Jefferson Davis, American

by William J. Cooper

  46. Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative (3 vols.; New York, 1958–74), III, 604–05 (first quotation); R. Lockwood Tower, ed., A Carolinian Goes to War: The Civil War Narrative of Arthur Middleton Manigault, Brigadier General, C.S.A. (Columbia, S.C., 1983), 254–55 (remaining quotations); Richmond Examiner, October 15, 1864; James Montgomery Lanning Diary, September 26, 27, 1864, MC; Connelly, Autumn, 471–72.

  47. JD to L. B. Northrop, September 25, 1879, JDC, VIII, 415–16; William J. Cooper, Jr., “A Reassessment of Jefferson Davis as War Leader: The Case from Atlanta to Nashville,” JSH, XXXVI (May 1970), 198.

  48. Cooper, “Reassessment,” 198 and n.; Richard Taylor to Governor Charles Clark, September 27, 28, 1864, Clark Administration Papers, MDAH; Richard Taylor, Destruction and Reconstruction: Personal Experiences of the Late War ([1879]; Waltham, Mass., 1968), 203–05; Lubbock Memoirs, 553.

  49. JD to Hood, September 28, 1864, JDC, VI, 344–45; Gorgas Journal, September 9, 1864, Gorgas Papers, LC.

  50. Lee to JD, September 19, 1864, Letterbook June 7, 1863—October 12, 1864, Robert E. Lee Papers, VHS; Alfred Roman, The Military Operations of General Beauregard in the War Between the States, 1861 to 1865 (2 vols.; New York, 1883), II, 273–79; Undated manuscript on military operations, Pierre G. T. Beauregard Papers, LC; Taylor, Destruction, 205.

  51. JD to Beauregard, October 2, 1864, to L. B. Northrop, September 25, 1879, JDC, VI, 348–49, VIII, 416; Roman, Beauregard, II, 279.

  52. Richmond Enquirer, October 11, 1864; JDC, VI, 349, 356; Chesnut, 650–52 (quotation on 651); Invitation [Boys of Columbia] to Mr. President [October 1864], JD Papers, MC.

  53. Lubbock Memoirs, 553; Jones, Clerk, II, 300.

  54. JD to Johnson, September 18, 1864, to Governors, September 19, 1864, JDC, VI, 338, 338–40.

  55. Ibid. has the speeches: Macon, 341–44, Montgomery, 345–47, Augusta, 356–61, Columbia, 349–56. The quotations in order come from 341, 343, 342, 354, 342, 359, 355, 357, 358, 359.

  56. Richmond Examiner, September 5, 1864 (first quotation); Johnson to Alexander Stephens, September 28, 1864 (second quotation), Herschel Johnson Papers, DU, to JD, October 8, 1864 (third quotation), JD Papers, Schoff Collection, MI; Hill to JD, October 4, 1864 (fourth quotation), Keith Read Collection, UGA; H. L. Flash to JD, October 7, 1864 (fifth quotation), JD Papers, DU; Richmond Enquirer, October 4, 1864 (final quotation); Robert F. Durden, The Gray and Black: The Confederate Debate on Emancipation (Baton Rouge, La., 1972), 99–100.

  57. Rable, Confederate, 272–73, 278–80; Richmond Examiner, November 16, 1864.

  58. JD to Alexander Stephens, November 21, 1864, Alexander Stephens Papers, EU, to Vance, January 8, 1864, JDC, VI, 146. For general information, I have relied on and followed McPherson, Battle Cry, 762–67; Paul D. Escott, After Secession: Jefferson Davis and the Failure of Confederate Nationalism (Baton Rouge, La., 1978), 198–99; and esp. Larry E. Nelson, Bullets, Ballots, and Rhetoric: Confederate Policy for the United States Presidential Contest of 1864 (University, Ala., 1980).

  59. McPherson, Battle Cry, 596–98, 762–63; J. W. Tucker to JD, March 14, 1864, JDC, VI, 204–06.

  60. R&F, II, 611 (quotation); Thompson to My Dear Wife, April 26, 1864, Jacob Thompson Papers, MC; JD to Clay and Thompson, April 27, 1864, PJD, X, 368–69; Clay to Louis Wigfall, April 24, 1864, Wigfall Family Papers, LC.

  61. R&F, II, 507. The most detailed account of the raid is Duane Schultz, The Dahlgren Affair: Terror and Conspiracy in the Civil War (New York, 1998); also pertinent are Ernest B. Furgurson, Ashes of Glory: Richmond at War (New York, 1996), 249–58, and David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York, 1996), 489–90.

  62. JD to Clay and Thompson and Thompson to my Dear Wife cited in note 60; Thompson to JD, September 12, 1864, Autograph File, Dearborn Collection, HU; JD AES dated October 13, 19, 1864, on W. Jefferson Buchanan to JD, October 13, 1864, RG109, m437, r121, f660, NA; D. H. Maury to William Walthall, June 15, 1876, Walthall Papers, MDAH; A. G. Brown Memoirs, 55–57, J. F. H. Claiborne Papers, UNC; JD to Walker Taylor, August 31, 1889, and W. P. Johnston to Henry T. Louthan, March 9, 14, 1898, Henry T. Louthan Papers, VHS; “A Proposed Abduction of Abraham Lincoln,” CV, XI (April 1903), 157–58. The circumstantial case is made in William H. Tidwell et al., Come Retribution: The Confederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Lincoln (Jackson, Miss., 1988), and William H. Tidwell, April ’65: Confederate Covert Action in the American Civil War(Kent, Ohio, 1995).

  63. For the military background and Hood’s campaign, I have relied on Burne, Lee, chap. 14; Cooper “Reassessment”; Connelly, Autumn, chaps. 16–17; Steven E. Woodworth, Jefferson Davis and His Generals: The Failure of Confederate Command in the West (Lawrence, Kans., 1990), chap. 14; and Richard M. McMurry, John Bell Hood and the War for Southern Independence (Lexington, Ky., 1982), chaps. 10–11.

  64. Beauregard to Samuel Cooper, October 22, 24, 31 (with copy to JD), 1864, O.R., XXXIX, pt. 1, 796–98, pt. 3, 841, 870; Hood to JD, November 6, 1864, J. B. Hood, Advance and Retreat: Personal Experiences in the United States and Confederate States Armies (New Orleans, 1880), 272–73.

  65. JD to Hood, November 7, 1864, to Beauregard, November 30, 1864, JDC, VI, 398–99, 413; B. H. Hill to Herschel Johnson, October 13, 1864, Johnson Papers, DU.

  66. M&P, II, 482–98 (quotations in order, 482, 484–85, 489, 491, 494, 495, 497).

  67. R&F, II, 569–70 (quotation); JD to L. B. Northrop, April 9, September 25, 1879, JDC, VIII, 376, 417–19.

  68. On Sherman, consult McPherson, Battle Cry, 808–11.

  69. VD to Chesnut, October 8 (first and second quotations), November 20 (final two quotations), 1864, Chesnut, 662–64, 674–75. VD actually used “X” rather than her husband’s name, but the context leaves no doubt about X’s identity.

  70. Memoir, II, 529–33; VD to Mary Chesnut, October 8, 1864, Chesnut, 663; Lubbock Memoir, 557 (quotation); E. Merton Coulter, The Confederate States of America, 1861–1865 (Baton Rouge, La., 1950), 219–22.

  71. VD to Chesnut, October 8 (third quotation), November 6 (first, second, fourth quotations), 20, 1864, Chesnut, 662–64, 666–67, 674–75.

  72. New York Sunday World Magazine, December 13, 1896 (quotations); Jo Higginbotham to Dear Sisters, December 25, 1864, in Joseph Higginbotham Diary, December 25, 1864, Private Collection Transcripts, MC.

  73. Richmond Examiner, December 19, 1864, January 2, 1865.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: “The Issue Is … Very Painful for Me to Meet”

  1. J. B. Jones, A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary at the Confederate States Capital (2 vols.; Philadelphia, 1866), II, 371–72.

  2. Richard Hawes to JD, January 11, 1865, J. S. Preston to JD, December 28, 1864, Autograph File, Dearborn Collection, HU; M. W. Philips to JD, January 28, 1865, JD Papers, MC; David W. Lewis to JD, December 30, 1864, Keith Read Collection, UGA; A. G. Magrath to JD, December 25, 1864, Andrew G. Magrath Papers, SCL; Cobb to JD, January 6, 1865, Howell Cobb Papers, DU.

  3. Thomas E. Schott, Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia: A Biography (Baton Rouge, La., 1988), 436–39; George C. Rable, The Confederate Republic: A Revolution Against Politics (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1994), 278–83; Steven E. Woodworth, Davis and Lee at War (Lawrence, Kans., 1995), 309–10.

  4. Jones, Clerk, II, 389; JD to Braxton Bragg, January 16, 1865, JDC, VI, 450. On Sherman, see John G. Barrett’s solid Sherman’s March Through the Carolinas (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1956), and for Lee at Petersburg, consult Douglas Southall Freeman’s magnificent Lee’s Lieutenants: A Study in Command (3 vols.; New York, 1942–44), III, chaps. 32–34. Charles Royster, in chap. 1 of The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans (New York, 1991), has a powerful account of the occupation and burning of Columbia.

  5. Raphael Semmes, Memoirs of Services Afloat During the War Between the States ([1869]; Baton Rouge, La., 1996), 801; JD to Lucinda Stamps, January 8, 1865, Rosemont, Woodville, Miss.; Edward Younger, ed., Inside the Confederate Government: The Diary of Robert Garlick Hill Kean (New Yo
rk, 1957), 192; VD to Liz [January 1865], Blair Family Papers, LC.

  6. JD to Hugh, January 8, 1865, Mary Stamps Papers, UNC; VD to Liz, [January 1865], Blair Family Papers, LC.

  7. Warren Akin to My Dear Wife, January 10, 1865, Bell Irvin Wiley, ed., Letters of Warren Akin: Confederate Congressman (Athens, Ga., 1959), 75; William A. Graham to My Dear Wife, February 26, 1865, J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton and Max R. Williams, eds., The Papers of William Alexander Graham (7 vols.; Raleigh, N.C., 1957—), VI, 256; Semmes, Services, 801; Richmond Enquirer, February 10, 1865.

  8. Jones, Clerk, II, 372 (quotation), 380. Gary W. Gallagher has an excellent discussion of Lee’s position in The Confederate War: How Popular Will, Nationalism, and Military Strategy Could Not Stave Off Defeat (Cambridge, Mass., 1997), 86–89.

  9. Richmond Examiner, January 2, 9 (quotation), 1865; Andrew G. Magrath to JD, December 25, 1864, Magrath Papers, SCL; D. B. Fry to JD, January 8, 1865, Autograph File, Dearborn Collection, HU; Toombs to Alexander Stephens, March 23, 1865, Alexander Stephens Papers, EU.

  10. Jones, Clerk, II, 385, 392; JD to James F. Johnson and Hugh W. Sheffey, January 18, 1865, to James A. Seddon, February 1, 1865, JDC, VI, 453–54, 458–61.

  11. WPL, 891; JD to Lee, February 10, 1865, JDC, VI, 479; Lee to JD, February 9, 1865, O.R., LI, pt. 2, 1082–83.

  12. My primary sources for JD and the Blair Mission include Alexander H. Stephens, A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States (2 vols.; Philadelphia, 1870), II, 584–619; Blair memorandum on conversation with JD, dated January 18, 1865, Blair Family Papers, LC; and a memorandum by W. J. Bromwell, dated January 28, 1865 (copy), Causten-Pickett Papers, ibid. JDC, VI, 465–78, contains the official documents (466 second quotation, 476 first quotation); Richmond Examiner, January 13, 1865; W. A. Graham to My Dear Wife, January 14, 1865, to David L. Swain, January 28, 1865 (quotation), Hamilton and Williams, eds., Graham Papers, VI, 216, 224–25; Stephens to JD, January 28, 1865, C. C. Jones, Jr., Georgia Portfolio, II, DU; JD to Mrs. D. M. Barringer, February 7, 1865, D. M. Barringer Papers, UNC; JD to James M. Mason, June 11, 1870, JD Papers, DU; John A. Campbell memorandum on Hampton Roads Conference, dated February 1865 (typescript), John A. Campbell Papers, UNC; S. R. Mallory to Master S. R. Mallory, December 8, 1865, Stephen R. Mallory Papers, ibid. (all future Mallory citations are from this collection). On Lincoln and slavery, cf. David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York, 1995), 559–60, and James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York, 1988), 823–24n. For more detailed accounts, see Donald, Lincoln, 556–59, and Schott, Stephens, 439–47, which inform my discussion.

  13. Schott, Stephens, 448 (first quotation); Richmond Examiner, February 7 (second quotation), 10, 1865; Hill to JD, February 17, 1865, Keith Read Papers, UGA; Richmond Enquirer, February 10, 1865.

  14. Jones, Clerk, II, 411 (first quotation); Richmond Examiner, February 7 (second quotation), 10, 1865; Richmond Enquirer, February 10, 1865; Edward A. Pollard, Life of Jefferson Davis with a Secret History of the Southern Confederacy… (Philadelphia, 1869), 470–71; Myrta Lockett Avary, Recollections of Alexander H. Stephens: His Diary Kept When a Prisoner at Fort Warren, Boston Harbour, 1865.… (New York, 1910), 183, 241.

  15. JD to Lee, February 28, 1865, JDC, VI, 489; Lee to JD, March 2, 1865, Douglas Southall Freeman, ed., Lee’s Dispatches: Unpublished Letters of General Robert E. Lee, C.S.A. to Jefferson Davis and the War Department of the Confederate States of America ([1915]; New York, 1957), 371–72; Hunter to James M. Mason, September 19, 1870, Virginia Mason, The Public Life and Diplomatic Correspondence of James M. Mason (New York and Washington, D.C., 1906), 596–97; William Walthall Diary, March 4, 1877, William Walthall Papers, MDAH; JD to W. P. Johnston, March 5, 1874, Johnston Papers, TU, to J. W. Jones, March 27, 1878, JD Papers, MC; Brown Memoirs, 64–65, J. F. H. Claiborne Papers, UNC; Mallory to Master S. R. Mallory, December 8, 1865; Woodworth, Davis and Lee, 314–15.

  16. JD to J. W. Jones, December 11, 1877, JD Papers, MC.

  17. M&P, II, 694–97 (quotations 696–97), 709–18; Eli N. Evans, Judah P. Benjamin: The Jewish Confederate (New York, 1988), 274–75, 278–79; Robert F. Durden, The Gray and the Black: The Confederate Debate on Emancipation (Baton Rouge, La., 1972), 147–49. Craig A. Bauer gives a thorough account in “The Last Effort: The Secret Mission of the Confederate Diplomat, Duncan F. Kenner,” Louisiana History, XXII (Winter 1981), 67–15.

  18. M&P, I, 494.

  19. For the fundamental bond between white independence and black slavery, see my Liberty and Slavery: Southern Politics to 1860 (New York, 1983).

  20. Durden, The Gray, 29–34; W. H. Lee to JD, May 4, 1861, Stephen Blocker to JD, July 17, 1861, O. G. Eiland to JD, July 20, 1863, Leonidas Walthall to JD, August 11, 1863 (quotation), PJD, VII, 148, 250, IX, 293, 339–40.

  21. Durden, The Gray, 53–63, 64 (first quotation), 66–67; Harris to JD, January 16, 1864 (second quotation), Gen. W. H. T. Walker to JD, January 12, 1864, JD to Gen. Walker, January 23, 1864 (final quotation), JD AES [February 10, 1864], PJD, X, 177–78, 170, 197–98, 228–29; ibid., 178–79n. On Cleburne, see Craig L. Symonds, Stonewall of the West: Patrick Cleburne and the Civil War (Lawrence, Kans., 1997), chap. 10.

  22. JD to Andrew Magrath, January 17, 1865, to Joseph Brown, January 18, 1865, JDC, VI, 451–52; Durden, The Gray, 151–53, 159–64, 183–85; I. H. Stringfellow to JD, February 8, 1865 (quotation), Samuel Clayton to JD, January 10, 1865 (typescript), RG109, U.S. Colored Troops, NA.

  23. Graham to David L. Swain, February 22, 1865, Hamilton and Williams, eds., Graham Papers, VI, 253; Durden, The Gray, 113–17, 233–35, 250–52; Yulee to JD, October 27, 1864, Pritchard von David Collection, UT; Cobb to James A. Seddon, January 8, 1865, O.R., ser. 4, III, 1009–10 (quotation on 1009).

  24. On the point about emancipation, see Rable, Confederate Republic, 364 n. 61.

  25. Lee to Andrew Hunter, January 11, 1865, to Congressman Ethelbert Barksdale, February 18, 1865, Durden, The Gray, 206–09.

  26. JD to John Forsyth, February 21, 1865, JDC, VI, 482 (first two quotations); M&P, I, 494; JD to Smith, March 30, 1865, David Battan Catalog 14, item 57.

  27. Durden, The Gray, 202–03, 249–50; R&F, I, 518–19; M&P, I, 547; Rable, Confederate Republic, 287–96.

  28. M&P, I, 544; Benjamin to JD, May 28, 1867, JD Papers, MC.

  29. Jones, Clerk, II, 355, 357, 411, 426; Memoir, II, 206, 573–74; Josiah Gorgas Journal, February 16, 1865, William C. Gorgas Papers, LC; Harris D. Riley, Jr., “Jefferson Davis and His Health: Part II, January, 1861—December, 1889,” JMH, IL (1987), 279.

  30. Nelson D. Lankford, ed., An Irishman in Dixie: Thomas Conolly’s Diary of the Fall of the Confederacy (Columbia, S.C., 1988), 42 (fourth quotation), 47 (first, fifth quotations); John S. Wise, The End of an Era (Boston and New York, 1899), 400–01 (second, third, sixth quotations).

  31. JD to Seddon, February 1, 1865, JDC, VI, 458–61 (quotation 461).

  32. Grady McWhiney and Judith Lee Hallock, Braxton Bragg and Confederate Defeat (2 vols.; Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1991), II, chap. 9, details Bragg’s work.

  33. JD AES on James Seddon to JD, May 26, 1864, Nomination List; JD AES on S. F. Harwood to JD, September 12, 1864, mf474, r115, f628; JD AES on Hardee to JD, December 29, 1864, ibid., r120, f591; JD AES on George Hodge to [?], February 6, 1865, ibid., r158, f253; JD AES on John C. Breckinridge to JD, April 24, 1865, ibid., r164, f606, all RG109, NA.

  34. JD to James Phelan, March 1, 1865, JDC, VI, 491; ibid., 491–503, has the memorandum dated February 18, 1865; Rable, Confederate Republic, 286.

  35. Chesnut, 725 (first quotation), 729 (second quotation).

  36. JD to VD, April 23, 1865, JDC, VI, 559; JD to Jubal Early, August 13, 1881, JD Papers, DU, and to Thomas T. Munford May 28, 1889 (copy), Munford-Ellis Papers, Thomas T. Munford Division, ibid.; handwritten notes 146ff. in JD’s copy of Walter H. Taylor, Four Years with General Lee (New York, 1878), JD Papers, TU.

  37. Memoir, II, 575–77 (quotation on 577); JD to M
ary Omelia, April 2, 1865, JD Papers, MC; JD to Genl [late March 1865], with AES by John C. Breckinridge, JD Papers, DU; JD to Josiah Gorgas, March 29, 1865, Josiah Gorgas Papers, UA; Jones, Clerk, II, 461, 465; Ishbel Ross, First Lady of the South: The Life of Mrs. Jefferson Davis (New York, 1958), 214.

  38. O.R., XLVI, pt. 3, 1378; Reagan to Mrs. Isabel Maury, February 27, 1901, CSA Government Collection Series, MC; “Autobiography,” PJD, I, lxiii. Ernest B. Furgurson has a fine general description of events in his Ashes of Glory: Richmond at War (New York, 1996), 319–25.

  39. Mallory Diary, II, April 2, 1865.

  40. R&F, II, 667 (quotation); Lee to JD, April 2, 1865, ibid., 660–61; JD to Lee, April 2, 1865, O.R., XLVI, pt. 3, 1378; Lee to JD, April 2, 1865, Freeman, ed., Dispatches, 375; Douglas Southall Freeman, R. E. Lee: A Biography (4 vols.; New York, 1934–35), IV 55.

  41. R&F, II, 667–68; JD to VD, April 5, 1865, JDC, VI, 532–33; Life and Reminiscences of Jefferson Davis (Baltimore, 1890), 42–43 (quotation); John Taylor Wood Diary, April 2, 1865, John Taylor Wood Papers, UNC (all future citations from this collection).

  42. Wellford Diary, April 2, 1865, White, Wellford Papers, UNC; Mallory Diary, II, April 2, 1865; Wise, End, 415; Wood Diary, April 3, 1865; Myrta Lockett Avary, Dixie After the War: An Exposition of Social Conditions Existing in the South… (New York, 1906), 47. Burke Davis, The Long Surrender (New York, 1985), and Michael B. Ballard, A Long Shadow: Jefferson Davis and the Final Days of the Confederacy (Jackson, Miss., 1986), provide detailed accounts of the retreat.

  43. JD to Lee, March 22, 1865, to VD, April 6, 1865, JDC, VI, 519–21, 533–34; JD to Bragg, April 1, 1865, Sotheby’s Fine Manuscripts and Printed Americana, Sale 6488 (1993); A. L. Rives to JD, April 10, 1865, JD Papers, DU.