Jefferson Davis, American

by William J. Cooper

  44. JDC, VI, 529–31.

  45. Breckinridge to JD, [April 1865] (copy), Burton Harrison Papers, LC; Wise, End, 435–37; JD to Capt. Early, April 9, 1865, Early Family Papers, VHS; JD to Joseph Johnston, April 10, 1865, JDC, VI, 542–43.

  46. W. P. Johnston to VD, April 12, 1865 (copy), Edwin M. Stanton Papers, LC; Wood Diary, April 11, 1865.

  47. Wood Diary, April 11, 1865; W. P. Johnston to Rosa, April 22, 1865, Johnston Papers, TU; Mallory Diary, II.

  48. W. P. Johnston to VD, April 12, 1865 (copy), Stanton Papers, LC; JD to Vance, April 11, 1865, O.R., XLVI, pt. 3, 1393; Alfred Roman, The Military Operations of General Beauregard (2 vols.; New York, 1884), II, 390–92.

  49. Mallory Diary, II, “The Johnston-Sherman Negotiations”; John H. Reagan, Memoirs with Special References to Secession and the Civil War (Washington, D.C., 1906), 199–200 (first quotation); Reagan to JD, December 12, 1880, JDC, VIII, 535–39; Johnston to Beauregard, December 26, 1867 (JO 187), March 30, 1868, with Beauregard AES (JO 188), Joseph E. Johnston Papers, HL; Diary of Major Campbell Brown, January 14, 1866, George W. Campbell Papers, LC.

  50. Lee to JD, April 12, 1865, WPL, 935–38; Robert E. Lee, Jr., Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee (New York, 1904), 157.

  51. Wood Diary, April 13, 1865.

  52. JD to VD, April 23, 1865, JDC, VI, 561; Address of Col. William Preston Johnston, dated June 2, 1875, in Scrapbook re Thomas Jonathan (Stonewall) Jackson, Montrose Jonas Moses Collection, DU.

  53. Wood Diary, April 15–19, 1865; Capt. Given Campbell Journal (typescript), Given Campbell Papers, LC (all future citations are to this collection).

  54. James Morris Morgan, Recollections of a Rebel Reefer (Boston and New York, 1917), 231–32; VD to JD, April 1, 1865, JD Papers, DU, and April 7, 13, 1865, JDC, VI, 537–39, 544; Chesnut, 785.

  55. JD to VD, April 6, 14 (quotation), 1865, JDC, VI, 533–34, 545; Helen Trenholm to VD, April 9, 1865, and Armistead Burt to VD, April 10, 1865, JD Papers, MC.

  56. Wood Diary, April 19, 1865; W. P. Johnston to Rosa, April 22, 1865, and W. P. Johnston Diary, April 20, 1865, Johnston Papers, TU; Mallory Diary, II, “Route South”; JDC, VI, 568–85, has the opinions, with Breckinridge’s on 572–73.

  57. JD to Bragg, April 20, 1865, Philip H. and A. S. W. Rosenbach Foundation, Philadelphia; CV, XXII (July 1914), 304, the speech; Alexander Stephens to Linton, April 20, 1865, Alexander H. Stephens Papers, Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart.

  58. Clement Dowd, Life of Zebulon B. Vance (Charlotte, N.C., 1897), 485–86; JDC, VI, 556–57; M. W. Gary to JD, April 18, 1865, and JD AES (copy), Pegram-Johnston, McIntosh Family Papers, VHS; Mallory Diary, II, “Route South.”

  59. JD to C. J. Wright, May 11, 1876, JDC, VII, 513; Mrs. Burton Harrison, Recollections Grave and Gay (New York, 1911), 224; A. W. Thomson, “How Jefferson Davis Received the News of Lincoln’s Death,” The Independent, LII (February 15, 1900), 436; Mallory Diary, II, “Route South.”

  60. George Everhart to JD, March 30, 1886, JD Papers, MC; JD to VD, April 23, 1865, JDC, VI, 559–62.

  61. Wood Diary, April 24–May 2, 1865; Campbell Journal; Columbia State Sunday Magazine, January 31, 1954; Tench Tilghman Diary, April 26–May 2, 1865, Tench Tilghman Papers, UNC (all future citations are from this collection); map entitled “Flight of the Confederate Cabinet,” Monroe Cockrell Papers, DU (all future citations are from this collection).

  62. Harrison, Recollections, 223 (quotation); Mallory Diary, II, “Route South.”

  63. VD to JD, April 28, 1865, JDC, VI, 566–67.

  64. Memoir, II, 612; Basil W. Duke, “Last Days of the Confederacy,” in Robert U. Johnson and Clarence C. Buel, eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (4 vols.; New York, 1887–88), IV, 764; W. C. P. Breckinridge and Basil Duke to William Walthall, April 3, 6, 1878, G. G. Dibrell to W. P. Johnston, April 9, 1878, JDC, VIII, 151–54, 156–60, 160–64.

  65. Roman, Beauregard, II, 390; Dowd, Vance, 485–86; Duke, “Last Days,” 764 (quotation).

  66. Wood Diary, May 3, 1865; Campbell Journal; Avary, Dixie, 59; Reagan, Memoirs, 215; R&F, II, 694–95.

  67. Reagan to JD, August 16, 1877, von David Collection, UT; JD to Reagan, August 21, 1877, JD-John H. Reagan Collection, Dallas Historical Society, Dallas; Reagan, Memoirs, 212; Mallory Diary, II, “Route South”; Campbell Journal; “Autobiography,” PJD, I, lxiii.

  68. The basic sources for the final flight are: Wood Diary, May 4–10, 1865 (second quotation, May 9); Campbell Journal; Tilghman Diary, May 3–6, 1865 (first quotation, May 5); W. P. Johnston Diary, May 4–10, 1865, Johnston Papers, TU; map, “Flight.”

  69. Pertinent on the capture are the Wood and Johnston diaries; Burton Harrison narrative, JDC, VII, 6–19, IX, 226–60; VD to F. P. Blair, June 6, 1865, Blair Family Papers, LC; Raleigh Daily News, August 21, 1877; JD, W. P. Johnston, F. R. Lubbock to William Walthall, May 20, 1876, July 14, August 2, 1877, Walthall Papers, MDAH. JD did not attempt to escape in women’s clothes; in his haste he did grab Varina’s cloak, but that item was widely used in basically the same version by both men and women. After his capture, the claim that he had been disguised as a woman spread across the North. Chester D. Bradley, “Was Jefferson Davis Disguised as a Woman When Captured?” JMH, XXXVI (August 1974), 243–68, is authoritative on its subject. In her The Romance of Reunion: Northerners and the South, 1865–1900 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1993), chap. 1, Nina Silber has a provocative discussion of the northern embrace of the disguise tale.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: “I Have Not Sunk Under My Trials”

  1. John Taylor Wood Diary, May 10, 1865, John Taylor Wood Papers, UNC; Burton Harrison Statement, JDC, VII, 15–19; VD to F. P. Blair, June 6, 1865, Blair Family Papers, LC; James Nourse Diary, 287–88, James Nourse Papers, DU; Virginia Clopton-Clay, A Belle of the Fifties: Memories of Mrs. Clay of Alabama… (New York, 1905), 257 (quotation), 259–62; Myrta Lockett Avary, Recollections of Alexander H. Stephens: His Diary Kept When a Prisoner at Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, 1865.…(New York, 1910), 113–14, 118–20, 123–24 (quotation 124); John H. Reagan, Memoirs with Special Reference to Secession and the Civil War (Washington, D.C., and New York, 1906), 221; Memoir, II, 641–48.

  2. For JD’s imprisonment through 1865, see O.R., ser. 2, VIII, 563–66, 570–71, 577, 720, 740 (all citations in this chapter are to ser. 2, unless otherwise noted); Captain Titlow’s account reprinted in Chester D. Bradley, “Dr. Craven and the Prison Life of Jefferson Davis,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, LXII (January 1954), 72–74; Clay to Virginia Clay, August 11, 1865, C. C. Clay Papers, DU; Virginia Clopton-Clay, “Prison & Prisoners,” ibid.; JD to VD, September 15, 20, 26, November 3, December 7, 1865, JD Papers, TR, October 11, 1865, Memoir, II, 726–27; Edward K. Eckert, “Fiction Distorting Fact”: The Prison Life Annotated by Jefferson Davis (Macon, Ga., 1987), xxii–xxxiii.

  3. Richard Taylor, Destruction and Reconstruction: Personal Experiences of the Late War ([1879]; Waltham, Mass., 1968), 243–47; T. Michael Parrish, Richard Taylor: Soldier Prince of Dixie (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1992), 454.

  4. Hugh McCulloch, Men and Measures of Half a Century: Sketches and Comments (New York, 1889), 410–12.

  5. VD to JD, December 25, 1865, JD Papers, UA, JD to VD, February 17, 1866, JD Papers, TR; O.R., VIII, 975.

  6. DAB, XIII, 620–21, on O’Conor; O’Conor to Franklin Pierce, July 5, 1865, Franklin Pierce Papers, LC; O’Conor to Stanton, May 31, June 15, 1865, Stanton to O’Conor, June 1, 1865 (copy), O’Conor to James Speed, July 3, 1865 (copy), Speed to O’Conor, July 6, 1865, O’Conor to VD, July 1, September 13, 1865, JD Papers, MC; O’Conor to Jeremiah Black, July 1, 1865, Jeremiah Black Papers, LC; O’Conor to John C. Breckinridge, July 6, 1865, John C. Breckinridge Papers, VHS.

  7. O’Conor to Black, June 7, July 1, 18, August 10, 1865, J. W. Pierce to Black, June 26, 1865, Black Papers, LC; O’Conor to Pierce, July 18, 1865, Pierce Papers, ibid.; George Shea to Greeley, August 22, 1865, Horace Greeley Papers, NYPL; Greeley to Blair, Augu
st 29, 1865, JD Papers, MC; Cushing to Pierce, July 3, 1865, Caleb Cushing Papers, LC.

  8. McRae to JD, May 18, 1867, JD Papers, MC; Thompson to Jeremiah Black, July 6, September 2, 1865, Black Papers, LC, October 9, 1865, Dealer’s Catalog, Jacob Thompson Papers, MC; Thompson to Breckinridge, September 14, 1865, William C. Davis, “The Conduct of ‘Mr. Thompson,’ ” Civil War Times Illustrated, IX (May 1970), 65; Mason to O’Conor, June 9, July 20, 1865 (copies), McRae to Mason, June 20, 1865, O’Conor to Mason, July 9, August 16, 1865, James M. Mason Papers, LC; Breckinridge to O’Conor, June 26, 1865, Breckinridge Papers, VHS; Robert Lowry to Burton Harrison, February 26, 1867, B. G. Humphreys to Harrison, March 27, 1867, Burton Harrison Papers, LC.

  9. O’Conor to James M. Mason, July 9, August 16, September 6, October 19, 1865, Mason Papers, LC; O’Conor to Virginia Clay, June 29, 1865 (typescript), Clay Papers, DU; O’Conor to Breckinridge, July 6, 1865, Breckinridge Papers, VHS; F. E. Boyle to JD, October 10, 1880, JD to Louis Schade, October 5, 1888, Schade to JD, November 18, 1888, R. B. Winder to JD, December 10, 1888, JDC, VIII, 501–02, X, 82, 87–89, 93–95.

  10. On conspiracy theories, William Hanchett, The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies… (Urbana, Ill., 1983), esp. chap. 3, is thorough.

  11. McCulloch, Men, 408–09 (quotation on 408); Chase to Jacob Shuckers, May 15, 1866, Samuel P. Chase Papers, LC; Howard K. Beale, ed., Diary of Gideon Welles (3 vols.; New York, 1960), II, 335–39, 365–68.

  12. McCulloch, Men, 409; JDC, VII, 141–42.

  13. VD to Dr. John Craven, October 10, 1865, Memoir, II, 708–17 (quotation 710); VD to F. P. Blair, June 6, 1865, Blair Family Papers, LC; VD to Freda Lorenz, [1865], Phillips-Myers Papers, UNC.

  14. VD to Julia Tyler, July 24, 1865, Dr. Robert McElroy, ed., “A New Davis Letter,” TQH, XVII (July 1935), 24; Margaret Howell to VD, August [1865], JD Papers, UA, to George Shea, September 13, 1865, JD Papers, MC.

  15. McRae to VD, August 11, September 25, 1865, JD Papers, UA, December 29, 1865, JD Papers MC; William Preston to VD, November 1, 1865, JD Papers, UA; VD to Octavus Cohen, August 3, 1865, to Secretary and Agent of Ladies Southern Association, December 4, 1865, from undated, untitled clipping, JD Papers, MC; Benjamin to VD, November 16, December 6, 1865, January 25, 1866, JD Papers, TR; VD to Major Edward Willis, two letters [1865], January 2, February 2, 1866, receipt dated November 20, 1865, Major Edward Willis Papers, SCHS; VD to Lise Mitchell, December 7 [1865], Lise Mitchell Papers, TU; VD to Margaret Howell [autumn 1865], JD Papers, TR; VD to Mary Chesnut, September 20, 1865, Williams-Chesnut-Manning Papers, SCL.

  16. VD to General James Steelman, August 4, 1865 (copy), Andrew Johnson Papers, LC; Joseph D. Smith to “My Dear Son,” September 22, 1865, Joseph D. Smith Papers, LSU; JD to VD, October 11, 1865, JD Papers, TR; Ishbel Ross, First Lady of the South: The Life of Mrs. Jefferson Davis (New York, 1958), 265–66.

  17. VD to F. P. Blair, July 10, 1865 (first quotation), A. Johnson Papers, LC, June 23, 1865 (second quotation), Blair-Lee Papers, PU; VD to Julia Tyler, July 24, 1865, TQH, 24; VD to Mary Chesnut, September 20, 1865, Williams-Chesnut-Manning Papers, SCL.

  18. VD to Blair, June 6, 1865, Blair Family Papers, LC, June 23, 1865, Blair-Lee Papers, PU, September 26, 1865, A. Johnson Papers, LC; VD to Grant, December 18, 1865, Autograph File, Dearborn Collection, HU; VD to Johnson, August 30, September 25, 1865, PAJ, VIII, 672, IX, 131–32; VD to Greeley, June 22, 1865 (copy), Greeley to VD, June 27, 1865, JD Papers, MC: Blair to VD, June 12, 1865, ibid., Blair to Johnson, August 18, 1865 (draft), Blair-Lee Papers, PU; numerous letters among O’Conor, George Shea, and VD are in JD Papers, MC.

  19. O.R., VIII, 870, 874–75; Memoir, II, 756; VD to JD, April 12 (quotation), 14, 1865, JD Papers, UA.

  20. The following discussion is based on the extensive correspondence between them. The notes at the ends of paragraphs will refer only to the dates for quotations. All the JD letters are in JD Papers, TR, and all from VD are in JD Papers, UA, except where otherwise specified. JD to VD, August 21, September 15, 26, October 11, 20, November 3, 21, 26, December 2, 7, 30, undated [1865], 1865, and January 16, 24, 28, February 3, 17, March 13, April 8, 21, 1866. VD to JD, August 31 (in A. Johnson Papers, LC), September 14, 22, October 1, 2, 23, n.d., November 7, 13, 27, n.d., December 7 (typescript copy in David Rankin Barbee Papers, LC), 1865, January 22, February 8, 23, March 8, April 12, 14, 16, 1866.

  21. August 21, October 20, November 21, 26, 1865.

  22. Handprint on September 22, 1865.

  23. Margaret Davis to JD, November 30, 1865, March 2, 14, 1866, JD Papers, UA; JD to Margaret Davis, March 23 (quotation), April 9, 1866, JD Papers, TR.

  24. October 20, December 30, 1865.

  25. March 13, 1866.

  26. September 26, October 20, 1865, February 3, 17, April 21, 1866.

  27. November 3, October 23, October n.d., December 25, 1865.

  28. October 23, 1865; VD to Martha Levy, January 2, 1866, Philip Phillips Family Papers, LC.

  29. November 21, 1865.

  30. O.R., VIII, 901, 902; Memoir, II, 757–59 (quotation on 759), 773, 775; Geo. W. Brown to Franklin Pierce, July 14, 1866, Pierce Papers, LC; Harrison to W. P. Johnston, August 4, 1866, Johnston Papers, TU; G. Wilkins to JD, August 15, 1866, JD Papers, DU; Margaret Howell to W. T. Sutherlin, April 1, 1867, William T. Sutherlin Papers, UNC; Eckert, “Fiction,” xxxix.

  31. VD to Johnson, May 5, 19, 1866, PAJ, X, 476–77, 521–22 (first quotation); Memoir, II, 768–69; VD to Maj. Willis, June 6, 1866, Willis Papers, SCHS; VD to Greeley, September 2, October 6, November 21, n.d. [1867], 1867, Greeley Papers, NYPL; VD to R. Johnson, July 19, October 16, 1866, Reverdy Johnson Papers, LC; VD to Garrett, April 10, May 1, 1867, Robert Garrett Family Papers, ibid.; VD to “My Dear Old Girl,” September 27, 1866 (second quotation), Blair Family Papers, ibid.; Burton Harrison to Mother, June 13, 1866, James Elliott Walmsley, ed., “Some Unpublished Letters of Burton N. Harrison,” PMHS, VIII (1904), 82.

  32. O.R., VIII, 908 (Dr. Cooper’s report), 924 (surgeon general’s report), 950–83 passim (the weekly reports).

  33. Memoir, II, chap. 73 passim; Miles to General E. D. Townsend, May 28, November 16, 1866, and to Stanton, August 24, 1866, O.R., VIII, 919, 975, 955; Nelson A. Miles, “My Treatment of Jefferson Davis,” The Independent, LVIII (February 23, 1905), 413–17; A Statement of the Facts Concerning the Imprisonment and Treatment of Jefferson Davis…(Washington, D.C., 1902), reprinted in Eckert, “Fiction,” 142–49, and ibid., xxxviii.

  34. Geo. W. Brown to Franklin Pierce, July 14, 1866, Pierce Papers, LC; Burton Harrison to Armistead Burt, January 11, 1867, Armistead Burt Papers, DU, to W. P. Johnston, August 4, 1866, Johnston Papers, TU; Giles Hillyer to Burton Harrison, December 1, [1866], Harrison Papers, LC; the weekly reports cited in note 32 above.

  35. Clay to Virginia Clay, November 1, December 30, 1866, Clay Papers, DU; Memoir, II, 774–75; JD to Pierce, May 8, 1867, Pierce Papers, LC; Charles O’Conor to George Shea, August 6, 1866, JD Papers, MC; Burton Harrison to [Mother], June 20, 1866, Fairfax Harrison, ed., Avis Sonis Facisque, Being a Memoir of an American Family: The Harrisons of Skimino (Privately printed, 1910), 196–97; Andrew Johnson to Edwin Stanton, June 6, 1866, PAJ, X, 567–68.

  36. Polly to JD, September 11, November 17, 1866, March 25, 1867; JD, Jr. to JD, May n.d., 1866; William H. Davis to JD [May 17, 1867], JD Papers, UA; JD to “My Dear Daughter,” May 23, 1866, JD Papers, TR.

  37. VD to JD, August 14, 17, 18, December 8 (first quotation), 16 (second quotation), 1866, March 15, 18, 19 (third quotation), 20, 23, 25, [27], 28, [31], April 2, 3, 1867, JD Papers, UA.

  38. Brooks D. Simpson et al., eds., Advice After Appomattox: Letters to Andrew Johnson, 1865–1866 (Knoxville, Tenn., 1987), 45–46, 48 n. 10; William Wilkins Glenn, Between North and South: A Maryland Journalist Views the Civil War, ed. Bagly Ellen Marks and Mark Norton Schatz (Rutherford, N.J., 1976), 153.

  39. Lee to Walter Taylor, May 25, 1866, Robert E. Lee Papers, MC; Kenneth Rayner to William P. Fessenden, April
23, 1867, Kenneth Rayner Miscellaneous Manuscripts, New York Historical Society; Cobb to William Henry Seward, July 18, 1865 (second quotation), to Daniel Sickles, September 12, 1866 (third quotation), Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, ed., The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb (Washington, D.C., 1913), 663–65, 682–84.

  40. Robert Lowry to Burton Harrison, February 26, May 10, 1867, Harrison Papers, LC; JD to Mrs. J. K. Kyle, April 22, 1866, David Rankin Barbee, “A Sheaf of Old Letters,” TQH, XXXII (October 1950), 100–01; W. W. Stover to N. Walker & Co., May 1, 1866, JD Papers, Woodson Research Center, RU; Emily Mason, “Visit to President Davis, 4 July [1866],” Lee Family Papers, VHS; Wm. Mumford to VD, February 3, 1867, JD Papers, DU; Emily Norton to JD, January 29, [1867], JD Papers, MC. For tobacco and spirits, see also sources cited in note 30 above.

  41. Consult the excellent discussion in Jonathan Truman Dorris, Pardon and Amnesty Under Lincoln and Johnson: The Restoration of Confederates to Their Rights and Privileges, 1861–1898 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1953), 284–89.

  42. Eckert, “Fiction,” xxxv–xxxvi; Prison Life… (New York, 1866).

  43. Eckert, “Fiction,” xl–xlvii, and William Hanchett, “Reconstruction and the Rehabilitation of Jefferson Davis: Charles G. Halpine’s Prison Life,” JAH, LVI (September 1969), 280–89, have good accounts, which inform my treatment.

  44. Prison Life passim (quotation 373).

  45. Josiah Gorgas Journal, July 1, 1866, William C. Gorgas Papers, LC.

  46. Geo. W. Brown to Franklin Pierce, July 14, 1866 (quotation), Pierce Papers, ibid.; Glenn, Between North, 273; Eckert, “Fiction,” 1; Mrs. John T. Broadnax to JD, March 13, 1887, JDC, IX, 534–36. JD’s copy of Prison Life is in JD Papers, TU; in his “Fiction,” Eckert reprints the entire book with JD’s annotations, though the pagination differs from the original.

  47. The standard study of Reconstruction is Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (New York, 1988); the most recent biography of Johnson is Hans L. Trefousse, Andrew Johnson: A Biography (New York, 1989). Both inform my discussion.