The Saga of Jefferson Davis (Articles 70 and 71)
““I have an infirmity of which I am heartily ashamed. When I am aroused in a matter, I lose control of my feelings and become personal.” - Jefferson Davis
Like Lincoln, Jefferson Davis was born in a Kentucky log cabin, but his father moved to Mississippi, accumulated slaves, and built a prosperous cotton plantation. Davis graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1835 and married the daughter of Zachary Taylor, his unit Commander, who later became President of the United States. Unfortunately, Davis's wife died in the first year of their marriage and he left the Army to return home to Mississippi. His brother gave him a working plantation near Vicksburg and Davis soon became wealthy in his own right. He owned slaves, but rarely interacted with them, except those working in the house. Most slaves interviewed later said that his plantation was less harsh than most. In 1845 he remarried to Varina Howell, who was twenty years younger, and, by most accounts, she helped him attain a “softer side” and she was a good companion.
Davis began his national political career as a Senator from Mississippi in 1847. He was respected by his colleagues, but his intense personality kept him from forming close friendships among the members his own Democrat Party or the Republicans in Congress. He frequently clashed with Stephen Douglas over the perpetuity of the Union, and consistently argued for over ten years that states had the Constitutional right to secede. Until about 1858, however, he usually denied that he personally harbored any goal of secession. He was also one of the most vocal defenders of, in his words, the “Sacred and Constitutional right” to own slaves.
On January 9, 1861, he resigned from the U.S. Senate as Mississippi prepared to secede from the Union. In his farewell speech he said, “I leave not in hostility to others… but from the high and solemn motive of defending and protecting the rights we inherited, and which is our duty to transmit unshorn to our children.” He made it clear in his memoirs that he was referring to the right to own slaves and to bequeath them to future generations.
Two months later, he was chosen as President of the Confederate States of America. At the time, Davis and other Confederate leaders believed that at least 13 states would join the new nation, but they erroneously counted on Kentucky and Missouri. So, Davis agreed to lead eleven primarily rural states with about nine million in population, of which over three million were slaves; against nineteen states with a highly industrialized economy and nearly twenty million people (not including the four Border States).
Davis’s commitment to the Confederate cause bordered on zeal, and he was prone to rash decisions. Alexander Stephens once said that if Davis couldn't find an enemy to confront, he would confront a friend. To assure Davis did not become too dictatorial, other Southern leaders positioned several more moderate voices around him, including Alexander Stephens as his Vice President, a move Davis resented.
Davis knew there would be war, but he expected the North would soon tire of the losses, and the pressure on Lincoln from the Border States and others who did not want war for any reason, would lead to a quick resolution. And, in the first year of the war, Davis had one early advantage over Lincoln, and that was the competence of his Generals. Over the longer haul, however, he must have known the resources of the North would wear on the South. Although, if he was ever about ready to give up the fight, he certainly left no record and those around him said his unwillingness to compromise with them, let alone with the Union, was entrenched. But Davis never wavered, and the war would go on for four years with a terrible toll in young lives lost and near total destruction of the South’s infrastructure.
Then, on Sunday morning, April 2, 1865, Jefferson Davis realized that the Confederate States of America, which he had envisioned as an independent nation of eleven slave-holding states, was near its end.
Davis was in his pew at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia when he was handed a message sent by General Robert E. Lee. It read, “I advise that all preparation be made for leaving Richmond tonight.” Other parishioners recalled that Davis stood up, gained his erect posture, and walked quickly out of the church. The message clearly indicated that General Lee had decided to abandon his positions near Petersburg and retreat further south to fight another day. But the retreat would leave the much larger Union forces a clear path to the Confederate Capital of Richmond; and, Lee was, in effect, telling the Confederate government to abandon the city that evening.
Later that Sunday, hesitant to leave the city on such short notice, Davis sent a message to General Lee which read, “To depart from Richmond tonight would necessitate the loss of many valuables, both for the want of time to pack and of transportation.” It was clear that Davis believed that Lee could hold out longer, and he questioned Lee’s decision to retreat from the defensive positions around Petersburg. At first Lee was furious and tore the message apart saying, “I am sure I gave him sufficient time.” But he immediately gained composure and wrote the President a respectful message stating that it was, “absolutely necessary that we should abandon our position (Petersburg) tonight.”
Although he seemed defiant, Davis must have expected the fall of Richmond, just perhaps not that specific day, because, several days before, he had placed his wife, Varina, and their children on a train toward Charleston, South Carolina (or even further south if necessary, to avoid Union capture). Jefferson Davis wanted his family to travel separately from him for two reasons; first, of course, for their safety, but also so that he could devote his energies to maintain some semblance of a functioning government. Varina later wrote that he told her, “I understand your desire to assist and comfort me, but you can do this in only one way, and that is by going yourself and taking our children to a place of safety. If I live, you can come to me when the struggle is ended; but I do not expect to survive the destruction of constitutional liberty.” While that phrasing may sound too formal today, it is probably exactly what her husband said; especially about the destruction of Constitutional liberty. Until his dying day, Davis vehemently (but mistakenly) espoused that the Constitution permitted secession and that Lincoln’s destructive “war of northern aggression” and his Emancipation Proclamation were both unconstitutional.
But Davis could not debate the Constitution in early April 1865. With his family safely out of the city, Davis was able to focus on his duties in Richmond, until he received the note from General Lee; then he prepared for his own departure. As he left the Executive Mansion, Davis purportedly told the butler, “Offer a bottle of whiskey and keep the house in good condition for the Yankees.”
Many lower level government officials and private citizens of Richmond had left the city days earlier, but now Davis and his cabinet gathered the governmental records they could carry and boarded trains assembled in Richmond for that purpose. Davis ordered the Secretary of Treasury to load, into one of the box cars, the remaining $500,000 in gold nuggets and coins available to the Confederacy, along with some gold which belonged to Richmond banks and bags of jewelry which had been donated by southern women. The stories of the box car “filled with gold” would later lead to wild speculation about a hidden fortune, and even today can still spur treasure hunters. But, in reality, aside from the banks’ gold which Davis ordered protected, there was only the $500,000 available to the government officials, and that amount would be spent over the next five weeks. At 11pm, Davis, his cabinet, and a few bureaucrats and, accompanied by only a small number of soldiers, headed to Danville, about 150 miles further south.
Unfortunately, as Davis left Richmond, Confederate officials ordered the warehouse district set afire, ostensibly to keep any remaining useful materials from the invading Union forces; however, the fires quickly got out of hand, and the residential and other business areas of the city began to burn. Mobs gathered in the streets and ransacked homes and businesses, as described by one newspaper editor, “The sidewalks were encumbered with broken glass; stores were entered at pleasure and stripped from top to bottom.” Ironically, many of the fires were extinguished the next day with help from the Union soldiers who were streaming into the city; and order was restored when the soldiers broke up the mobs and arrested hundreds of the rioters.
After the rampages slowed, one Richmond woman wrote in her diary: “The Yankees are behaving well, considering it is them.”
Although he had abandoned Richmond, Jefferson Davis was not ready to surrender the Confederate States of America. He still had armies in the field and he believed he could regroup elsewhere and fight on. However, Danville quickly proved to be an unworkable temporary capital because many of its citizens did not want the Confederate officials in their town; so, Davis ordered the train to head for Greensboro, North Carolina.
When he arrived there, Davis learned that Lee’s retreating troops had been overtaken by the forces of Union General Grant near Appomattox, Virginia; and Lee had surrendered his tattered army. Davis at first became emotional, but quickly re-gained composure and sent for General Joseph Johnston and General P.G.T. Beauregard, who commanded Confederate forces in the area. The Generals were surprised when, instead of asking their advice on the methodology for surrender, Davis said he intended to re-build an army made of deserters who had simply gone home, combined with pardoned Confederate soldiers who would readily violate their oath to forebear arms against the Union. When Davis asked their opinion. Johnston spoke first, “Our people are tired of war, feel themselves whipped, and will not fight.” Johnston added that his men saw Lee’s surrender as the end of the war and Beauregard only said, “I concur in all General Johnston has said.” The meeting was formal, but not congenial, and Johnston said that the only real presidential power Davis had remaining was to end the war. Davis could not bring himself to participate in any surrender protocol and suggested that the Generals from the Union and Confederate armies could negotiate directly with each other. In other words, the Confederate military might surrender, but not the Confederate Government, nor its President.
As Davis prepared to leave Greensboro, a decision was made to abandon the train and travel on horseback and in carriages. The remaining Confederate treasury gold, now down to about $300,000 after disbursements for supplies and for General Johnston to pay a modest amount to each of his 25,000 troops, was loaded into a wagon to be pulled by a team of horses. President Davis and Generals Johnston and Beauregard then parted ways, but, not before they agreed to assign about 1,200 additional cavalry troops to Davis’s escort.
However, before General Johnston could even arrange a meeting with Union General Sherman to discuss terms of surrender, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Many in the north were convinced (mistakenly) that Jefferson Davis was responsible, and Union Secretary of War Edwin Stanton unleashed an unprecedented manhunt to find the Confederate President. The pursuers were instructed to capture Davis alive if at all possible; since both Stanton and new President Andrew Johnson wanted to try him for treason.
Now, with the death of Abraham Lincoln, Davis knew he would be chased by more men with vengeance on their minds; but he still intended to avoid capture and rally some semblance of an army to continue the fight. He convened a “council of war” on May 2, consisting of General John Breckenridge, General Braxton Bragg, and a few other officers in his entourage and said, “It is time that we adopt some definite plan upon which the further prosecution of our struggle shall be conducted.” Like Generals Johnston and Beauregard earlier, Breckenridge, Bragg and the others were astonished. It seemed to those in attendance that only Jefferson Davis failed to realize that the cause was lost. He was told by Breckenridge that the troops which accompanied him only expected to help him reach a safe point, and then they would return to their homes; in effect, his military escort was no longer a fighting force. Davis reportedly said, “Then all is indeed lost.” But, if he actually said that, Jefferson Davis did not mean it, at least not yet. He had still another plan to re-build a viable Confederate resistance. In Texas!
And, he still had some gold! He appointed an acting treasurer and instructed that the Richmond banks’ gold remain segregated and placed in viable southern banks. And, planning for the future, he instructed that most of the remaining Confederate treasury’s gold be placed into a few other scattered southern banks and in London for later use by the Confederacy; except for a small amount Davis kept to facilitate his escape. Then, he released almost all of his military escorts in the belief that a small group would be more difficult for the Union soldiers to track. Davis planned to reach General Edmund Kirby and his large force west of the Mississippi River in Louisiana and Texas where he believed Kirby’s army should be sufficient to build a “Western” Confederacy. While Kirby had learned of the recent surrender of Lee and Johnston, and he knew of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, he also knew Jefferson Davis was on his way to Texas and Kirby was determined to keep fighting. On May 9, the Union commander in the west contacted Kirby and offered surrender terms similar to those Grant gave Lee, but Kirby rejected the overture; still hoping to unite with his President.
Davis had even considered an alternative a Texas Confederacy enforced by Kirby’s troops. If that option were to prove impractical, Davis would go into Mexico and operate a “government in exile” to keep the Confederate grievances against the United States in the international spotlight. It is clear that Jefferson Davis could not even consider giving up the fight! He had once said, “I have an infirmity of which I am heartily ashamed. When I am aroused in a matter, I lose control of my feelings and become personal.”
But Davis was now determined to re-unite with Varina somewhere in Georgia and he continued to move deeper into southern territory, following what he expected to be her route. With information from couriers and scouting patrols, Davis knew it was only a matter of time before he could meet with his wife, and then they would head for Texas together. And, on May 9, 1865, Jefferson Davis’s entourage converged with his wife and her escorts near Irwinsville, Georgia, and, for the first time in over a month, the two shared some time together. Then, at dawn the next morning, all of Jefferson Davis’s plans came crashing down!
Union soldiers, who had been tracking Davis for weeks, quietly surrounded their camp, and, at first light, a Union officer shouted for them to surrender. At first Davis thought to try to escape into the woods, but his wife restrained him; and he demurred saying, “God’s will be done.” He told his wife that he might be executed on the spot, but that he believed the Union officers would likely protect her, so she should offer no resistance. Varina then draped a shawl over his head and shoulders for warmth and Davis surrendered to his waiting captors. Perhaps to Jefferson Davis’s surprise, he was not executed, but he was restrained and quickly moved away from the area. On the other hand, as he expected, his wife was treated respectfully and informed that her husband was alive; but was a prisoner. As quickly as possible, Davis was transported to the federal prison at Fort Monroe in Virginia, where he would await his fate. For two long years!
Eager to diminish Davis’s reputation, northern newspapers reported that he had tried to flee the camp where he was captured disguised in his wife’s clothes; a falsehood that dogged Davis for years and which greatly offended him. He said that such demeanor would have been “unbecoming a soldier and a gentleman,” and Davis considered himself both.
General Kirby finally agreed to surrender his force in Texas on May 21 1865. Although, there would still be a few isolated skirmishes, simply because some Southern units were as yet unaware that the Confederacy had ceased to exist. In fact, the war was over!
The public, both north and south, were eager to get news of the captured Confederate President, and newspapers rushed copies out, some more than once in a day. Since the Union administration was tight-lipped about his capture, his condition, or the plans for any trial, the papers were full of speculation. Davis considered himself a head-of-state and, as such, believed he should have been given a certain degree of respect by his jailers; but he was not. Once he was at Fort Monroe, he again anticipated execution, perhaps after the formality of a quick trial, but he still expected the same result. He was ill, coughed continually, and had little appetite. Understanding the anger in the North towards him, especially considering the assassination of President Lincoln, he assumed his fate was already decided. As the days turned into weeks, he heard nothing from the guards or administrators about a trial, so, he was left to awaken each day not knowing if it might be his last. Davis wrote these words to his wife as he sat in a cell:
“Dear Varina,
This is not the fate to which I invited you when the future was rose-colored for us both.”
At first, he was kept in isolation, but, over time, he was moved to a larger, more comfortable cell, his food improved, he was provided with a Bible, and was permitted to write and receive letters. Davis was aware that other Confederate officials had also been arrested and imprisoned, including Vice President Alexander Stephens; but they were all released within months. Then, in May 1866, a year after his capture, in a humanitarian gesture never fully explained, his wife and a daughter were permitted to take up residence with Davis in officers’ quarters within the Fort. Their other children were left with relatives in Georgia and later in Canada. For the next year, the prisoner and his family were treated respectfully; but never sure of his fate. Would he continue to be in limbo, or would there be a trial; and, if so, would his sentence be prison or death? It is unlikely that he considered acquittal, or even release on bail, as a possibility.
But, actually, nothing definitive had been decided about Jefferson Davis by the leaders of the Federal government, including President Johnson. Even the general public was deeply divided about what to do with the prisoner. Execution was favored by some (of course after a quick trial for history’s sake), others supported a long prison sentence, and some opposed any public trial which would give Davis a forum to argue that secession was legal. In fact, Salmon Chase, the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, had already said that, while secessionists committed crimes against federal property, their acts were not treasonous under the Constitution.
In the last year of his incarceration, many national and international dignitaries petitioned for his release on humanitarian grounds; including even the Catholic Pope who had sent Davis, a Protestant, a symbolic crown of thorns. This outpouring began to change public opinion in his favor and in April 1867, after two years in captivity, a judge ruled that Davis was entitled to a bail hearing. Bail was set at $100,000.00 (similar to about $4 million today) and an unusual group combined to sign the bond agreement (meaning they would pay if Davis failed to show for a trial); including Horace Greely an avowed Unionist and abolitionist, and Cornelius Vanderbilt, a wealthy northern industrialist. The motives of those who sought Davis’s release were varied, but most simply wanted to move toward reconciliation of North and South.
By May, 1867, Davis was free on the bail bond, but still under threat of criminal charges. Several motions were made in Federal Court in early 1868 which might have led to a trial, but the impeachment and trial of President Andrew Johnson, which began on February 14 and ended on March 26 (with acquittal) delayed the case. Then, in December 1868, President Johnson, who feared that a court decision might favor Davis, and who wanted to move on with re-construction without the focus on Davis, issued an unusual pardon exempting all Confederate officials, including Davis, from the charge of treason. That pardon could have left Davis open to other criminal charges, but Johnson directed the Justice department to drop the case against Davis. Although Johnson had issued full and complete pardons for hundreds of Confederate officials who applied, Davis refused to request a pardon. After all of that time, there was no trial, no acquittal or conviction; therefore, Davis remained in legal and political no-man’s-land. Some called him a person without a country.
And he was broke! His plantation in Mississippi, which had been owned by his brother, was in ruins and his investments in Confederate bonds were worthless. He needed a job and, fortunately for Davis, there were admirers who were in a position to help. In 1869, he became the president of a life insurance company in Memphis; however, that company failed in the 1873 financial panic. Then, he was offered positions as President of the University of the South in Tennessee and Texas A&M, but the salaries were not sufficient to support his family’s life-style.
Several acquaintances encouraged Davis write his memoirs, but he said that he was not sure there was an audience for his message. He did accept a few assignments from periodicals to commemorate specific events, but he considered writing a chore and was usually only paid about $250.00 for each article. But by, 1875, Davis was ready to commit to writing a memoir and several factors had caused him to change his mind. He had not been healthy since the start of the Civil War and his two-year imprisonment worsened several chronic conditions. He also realized that his own mortality was on the horizon and he did want to tell his version of history. And, finally, he needed the money. But writing his memoirs was not a linear task. The process took several twists including a change of publishers but, by 1877, he had developed the outline of what would become a two-volume work in which he would justify secession and the formation of the Confederacy. Woven through the two volumes would be a reverence for the “Lost Cause,” a flawed justification for secession and the Civil War for which so many Confederates fought (and so many died). In fact, the original working title for the book was Our Cause, but that did not survive early editing. (See Chapter 96, The Lost Cause, A Confederate Rationale)
But Davis again slowed his writing pace and the memoir project was in danger of not being finished. However, fortunately for Davis, Sarah Anne Dorsey, a wealthy widow who had known him for years, invited him to stay at her estate called Beauvoir, near Biloxi, Mississippi. As a writer herself, Mrs. Dorsey believed that, with her editing and composition skills, she could help Davis with his memoir. Aware of Davis’s dire financial situation, she offered to sell him a small home on the property for a bargain price and carried back a very liberal three-year contract. Then to assure that Davis (and/or his surviving family) would not be financially inconvenienced if she died before him, she left her entire estate to him or, if he died earlier, to his daughter. While Beauvoir became home to Davis, his wife rarely stayed there. The fact was that Varina Davis enjoyed a more urban and socially active life-style than was available at Beauvoir (or, for that matter, than would have been enjoyed by her husband). And, it was not the first time, nor would it be the last time, that they chose to live apart.
Earlier, Varina had only occasionally resided in Memphis, when her husband worked there at the life insurance company; but instead, she spent long periods in England and travelled throughout Europe as the guest of wealthy friends. After the Civil War, long separations were the norm for Davis and Varina; and both husband and wife seemed to adapt to that living arrangement. When Mrs. Dorsey died in 1879, Davis inherited the Beauvoir estate, which he considered his home for the rest of his life; however, Varina only rarely visited there.
In the absence of Mrs. Dorsey, Davis again began to struggle with his memoirs, and the publisher sent an editor, William Tenney, to assist Davis. The two men worked well together, which was remarkable since Davis did not usually work well with anyone, and by 1881, the two-volume “The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government” was finally finished. The book became a mainstay in many Southern households and even sold reasonably well in the Northern states. The success of the book meant that Davis’s money problems were over.
He finished another book in 1889 called “A Short History of the Confederate States of America” which included additional anecdotes provided by other former Confederate officials. Shortly after completing the new book, Davis became gravely ill while on a steamboat on the Mississippi River and intended to return home to Beauvoir. Varina was notified and, concerned about her husband, managed to meet with the riverboat near New Orleans. His doctors, however, deemed him too ill to travel back to his home and he was offered a place to rest and recuperate at the home of a former Confederate officer who lived in New Orleans. He never recovered and on December 6, 1889 with Varina was at his side, Jefferson Davis died. He was 81 years old.
So, what is Davis’s legacy? For the first fifty years of his life, except for his support of slavery, he had been an exemplary citizen of the United States. And, some in the South still believe the Confederate cause was noble, that a state’s right to secede was constitutional, and that Jefferson Davis deserves respect for leading the good fight against overwhelming odds. But generally, most biographers and Civil War historians have a more nuanced view and believe he was misguided in his commitment to secession, slavery, and the formation of the Confederate States. He believed slavery was a reasonable system of servitude and was the rightful privilege for the White aristocracy in the South. As President of the Confederate States, he led a four-year war against the United States which caused horrific casualties and destruction. As a result, he was considered a traitor to many in the North. And, his overconfidence in his own abilities and unwillingness to delegate, led him to make judgement errors; which caused criticism even by some Southerners. But Davis, until his death, maintained that the South needed either independence or absolute guarantees that the United States would not abolish slavery. To those who find human bondage a travesty, his commitment to slavery tarnished his legacy.
As he said in a letter to his wife, Jefferson Davis expected his legacy to be more “rose-colored.”