civil War Letters of Elizabeth Blair Lee (Urbana, Ill., 1991), 47 (first quotation); Chesnut, 80, 83, 85 (final quotation), 102, 109 (second quotation), 113, 159; Mallory Diary, June 12 (third quotation), 18, 1861.

  92. Mallory Diary, June 23, 1861; Chesnut, 83, 102, 159 (quotation).

  93. JD to Joseph Davis, June 18, 1861, PJD, VII, 203; ibid., 205n.; Lise Mitchell Journal, July 1862, Mitchell Papers, UNC.

  94. Payne to JD, October 24, 1861, Barnes to JD, December 16, 1861, PJD, VII, 379, 440.

  95. [Eliza Davis] to Mattie, August 19, 1861 (first and fourth quotations), Mitchell Papers, TU; S. R. Mallory to Master S. R. Mallory, September 27, 1865 (second quotation); Thomas Bragg Diary, December 6, 1861 (third quotation), Thomas Bragg Papers, UNC; Memoir, II, 161 (fifth quotation).

  96. PJD, VII, 412–19. On preparation of the messages, see chapter thirteen below.

  CHAPTER TWELVE: “The Noblest Cause in Which Man Can Be Engaged”

  1. Richmond Examiner, January 2, 1862 (all quotations but final one); Thomas Bragg Diary, January 1, 1862, Thomas Bragg Papers, UNC (all subsequent citations to Bragg Diary refer to this collection); B. Morrison to Dear Mary, January n.d., 1862 (final quotation), Miscellaneous Manuscripts, MC (I am grateful to Robert Krick for this reference).

  2. M&P, I, 189.

  3. PJD, VIII, 58 ed.n.; Memoir, II, 180–83; Richmond Examiner, February 24, 1862 (quotations); Mrs. Burton Harrison, Recollections Grave and Gray(New York, 1911), 69; Bragg Diary, February 22, 1862.

  4. Reuben Davis, Recollections of Mississippi and Mississippians (Boston and New York, 1891), 430; Bragg Diary, February 22, 1862 (quotation about voice); JDC, V, 198–203.

  5. PJD, VIII, 58 ed.n.; Richmond Examiner, February 24, 1862 (quotations); Harrison, Recollections, 69; J. B. Jones, A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary at the Confederate States Capital(2 vols.; Philadelphia, 1866), I, 111.

  6. Craig L. Symonds, Joseph E. Johnston: A Civil War Biography (New York, 145.

  7. JD to Johnston, February 6, 1862 (copy), Joseph E. Johnston Papers, WM; Bragg Diary, February 19, 1862; PJD, VIII, 98n.; Symonds, Johnston, 145–46.

  8. Johnston to JD, March 13, 1862, PJD, VIII, 96–97; JD to Johnston, March 15, 1862 (two messages), JDC, V, 222–23.

  9. Memoir, II, 192–93; J. T. Doswell to W. S. Barton, August 10, 1885, J. L. Mayre to W. S. Barton, August 11, 1885, Statement of F. T. Forbes, August 15, 1885, R. W. Adams to W. S. Barton, August 12, 1885, W. S. Barton to JD, August 17, 1885, JDC, IX, 377–78, 381–82, 383–84; Jubal A. Early to JD, August 10, 1885 (quotation), JD Papers, UA.

  10. On McClellan, consult Stephen W. Sears, To the Gates of Richmond: The Peninsula Campaign (New York, 1992).

  11. Symonds, Johnston, 149; Joseph L. Harsh, Confederate Tide Rising: RobertE. Lee and the Making of Southern Strategy, 1861–1862 (Kent, Ohio, 1998), 36, 192–93.

  12. St. John Richardson Liddell, Liddell’s Record, ed. Nathaniel C. Hughes (Dayton, Ohio, 1985), 39–44; for Johnston’s dispositions, see Steven E. Woodworth, Jefferson Davis and His Generals: The Failure of Confederate Command in the West (Lawrence, Kans., 1990), chaps. 5–6, and Thomas L. Connelly, Army of the Heartland: The Army of Tennessee, 1861–1862 (Baton Rouge, La., 1967), chaps. 3–5.

  13. Woodworth, Davis, chap. 6, and Connelly, Army, chap. 6, cover the campaign for the forts, as does James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York, 1988), 404–05, for Pea Ridge.

  14. JD to Joseph Davis, February 21, 1862, PJD, VIII, 53; ibid., 57, 58, 64, 87–89; Bragg Diary, March 19, 1862; Connelly, Army, 138.

  15. JD to Johnston, March 12, 1862, PJD, VIII, 92–94.

  16. Ibid., and JD to Johnston, March 26, April 5, 1862, ibid., 117, and JDC, V, 227; Robert E. Lee to Johnston, March 26, 1862, Johnston Papers, TU; O.R., VI, 432, X, pt. 2, 407; Woodworth, Davis, 90; T. Harry Williams, P. G. T. Beauregard: Napoleon in Gray (Baton Rouge, La., 1955), 115.

  17. Liddell, Record, 57–58; Johnston to JD, March 7, 25, 1862, PJD, VIII, 86, 116.

  18. On Shiloh, see Woodworth, Davis, chap. 7, and Connelly, Army, chaps. 8–9.

  19. JD to Earl Van Dorn, April 7, 1862, PJD, VIII, 135; M&P, I, 209–10 (first quotation); W. P. Johnston to Rosa, May 4, 1862 (second quotation), Johnston Papers, TU; JD to W. P. Johnston, April 14, 1877 (third quotation), ibid.; R & F, II, 67 (final quotation); Jefferson Davis Bradford to VD, April 22, 1862, JD Papers, MC; W. P. Johnston to [William Preston], May 22, 1862, Johnston Papers, TU; L. Q. C. Lamar to [presidential friend], April or May 1862, RG109, JD Letters, NA. For the debate over Shiloh, see Woodworth, Davis, 334n.

  20. Bragg Diary, February 19, 1862; O.R., V, 1099.

  21. M&P, I, 215–16; Bragg Diary, March 14, 1862; J. L. Pugh (a Confederate senator) to Braxton Bragg, March [16], 1862, Braxton Bragg Papers, William P. Palmer Collection, WRHS.

  22. Johnston to (?), April 26, 1862 (copy), Johnston Papers, WM; Symonds, Johnston, 158.

  23. W. P. Johnston to Rosa, June 9, 1862 (first quotation), Johnston Papers, TU; PJD, VIII, 177 (second quotation). On Davis, Lee, and Jackson and the Valley Campaign, consult Harsh, Confederate Tide, 188–89. The key is not so much the originator but that all three men shared a similar view.

  24. JD to VD, June 2, 1862 (first quotation), PJD, VIII, 209; JD to Johnston, May 23, 1862, ibid., 198; ibid., 208 ed.n., 211n.; J. W. Hinsdale Diary, July 31, 1862, Hinsdale Family Papers, UNC; John H. Reagan, Memoirs with Special Reference to Secession and the Civil War (New York and Washington, D.C., 1906), 141–42; W. P. Johnston to Rosa, June 9, 1862 (second quotation), Johnston Papers, TU.

  25. PJD, VIII, 58–62.

  26. Richmond Examiner, February 24, March 11, 1862; Louis Wigfall to C. C. Clay, May 16, 1862, C. C. Clay Papers, DU; Bragg
Diary, February 5, 1862; Toombs to Stephens, March 24, May 19 (quotation), 1862, Alexander Stephens Papers, EU; Chesnut, 289, 292; George William Bagby Commonplace Book, March 24, 1862, George William Bagby Papers, VHS; Edward Younger, ed., Inside the Confederate Government: The Diary of Robert Garlick Hill Kean (New York, 1957), 88–89; William Gilmore Simms to George W. Bagby, March 24, 1862, Mary C. Simms Oliphant et al., eds., The Letters of William Gilmore Simms (6 vols.; Columbia, S.C., 1952–82), VI, 228–29.

  27. Bragg Diary, February 6, 20, 27, March 24 (Randolph description); PJD, VIII, 102–03n., 105; W. P. Johnston to Rosa, August 24, 1862, Johnston Papers, TU; Randolph to JD, March 20, 1862, Autograph File, Dearborn Collection, HU (calendared PJD, VIII, 108); Richmond Examiner, February 24, 1862 (quotation). George Green Shackelford, George Wythe Randolph and the Confederate Elite (Athens, Ga., 1988), is the most recent biography.

  28. Bragg Diary, November 30, 1861; PJD, VIII, 60.

  29. PJD, VIII, 184; M&P, I, 205–06. On conscription, see McPherson, Battle Cry, 430–33, and George C. Rable, The Confederate Republic: A Revolt Against Politics (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1994), 138–43.

  30. M & P, I, 205 (quotation); Correspondence Between Governor Brown and President Davis on the Constitutionality of the Conscription Act (Atlanta, 1862).

  31. McPherson, Battle Cry, 433–36; Rable, Confederate Republic, 145–46; PJD, VIII, 120; cf. Mark E. Neely, Jr., Confederate Bastille: Jefferson Davis and Civil Liberties (Milwaukee, Wis., 1993) and Southern Rights: Political Prisoners and the Myth of Confederate Constitutionalism (Charlottesville, Va., 1999), especially chap. 9.

  32. On New Orleans, consult Woodworth, Davis, 104, 110–12; Chester G. Hearn, The Capture of New Orleans, 1862 (Baton Rouge, La., 1995); JD to Joseph Davis, February 21, 1862, PJD, VIII, 53.

  33. JD to Moore, April 17, 1862, JDC, V, 232–33; P. G. T. Beauregard to Charles Villeré, January 30, 1863, Letterbook, P. G. T. Beauregard Papers, LC; PJD, VIII, 576.