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D ODD1
HIGH STAKES
AND
HAIR TRIGGER
JEFFERSON DAVIS
HIGH STAKES
AND HAIR TRIGGER
THE LIFE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS
BY
ROBERT W. WINSTON
AUTHOR OF "ANDREW JOHNSON, PLEBEIAN AND PATRIOT"
NEW YORK
r-> ', ti
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1930,
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY, INC.
First printing
PRINTED IN THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PREFACE
Dr. Johnson once said to Boswell that a person should be judged
by the mass of his character rather than by disconnected details.
This saying and another of Simon Greenleaf that a biased witness
is of little value, I have endeavored to keep in mind. The caution
of Professor Greenleaf is indispensable because nearly everything
relating to Jefferson Davis is controversial and the witnesses more
or less biased. Testimony of this kind, therefore, I have excluded
or admitted with care.
Morley, in the introduction to his Gladstone, complains of a vast
amount of material, more than 200,000 documents; I have not
counted the Davis exhibits, but there must be nearly as many of
them. In this mass of evidence, it has been my aim to discover
some thread of unity, and some coherency. As will be seen from
the text and from the bibliography, I have made use of original
material not hitherto taken into account.
R. W* W.
Williamstown, Mass.
October 12, 1929
CONTENTS
PART ONE SOWING THE WIND
1808-1861
CHAPTER PAGE
I. BEGINNINGS 3
II. BRASS BUTTONS n
III. HURRICANE AND BRIERFIELD 18
IV. RAGTAG AND BOBTAIL 27
V. CONGRESS AND CAMP 39
VI. STORM SIGNALS 51
VII. FIVE GAPING WOUNDS 73
VIII. DOWN 89
IX. LYING IN WAIT 98
X. UP AGAIN 112
XI. THE CHALLENGE 125
XII. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED 144
PART TWO REAPING THE WHIRLWIND
1861-1889
XIII. THE PLUNGE 153
XIV. THE BODY OF THIS -DEATH 166
XV. SPRINKLE SOME BLOOD 175
XVI. GOD DEFEND THE RIGHT 192
XVIL ANTIETAM 208
XVIII. THE THIN GRAY LINE 223
XIX. HUMILIATION AND MORTIFICATION . . . .237
XX. RIVET IN GRANDFATHER'S NECK 252
Vll
viii CONTENTS
CHAPTER FACE
XXI. UNCROWNED KING . -263
XXII. SILENCE 282
BIBLIOGRAPHY 289
APPENDIX A CHRONOLOGY OF FORT SUMTER AND EN-
VIRONS 297
APPENDIX B THE ZIGZAG OF SLAVERY AND IMPOR-
TANT DATES IN THE STORY OF SLAVERY . . .299
INDEX 301
ILLUSTRATIONS
Jefferson Davis Frontispiece
PACING PAGE
Brierfield, the Home of Joseph Davis, near Vicksburg, Missis-
sippi 18
Varina Howell (Mrs. Jefferson Davis) 22
Map Showing the Territorial Growth of the United States . . 74
A Premature Movement (John Brown and Cuffee) ... 140
Jeff Davis Snuffing Out the Light 148
Jeff Davis and the Apple Orchard 148
Gateways of Charleston 182
a. The Simonton Gateway, Legare Street
b. The Smyth Gateway, Legare Street
Sergeant Hart Nailing the Colors to the Flagstaff, Fort Sumter 188
The American Twins, North and South 194
The Greedy Boy 194
Lincoln on the Bayonets 198
The White House of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia . 240
General Lee's Farewell to His Troops 240
Brother Jonathan and the Negro 254
Cutting His Old Associates 254
Members of the Republican Legislature of South Carolina in a
Second Class Car Going to Columbia 274
A Reconstruction Warrior 274
PART ONE SOWING THE WIND
1808-1861
The Letter killeth but the Spirit gweth Life.
CHAPTER I
BEGINNINGS
In the annals of America perhaps no date is more big with dis-
aster than June 3, 1808. On that day and in Christian County,
Kentucky, a man was bom through whom the wrath of a brave
people found expression and burst all bounds. The story I propose
to write is one of pride, of obstinacy without parallel, of triumph
and failure, and of love without stint.
Jefferson Davis was sprung from comparatively humble stock;
beyond his father and grandfather nothing is known of his ancestry.
The name of his grandfather was Evan David, but after landing in
America the name was changed to Davis. The grandfather and
two brothers came over from Wales and settled at Philadelphia
early in the eighteenth century. 1
Some years later Evan Davis set out for the Southwest and
landed in Georgia, where he married a widow Williams, who gave
birth to an only child, Samuel, Jefferson Davis's father. Shortly
after the birth of Samuel, Evan died. The father of Jefferson
Davis was a strong character, stubborn, unlovable and silent. But
he was a brave man and when the Revolution broke out, he raised
a company, becoming its captain, and marching to the relief of
Savannah. For his services the Government granted him two hun-
dred and eighty-seven and a half acres of wild land 2
After the war Samuel Davis moved to Augusta, Georgia, where
he was appointed clerk of the county court and married Jane Cook,
a South Carolina woman. This prolific Scotch-Irish woman pre-
sented her husband with ten children, nearly all bearing patri-
archal and Biblical names. There were Joseph and Samuel, Ben-
iThe claim of Davis's recent biographers that Samuel DaviV^ president
of Princeton, was of this line lacks proof : letters to author from the secre-
taries of Virginia and Pennsylvania Historical Societies; Southern' His-
torical Society Papers, XXXVI, 79 J Whitsitt, i-io.
2 In Townsend's Handbook of U. S. Political History, 362, it is stated
that Jefferson Davis and U. S. Grant were cousins on Davis's maternal
side.
3
4 BEGINNINGS
jamin and Isaac, Mary and Anna and so on to the tenth and last,
Jefferson. Undoubtedly Samuel, a hard-shell Baptist in religion
and an unwashed Democrat, but then called Republican, in poli-
tics, was determined to do honor to all the saints in the calendar.
Now the Davis family was in no sense aristocratic; in Wales
they had been laborers and in America they were small, wandering
farmers, Samuel and his offspring ploughed the fields, chopped
cotton and worked side by side with the two or three slaves be-
longing to the family. 8 Even poorer whites in that early day could
indulge in the luxury of a slave or two, slaves being worth little
more than good mules. After a few years, Samuel grew weary of
Georgia and wandered over into the Blue Grass country.
There were then no steamboats or other public conveyances in
that western land and Samuel therefore packed his household goods
in a covered wagon and about the year 1792 set out with wife, chil-
dren and slaves on a five-hundred-mile jaunt, passing through
Georgia, Tennessee, and into Kentucky. There the gad-about fel-
low opened up a wayside tavern and raised cattle and horses. But
Kentucky was also unsuited to the Davis family and they remained
only a few years, yet long enough to present to the world their
most distinguished son.
Little Jeff had no recollection of his unpretentious Kentucky
home, for he was an infant at his mother's breast when the roving
Samuel set forth on another trek. This time Bayou TSche was his
objective, a Louisiana village a thousand miles or more away.
The family, except Joseph, accompanied their peripatetic parent.
Joseph remained and studied law, afterwards becoming a lawyer
and practicing at Hopkinsville, Kentucky. At Bayou TSche
malaria attacked the wanderers and they made haste to move
again. The lower Mississippi valley, then a territory, was Samuel's
latest fancy and there, after three removals and hundreds of miles
of plodding over well-nigh impassable roads, the much-worn fam-
ily settled down at last. *
Jefferson Davis's first impressions were of Poplar Grove, a neat
but humble Mississippi home, with its simple flowers and numerous
bee gums, on the outskirts of Woodvllle. This pleasant village lies
in Wilkinson County and is distant a dozen or more miles from the
great river. Poplar Grove was too small a farm to be called a
Dodd, iS.
BEGINNINGS 5
plantation and was surrounded by dense forests of pine, oak, and
hickory. There were also magnolias in abundance, and cypress,
ash, and yellow poplar. Peaches, figs, and sugar cane were culti-
vated ; and bamboo, wild flowers, shrubs, and weeds grew the year
round. In those early days Mississippi was America's wild and
woolly west. Bear, wild hogs, and other unclassified "varmints"
infested the swamps; and desperadoes and highwaymen made
travelling perilous. Alonzo Phelps, a noted bandit, is said to have
perpetrated no less than eight murders and sixty robberies. 4
These lawless conditions the adventurous people often took into
their own hands and, by a species of wild justice, rid themselves
of robbers, thieves, and blacklegs of high and low degree. At
Vicksburg, a few miles up the river, a crew of gamblers had taken
possession, plying their trade and killing several of the townsmen.
A vigilance committee got busy and lynched every last one of the
gamblers, whom they buried on a nearby bluff, as may be seen to
this day. 5
In the midst of such rude and primitive conditions, young Jeff
was growing up a ruddy-faced lad, spare and straight as an Indian.
Every one remarked on his fine bluish-gray eyes, expansive fore-
head, and open countenance. His mouth was firm set ; a shock of
black hair covered a shapely head. So promising was the young-
ster that the family savings were lavished upon him to the exclu-
sion of the other children. And well he merited the affection of his
unapproachable father and of Joseph, his common-sense eldest
brother.
At the log cabin schoolhouse he was prompt and faithful, and
in the presence of danger showed the mettle of which he was made.
Once the little five-year-old and his sister Polly, two years his
senior, were returning from school through the forest when in the
underbrush they espied an object of terror, none other, they con-
cluded, than the village drunkard a dangerous poor white, a chair
mender with chairs on his head, bearing straight down upon
them. Polly, in terror, started to flee, when the little brother,
stepping forward, exclaimed, "Don't be scared, I'm here to protect
you!" The terrifying object proved to be the antlers of a huge
*Foote, 36.
5 King, 289; Mark Twain, 268.
6 BEGINNINGS
buck, and Jeff was saved an encounter with the village drunkard.
While Jefferson was still a school boy, the first steamboat to ply
the river, a side-wheeler with two decks, called the New Orleans,
came puffing down the Mississippi to the terror and delight of the
people. And a majestic sight she was, her dimensions being 116
feet long and 20 feet wide. She boasted of a captain, a pilot, an
engineer, and six deckhands, and her cost ran up to thirty thousand
dollars. Her first trip down the river to Natchez is recalled to
this day. Great crowds had gathered, and the bluff shores of Wil-
kinson and adjoining counties were lined with negroes and super-
stitious whites. The paddles churned, dashing the foaming water
against the shores ; the steam whistle screamed ; and great was the
enthusiasm. "Bar now!" chuckled a woolly-headed black, "Ole
Mississip done got her Massa dis time ! " 7
By a strange coincidence, at this very moment an earthquake
shook the valley and the boat trembled from stem to stern. The
banks caved in and the river overflowed, washing away houses and
spreading consternation among masters and slaves alike. But not
among the fatalistic red men. A sturdy chieftain high up on the
banks, with arms folded and set gaze, saw the town of New Madrid
sink into the yawning abyss. "Great Spirit got whiskey too much,"
was his only comment.
In a short while the New Orleans ran on a snag and went to the
bottom, and it was a year or more before regular trips were again
scheduled, not until the Government had cleared the channel of
roots and snags, using dredging machinery which the phrase-mak-
ing and picturesque slaves dubbed "Uncle Sam's toof -pullers."
The population of Mississippi Territory in the early eighteen
hundreds was made up half of white and half of black. In the
northern portion there were perhaps ten thousand Choctaw and
Chickasaw Indians, making a total population of nearly a hundred
thousand. Vicksburg, on the southern edge of the Indian reserva-
tion, and then called Fort Nogles, was an outpost town.
About this time Jeff, a lad of four or five summers, witnessed the
departure of two brothers volunteering to fight under the banner of
General Jackson* The remaining one, with musket on his shoulder
and eager to go, was restrained by an order of the Judge. Surely
* Memoir, I, 8, note.
7 Mark Twain, 132.
BEGINNINGS 7
some male person ought to stay at home to protect the women and
children. After making due allowance for the drabness of planta-
tion life in the early part of the nineteenth century and the desire
to go to war for a change, it must be said of the Davis family that
they were born fighters.
Amid such primitive scenes, young Jeff grew to be seven years of
age, the pet of the household, the hope and joy of his brother
Joseph. Though Joseph was twenty-four years older than Jeff,
the two were fast friends, all that Joseph possessed being at his
younger brother's disposal, whether of influence or money, of
advice or love. It was Joseph Davis, crack duelist, implacable and
thorough-going individualist, as we shall see, who largely shaped
and moulded his brother's career.
So that he might be nearer Joseph, it was arranged that Jeff
should attend a school in Kentucky, Saint Thomas College, a Cath-
olic institution for boys. Accordingly, about the year 1815, the
seven-year-old youngster, astride a pony, set forth with Major
Hinds and others for northeast Kentucky. This wild, picturesque
journey made a lasting impression on the boy's mind. From Wood-
ville the cavalcade, eight or ten people in all, including the Major's
little son about Jefferson's age and likewise on a pony, travelled
on horseback and in wagons, traversing the old stage road that
ran by Natchez and Fort Gibson, thence leaving Vicksburg to
the left and Jackson to the right, and veering off into the Indian
country.
At night the travellers would sometimes sleep on the ground,
covered only with blankets and the arching sky; or if they were
lucky enough to reach a public place built of logs, kept by a half-
breed Indian and called a "stand," they would enjoy the luxury of
a shuck mattress and a roof. On and on the little party moved,
through the Choctaw and Chickasaw region, with wild beasts howl-
ing at night and the Indians all about them, stopping at Leflore,
Folsom, and a tavern at the crossing of the Tennessee River, kept
by a half-breed Chickasaw.
' Finally they reached Nashville, the home of Andrew Jackson.
Major Hinds and the General having been brothers in arms, the
hospitable old warrior insisted that the entire party become his
guests for an indefinite stay. The invitation was accepted and dur-
ing several weeks Jefferson Davis sat at the same table with "Old
8 BEGINNINGS
Hickory," who had not yet, however, proposed his memorable
toast, "Our Federal Union, it must be preserved."
In the course of time, Jeff arrived at his destination and was
duly enrolled as a pupil in a Catholic school. With priests and
pupils, all of whom were Catholics, the small lad was a prime
favorite. He slept in the same room with one of the priests. In
fact he admired the method of the Catholics so well that he would
have become one himself if Father Wilson had not objected. "May
I not join the church?" the eight-year-old child asked one day as
Father Wilson was munching his frugal meal. Smiling a gentle
smile and offering the lad a biscuit and bit of cheese, the good
priest replied, "For the present, you had better take some Catho-
lic food."
After two years at this school, Jefferson and his guardian, a law
student named Charles B. Green, set out for the lower Mississippi
valley, sailing down the river on a brand-new steamer called the
Mtna. During the next few years, young Davis attended Jefferson
College in Adams County, Mississippi, and later the Academy of
Wilkinson County. In this academy he came under the instruc-
tion of a Boston teacher, John A. Shaw, "a quiet, just man who
greatly impressed" his young pupil. At this period we may get
a glimpse of the elder Davis, an unbending, undemonstrative in-
dividual.
At the county academy during a noon recess, Jeff had been kept
in for not committing certain verses to memory, and was threat-
ened with a thrashing. In high dudgeon, the irate pupil grabbed
his books, stalked out of the schoolhouse, and marching to the
parental roof, unfolded his tale of woe. "All right," quoth the
imperturbable father, "all right, quit school. I want more cotton
pickers and will give you a job."
Next day the youngster, with a bag on his shoulder, joined the
hands and picked cotton quite vigorously till nightfall ; but the hot
sun caused him to change his mind, and he went back to school "as
the lesser of the two evils." 8 This seems to be the only bit of
manual labor the young man ever undertook. In truth, in his
eightieth year, he made a characteristic observation upon the above
incident. "To have worked with my own hands in the field," he
remarked, "would have implied an equality with laborers."
8 Quoted in Memoir, I, 17, from Jefferson Davis's short autobiography.
BEGINNINGS 9
Jefferson Davis was now thirteen years old, with some knowledge
of Latin, Greek, and history, and fine prospects for the future. His
father and brother Joseph, who had moved back to Mississippi and
become a lawyer and planter, therefore determined to enter him in
the best college in that section. Transylvania University at Lex-
ington, Kentucky, was selected, and there the young man entered
upon a larger world, rubbing up against three or four hundred
bright, active young fellows, and with teachers of note. The pro-
fessor of language was a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin ; the
vice-president was a Scotchman, afterwards president of an Ohio
college; and the students were gathered from the Gulf to the
Lakes.
In 1847 six United States senators were graduates of Transyl-
vania, and four of these had been college mates of Jefferson Davis.
There were David R. Atchison of Missouri, advocate of slavery and
vanquisher of Thomas H. Benton ; George W. Jones of Iowa, to
remain Davis's steadfast friend ; S. W. Downs of Louisiana, with
whom Davis was to be at outs ; Dodge of Wisconsin ; and E. A.
Hannegan, the great expansionist.
His three years at Transylvania were pleasant ones. He ranked
as a good fellow, did fair work in his classes, and made progress in
every study except mathematics mathematics he could never
master. At Mrs. Ficklin's boarding house, where he lived, he was
remembered then and afterwards with deep affection.
But even at that early age the young man was beginning to
develop a cold, priggish, formal manner; to express himself in a
parenthetical style which grew with the growing years. Thus in
1824, when he received a letter from home announcing the death
of his father, he replied without the unrestrained childish grief of a
bereaved youth of seventeen :
DEAR SISTER:
It is gratifying to hear from a friend, especially one whom I had not
heard from so long as yourself; but the intelligence contained in yours
was more than sufficient to mar the satisfaction of hearing from any
one. You must imagine, I cannot describe, the shock my feelings sus-
tained at the sad intelligence. In my father I lost a parent ever dear
to me, but rendered more so (if possible) by the disasters that at-
tended his declining years. When I saw him last he told me that we
9 Mississippi Valley Historical Association Proceedings, IX, 152,
10 BEGINNINGS
would probably never see each other again. Yet I still hoped to meet
Mm once more; Heaven has refused my wish. This is the second time
I have been doomed to receive the heart-rending intelligence of the
death of a friend. God only knows whether or not it will be the last.
If all the dear friends of my childhood are to be torn from me I care
not how soon I follow. I leave in a short time for West Point, State
of New York, where it will always give me pleasure to hear from you.
Kiss the children for Uncle Jeff. Present me affectionately to brother
Isaac; tell him I would be happy to hear from him; and to yourself
the sincere regard of
Your brother,
JEFFERSON.
Captain Samuel Davis's last days had been spent wandering about
in vain search for bounty lands in Pennsylvania which he under-
stood his father Evan had once entered. 10
So enjoyable was life at Lexington that young Davis was loath
to leave. When he finally quit Transylvania and entered West
Point in 1824 at the age of sixteen, it was with great reluctance.
"My eldest brother, who then occupied to me the relation of par-
ent," said Davis quite late in life, "insisted that I proceed to West
Point at once. I consented to go, but only on condition that I re-
main there one year and then enter the University of Virginia."
When the imperious lad gave up the life of a civilian for that of
a soldier, his career underwent a permanent change. Ambitious,
pampered, climbing the social ladder, but without family ties to
bind him to the past, he was now cast forth on his own hook. Had
he been of a line of well-bred Americans, had a portrait of some
judge or governor, some bishop or scholar, adorned his ancestral
walls, or had the roots of a venerable ancestral tree struck deep
into the soil, or had Evan ajnd Samuel and Jefferson established a
local habitation, lived at one spot long enough to love it and to call
it home, would the young man's career have shaped itself dif-
ferently? 11
, 14.
Robert, Valley of the Mississippi, 1832; Chambers, Henry E.
Mississippi Valley Beginnings, 1922.
CHAPTER II
BRASS BUTTONS
Twenty-odd miles below Vicksburg, the Mississippi River almost
boxes the compass, and flowing west, south, east and northeast,
forms a peninsula with four miles of shore line. Within its borders
are fertile acres of river bottoms, of forest and flower, with here
and there a beautiful lake, infested, however, by mosquitoes and
other pests.
The place now goes by the name of Davis's Bend, but in 1818
when Joseph Davis, Jeff's brother, entered the tract as "wild land,"
it was called Palmyra. Here steamboats touched. The old Indian
trail from Natchez to Vicksburg also passed five or six miles to the
east of it. Why one should have selected as a home this isolated
spot, almost unapproachable except by boat, is not easy to under-
stand. Yet Joseph E. Davis did that very thing.
Perfecting his entry to the land, he later obtained a grant from
the Government for the entire tract, a fact to be kept In mind as it
is tragically connected with the life of the two brothers. 1 About
the year 1827 Joseph built a comfortable residence on the penin-
sula and moved down from Vicksburg: he was going to lead the
life of a lordly planter. 2
His father, Samuel, had either given or sold him, exactly which
is not determined, the three family slaves, and Joseph bought
others and with these laborers cleared the forest, opened up new
ground, built slave quarters, stables, barns, and a cotton gin, creat-
ing a typical southern plantation, an empire in itself. Joseph had
been in the first Mississippi Convention of 1817 and was a suc-
cessful lawyer, but preferred a planter's life with Its sense of pro-
prietorship, its leisure, and opportunity for general reading and
culture.
Of a reserved, conservative nature, except when crossed and then
1 Jefferson Davis vs. Bowmar et al, Executors of Joseph E, Davis and the
children of said Joseph E. Davis, 55 Miss. Report, 670-815.
2 Montgomery, 20.
11
12 BRASS BUTTONS
hard as flint, his tastes ran to the science of government and farm-
ing, and to finance and history, his well-selected library reflecting a
determination to master these subjects. Steeped in the philosophy
of Plato and Aristotle, which justified the relation of master and
slave, and yet able to speak the last word in practical affairs,
Joseph impressed every one with his courage, intellect, and learn-
ing. "In every question of honor" says Reuben Davis in his in-
imitable Recollections, "he was the admitted arbiter and his deci-
sion was always final authority." 8
His plantation he named "Hurricane" because a great storm had
recently swept through it, uprooting the forests. Now it must not
be thought that Joseph's change from a lawyer's office to a plant-
er's life was a let-down ; it was just the opposite. Though hid away
on a Mississippi peninsula, he had great influence in the county,
especially as a politician and Democrat. In the course of a few
years he came to own hundreds of slaves, raised droves of mules,
horses, and cattle, and reckoned his wealth by the hundreds of
thousands if not by the million.
When, therefore, this powerful land-baron suggested to Rankin,
the only congressman Mississippi then had, that he would like his
young brother Jeff to have a cadetship at West Point, the request
was complied with and a commission was issued by John C. Cal-
houn, Secretary of State under Monroe. With such interest did
Joseph watch the progress of the young cadet that he journeyed
in a coach from Palmyra to West Point, in company with the
Howell family, into which Jefferson afterwards married, to en-
courage the youngster in his new career.
Entering the United States Military Academy in 1824, at the
age of sixteen, Jefferson Davis graduated four years later near the
tail end of the class twenty-third, to be exact, out of a class of
thirty-three. He alone of this class later attained high distinction.
During his four-year course, however, many names subsequently
to become famous were entered on the rolls*
Cadet Davis soon formed an attachment for upperclassmen
Albert Sidney Johnston, Leonidas Polk, and L. B. Northrop, ties
which time but strengthened. With Joseph E. Johnston and Robert
E. Lee, both a class below him, he seems not to have come into
8 Davis, R., Recollections of Mississippi, 79, Reviewed in Atlantic, LXV,
225. Reuben was not related to Jefferson.
BRASS BUTTONS 13
close contact. 4 To his last day Jefferson Davis bore a real affection
for West Point; its memories cheered him through good and
evil report, and under Buchanan he served as a Visitor to the
institution.
Arms now became young Davis's business and war his obsession.
The intricacies of the drill he mastered ; he investigated guns, both
big and little, comparing muskets and rifles and contrasting them,
likewise sat his mount with the ease and dignity of an expert
i and generally bore himself with the coolness and abandon of a
T soldier. In the classroom one day a practice fire-ball was acci-
dentally ignited and about to explode. The professor, who dis-
liked Davis, shouted, "All hands run for your lives 1 " In sheer
contempt Jefferson picked up the hissing bomb and tossed it out
p* of the window. 5
His attitude toward the faculty was often defiant, and many of
its members regarded him as an obstreperous youth of mediocre
ability, soundly scolding him for dullness. 6 Frequently he broke
rules and was kept in. He was often demerited and in one mid-
night frolic came near losing his life. Returning to the barracks
in company with other cadets at a late hour, he rolled and tumbled,
head foremost, full sixty feet down the steep bank of the Hudson.
This rebellious spirit, however, was inbred and not the result of
drink or dissipation, the cadets uniformly testifying to the young
fellow's sobriety and decency, along with his pugnacity and high
spirits. 7
In July, 1828, with a commission as second lieutenant of infantry
in his pocket, the young officer went down to Mississippi to spend
W his vacation with his brother Joseph. Here he found his mother
n also visiting, though she still resided in the old home near Wood-
N ville.
As the far-sighted Joseph, now forty-four years old, looked upon
the self-centered Lieutenant, his mind no doubt ran far into the
future. He could see him a leader of men, expelling the Indians, in-
\ ducting white natives, expanding the country, and developing the
great West. But the young man must be fitted out for the part,
* Memoir, I, 37 ; Cullom's West Point Register.
5 University Bulletin, VIII, n,s. 3, no. 6, June, 1917. La.
* Memoir, I f 53.
7 Ibid., Chapters 4 and 5
14 BRASS BUTTONS
supplied with the best equipment, with epaulettes and sword and
uniform ; he must likewise have a body-servant to accompany him
and be at his beck and call.
Scanning the list of slaves, Joseph found one he considered well
fitted for this delicate position* James Pemberton was the black
man's name Pemberton, not Davis there were no negroes bear-
ing the Davis name. There were Montgomery negroes, Pemberton
negroes, Jones negroes, acquired by Joseph at public auction, but
no old family servants coming down from sire to son, appendages
of the soil, as in Virginia or South Carolina. No dignified black,
tall, silent, and stately, to share in the family glory, and to be
proud of the family heritage. The Davises were much too new for
that. James Pemberton, however, must have come of unusually
good stock and of excellent surroundings, for he became Jefferson
Davis's steadfast friend, serving him in war and peace.
The presidential campaign of 1828 was now on, Andrew Jackson
and John C. Calhoun, both Southerners and not yet hostile, oppos-
ing John Quincy Adams and Rufus Rush, both Northerners, and
the sectional issue again raising its head, as in 1803 and 1820. The
Davis brothers whole-heartedly supported Jackson and Calhoun
and espoused the southern cause. What right had Congress to
legislate against slavery, anywhere or in any manner? Were not
slaves property, protected by the Constitution, and was not Mis-
sissippi a sovereign state? These and other questions the two
brothers, in the solitude of their home, raised and answered to
their own satisfaction.
Soon the young soldier's vacation ended and in the winter of
1828 he set out for his first post of duty at Fort Crawford in the
present state of Wisconsin. Boarding a river steamer and waving
adieu to Hurricane, the petted Lieutenant, strong in the strength
of Joseph and in the care of his faithful slave, set sail up the Father
of Waters. At St. Louis he visited Albert Sidney Johnston, George
W. Jones, and other old college-mates.
At Fort Crawford he remained about a year, guarding the fron-
tier against hostile Indians, strengthening and constructing forts
and doing general garrison duty. Lieutenant Davis later concluded
that he had been the first white man to set foot on the spot where
the city of Chicago is now built. In 1829 he was detailed for duty
at Red Cedar River and at Yellow River, his labors here including
BRASS BUTTONS IS
not only garrison work, but also saw-milling operations. The
former post was one of danger, as hostile Indians lurked in the
underbrush and often attacked the fort.
On more than one occasion Davis was detached from his men
and barely escaped the tomahawk of the Indians; and several
times he had hand-to-hand encounters with them. During the
winter of the deep snow he contracted pneumonia and was near
death's door. In the sick man's delirium James Pemberton was
always by the cot and is thought to have saved his master's life.
But even so, the Lieutenant's health was permanently undermined.
At the battle of Bad Axe on August 3, 1832, Davis's company,
together with others, attacked and overcame the army of Black
Hawk, one of the most desperate of the Indian chiefs, whom the
Lieutenant had the good fortune personally to encounter and to
capture. Black Hawk and sixty of his braves were conducted in
triumph under Davis's command to St. Louis, and for his valor the
young officer was promoted to a first lieutenancy. This honor was
well deserved. Whether as an Indian fighter or as an administra-
tive officer, Lieutenant Davis had done good service ; and among
the friendly Indians he was so much esteemed that he was adopted
by one of the tribes and given the honorary title of Little Chief.
During his western camp life the young Lieutenant joined in
the roughest sports, shirking no danger, always to the front, and
never a tenderfoot or a mollycoddle. If there was a dance, he was
on hand, as he was in the sleighing parties or in the exciting chase
of the wolf. 8 Breaking a wild, untamed horse was a great sport,
the unruly beast rearing on his hind feet, often rolling on the
ground, and seriously injuring the rider.
Another sport, and a cruel one it seems, was called fighting
horses. Two vicious beasts would be enclosed in a pen, some forty
feet square, there to snap and bite and kick each other till, bloody
and exhausted, one of them would refuse to come from his corner.
The other animal would then be adjudged winner of the stakes.
Sometimes, too, there would be a wolf fight when two or three stout
dogs would be pitted against a ferocious wolf, and the spectators
would watch the beasts "chew each other up." Occasionally the
dare-devil young officer would leap into the ring, tackle the wolf,
8 Memoir t I, 64.
16 BRASS BUTTONS
and fight Mm a fair, fist-and-skull fight, administering a coup de
grace by choking the animal to death.
Now and then friendly Indians would come to the camp and give
an exhibition of their famous Discovery Dance. During this tribal
rite the Indians were compelled to recite truthfully every exploit
of their lives ; they would shuffle to and fro and grow excited as the
dance progressed. Encounters with hostile Indians were more fre-
quent, these Indians being the Comanches and the Pawnees.
On one occasion a rough soldier was ordered by Lieutenant Davis
to remove a pile of scantling from one place to another, but flatly
disobeyed. Ordered again to do the work, the soldier once more
disobeyed. He had no respect for the boyish, smooth-faced Lieu-
tenant and was testing him out. Davis waited till the disobedient
man stooped to pick up a piece of timber and then struck him a
staggering blow from the rear with a stout billet of wood, beating
him till he called for quarter.
During the year 1833 Lieutenant Davis returned to Fort Craw-
ford, where Colonel Zachary Taylor was in command. At this post
other thoughts than war began to animate the young man's breast.
There he found the interesting family of his Colonel, the Colonel's
wife, three charming daughters, and a cultured son. Almost at
sight the young officer lost his heart to one of the girls and asked
her hand in marriage. Colonel Taylor was indignant. Was he not
a Virginian by birth and a Whig by inheritance ? Did he not own
a sugar plantation in Louisiana and a great cotton estate above
Natchez? Did he not count his slaves by the score? And was he
not a man of great wealth?
How dared Lieutenant Davis, a despised Democrat, without
family or property or rank, make such a proposal? No, never!
If his daughter married Davis, she would be to him and to the
Taylors as one dead. The Lieutenant, as stern as the Colonel him-
self, pressed his suit; in fact is said to have sent the indignant
father a challenge to fight a duel. 10
At this stage of the affair Colonel Taylor detached the Lieu-
tenant from the regiment and packed him off to join other troops
at Fort Gibson, near Red River in Arkansas and the Indian
Territory, hundreds of miles away. But love triumphed. Distance
9 Memoir, I, 78.
10 Rhodes, I, 99; Dodd, 41.
BRASS BUTTONS 17
and parental anger were unavailing, and after some months in his
new field, Lieutenant Davis resigned from the army to" marry the
daughter of a future president.
The resignation bears the date of June 30, 1835, an( i the mar -
riage took place a few days later in Lexington, Kentucky, at the
home of Colonel Taylor's sister. The bride's family remained
obdurate until the last. The simple ceremony over, the resolute
couple sailed down the Mississippi to Hurricane for the wedding
outing. There in the lowlands, both bride and groom contracted
chills and fevers and moved on in a short time to Bayou Teche,
where Mrs. Luther Smith, Jefferson's sister, was living.
In six weeks, the lovely bride was a corpse, dead far away from
family and kindred, on her deathbed singing her favorite hymn,
Fairy Bells. "Not a member of the Taylor family wept over her
open grave," bitterly records the second Mrs. Jefferson Davis. 11
i* Memoir, I, 165; Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society,
XII, 21.
CHAPTER III
HURRICANE AND BRIERFIELD
While the young couple were confined at Mrs. Smith's with
fever, they were given separate apartments, but the anxious hus-
band insisted on being nearer his wife and when the end came he
was by her side. After her death, he lingered at his sister's and
brother Joseph's till the fall, cajoled back to health by his ever-
faithful slave, James Pemberton. In the month of November he
was sufficiently restored to visit New Orleans and Havana, where
soft skies, new scenes, and efficient treatment worked wonders.
From Havana we find the young man off for New York and
Washington.
Congress was in session, and the Mississippi senators and repre-
sentatives were glad of an opportunity to be courteous to the
favorite brother of Joseph Emory Davis. As for George W Jones,
Davis's old Transylvania schoolmate, now a delegate from the Ter-
ritory of Michigan, he welcomed Jefferson with open arms. The
usual privileges of the Senate and House were extended to him;
he became familiar with the noted men of the mess or boarding
house : Thomas H. Benton, Franklin Pierce, Senator Allen, and a
Doctor Linn. He was also introduced to the best drawing-rooms of
the Capital.
So far had he now recovered his spirits that we find him at
breakfast in the White House, "his arched feet encased in boots so
smart and elegant as to attract the attention of the President him-
self." At a party given by the Secretary of War nearly all the
guests drank more than was good for them and at a late hour dis-
persed to find their way home as best they could over rough tin-
paved streets, dusty when it was dry and muddy when wet. Sen-
ator Allen, being particularly drank, was escorted by Jones and
Davis, but managed to escape from them and fall into the Tiber,
a river which crawled across Pennsylvania Avenue just below the
Capitol, and oozed on, slow and dirty, into the Potomac flats*
18
04
P*
b
Hi U
s
I
o
HURRICANE AND BRIERFIELD 19
Curtius-like, young Davis leaped into the chasm to the rescue of
his new-found friend, with such results that, when he reached his
mess "he was bleeding profusely from a deep cut in his head, the
blood streaming down over his face and upon his white tie, shirt
front, and white waistcoat." 1
It seems that Allen's fall was broken by his condition, but Davis
was bruised, cut, knocked senseless, and "would have been dead in
five minutes but for the timely arrival of Doctor Linn." In this
peculiar affair, as in other midnight escapades and hairbreadth
escapes, we are assured by those present that Jefferson was cold
sober. In the spring of 1836 Davis, well pleased with his Wash-
ington experiences, landed back at his brother Joseph's home, and,
though out of a job, with brave heart and nerves restored, he took
up his new life.
Undoubtedly he had resigned as lieutenant and moved to Mis-
sissippi to save his young wife the discomforts of an army officer's
life. Moreover, no war was then in sight and promotion had been
slow, one grade only in five years. 2 During the previous summer
and while Mrs. Davis was alive, Joseph had assured Jefferson that
eight hundred acres of the Hurricane plantation should be cut off
and given to him; and Jefferson had sketched the plans of a
queer-looking "cat and clayed house," which Jim Pemberton as
foreman and Joseph Davis's slaves had partly completed out of logs
cut from Hurricane.
The front doors of this bedaubed log cottage were six feet wide
and "when opened the sides of the house seemed knocked down."
By some mistake the windows were breast high "and the fireplaces
so deep they looked as though they were built to roast a sheep
whole." The place was called Brierfield on account of the wilder-
ness of briars thereabout. It was distant from Hurricane about
two miles. While Jefferson Davis was a widower he seldom occu-
pied Brierfield. 8
Mrs. Jefferson Davis's death having changed the plans of the
husband, instead of occupying this cabin he became the guest of
1 Memoir, I, 166.
2 1 follow Mrs. V. Davis's Memoir and not her affidavits. In the lawsuit she
states that her husband quit the army solely because Joseph promised to make
him a present of Brierfield.
tf., Ch. XVI.
20 HURRICANE AND BRIERFIELD
Hurricane, partook of its hospitality, and for eight years rarely
left the plantation. In early life, as we have seen, Joseph had
occupied the relation of parent to Jefferson, and now the young
widower, twenty-eight years of age, was becoming still more in-
debted to his older brother. "Materially and intellectually, I was
more indebted to him than any other person in the world," Jeffer-
son wrote.*
The two brothers, much alike in taste and temperament, were
inseparable. They read aloud from the Congressional Globe, com-
mitted to memory the sayings of Jefferson, were students of the
Constitution, of Eliott's Debates, and of the Virginia and Ken-
tucky Resolutions. Naturally they took interest in the political
parties of the day. They had deep convictions relating to the
rights of the states and the sacredness of property in slaves ; they
followed Calhoun in his earlier resolutions as well as the recent one
directing postmasters to destroy petitions relating to the abolition
of slavery. So sure were they of themselves they were "prone to
suspect insincerity on the part of any one who dissented from
them." 5
During the day the brothers were in the saddle, with gun and
dogs, galloping through the tangled river bottoms, over the planta-
tion roads and byways, looking after the slaves, inspecting the
crops, the fences, and ditches, and discussing the science of agri-
culture. Occasionally they would go to Vicksburg, the county seat
of Warren, and Joseph would preside over the convention of duel-
ists and formulate the code of honor. 6 Natchez, the financial as
well as the social metropolis of Mississippi and the great cotton
market, was their slave depot.
One day soon after Jefferson arrived at Hurricane, Joseph pro-
posed to lend him money enough to stock Brierfield with negroes
and open up a real plantation. At that time, according to Joseph
McKinney, a former slave, "The onlyest nigger Mas' Jeff had was
Jim Pemberton." In after years another of Jefferson Davis's
slaves, Sam Charleston by name, when speaking of the occasion of
his own purchase, said:
"When they had us up in a row at Natchez, Mas' Joe says, *I
* Rowland, Encyclopedia, I, 623 ; 55 Miss. Reports, 691 ; Memoir, I, 33.
*Ibid. t 171.
Footc, Caskets, 186,
HURRICANE AND BRIERFIELD 21
don't buy you ; he [pointing to Mas' Jeff] bought you and he's yo j
Master. 5 Mas' Jeff bring me at the Hurricane and put me to wuk
there; we built the fust cabin. Mas' Jeff at the same time he
bought me bought ole Uncle Robert, Aunt Rhina, Rfaina number
two, William, Jack, Frances, Charlie, ole Charley, Solomon, Betsy,
Fanny, Moses, Jeffreys, young Hager, Kiziah, an' ole Hager."
Other witnesses added to the above list, "Phoebe and Romeo." 7
In a few years these slaves and Jim Pemberton, the foreman, had
wrought wonders at Brierfield. They cleared the forest, cut
ditches, drained the land, planted trees and flowers, laid out high-
ways, and generally brought the plantation up to a high state of
cultivation. Davis's Bend, when "wild land," was worth not more
than five dollars an acre, but when brought under cultivation would
bring from eighty to a hundred dollars. Cotton had supplanted
indigo as the money crop and there were flush times in. Mississippi.
In December, 1836, cotton was bringing twenty cents a pound,
and during such a year Hurricane yielded perhaps twenty thousand
dollars, though Brierfield, smaller and not so well stocked, yielded
nothing like so much. Hurricane indeed was the center of Pal-
myra, and Joseph Davis the lord of the island. 8 Hundreds of slaves
did his bidding. His stables were filled with blooded horses, well
groomed, and designated by appropriate names. There were High-
land Henry, so red he fairly glowed in the noonday sun ; and Black
Oliver, a famous stud, sire of the Davis pacing stock ; and Gray
Medley, a vicious animal that kicked Randall, the groom, to death.
In a short time Jefferson also had fitted himself out with a dozen
well-broken saddle horses. Throughout the Mississippi valley
there were no horsemen that eclipsed the Davis brothers.
Hurricane and Brierfield were also adapted to wild game, which
was more abundant than chickens. "Wild geese in great flocks
fattened on the waste corn in the fields, wild ducks in never-ending
droves circled and fluttered in the December sun, and blue cranes
might be seen lazily standing on one leg adorning every slough, in
the midst of immense lily pads and lemon-colored flowers as large
as coffee cups. 9
T Referring to the well known Jim Jones, often called Jefferson Davis's
slave, he was never a slave, but "an old-issue free nigger."
* I use the word "Palmyra" to designate Davis's Bend
Memoir, I, 203.
22 HURRICANE AND BRIERFIELD
Huge turtles bask by yonder sluggish lake,
A hoarse bull-frog is croaking on the bank
And like a jeweled necklace swings a snake
Amid the mosses of the cypress dank.
Forty miles from Hurricane and just outside of Natchez the
Howell family lived. They were Whigs and the Davises Demo-
crats, yet Joseph had long been a friend of the Howell family.
"Briars," the Howell home, was a comfortable place, though not a
pretentious one. Now in the early 1840*3 Varina Howell was a
young miss of sixteen and Joseph Davis had his eye on her as a
future sister-in-law. Just before the Christmas holidays in 1843,
he therefore sent word to his friends, the Howells, extending a
pressing invitation to the young woman to visit Hurricane, there to
remain a month or longer. The damsel accepted the invitation
and, boarding the steamer Magnolia, landed at the Diamond Place,
a few miles above Hurricane.
At the wharf she was met by one of Joseph Davis's nieces on
horseback. An obsequious man-servant was leading another mount
with a lady's side-saddle; nearby the old-fashioned high-swung
carriage and pair were in evidence to take care of the young lady's
trunks, band-boxes, and other belongings. During the halcyon
days that followed, man and maid were much alone. In the arched
music room, on the wide galleries circling the house above and
below; in the tea room; under the spreading liveoaks; in the
flower garden ; in the saddle the old, old story. But the impres-
sion the young suitor made on his fair visitor was not favorable
and she so wrote her mother.
After describing Jefferson as the kind of a fellow who would
rescue one from a mad dog and then insist on a stoical indifference
as to the fright afterwards, the philosophical little miss goes on to
say, "He impresses me as a remarkable kind of a man, of intense
temper, and has a way of taking for granted that everybody agrees
with him when he expresses an opinion, which offends me. Yet he
is most agreeable and has a peculiarly sweet voice and a winning
manner of asserting himself. I shall never like him as I do his
brother Joe. Would you believe it, he is refined and cultivated
and yet is a Democrat." 10
10 Memoir, I, 192.
VARINA HOWELL
(Mrs. Jefferson Davis)
HURRICANE AND BRIERFIELD 23
In spite of this opinion, however, before the holidays were over,
Jefferson Davis and Varina Howell had entered into a life contract
and on February 26, 1845, were married at the Howell home by
the Episcopal clergyman of Natchez. After visiting Mr. Davis's
kinspeople, including his mother, of whom the young bride was
very fond, the two set up housekeeping in the cat and clayed cot-
tage where they intermittently resided till the Civil War cast them
adrift. This alliance, it must be said, was one of the wisest acts of
Jefferson Davis's life.
Varina Howell, granddaughter of a New Jersey Governor, was
born in Natchez in 1826 and was therefore eighteen years younger
than her husband. The Howell family were people in good circum-
stances and were, as has been said, conservative Whigs. The mar-
riage, therefore, brought to the husband a strength he did not
possess. A well-educated woman, having gone through the best
schools in Philadelphia, Mrs. Davis had a keen Intellect, a sharp
tongue, and deep insight into human nature.
Moreover, she was brave, loyal, self-asserting, and somewhat
coarse. Her lips were thick, her frame compact and stocky, and
her features more masculine than feminine; yet her face was
comely. She was affectionate and a good hater. 11 Until her arrival
on the Mississippi island, peace and concord had prevailed at Hur-
ricane. During the eight years, Joseph and Jefferson, a^ sister, Mrs.
Bradford, Mrs. Joseph Davis and her children had lived as one
family. What was to happen now Jefferson's new wife had
arrived?
I have described Hurricane and Brierfield, newish establishments
in the river bottoms, but have said nothing of the homes of Whig
aristocrats in the older, more healthful, and more cultured sections
of the splendid state of Mississippi. Concord, three miles from
Natchez, had been the residence of a number of old Spanish gov-
ernors. Dunbarton, a fine old estate, was erected by Lord Dunbar.
Summerset, Glenburnie, Longwood, Elmcourt, Brown's Gardens,
and scores of other places, with sweeping lawns, gardens, drives,
noble shade trees, broad verandas supported by classic columns,
and soft interiors, might well be the envy of modern architects.
In the twenties, the resolute and scholarly John Anthony Quit-
man came down from New York and entered this charmed circle ;
II Pollard, Lost Cause, 154; Bradford, 174.
24 HURRICANE AND BRIERFIELD
he was captivated by the ease, the grace, and the dignity of his
surroundings. Writing of the planters who lived luxuriously,
drinking the costliest port, Madeira, and $herry, he tells us how a
guest was treated under the roof of a Mississippi gentleman.
"Your coffee in the morning before sunrise, little stews and
soporifics at night, and warm foot baths if you have a cold. Bou-
quets of fresh flowers and mint juleps sent to your room, a horse
and saddle at your disposal. Everything free and easy and cheer-
ful and cordial." To this quaint picture Reuben Davis adds a
touch when he sighs and exclaims that "the cup of the Mississippi
master was filled to the brim with the sweet and sparkling wine of
success and prosperity and crowded with the roses of joy and
hope." 12
Quitman was a stout interesting fellow to become the governor
of Mississippi ; a general, a filibuster ; and the leading secessionist
of his state. A few years before his arrival, another "Yankee" had
come down from Maine, Sergeant S. Prentiss, the magnetic speaker,
duelist, and Ion vivant. Brave to foolishness, Prentiss was, "yet
he would not hurt Uncle Toby's fly." He and Foote fought two
duels at ten paces and in one encounter Foote was desperately
wounded. As derringers were being primed for a second shot,
Prentiss noticed a small boy climbing a sapling to get a better
view, the crowd around being dense. "My son," said Prentiss to
the youngster, "you'd better take care, General Foote Is shooting
rather wild."
And then the third Yankee to invade Mississippi was Robert J.
Walker of Pennsylvania, brother-in-law of George M. Dallas. Of
doubtful reputation, Walker was yet one of the most practical and
far-sighted southern statesmen from 1830 to 1860 a mere whiffle
of a man, all intellect, with big nose, big head, big eyes. A tariff
builder, a president maker, an expansionist, and the Warwick of
the Democratic party, Walker late in life became the Nemesis of
President Davis, and the enemy, if not the destroyer, of his foreign
policy.
During these golden days, perhaps in national affairs no state in
the South surpassed Mississippi. Three of her sons were called
into the cabinet: Walker, Secretary of the Treasury under Polk;
Davis, JL, 290.
HURRICANE AND BRIERFIELD 25
Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War under Pierce ; and Jacob Thomp-
son, Secretary of the Interior under Buchanan.
To these must be added such local names as the invincible Sen-
ator George Poindexter ; Sharkey, the Chief Justice, wise and con-
servative; the thorough-going Governor A. G. Brown; Governor
McNutt, repudiator and buffoon, yet a most wonderful stump
orator ; and the erratic Henry Stuart Foote, a fiery little man who
wore green goggles and fought duels. But for Foote, Henry Clay
could never have put over his Compromise of 1850, and probably
Mississippi and South Carolina would have seceded and with suc-
cess ten years before they did.
On Mississippi soil indeed, long before the Civil War, everything
converged to a mighty tragedy. Time, place, and circumstances
had met. The actors, too, were fitted to play their parts. Thither
adventurers had flocked by the thousands. Mississippi was the
melting pot of America; aristocrats from the worn-out lands of
Virginia and Carolina settled near Natchez, Washington, and
Woodville; roughnecks from Tennessee, Georgia, Pennsylvania,
and from foreign lands, preempted the rich bottoms and North
Mississippi.
In one year Virginia sold a hundred thousand slaves on credit
to the Mississippi and other far southern planters, thereby pre-
cipitating a panic. A thousand steamboats, gaudily painted and
richly furnished, raced and bellowed up and down the Mississippi
Riven Crowded with sightseers and new settlers, these boats often
exploded and drowned the passengers by the hundreds. In a
decade the state's population more than doubled, the slave popula-
tion increasing faster than the white. 13 When cotton was bringing
twenty cents a pound and the banks had not failed, every one was
rich ; but when the fleecy staple fell to eight cents, every one was
dead broke.
"To-day we drink; to-morrow we die," was the Mississippi
motto. Duels were of frequent occurrence. Natchez-under-the-
Hill typified the times. Steamers approaching the harbor fired a
salute. From the shore an answering cannon boomed, and the
disreputable place was ready to receive the cargo. Barrooms,
dives, brothels, gambling hells, courtesans, murderers, highwaymen
is Slave population of Mississippi : 1800, 3,400 ; 1810, 17,000 ; 1820, 32,000 ;
1830, 65,000; 1840, 195,000; 1850, 309iOOo; 1860, 437,000.
26 HURRICANE AND BRIERFIELD
the off-scourings of the earth thugs from the four corners of the
world, made up Natchez-under-the-Hill. And yet, just above the
bluff was Natchez proper, a comely city, with banks, churches,
hotels, residences, ornate and beautiful, and a theatre at which
Booth and Barrett filled an engagement of nine nights.
The lawlessness and demoralization of Mississippi in these flush
times were not confined to society and politics, they found ex-
pression in the halls of justice. On one occasion Reuben Davis,
brave as Julius Caesar, was defending a criminal when the simple
question arose as to how many challenges the state was entitled to.
"Four," the prosecuting attorney insisted. "No," said Davis, "only
two." Judge Howry ruled with the state's attorney. Davis called
for the statutes and they confirmed his contention. "So, sir," said
the triumphant Davis, "you see I am right." The prosecuting
attorney, though ordered to take his seat, continued standing and
the judge very strangely fined Davis fifty dollars for contempt,
Davis whipped "out a knife with a long keen blade, and dashed
it into the desk till it quivered and broke." An uproar ensued.
Three men seized Davis and two the judge. The court stood ad-
journed till the afternoon. During the recess Davis met Judge
Howry in the hotel corridor and demanded an explanation.
"I give no explanation of my official conduct," the judge proudly
retorted. "In a moment," says Davis, "I had slapped him in the
face with my open hand. . . . Seizing a claw hammer, the judge
broke and depressed the outer plate of my jawbone when I opened
the broken knife and rushed at him. I then made another stroke
at his jugular with the corner of my knife blade." A crowd, get-
ting wind of the fracas, separated the belligerents and Judge
Howry's court stood adjourned, sine die
These were the times, these were the morals in which Jeff Davis
was reared, but in his island home he was poring undisturbed over
his books, getting ready for leadership, 15 and why not the greatest?
Strikingly handsome, erect, six feet two inches in his stockings,
better equipped than any competitor, conscious of power, the im-
perious young Southron proposed to climb the ladder to the utmost
rung climb it or perish in the ascent,
14 Davis, R., 147.
18 Geologists declare that Davis's Bend was once an island
CHAPTER IV
RAGTAG AND BOBTAIL
Only once did Mississippi cast her vote for a Whig President,
and that was in the log-cabin and hard-cider campaign of 1840,
when "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" were elected. At all other times
the bold adventurous state' swept forward for an academic democ-
racy and for slavery extension. Whigs as a class, being conserva-
tive, stood for the rights of property as well as of persons.
South Mississippi, in which the Davis brothers lived, was the
older and more cultured part of the state and therefore attached
to the Whig party. The newer, ruder, and tipper half, from which
the Indians had not been driven till 1831, was Democratic. The
conflict between the two sections was bitter in the extreme and in
nothing was it more manifested than in matters of finance.
In 1817 Mississippi had been admitted as a slave state to offset
Indiana, which came in the year before as a free state. During its
territorial existence money had been scarce, and the legislature had
allowed receipts for cotton delivered at a public gin to pass as a
circulating medium. After statehood the process had been made
still easier. Receipts for cotton delivered but not ginned were
made currency. This crude arrangement continued until 1832,
when it was superseded by the Planters Bank. This bank, as will
be remembered, was organized the very year when Jackson vetoed
the act authorizing an extension of the charter of the Bank of the
United States and when there was a panic in the land.
But the supply of money was still short of the demand ; the cot-
ton crop of Mississippi, worth fifteen million or more, could not be
moved with six million in cash. The Union and other banks were
therefore chartered. In 1836 the Union Bank sold five millions of
its bonds, duly endorsed by the State of Mississippi, to the United
States Bank of Pennsylvania, of which the famous Nicholas Biddle
was president. When the Biddle gold landed at Natchez, there
was public rejoicing. A band escorted the precious metal along
27
28 RAGTAG AND BOBTAIL
the streets, cannon roared, and bonfires blazed. The money panic
was broken at last.
The Planters Bank bonds involved a more complicated scheme.
The Bank's officers had procured from the legislature an act
authorizing an exchange of several millions of its stock for a like
amount of state bonds. The exchange was made, and the bonds
were issued and sold in the markets of the world for full value.
The great banking scheme was now well under way. Impecunious
planters borrowed all they could get, mortgaging lands, cotton,
slaves, horses, mules, and what not. Soon the funds were all
placed. Commerce was king and Ragtag and Bobtail his cabinet
council. 1 The plans above outlined had been fathered by the
Democratic party, endorsed by two legislatures and twice approved
by McNutt, the Democratic governor. An agricultural state of
only 350,000 people had piled up a debt of seventeen million dol-
lars ; interest was more than a million a year and the per capita
tax more than forty-five dollars. Yet "shin plasters" continued to
circulate it being a dueling offence to refuse any gentleman's rag
money. 2
A gay state was Mississippi during the second Mississippi
Bubble, if Reuben Davis gives a true picture. "I have often
laughed," he wrote, "at the recollection of a scene of which I was
only a spectator that winter in Jackson. It was far on in the
depth of a winter night when I was awakened by a confusion of
sounds in the street: music predominated. I threw open a window
and beheld a long line of well-dressed gentlemen proceeding in
single file down the middle of the street and loudly singing the then
popular melody, 'Buffalo Bull Came Down the Meadow. 7 It was
the legislature of Mississippi indulging in an airing after having
spent an evening in the worship of Bacchus. The chorus was given
with a will and the streets fairly resounded with the lively ditty.
It was a sight long to be remembered."
The reign of rag money was a short one. The Union bonds first
fell due and non-resident holders demanded coin. They had a
right to do this under Jackson's specie circular, though Taney,
Secretary of the Treasury, had endorsed the bank-scheme, rag
money and all. At once the wildcat project collapsed, and in 1841,
1 Rowland, Encyclopedia, I, 195 ; Baldwin, 88.
2 Called "shin plasters," Montgomery, 22.
RAGTAG AND BOBTAIL 29
Governor McNutt, who had signed the Union bonds, urged their
repudiation. The governor's message was highly characteristic.
"The Rothschilds," said he, "have a mortgage on the tomb of the
Saviour ; shall they also get a lien on our cotton fields and our
children?"
Repudiation entered politics and became the only issue before
the people. General demoralization set in. It was a time of rage
and excitement. Thousands of acres of valuable land went under
the hammer and homes were broken up. Creditors who could get
away fled and went to Texas, the return on writs of attachment
being, "G. T. T.": Gone to Texas. Tucker, advocating repudia-
tion, was elected governor, but the legislature refused to pass an
act of repudiation.
During the campaign the attack on the Union Bank bonds had
been two-fold. First, that the Union Bank to which the bonds
were issued was a different corporation from the one authorized by
the statute. Second, that the constitutional requirements that a
measure of this kind should be passed by two separate legislatures
had not been complied with. These objections were purely tech-
nical and did not go into the merits of the matter and the State
Supreme Court so decided, as we shall presently see.
The campaign of 1843 was likewise waged on the issue of repudi-
ation, and in this condition of the politics of Mississippi it was
Jefferson Davis's ill luck to emerge from his retreat at Brierfield
and enter the race as the Democratic candidate for the Senate from
Warren County. The Democrats favored repudiation ; the Whigs
advocated the payment of the bonds. The many friends of young
Davis, recognizing his gifts as a scholar and thinker, brought him
out to attack the Union Bank bonds. 3 Davis's opponent was Ser-
geant S. Prentiss of Vicksburg, already mentioned, a wonderfully
weird and dramatic orator whose "strange charm was like music
and poetry and flame and fire and love and hate and memory and
aspiration, all bearing away in one swift torrent the souls given up
to its enchantment."
A joint disqission between the two candidates took place at
Vicksburg, and under the terms of the debate the speakers were to
alternate, each speaking an hour and then making way for the
other. The debate was to continue until the subject was exhausted.
8 Davis, R., 82, 166.
30 RAGTAG AND BOBTAIL
A large crowd gathered and sat through two days of oratory.
Prentiss insisted the bonds were valid, that dollar for dollar had
been paid for them and the good faith of the state was at stake.
Davis attacked the Union bonds. They were invalid, he asserted,
and had not been issued according to the Constitution, in that the
act had not been passed by two legislatures, 4 and the Union Bank,
when it purchased the bonds, "was tottering to its fall and had con-
cealed its identity." The suggestion that innocent people, includ-
ing widows and orphans, would be ruined by repudiation he laughed
at, as "the bonds had not been sold in the open market but to a
Philadelphia bank" and since then negotiated abroad.
Prentiss replied that one legislature had passed the act and an-
other had approved it; that the contention that the act was
changed by the second legislature was highly technical, as the
change did not at all affect the substance of the measure. Davis
agreed that if the Supreme Court should declare the bonds valid
they ought to be paid. When the election took place, Prentiss
triumphed and Davis was defeated.
I shall anticipate the course of events and finish Jefferson Davis's
connection with this repudiation matter. In 1847 and 1848, Thomas
E. Robins from Mississippi came to Washington, while Davis was
in the Senate. The two had a conference with respect to the
repudiation of the Union Bank bonds. R. J. Walker, Secretary
of the Treasury, was called in and his advice asked. Davis pro-
posed to send Robins to England to offer to pay the bondholders in
part of their claims if they would surrender the state's bonds.
Davis and his associates "were to recognize the legality of the
claim and the bondholders were to admit the absence of liability." *
The funds with which to compromise with the bondholders were to
be raised by private subscription. Walker refused to have any
connection with the matter. Robins's offer was rejected by the for-
eign bondholders, who refused to accept the notes of individuals
in full payment of their "scaled" claim. "The bondholders over-
estimated the legality of their bonds," Davis long afterwards com-
mented, "or else underestimated the pride and ability of the sub-
scribers."
4 This point had been decided against Davis by the Supreme Court the year
before, as we shall presently see.
5 Rowland, VII, 267, 474.
RAGTAG AND BOBTAIL 31
In 1849 the London Times made an attack on the State of Mis-
sissippi because of her attitude in this matter. Thereupon, Senator
Davis wrote a public reply, almost as unfortunate as Governor
McNutt's message. 6 He laughed "at the crocodile tears shed over
innocent bondholders," insisted that the bank which purchased the
bonds "was tottering to its fall and had concealed the transaction
under the name of an individual." He ridiculed "the rickety
bank," flatly repudiated the Union Bank bonds and suggested that
"the Planters' bonds might be taken care of." T
In 1853 a plebescite was ordered on the repudiation of the
Planters' bonds. When the election was held, Jefferson Davis ap-
proached the polls and, holding his ballot in air, announced he
was voting against payment. The bonds were repudiated by the
people. 8
The letter to which I have referred reads as follows : "The state
of Mississippi has no other question with Bondholders," Senator
Davis wrote, "than that of debt or no debt. When the United
States Bank of Pennsylvania purchased what is known as Union
Bank bonds, it was within the power of any stockholder to learn
that they had been issued in disregard of the Constitution of the
State, whose faith they assumed to pledge.
"By the Constitution and laws of Mississippi, any creditor may
bring his suit and test his claim. To this the bondholders have
been invited, but conscious that they have no valid claim they have
not sought their remedy. Relying upon empty (because false)
denunciation, they have made it a point of honor to show what can
be seen by judicial investigation; i.e., that there being no debt
there can be no default.
"The crocodile tears that have been shed over ruined creditors
are on a par with the baseless denunciations which have been
heaped upon the state. These bonds were then purchased by a
bank, then tottering to its fall, purchased in violation of the Char-
ter of the Bank, or fraudulently by concealing the transaction
under the name of an individual, as may best suit those concerned
purchased in violation of the terms of the law under which the
6 Washington Union, Davis's paper, May 25, 1849; Mississippian, August
29, 1849-
7 Memoir, I, 182 ; Rowland, Encyclopedia, I, 613.
* Foote, Caskets, 186, 214.
32 RAGTAG AND BOBTAIL
bonds were issued and in disregard of the Constitution of Mis-
sissippi of which the law was an infraction.
"To sustain the credit of that rickety bank, the bonds were being
purchased abroad for interest on loans which could not be met as
they became due.
"A smaller amount is due for what are termed Planters Bank
Bonds of Mississippi. These evidences of debt, as well as the cou-
pons issued to cover accruing interest, are receivable for state lands
and no one has a right to assume that they will not be provided
for otherwise, by or before the date at which the whole debt be-
comes due."
An important point in connection with the Prentiss-Davis debate
of 1843 was this: What had the Mississippi courts then decided?
Had they held the act incorporating the Union Bank valid and
constitutional? Undoubtedly the courts had so held. In January,
1842, a year before the Prentiss debate, the Supreme Court decided
that very point in the affirmative. Though this decision was bind-
ing in that case alone, it nevertheless cut the props from under the
repudiationists in their campaign of 1843, ai *d left no attack upon
the bonds except the flimsy one that they were not disposed of in
the open market and that "the tottering bank was concealed in the
purchase."
At the April term, 1843, of the Supreme Court, the point raised
by the repudiationists was again presented. This was in the
famous Johnson case. The Court unanimously decided that the
bonds were valid and that the Union Bank was a legal institution
and the act authorizing the state to pledge its faith was constitu-
tional and had been duly passed by two legislatures, strictly ac-
cording to the fundamental law.
The Court was then composed of Smith, Fisher, and Yerger,
judges of character and strength, and the opinion was delivered by
the Chief Justice. In delivering his opinion, Chief Justice Smith
said that, after the most careful consideration, the Court had
arrived at the conclusion that the decree of the chancellor should
* Campbell vs. Union Bank, 6 Howard, 625 ; Lalor Cyclopadw, III, 605 ;
Hart, Slavery md Abolition, 308; Dodd, 64; Walthall, 9; Pollard, Dams, 22;
Claiborne, 423; Shields, 327; Gordon, 41; Ridgeway, William, London, 3rd
Edition, 1864, pamphlet; Van Horne, John Douglass, Jefferson Dams and
Repudiation in Mississippi Davis's defense is presented in this last pamphlet
RAGTAG AND BOBTAIL 33
be affirmed and that the bonds were the valid obligation of the
state. A petition to rehear was filed and argued, but the Court
adhered to its former opinion. The judges had done their duty
but they "laid their judicial career on the altar of their con-
science." 10
Though Jefferson Davis had been defeated by Prentiss, his
friends were well pleased with the canvass. Unabashed, the young
man had stood up against the mighty Whig orator and given a good
account of himself. And of the campaign it must be said that it
taught the youthful politician a needed lesson; he must get out
of local politics and cast his net in deeper water. Moreover, he
must leave his secluded island abode and mingle more freely with
the people of Warren County and of central Mississippi. Vicks-
burg, the county seat of Warren, was only an hour's distance by
boat from Brierfield ; he must cultivate Vicksburg.
And a wonderful place Vicksburg was. Perched on lofty bluffs
overlooking the winding Mississippi, capital of the rich and fertile
county of Warren, the home of noted statesmen and men of affairs,
Vicksburg would be ideal headquarters should he enter national
politics. Dreams of a career took possession of the young man's
mind and stirred his emotions. A seat in Congress, a Senator's
robes, why not the Presidency itself? Mississippi was perhaps
the foremost state of the Far South, Warren County the center
of political contests, as well as of hand-to-hand conflicts of a more
personal nature; Vicksburg indeed was "the famous duelling
ground of the state." With Vicksburg as a nucleus, therefore, Jef-
ferson Davis's influence would radiate far and wide.
In those quiet formative days little did Jefferson Davis dream of
the fate in store for his beloved Brierfield and for the doomed city
of Vicksburg. Well was it indeed "for those who dwelt at ease in
those pleasant places that no dream of the ghastly future came to
disturb their gay prosperity ; that none could foresee the anguish
of their gallant struggle, the humiliation of defeat, the bitterness of
poverty in chains, and a city in ruins, with her best and bravest
offered up in vain. 11 Already these things were written in the book
of fate, but the vision was sealed and no prophet arose to open it.
10 Biographical History of Mississippi, 128, 1891.
n Davis, R,, 85,
34 RAGTAG AND BOBTAIL
And the sun shone and the land rejoiced and men and women
walked lightly along the way appointed them." 12
With thoughts of honors to be won Jefferson Davis, in company
with his brother Joseph, gave his spare moments to national poli-
tics. At this time the chief issue before the American people was
the annexation of Texas. Having gained her independence in 1836
and become a republic, Texas was knocking for admission into the
United States. But Mexico would not recognize the new republic
and matters were at a standstill. In these circumstances what
should the United States do : admit Texas or let that vast country
be taken over by Great Britain and probably become a "free"
state? Could a southern man hesitate? Davis reflected. Half a
million square miles ready to fall into the lap of the United States
for the asking strengthening the cause of slavery and the South
and not eagerly accepted ?
The Louisiana Purchase had proven a boomerang, as all of it
north of 36 30' had become free territory. The Free Soil party
demanded this, the Missouri Compromise guaranteed it, and cow-
ardly southern Whigs, as the Davis brothers charged, were now
opposing annexation because, forsooth, it might stir up sectional
strife and create further slavery friction.
The conservatism of southern Whigs and of weak-kneed Demo-
crats disgusted the two stalwart Southerners. They opposed all
compromise, stood for the sovereignty of the states, insisted on the
inviolability of property in slaves under the Constitution, and re-
sisted all encroachments upon the rights of the South. The enemy
must be met on the frontier, and the sooner the better. 13
Daily the two brothers witnessed the growth of the Northwest.
Well they understood the danger to slavery unless a definite plan
for its protection was adopted. A practical surveyor, Jefferson
Davis knew the topography of the country from New Orleans to
the Canadian border. He had often sailed the Mississippi. How
much wider from east to west the northern border of the United
States than the southern the northern border three thousand
miles across ; the southern, a few hundred miles? Like a boy's, top
the United States spread wide above and narrow below. What an
12 Twenty thousand Confederate soldiers were killed in and around Vicks-
btirg and sixteen thousand Union soldiers He buried in her soil
13 Hodgson, 273.
RAGTAG AND BOBTAIL 35
advantage to the North and to the Free Soilers ! Why not change
this, annex Texas, tear from Mexico her choicest jewels, and cap-
ture Cuba? 14
Such was the dream of Jefferson Davis when he cut loose from
local politics and entered the larger arena. And the times were
propitious. In the Northwest he had many old army and Transyl-
vania friends. At home Senator R. J. Walker was willing to groom
him, and Walker was "the lion of Mississippi politics. 7 ' 15 Coop-
erating with Walker were a group of fiery politicians and state
rights Democrats but expansionists as well: H. A. Foote, J. A.
Quitman, A. G. Brown, and Jacob Thompson. With these men
Davis now allied himself. Though he was not in accord with
them as to the next presidential candidate, on the issues of state
rights, slavery, and expansion he was.
Shortly the Democratic party met in Jackson to elect delegates
to a national convention. In a speech well prepared, well deliv-
ered, and well received, Jefferson Davis presented the name of his
political idol, John C. Calhoun. As the Democrats present looked
into the earnest face and heard the sincere, burning words of the
rising young orator, they realized there was a new star in the
firmament.
But R. J. Walker, wiser and more practical than Davis, opposed
Calhoun and preferred another candidate. He wished a colorless
man, one with a shorter record and fewer enemies. In the Conven-
tion Davis lost out and Calhoun failed to get the endorsement of
Mississippi. The defeat of the great Nullifier was due in part to
the fact that Walker was a candidate for Vice-President and two
men from the South could not be placed on the same ticket.
The National Democratic Convention met in Baltimore on May
27, 1844, the leading candidates being Tyler, Buchanan, Pierce, and
Van Buren. Benton had been mentioned for the place but he was
not sound on the Texas question, a fact that disqualified him.
Opposition to Texas was also the barrier in Van Buren's path and
he was soon dropped. As for Calhoun, he had retired from the race
soon after entering it. The curse of Old Hickory Jackson was
upon him and, in Adams's quaint phrase, he was now but a drown-
ing man.
100.
is Vicksburg Sentinel, Feb. i, 1845.
36 RAGTAG AND BOBTAIL
On the eighth ballot, James K. Polk, who had been a candidate
for the humble place of Vice-President, was sprung upon the Con-
vention as a dark horse perhaps the first dark horse to enter a
presidential race. Polk was sound on the annexation of Texas
and was without a record, except as a partisan Democrat ; he there-
fore attracted the votes of the delegates anxious to turn out the
Whigs. Senator Walker, having combined with Pennsylvania,
Tennessee, North Carolina and other states, enforced the two-
thirds rule. Under this rule the leading candidates killed them-
selves off and Polk was nominated. George M. Dallas, Walker's
brother-in-law, was nominated for Vice-President and Walker him-
self slated for a seat in the cabinet.
A spreadeagle platform was adopted. The British lion's tail was
twisted, and "the re-annexation of Texas and the re-occupation of
Oregon" soon filled the air. "Fifty-four forty or fight 77 was the
slogan of the convention. This meant that Oregon was to be an-
nexed and her bounds were to be extended so as to run four hun-
dred miles across the Canadian border and into British territory 1
One plank of the platform indeed pledged the party that the Twin
Sisters Texas and Oregon should be admitted into the Union
hand in hand.
At the Mississippi state convention Jefferson Davis was made a
district elector on the Polk and Dallas ticket, and canvassed the
state with Foote, an elector at large. The canvass brought Davis
much reputation. Great crowds came out to hear the speakers.
The debate was sometimes joint, though generally ex parte. There
were barbecues, cock-fights, brass bands, horse races, wild flights
of oratory, fisticuffs, and much liquor.
No two public speakers were ever more unlike than Henry
Stuart Foote and Jefferson Davis. Foote was a garrulous little
man, coarse and unscrupulous in the use of offensive language, and
his speeches were "as thickly studded with proverbial phrases, and
as redundant with wild untrained metaphors as the luxuriant cane
brakes." Davis, on the other hand, was composed and restrained.
He spoke in a clear, well-modulated voice, never ranting or p&wing
the air, brooking no familiarity, indulging in no smutty stories or
side-splitting anecdotes, and never making the welkin ring. Pre-
cise, formal, and dogmatic, Davis was not a typical southern
RAGTAG AND BOBTAIL 37
speaker, yet the people were captivated by his musical voice, mili-
tary bearing, earnestness, and sincerity, and with the depth of his
learning. In nothing did Foote and Davis resemble each other,
save that each was always looking for trouble and each would
fight at the drop of a hat.
Polk carried the state, but Foote and Davis were soon at dag-
gers' points. Foote insisted that Colonel Glenn, a co-elector, be ap-
pointed to carry Mississippi's vote to Washington. Davis opposed
Foote and defeated his candidate. From this time forth no love
was lost between H. S. Foote and Jefferson Davis. 18
In 1845 Davis was nominated for Congress, and as the vote was
by the state at large and not by districts, he was elected without a
canvass and almost without opposition. Now, during the presi-
dential canvass of the previous year, he had overtaxed himself and
contracted fever, as in 1836. The disease settled in his eyes, almost
destroying one of them. Amaurosis, the doctor called the trouble;
but neither amaurosis nor yellow Mississippi chills nor things
above nor things below, could daunt the dauntless spirit of this
man.
In December, 1845, Calhoun passed up the Mississippi and ad-
dressed the people at Vicksburg. Davis introduced him. To Ms
wife as amanuensis he had dictated an ornate, flowery introduction.
This he committed to memory and fired off in great style, to the
delight of the unterrified democracy and to the joy of his young
wife.
"How proud and happy I was," she writes. "Gazing in his face
I felt like an inglorious Columbus who had discovered a new con-
tinent." In her excellent Memoir Mrs. Davis gives a picture of
John C. Calhoun as he then appeared. "He looked out from bushy
eyebrows that made his deep sockets look still more sunken ; his
language was plain to poverty. . . . There was neither trope nor
simile he seemed to be speaking to one man alone."
A great occasion it was for the Jefferson Davis family, who next
day took the boat at Vicksburg to journey forth upon the vast,
surging and troubled sea of national politics. They chose the
northern route by way of Wheeling and Pittsburg. The weather
being bitterly cold, the Ohio River was frozen, and three disagree-
" Foote, Bar of West, 252.
38 RAGTAG AND BOBTAIL
able weeks were consumed in the journey. Mr. Davis's feet were
nearly frozen, but at last they arrived at Washington City and
took rooms at the National Hotel. They soon moved off the
Avenue, however, to the Congressional mess of George W. Jones,
and of the Mississippi senators and representatives.
CHAPTER V
CONGRESS AND CAMP
In their new home Congressman and Mrs. Davis lived modestly
and without display. They kept neither coach nor horses, nor did
they undertake an establishment of any kind. On the contrary
they chose a near-in mess, where expenses were borne jointly by a
dozen families and the meals served in a community dining room.
Despite these unostentatious surroundings, the Davises saw much
of Washington society. Mrs. Davis fitted in well with the breezy
Westerners. Her mother and Senator Walker's wife had been
childhood chums. Mrs. Walker, a granddaughter of Benjamin
Franklin, was a member of the well-known Bache family of Penn-
sylvania and a leader in the social circles of Washington. Robert
C. Winthrop, the scholarly and aristocratic Whig member from
Boston, was also drawn to the Davises on account of the first Mrs.
Davis who, as we have seen, was a daughter of Zachary Taylor.
No one was more beloved than "Old Rough and Ready," soon to
become the Whig president.
Then there were the Ingersolls of Pennsylvania, George W.
Jones of Iowa, and a handsome bachelor, James Buchanan, all on
terms of intimacy with the new congressman's family. That these
associations were rather with Northerners and Westerners than
Southerners is quite natural, Mrs. Davis's people coming from New
Jersey and Mr. Davis's college and army mates from the North
and West and not from the South.
But Jefferson Davis was not now out for pleasure or social ad-
vancement. From the day of his arrival at the Capital he buckled
down to the real work of serving the country according to his
lights. Often he spent whole nights investigating historical and
political problems, or poring over Congressional debates and other
public documents. When his eyes flagged Mrs. Davis, who sacri-
ficed herself to her husband's health and comfort, would read
aloud to him.
Great issues agitated the country, and to keep abreast of the
39
40 CONGRESS AND CAMP
times and stand up against the well-furnished debaters of the
House was no easy job. The wonderfully acute ex-President, John
Quincy Adams, with his interminable petitions against slavery,
must be watched ; and Giddings, the plain-spoken Ohio abolitionist ;
and Hannibal Hamlin, later Lincoln's Vice-President ; and the wiry
audacious "Little Giant," Stephen A. Douglas.
Among southern members of Congress Davis considered Andrew
Johnson, the Tennessee tailor, both a demagogue and a renegade
to the South. Yancey and Rhett, the southern hotspurs, he knew
were right on the great issue of slavery and state rights, but pre-
cipitate in urging secession before the South had become solid.
Union Whigs, John Bell of Tennessee, Badger of North Carolina,
and Toombs of Georgia, were but timid submissionists. Jefferson
Davis had no objection to the "Confederation of States," but this
must not be at the expense of slavery, state sovereignty, and seces-
sion if necessary. His association at this time was more with Sec-
retary of State Calhoun than any other person. Calhoun, he con-
sidered "the wisest man he ever knew, though he did not agree
with Calhoun J s Nullification doctrine/' *
In 1820 when Secretary of War under Monroe, Calhoun had
given his opinion that the Missouri Compromise was constitu-
tional and Congress had the right to legislate slavery out of the
Louisiana Territory and exclude it wholly north of 36 30'. And
this Congress had done. But Calhoun had now changed his mind,
no doubt influenced by the Virginia Debates oj 1832, prepared by
Thomas R, Dew, professor of Political Economy in William and
Mary College. "Slavery was the cause of civilization," Dew
taught, "and the sole cause." 2
Hatred of the great Unionist, Andrew Jackson, was also a cause
that moved Calhoun from nationalism to state rights. The growth
of abolitionism in the North and the decline of that sentiment in
the South must have had weight with Calhoun, as did the dom-
inance of King Cotton. Cotton had become a world power, and the
crop had multiplied a hundred-fold since the invention of the cot-
ton gin. The demand for slave labor had likewise increased and
the price of a prime slave had risen to a thousand dollars.
Calhoun's change of front is set forth in a series of resolutions
1 Great Political Debates, XXI, 123,
2 Christy, 551.
CONGRESS AND CAMP 41
offered in the Senate December 27, 1837. These resolutions de-
clared that there should be no interference with slavery by Con-
gress and no discrimination against slavery, or, as Calhoun after-
wards put it, "the whole land must be slave." 3 "Abolish slavery,"
he indignantly exclaimed. "Why, Sirs, slavery has grown with our
growth, strengthened with our strength and no other system can
be substituted. We will not, cannot permit it to be destroyed."
"How," he asked, "can there be two sovereignties a state and a
national? As the state was sovereign before the United States,
and has not parted with its sovereignty, the state is supreme, and
not the United States." *
Such were the teachings of Calhoun imbibed by Davis, his apt
and aggressive young friend. And these views had spread like
wildfire through South Carolina, Mississippi, and other far south-
ern states. "The Spirit of '76" was gone. Slavery, slavery, slavery !
This was the triumphant cry, and more slave territory the demand.
By correspondence and by pamphlet, by press and word of mouth,
leaders like Calhoun and Davis were preaching state sovereignty
and property rights in slavery and urging the South to organize
and meet the enemies of the South at the threshold. 5
But like most men of one idea, Calhoun and Davis had a fatal
delusion. They imagined that free speech and the right of petition
could be suppressed. This Calhoun had been attempting for a
dozen years. In 1836 when abolition petitions had been submitted
to Congress, he was dumbfounded. "This Union must go," he
declared, "unless discussion stops." For presenting such petitions
Adams and Giddings had been rebuked and threatened with per-
sonal violence. What is known as Rule 21, or the Gag Rule, had
been adopted by the House. Abolition petitions would be received
but go on the table automatically and without debate. Each sec-
ond year for nearly a decade this absurd rule was re-adopted, with
the result that from 1835 to 1844 more time was given to the dis-
cussion of abolition petitions than to any other subject. This
policy naturally defeated itself, provoked greater discussion, and
broadcast, from Lakes to Gulf, the folly and evils of slavery. The
Gag Rule had become a boomerang and was repealed in 1844.
Letter to W. R. King of August 12, 1844.
*Merriam, 328.
6 Brown, 107.
42 CONGRESS AND CAMP
If one were asked to fix the precise period of time when southern
decadence began, he would have to name the i83o's and i84o's. It
was then slavery ceased to be a necessary evil or a temporary ex-
pedient and became a permanent institution. 6 And this condition
was brought about largely by the leaders of the Democratic party.
These men placed slavery above the United States mails, above
the Constitution, above the Union, and they taught that slavery,
the peculiar institution as it was called, was a sound, economic doc-
trine. "God forbid," said Governor McDuffie, "that my descend-
ants should live in any community without slavery." A long step
and a fatal one since 1776 and the days of Washington, when
slavery was considered an evil to be done away with as soon as
possible.
A contributing cause of the mental change of North and South
toward slavery was undoubtedly commercial. The cold northern
climate was unsuited to slavery, and slaves there were soon sold
to southern planters/ The warm South, however, was a slave
heaven, and the "nigger and the mule" the groundwork of south-
ern prosperity. Somewhat earlier the cotton gin had been per-
fected and large crops were raised at good prices. Cotton-growing
was so profitable that it was running out infant factories and fixing
the South as a slave land* Cotton was likewise dominating Eng-
land and the world; and in the wake of King Cotton slavery
obediently trailed. 8
The chief matter engrossing Calhoun and Davis at the moment,
therefore, was the strengthening of slavery by annexing Texas and
the creating of more slave territory. 10 Originally an expansionist,
a protectionist, and the champion of a western alliance, Calhoun
would still have advocated this course provided the West had ac-
knowledged the legality and morality of slavery. In these views
the imperialistic Davis concurred, but he went much further. He
would not only annex Texas, he would acquire Cuba and overrun
Fiish, 284.
7 Francis Lieber removed from South Carolina because of hatred of slavery
but sold his slaves at the highest market price when departing ! Joseph Barn-
well gave me this incident.
8 In 1800 less than 100,000 bales of cotton were raised, In 1835
1,000,000 bales, and in 1846 nearly 2,000,000 bales.
* Scherer, 235.
10 Dodd, ioj.
CONGRESS AND CAMP 43
the whole of Mexico, making as much territory in the South as in
the North. He likewise favored a Mexican war to free Texas,
though Calhoun did not. A big country had no terrors for Jefferson
Davis, the bigger the better, provided state rights and slavery were
safeguarded. "Patriotism is unlike gravity," said Congressman
Davis. "It increases with the distance from the center and I find
no truer patriots than the men of the Northwest and of the far
South."
The first resolution offered by Davis was essentially nationalistic
and opposed to state rights. He proposed that United States forts
and barracks be converted into military schools and camps where
young officers should be fitted to command an efficient standing
army. That is, he wished to establish numerous West Points
throughout the land.
The cause of the foreigner the young Congressman likewise
espoused, urging that he be not excluded from free America.
Criticising the native American party, whose chief plank was op-
position to foreigners, Davis lost his poise. "I have an utter de-
testation," he exclaimed, "for the Native American party and for
its sordid character and arrogant assumption."
Presently the two great issues of the last campaign, what to do
with Texas and what to do with Oregon, came up. On these issues
the Democrats had swept the country and Polk had been elected.
"Re-annex Texas and re-occupy Oregon," had been the Democratic
slogan. Texas was to be re-annexed, as she was once within the
Louisiana Purchase and a part of the United States. She had been
incautiously ceded to Spain when Florida was purchased in 1819.
Oregon was to be re-occupied because the United States had occu-
pied that land before the British did and also owned it by dis-
covery. It will be remembered that since 1818 the United States
and England had occupied Oregon under a joint agreement; and
that each, thereby, recognized the rights of the other in some por-
tion of Oregon. Regardless of this fact the Democratic party con-
tended that the United States owned the whole of Oregon, and
that England was an intruder.
In 1844 Tyler, through Calhoun, his Secretary of State, had hur-
riedly negotiated a treaty to annex Texas, but the Senate had
failed to ratify it. Explaining his hasty action in this matter, Cal-
houn contended that England had covetous eyes on Texas and Call-
44 CONGRESS AND CAMP
forma, and was about to annex Texas herself. England "had it in"
for the United States and was going to annex Texas in order to
make it "free" territory and thereby destroy slavery in the South.
She would destroy the South and in so doing destroy the entire
United States besides ! Calhoun's real reason for annexing Texas
was to give the South the balance of power. 11
The failure of the Senate to ratify Tyler's action threw fiery
Southerners into a commotion. Congressman Holmes of South
Carolina asserted that a crisis had arisen and must be met. "Texas
is the stake," Holmes shouted, "and here we stand and breast us to
the storm!" This challenge, the Northwest, through Dargan of
Ohio, accepted. "Truly there is a crisis," said Dargan, "but Ore-
gon, not Texas, is the stake, and here we stand and breast us to
the storm."
Now on both of these issues Davis stood with the extreme South
for Texas and against Oregon. His first set speech was on Presi-
dent Folk's inaugural and the Oregon question. Here, as later, his
approach was characteristic. He opened by defying public opinion
and denouncing the demagogue as a fellow not brave enough to
withstand false clamor; he then called upon the people to do
right and not to be rushed into war with England. Having uttered
these brave words, he proceeded to vote against Oregon but in
favor of Texas. In a word, he was willing to fight an unjust war
for slave territory, but unwilling to fight an unjust war for free
territory. And Davis's argument was a strong one. Both meas-
ures, the annexation of Texas and the occupation of Oregon, could
not be put through at the same time. If undertaken, England and
Mexico would combine against the United States. Thereby Texas,
as well as California and Oregon, would be lost, and the country
would have no seaport on the west.
Now it must be said that the last national campaign had
alarmed Jefferson Davis. In that fight the Liberty party had
taken a fyand, advocating the doctrine of abolition and the ex-
clusion of slavery from the territories. But for this party, Polk
would have been defeated for President and Henry Clay elected.
Had not J. G. Birney, the candidate of the Liberty party, taken
from Clay the vote of New York, the Whigs would have carried
" Fish, 296.
CONGRESS AND CAMP 45
that state and defeated the Democrats. And the one issue on
which Birney had run was, "No fellowship with slaveholders."
Surely it was time for the South to bestir herself, or the Free
Soilers would overwhelm her. And the way out, as Davis saw it,
was to annex Texas and let Oregon wait. That any one should
oppose the anexation of Texas was incomprehensible to him. Was
it not the manifest destiny of America to extend herself to the
Pacific? With the recognition of the right of property in slaves
and the acquisition of Texas and California, would not the United
States become an invincible Confederacy?
In January, 1845, a joint resolution passed both houses. It pro-
vided for annexation on condition that the State of Texas should
adopt a republican constitution and submit it to Congress before
January i, 1846; that boundary disputes should be settled by the
United States; that all public property be ceded to the United
States ; and that four states in number, besides Texas, might be
formed. It was also provided that any state south of 36 30' should
be slave or free as the people decided, but north of that line slavery-
should be forbidden. This last provision it is well to bear in mind,
as it recognizes the old Missouri Compromise line of 36 30'.
After an amendment to the joint resolution by Senator Walker,
that Texas might be admitted by direct agreement, the measure
passed Congress March i, 1845, by a vote of 131 to 76. A resolu-
tion required a majority, but a formal treaty required two-thirds
only. Forthwith, Tyler signed the resolution and on March 3 a
special messenger was off for Texas to close the deal. On March 4
Polk was inaugurated and in a ringing address stood flatf ooted on
the Democratic platform: all of Texas and 54 40' or fight. From
his Oregon position, however, the President soon backed down,
and in the month of June, 1846, accepted England's former offer of
49 instead of 54 40', as the northern boundary of Oregon.
President Jones of the Texas republic submitted the matter of
annexation to a convention to be called July 4, 1845. The Texas
convention met on that date, accepted the offer of the United
States, and formed a constitution which was ratified in October.
Meanwhile the United States had sent troops to Vera Cruz to pro-
tect the Texas border.
From the beginning President Polk had attempted to purchase
California from Mexico but had failed. He had also failed in
46 CONGRESS AND CAMP
effecting a settlement of long outstanding claims of Americans
against Mexico; these amounted to about three million dollars.
These two questions made the Texas situation more acute, as did
the fear that Texas, if not immediately annexed, might become a
part of England and a free republic, menacing slavery in the South.
In a word, the annexation of Texas was inevitable and so was a
war with Mexico.
General Zachary Taylor was ordered to move from New Orleans
to the defense of Texas and to occupy the whole of it to the very
banks of the Rio Grande. Such were the bounds of Texas as
claimed by that Republic and such claim America proposed to
make good. If, therefore, the Mexican army should cross the river,
they would be invading United States territory. On April 24,
1845, Mexico directed her army to cross the Rio Grande and march
to the Nueces River. War was on at once and Jefferson Davis
was well satisfied. His opportunity had come. Fame and glory
awaited him in his chosen field as a military leader. Additional
territory for slavery and for the South spurred him on.
Forthwith he resigned his seat in Congress and in company with
his wife set out for Mississippi, where he had been unanimously
elected Colonel of the First Mississippi Rifles. On the way down
the river he stopped off at Hurricane, Mrs. Davis going on to
Briars to remain with her father. While at Hurricane Colonel
Davis put his farm in order, leaving his faithful slave, Jim Pem-
berton, in charge. His brother Joseph supplied him with a fine
bay horse named Richard, and also with an efficient body-servant.
The brothers consulted on another important matter. Should Jef-
ferson execute a will?
Joseph suggested that the dangers of war necessitated the mak-
ing of a will. The point then arose as to the beneficiaries under the
instrument. Should Mrs. Jefferson Davis be given her husband's
entire estate, or should his dependent sisters receive an equal share
with her? Now Joseph had never made a deed to Jefferson for
Brierfield plantation ; he therefore insisted that the sisters should
share equally with the wife. Joseph prevailed.
In due form Jefferson Davis executed his will and divided his
estate, Brierfield included, equally among wife and sisters. When
Mrs. Jefferson Davis got wind of this affair she was an indignant
woman ; her feelings were so much aroused she never forgave her
CONGRESS AND CAMP 47
brother-in-law. Twenty-five years later she made oath to this
effect. The incident is noteworthy for another reason : Mrs. Davis's
quarrel was taken up by her husband and the two brothers parted
company never to be completely reconciled. 12
After setting his affairs in order and executing his will, Colonel
Davis set out from Hurricane and joined his regiment in New
Orleans. Early in August the Colonel and his troops arrived at
Point Isbel, and here for several weeks the raw soldiers were
drilled and whipped into shape. Composed of the picked men of
the State, planters and sons of planters, brave dare-devil fellows,
used to the saddle, owning their own horses, attended by their own
body-servants, the First Mississippi Rifles were a crack regiment.
In Mexico, however, at this season the climate was bad, one day
the hot sun overcoming the troops, and the next a raw northeastern
wind driving the sand into their faces. But nothing daunted, the
gallant Colonel, saturated with the West Point spirit and with the
value of drill and military training, was often more severe than his
subordinates appreciated. On one occasion Colonel Davis spoke
so curtly to one of his high-spirited captains, Shields of Virginia, as
to wound his feelings. A challenge followed and a demand for
satisfaction. But the challenge was withdrawn, it being a breach
of military discipline for an inferior officer to challenge his superior.
The difficulty was composed by friends. 13
In September, Colonel Davis and his regiment reached General
Zachary Taylor's headquarters not far from Monterey, and were
put under Brigadier General Quitman, the Colonel's life-long
friend. General Taylor and his son-in-law, having been reconciled,
met on friendly terms and worked together in harmony. Taylor's
Army of Occupation consisted of only 6,000 troops, whereas the
forces of the Mexican General Ampudas numbered 10,000. Tay-
lor's immediate objective was Monterey, a town of 12,000, on the
banks of the San Juan River.
After gallant fighting by the Americans, the defenses of Mon-
terey, one after another, were taken. The river was crossed and
the steep hill scaled with a rush. Ampudas's supplies were cut off,
but Monterey still held out. On the morning of the 23rd, Colonel
12 Davis vs. Bowmar.
13 This incident furnished the author by LeGrand Tibits, a New York
State senator.
48 CONGRESS AND CAMP
Davis was ordered to advance and capture the city. Forward the
First Mississippi Rifles moved, sustained by troops from the
Northwest. The order was executed with gallantry and success,
Colonel Davis leading his men and frequently courting danger.
One building after another was captured and used as a barricade. 14
Leaping over walls, crossing on the roofs of houses, dashing from
street to street, the troops moved forward until within a block of
the Grand Plaza, where the main body of the Mexican army had
made its final stand. At this juncture, General Ampudas asked
for terms, and on the 24th the American flag was floating over
Monterey. 15
General Taylor granted an armistice of eight weeks, but this
was repudiated by President Polk and Secretary Walker. The
truce was therefore broken off and fighting was resumed. General
Taylor's success had alarmed the Democratic administration. If
"Old Rough and Ready's" triumphant march continued, and he
overpowered Mexico, he would undoubtedly be the national hero,
and the next President. This was not to be thought of. Taylor
was therefore stripped of his veteran troops, and General Winfield
Scott was moved forward into the spotlight and directed to capture
Vera Cruz.
Unfortunately, this action of the United States came to the ears
of General Santa Anna, and he made preparations to attack
Taylor's weakened army. Outraged and mortified by the unprece-
dented course which the Government had adopted, Taylor never-
theless prepared for the attack. With five thousand troops all
told, he advanced to Saltillo, thence pushed on to Agua Nueva, and
finally fell back to the pass of Angostura, a narrow mountain defile
in front of the Hacienda of Buena Vista. Here with his back to
the wall, Taylor awaited the coming of Santa Anna and his army.
And, on Washington's birthday, they came, twenty thousand
strong. Attacking Taylor's left they routed and put to flight a
volunteer regiment. Victory seemed to be in Santa Anna's grasp.
At this critical moment, Colonel Davis and his Rifles were
ordered to charge, and gallantly obeyed. Coming up the plateau,
they formed a right angle with May's dragoons, creating a new
line with right angles to the first. From every point the Mexicans
i* Davis, R., 352.
"McMaster, VII, 454.
CONGRESS AND CAMP 49
moved to a new attack, sweeping down on Davis and Lane, rolling
along the mountain face, covering the plateaus, and filling the
ravines. Victory was almost within their grasp. But the batteries
under Sherman, Thomas, Reynolds, Bragg, and Kilburn opened
fire. The Mexican line was cut to pieces. The infantry under
Davis poured in a deadly fire, and the Mexican column was broken
and fell back.
But now a larger body of the enemy appeared ; these too were
routed. Four Mexican officers with a white flag soon galloped
toward the American line, but this ruse was discovered and fight-
ing was resumed. Presently more Mexican troops attacked and
the Americans were fleeing down the ravine. But the regiments
of Davis and Lane and the batteries of Bragg and Sherman were
hastening to their aid. Captain Bragg reached the plateau just
as O'Brien's guns were taken, and opened on the Mexicans. At
the first discharge they halted. A second volley threw them Into
confusion ; and now, attacked on the flank by Davis and Lane and
cut down by the canister of Bragg and Sherman, they fell back
and the battle of Buena Vista was won.
Sword in hand, Davis had led his men and won a fame second
only to General Taylor's. But a musket ball entered his right
foot just below the instep, carrying portions of his spur into the
flesh. His boot filled with blood and the pain was intense, but the
Colonel, astride his staunch bay, Richard, had continued to direct
the fight. In conjunction with an Indiana regiment, his own had
formed and executed the well known movement called the "V"
manoeuvre with which his name has ever since been connected.
Words of praise from his commander followed. "Colonel Davis's
distinguished coolness and gallantry and the heavy loss of Ms regi-
ment entitle him to the particular notice of the Government,"
General Taylor reported. Davis's volunteers were called regular
veterans. After the battle of Buena Vista, Scott superseded Taylor
in command of the American forces, and General Taylor could only
wait along the Rio Grande and watch the progress of events.
Colonel Davis's work was now done and the year of enlistment
had nearly ended. He therefore gathered the remnant of his regi-
ment, and on May 29 set sail for New Orleans where he landed
June 9. Hospitably the Crescent City received the Colonel. Royal
was his welcome, the enthusiasm boundless. Crowds filled Canal
SO CONGRESS AND CAMP
Street, flags were waved, flowers from the balconies fluttered
through the air.
The noble Colonel, wounded and on crutches, was the center of
all eyes. Sergeant S. Prentiss gave expression to a nation's grati-
tude. The lion-hearted Davis, the gallant Mississippi Rifles for-
ever! Honors followed honors. Almost immediately Colonel
Davis was named by President Polk Brigadier General of Volun-
teers. He declined the honor. He did not think the Executive
had the power to make such an appointment; that was for
Congress.
At Natchez and Vicksburg scenes similar to those at New
Orleans took place: Jefferson Davis, pale, emaciated, and on
crutches, was the idol of Mississippi.
All classes and all parties, Whigs and Democrats alike, did him
honor. In less than sixty days, Governor A. G. Brown appointed
him to the United States Senate. Thus did fate claim the gallant
young Colonel as a hero, crowning his head with the laurel
But with these honors had come the domestic tragedy of which
I have spoken, a breach between the two brothers. Jefferson Davis
had scaled the heights. In twelve months he had become Con-
gressman, Colonel, Brigadier General, and Senator; but he had
also lost his strongest support, his brother Joseph, "In 1861," said
Mrs. Davis, under the sanction of an oath, "my husband forgave
his brother Joseph I never did." ie
Ie 55 Miss. Reps. 730.
CHAPTER VI
STORM SIGNALS
When the Thirtieth Congress met December 6, 1847, Senator
Davis and wife were on hand, having engaged quarters at Mrs.
Owner's boarding house. Here western and southern members
held out, including Howell Cobb of Georgia and Senator Foote,
Davis's colleague.
Why Foote and Davis, rivals and incompatible, should have
elected to live together under the same roof is a puzzle. One diffi-
culty was already to their credit and another was sure to follow.
The cause of the bout of fisticuffs staged on Christmas Day, 1847,
by the two Mississippi senators is said by Reuben Davis to have
been the secession of Mississippi, but it must have also been a
growing jealousy. The affair was hushed up at the time and by
consent smothered till the summer of 1874. Davis then requested
his friend, ex-Congressman A. W. Venable, to tell what he remem-
bered of the difficulty. 1
Venable said he well remembered the affray and that it took
place on Christmas Day just after breakfast, when several of the
members, Foote and Davis included, had retired to Mrs. Owner's
sitting room. "When I went in the room," Venable wrote, "there
was some restraint on the company, and I was informed a personal
difficulty had occurred between Davis and Foote, blows had passed,
and the parties had been separated." Shortly afterwards the
Davises changed their headquarters, joining Senator Toombs, Gov-
ernor McWillie of Mississippi, and others in a house next to the
Union Hotel where meals were furnished.
Colonel Davis was cordially received in Washington. Proud and
self-centered, almost in a state of exhaustion from his recent
wounds, the emaciated man got around on crutches ; he was the
most colorful of the new members, John P. Hale of New Hamp-
shire and Stephen A. Douglas perhaps excepted. Hale, genial,
a- Letter in Confederate Museum at Richmond, dated August 8, 1874,
51
52 STORM SIGNALS
witty, a thorn in the flesh of slave owners, was a died-in-the-wool
Free Soiler. Douglas, the swarthy Little Giant from the West,
shifty, unscrupulous, quick-witted, overwhelming in popular ap-
peal, was a man of inexhaustible resource, and, next to Clay,
America's greatest parliamentary leader.
Senator Davis was placed on the two committees he most de-
sired Military Affairs and Pensions. He was also named one of
the Regents of the Smithsonian Institution and a member of the
Library Committee, becoming a useful and influential factor in
developing these institutions.
Since June, 1846, when he resigned and went to war, a matter
had come up in Congress that greatly angered him. At the very
time he was down in Mexico with his Mississippi Rifles preparing
to march on Monterey, risking his life in his country's cause, Con-
gress was laying plans to "cheat the South out of the fruits of her
victory." 2 A bill placing two million dollars in President Folk's
hands to be used in making peace, which meant the purchase of
Mexican territory, had been offered in the House, when David
Wilmot, a Pennsylvania Democrat, handicapped it with a proviso,
which, by the way, fourteen northern states endorsed before the
year 1849. None of the territory to be acquired of Mexico should
ever be open to slavery, the Wilmot Proviso declared.
And this measure actually passed the House by a vote of eighty-
five to eighty, and would have got through the Senate, before ad-
journment at twelve noon, August 10, 1846, but for Senator John
Davis of Massachusetts. In his zeal for the bill the Massachusetts
senator talked it to death, the clock striking twelve while he was
still on his feet. From this time till the Civil War the Wilmot
Proviso in varying form overshadowed the land and like a spectre
haunted both political parties, finally causing the disruption of
the Union. 5
Nothing better shows the change of view of southern leaders on
slavery than their attitude in 1848 on the Wilmot Proviso, The
Ordinance of 1787, prepared by Thomas Jefferson, father of the
Democratic party, making the Northwest Territory free, was
adopted almost unanimously by the Continental Congress, but
when the Wilmot Proviso, identical with the Ordinance, came
2 The Globe, Feb, 14 1850.
Beaton, II, 695; Division omd Rewnon, 155; WUsoa, W. N. Y., 1912.
STORM SIGNALS 53
before Congress in the i84o's, it threw the Democratic party into
a rage. The Ordinance of 1787 Webster declared was one of the
wisest measures of all time; of the Wilmot Proviso Senator Ben-
ton asserted it was "the Gorgon's head and a chimera dire."
By the Missouri Compromise of 1820, as will be remembered, all
of the Louisiana Purchase at present twelve immense states
north of 36 30', Missouri excepted, had been dedicated to freedom.
The United States at that time did not own California, Utah, or
New Mexico, and this territory when acquired the Wilmot Pro-
viso would likewise make free. In a word, no more slave territory
was to be annexed to the United States. Davis was amazed, dumb-
founded.
Such action would be violative of the Constitution and of the
spirit of the Missouri Compromise; it would prevent southern
slave owners from carrying their slaves into territory owned jointly
by all the states, won by the blood of the South and West and not
by the North. It discriminated against the South and was sec-
tional. But above all, it was an indignity which no brave man
should submit to.
To meet the Free Soil party, a State Rights party must be
organized. In one thing at least Yancey of Alabama and Rhett
of South Carolina were^ right, the enemy must be met at the gate,
the South must organize and present a solid front. 4 A convention
should be called, an ultimatum promulgated, an ultimatum which
flouted by the North would mean secession. The Wilmot Proviso
must be defeated, a southern program arranged, a fixed immutable
principle laid down, an unchangeable law guaranteeing the rights
of slavery for all time.
That the South was entitled to occupy the common territory
with slaves was to Davis too plain for argument. In three separate
places the Constitution recognized this right. 5 But Davis would be
magnanimous, he would not claim all of the new territory for
slavery, he wottjd meet the North half way and divide it. North
of 36 30' might be free, but south of that line all territory, Includ-
ing future acquisitions, should be slave. This was Jefferson Davis's
ultimatum, his irre$l<4t>Je i^iiumum, and in different shapes he
* Robert Barnwdt Rhett was the fe^4 nd front of the secession movement.
Eckenrode, 56,
Art, I, Sec. 25 <Jo* gee, 9f Art. IV, Sec. i.
54 STORM SIGNALS
presented it, as a proviso, as an amendment, and as a compromise,
until the end. The heart of the ultimatum, it must be remembered,
was the provision that all territory south of 36 30', whether then
owned or thereafter acquired, should likewise be slave,
Now Jefferson Davis knew exactly what he was about ; he was
no dreamer, no doctrinaire, as Calhoun was. He split no hairs in
this slavery business. Could he but establish the principle that all
territory south of the above line should be slave he would outwit
the abolitionists. He would overrun Mexico, capture Cuba, Yuca-
tan and other Central American countries, and make slave states
of them, thereby establishing a permanent equilibrium between
North and South.*
And this vast slave empire-making project Davis imagined not
at all difficult: the South and West combined could carry it out
despite the North. But the South must be solidified and the West
conciliated. In the South there were traitors to the cause of state
rights and to slavery. "Recreants," Davis called them Bell,
Houston, Benton, Downs of Louisiana, Badger, Andrew Johnson,
Clay, and even Zachary Taylor. These men must be exposed and
removed from office.
There was also work to be done in the North where there were
northern men with southern principles : Cass, Gushing, Dickinson
of New York, Pierce, Buchanan. These must be recognized and
given high place.
This combination of South and West would overwhelm the
fanatics, put the Free Soil party out of business, preserve the Con-
stitution and the Union, nationalize the country and extend her
boundaries from ocean to ocean. If the cold, commercial North
was so short-sighted as to struggle along without slavery that was
its business and not his. As for the fanatical abolitionists, a set of
"infidels, free-thinkers, women suffragists and faddists generally,"
their attack upon slavery was beneath contempt. What better
guide than the Bible and the Constitution, each justifying the
South on this great issue? 7
And a good nucleus Jefferson Davis imagined he had for solidify-
ing the South. Alabama was largely dominated by the restless
* American Historical Review, V, 491.
* Speech of July 12, 1848.
STORM SIGNALS SS
Yancey ; 8 Mississippi was neck and neck with Alabama ; and
South Carolina saturated in the teaching of Calhoun and the more
advanced doctrines of Rhett and the Charleston Mercury. At that
moment Davis's friend Quitman, with Secretary Walker and Con-
gressman Thompson, were urging President Polk to annex the
whole of Mexico. 9
In the early part of the session Cass, Chairman of the Committee
on Foreign Relations, had reported a bill providing for ten regi-
ments to prosecute the war with Mexico, a measure which Davis
enthusiastically supported. 10
In its advocacy Colonel Davis ran true to form, and exhibited
his love of caste. "The man who enters the regular army," said he,
"comes from a lower class of the community than the volunteer,
he is willing to be ordered around, driven and kicked about, and
is unaccustomed to personal refinement ; whereas the high spirited
citizen soldier goes to war for battle ; he is alert, active, restless,
and not accustomed to drudgery." u
This sentiment of Senator Davis was of a piece with the views
of Congressman Davis two years before, when discussing a bill for
the maintenance of West Point and to increase the pay of civil
engineers and other officials. "Could you," then exclaimed Con-
gressman Davis, "expect a common blacksmith or a tailor to have
done the delicate engineering work necessary to reduce the bas-
tioned heights of Matamoras?" Now it so happened that there
was a well-known blacksmith, Sawyer of Ohio, and a well-known
tailor, Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, paying attention to the Mis-
sissippi Congressman and their emotions were stirred. Each re-
plied Johnson's answer being caustic and ridiculous. After call-
ing the names of tailors known to history he turned on Davis and
pronounced him "a cheap scrub aristocrat 1 "
The Ten Regiment bill passed the Senate early in 1848 but be-
fore it came up in the House the war with Mexico had ended, Scott
bad captured the ancient capitol of the Montezumas, Fremont
overrun California, and Kearney, New Mexico. The treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo followed on February 2, 1848. The United
8 Brown, 116.
9 Secretary Walker was squarely for all of Mexico. American Historical
Review, supra.
10 30th Congress, 1st Sess., Jan. 5, 1848.
"P- Dodd, 98 ; some Englishmen still have Davis's view, Hollis, 212.
56 STORM SIGNALS
States had wrung from impoverished Mexico more than half her
territory, about 600,000 square miles. Old Glory now floated from
Sandy Hook to the Golden Gate. And strangely enough all terri-
tory so far acquired by the United States, five times greater than
the thirteen original states, had been annexed under the Demo-
cratic party, which taught that the whole business of annexing
territory was unconstitutional. 12
In April, 1848, a bold attempt was made to liberate certain slaves
in the District of Columbia. Unknown parties stealing into Wash-
ington kidnapped and carried off in the schooner Pearl some eighty
negroes. The vessel was captured and brought back to port. Next
morning the National Era, the organ of the Abolition party,
espoused the cause of the kidnappers and justified their action in
the name of freedom. Thereupon angry and riotous citizens met,
denounced the paper, served notice that it must shut up shop, and
made an attack upon its building.
The affair created a commotion in Washington and moved Sen-
ator Hale to offer a resolution for the protection of property in the
District* In an instant the Senate was in an uproar. A violent de-
bate ensued, Calhoun blowing the initial blast. "I charge," said
he, "that this is a masked attack on the great institution of the
South, upon which not only its property but its very existence
depends." 1S Davis followed.
"On this ground," he exclaimed, with flashing eye and tense
nerves, but with outward coolness and deliberation, "we will shed
our blood. . . . This question is not debatable, it is final. . . . Let
the conflict come, here in this Senate chamber let it come, and the
sooner the better. This Senate chamber is the theater, and I, Sir,
am ready." 14
Senator Foote next got the floor and out-Heroded Herod, thereby
acquiring the nickname, "Hangman Foote." "This kidnapping
business," he screamed, "I lay at the door of the Senator from New
Hampshire; he is the guilty party, and let him but put foot in
12 The Louisiana Purchase under Thomas Jefferson in 1803 ; Florida under
Monroe in 1819; Texas under Polk in 1846; California and adjoining terri-
tory under Polk in 1848 ; part of Arizona and of New Mexico the Gadsden
Purchase under Pierce in 1853.
18 Globe, 500, 30th Congress.
14 1 give the substance of these debates, using the language employed,
however*
STORM SIGNALS 57
Mississippi and we'll hang him to the first limb ! " Though Doug-
las interrupted and begged Foote to withdraw these words, they
were not withdrawn. "Your language," said Douglas, "is worth ten
thousand votes to Hale and the abolitionists. 53
While serving as Senator, Colonel Davis often exhibited a phase
of character, which his wife and he himself deplored. He ceased
to exercise his reasoning faculties, ascribed sinister motives to his
opponents, and ran into personalities. Outwardly cool and col-
lected, inwardly he was often in a state of nervous excitement. "If .
any one differs with Mr. Davis," said his wife, "he resents it and
ascribes the difference to the perversity of his opponent." Or as
Davis described himself, just after his duel with Benjamin was
called off, "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."
The truth of this statement is illustrated in an affair with W. H.
Bissell, afterwards Governor of Illinois. 15 Bissell, just out of the
Mexican War with the title of Colonel, was serving his first term in
Congress and had grown tired of the undue praise of Davis's Mis-
sissippi Rifles. During the debates on the Mexican War, Colonel
Bissell therefore gave expression to his feelings. In a speech of
power he attacked slavery from every angle and vigorously denied
the claim of Colonel Davis's admirers that the day was won at
Buena Vista by the Mississippi Rifles.
"Why," said Bissell, "when the battle of Buena Vista was raging
and at the critical moment the Mississippi Rifles were a mile and
a half away. . . . Moreover, sirs, the State of Illinois sent nine
full regiments to the war, though only four were demanded, and if
it becomes necessary to put down secession and rebellion she will
furnish four times nine regiments ! "
Truly Bissell had exploded a bombshell, insulted the intrepid
Davis, outraged the entire South. The insult could be wiped out
only with blood. Coerce a sovereign state perish the thought!
In a haughty note Colonel Davis demanded of Colonel Bissell if
he was correctly reported in the morning paper. Colonel Bissell
replied that he was, but added he intended no reflection on the
bravery of Colonel Davis or his regiment. This reply was unsatis-
* 5 Globe, 227; Feb. 21, 1850.
58 STORM SIGNALS
factory. It was equivocal, and Colonel Bissell must accord to
Colonel Davis the usual satisfaction between gentlemen. 16
Bissell, being the challenged party, had the choice of weapons
and of time and place. He chose muskets loaded with ball and
buckshots at fifteen paces, executed his will and named the next
day in the forenoon. Major Cross of the United States Army was
BisselFs second ; Inge of Alabama, Davis's. During the interven-
ing night Congressman Dawson of Georgia and Major Rich of
Illinois interposed and effected a settlement. All notes were with-
drawn except Davis's first inquiry and Bissell's reply, Bissell ex-
plaining that he was speaking of one point in the battle and
Davis of another.
In the entire nation Jefferson Davis's place was now unique no
one thought or acted precisely as he did. As a rule southern Demo-
crats were contemptuous of northern people, dubbing them Yankees
and turning up their noses at them. This was not now Davis's
attitude. He was conciliatory to the North, except when slavery
was under discussion. 17 Again some secessionists, Yancey and
Rhett in particular, were advocating an immediate severance of
the Union. Davis opposed this plan ; he was willing to give the
North a chance to extend slavery and thereby obey the Constitu-
tion. So also men such as Toombs and Stevens voted against a
strong standing army ; Davis was its champion.
In a word Jefferson Davis was a paradox. A neurasthenic and
a semi-invalid, one eye gone, he was nevertheless a fighter ; a na-
tionalist, he was the champion of state rights ; the apostle of lib-
erty, he advocated slavery ; a Democrat, he aspired to aristocracy ;
professing great love for the Union, he was about to pursue a
course which would destroy it.
A strong navy, extensive canals and rivers, deep, serviceable,
magnificent ports, transcontinental railroads for war purposes,
these accompaniments of a mighty nation he stood for. And these
would be the destruction of state rights. Well paid and com-
petent public officials, surroundings of beauty for the Capitol,
spacious public buildings, the Smithsonian Institution, war colleges, ,
and other accessories of nationality, all appealed to him.
Now in this course Jefferson Davis was not untrue to his natural
16 Lakeside 'Magazine, VI, 43.
IT Encyclopedia Britannica, I4th Edition, New York, "Jefferson Davis,"
STORM SIGNALS 59
impulses, though undoubtedly there was a measure of policy in his
conduct. He imagined his conciliatory course would win the West
and soften the North. 18 He had deceived himself into believing
that the clock of time had been turned back, that slavery could
exist in the heart of America in the middle of the nineteenth cen-
tury, and that the Union and slavery could march hand in hand.
He looked forward to the day when the Democratic or State Rights
party, under the leadership of Calhoun and himself, would domi-
nate the country's slavery policy. To a united South and to the
northern Democracy he appealed to destroy the timid Whig party
with its Wilmot Proviso heresy and to bury the abolitionists be-
yond resurrection.
If the northern states would but obey the Constitution, open
up the new territory to slavery, return fugitive slaves, no senator
would go further than he to make the North greater and still
greater. And why should not the North sanction slavery? It
cared nought for the negro. Did not Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois
despise the free negro? They actually expelled him from their
midst by statute and refused him admission to their borders. 19 A
people which enacted such laws cared nothing for the black man.
They were in fact busy-bodies, insulting, crowing over, and bully-
ing the South.
Slavery! It was a social, a local question, a matter for each
state to handle as it saw fit. Should northern fanatics interfere,
their blood must be upon their own heads ; and "with sword and
torch would northern cities be destroyed! " 20
It has been said that not a day passed in March, 1848, but some
despot trudged the highways of Europe, fleeing to England from
the wrath of an oppressed people. Fugitives by the thousands were
likewise sailing the seas for free America. This spectacle of a
world revolution and of a universal blow for freedom was pleasing
to Senator Davis. On April 7, 1848, he gave expression to his feel-
ings in a resolution. He congratulated the French people and
Louis Napoleon, their new President, upon the overthrow of over-
lords and kings and the return to the principles of liberty, equality,
and fraternity.
is Hoist's, Calhoun, 300.
is Wilson, II, 629.
so Speeches, July 12, 1848; Feb. 14, 1850.
60 STORM SIGNALS
This resolution Davis did not think incompatible with human
slavery ; indeed he did not consider the relation between southern
whites and blacks slavery at all. It was but the proper relation
between them. Was not the negro's condition a natural one ? Was
he not "a slave by the curse of God" ? Was he not that "graceless
son of Ham predestined to hew stone and draw water" ? 21 That
slavery was a badge of honor to the South, that it "superseded the
necessity for an order of nobility," was Davis's firm conviction.
These words, "an order of nobility," are without doubt the key to
Jefferson Davis's life. Once his aspiration had been to be a military
chieftain, but now he aspired to be a statesman and a gentleman
among gentlemen. A statesman, broad and nationally-minded,
obedient unto the Constitution and the laws ; a gentleman, jealous
of his honor, brooking no insult, ready to die in avenging an injury
this Jefferson Davis conceived himself to be.
Now should the North undertake to dictate to the South and to
shut out slavery from the territory acquired from Mexico, would
this not be an insult to Mississippi and to himself, her accredited
representative? Undoubtedly it would. Should he then submit
to this insult ? No ! A thousand times no ! Secession might be
bad, and so was death, but "worse than secession and death was
dishonor." 22
That Jefferson Davis did not create the conditions in which he
found himself is undoubtedly true ; that he increased bitterness is
equally true. His lines were cast in an unfortunate age the age of
slavery. Jackson's task had been the democratization of politics,
Van Buren's correcting financial evils; but Polk, and after him
Pierce and Buchanan, floundered in the quagmire of slavery.
Though some broad-minded Democrats, Van Buren and Cass,
Woodbury and Taney, Benton and Silas Wright, concerned them-
selves with finances, with the tariff and freedom of the press, Jef-
ferson Davis was interested in expansion schemes and slavery mat-
ters. He would import" fresh supplies of slaves rather than send
those on hand to their original jungles. 23
2 * Speeches, April 12, 1848; July 12, 1848; April 12, 1860; Smith, W. H., 37.
22 Speech before Mississippi Legislature, Nov. 15, 1858 ; Langdon Cheves's
address, Nov. 14, 1850, in Charleston Public Library.
28 "The most stubborn slavery man I ever met," said Davis's friend, James
Campbell. Jones, J. W., 138; Globe, 907; Speeches, July n, 1848, Feb.
14, 1850.
STORM SIGNALS 61
In reply to Seward's theory that doing away with slavery would
benefit the South, he exclaimed, "Would the gentleman have us sit
quietly in the temple while he pulls down the pillars on our very
heads? . . . "Why, Sirs, slavery and the return of fugitive slaves
are sacred matters, and for this holy purpose the Fathers met in
council." When therefore Jefferson Davis was ready to shed Ms
blood for slavery-extension, under the Constitution, he was immo-
lating himself on the altar of liberty. 24 In this holy purpose he
struck right and left and spared not.
One day Robert C. Winthrop, a senator friendly to the South,
called attention to defects in the fugitive slave law. In New
Orleans certain free colored stewards had been taken from a ship
and made slaves of. This statement Davis fairly ripped into. 25
A few days later Winthrop read a letter from a Boston sea captain
stating that Senator Davis must have known that such things were
happening.
Davis: Does the Senator endorse that letter?
Winthrop : No, I simply read it as information.
Davis : And so far forget what is due this body ... To parade
irresponsible private correspondence is dishonorable, Sir.
Presiding Officer: Order I
Winthrop: Dishonorable! Sirs, I read this letter as evidence
and the Senator in his ex cathedra manner calls it dishonorable.
. . . Has it reached a point when no one can call his opinion in
question ? . . . The author of this letter will doubtless reply to the
Senator and when he does, I will read that reply.
Davis (in his seat) : And perhaps if you do, Sir, I may be allowed
to express my opinion on your conduct.
As soon as Winthrop could communicate with the captain, the
latter offered proof of the charges and the matter was dropped.
Winthrop's manner was dignified and unobtrusive, yet manly.
But Senator Davis's greatest scorn was reserved for southern
Whigs and for weak-kneed Democrats recreants, he called all
such.
"Sirs," said Senator Davis, in that superb manner characteristic
24 Cox, S. S., 114: "The only ground of contention between North and
South was slavery."
25 Globe, Appendix, 1657-1672; Wilson, H., II, 122.
62 STORM SIGNALS
of him when on the theme of a united South, "the recreancy of our
own brethren has brought the South to her present condition."
The Presiding Officer: The Senator is not permited to speak of
recreancy.
Davis (unheeding) : I am sure that we are entitled . . .
President: The Chair is under the necessity of preventing the
Senator going on in that course.
Davis: I will turn my attention then to another point and apolo-
gize for any violation of the rules.
Senator Downs: My friend from Mississippi is using language
I cannot pass over. ... He speaks of the recreancy of certain
southern gentlemen; does he extend that remark to include me?
Davis: What reason has the Senator to suppose I refer to him?
Downs : Because I differed with the gentleman on points relating
to the interests of the South.
Davis (in his seat) : When the gentleman concludes his remarks
I will reply to him.
Senator Benton (interrupting) : I beg the Senator from Missis-
sippi not to make reply until he has conferred with the Senator
from Louisiana . . . There is danger ahead, Mr. President^ . . .
President : I understood the remark was withdrawn.
Senator Pratt: The Chair is mistaken ; the remark was not with-
drawn. 26
Though the context shows Downs to be one of the recreants, one
who was at the very moment opposing Davis's motion to file a
protest against the admission of California, Davis explained he did
not mean to say the Senator from Louisiana was a recreant. As the
debate progressed, Senator Davis used language quite as severe as
that withdrawn. This scene presents a picture of southern hot-
spurs and of Jefferson Davis, their logical leader. 27 Union com-
promisers, be they Democrats, as Downs and Houston, or Whigs,
as Bell of Tennessee, and Badger and Clingman of North Carolina,
he held in contempt and proposed to bully until they changed their
opinions or suffered defeat at the polls.
For the South as a section Davis cared little; for the Demo-
cratic party he cared less ; but for them as a means to stabilize
slavery and put across his governmental ideas he cared much. Dif-
26 Globe , August 15, 1850.
27 Picayune, June 9, 1850 ; Eckenrode, 55.
STORM SIGNALS 63
fering with President Polk, in his message urging that England
should be attacked and the whole of Oregon added to the United
States, he declared he was no party man. 28 In a debate with Hous-
ton he rebuked the Texas senator for boasting that he was a South-
erner. 29 "I know no North and no South," said Davis. "I am a
citizen of the United States as well as of Mississippi, but my pri-
mary allegiance is to the State of Mississippi."
Andrew Johnson, cooperating with the North for a homestead
bill and voting to allow Giddings to be heard on the floor in ex-
planation of his conduct in offering abolition petitions, Davis stig-
matized as an ally of Ben Wade, the abolitionist; Douglas, the
Union-loving Westerner, he sneered at as a shifty demagogue.
The Free Soil party he characterized as hucksters for power and
place, without principle and without character. In a word, Davis
was a schoolmaster, a drill master, his mind rigid and unbending.
The crisis must bend to him ; he never bent to the crisis. 80
"Oh, the South, the poor South ! " were the dying words of Cal-
houn. But no such timid expression escaped the lips of the in-
trepid Davis. His language was always a trumpet peal, a note of
triumph: "Mississippians ! Forward, still forward, forever for-
ward!" In Georgia in the 1840*5, ten years before the Civil War,
a banquet was given in honor of General Quitman and Colonel
Davis. The affair is known as the Quitman Banquet. And the
gay banqueteers knew their guests and sized them up.
"Colonel Jeff Davis, the Game Cock of the South," one toast
proclaimed. "Jeff Davis, the President of the Confederacy," an-
other. 81
In the midst of this praise and adulation, Jefferson Davis was
cold as marble. To any one afterwards referring to the occasion
mentioned and intimating that Davis was a secessionist, he had
but one reply. "To such a person," said he, "I will make answer in
one word and that a monosyllable (a lie)."
The years 1848-50 were crowded with evil for America: the
nation was almost dissolved. A rigid fugitive slave law, prepared
by Mason of Virginia, was about to pass and the North was in a
28 Stephenson, Lincoln and the Union, 38.
29 Globe, 1552.
80 American Historical Review, 21, 8; Davis, R., 210.
81 Rowland, II, 145.
64 STORM SIGNALS
state of excitement. "They would not be made slave catchers
of." 32 The South was equally enraged. California was about to
come in as a free state, though half of it was south of 36 30', and
the slave trade was about to be abolished in the District of Co-
lumbia. To this "disgrace" the South would not submit ; it would
secede first.
Now against every measure intended to pacify the sections, the
extremists North and South were united. Secessionists and
abolitionists were cheek by jowl: Robert Barnwell Rhett, the fire-
eating South Carolinian, with a biting and blistering tongue, but
who would not fight, as Senator Clemens of Alabama charged,
cooperated with the abolitionist Chase. 33 Jefferson Davis, the
Southern Game Cock, slept in the same political bed with Seward,
the avowed enemy of slavery. 34
But strong as Jefferson Davis was in debate, in the council cham-
ber he was stronger. Secessionists from Virginia to Texas con-
sulted him. 35 In 1850 he looked with alarm upon the return to the
Senate of Henry Clay, the Conciliator, and consulted as to his de-
feat. Previously he had been busy keeping conservative Union
Whigs out of the cabinet of General Taylor, writing Senator Crit-
tenden to keep Taylor from falling under Seward's influence.
Davis was likewise the recipient of letters urging the defeat of
Senator Badger, recently appointed to the Supreme Court. 86 Rec-
ognizing Judge Badger's learning and fairness, the President had
named him as a member of that august body, and Davis was im-
portuned to see that he was turned down by the Senate.
Congressman Clingman, a Union Whig, had been insulted by
Yancey and told to his teeth "that no one should have converse
with a person of his heart" ; Sam Houston, the Texas Unionist, was
daily condemned by the rabid southern press, the Richmond Dis-
patch designating him "a hissing but stingless viper." a7 And now
82 Benton, II, 777.
** Globe, 641, 647, 654, Feb. 27, 1852. "Coward, knave, and traitor,"
Clemens called Rhett. "I am a professor of the Christian religion and will
not fight," Rhett replied.
"Memoir, I, 57i, 579, 5&> ; Globe, July, Aug. and Sept, 1850.
85 Davis MSS. at Washington.
*Ibid.
87 Globe, 204; Feb. 15, 1854.
STORM SIGNALS 65
Badger must be given attention Badger "faithless to the South"
and chief of the "recreants."
In the Senate on more than one occasion Badger had striven to
allay sectional bitterness. Once he exclaimed, "What would I
give to save the Union? What would I not give? . . . Take up
arms and dissolve this Union because we are not permitted to take
slaves to Utah, California, and New Mexico! Why, Sirs, there
seems to be no proportion between the comparatively small, almost
insignificant, premises and the vast portentous consequences ! "
Such was George E. Badger, idol of North Carolina Whigs, the
aversion of secessionists, perhaps the greatest constitutional lawyer
in the Senate, who always and everywhere affirmed that secession
was revolution, pure and simple. A man of such views was ob-
noxious to the Yanceys and Davises and must be turned down.
On the supreme bench he would spread the Union heresy which he
was teaching in the Senate.
On January 22, 1853, Jefferson Davis received a letter from
Thomas I. Dumont, a prominent citizen of New Orleans, warning
him against the North Carolina Senator. "Badger is a dangerous
man," Dumont wrote. "His views on government are wrong, his
selection is a political calamity, and you must see that his con-
firmation to the bench is defeated." Badger was not confirmed,
the vote being 25 to 26 ; had he become a supreme court judge, the
Dred Scott opinion might have been less harmful, less unjudicial. 38
It is the fashion in our day to berate the old Whig party. It was
timid and it had no policy, we are told; had it been bolder, it
might have strangled secession In its cradle. But is this wholly
true? Was not the Whig party a nationalizing and constructive
influence ? Succeeding the party of Washington and Hamilton, the
Whig party, if entrusted with power, might have worked out some
scheme to abolish slavery and prevent civil war.
Henry Clay, the father of the Whig party, had put through two
far-reaching measures: the Compromise of 1820, adjusting the Mis-
souri question; and the tariff of 1833, enabling Jackson to save
South Carolina to the Union without bloodshed. Daniel Webster,
the prophet of the party, in his imperishable debates with Hayne
and Calhoun and in weighty utterances before the Supreme Court,
88 Beveridge, II, 453.
66 STORM SIGNALS
had nationalized America and demonstrated the folly of secession
and the absurdity of a self-destructive confederacy of states.
Surely these accomplishments were of value to a new republic in
danger of too much freedom rather than of too little.
But the Whig party would undertake a larger task, the task
of solving slavery. Its leaders being cultured, conservative and
wealthy owning more than two-thirds of the property in America
were determined to tackle the irritating slave issue and save the
Union. To this end Whigs in the North would enact the Wilmot
Proviso and prevent the spread of slavery by law. Whigs in the
South had a remedy more drastic : they would prevent the acquisi-
tion of any further territory. They favored preserving the present
status of slavery, contending that all territory owned by the
United States was covered by the Missouri Compromise. "Why
add new territory," they asked, "to stir up more strife? Let
slavery alone and it will burn itself out. . . . Why acquire Cali-
fornia and the far West and precipitate a civil war?" 89
The weakness of the Whig position was manifest: it was not
aggressive. There was no land-grabbing about it, nor did it mouth
of America's "manifest destiny" or stir the imagination as did
Democratic slogans. Moreover, the Whig policy would have post-
poned the acquisition of California to some future day. But these
advantages conservative southern Whigs were willing to forego to
secure peace and save the Union. 40 And this may be further said,
that the Whigs were a discerning people, neither blusterers nor
braggarts. They looked the slavery matter squarely in the face.
They knew slavery was a moral and social evil as R. E. Lee main-
tained though a necessary one, handed down from father to son,
and difficult to get rid of.
They remembered, too, that Washington had condemned slavery
and had freed his own negroes, and Thomas Jefferson had declared
of slavery that it was debauching southern youth and was de-
structive of southern progress. They understood that the soil of
Virginia and the Carolinas was leached and thin, and that the rich
soil of Mississippi was wearing out under thriftless slave labor.
89 Clay's last great effort was to bring about abolition and colonization in
Kentucky.
40 Clay's Raleigh letter, Apr. 18, 1844. Clay modified this letter.
STORM SIGNALS 67
In the census table they read that the wealth and population of
the Free States were increasing more than twice as fast as the
Slave; with their own eyes they observed covered wagons by the
hundreds, filled with Quakers and other useful citizens, leaving the
South for the West, for that country set apart for free men, free
speech, and free homesteads. They likewise understood that there
was more money on deposit in the savings banks of Boston than in
all southern saving institutions combined. 41
Excited orators, blowing hot and cold, were an offense to con-
servative Southerners : in the Senate Jefferson Davis boasting that
the South was rich and prosperous and the North a decadent sec-
tion, in Mississippi asserting the contrary. 42
"Sirs/' said Senator Davis to the senators from the North, 43 "but
for the cotton crop your mills would close their doors and your
factories suspended business ; but for southern trade grass would
grow in the streets of your cities. . . . Tyre and Sidon perished for
lack of agriculture." "My friends," said Senator Davis a few
months later to a literary society at the University of Mississippi,
"the South must bestir herself, we have no water power, no fac-
tories, our timber is unemployed. The virgin soil is used up and
exhausted, in many places presenting the aspects of sterility. . . .
Fletcher's Studies on Slavery I commend to you: here you will
find that half the crimes of the Decalogue have been committed by
the abolitionists." 44r
In the midst of such contradictory statements conservative
Southerners drew their own conclusions. They knew, as stated
above, that the free North was outstripping the slave South, and
all because of slavery. While the South was making more money
and raising larger crops than the North, it saved less. It was
wasteful and its property consisted largely of slaves. They real-
ized that slavery was a wasting disease, not to be cured by more
slavery. Under a wiser leadership they looked forward to the day
when the South, with advantages of climate, of water power, of
forests, and of diversified industries, would be a garden spot. 45
The ethical balance was likewise against the South. In truth,
financially and economically the South was more advanced than
41 Rhodes, I, 356. 4 * Pamphlet, Congressional Library.
42 Feb. 14, 1850, Appendix, 156. 45 Helper's Impending Crisis.
43 July 14, 1850.
68 STORM SIGNALS
ethically. Hence the whole world was against slavery and against
the South. Years before nearly every civilized country had abol-
ished slavery. Every breeze that blew, every locomotive that
screamed, every ship that sailed, foretold the coming of freedom.
Half a million oppressed emigrants, leaving Ireland and Germany
in 1846, many of them making their homes beyond the Mississippi,
sounded the death knell of slavery.
"The instinct of freedom has become a religious instinct," said
Webster in his Niblo's Garden speech, "not to be coaxed into
silence and not to be suppressed." 46 "While slavery in the old
states will be upheld, as it is protected by the Constitution, no new
slave state should enter the Union." And this sentiment was com-
mon to southern Whigs as well as to northern. David Outlaw, a
North Carolina Congressman thus gave expression to Webster's
utterance: "Before the country and before God," he exclaimed,
"the Democratic party is responsible. It has waged an unjust
war on Mexico, it has annexed Texas, it has filled the land with
discord, and we are now on the verge of civil war."
It must not be concluded that Jefferson Davis was a conspirator,
planning and plotting to dissolve the Union, and wholly goaded
by ambition. His father-in-law, Zachary Taylor, made this
charge ; so did Andrew Johnson and Foote, on a hundred southern
stumps. Reuben Davis likewise asserted that his good friend, Jef-
ferson Davis, "was the leading disunionist from the first." Jef-
ferson Davis was not a conspirator, he did nothing in secret; he
was bold, open, defiant. That he was a secessionist, none can
now deny*
What then did Davis's course in the late 1840*8 signify? Un-
doubtedly he had a definite objective and that objective was to fire
the southern heart and make ready against the coming of war. He
did not expect war ; he was sure the North would submit and obey
the Constitution. But if war came, he was determined there should
be a solid South. The anti-slavery agitation, as he saw it, was mere
politics; abolitionists mouthing of freedom were maudlin senti-
mentalists, pernicious philanthropists, or jealous business rivals.
Bold, opinionated, and self-confident, Davis refused to listen to
arguments about slavery. Examine the question in the light of
* March 15, 1837,
STORM SIGNALS 69
advancing civilization, he would not. Why all this pother about
the negro, scarcely a human being, and on whom the seal of slavery
had been fixed? "The sons of Japheth must dominate America,
and not the mongrel descendants of Ham 1 " 47
"Why is the negro a black man and a slave? 7 ' Davis inquired.
"Obviously because of the sins of Ham, the father of the black
race, who gazed at his father, Noah, drunk and stark naked. When
the low and vulgar son of Noah laughed at his father's exposure,
sunk by debasing himself and his lineage by a connection with an
inferior race, he doomed his descendants to perpetual slavery."
"The agitation of slavery has grown into a trade," said Senator
Davis. "There are men who habitually set aside a portion of
money which they earn to apply to what are called charitable
purposes ; that is, to support some vagrant anti-slavery lecturer." 4S
Now when the Senator gave expression to these views, did he not
lose sight of some abolitionists at least who were not in politics :
Channing, Emerson, and Lowell ; also professors in a hundred col-
leges; likewise the great intellectual group; women, too, such as
the Grimke sisters of South Carolina? While indeed Davis was
asserting that the anti-slavery agitation had grown into a trade,
Emerson was demonstrating the contrary. Addressing the poorer
classes of the North, he exhorted them to come to the rescue of
freedom. "If you have no ready cash," said Emerson, "sell your
apple trees, stint yourself, do with less in freedom's cause." 49 "I
am in earnest," said Lovejoy, "I will not equivocate, I will not
excuse, I will not retreat one inch, and I will be heard."
The difference between Jefferson Davis and conservative South-
erners was vast indeed. Conservatives recognized the evils of
slavery, but saw the difficulties of abolishing it. Mr. Davis ac-
knowledged no evil He considered it "good, wholly good." Years
before on Hurricane plantation, he and his brother Joseph had set-
tled the question. They had adopted the Aristotelian view of
slavery: "No healthy lasting society can dispense with slaves. . . .
So long as slavery existed in Rome her government was a model
and she ruled the world, but as soon as slaves were set free and
given the ballot, the fate of Rome was sealed. . . . Slavery was the
** Globe, 36 Congress, 1938; Genesis, 8: 18; 9-25; Globe, April 12, 1860.
48 Ilnd., 37 Congress, 1942.
* Rhodes, II, 219.
70 STORM SIGNALS
very cause of civilization." 50 Or, as another writer puts it, "When
citizenship permeated the masses the downfall of Rome began." 51
The most important question confronting Senator Davis and the
stalwarts at this time was how to deal with the poor southern
"mudsills," as Hammond of South Carolina called them. What
would these men do when war came? 52 Would they oppose the
South and join the North ? Perhaps they would. Why should they
go to war and fight to protect the property of others? 5S A few
thousand southern families owned nearly all the slaves and the
poorer whites owned practically none. The poor whites must
therefore be aroused, they must be made to understand that they
would be the greatest sufferers if the slaves were set free and
turned loose upon the land. 54
Vast propaganda were accordingly set on foot and spread among
the plain people of the South, firing their hearts, unifying their
thoughts. Every stump echoed with denunciation of abolitionists
and Yankees synonymous words. Every pulpit, every newspaper,
every crossroads, every fireside, was busy with the absorbing topic.
Senator Davis's speeches on the anti-slavery movement, proclaim-
ing the horrors which would follow in the wake of abolition, were
printed in the Globe and in pamphlet form. They were copied in
the southern press. They covered the land. 55
If the abolition craze succeeded, there would be a second Santo
Domingo. 56 In 1808 the slaves on that island were set free and
what happened? Sixty thousand white inhabitants butchered in
two months practically every white person on the island ; in the
Nat Turner Southampton slave insurrection in 1831 no less than
eighty white women and children murdered in two nights. In 1803
a hundred negroes were hung in Charleston ; they had risen up to
kill their masters. Threats and denunciations uttered by aboli-
tionists were circulated. From these it was easy to demonstrate
5 Christy, "Cotton Is King."
61 Rostovtzeff, 487.
fi 2Beveridge, II, 678,
B8 This question perplexes A. B. Hart; Slavery and Abolition, 16.
B4 Rowland, II, 74.
55 Davis MSS. at Washington.
56 The Mississippian went into nearly every home in the state. Davis, R.,
352.
STORM SIGNALS 71
that social equality was the real object of the abolitionists, and
mixed schools, mixed marriages, and a mongrel race.
During the sessions of the courts, judges took a hand. Grand
juries were instructed to investigate, and if they found seditious
newspapers circulating, to indict the editors. Bills were found
against Garrison, Giddings, and Chase. A reward of a hundred
thousand dollars was offered for the head of Seward. Rewards
were offered, not only by governors, but by private citizens, for
the heads of other abolitionists.
On the other hand, northern abolitionists were fully as rabid
and active as southern secessionists. Indignation meetings were
held ; on July 4, 1854, the Constitution, having been cursed as a
league with hell, was burned in the public streets. After Prlgg vs.
The United States deciding that slave-catching was the business of
Congress and not of the states, 57 the fugitive slave law became in-
operative. 88
Now this agitation sunk deep into the consciousness of the illit-
erate but honest southern masses. Unsophisticated, they believed
what was told them by the leaders, and were anxious to resist the
oppressors. By nature they were in conflict with both free negroes
and slaves. The free negro was their business rival and they de-
spised him. The slave was their deadly enemy and they hated
him. This feeling, it must be said, the slave augmented by Ms con-
tempt for the poor whites.
Nothing delighted a well bred domestic servant more than to
humiliate and degrade the po' white trash, as poor whites were
called by slaves ; nothing so scandalized an aristocratic "Mammy,"
flounced out in scalloped apron and motherly cap, than to "ketch
her white chilluns messin' roun' dis yeah low down white trash."
Should a poor white venture to the front door of the Great House,
he would be met by the negro butler and told to "tek hisself roun*
ter de back do 7 whar he blonged."
The virtue of southern conservatives Whigs or Democrats
was their effort to allay sectional bitterness. The vice of seces-
sionists was fanning the flames. Robert J. Walker illustrates the
case of the conservative. I have said that Walker was one of the
57 Peters, 16, 539*
BB Ex parte Langston; ex pcurte Bushnell, gth Ohio Reports.
72 STORM SIGNALS
wisest counsellors of the South after the year 1840. This conclu-
sion is largely based on one fact : Walker proposed a solution of the
negro question a permanent solution. The newly acquired terri-
tory should be sold, the slaves emancipated and paid for out of the
proceeds and the freed men deported to a country of their own.
Santo Domingo and adjoining islands were close in and would
furnish ample, accessible, and commodious homes.
Walker's plan was opposed by Yancey and Davis in the South
and by Thad Stevens and Giddings In the North. It therefore fell
through. 59 Walker's plan was endorsed in substance by Webster
and Clay, by Seward and Rufus King, and in later years by Lincoln
with enthusiasm. 60 In 1833 England had paid twenty million
pounds sterling to the owners of the slaves she then liberated. On
January 7, 1824, Ohio passed an act, concurred in by five or six
western states, proposing a conference with southern states on a
solution of the slavery question. The matter was presented by
Ohio to Georgia and Mississippi and rejected. To liberate slaves
in this way would be an insult to the South.
Thus, like the blades of a pair of shears, did uncompromising
abolitionists and secessionists prepare to cut in twain the fabric of
American civilization. Would the conservatives, Clay and Web-
ster, Bell and Badger, Mangum and Crittenden, Corwin, Houston,
and Edward Everett, be able to hold the states together or would
the incongruous combination of extremes Rhett and Chase, Davis
and Seward, Preston Brooks and Thad Stevens rend them asun-
der ? No thanks to northern extremists if the ship of state should
go on the rocks, their hatred of "the accursed Union" being no less
than Rhett's.
In their anti-slavery Constitution of 1833, the extremists had
promulgated a doctrine obnoxious to every patriotic southern man
and destructive of his civilization. In this constitution immediate
abolition was not only demanded, without compensation to the
owners, but it was declared "there should be no scheme of expatria-
tion either voluntary or involuntary." Freed negroes were to re-
main in the South forever. 61 In a word, political abolitionists
wished both to reform the South and to humiliate her.
59 Herbert, 39 ; Rowland, II, 267 ; Walker's pamphlets in the Library of
Congress.
60 Oberholtzer, I, 75 ; Merriman, I, 58.
61 MacDonald, 354.
CHAPTER VII
FIVE GAPING WOUNDS
In the last chapter I ran ahead of my story In order to group
certain of Jefferson Davis's characteristics, common to his entire
career. I now take up the thread of his life.
Early in 1848, Senator Douglas, chairman of the Committee on
Territories, presented a bill to organize Oregon into a territory. It
will be remembered that Oregon is now two states, Oregon and
Washington. Hale offered an amendment prohibiting slavery
therein and Davis followed with a counter amendment, that slavery
should not be excluded. These two amendments paralyzed the
bill. 1 A heated debate followed, participated in by Webster and
Calhoun. Senator Davis insisted that no southern senators asked
to introduce slavery into Oregon, but did ask that the principle of
property in slaves be established so they could carry slaves there
if they wished.
He then indulged in a favorite thrust, charging his opponents
with playing politics, and asserted that there was no ethical prin-
ciple involved in the slavery agitation. "This contest is purely
political," he declared, "a temporary struggle between politicians,
and I trust the danger will pass. But if destruction of slavery is
intended, then let the Union be dissolved." This threat to dissolve
the Union was rebuked by Clayton of Delaware. "The Senator's
utterances," said Clayton, "are intended to exasperate, not con-
ciliate the South."
In itself the Oregon question was of no practical purpose, Ore-
gon being north of 36 30' and the climate too rigorous for the
warm-blooded African. But as a precedent it was most significant.
If Davis could get an admission into the bill that Oregon was to be
free, because north of 36 30', he would be content : he would have
established a general slavery principle. Such declaration would
enable the stalwarts to organize so much of California and New
i Burgess, 345.
73
74 FIVE GAPING WOUNDS
Mexico as was south of that line into slave states a goal always
before Davis's vision.
At the same time that the Oregon question was before the Sen-
ate, California and New Mexico were likewise under discussion.
They were insisting that the military rule under which they were
operating cease and that they be incorporatetd into the Union.
This request was a reasonable one, as they had the requisite popu-
lation. Gold had been discovered on the Pacific slope and adven-
turous immigrants, deserting the effete East for this new Eldorado,
were rushing thither in caravans. A serious obstacle stood in the
way of the admission of New Mexico, however. Her eastern
boundary was in dispute with Texas.
Texas claimed that under the concessions of General Santa
Anna in 1836 her true western boundary extended to the Rio
Grande & claim she was ready to back with the sword. New
Mexico denied this claim and asserted a right to territory south of
the Nueces River. There was likewise another difficulty in the
way of the admission of both New Mexico and California. What
was their status as to slavery? In 1848, when purchased, were they
free or slave? The better opinion was that they were free because
slavery had been abolished therefrom by Mexico, before the United
States acquired them. This position Jefferson Davis almost alone
disputed, supporting it with an argument to show that Mexico had
not liberated the slaves in those countries.
"But," Senator Davis contended, "suppose we grant they were
free before America acquired them, how does this change the situ-
ation? The status of slavery in these countries is uninfluenced by
the laws of Mexico. The customs of conquered nations do not sur-
vive their conquest and when California and New Mexico became
American territory, automatically they became slave. This must
be true because the territory of the United States is the heritage of
each state alike and therefore open at all times to slavery as to
other property "
To this extreme position had both Calhoun and Davis now ar-
rived. Calhoun indeed went a step further and asserted, "Slavery
follows the flag." Or to use his own language, "The sovereignty
of Mexico in the territory acquired by the United States became
extinct and the United States was substituted in the place of
Mexico and carried with it the Constitution itself." This dogma
FIVE GAPING WOUNDS 75
Senator Benton, in his grandiloquent manner, styled "the transmi-
gratory feature of the Constitution and the instantaneous trans-
portation of itself in its slave attributes into all acquired ter-
ritory!"
The long-drawn-out controversy was finally referred to a special
committee of which Clayton was chairman and the Clayton Bill
was reported. It provided a territorial government for Oregon
without slavery and a like government for California and New
Mexico, which were to be free or slave as the inhabitants should
determine. But any inhabitant might test the constitutionality
of the act in the courts, with the right of appeal to the Supreme
Court. Jurisdiction of the matter was likewise conferred upon
the Supreme Court. Discussing the Clayton Bill, Tom Corwin,
the wit of the Senate, exclaimed, "Why, Sirs, we are not enacting
a law but a lawsuit."
The bill, an honest attempt to substitute law for public opinion,
passed the Senate after an all-night wrangle, but was tabled in
the House on motion of Stephens of Georgia. 2 Senator Davis
voted for the measure he was no doubt willing to entrust the
slavery issue to the decision of a court seven out of nine of whose
members were pro-slavery.
The Oregon question had stirred the country to the depths. The
Senate and House were at loggerheads, the Free Soilers of the
House holding the balance of power. The conservative Senate
would not consent to admit Oregon free; the anti-slavery House
would consent to nothing less. Hence the deadlock. An ominous
situation it was, illustrating the irrepressible conflict of slave labor
with free. The civilization of the leisurely delightful old South
was being pitted against that of the new West. Not until the last
day of the session did the Senate yield to the House and admit
Oregon free.
President Polk approved the bill because, as he declared, Oregon
lay north of 36 30'. The President was willing to "admit" that
good faith required the Missouri Compromise line to be extended
to the Pacific, though Congress was not. In his message, Polk
likewise urged the expiring Congress to organize California and
New Mexico and to extend the line to the ocean.
But Congress adjourned without action ; it was in no mood to
2 July 27, 1848, Appendix, 1008.
76 FIVE GAPING WOUNDS
legislate on any subject. With great difficulty It had passed the
appropriation bills. The remainder of the session was full of vio-
lence and disorder, blows were exchanged in the Senate and fisti-
cuffs occurred in the House. Blood flowed freely. "Had the North
been as ferocious as the South, there would have been a general
melee." 8
The admission of Oregon as a free territory, Davis regarded as
simply unthinkable* The matter of slavery ought certainly to have
gone to the people after Oregon had become a state. Such ruthless
proceedings indicated that no slave state could ever again be ad-
mitted and that abolitionists had determined to exclude slavery
from the territories, and to promulgate the Wilmot Proviso. "Now
is the Union dissolved," Calhoun sighed; and Davis returned to
Mississippi a disappointed man. The Oregon question had
wounded his pride and cut him to the quick. Moreover, it ran
counter to his conception of government and to the constitutional
provisions relating to the territories.
If Congress could admit Oregon free, why could it not also admit
California and New Mexico? Why indeed should Davis strive
to acquire Mexico or other lands to prove ruinous to slavery?
Why organize the southern states and gather his forces to seize
Cuba, Mexico, and Central America, if the North was bent on mak-
ing them free?
At the usual times the three political parties had met and chosen
candidates for President and Vice-President. The Whigs selected
Taylor and Fillmore, the Democrats, Cass and Butler, and the
anti-slavery party, ex-President Van Buren. In their platforms
neither Democrats nor Whigs dared mention the absorbing ques-
tion of slavery extension. The Democrats would not declare for
such extension for fear of losing anti-slavery votes in the North ;
the Whigs were too timid to declare against it for fear of losing
slavery votes in the South. A spineless situation was thus devel-
oped in which Davis and the stalwarts had little interest. At the
Baltimore Convention Yancey had bravely fought for an aggressive
slavery extension plan but had failed.
Angered because the North was opposing slavery extension, dis-
gusted that the South was not a unit in demanding its rights, and
realizing that Congress was determined not to extend slavery over
* Hoist, III, 454.
FIVE GAPING WOUNDS 77
the new territory, Calhoun and Davis now began to organize in
real earnest. Calhoun took steps to call a southern convention
whose object, as the callers insisted, was resistance to the encroach-
ments of the North, but which the Whigs and many northern
Democrats charged was to prepare for secession. A letter from
Calhoun to Collin S. Tarpley gave color to the charge. "South
Carolina is already organized," Calhoun wrote, "and expects Mis-
sissippi to join her in the movement."
On October 12, 1849, Davis addressed an open letter to Ms con-
stituents warning them of impending danger. After suggesting
that the South build factories, enter upon industrial pursuits, and
prepare for her own subsistence, he closed significantly as follows :
"The generation which avoids its responsibility on this subject
sows the wind and leaves the whirlwind as a harvest to its
children."
On December 21, the House passed a bill abolishing the slave
trade in the District of Columbia, whereupon every southern Dem-
ocrat marched out. At that very moment a resolution was pend-
ing in the Senate to pay tribute to Father Mather, a well-known
humanitarian visiting in Washington. Senator Davis made an
opposition speech of great intemperance. After a few kind words
personal to the prelate, he exclaimed, "Degenerate and unworthy of
the sires from whom we derive our institutions must that son be
that can grasp the hand in fellowship with which he scatters over
our land a new and most mischievous species of domestic dis-
cord . . . Sir, if I had the power I would exclude every aboli-
tionist from this chamber ! "
A few days after the above incident, Calhoun called a caucus of
southern members. 4 Eighty-odd stalwarts answered the call, and
at an adjourned meeting Calhoun read an address to the southern
people which he, as chairman of the committee, had prepared.
The address, much toned down, was adopted, signed by forty-
nine members, and given wide publicity. Jefferson Davis was
one of the signers, thereby again estranging his Union-loving
father-in-law, President Taylor. Just before Taylor was nomi-
nated Davis had written and asked his views on the duty of the
South. A satisfactory answer had been received, and at the Balti-
4 Rhodes, I, 104.
78 FIVE GAPING WOUNDS
more Convention it was the talk that Colonel Davis was going to
support General Taylor. 5
Davis finally cast his ballot for Cass, but took little part in the
canvass. Davis's southern address and his attitude towards slavery
extension angered Taylor, whose feelings again underwent a
change. The bluff soldierly man had now reached the conclusion
that a conspiracy to dissolve the Union was hatching and Davis
was the chief conspirator. 6 In his message to Congress the Presi-
dent recited his course towards California and New Mexico, called
attention to the fact that California had unanimously adopted a
free constitution, and recommended that she be received into the
Union.
When the Thirty-first Congress met December 3, 1849, problems
more numerous or more difficult had never confronted that tribunal,
and, fortunately for the Union, there had never been a wiser or
more patriotic body. The Senate was specially strong. Clay,
Calhoun, and Webster, the Great Triumvirate, were meeting in the
forum for the last time. Grouped around them were Seward,
Chase, and Hale, exponents of the growing anti-slavery sentiment ;
Davis, Hunter, Mason, Benjamin, Soule, advocates of slavery ex-
tension; Houston, Douglas, Bell, Badger, Mangum, Foote, and
Benton perhaps, conciliators. In the House, Toombs and Stephens
the Siamese twins of American politics, were recognized Union
leaders.
Separate bills, relating to the admission of California, New
Mexico, and Utah, and to the slave trade in the District and the
fugitive slave law, were again pending in Congress. The first of
these, the admission of California as a free state, was opposed by
the entire Mississippi delegation. Senator Foote was specially
active in opposition. The delegation reported the situation to the
Mississippi legislature and requested instructions. A reply came to
fight the measure to a finish : it was not only unconstitutional, but
a trick of the abolitionists and should be defeated.
On January 29, 1850, Clay, having combined these five measures
into one bill, laid his compromise before the Senate and the noted
debate began. In his right hand, Henry Clay usually carried the
olive branch of peace, though he would on occasion denounce dis-
union and declare that the disunionist was a traitor and should
5 Rowland, I, 2ia Rhodes, I, 135; Montgomery, 9.
FIVE GAPING WOUNDS 79
meet a traitor's doom. Vast throngs crowded the floor of the
Senate and filled the galleries. Never before had there been an
audience of "more grace, beauty, and intelligence" and never had
the great orator been more effective. As frankly and intimately
as if he were talking to a confidential friend, he expressed himself
as he pleaded for the Union.
"There are five gaping wounds and they must be healed," said
Clay, counting them on his fingers. He then proceeded to name
them : " ( i) The admission of California as a Free State. (2 and 3)
The organization of New Mexico and of Utah, each as a territory,
with or without slavery as the inhabitants shall determine, and the
settlement of the disputed boundary between Texas and New
Mexico. (4) The abolition of the slave trade in the District of
Columbia. (5) An efficient fugitive slave law."
"Heat, passion, and intemperance," Clay continued, "are being
diffused throughout the land . . . But let us with the sacrifice of
no great principle, arrange such a scheme of accommodation as will
restore peace to our distracted country ... In a few days now I
shall lay aside all earthly ambition and honors for the habiliments
of the tomb. . . . Nought concerns me for nought do I care, save
a united country." Weary and exhausted, the Old Patriot sank
into his seat. Crowds thronged about him. Women embraced
and kissed him. The most hardened cynic dropped a tear. 7
JeffersoVpavis was unmoved. Rising in his place he offered an
amendment, his pet scheme, that the line of 36 30' be extended to
the Pacific to cut California in twain, the northern half to be free
and the southern, slave.
Calhoun's speech was read by Mason, the aged Carolinian being
too feeble for the task. Feeble though he was, there Calhoun sat,
fighting to the last gasp. With head erect, the fires of passion
burning in his sunken eyes, and swathed in flannel, he restated his
logical out-worn dogma of the indivisibility of sovereignty. He
likewise offered an amendment that two presidents be chosen, one
by the Free States, the other by the Slave, each to have a veto
power over Congress.
On March 7, Webster spoke, the only speech in our history
known by the date of its delivery. "I wish to speak to-day," said
the god-like Daniel, "not as a Massachusetts man nor as a northern
* Scherer, 208; Schurz, II, 389.
80 FIVE GAPING WOUNDS
man, but as an American" an oration which stirred the country
and became the declamation of thousands of school boys. 8 Seward
replied to Webster. "This compromise will be useless and futile,"
said Seward, "No government can change the moral convictions
of its subjects . . . We are told slavery is protected by the Con-
stitution and that the Constitution regulates our stewardship. But
there is a higher law than the Constitution! 9
When the sententious Benton rose, he heaped ridicule on the
bill. "Cats and dogs have been tied together by their tails and
flung across a pole ! " he snorted. Clay, he dubbed a quack doctor
peddling his nostrums : "Old Doctor Townsend of famous Sarsa-
parilla fame ! . . . Five gaping wounds indeed ! " he sneered. "If
the Senator had had more fingers there would have been more
wounds ! "
Benton, who was really devoted to the Union, charged that the
excited condition of the country was due to the Southern Address,
a document intended to bring on secession. Here Foote, whose
hatred of Benton was a mania, sprang to his feet and exclaimed,
"The signers of that address, Sirs, will be held in veneration when
their calumniator is a subject of loathing and contempt ! "
At the word calumniator, Benton rushed at Foote, who backed
towards the clerk's desk, levelling his revolver at Benton's breast.
Benton, in a towering rage, was pinioned and held fast and a
general melee was narrowly averted.
Houston likewise attacked the Southern Address and Senator
Davis for his connection with it. The stern old Texan charged
that the opposition to the bill was disruption of the Union. "Why,"
Houston asked, "is the Senator from Mississippi offering an amend-
ment to extend the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific but to
defeat the bill? Does any one imagine that California, which is
overwhelmingly free, will consent to be cut into two states, one
free and the other slave?" The attacks on Senator Davis by
Houston and others found their way into the daily press, arousing
the Mississippian to bitter rejoinders.
"I want a full and final settlement," said Senator Davis, "and
the least I will accept is the Missouri Compromise line to the
Pacific. . . . The spirit of 1820 was a line extending west till lost
*Beverid#e, II, 127.
FIVE GAPING WOUNDS 81
in the waters of the Ocean." 9 "When a reputable man makes a
charge that I inject the Missouri Compromise line to favor dis-
union, I will answer him . . . I'll answer any reputable man with
a monosyllable who charges I'm a disunionist ... A set of scav-
engers are hanging over this Senate whose business is to invent
or gather slander; one specially, the vilest of his class, Herman
... I see nothing short of conquest on one side or submission on
the other . . . And, Sirs, when my people want a standard bearer,
I am at their command."
"There is no occasion for a standard bearer," Foote sneered.
Since the personal encounter between Davis and Foote two years
before, they had agreed to make no reference to each other, but this
was impossible. Davis was now actively organizing his Mississippi
forces, urging them to cooperate and protect southern rights.
Foote was leading the opposition and championing the Union cause.
Crowds continued to fill the Senate chamber, attracted not only
by the oratory but by the spectacle of personal encounters.
On one occasion Senator Benton, the friend of Jackson, with an
inherited contempt for the South Carolina Nullifier, paid his re-
spects to Calhoun and to his theory of a self-destroying govern-
ment. Benton cited Calhoun J s numerous addresses, his manifestoes,
pamphlets, public letters, and particularly the resolutions of Feb-
ruary 19, 1847, intended to enrage the hot-blooded South. "In
these resolutions," Benton declared, "I see many nullifications, as
Sylla saw in Caesar many Mariuses." Calhoun's theory that the
Constitution carried slavery into the territories greatly enraged the
bold Missourian, who exclaimed, "Sirs, this is the vagary of a
diseased imagination. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound
and fury, signifying nothing 1 "
Much was expected of Senator Jefferson Davis when he came to
address the Senate, nor did he disappoint his friends. In bold and
defiant language he spoke. High he held his standard, ready to
risk all for equal rights in California and New Mexico. 10 He
opened his remarks with a passing reference to the large crowd
which had assembled. He realized they were not present because
of the speaker, but for his cause.
"Sirs," said he, "not passion, not party, not noisy fanaticism,
9 Globe, 995 ; June 27, 1850.
id.j 31 st Congress, May and June, 1850.
82 FIVE GAPING WOUNDS
but a steady purpose to dominate and conquer is the policy. . . .
Slaves are property and above all law. . . . Slavery preceded the
Constitution, preceded the law. . . . Sirs, I have been at all times
willing to compromise on the line of 36 30' to the Pacific, not to
establish slavery south or north of that line, for it needs no estab-
lishment there. . . . Without the slavery clause of the Constitu-
tion, there would have been no Union." n Having laid down this
general proposition, of the rights of property in slaves, the speaker
hastened to his conclusion : Slaves, as other property, might be car-
ried anywhere in the United States.
This conclusion was controverted by Douglas and Clingman.
"True," said they, "one may carry his property where he wishes,
but not his institutions. Whiskey is property but may not be car-
ried into a "dry" state ; a Mormon with fifty wives cannot claim
his polygamous rights outside of Utah. Equally so, one may not
carry slave property into anti-slavery territory; to do this would
be to transport slavery-customs contrary to law."
In one of his speeches, Senator Davis referred to an idea recently
broached by Cass in a letter to A. 0. P. Nicholson that squatters in
the new territory should be allowed to vote. "Sirs," said Davis,
"I prefer the Wilmot Proviso. It is at least honest." 12
On April 18, 1850, Clay's resolution on Foote's motion had been
referred to a select Committee of Thirteen and on May 18 the
committee reported substantially the bill as offered by Clay in
January. There was also a minority report. On July 31 the
vote was taken on the committee's report and the bill was torn to
shreds. By a combination of extremes and by the opposition of
President Taylor, the measure was emasculated. The President
was not willing to a hodge-podge measure ; he wished no "Omnibus
Bill," as he called the Clay compromise. He had cooperated in
making California a state and insisted that his action be endorsed.
Not a strict party man, Taylor loved the Union with a soldier's
devotion, and placed it above slavery. To promote the public good
he would take counsel of Seward or of any other Northerner,
though in so doing he might estrange his son-in-law and the ex-
tremists.
Oa a final vote the section relating to California was defeated ;
so were the sections relating to New Mexico, the slave trade in the
Globe, XXII, 156. "Fish, 7.
FIVE GAPING WOUNDS 83
District, and the fugitive slave law. Only one section of the bill
escaped the general holocaust the admission of Utah. And when
the vote was announced, Benton, in lordly fashion, declared : "The
Omnibus Bill has landed at its destination, but with only one
passenger ! "
Jefferson Davis took delight in the defeat of the Clay compro-
mise, boasting that it was the best work he had ever accomplished.
He likewise derided Foote and Douglas for their support of the
measure. But he had placed himself in strange company, that of
the abolitionists, men whose names were anathema in southern
Union households. Seward, Hale, Chase, John Davis of Massa-
chusetts, and Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, voting as one man,
"No," while Clay, Webster, Cass, Douglas, Foote, Bell, Badger,
and Mangum voted "Aye." Whigs indeed charged that southern
fire-eaters had formed a combination with abolitionists to dissolve
the Union. 13
Soon after the defeat of the Omnibus Bill sundry events hap-
pened favorable to a compromise. In July, President Taylor, who
had opposed the bill, died very suddenly, and was succeeded by
Vice-President Fillinore, an advocate of compromise. Moreover
the "Secession" Nashville Convention which met in June proved a
fiasco. Only a few states were represented. Chief Justice Sharkey,
a conservative, presided and the resolutions adopted were not as
war-like as had been expected. Furthermore, the dispute over New
Mexico's boundary line had become acute, and Texas was threaten-
ing to take forcible possession of the lands claimed by her. Evi-
dently something must be done and at once or the United States
would find herself at war with Texas.
Again, New Mexico and California were growing restless because
their demands to enter the Union had so long been postponed.
California was insisting that she had complied with President
Taylor's instructions and would brook no further delay. The new
President, in the reorganization of his cabinet, selected conserva-
tive men, naming Webster as Secretary of State ; anti-slavery offi-
cials, holding office under Seward's recommendation, were removed
and compromise-Whigs put in their places. And finally the busi-
ness interests were demanding that the territorial question which
13 Picayune, Sept. 16, 1850; Southron, Aug. 2.
84 FIVE GAPING WOUNDS
had so long distracted the country be settled/ 4 as two hundred
million dollars were due northern merchants by the South.
At this favorable moment, early in August, Douglas brought for-
ward a separate bill to admit California as a state. This was fol-
lowed by a bill to organize New Mexico and to appropriate ten
million dollars to settle her boundary dispute. Other bills relating
to the controversy were offered and thus the entire matter came up
again before the Senate. But not before the same Senate.
The Great Triumvirate was no more. Calhoun was dead ; Web-
ster was in the cabinet, having been succeeded by the scholarly
Winthrop ; Clay, weary and disappointed, had gone off to the sea-
coast for rest. Nevertheless, diplomacy, plus the ten millions,
worked wonders even more than oratory. The proposition to
admit California appeased the West and won over Benton who
became one of the four of the original committee to vote for all
five of the measures. 15
By a strange twist of fate the dare-devil Foote took charge of
the southern end of the fight, 16 tongue-lashing any who dared cross
his path.
Senator Soule of Louisiana soon fell under Foote's wrath. "If
we of the South submit to this degradation," exclaimed Soule, "we
are worse than slaves." "Who makes this charge?" quoth Foote.
"Who is it that lectures the South and stirs up strife who but an
alien, a foreigner, a native of France. Sirs, this Senate needs no
Danton, no Robespierre to dictate to it ! "
The two Mississippians,, Davis and Foote, were perhaps more
often on their feet than senators from any other state. "Senators,
Countrymen, Brethren, and all other terms, endearing and impres-
sive I can call you," solemnly Senator Davis cautioned in one of his
many appeals, "I warn you of the dangers of passing this measure
and I plead for the preservation of this Union." Sam Houston
hastened to reply and charged that Davis was a disunionist, that
the Southern Address, fathered by Davis, breathed secession and
that the recent anti-Union Mississippi Convention was dominated
by Calhoun in his letter to Tarpley.
14 Stephenson, Lincoln and the Union, 6.
15 R. J. Walker's name was besmirched in the Texas bonus measure.
18 Much scandal may be found in Foote's Caskets and also in his Bar of
the West.
FIVE GAPING WOUNDS 85
"Sirs," said Houston, "the Nashville Convention was flagrant
arrogance submitting ultimatums and sine qua nons to the Con-
gress of the United States ! ... In February last I placed my foot
on this secession movement, I trampled down the monster/'
Davis: The Senator seems to recollect very well when he first
began this attack ; he says it was in February. 17
Houston: The 9th, I think.
Davis: It is not true that the character of that meeting was
fashioned by Mr. Calhoun.
Houston: It is very strange that the Tarpley letter was at the
convention and had no influence on its deliberations.
Davis: It did not arrive during the convention.
Houston: Was it not at the convention?
Davis : I understood that it was not.
Houston: I understood it was there, and had been received by
Colonel Tarpley. 18
"However this may be," said the good-natured Houston, "Amer-
ica is our country from ocean to ocean, from gulf to gulf. Let us
stick to the Union ; the Union is the tire to the wheel."
The California bill came up first in the Senate and on August
13 was adopted by a vote of thirty-four to eighteen. Not a
southern Democrat voted for the measure, except Sam Houston.
Four southern Whigs sacrificed themselves and voted "Aye." With
scorn and contempt Jefferson Davis voted, "No." Each and every
measure, except the Fugitive Slave bill, he attacked.
On August 13, New Mexico without the Wilmot Proviso, and the
ten million subsidy bill, passed the Senate. On August 23 and on
September 13 the Fugitive Slave bill and the bill abolishing the
slave trade in the District each respectively passed the Senate. In
the House, these measures were also adopted and on September 13
the great compromise was complete. There were now sixteen free
states and fifteen slave states and Calhoun's "equilibrium" was
destroyed forever destroyed.
But not until Senator Davis had exhausted every resource to
defeat the scheme, going to the verge of rudeness, and accusing
southern senators of apostasy. He moreover injected dilatory mo-
tions motions to adjourn, for a call of the House, and to refer
1T Globe, August 13, 1850.
18 Further investigation discovered that the letter was at the convention.
86 FIVE GAPING WOUNDS
the credentials of the new California senators, Gwyn and Fremont,
to the judiciary committee. Finally he filed a protest signed by
himself and other stalwarts, which was so violent conservatives
like Downs of Louisiana voted to reject it. The protest was
tabled. 19
In his annual message. President Fillmore gave high praise to the
compromise measures. They were adopted, he declared, in a spirit
of conciliation and the people in the main approved. In January
a pledge was signed by about fifty members of Congress that they
would support no man for office who opposed the compromise and
no one who favored further slavery agitation. The slavery ques-
tion had been settled and was out of the way. They insisted that
the compromise of 1820 had taken care of all territory west of the
Mississippi, except the latest acquisition, and the new compromise
had provided for that. There could therefore be no room for agi-
tation except by evil-minded persons professional agitators or
self-opinionated hot-spurs.
Early in the fall session a bill was offered which declared the
compromise a finality. A long debate followed and a third time the
matter was gone over. Senator Foote was flayed alive for revers-
ing himself. Davis asserted that he had been the greatest of fire-
eaters until he whipped around and posed as a Unionist to gain
political power. But the old charges that Davis was at heart a
secessionist and had really opposed any compromise, as shown in
his Southern Address and in his protest, were also revived. Davis
retorted, "I glory in being one of those who inflicted its death upon
the Omnibus Bill. . . . We at least killed the Wilmot Proviso and
enacted a stronger fugitive slave law." Meanwhile Hale, on the
side-lines, enjoyed the breach in southern ranks and called frequent
attention to "southern chivalry," as epithets were hurled and pis-
tols and bowie knives glittered.
The new fugitive slave law was likewise much discussed. Sev-
eral fugitive slave cases the Shadrach and the Sims cases from
Boston and some others from the West were cited by radical sen-
ators, North and South. These cases, they claimed, proved that
the law for the return of fugitive slaves could never be enforced ;
they had predicted as much and pointed out that the law would
be a nullity unless sustained by popular sentiment, and so it had
* 9 Globe, August 15, Appendix, 1551.
FIVE GAPING WOUNDS 87
turned out. Clay controverted these conclusions and maintained
that the cases were exceptional and the law was working satisfac-
torily, except in Boston and a few other abolition centers.
Jefferson Davis insisted that the necessity for such a law at all
was a reflection upon the good faith of the offending states. Every
state had agreed to obey the Constitution which contained a pro-
viso for the return of fugitive slaves; now northern states were
violating their obligations. "If Massachusetts sanctions the action
of the negro mob in Boston/' he exclaimed, "she is already vir-
tually out of the Union. Let her depart in peace; I would not
give a dollar to coerce her back. 33 20
In the discussion of his protest and throughout the debate, Sen-
ator Davis had often been critical and censorious. He designated
the last session of Congress as "the dark and disgraceful period of
our history, the Iliad of southern woes. . . . The people will re-
pudiate such ill-timed measures," he exclaimed. "The South will
have none of it; she will lose self-respect if she submits to this
degradation.' 3
These utterances of Davis excited the excitable Foote, who de-
nied that Mississippi opposed the compromise or favored secession.
"On this issue," said he, "I challenge my opponent to meet me on
the stump and if defeated I will resign my seat. I would scorn
to represent the once glorious State of Mississippi should she
enlist under the black banner of Disunion."
Davis accepted Foote's challenge and in September, 1850, re-
signed from the Senate his second resignation in the cause of
slavery. The first was to take part in the Mexican War and to
extend slave territory. Now he was resigning to take the stump
for slavery-extension and constitutional liberty. And his victory
over Foote before the people of Mississippi seemed an easy one,
the legislature having passed resolutions condemning that senator.
In their opinion Foote was a turncoat, violating his constitutional
obligations and misrepresenting the state. The only true repre-
sentative in the Senate was Jefferson Davis.
During the remainder of the session, Senator Davis's demeanor
was absolute confidence and complacency. Serenely he took issue
with the lawyers and denied their ability to handle patent law
unaided by the officers of the Bureau. Replying to Senator Dawes
20 Wilson, II, 332.
SB FIVE GAPING WOUNDS
who had said he did not believe Mississippi was in favor of dis-
solution, he exclaimed, "Who does? Who ever said Mississippi
desired to dissolve the Union ? Dissolution is an alternative, a last
recourse, to which we will only resort when bound as freemen to
surrender our inheritance. We will preserve the Union as it was
formed and transmitted from our revolutionary sires. Dissolution
will be the result of a violation of our Constitutional rights and
we will not submit to usurpation and degrading aggression."
Davis opposed a bill setting aside lands to support the indigent
insane ; such a measure was beyond the power of Congress. Lock-
ing horns with Foote, he vigorously assailed the resolution to con-
fer the title of Lieutenant General by Brevet on Scott, soon to be
the Whig candidate for President. He assailed a resolution to
appropriate funds to aid the American Colonization Society to
colonize free negroes in Africa. Colonization he opposed on gen-
eral principles and in the present case, Congress had no power in
the premises. 21
In January a resolution condemning foreign slave vessels operat-
ing between Brazil and the United States had come up. Senator
Davis attacked the resolution. He declared slavery benefited the
slave and insisted that this affair was no concern of Congress. In
September, as we have seen, he resigned his office. Foote, how-
ever, held on and drew his salary throughout the approaching Mis-
sissippi campaign. 22
21 Rowland, II, 267.
22 Globe, Jan. 22, i&$i ; Feb. n ; Feb. 12 ; Feb. 15.
CHAPTER VIII
DOWN
Congress had now spoken, but how would the people react?
Only the fall elections could tell, and though it was an off year in
politics with no President to be elected, the issues furnished ample
excitement. In the country at large the situation was indeed
complex.
Radical abolitionists were deriding the Constitution, placing
their anti-slavery creed above that "covenant with hell," berating
the harlot slavery, and appealing to the higher law ; radical advo-
cates of slavery, professing to rely on the Constitution and to
revere the Union but promulgating slavery extension ultimata that
must result in disunion; Free Soilers, insisting that slavery was
condemned by the Declaration of Independence and the spirit of
the Constitution and, though protected in the slave states, not to
be extended another foot.
And finally the conservatives in the South usually Whigs and
property owners. These men knew that slavery was a benign and
kindly institution, not half as bad as painted, and yet an anachro-
nism, mediaeval and archaic. Its further extention they conceded
was undesirable if not impossible. And they were greatly irritated
at the conduct of extremists such as Yancey and Rhett, though
they considered Calhoun and Davis, ready with addresses and
pamphlets to puzzle the intellect, more dangerous. If Rhett and
Yancey vocalized secession, they concluded that Davis formulated
and categorized it.
"Why should Calhoun and Davis, 3 ' Unionists asked, "run counter
to the spirit of the age? Why should they pin the South to the
academic demand of slavery-extension and the attempt to trans-
port a nameless nigger into a nameless territory?" Based on the
outworn dogma of state sovereignty and the indivisibility of sov-
ereignty, slavery-extension was a mere chimera an abstraction.
Judge Badger, the North Carolina Senator, was a type of the
89
90 DOWN
conservative of the Border States. "Secession ! " exclaimed Bad-
ger. "Sir, there is no such thing. If war come it will be revolu-
tion" a doctrine Badger had learned at the feet of Webster, Clay,
and Thomas Corwin. "How is it possible/ 7 thoughtful people were
asking, "for state sovereignty to have survived the centralizing
changes of three-quarters of a century ? Long ago America ceased
to be a Confederation and grew into a Nation, the greatest Nation
known to man though many members, one body." *
"Admit Mr. Davis's premises," said the Whigs, "that sovereignty
is indivisible and that no one of the thirteen states has granted
away its sovereignty, how does that affect the case ? Eighteen new
states have been since created much larger than the original thir-
teen and they were never sovereign, certainly not until the United
States blew into them the breath of life. Is the creature greater
than the creator?" In a word, as Webster, the mouthpiece of the
Whigs, urged, slavery extension was based on a dogma, narrow
and cramped, and lacking in historical perspective, 2
Furthermore, the conservative slave owner understood that the
real protection to his slave property was the Constitution and the
Union, and that the Constitution was the rock under which slavery
was hiding itself. "Destroy the Union and that moment you de-
stroy slavery." This was good old Whig doctrine. Or, as the
Whig press was saying in condemnation of disunionists, "We are
heartily sick of this everlasting twaddle about the South the
South that word of talismanic charm with southern dema-
gogues ... In the name of dignity and self-respect, let us forbear
against further gasconading." 3
It was with this complicated situation, Jefferson Davis and
Henry Stuart Foote, rivals for leadership in Mississippi, had to
deal. And nowhere was the issue between the unionists and dis-
unionists, between the secessionists and submissionists, more
sharply defined than in Mississippi. Since the fisticuff between
Davis and Foote, several years before, "party rancor had flamed
into personal hatred, which neither time nor circumstance could
mitigate." 4
1 Cole, Chap. VI.
2 Merriam, 337.
* North State Whig, Feb. 6, 1850; National Intelligencer, March II, 1850.
* Davis, R., 315.
DOWN 91
The Democratic legislature had provided that an election be held
on the question of convention or no convention and it was under-
stood that such convention, if called, would be the first step In
secession and that Mississippi would no longer submit to the laws
of the United States. 5 In June, 1851, the Democratic convention
met to nominate state officers and to back up the movement for a
convention. It favored immediate secession, and prepared an
address which was passed on to Senator Davis for supervision.
The Senator, then sick and in bed, toned down the paper. He op-
posed immediate secession under existing circumstances, and advo-
cated delay. That is, he would postpone secession until the South
was united.
He was not for secession until secession would succeed. It was
certainly no time to secede when the Nashville Convention was
lukewarm, only two or three southern states in attendance, and
when southern congressmen were divided on slavery-extension.
The stalwart Democratic party went bravely forward with Senator
Davis's program, which called for a Mississippi convention that
"would invite a general convention of all the slave-holding states."
This general convention "would demand that slavery be recognized
in the territories." If this demand was granted, that ended the
matter ; otherwise there would be secession. 6 The party changed
its name from the Democratic party to the State Rights party and
nominated General Quitman, an out-and-out disunionist, opposed
to any delay or cooperation, for governor.
After the convention adjourned, the executive committee pro-
ceeded to flood the state with circulars, addresses, speeches of con-
gressmen, and other documents warning the people "that a yawn-
ing gulf of degradation was in front of them." It likewise placed in
every Mississippi home the Southern Address in which the horrors
of emancipation were depicted, particularly to the poorer classes.
"When the abolitionists set free our negroes they will come in com-
petition with the white labor and social and political equality will
result." T
The year previous, Governor Quitman had backed with money
and influence an expedition to liberate Cuba from the tyranny of
5 Dodd, 127 ; Lowry, 161 ; Davis, R., 321.
Rowland, II, 81.
7 The Mississippian went to every home. Davis, R., 352.
92 DOWN
Spain and to annex it to the United States. Lopez, a Cuban
patriot, was the organizer of this filibuster movement. He had
tendered the command of his forces to Colonel Jeff Davis, but
Davis, though sympathetic, had declined the place. When Spain
protested against the activity of Governor Quitman, President
Fillmore ordered his arrest for violating the neutrality law. Quit-
man resigned his office, was tried in the United States court at New
Orleans and acquitted, becoming the hero of song and story. He
was now seeking vindication at the hands of the people.
Meanwhile, Foote had not been idle. Upon his arrival in Mis-
sissippi, he found the legislature which condemned him had not
adjourned. Forthwith, he issued a call for a convention of the
people to meet with him at Jackson when he would explain his
course as their Senator. The convention met and sat at the same
time the legislature was in session. Foote addressed them in an
harangue such as only he could make. He justified his course in
the Senate, charged that Davis was plotting to destroy the Union,
and to gratify a long cherished ambition to be president of a
southern confederacy. He quoted Davis's utterances in support
of this charge, and particularly he called attention to the Quitman-
Davis secession banquet. 8 Foote's "gorgeous imagery and splendid
diction" swept everything before him.
Whigs and Union Democrats lost no time in nominating the
bold, self-assertive Foote for governor against Quitman. 9 Clay
and Webster extended their blessings and Sharkey, Mississippi's
greatest jurist, actively supported Foote. The real issue before the
people was convention or no convention, Union or Disunion. In
the convention Davis sat as close to Foote as he could while the
latter made his opening address. The two canvasses ran along
together though the convention was to be voted on in September
and the governorship in November.
A joint debate between Foote and Quitman was arranged, and
several discussions took place. Quitman, whose style was poor
and flat, proved a mere tyro in Foote's hands ; and he was held
up to ridicule and to universal derision. The joint discussion
finally wound up in a fisticuff between the candidates. The tri-
umphant Foote thereafter spoke alone and Quitman made the mis-
take of trailing along behind and speaking several days after Foote
8 Rowland, II, 145. * Davis, R., 317.
DOWN 93
had left the stump. The "secession" movement, as it was called,
was defeated by seven thousand votes, and Quitman retired from
the race. 10
The Democratic party was now in a bad way. The secession
issue had gone against it, Quitman, its candidate, had been run off
the stump, and September was well advanced. In six weeks the
election for governor would take place. What should the party
do ? Undoubtedly, turn to Jefferson Davis, who had formulated the
platform and who would have been nominated at the convention
in June had he not declined in Quitman's favor: the masterful
Davis, "about whom there was something which captivated the
imagination and exalted him into a hero, making him dearer than
all others to the popular heart. . . . His persuasive utterance, In-
deed, when he spoke, moved the hearts of the people as the wind
moves the trees of the woods." n
But Jefferson Davis was in no condition to enter the contest;
he was now a sick man. After leaving Washington in September,
he and his wife had come down to Jackson, where the Senator
posted himself on Mississippi politics since he was last in the state.
During the month of July, 1851, he entered the canvass and advo-
cated the calling of the convention. This canvass was ex parte and
not joint, and in the course of a few weeks of exposure to the sum-
mer sun, Davis was overcome, and fell ill of malarial fever. 12 It
was the old story, the man was frail and unequal to the task. Giv-
ing up the canvass, he "was carried to the home of kind and self-
abnegating friends, where his left eye became acutely Inflamed
and the cornea was threatened with ulceration." His suffering was
intense. "For three weeks he slept all day and walked through
the house all night."
It was during the period of recovery that the executive com-
mittee named Davis as candidate for governor in Quitman's place,
coming down to his sick bed to consult him as to an address about
to be issued. The convalescent accepted the nomination and toned
down the address so it opposed secession "under existing circum-
stances." When it became known that Davis had accepted, Foote
issued a challenge inviting him to a joint debate. Davis declined
1 Garner, 3. 12 Memoir, I, 469.
11 Davis, R., 321.
94 DOWN
and pleaded ill health, 13 but about three weeks before the Novem-
ber election took the stump alone, canvassing in his own behalf.
Thin, emaciated, and wearing green goggles, his appearance was
not prepossessing, nor was his canvass a brilliant one. Failing to
meet Foote on the stump was also a great handicap.
Up and down the state the irrepressible Foote went, charging
that Davis was a disunionist and a secessionist. Often he sneered
at his opponent and called him "General Davis." "Where is Gen-
eral Davis?" he would dramatically ask. "In the Senate I chal-
lenged him to meet me face to face before the people of Mississippi.
He accepted the challenge. Where is he now? I do not know
where he is now but I do know where he was in Washington during
the late compromise debates : in the same truckle-bed with Seward
and Chase and Hale, the abolitionists I ... While Clay and Web-
ster, with my humble assistance, were standing shoulder to shoulder
for the Union, General Davis and northern radicals were hobnob-
bing to break it up." 14
Foote did not fail to call attention to the victory of the South
in the recent compromise legislation. The Wilmot Proviso had
been defeated forever killed and buried ; Root's motion to apply
the proviso to Utah and New Mexico had been tabled tabled by
the votes of northern men, staunch friends of the South. 15 Slavery
in the District remained untouched though the radicals had sought
to abolish it, and, finally, an efficient fugitive slave law had been
passed protecting southern rights.
Davis was defeated for governor by a scant thousand votes, a
tribute indeed, showing the esteem in which he was held by stal-
wart Mississippians. But Foote, the gadfly stinging Davis almost
to death, was the Governor of Mississippi and would fill that posi-
tion during two long years.
In the campaign, Davis had made the best of a bad bargain. He
was wise to decline a joint debate. He could not have stood up
before Foote, "the best stump speaker then living." Without
humor, wit, or imagination, Davis could not move the crowd to
frenzy. 16 His speeches were legal briefs, except when he touched
13 Dodd, 128; Mississippian, October n, 1850.
14 Mississippi newspapers of this date.
^ Wilson, II, 30.
16 Montgomery, 9.
DOWN 95
on northern aggression and southern cowardice and submission. At
such times his fine eyes flashed and burning words poured from
his lips. He likewise wrote more than he spoke, filling the papers
with interviews and explanations of his course in the Senate. 17
Many open letters had been addressed to him asking this ques-
tion: "Do you favor secession now?" His invariable answer was,
"No, not under existing circumstances." But this denial was fol-
lowed by an explanation which made it almost an affirmation. "I
defy any man to come in my presence and charge me with advocat-
ing secession ... I do not favor secession, but this I say, if the
South possesses the power to enforce her constitutional rights, it
must be elsewhere than in the halls of Congress or at the ballot
box." 18
"You ask me what I advise Mississippi to do at this time," he
wrote upon another occasion. "My answer is, arm and make
preparation. Call a state convention this fall, to be followed by a
general southern convention. Demand our constitutional rights
equal protection of slavery in the territories. If these rights are
conceded, we will live together in tranquillity ; if denied, I advo-
cate a manly fight. . . . Shall we bow to degradation? Are we to
have slavish submission to northern aggression?" 19
The effort which Quitman and Davis made, in 1850 and 1851,
to set on foot a secession movement in Mississippi had its counter-
part in every slave-holding state. Undoubtedly by preconcert,
from Richmond to Galveston embryo-secessionists were busy, the
plan being slavery-extension or disunion. General Reuben Davis,
who opposed Foote and advocated Jefferson Davis for governor,
sheds light upon the situation in Mississippi at that time. "Many
Democrats voted for Foote," says Reuben Davis, "believing the
issue involved disunion of the states, and was the first step in that
direction. Time showed that they were not mistaken. The party
was defeated, but strengthened by defeat. From that defeat the
party concentrated all its energies in one direction and became
despotic. Everywhere the cry was, 'Obey or quit the camp ! ' "
And everywhere the effort to fan the flames of disunion failed.
Democrat, June 4, 1851; Rowland, II, 88.
18 Fort Gibson Herald, November 29, 1850.
19 Woodville Republican, Nov. 19, 1850 ; Mississippi Free Trader, Nov.
30, 1850.
96 DOWN
In the main, the American people, North and South, endorsed the
action of Congress. Here and there a radical was elected to the
National House. Sumner of Massachusetts and Ben Wade of
Ohio, for example, were elected to the Senate. But by and large it
was the day of conservatism and peace. The compromise measures
were declared and were a "Finality," particularly in the South. 20
In Georgia a notable Union victory was won, Robert Toombs
and Alexander H. Stephens doing good work for the Union, In
Alabama, the redoubtable Yancey entered the race one time too
often and was defeated for Congress. At a later date, an Ala-
bamian signing himself Nathaniel Macon wrote an open letter to
Charles O'Connor, maintaining that the only security for slavery
lay in the Constitution and the Union. 21 In Florida, the time-
serving Youlee, whose real name was David Levy, was defeated
for the Senate. In the cultured and spirited commonwealth of
South Carolina, a war of pamphlets was fought, presenting the
literary side of the issue. In this contest conservatives won. 22 In
the Border States, the victory for conservatism was more than sat-
isfactory, and on the whole peace smiled on the country and a
brighter day seemed dawning.
Jefferson Davis was now a stranded politician, a statesman with-
out a job. Would he submit to the will of the people ? Acknowl-
edging his error, would he cease to agitate slavery-extension and
kiss the rod? Undoubtedly a man of less fortitude would have
yielded, for everything seemed black before him. His health was
bad, his means limited, he had no genius for friendship. Aside
from the Joneses in the Northwest, Franklin Pierce of New
Hampshire, Caleb Gushing of Boston, and T. H. Drayton of South
Carolina, he had few attached friends. From his unbending
brother Joseph he was estranged, and the very roof that sheltered
him belonged to another Joseph had never given him a deed for
Brierfield. Though he had none of these things, however, Jefferson
Davis had an unconquerable soul.
Moreover, he felt that his cause was just and must finally tri-
umph. His philosophy was that of caste and inequality. He
2 <> Cole, Chap. VL
21 Merriam, 58.
22 Charleston Public Library Pamphlets by W, J. Grayson, B. F. Perry,
W. A. Owens, Isaac M. Hutson, and numerous others.
DOWN 97
asserted that men were not equal, but "that some were fit only for
the hard toil of the field, while others were plainly designed for
the easier task of managing and directing the labor of others."
Under this philosophy he asserted that planters were prosperous,
the "mudsills" contented, "and the slaves the happiest of living
men." 23
Senator Hammond's "mudsills" speech, to which I have just re-
ferred, was made while he was constructing a dam in a boggy South
Carolina low-ground. The Senator was forced to dig deep for a
solid foundation on which to place his mudsill the mudsill being a
large heavy log, 24 Returning to the Senate, Hammond made use of
the experience and contrasted the "miserable white slaves" of the
North with the happy laborers of the South. 25 "Our working
classes," said Hammond, "have the requisite vigor, docility, and
fidelity, and constitute the very mudsills of society and political
government." 26 Whether Hammond's mudsills were poor whites
or slaves is now uncertain, some historians claiming the reference
was to slaves. At the time, however, the allusion was clear.
Andrew Johnson construed the words to mean poor whites, and
Jefferson Davis declared that "nowhere else will you find every
white man superior to menial labor." 2T
A learned author has recently asked a searching question: "Is
not every civilization bound to decay as soon as citizenship pene-
trates the masses ?" 2S Undoubtedly the answer of Jefferson Davis,
as disclosed in his philosophy, would have been "Yes." Davis, in-
deed, would have agreed with certain of the wise ones of our day
that brains and culture only should rule and that the "dregs" are
of no value, 29 and that the North, in its attitude towards the South
and towards slavery, "undermined the foundations of freedom." 30
23 Dodd, Cotton Kingdom, 70; Fitzhugh, 257; Scherer, 240; Hollis, 145-212,
24 Senator Hammond's grandson furnishes this fact.
. 25 Savage, John, Andrew Johnson, 68, N. Y., 1866.
* 6 /WdL, 64.
27 Globe, 916-17; February 29, 1860; Phillips, 339; Beveridge, II, 4;
Connor, II, 151 ; Rhodes, I, 382.
28 Rostovtzeff, 487.
29 Buchholz, 5; 383."
80 Hollis, 212.
CHAPTER IX
LYING IN WAIT
After a long absence the Jefferson Davises returned to Brierfield.
A few years before, James Pemberton, their trusty slave overseer,
had died and the plantation was therefore in a state of sad neglect.
There had been no caretaker and only one untrained negro woman
to look after the residence. 1 When Mrs. Davis began the work of
rehabilitation, she found it quite an undertaking. As she was
opening up the house, the negro girl exclaimed with genuine sym-
pathy, "Lawd, Missus, 'tain't no use to talk, what ain't broke is
crack and what ain't crack is broke."
Life in their remote primitive home moved along quietly and
happily. The Mississippi washed the shores of Palmyra and a
thousand steamers rushed to and fro, their shrill whistles startling
wild fowls and beasts and their brilliant lights piercing the dense
jungles. The mail packet came twice a week, bringing newspapers,
magazines, and news of the great world beyond. Only occasionally
would visitors call and these never included the Joseph Davises
Hurricane and Brierfield were not on visiting terms. In vain had
brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, and cousins sought to reconcile
the stubborn Joseph and the equally stubborn Jefferson. The rock
breaks ; it never bends. 2
Mrs. Davis was a fine horsewoman and accompanied her hus-
band each day as they cantered, astride the fast Davis horses, up
and down the lovely valley. The races, as Mrs. Davis writes, were
rather even, as there was only thirty seconds difference in the speed
of the horses. "Nothing could be more pleasant than the dense
shade through which we could ride for miles, in air redolent of the
perfume of the moss, flowers, wild crabapple and plum blossoms."
The garden was a delight, yielding choice vegetables the year
round. The soil of Brierfield was so fertile "golden-rod would grow
large enough for a heavy walking stick, the heads of the blooms
1 Memoir, I, 474* 2 55, Mississippi Reports, 700.
98
LYING IN WAIT 99
resembling banks of gold." Trees, ornamental shrubs, roses, and
sunflowers were planted by the loving hands of the returned occu-
pants. "In every slough the lotus with its lemon-colored chalices
covered the surface, their green leaves nearly a foot across."
Golden days for man and wife. For Mrs. Davis days of sunshine
and of love, for she was now thrilling with the joy of expectant
motherhood. In June, 1853, tlieir first-born came, Samuel Davis,
named for the stern old captain, Jefferson's father. Of course there
were rounds of visits to the kinsfolk to show the new baby.
On the whole, and despite the political activity of Mr. Davis,
which I shall presently refer to, this open life on the plantation
was a real rest and satisfaction, restoring him to vigor of body and
mind. Though the left eye was almost blind, the acute trouble
had disappeared and he was now in his usual health. What a
delight it was as master and mistress worked together in the gar-
den, or at night sat before an open fire, reading the news of Wash-
ington and the literature of all ages.
But there was work to do : the slaves, of whom there were per-
haps thirty or forty, needed patriarchal care; the sick must be
looked after, the old and feeble provided for. Cloth must be spun,
clothes made, shoes got ready for the winter; mules and farm
horses were to be shod ; the race-horses, a dozen or more, carefully
groomed ; wagons and buggies repaired ; the poultry-establishment,
the dairy for family use, supervised, and grunting hogs and a few
cattle kept in order. The larder must be supplied with food for
whites and blacks ; the blacksmith shop, the wood-working shop,
the gin, the stables, the barns, the cabins, the Great House, and
all other appurtenances of a plantation of eight hundred broad
acres were to be kept in repair. An endless task, to be sure, call-
ing for forethought and judgment.
Jefferson Davis's dealings with his slaves were kind and con-
siderate. It could not have been otherwise good manners would
have tolerated nothing less. It was a rule without exception that
no decent master should wantonly punish his slaves or separate
families. "They are usually northern men," said Jefferson Davis,
"who come in our midst and make the dealing in slave property a
business." A statement quite true till the Border States began to
raise young slaves and sell them in the market like other live
100 LYING IN WAIT
stock. 3 "Fortunately slaves had no family ties or emotions, evinc-
ing no grief at separation. 73 4 In a word, the dictates of humanity
and the principle of noblesse oblige governed the best slave owners
they being all powerful and their slaves helpless.
Furthermore, the financial interest of the master was a con-
trolling factor. A first rate negro fellow, sound in wind and limb,
if a skilful mason or carpenter or overseer, would bring more than
a thousand dollars. Such an animal was worth looking after and
entitled to the best care. A plantation, therefore, was a kind of a
sanatorium on a large scale, and often an expensive one. 5
Medical attention was provided, hours for retiring and rising
were fixed, and the food though, plain was wholesome and not
poorly balanced. Each slave family had its garden and planted
potatoes, cabbage, corn, beans, and melons. Occasionally pigs and
chickens were raised, to be eaten or sold at the will of the owners.
The master supplied meat, meal, molasses, and often coffee.
Never, perhaps, was there a race with whiter or finer teeth than
the southern African, as may be seen at this time, due to regular
lives and the absence of highly seasoned food. The census table
of the 1 850*8 discloses a larger Increase of negro population than
white and, I may add, the death rate among slaves in 1860 was
lower than among the freemen of 1880.
On the Davis plantation, as elsewhere, slaves were expected to
be early to bed and up betimes. From April to July, they worked
quite constantly and under the eye of the overseer, but during the
other eight months they had little to do. The crop was planted
in April and housed in September, leaving six months or more of
Idleness given over to fishing, chasing the rabbit, trapping birds
and wild "varmints." Unlike the slaves of Egypt, Greece, and
Rome, southern slaves were required to build no pyramids, no
public roads, no aqueducts, no great monuments. Indeed, it must
be said that if mere physical pleasure and freedom from care con-
stitute happiness, the southern slave was happier than his solicitous
master.
On the old plantation, August was the jubilee month. In August
the crop had been laid by and there was no work. The weather
8 Globe, September 10, 1850, Appendix, 1641,
4 Rhodes, I, 320.
* Memoir, I, 316,
LYING IN WAIT 101
was just hot enough for camp meetings, when the slaves got reli-
gion, ate water-melons, drank cider, and indulged in a general
frolic. Christmas was the holiday of holidays and Easter was duly
celebrated. 6 At Christmas and also on the occasion of the birth
of a young master, the house servants were as saucy as the King's
jester or Wamba in Ivanhoe*, overrunning the plantation and filling
the air with rude congratulations and shouts of joy. Mrs. Davis
gives a picture of such a scene.
"When our first child was born," she writes, "every negro on the
plantation, great and small, came up with little gifts of eggs and
chickens and a speech of thanks for the birth of a 'little massa to
take care of we and to be good to we/ from the year-old glossy
little tot with an egg in his fist to the old women with a squawking
hen or a dozen large yam potatoes in their aprons. The men
looked lovingly on at a distance, but the women each took a kiss.
One lifted up the little rosy fingers and said, 'De Lord, honey, you
ain't never gwine work your negroes gwine do all dat for you.' "
Truly a primitive, happy-go-lucky, impossible and wasteful
existence, as Jefferson Davis soon discovered to his sorrow. Year
after year his plantation yielded less and less and his net earnings
diminished. And even these earnings he invested with little dis-
cretion or judgment, on one occasion lending fourteen thousand
dollars and taking a worthless mortgage on twelve or fifteen slaves. 7
A singular custom prevailed both at Hurricane and Brierfield.
The Davis brothers in their early intimate days had undertaken to
throw the responsibility of keeping order upon their slaves. A
rough judicial system was inaugurated. When a crime occurred,
there would be a jury, some venerable negro preacher presided as
judge, and the culprit had a trial by his peers. The master re-
served the right to reverse or change the verdict in any case.
Financial matters at Brierfield were as primitive as domestic.
Every monetary transaction was cleared through a commission
house. Jefferson Davis's commission merchants were Payne and
Harrison of New Orleans. When in need of funds, Davis simply
drew his sight draft on them and these drafts were paid and
charged to his account. By the fall of the year, the balance against
Brierfield would be large, sometimes five or ten thousand dollars.
But cotton would then begin to move and steamers loaded with
6 Fish, 27. * Rowland, II, 183.
102 LYING IN WAIT
hundreds of bales would reach New Orleans. Thus the account
would be wiped out and a new account opened for the next season.
Scorning to inspect or correct the account of his commission mer-
chants, the imperious landlord paid interest at any rate, often as
high as ten per cent.
JEFFERSON DAVIS IN ACCOUNT WITH PAYNE AND HARRISON
NEW ORLEANS
Balance on account $8163.50
Feb. 7, 1851, by 206 bales of cotton . . . $538449
Balance due 2779.02 2779.02
$538449 $8163.50
(Davis MS. at Washington)
Thus passed the happy days at Brierfield ; its master never idle,
never indulging in dissipation. Jefferson Davis had no time for
trivialities, no time for friendships. The burden of the South and
its grievances bore too heavily upon his shoulders. And the burden
of Henry Stuart Foote. Foote, the turncoat, had upset all plans.
When Davis resigned from the Senate, he had no doubt of an im-
mediate endorsement and a reelection to fill out his own terms.
But Foote had interfered. With lies and slanders and a combina-
tion of misguided Democrats and Whigs, Foote had routed him.
Davis's wrath against Foote was therefore great, but his humilia-
tion was greater.
What a spectacle the people of Mississippi had made of them-
selvesand of him ! The greater the reason for biding his time,
swallowing his wrath, and sinking all lesser issues into the greater.
Foote must go. Expose and defeat Foote and two years hence
Davis would go back to the Senate and take up his great work for
slavery-extension, for the Constitution, and for a mighty Con-
federacy. To attain this end, he was willing to forgive and to for-
get. The conciliation of Democratic bolters, therefore, became his
immediate object. 8
And almost immediately the emotional and imprudent Foote
8 General Claiborne's life shows Quitman's disgust that the Democratic
party should be pursuing Foote instead of following principle. Claiborne,
Quitwm, II, Chap. XVII; Jefferson Davis's tribute to Quitman, Globe, Tan.
5, 1859.
LYING IN WAIT 103
played into Ms hands. Soon after Foote's election to the governor-
ship, he returned to Washington and took his seat in the Thirty-
second Congress which met December r. There he strutted around
as the hero of the hour, the vanquisher of Jefferson Davis, and the
preserver of the Union. This he did though he had at first coop-
erated with the secessionists, joining in their address of 1849 and
in calling the Nashville Convention. In a debate on the Finality
Resolutions, which he had offered, Foote made an assault upon
Davis, reiterating the charges of a conspiracy to disrupt the Union.
Southern senators called Foote down and reminded him that Sen-
ator Davis was not present to defend himself.
Foote likewise espoused the cause of the patriot Kossuth, touring
America and urging aid and intervention in behalf of oppressed
Hungary. "Freedom or despotism is the cause," screamed Foote,
advocating the cause of Kossuth. "Those who are not for freedom
are for slavery!"
Now Foote's new-found zeal for freedom was music to Jefferson
Davis's ears more especially as southern senators were charging
that Senator Foote had turned into an abolitionist. 9 Kossuth's
visit, they insisted, was anti-slavery propaganda, a mere trick of
the abolitionists. Often the same mail that brought to Brierfield
Foote's attack on Davis, or his laudation of Kossuth, brought
startling accounts of riots in northern cities, when slave owners
were prevented from arresting their run-away slaves, and also excit-
ing debates on these disturbances.
Two new senators, to whom I have referred, had appeared in
Washington: Sumner of Massachusetts and Wade of Ohio, stal-
wart out-spoken men, often unscrupulous, with whom the end justi-
fied the means. Devoted abolitionists, but more devoted party
men, Sumner and Wade injected new life into the cause of slavery-
restriction and abolition. Though these radical senators strength-
ened the arms of Chase, Seward, and Hale, and solidified the North,
they also played into the hands of Jefferson Davis and unified the
South.
Soon after taking his seat, Senator Sumner offered a resolution
which would nullify the fugitive slave act or stop the very wheels
of government. To the pending appropriation bills, he opposed
this rider : "No portion of the funds thus raised shall be used for
Rhodes, I, 242. Rhodes here misses Foote's point of view.
104 LYING IN WAIT
the purpose of catching or returning fugitive slaves." Senator
Butler, interrupting Sumner, desired to know if the Senator from
Massachusetts would obey the fugitive slave law and restore a
run-away slave to his rightful master.
"No ! " answered the scholarly ideologist. "Never ! Is thy serv-
ant a dog that he should do this thing! ... Be admonished, Sirs,
by the words of oriental piety: 'Beware of the groans of the
wounded soul, oppress not to the uttermost a single heart, for a
solitary sigh has power to overset a whole world. . . .' Slavery!
It is a crime against heaven and against God ! "
Instantly Clemens, the Alabama Unionist, who had sacrificed
much to keep down discord, was on his feet, begging no one to
reply to Sumner. "The ravings of a maniac may sometimes do
harm," said the exasperated Clemens, "but the barking of a puppy
never did any harm." 10
Though Sumner's resolution was defeated by a vote of forty-
seven to four, his words reverberated from Boston to New Orleans.
And Jefferson Davis was well pleased. That which he had failed to
do was being done. The hearts of Mississippians were becoming
hardened and they were getting ready to fight. In Congress, Thad
Stevens and Giddings, Chase, Hale, Sumner, Wade, and Seward ; in
fiction Mrs. Stowe ; on the platform, Lowell, Wendell Phillips, and
Theodore Parker; in the press, William Lloyd Garrison these
were Jefferson Davis's side-partners, all working together to the
same end. 11 "Destroy the accursed Union or give us freedom,"
said radical abolitionists. "Destroy the Union, or give us slavery
under the Constitution," said Davis.
Mrs. Stowe had no sooner scanned the drastic fugitive slave law
than her soul was moved to give the world its most realistic and
stirring problem romance, Uncle Tom's Cabin The Liberator
was sounding a note in freedom's cause which increased as it
spread. The genius of poetry was encircling the brow of liberty
with a halo visible to the ends of the earth ; Freedom was becom-
ing incarnated in the humble, patient, unfortunate African "God's
image in ebony." And with these rough, elemental forces of de-
struction, Davis was cooperating. "Either obey the Constitution
10 Globe, Aug. 26, 1852. *2 MacDonald, 390.
11 Ibid., 641-47; Feb., 1852.
LYING IN WAIT 105
and extend slavery into the territories, or let the Union be dis-
solved/' lie was insisting.
But in order for him to enter into national affairs again, there
was a task nearer home; Foote must be got rid of. During the
late campaign, Davis had been ill and unable to show up Foote in
his true colors. But now he was vigorous again and ready for tie
contest. On January 8, 1852, Foote resigned as Senator and be-
came Governor of Mississippi. On the same day, the Democratic
state convention met, but no longer the arrogant State Rights
party of the previous year. Then, Governor A. G. Brown was
exclaiming, "So help me God, I am for resistance," and Davis was
making similar statements. 13 Now the situation was changed.
Chastened by defeat and by Foote's castigation, State Rights men
were humble and willing to yield a point. As the lesser of two
evils, they would not only cooperate with the bolters, but with the
National Democratic party, and this Davis was advising.
The stalwart Quitman and his followers, though few in number,
resisted this conciliatory course. Going before the convention,
Quitman insisted on a repeal of the compromise measures or Imme-
diate secession. But Quitman was out-voted and Davis and his
party prevailed. "Overthrow Foote," became the campaign slogan.
Footers overthrow was the sine qua non ; other things could wait.
Now it must not be thought that Jefferson Davis had changed his
views on slavery-extension or secession as a last resort. He had
not changed a particle; he agreed throughout with Quitman.
"Under existing circumstances/' however, he considered secession
unwise. Later, he would insist on disunion, but not now. 14
At the convention Quitman first spoke and was followed by
Davis, delegate from Warren County, and the returned leader.
Never was Jefferson Davis in better form and never a larger or
more intelligent assemblage of Mississippi Democrats. The de-
feated chieftain had weighed every thought, deftly chosen every
word, and moulded every sentence. He would abuse no one no
one but Foote. Foote should be the scapegoat. Foote, "the
13 Mississippi Historical Society PMications, XCV.
14 "I agree with General Quitman in all his principles," he later said.
Globe, Jan., 1859; "Eighteen hundred and fifty," he exclaimed. "It is that
dark period for southern rights." New York Tribune, Aug. 31, 1859; Speech
at Jackson, July 6, 1859.
106 LYING IN WAIT
changeling by nature, the changeling by choice/' as Davis described
him.
"Fraud and falsehood, Free Soil and Foote and Fillmore," Davis
alliterated, goaded by a speech Foote had made the evening before
at Jackson. Foote had then exclaimed, "I defy and denounce the
Secession Democratic party. , . . They must die, willingly and
with decency, or they may struggle on, but die they must and die
they will ! Their putrid political carcasses shall yet lie about the
state in heaps, like piles of chickens in the streets that have died
of the gapes ! "
With this banter and braggadocio of Foote's ringing in his ears,
Davis appealed to his party associates, as one brave man to an-
other. He urged them for their country's good to bury personal
feelings and to "let no man's disappointments obstruct Democratic
conciliation and harmonious cooperation." 15
He commended the recent effort to liberate Cuba, approved the
filibustering expedition of Lopez and Quitman's part therein; he
berated President Fillmore for permitting Cuban patriots to be
executed without a protest. "I would feel myself disgraced if, as
Foote, I had endorsed such an administration," he said. Referring
to disunion and secession, he declared, "they were the last resort
and the assertion of a right was no evidence of an intention to exer-
cise it." "Our resolutions of last June," he explained, "implied
that there should be no secession, under existing circumstances."
Again referring to Foote, Davis called him a demagogue, and as-
serted that the man had been thrown to the surface, "like dregs
from the bottom of the pool, by such violent agitation as mingles
heterogeneous elements, and like them must sink to the bottom
whenever quiet is restored."
After thus disposing of Foote, Davis indulged in a bit of bun-
combe flaunted his efforts to repudiate the Union Bank bonds as
a virtue. "Two of the misrepresentations of me," said he, "are spe-
cially false. First, that I have declared I will not support the
National Democratic ticket ; second, that I have said I was going
to purge the party of those who had taken grounds against it in
the pending controversy. Now these statements are false, but not
more false than the assertion previously made that I had in 1843
been the advocate of the Union Bank bonds." 16 Senator Davis's
* 5 Rowland, II, 125, Ibid. t 119.
LYING IN WAIT 107
speech did much to draw the warring factions together, and but
for its reference to repudiation, was a strong presentation of Ms
cause.
But Governor Foote was not silenced. In a few days he pub-
lished in the Flag of the Union a scathing reply addressed to three
prominent Unionists. This letter offered proof of Footers secession
charges against Davis. A long-drawn-out, undignified newspaper
controversy followed, illustrating Doctor Holmes's description of
such affairs. It was the hydrostatic paradox of controversy : par-
ticipants in newspaper controversies, like water, always finding a
common level.
The enraged contestants demeaned themselves and derided each
other. Davis called Foote a liar and insisted it was not Foote's
character he was attacking, but the want of it. Foote was "as
full of intrigue and selfishness as he was destitute of truth and
principle." Now Foote, being the Governor, could not answer
Davis in the usual way among gentlemen, with a challenge; he,
therefore, paid him off in billingsgate. Senator Davis had pocketed
five hundred dollars in mileage while attending the special session
of the Senate in 1849. This was "constructive mileage" and con-
trary to law. Davis was therefore little less than a thief! To this
Davis countered that Footers mileage bills were padded ; Foote had
collected more mileage by a thousand than the distance travelled
by him. The controversy ended in Foote's utter rout.
In truth the tables were turned since the campaign of 1851.
Then Davis was ill ; now he was well and aggressive. Then Foote
was the attacking party and Davis defending ; now Davis was at-
tacking and Foote defending. Furthermore, Davis now had a com-
pact fighting organization behind him, the Democratic party,
whereas Foote's combination, always incongruous, was splitting
to pieces.
As the next campaign approached, it was plain that Foote could
not stand up against the reorganized Democracy. Neither Whig
nor Democratic, he would fall between two stools and be repudi-
ated. In December, 1853, he was defeated by the legislature for
the Senate and in a rage resigned his office. In January, 1854, he
moved to California and thence to Tennessee, where his career was
more spectacular and erratic than it had been in Mississippi. Quit-
man was as disgusted as Foote, insisting that the party had de-
108 LYING IN WAIT
serted its principles to pursue Governor Foote. So far as lie was
concerned, the Democratic party was no better than the Whig.
Though Davis was his candidate for President, "if Democracy was
to retain power by striding this centaur hobby with abolition head
and southern tail, it had better be unhorsed." 17
Returning to Brier&eld and resuming the pleasant life of a
planter, Davis began a correspondence with northern associates
who had written him they knew the rumors that he favored im-
mediate secession were false. Davis assured them he was not for
secession, tinder existing circumstances, and that his position in
the late canvass was the same as in the Senate. "I was defeated,"
he explained, "by an unholy alliance and I am sure that those
honorable Whigs who entered the unlawful combination against me
must blush to possess
'The spoil from such foul foray borne.' " 1S
On June i, 1852, the Democratic National Convention met in
Baltimore, but Jefferson Davis chose not to attend. The platform
was the lion in his pathway. He had yielded as much as he pro-
posed to yield. He was not going to endorse the compromise
measure and call it a Finality that was a dead-line of degradation
he would not cross. In the absence of the old leaders, Davis, Foote,
and Quitman, lesser lights in Mississippi affairs, Jacob Thompson,
Governor McWillie, and William Barksdale, attended the Conven-
tion. The leading candidates were Buchanan, Cass, Douglas,
Marcy, and Houston. It was well understood that the Democratic
party would win, as it was less disrupted by recent events than the
Whig party. But the platform needed careful attention.
Buchanan, a northern man with southern principles, having a
long record in the cause of slavery, was the favorite. But after five
days, it became plain that none of the leading candidates could
overcome the two-thirds rule. On the forty-ninth ballot, Franklin
Pierce, of New Hampshire, a well-groomed though it cannot be said
a "dark horse," stampeded the Convention, on a break to him by
southern delegates. Pierce was an ideal, colorless candidate. A
refined gentleman of mediocre ability, he was very religious and
17 Clalborne, Quitman, 167.
18 Rowland, II, 107; Mississippian, March 17; Flag of the Union, Jan. 30;
Southern Press, Feb. 12; Mississippi Free Trader, Feb. n.
LYING IN WAIT 109
very fond of brandy. He had been a second-rate general In the
Mexican War, a member of Congress, and a United States Senator.
The platform was more troublesome than the candidate and
therefore was not written until after the nomination. What should
be said about the compromise measures? Would the belligerent
pro-slavery South stand for a Finality plank ? Moderate councils
prevailed. The platform pledged the party to the support of such
a provision. Nor was there to be any further agitation of slavery.
Thus did the Democratic party steal the Whig thunder and en-
dorse Henry Clay, then on his deathbed in Washington City,
Later in the same month the Whigs met, also in Baltimore, and
nominated General Scott and William A. Graham, Fillmore's Sec-
retary of the Navy. Other candidates were Fillmore and Webster.
The platform declared the compromise to be a Finality. The
Whigs were at a disadvantage from the beginning of the campaign.
It was charged that Scott opposed Finality and was at heart a
Free-Soiler, and had been nominated by the aid of Seward. 19 Fur-
thermore, Scott was unacquainted with politics and was so self-
assertive he had acquired the sobriquet of "Old Fuss and Feathers."
After all, Jefferson Davis was not in so bad a case as he had
feared. Though the Democratic party had adopted a Finality
platform, they had nominated his friend Pierce, and Pierce he well
knew was sound on the slavery issue and would be true to Demo-
cratic principles, as his father before him had been.
In the campaign, Davis took an active part, speaking in Missis-
sippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee, but avoiding the declaration of
principles of his party as far as possible. He attacked the conduct
of General Scott, not for the purpose, as he said, "of scrutinizing
his military conduct, but for the more useful purpose of ascertain-
ing what talent he possessed for the cares and offices of state." He
then laid a heavy charge at General Scott's door ; Scott was quar-
relsome! "unable to get along with his subordinates and showed
a disposition to appropriate the lion's share of the laurels which
the army had earned."
In the November elections, Pierce carried every state except
four Vermont, Massachusetts, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The
Finality plank had wrought the great victory. It had held together
the regular and the Union Democrats of the South and had concili-
ia McMaster, VIII, 272.
110 LYING IN WAIT
ated the Union Democrats of the North, Pierce's well known
affection for Davis was likewise a drawing card in the South
though the southern Democracy was now almost without opposi-
tion. The Whig party was in a state of disintegration, brought
about by an impossible alliance between its northern and southern
wings in fact it had been buried in the grave with Henry Clay.
On June 29, 1852, Clay, the patriot, had died, his last hours dis-
turbed by the exultant shouts of Scott and Graham delegates re-
turning to Washington from the Baltimore Convention. October
24, following, the immortal Webster likewise died, his heart broken
by disappointed ambition. His last and truest words were, "I still
live." Calhoun, Clay, and Webster were now gone the old pilots
dropped. With new men at the helm, how would the ship weather
the storm? During the summer, Davis had made a visit to Boston
and the North, where he conferred with Gushing and other leading
Democrats. He came home pleased with the political situation.
When Congress convened and Davis read his friend Pierce's first
message to Congress, he heartily approved, except the Finality
reference. The President had suggested that Cuba be acquired.
He promised that Whigs would be turned out of office and Demo-
crats put in their places and urged that the fugitive slave law be
faithfully obeyed. As to slavery, he solemnly declared the Com-
promise was a Finality and that during his administration there
would be no further agitation of the slavery question.
The President's message, however, did not so much concern
Senator Davis as the local situation in Mississippi and his chances
for getting back to the Senate in 1854. His plans, however, were
soon broken up. On December 7, there came an important docu-
ment from the White House. The President wished to see Colonel
Davis and asked if he would consider taking a place in the cabinet.
After much reluctance, Davis accepted the position of Secretary of
War and the course of his life was again changed.
But his regrets at quitting Brierfield must have been lessened by
family troubles. A few years before, his wife and sister had be-
come estranged and the latter had moved from Brierfield. About
1846 or 1847, the Brierfield cottage had been much added to and
made into a two-family house, to be occupied both by Jefferson
Davis's family and his sister's. The new dwelling cost $10,000,
LYING IN WAIT 111
and had marble mantels, 20 The arrangement proved unsatisfac-
tory, and Ms sister took her departure. 21
Emotional matters did not unduly concern Colonel Davis how-
ever. By nature cold and formal, he generally sat in the rear of his
affections. Thus he allowed no nicknames on the plantation ; even
the slaves must be given their full titles. Pemberton was called
James, not Jim it would be disrespectful to call him Jim, 22 In
truth, Colonel Davis's relations with Pemberton were quite sin-
gular. Sometimes this vigorous slave would come into the "Great
House" and the Colonel, to use Mrs. Davis's words, "would fetch
a chair, bid him be seated, and offer him a cigar on leaving." 2S
But there was one exception to the rule of formality at Brier-
field : Jefferson Davis and his wife were never formal. True com-
rades, they were the best of friends. Perhaps the only person to
break through the Colonel's icy exterior was his wife, and his
brother at an earlier date. To Varina Davis, the Colonel was
always "Banny." "Dearest, dear Banny," "Precious Banny," she
often called him. Content with Banny and Brierfield, Mrs. Davis
urged her husband not to accept the cabinet appointment. But she
did not prevail. The Colonel had work to do ; he must solidify the
South, restore Calhoun's equilibrium, and add enough slave terri-
tory below the fatal line 36 30' to make the South as populous as
the North. 24 He could then snap his fingers in his opponents' faces.
Not a bad spring-board for this aeronautic leap, was the position
of Secretary of War ! 25
20 Davis vs. Bowmar.
21 This matter acquires importance because it bears upon the wills of Jef-
ferson Davis and Joseph, and their differences. Furthermore, it entered
largely into the family lawsuit, which arose out of troubles beginning about
the time of the Mexican War and continuing until after the Civil War. 55,
Mississippi Reports, 690.
22 Memoir, I, 176.
28 Mrs. Davis's virile Memoirs have none of the flavor of the old South, to
be found in the gushing and feminine Diary from Dixie, Mary Boykin Ches-
nut ; A Southern Planter, Susan Dabney Smedes ; Reminiscences of War and
Peace, Mrs. Roger A. Pryor; A Belle of the Fifties, Mrs. C. C Clay; A
Confederate Girl's Diary, Susan Morgan Dawson.
24 Hodgson, 319-
25 Leading Democratic papers, with secession tendencies: Mississippian;
Natchez Free Trader; Woodville Republican; Vicksburg Sentinel. Leading
Whig Union papers: Holly Springs Gazette; Vicksburg Whig; Jackson
Southron; Hatches Courier. Papers containing the Davis-Foote contro-
versy: Union, March 17; Southern Press, February 12; Flag of the Union^
January 30; Yazoo Democrat, February 18 and March 10 and 17; Mississippi
Free Trader, February n. See also Rowland, II, 107.
CHAPTER X
UP AGAIN
In the summer of 1853, Mrs. Davis, with little Samuel, joined
her husband in Washington, where four years of comparative con-
tentment and satisfaction awaited the new Secretary. A residence
on Fourteenth Street, near the White House, was leased and an
establishment set up befitting their high station.
Secretary and Mrs. Davis's associations were all that could be
desired. President Pierce was a frequent caller and the two fam-
ilies became close and intimate. In his communications with the
President, Colonel Davis often unbent, calling Pierce his honored
chief and his dear friend. 1 Several cabinet members had homes
near the Davis residence. Attorney General Gushing, scholar and
orator, judge and general, but never fully possessing the confidence
of Boston, his home city, was a few doors away; Secretary of State
Marcy, Davis's rival for presidential favors, also was nearby. Post-
master General James Campbell and Secretary of the Treasury
James Guthrie were likewise neighbors and frequent visitors. 2
Every member of the cabinet, except Davis, had supported the
Finality plank of the Democratic platform. Davis alone opposed
it, and was called into service to represent the State Rights and
Slavery Extension wing of Democracy an unfortunate choice
surely for an administration elected on the issue of letting slavery
alone.
Mrs. Davis fitted admirably into her new place. Three groups
made up Washington society: the old exclusive residents usually
worshiping at St. John's Church ; official Washington, composed of
the President, his cabinet, judges, and Congress ; and commercial
or business Washington. The official group changed with each
administration and had little social significance sometimes West-
erners, with hearty manners predominating ; sometimes, as in Jack-
1 Rowland, IV, 185-193.
2 Memoir, I, 535.
112
UP AGAIN 113
son's day, the unwashed Democracy much in evidence. Rarely
did select, exclusive Washington condescend to official life.
In the official group, Mrs. Davis was at her best. Robust and
companionable, she affected none of the effete social graces. 3
Though she was fond of money, she kept open house to her hus-
band's friends, military and scientific persons being favorites. Al-
most any evening, Professor Henry of the Smithsonian Institution
and Professor Le Compte might be seen at the Davis fireside.
General Scott, Davis's aversion, was entertained, until he and the
Secretary had their controversy. The Davises were not wealthy,
yet they made a brave show, keeping horses and an equipage "and
decorating their home with a few palms and other ornamental
plants." * When President Pierce's term ended, Mrs. Davis gave a
farewell reception, eclipsing anything of the season ; she was deter-
mined that "the Pierce administration should go out in a blaze of
glory." 6
And Secretary Davis's official career was quite as successful as
Mrs. Davis's social. As Secretary of War, the Colonel was in the
right place. Reveling in details, he inspected every account, super-
vised each order, and left nothing to his subordinates. Not the
smallest button on a soldier's coat was unaccounted for a trait of
character desirable and undesirable, the detail-mind functioning
admirably in a narrow field but failing to grasp and coordinate
larger and more complex situations.
Secretary Davis had been in office but a short time when General
Scott sent in an account for audit and payment. One item covered
mileage, at sixteen cents a mile, travelled by the grandiose General
and his body-servant.
United States to
Lieut. General W. S. Scott Dr.
To 3610 miles @ i6c . . . $577.60
"Sixteen cents a mile!" exclaimed the scrupulous Secretary.
"The statute allows only eight." Upon investigating, Secretary
Davis arrived at the conclusion that the mileage charge was erro-
neous, as the General's trip did not fall in the special cases author-
izing sixteen cents. In a formal letter, he brought this fact home
8 Rowland, Evan, 373. 6 Poore, I, 428.
4 Memoir, I, 547.
114 UP AGAIN
to the General. Scott replied that the mileage charges did not
cover actual outlay and such accounts had been allowed in a dozen
prior cases. "So much the greater reason that the bad custom
end/' Davis retorted. 6
The Davis-Scott controversy became a public scandal. Letter
after letter passed between these high officials, growing out of the
sum of three hundred dollars. In a blistering communication of
three thousand words, the Secretary also brought forward other
charges against the General. He had not accounted for funds in
Mexico and he had unlawfully granted leave of absence to General
Hitchcock. "This leave is hereby revoked," the Secretary wrote,
"and you will order the officer not to leave his post." Scott simply
exploded. He took no orders from Davis, "his orders must come
from the President." He likewise charged the Secretary with
malice and referred to the long fight which Davis had made upon
him. He sneered at the Secretary, "posing as a cabinet favorite,"
and exclaimed, "Shame on you attacking an old, worn-out war
veteran 1 "
Davis retorted that Scott was an enraged imbecile and a poor
specimen of a war veteran, endeavoring to create the impression
that he was wounded in battle. "Why, the only wound you ever
received came from a fall off a horse on the streets of New York ! "
Scott rejoined that Davis was trying to goad him into fighting a
duel, but he refused, overlooked the insult, and simply passed Davis
on to the contempt of posterity I "Fight a duel, indeed ! " Davis
jeered, "Why did you not fight General Jackson when he chal-
lenged you years ago ?" This shot angered the General to a degree
and he denounced it as a bare falsehood. "General Jackson made
ample apology to me as soon as he knew the facts," Scott wrote,
"and he and I were the best of friends." The controversy was
brought to a close by this characteristic letter from the Secretary:
War Department,
May 27, 1856.
BBEVET LIEUT. GENERAL W. SCOTT,
U. S. Army,
New York City.
Sir: I have received your letter of the 21' inst the delay for which
you make a hypocritical apology has strengthened you to resume the
6 Rowland, II, 221.
UP AGAIN 115
labor of vituperation, but having early in this correspondence, stamped
you with falsehood, and wherever you presented a tangible point, con-
victed you by conclusive proof, I have ceased to regard your abuse,
and as you present nothing in this letter which requires remark, I am
gratified to be relieved from the necessity of further exposing your
malignity and depravity.
Very respectfully Yr. obt. Serv.,
JEFFN. DAVIS,
Secretary of War.
Still another charge Davis made against Scott. While in Mexico
the General had received $261,691.30 and had disbursed only $255,-
541.45, leaving due the Government $6149.86. This discrepancy,
together with numerous other papers, was submitted to President
Pierce, with request to order an investigation. The President re-
fused and wrote at the foot of Davis's charges these words : "In the
settlement of General Scott's account, he is hereby authorized to
retain the entire sum of six thousand one hundred and forty-nine
dollars and eighty-six cents. F. P." T *
Secretary Davis's watchful eye extended to larger matters, how-
ever, than the auditing of accounts. The West Point Academy was
given particular attention. Colonel Robert E. Lee was then Super-
intendent and, at Ms suggestion, Secretary Davis arranged for new
quarters for officers and improved hospital service. The regular
army was increased from n,ooo to 17,000, and the pay of men and
officers materially raised. In his annual report to the President,
Secretary Davis insisted that soldiers should be paid on a parity
with civilians and Congress acted on this recommendation. Under
the efficient War Secretary, indeed, the army became a new and
coherent organization. Paradoxically enough the country was
being moulded into a nation.
Surveys of transcontinental railroads for war purposes were
undertaken ; post schools were remodeled ; a military commission
to observe the Crimean War sent to Europe, and a herd of camels
brought over from Egypt to be used in crossing tBe western plains,
then known as the Great Western Desert. 8 Forts throughout the
country were strengthened and exposed places put In a condition
of defense. Much of this work was of a controversial character,
7 Senate Ex. Doc. No. 34, 34th Congress, Third Session,
Schaff, 81.
116 UP AGAIN
Indeed it would have been easy for Secretary Davis to have favored
the South at the expense of the North. He might have sent an
extra supply of arms and ammunition South and built arsenals and
other plants, against the coming of civil war. But he did not do
this ; no charge of favoritism was then made.
But Colonel Davis's secession record in 1850, and during the
campaign of 1851, led some southern associates to conclude he was
approachable and would, if urged, favor the South at the expense
of the rest of the country. On September 30, 1856, Senator J. M.
Mason wrote Secretary Davis a letter of a questionable character.
After marking the same "private" and cautioning, "This is for your
most private ear," the Senator went on to request the Secretary to
"exchange percussion for flint muskets for Virginia." The letter
likewise referred to a secession convention soon to be held in
Raleigh. A "rendezvous," Mason called it, adding, "If Fremont is
elected, we must have immediate, absolute and eternal separa-
tion. ... So I am a candidate for the first halter."
The labors of Secretary Davis having met the approval of the
President and of Congress, work of a more delicate character was
intrusted to him. He was commissioned to supervise the comple-
tion of the Capitol. His success in that undertaking is manifest to
every eye that has since grown moist at the sight of one of the
noblest public structures on the globe. The Secretary was likewise
directed to construct the Cabin John bridge across Rock Creek,
near Washington City at the time of completion the longest can-
tilever span known to science, six hundred feet In length. On the
arch of this bridge these words were inscribed :
WASHINGTON AQUEDUCT
Begun A.D. 1853
President of the United States Franklin Pierce
Secretary of War Jefferson Davis
Building Completed A.D. 1861
President of the United States Abraham Lincoln
Secretary of War Simon Cameron 10
Mason, n&
10 In Reconstruction days the name of Jefferson Davis was erased, and a
blank space left, but by order of President Roosevelt, a few weeks before his
term expired, Secretary Davis's name was replaced. Southern Historical
Society Papers, 38, p. 90*
UP AGAIN 117
But local matters were trifling in comparison with tlie imperial-
istic projects of Secretary Davis and Ms associates, heartily en-
dorsed by the President. Davis's eyes were turned longingly to
Cuba, Yucatan, Central America, and the Messala Valley, owned
by Mexico. These countries must be added to the United States.
Lying south of 36 30', they would increase slave territory. 11 In
his inaugural, Pierce had said, "The policy of my administration
will not be controlled by any timid forebodings of evil from expan-
sion." In pursuance of this statement, President Pierce carefully
chose his foreign representatives.
To the delicate Spanish mission, Senator Soule was assigned, at
the suggestion of Davis and over the protest of Marcy. Soule,
when in the Senate, had urged the taking of Cuba, without the pay-
ment of a farthing to Spain. He was for Cuban independence at
all hazards. Living near the home of William Walker and Gov-
ernor Quitman, leading American filibusters, he was their abettor
and approved their marauding expeditions. John Y. Mason, a fat-
brained, good-natured, sensible old man, and likewise a Cuban
advocate, was appointed ambassador to France, and Buchanan
sent to England. Thus was the way paved by the President for
the accomplishment of the expansion projects of his ambitious
Secretary.
And these schemes seemed altogether feasible. If in the 1 840*3
the South and West united had added Texas as slave territory,
despite the North and southern Whigs, why could not a similar
trick be turned in the SQ'S? Why could not the South say to the
West, "Join us in annexing Cuba and Central America as slave
territory and you may have all of Nebraska as free territory? 12
Under the leadership of Cass, Atchison, and Douglas, the West,
with no scruples as to the morality of slavery, was undoubtedly
favorable to any trade the South might suggest. The country at
large was likewise committed to the Democratic party. 13
Moreover, all departments of government were safely Demo-
cratic. The President was a Democrat and so were Senate, House,
and Supreme Court. Franklin Pierce was the head of a compact
political organization. The Whig party was dead, abolitionism
11 Beveridge, II, 531.
12 Eight embryo states ; Eckenrode, 67.
i* Greeley, I, 277.
118 UP AGAIN
was losing out, and prosperity smiled upon the land. The Presi-
dent, in his first message, called attention to the happy condition
of the country due to the triumph of Democracy and to the settle-
ment of the slavery question. "Now that the slavery agitation has
ceased," he wrote, "a sense of repose and security pervades the
land."
He then used these significant words, "This repose is to suffer
no shock during my official term, if I have power to avert it."
Though he did not refer to the annexation of Cuba, he advocated
other nationalistic matters, particularly the building of a Pacific
railroad. This policy had been outlined by Secretary Davis during
the summer. In a speech at Philadelphia, "on behalf of his honored
chief/' Davis had declared that no local improvements would be
undertaken, but only larger and greater matters.
Thus smoothly was the Democratic ship sailing over the un-
troubled waters when her pilots ran her on the rocks. On Sunday,
January 22, 1854, Senator Douglas called at the Davis home and
stated his mission. He had amended his bill of the fourth instant
to organize Nebraska into a territory and incorporated the
Dixon amendment. He now proposed an absolute repeal of all
slavery compromises, also to divide Nebraska into two territories,
Kansas and Nebraska, and to leave the question of slavery or no
slavery to the vote of the inhabitants thereof. All cases relating
to the title to slaves and all questions as to personal liberty were
to be subject to a review by the Supreme Court, What did the
Secretary think of that measure?
The astounded Davis signified his approval and at Douglas's
request led the way by a back door of the White House for an
interview with the President. The complacent Pierce followed the
lead of his Secretary and underwrote Douglas's Squatter Sover-
eignty bill. Douglas went his way rejoicing. Thus by a stroke
of the pen would Douglas, aided by Pierce and Davis, strike down
the Ordinance of 1787, the Missouri Compromise, the great Com-
promise of 1850, and put slavery agitation at large again. And all
this, as Benton charged, "without a memorial, without a petition,
without a request from a human being." 14
What motives moved Douglas in this momentous step? A mix-
ture of patriotism and selfishness, undoubtedly. In the first place,
"Rhodes, II, 489," Hollis, 153.
UP AGAIN 119
lie hoped to transfer slavery agitation from Congress to the people.
In the next, he expected to advance his chances for the Presidency.
Davis was now the southern arbiter and his conciliation meant the
support of the South. In addition, "squatter sovereignty/' as
Douglas reasoned, was strong in the West. His bill would open
up western lands to free white settlers. Free states would be
added, and thus his pet scheme to develop Chicago, by a railroad
to the Pacific, accomplished.
And Jefferson Davis what possessed him to cooperate in Doug-
las's scheme ? It must be admitted he achieved a personal triumph.
The adoption of this bill would bring the Democratic party to his
position, to wit, that Congress could not legislate against slavery.
Moreover, the matter of slavery-extension would be improved.
There would be no obstacle in the way of Davis's dream to estab-
lish some general slavery principle, some line below which all
territory should be forever slave. Undoubtedly, Davis was over-
reached by Douglas, as the latter well knew his bill meant a free
West, whereas the former understood the spirit of the bill pledged
Congress to protect slavery in the territories, until they became
states. Unfortunately for Davis, the bill does not bear this con-
struction, 15 "and it became the short cut to all the ends of Black
Republicanism." 16
Senator Douglas's bill not only astounded the country ; it swept
it off its feet. The Far South approved ; southern Whigs in general
and the free North condemned. In 1850, the anti-slavery feeling
had been academic ; now it was vital, overwhelming. Pulpits thun-
dered ; the press denounced the measure. Meetings by the score
passed indignant resolutions. A clergyman's petition declared the
bill "would expose us to the righteous wrath of the Almighty."
The North was resolved that the new territories should not be
given over to slave labor. "What rights are precious," was asked,
"if those secured to free labor and free laborers, in that vast terri-
tory, are not?"
During the discussion of the bill, the House became a scene of
great disorder. Congressmen rushed at each other with clenched
fists and drawn weapons. Jumping upon their desks, they defied
and denounced one another. There was an all-night session. On
May ii and 12 the House did not adjourn at all. The bill finally
15 MacDonald, 402. 16 Pollard, Lost Cause, 68.
120 UP AGAIN
passed both Houses and was approved by the President May 30,
1854. Only two southern Senators voted no Houston of Texas
and Bell of Tennessee. The Union-loving Badger voted aye, and
regretted It ever afterward. He had been swept along by the
excitement of the moment and bullied by his secession associates. 17
During the excitement in Congress, Secretary Davis sat in his
office complacent and satisfied. He had won ; even Douglas had
come to bis view. Moreover, the South was becoming a unit. All
was well. Let the fanatical abolitionists rage, no one heeded their
ravings! But what a price the man had paid I The Democratic
party started down hill ; Pierce had destroyed himself ; Marcy, the
strong man of the cabinet, threatened to resign ; and civil war soon
broke out in Kansas.
Furthermore, the immediate effects of the Kansas-Nebraska Act
were as disastrous as the remote : Secretary Davis lost a possible
opportunity to acquire Cuba. So much incensed had the people
become, they would back the slavery program no further. Con-
gress likewise became alarmed and refused to go forward in slavery
extension. 18
While Congress was discussing squatter sovereignty, the three
foreign ambassadors, Buchanan, Mason, and Soule, had been play-
ing their cards badly and were soon to make themselves ridiculous
in their efforts to annex Cuba. At Madrid, Soule was blustering
around, fighting duels and endeavoring to bully Spain into parting
with Cuba. On February 5, 1854, an international incident oc-
curred out of which war with Spain might have been provoked
and Cuba seized by the United States. But Soule was not a diplo-
mat and could not handle the situation.
At the above date, an American ship named Black Warrior, was
ruthlessly seized by Spain for violating the neutrality laws and
ordered to give up her cargo and to pay a fine of $6,000. The
impetuous Soule demanded an indemnity of $300,000 for the in-
sult, the payment to be made within forty-eight hours. This ulti-
matum meant war. Forthwith, the indiscreet ambassador was
suspended from office. Thus matters stood until the summer when
1T Congressman Venable's speech, attacking Badger, was widely circulated.
At Salisbury, N. C, in October, 1860, Badger publicly acknowledged his
error.
18 But for the failure of Congress to support the President, said Davis in
7, we would have acquired Cuba.
UP AGAIN 121
lie was ordered to meet Buchanan and Mason to outline a policy
for the West Indies.
On October 18, 1854, a manifesto was issued from Ostend. "The
United States will pay a good price for Cuba, 3 * the Ostend Mani-
festo declared, "if delivery is made at once ; otherwise, Cuba will
be seized without remuneration." This foolish document was
given wide publicity, and greatly irritated the civilized world. The
jingoes had over-played their hands. They had made it impossible
to precipitate a war with Spain and to rape Cuba. In a short time,
Spain settled with the ship owners, the incident was closed, and
the chance to acquire Cuba was gone. 19
But Secretary Davis's efforts to extend the southern boundary
of the United States across the Messala Valley were more suc-
cessful. In 1856, James Gadsden was sent to Mexico, authorized
to pay ten million dollars for the territory desired, about 48,000
square miles now a portion of New Mexico and Arizona. This
territory was desirable because, after Its acquisition by America,
the latter country would be relieved from obligation to protect
Mexico against Indian depredations. It was more desirable from
Davis's point of view as a right of way for a proposed southern
Pacific railroad.
To the project of a Pacific railroad, Secretary Davis had devoted
much labor. He had caused several routes to be surveyed and these
surveys to be printed in ten large volumes. Ten thousand copies of
the work were printed and not only furnished to Congress, but
scattered throughout the country, Davis insisted he did not spe-
cially favor a southern route and that his desire was to get the best
route for the least money. Douglas, Henry Wilson, and other
advocates of the northern route took issue with Davis and charged
he had forestalled the matter by the Gadsden Purchase; that he
had already used ten million dollars to purchase a right of way for
his southern road.
Another matter in which Governor Quitman was concerned
placed Secretary Davis in close quarters. The chief of the Cuban
filibusters was one William Walker (afterwards caught and shot),
and with him Davis had no acquaintance. Walker's assistant,
however, was the redoubtable Quitman, Davis's ardent supporter.
i Washington Union, May n ; on July 30 it advocated an appropriation of
millions to purchase Cuba.
122 UP AGAIN
In 1854, when these filibusters invaded Cuba and violated the neu-
trality laws, Spain protested. The Pierce administration con-
demned their conduct, and Quitman was arrested and gave bail
The order condemning Quitman was signed by Davis, Secretary of
War. This matter, however, was official and not personal, for, as
Davis afterwards asserted, General Quitman and himself were in
agreement in all their principles.
Pierce's administration was now drawing to a close, and it had
been- mistake upon mistake. The chief blunder was undoubtedly
the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Out of that measure the Republican
party sprang. This party was composed of coherent and unified
groups, northern Whigs, Free-Soil Democrats, Free Soilers gen-
erally, and the "Softs" of New York. The main purpose of the new
party was to prevent slavery extension, to enact a homestead law
for free settlers, and to open up the territories to free labor ; its
secondary interest was to pass a more stringent tariff measure. In
its main purpose there was no wavering the North was resolved
that Kansas as well as Nebraska should be free ! Under the Mis-
souri Compromise they were free, and free they should continue.
In Boston, an Immigration Aid Society was organized, vast sums
of money were raised, and settlers encouraged to migrate to Kan-
sas. But the South was not idle; slave-holders by the thousands
crossed the Mississippi on the way to "bleeding" Kansas.
Thus was the momentous issue joined : "What industrial system
shall dominate the North and West?" A situation dramatized by
Senator Seward in these words : "Come on then, gentlemen of the
slave states ! Since there is no escaping your challenge, I accept
it in the cause of freedom. , . . We will engage in competition for
the soil of Kansas and God give the victory to that side which is
stronger I "
As soon as Kansas was declared to be a territory, an election was
held for a legislature. The main object was to enact laws relating
to slavery. In the first election, the slave party won, but thousands
of fraudulent votes had been cast. The Free Soilers then called a
convention at Topeka and elected a free legislature. Two rival
governments existed and civil war broke out. In May, 1856, on
the day before Congressman Brooks assaulted Sumner, the free
town of Lawrence was sacked by slavery advocates. John Brown,
a great ruffian and an obstruction to the establishment of a genuine
UP AGAIN 123
free state, burst upon the scene. Brown butchered the Innocent,
cut off their arms, fingers, and heads, and otherwise mutilated their
dead bodies. "God is my judge," muttered Brown as He cut human
throats, "the people of Kansas will yet justify my course.' 3 -
At this point the President interfered and Secretary Davis sent
United States troops to put down the free government. Peace
ensued for a season, but only for a season. Under the next Presi-
dent war broke out again. In this condition of affairs, Plerce's
administration came to an end, and it was plain he could not be
renominated. A complacent, scholarly gentleman, never able to
say "no" to any one, his handling of the slavery question had de-
stroyed all hopes for further promotion.
The National Democratic Convention met at Cincinnati on June
2, 1856, and the leading candidates were Pierce, Buchanan, Doug-
las, and Cass. The platform decried any further agitation of
slavery, endorsed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and advocated the
annexation of Cuba. The Whig party, now disguised under the
name of Know Nothings, nominated Fillmore upon the old Whig
platform : devotion to the Union, protection of slavery in the old
states, and exclusion from the new. At Philadelphia on June 17,
the National Republican Convention met and nominated the
erratic Fremont, the "Path-finder," for President. Its platform de-
nounced the Ostend Manifesto, called it the highwayman's method,
opposed the taking of Cuba, and the extension of slavery, and bit-
terly arraigned the Pierce administration.
In the fall elections, Buchanan won, with the aid of the business
interests and the conservatives. Such men as Rufus Choate con-
servatives and Union-lovers saw in the blustering Fremont a
menace to the Union. In fact, it was generally understood in the
South that the election of Fremont meant immediate secession.
Buchanan was elected, as I have said, because of the fear of
civil war in the event of Republican victory. The Democrats,
however, had been given a fright. Under the watchword, "Vote as
you pray and pray as you vote," Fremont had received a million
and a quarter votes. Buchanan's total vote was less than two mil-
lions. The poet, Whittier, broke forth in a bit of doggerel :
If months have well-nigh won the field,
What may not four years do?
20 Hollis, 164.
124 UP AGAIN
As these startling events passed before Colonel Davis's eyes,
wrath stirred his souL The Republican party was an unlawful
aggregation, he insisted, a violation of the Constitution. Why
should southern slave owners be forced to wage war to vindicate
a constitutional right to carry slaves into Kansas? Should the
South submit to such dishonor? No! By every bone in Calhoun's
body, no I The election of the abolitionist, Banks, to the speaker-
ship was an outrage not to be borne. The caning of Sumner by
Brooks, why, it was a merited chastisement, which all good men
should approve 1 21 Back to the Senate he would go, issue his chal-
lenge, lay down his ultimatum, and this time fight if necessary to
maintain it.
In the summer of 1856, he wrote his political friend, C. S. Tar-
pley, expressing a desire to return to the Senate. During the fol-
lowing winter, a convention was held at Jackson, Mississippi, to
recommend a senator to the legislature. Reuben Davis presided.
Though Jacob Thompson had been slated for the senatorship,
Jefferson Davis defeated him by a single vote the vote of the
chairman.
21 Wilson, II, 489; Garrison, III, 434.
CHAPTER XI
THE CHALLENGE
A few months before Secretary Davis's term expired, a son had
. been born whom the parents named Jefferson. Two years earlier,
their first-born, Samuel, had died and the father was disconsolate.
"Many months he walked half the night," says the mother, "and
worked fiercely all day." * His cabinet life was arduous and ener-
vating. "After fourteen hours of labor he would often eat dinner
at two o'clock in the morning." In this condition of the Secre-
tary's health, little Jeff arrived; Washington was blanketed in
snow.
It was difficult to get doctor or nurse and Mrs. Davis was sick
unto death. Relief came from an unexpected quarter. Senator
Seward sent over his fine horses and sleigh and often came himself
to minister to the afflicted household. Thus was begun the most
extraordinary attachment of the day, that of Jefferson Davis and
W. H. Seward.
But when March 4, 1857, came, all was well again. At nine
o'clock Secretary Davis had a long and tender interview with his
chief. Grasping Davis's hand, President Pierce said, "I can
scarcely bear the parting ; you have been my stay and solace for
four anxious years." At twelve o'clock, Jefferson Davis was sworn
in as Senator.
Two days later, the Supreme Court delivered itself in the famous
Dred Scott case an opinion anachronistic and extra-judicial, per-
haps more unnecessary and foolish than ever emanated from a
great tribunal. Dred Scott was a Missouri slave and by collusion
with his master sued for his freedom. He claimed that his master
on one occasion permitted him to cross over the Mississippi River
into the free territory of Wisconsin and that that act set him free.
The defense was twofold : that Dred was not a citizen and could not
sue; and that Wisconsin was not free territory, as the Missouri
1 Memoir, II, 535.
125
126 THE CHALLENGE
Compromise of 1820 which declared Wisconsin free was unconsti-
tutional.
The real issue was the first, and the easy answer was, "No, a
slave is not a citizen." Had the case stopped there, as it should,
nothing would have happened. At first it did stop at that point,
and a short opinion was written dismissing the suit for want of
jurisdiction. But Justices Curtis and McLean, in their dissents,
criticized slavery and slavery legislation. This irritated Chief Jus-
tice Taney and he and the six slavery Justices withdrew the first
opinion and filed a second. This re-written opinion dug up more
snakes than could be killed. It tackled the great question, "Was
the territory of Wisconsin ever free?" To this question the court
answered, "No, the territory of Wisconsin was never free, but
always slave and Congress could not make it free." In other
words, the court, as Republicans charged, had gone Democratic.
Consternation spread over the North ; every stone in the Capitol
was shaken. Abraham Lincoln, the lank rail-splitter out in Illi-
nois, roused himself from retirement and came back into politics.
He was sure a conspiracy was on to overrun the West with slave
labor. Stephen and James, Franklin and Roger were the con-
spirators. 2 Jefferson Davis rejoiced. Every break of late had been
his way ; first Congress and now the Supreme Court were with him,
tooth and naiL
In May, Davis and his family set out for Brierfield, where they
had been but little since 1852. At Vicksburg and Jackson, hearty
welcomes awaited the Colonel, and there were barbecues and
speech-makings. And well might Colonel Davis be content. In
Mississippi he was now supreme ; there was no one to dispute his
primacy. Foote was routed and gone, and no traces of the Union
party were left. The State Rights party was in the ascendant.
His associate In the Senate, Governor A. G. Brown, was an out-
and-out secessionist; the stalwart Quitman and the outspoken
Reuben Davis were in Congress.
In the White House was his friend President Buchanan, The
South and slavery were therefore secure. In the President's inau-
gural, which Davis had inspired, the immediate acquisition of Cuba
was recommended; and into the cabinet Buchanan had called
2 Stephen A. Douglas, James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, and Roger A.
Taney.
THE CHALLENGE 127
Jacob Thompson of Mississippi, Howell Cobb of Georgia, J. B.
Floyd of Virginia, and Brown of Tennessee good Southerners all.
One matter only troubled the Colonel : the extension of slavery into
the territories that issue must be met.
On October 15, 1857, at Mississippi City, the Colonel made a
significant speech. After approving the course of Pierce in rela-
tion to Cuba, he said, "If the Black Warrior affair had been prop-
erly managed, the United States would now own Cuba. . . . The
course of William Walker, leading filibustering expeditions into
Cuba, is altogether commendable." With reference to squatter
sovereignty, he declared it offered much to the South in 1854, but
its promises had not been realized. The only safe position was
that of the Supreme Court in the recent Dred Scott case: the
United States must protect slave property in the territories. "I
have no liking for apologists," said he. "I offer no apology for
slavery ; on the other hand I affirm that African slavery, as it exists
in the United States, is a moral, a social, and a political blessing."
Robert John Walker, then Governor of Kansas, came in for a
castigation : What business of his to be taking part in a territorial
election on slavery? Had not the Supreme Court decided that all
territory, Kansas included, was slave, and that neither the people
nor Congress could make it free? Did not the Scott case hold
that a state only could decide on the issue of slavery or no slavery,
thereby unalterably fixing a territorial slave-status for all time?
In May previous, Walker had been prevailed upon by President
Buchanan to accept the governorship of Kansas and on arriving
there, learned that the territorial legislature had named the third
Monday of June for electing delegates to a constitutional conven-
tion. Walker, a slave-owner and a Mississippian, with large experi-
ence and a level head, was thought by the President to be the very
man to conduct the election and see that slavery was given a fair
deal. In his inaugural, the new governor urged all parties to take
part in the approaching election, and in a speech at Topeka, de-
clared that the Constitution, though "free," should be submitted to
the people. He had likewise called out troops and quelled a riot.
At the June election, however, the Free Soilers refused to go to the
polls, only one-fourth of the voters participating. Slave delegates
were chosen to the convention.
In October following, and at the time Senator Davis was down
128 THE CHALLENGE
in Mississippi, an election was held in Kansas for members of the
legislature to take steps to adopt a constitution. Meanwhile,
Washington politicians were urging the Kansas delegates to meet
and formulate a slave constitution, regardless of the people or of
the incoming legislature. The convention met in September and
adjourned to await the October election. This election decided
overwhelmingly for a free status. The convention nevertheless
assembled and formulated the Lecompton or Slave Constitution,
and submitted it to be voted on by the people on December 21.
The ballots were a curiosity a hocus pocus worthy of a ward poli-
tician. They read as follows :
For the Constitution with Slavery
For the Constitution Without Slavery.
Thus slavery was secure no matter how the election went. The
old story of might making right heads I win, tails you lose. This
ugly performance had the endorsement of President Buchanan and
of Secretary Davis.
Thus Kansas matters stood when Davis took his seat in the Sen-
ate and jumped into the discussion up to his middle. But he found
the Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth Congresses different affairs from
the one he had quit some years before. The South was undoubt-
edly more solid, but so was the North. Union senators, North and
South, had been displaced by partisans. Southern Union voices
had been silenced.
Badger and Mangum, Union Whigs, had been routed by Reid
and Clingman. The latter, having quit the Whigs, had become a
blatant secessionist. Downs was supplanted by the shifty and
dangerous Benjamin, whose colleague was John Slidell: Benton had
been defeated; the Union-loving Clemens of Alabama and the
sweet-spirited Bell of Tennessee had bit the dust. Foote's place
was filled by Governor Brown, an original secessionist. Toombs
and Stephens, pacificators In 1851, had ceased to be Whigs and
taken their places in the ranks of the militant Democracy.
Changes in the North were quite as alarming. Webster and
Winthrop, patriots and constitutionalists, were gone; the Bay
State was represented by the vulgar Henry Wilson and the dreamer,
Charles Sumner, extremists and partisans, elected by questionable
methods. From Chicago had come Lyman Trumbull, a student
THE CHALLENGE 129
and a scholar, incapable of wrongdoing for party's sake. The cor-
rupt and time-serving Zach Chandler, represented Michigan ; but
the precise and learned Fessenden, a stalwart Republican, every
inch a senator, represented Maine.
Soon after taking his seat, Davis discovered that the Dred Scott
decision was a fruitless victory. Seward, the Republican leader,
was charging that the opinion was brought about by collusion be-
tween the Court and the President. 3 "We bow to that opinion
now," Seward was saying, "but we will review and overturn it."
Douglas, as Davis was insisting, was double-crossing the South,
praising the opinion in one breath and explaining it away in an-
other. Douglas had gone back on squatter sovereignty, "rightly
understood." Certainly slavery could not be voted on until a terri-
tory had become a state. Douglas must keep step with the Scott
case or take the consequences. In fine, slavery was no longer a
local matter ; it was national and the government in duty bound to
protect it. 4
At the December election in Kansas, the ballot which read "For
the Constitution with slavery," had an apparent majority of several
thousand, but the election was a patent fraud. This constitution
is known as the Lecompton constitution. On January 4, 1858, the
election called by the legislature resulted in a victory of more than
ten thousand to one hundred for the Topeka or free constitution.
Thereupon, Governor Walker wholeheartedly endorsed this consti-
tution, declaring it expressed the mature judgment of the people.
Nevertheless, President Buchanan, Senator Davis, and other stal-
warts endorsed the Lecompton constitution.
The Kansas slavery authorities, by the direction of Buchanan,
applied for admission to the Union under the Lecompton constitu-
tion. But thoughtful men, North as well as South, shook their
heads in disapproval. Governor Henry A. Wise declared that if
the Lecompton fraud were approved by Congress, the Democratic
party would be dead. Senator Hammond exclaimed, "Kick the
dirty thing out of the back door."
The issue between Davis and Douglas was sharply drawn when
Kansas asked for admission under this Lecompton constitution.
Douglas bravely took stand against such course, defying Buchanan
and the administration. A real man at last, Douglas ridiculed the
Beard, II, 18. * Wilson, H., II, 532.
130 THE CHALLENGE
ballot under which the Lecompton constitution was adopted : it was
a fraud, it was despotic. "The people of Kansas have expressed
themselves in favor of a free commonwealth," said the Little Giant,
"and free they should be. ... I cared not whether slavery was
voted up or voted down, but now the people have spoken and good
faith requires that we approve their action." This attitude of
Douglas killed him with the southern Fire-Eaters.
At this time Senator Davis was ill. Under the care of a solicitous
wife, he would drag himself to the Senate, well wrapped and sup-
plied with beef tea and other nourishing food. In reply to Douglas,
the enfeebled but militant man declared the South was on the de-
fensive. He did not claim the Scott opinion carried slavery into a
state, but it did decide that slavery was the status of a territory
until it became a state. In this contention Davis was but keeping
step with the Supreme Court.
In a short while, Governor Walker, now as obnoxious to extreme
Southerners as Douglas himself, resigned and washed his hands of
Buchanan's administration and of the Democratic party. In let-
ters to Secretary Cass, Walker had made it plain that Kansas
favored a free constitution, and had insisted she have her wish.
"Admit Kansas as a free state," Walker had written, "and she will
be duly grateful and will become rock-ribbed Democratic." 6
The bill to admit Kansas under the Lecompton constitution
passed the Senate by a vote of thirty-three to twenty-five, but was
killed in the House. Davis, at that time sick and absent, was
paired for the bill. Words are useless to describe the scenes of dis-
order during the discussion of this matter. Alex Stephens, in a
letter to a friend, said, "Last night was a battle royal in the House.
There were thirty men in one fisticuff. The Union can't last much
longer." During the final debate, Gilmer, a North Carolina Con-
gressman, made an appeal for the Union and expressed disapproval
of partisanship and bitterness. Joshua R. Giddings thereupon
crossed the aisle and was thanking Gilmer, when a fiery Southerner
rose and jeeringly shouted, "Kiss him, Giddings ! "
The Kansas troubles culminated in the English bill, a measure
which provided that Kansas might come into the Union at once and
have a bonus of valuable land if she would accept the Lecompton
constitution ; otherwise she would get neither lands nor statehood.
* Wilson, H., II, 47.
THE CHALLENGE 131
Kansas rejected the bribe and at the August election voted down
the Lecompton constitution. 6 The gods, bent on destroying the
Democratic party, had made its leaders mad.
During these Kansas debates, William Walker, the filibuster,
was again marauding in Cuban waters. Under orders from Wash-
ington, Walker was captured by Commodore Paulding, and a reso-
lution thanking the Commodore and granting him a medal was
debated with much heat. President Buchanan, in a message to
Congress, had mildly censured the Commodore, but had insisted
that "Walker was violating the principles of Christianity, morality,
and humanity," In a word, the President was side-stepping the
main issue and at the same time appealing to the "higher law." 7
This reference of the President to Seward's higher law was fish to
the New York Senator's net. According to him, Senator Davis, who
had attacked the Commodore, was recusant in opposing the Presi-
dent in his higher law doctrine. "Higherlawism ! " Davis sneered
"I feared the President had got into higherlawism when I found
myself against him. ... I am no party man, Sir, I am an old
fogy ; I have no part in higherlawism."
Seward interpreted the President's equivocal position to mean
"the only crime was being caught." "Who said that?" Davis inter-
jected. "I so understood you," Seward replied. "That is your
position," said Davis, "and nobody else's." The Paulding medal
was not voted.
Ill-health, nervous exhaustion, and wounded pride, no doubt,
were now telling on the unconquerable Davis, and he was growing
more austere and arrogant. "His best friends were forced to admit
his bearing even towards them had become haughty and his manner
imperious." 8 No person did Davis more highly esteem than
Judah P. Benjamin, yet in one debate he snapped at Benjamin as
if he were an enemy. Davis, who was chairman of the Committee
on Military Affairs, had asked a larger appropriation to purchase
breech-loading guns. Benjamin offered an amendment to cut the
appropriation. A colloquy ensued, Benjamin asking for further
information.
6 Rhodes, II, 290.
TSchouler, V, 402; Globe, 220, Twenty-fifth Congress, First Session.
Poore, I, 4^8.
132 THE CHALLENGE
Dams: Oh! I will state the very simple fact, the Committee asks
money to buy breech-loading guns.
Benjamin: It's easy enough for the Senator to give a sneering
reply to a plain remark.
Dams: I considered it an attempt to misrepresent a very plain
remark.
Benjamin: Your manner, Sir, is not at all agreeable.
Dams: If disagreeable, the Senator can keep it to himself.
Benjamin: When directed to me, I will not keep it to myself,
but repel it instanter.
Davis: You have got it, Sin
Benjamin: That is enough, Sir. 9 A duel was averted by the
intervention of Senator Pierce of Maryland, a friend of both
parties. 10
In one of the Kansas debates, Chandler referred to the fact that
Davis, when Secretary of War, had sent troops to Kansas to put
down the free government and install the slave. Davis angrily
retorted that he had sent only a few troops and thereby had saved
human life. Turning on Chandler, he exclaimed, "The man who
would not have done that is inhuman and beneath contempt I . . .
Does the Senator charge me with wrong-doing?" At this point
Davis's friend Seward interposed and further trouble was averted.
Davis likewise attacked Fessenden, who was insisting that Sen-
ator Davis might love the Union but he had a queer way of show-
ing his love. Fessenden then referred to Davis's attitude in 1850,
when be resigned from the Senate, went down to Mississippi and
fought the battles of state rights and disunion against Foote. Fes-
senden, in substance, charged that Davis was a secessionist.
Davis: Does the Senator make that charge?
Fessenden: I do not ; the press made it.
Davis : What press ?
Fessenden: I can produce a paper which copied the charge from
another.
Davis : Copied ! I am only waiting for one responsible person to
make the charge and I will answer him in a monosyllable. (Feb.
8, 1858.)
9 Globe, 2781, June 8, 1858.
10 "In March, 1858, when the President ordered Colonel A. S. Johnston to
attack the Mormons, a definite program of secession was on." Davis, R f ., 370.
THE CHALLENGE 133
At another time Wilson and Davis had a sharp controversy.
Wilson had asserted that the slave party in Kansas had won by
fraudulent votes and these methods had been approved by the
Democratic administration, that the whole affair was reeking in
fraud. Davis exclaimed he was tired of hearing of the fraud in
Kansas ; the Senator could turn to no other question. It was like
the frogs in Egypt. "Let the North look to its own white slaves
and cease to interfere with the institution of slavery. . . . These
attacks on southern institutions are unworthy of the Senator. . . .
If Massachusetts chooses to send such an one, he should speak as
becomes his position." Wilson replied to Davis with much confi-
dence and was sustained by his party associates. 11
But Davis's bitterest taunts were for Douglas, whom he charac-
terized as a demagogue and a time-server, and whose words "were
those of a highwayman and a bravo." 12 "I set my heel on the
Senator's policy," exclaimed Davis. "With scorn and indignation
I look upon it. The Senator builds up his political reputation by
catering to prejudice to exclude the property of the minority from
the territories." In reply, Douglas asserted that Davis's scorn was
mutual. "I despise to see men pandering to public sentiment
against common rights under the Constitution."
Davis: WiH the Senator abide by Scott's case?
Douglas : All property must be treated alike, whether horses, or
whiskey, tobacco or slaves.
Davis : The Senator has not answered my question.
Douglas : When the Supreme Court decides that slavery in Kan-
sas is a constitutional right, I will abide such decision.
During these debates, Seward contrasted a country cursed with
slavery and a country blessed with freedom. The former, he called
"labor states," the latter "capital states." In the former, political
force governed ; in the latter, political power. One strikes down
manhood ; the other elevates it.
In the Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth Congresses, Senator Davis
did riot exhibit that depth of learning or liberality he had at an
earlier date. In the i84o's, no senator had been more tolerant ex-
cept in controversial slavery matters. Now, like an animal at bay,
11 Globe, 389, Jan. 25, 1858.
i* New York Herald, Jan. 24, 1859.
134 THE CHALLENGE
he was fighting a desperate fight. The most arrogant and insuffer-
able man in the Senate, said the Tribune
The free North was outstripping the slave South both in wealth
and population. Oregon and Minnesota had just been admitted
as free states; Calhoun's equilibrium was more and more out of
joint. There were now eighteen free states with thirty-six senators,
to fifteen slave states with thirty senators. These stubborn facts
irritated Senator Davis and he was not easy to placate. When it
was proposed, for example, to appropriate a sum to return certain
stranded Africans taken from a slave trading ship back to their
homes, he voted no. He had offered amendments, reducing the
amount and had insisted that the actual cost of transporting the
negroes was sufficient "Turn them loose as near home as possible,"
he said. Toombs and other stalwarts expressed surprise at this
position of their leader. 14
Only once did Senator Davis cooperate in a measure hurtful to
slavery-extension. He assisted Andrew Johnson in his long-cher-
ished homestead measure which would open up the West to free
white settlers. But even on this measure the Senator finally took
the back-track. In 1860, the homestead bill passed both Houses.
It was vetoed by President Buchanan under pressure from southern
leaders. Senator Davis then voted to sustain this veto and de-
feated the bill. 15 In the homestead debates, indeed, Senator Davis
had expressed his well known aristocratic view, which I have here-
tofore quoted. "In the South," said the Senator, "every white man
is raised to an equality nowhere else will you find every white
man superior to menial service." 16
During these debates, Senator Davis was often too unwell to
attend the Senate. In the winter of 1858, he was attacked by the
old eye trouble, brought on by severe cold and laryngitis. During
the spring he was confined in a dark chamber and eminent physi-
cians attended him. The patient's suffering was intense. A pro-
cedenture of the pupil took place and the eye was in hourly danger
of bursting. 17 When Mrs. Davis would urge nourishment, her hus-
band would scream, in a smothered voice, "I am in anguish, I can-
not 1 " Only the tender care of a devoted wife saved his life. Dur-
18 April 14, 1860. ** Globe, 916, Feb. 29, 1860.
"Wilson, H., II, 621. w Memoir, I, 575.
i 5 June 23, 1860.
THE CHALLENGE 135
Ing Ms convalescence, the doctor expressed surprise that he had
not gone entirely blind. On a bit of paper the sufferer scribbled,
"My wife saved me."
Each day during the Senator's illness, Seward came for an hour
or more to beguile his sick friend and to tell of the "passing show
in the Senate and House." 1S Seward was, in fact, solicitous of the
outcome of his friend Davis's health as though they were brothers.
He inquired after every symptom and when hopes of saving the eye
were small, he sorrowfully and with tears in his eyes repaired to
Mrs. Davis's room and whispered, "I could not bear to see him
maimed or disfigured. He is a splendid embodiment of manhood ;
he must not lose his eye."
Congress adjourned in June, 1858, and the physicians recom-
mended that the sick man take a northern trip. Early in July, the
Senator and Mrs. Davis with Jeff and Margaret, the infant daugh-
ter, set sail for Boston. Almost at once the Invalid recovered his
health and spirits. On July 4, while at sea, he made a patriotic
speech, warning his hearers against the agitators of both sections.
In Boston and Portland and at agricultural fairs throughout New
England, he was extended a "hearty grip." His friend Pierce came
out to greet him. In Faneuil Hall, he addressed an immense con-
course. Caleb Gushing introduced him and B. F. Butler was on
the reception committee. Dressed in modest black clothes of the
style of the day, and without pretense, bluster, or assumption, Jef-
ferson Davis everywhere filled New England with patriotic fervor.
In earnest terms he pictured the deeds of the Revolutionary
fathers; our whole country is a unit materially and socially a
unit, he insisted. There is no necessary antagonism between the
sections : the South has the raw material ; New England has the
mills to manufacture it into the finished fabric. The South has
slave labor adapted to the farm; the North white labor suited to
the factory . . . Once the cause of Boston was the cause of all
and It will be so again if slavery is protected under the Constitu-
tion otherwise danger is ahead.
The Boston Post and other papers were high in praise of Colonel
Davis, "the distinguished orator, jurist, and soldier." Wonderful
speeches, the Colonel was getting off in those October days of
*, I, 580.
136 THE CHALLENGE
1858 . . . But away down In Mississippi the plain common people
could not make him out. Was Davis a candidate for President 19
and had he deserted the cause of state rights and of the South?
His mail brought anxious letters, intimating he had been false to
the South. 20
But even while Davis was enjoying his summer outing, a scene
was taking place at Freeport, Illinois, which changed the course
of his life. Only one debate had taken place between Douglas and
Lincoln, rival candidates for the Senate, when the Freeport meet-
ing was held. Six days before at Ottawa, Douglas had paid a noble
tribute to public opinion it was supreme and it was of God. At
Freeport, Lincoln had determined to test Douglas out. Lincoln's
object was to show the absurdity of the Scott decision and to see
if Douglas would follow it to its logical conclusion. That is, would
Douglas concede there was no way under heaven by which to pre-
vent slavery in Kansas until statehood. Lincoln knew that if
Douglas answered the question, about to be propounded, "No,"
he could not get back to the Senate; if "Yes," he could not be
President.
Lincoln's question was couched in these words, "Can the people
of a United States territory in any lawful way against the wishes
of any citizen of the United States exclude slavery from its limits
prior to the formation of a state constitution?" Douglas answered,
"Yes," that the people of a territory had the right to vote on
slavery. Douglas undoubtedly preferred to remain in the Senate
rather than risk all on the presidency. And though he went back
to the Senate, he alienated Davis and the South and lost the presi-
dency.
Early in November, the Davis family arrived at Brierfield and in
a few days a request came to the Colonel to address the Mississippi
legislature. This meant, of course, the agitated and perplexed
people desired an explanation of his New England tour. Gladly
did the Colonel accept, for here was an opportunity to finish his
Faneuil Hall speech. November 15 was arranged as the date for
the address. A few days before, as will be recalled, the Fall elec-
tions had resulted in a Republican victory and the people of Mis-
sissippi were correspondingly excited. The Colonel therefore faced
10 Pollard, Dmris, 49, charges that he was.
* Rowland, III, 361.
THE CHALLENGE 137
an anxious concourse, and he spoke In no uncertain tones. Here-
tofore, lie had been content to warn the North ; now he proposed
to challenge them. In the California debates of 1850, he had said,
"I warn you, I solemnly warn you." Now he would be specific and
make a direct challenge. 21
"Mississippians 1 " he began, his severe masterful manner arrest-
ing attention as his magnetic voice rang through the hall of the
House. He then reviewed the history of the country, avowed his
attachment to North as well as South, referred to the blood of his
Revolutionary ancestors and to the glory of the American soldier.
"Secession is the last remedy," he exclaimed. "Disruption of the
Union a great, but not the greatest calamity. . . . When I have
seen the flag of my country surrounded by the fiery flags of other
nations, the pulsations of my heart beat faster with every breeze
that displayed its honored stripes and brilliant constellations . . .
I glory in Mississippi's star, but before I would see it dishonored
I would tear it from its place to be set on the perilous ridge of
battle as a sign around which her bravest and best shall meet the
harvest-home of death!"
Great applause followed this dramatic utterance. The audience
was thoroughly attuned to the lofty threat expressed. The Novem-
ber elections just held had been condemned 8 by the press of Mis-
sissippi and by speakers all over the state. The Mississippian had
called the November election "The black Republican notion of
negro equality," and Congressman Singleton, in a speech at Jack-
son, had exclaimed, "I fear not Devils nor Hell, but disgrace I do
fear. . . . Fore-warned is fore-armed!"
Continuing, Colonel Davis predicted that the next election for
President would be thrown into the House and the complexion of
the House was such as to make an abolition President possible. 22
"Under these circumstances," he exclaimed, "it is for you to answer
and say what course you should pursue . . . But, no, I do not
pause for an answer, I answer for you. Your position is such that
the event alluded to would be a revolution by which the processes
of the Government would be destroyed and the observance of its
mere form entitled to no respect. In such event, you should take
21 Ibid., 339. This episode historians seem to have missed.
22 Davis also declared that during the last summer Pierce assured him if a
northern army started South it would have to fight at home.
138 THE CHALLENGE
steps outside the Union for protection." 2S Six months later he
said, "If a President is elected on Seward's platform, let the Union
be dissolved." 24
Thus did Colonel Davis finish the speech he had begun in Faneuil
Hall sixty days before* Thus did he define his position and issue
his challenge. If Seward or Chase or Lincoln were elected Presi-
dent, that instant disunion would follow. Thus, too, it must be
admitted, were verified the beliefs of Reuben Davis, of Foote, of
Andrew Johnson, and of Zachary Taylor, Fessenden, and other
Whigs ? that Jefferson Davis was a disunionist.
Colonel Davis's speech met with widespread approval. The
press endorsed it, the Mississippi legislature resolved that the elec-
tion of an abolitionist would put an end to the Union. The plain
people were specially pleased ; they had a champion at last.
Colonel Davis would protect them against negro domination. He
understood the situation. In 1850, he was right and Foote was
wrong. In his Southern Address of 1849, i* 1 his Protest of 1850,
in all he had predicted, he was now fully justified. The aim of the
abolitionists was clear ; they would free the slaves and destroy the
poor white man. 28 Rich men could take care of themselves, but the
poor man could not, the free negro would crush him. "Fred Doug-
las would doubtless be President within a few years." 2e
The last session of the Thirty-fifth Congress was given over to
the airing of troubles in the Democratic party. Public matters
were at a standstill. A tariff bill passed the House but was de-
feated in the Senate. Kansas troubles soon settled themselves.
The free population soon took charge of the Government, but Kan-
sas was not admitted as a state till several years later. With much
complacency, President Buchanan referred to the peaceful condi-
tions in Kansas ; he likewise recommended that Cuba be purchased.
A bill was presented, appropriating thirty million dollars to acquire
Cuba. This measure and the homestead bill often collided and in
the end both failed to pass. The fugitive slave law, now openly
violated in the North, was discussed with much acerbity. The
opening of the slave trade was likewise considered, a policy which
28 Mississippiw, Nov. 5, 1858; Nov. 8, 10, II, 15, 16.
^Alfriend, 120.
28 Brown, 107.
, Dec. 19, I&59.
THE CHALLENGE 139
Senator Davis approved, though he did not deem It necessary for
the State of Mississippi.
In October, 1859, John Brown again burst upon the stage, this
time to achieve the immortality of any one who sacrifices life upon
the altar of service to the weak. With eighteen men, two of whom
were his sons, and several negroes, Brown seized Harpers Ferry,
announced his insane purpose to liberate the slaves and killed a
number of people, including the mayor of the town. After being
desperately wounded, he was captured, but refused to disclose the
names of those who were backing him. On December 2, with the
firmness of a martyr, he stepped upon the gallows and met his
death. This affair added to popular excitement ; the nerves of the
people, already on edge, jangled like mad.
In the North, dreamers and idealists compared Brown to Gideon
and his Band. Some called him the second Christ: Pro Christ o
sicut Christus. On the day of his hanging, bells tolled in northern
cities. 27 This attitude of the North disgusted and infuriated the
South to an extent far beyond anything ever before witnessed.
Moreover, Uncle Tom's Cabin had begun to circulate in the South
and scores of replies had been published, filled with wormwood and
with gall.
H. Rowan Helper, a poor North Carolina white, reared in a
Quaker neighborhood, added to the excitement. His Impending
Crisis was the most remarkable political work of its time.
Crammed with facts from the census table, Helper's book main-
tained that slavery and a negro population were destroying the
South, paralyzing her business, warping her civilization, and stag-
nating her intellect. Helper's remedy was freeing the slaves and
transporting them. The Impending Crisis more greatly infuriated
the South than did Uncle Tom's Cabin.
In North Carolina, a Quaker, Dr. Worth, was sentenced to
prison for two years for circulating the book. John Sherman would
no doubt have been elected Speaker of the House in December,
1859, bad he not endorsed the Impending Crisis. That endorse-
ment made him an outcast among southern leaders. One congress-
man called Sherman a murderer ; another declared he was not fit
to live. Millson, of Virginia, exclaimed, "We will not submit to a
black Republican President." During the debates on the Speaker-
27 Schaff, loi.
140 THE CHALLENGE
ship, every ugly and disagreeable matter possible was brought for-
ward and the most evil passions of the human family found vent.
The year 1860 opened with gloomy outlook. Congress had met
December 5, three days after the hanging of John Brown. In the
House, the Republicans had a plurality, but not a majority. The
voting for Speaker continued for more than six weeks with an
unorganized House. Finally, on February i, Pennington, a mod-
erate Republican of New Jersey, was elected. The excitement in
Congress, expressed in the violence of members, was never so mani-
fest. And this excitement Jefferson Davis coined into political ad-
vantage, not by bluster, not by rant, as Senators Toombs and Tver-
son, Clingman and Wigfall, but by resolutions destructive alike
of the Democratic party and of the Union.
Davis would have no more compromise the time to fight had
come. The South had lost out by yielding and compromising.
Long ago she ought to have presented a solid front, and asserted
her rights: in 1832, in 1848, in 1851. Time and again he had ex-
pressed his willingness that the North go its way. Why should
not the South be accorded the same right? In the Senate more
than once he had quoted Moses and referred to the troubles which
separated Abraham and Lot. "And Abraham said unto Lot, 'You
go to the right and I will go to the left, or I will go to the right
and you go to the left/ "
On February 2, 1860, Senator Davis rose in his place and pre-
sented a set of resolutions. On January 6, 1838, Calhoun had
offered like resolutions, setting forth the true relation of the states
to the general Government and formulating a national "slave
code." Following Calhoun, Davis would put the Senate on record
as to the relationship of each state and of the United States to
slavery. The resolutions declared the Scott decision to be the law,
that Congress must protect slavery in the territories, and that the
Democratic party no longer held to the Cincinnati platform of
four years ago. Southern Unionists were amazed. Of Davis's
resolutions and of Buchanan's and SlidelPs part in urging them
even Clingman afterwards asserted they were "the conspiracy sur-
passing in insanity and wickedness all other events in the history
of humanity." 28
Heretofore, the Democratic party had declared that Congress
28 Clingman, 48.
A PREMATURE MOVEMENT
John Brown: "Here! Take this, and follow me. My
name's Brown/*
Cuffee: "Please God! Mr. Brown, dat is onpossible.
We ain't done seedin' yit at our house/*
From a cartoon in Harper's Weekly, Nov. 26, 1859.
THE CHALLENGE 141
had no right to interfere with slavery ; it now declared that Con-
gress must interfere, protect slavery, "and enact a slave code," as
the Scott case suggested. Everyone knew what Senator Davis was
up to ; he was determined to establish some general slavery prin-
ciple and incidentally he would kill off Douglas "our little grog-
drinking, electioneering demagogue." 29 On a platform condemned
by the Davis resolutions, Douglas had just defeated Lincoln for
the Senate and Davis proposed to put him in a hole. Douglas
must be "pig or pup" ; he must stand with the North or with the
South ; he should not run with the hare and hold with the hounds.
After an acrimonious debate, the resolutions were adopted. 80
Never was Davis more the orator than in these slavery debates
with Douglas. "Yet in the expression of passion, he retained an
apparent self-continence, appeared to be suppressing the strug-
gling emotions of his heart, and to speak only half what he felt.
He neither stormed nor spoke loudly or impetuously, but he filled
the hearts of his hearers with unspeakable passion and captured
their entire sympathy by that evidently forced moderation of tone
and language which leaves to the power of suggestion much that
expression declines to attempt and is incapable of conveying."
And yet his eloquence was haughty and defiant, his manner im-
perious, and he spoke as one who would not brook contradiction
and who disdained the challenges of debate. Once Douglas twitted
Davis for bolting the Democratic party, but promised forgiveness.
Davis rose suddenly to his feet, with erect and dilated figure, and
striking his breast, exclaimed proudly and defiantly, "I scorn your
quarter!" 81
In another contest with Seward, Davis retorted that "if the Sen-
ator and his partisans undertake to coerce the South, the Senator
will find men at his own home who will arrest his footsteps and
hold him prisoner in the name of liberty 1 "
In April, 1860, the Democratic party met in Charleston, South
Carolina, the home of the elder Rhett and of his impetuous sons,
owners of the Mercury, a newspaper a-flame for secession. 32
Charleston, the most aristocratic city in America, where doorbells
20 American Historical Review, X, 365.
soDodd, 182.
81 Pollard, Davis, 33.
82 Beveridge, II, 8.
142 THE CHALLENGE
are rung from the sidewalks, where exclusive mansions are sep-
arated from the canaille by walls and parapets of brick, stone, and
steel, reaching skyward, and whose motto has ever been, "Death
before dishonor." 33 In such a smug, rarefied atmosphere, what
chance was there for Douglas, the plain back-slapping Westerner,
filled with Democratic Ideals of popular education, of the equality
of man, of free soil for free men, and of opposition to caste.
Caleb Gushing presided at the Charleston convention and Davis's
name was presented for President, B. F. Butler voting for him
forty-nine times ! Slidell was on hand with the Davis resolutions.
These resolutions were presented as the basis of the Democratic
platform but were defeated. At this point, the convention went
to pieces. "Follow me ! " exclaimed the truculent Yancey, as he
stalked out of Institute Hall soon to be known as Secession Hall.
Alabama and Mississippi followed, two and two, marching across
Meeting Street to the Court House and organizing a red hot party
of their own. 84 The old Democratic party was split to pieces the
political carcass of Douglas torn from limb to gut, 85 and the Union
well-nigh disrupted.
The convention sat several days, but Douglas could not get the
requisite two-thirds majority. It therefore adjourned to meet in
Baltimore sixty days later. The regular Democrats then met and
nominated Douglas and Herschel V. Johnson on the Cincinnati
platform, adding a plank for the acquisition of Cuba. The Seceders
nominated Breckinridge and Lane on the Scott case. Between
the upper millstone of secession and the nether millstone of aboli-
tion, the old Whig now called American party was ground to
powder. It nevertheless met and nominated Bell and Edward
Everett, the only plank in its platform: The Union and the Con-
stitution.
Thus had Jefferson Davis laid his plans and given due notice.
In behalf of slavery extension, he had destroyed the Democratic
88 Colonel Ransom Calhoun was killed by Major Alfred Rhett in a duel.
Rhett succeeded W. R. Taborn as editor of the Mercury, Taborn, a cousin of
Rhetf s, having been killed by Magrath. R. B. Rhett, Jr., killed Judge
Cooley of the New Orleans Picayme. In the duel between Major Rhett and
Vander Horst, Rhett fired in the air, remarking, "I present you with your
life, Sirl"
84 Hodgson, 429.
88 Winston, 120.
THE CHALLENGE 143
party for like reasons If necessary he would destroy the Union
itself. Had he not warned abolitionists of the danger and issued
his cartel?
"Fair warning, Gentlemen," he had said to the Republican party.
"Elect an abolition-President at your peril that moment is the
Union dissolved!" Would the Republicans heed this warning or
would they accept Davis's challenge? 36 A grave responsibility
rested on that party. "Are God's laws to be replaced by man's
laws?" Channing was asking. "Is human legislation the measure
of right?" In the womb of civilization an answer to this question
was hatching.
86 Hoist, 138 : "The Charleston Convention disrupted the Union."
CHAPTER XII
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
On May 16, 1860, the National Republican Convention met in
Chicago, a new and typically western city. The Wigwam, specially
put together for the occasion, would not hold the crowd. Ten thou-
sand delegates and other favored ones packed the structure, while
twenty thousand more stood without, straining eyes and ears and
joining in the noisy demonstration. Because of Democratic dis-
sensions, victory was sure, unless some mistake was made. David
Wilmot, of Proviso fame, was temporary chairman. After the
usual convention jockeying, Lincoln and Hamlin were nominated.
Seward had been the favorite, but his abolition attitude and his
"irrepressible conflict" speech had turned the conservatives against
him. Moreover, Seward was changeable, too agile minded and
optimistic to make a suitable candidate. At the very time he was
hurling anathema at slavery and predicting direful things unless
it was abolished, he was almost silly in his optimism. The talk
about a crisis amused him. It reminded him of an Irish soldier
who rushed into the captain's tent one day with gun in hand and
exclaimed, "Say, Capt'n, what shall I fire at? I don't see no
enemy." "Fire at the crisis," said the Captain. "Didn't you know
there was a crisis in the country?" l
Chase, another candidate, was also wisely dropped. Proud,
handsome, and learned, but dictatorial and consumed by ambition,
Chase was not a safe leader. "I would free the slaves," he had
said, "not because I love them, but because I hate their masters." 2
Cameron was lacking in moral fiber, and Bates, more lawyer than
statesman. The other candidates were not presidential timber and
all were therefore eliminated.
The task before the convention was how to weld into one
mass^the diverse and conflicting interests represented. Joshua R.
Giddings, who was convinced that slavery existed nowhere except
1 Globe, 618, Feb. 8; 1858. * Acton, 135.
144
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED 145
in the Democratic party and in the four points of hell, and who
had electrified the House by his awesome words, "James Buchanan,
believest thou the prophet ? I know thou dost 1 " must be placated
and those he represented.
The business interests must likewise be given attention. Nor
must practical politicians, sane and sensible Free Soilers, and dis-
gruntled Democrats be forgotten. A thousand fads and faddists
must likewise be handled with care. There must be a complete
roundup, a taking over of the entire vote polled by both Fremont
and Fillmore four years before.
An incident marred the opening of the convention. Giddings
moved to amend the first plank of the platform by inserting that
clause of the Declaration of Independence which affirmed the
equality of man. The resolution was rejected and Giddings quit
the convention in sorrow and anger. The platform, as finally writ-
ten, was shot through with freedom, though a discreet eye was kept
on practical politics. "The normal condition of all the territory
of the United States is that of freedom," thus it rang out. It also
declared for the immediate admission of Kansas as a free state,
denounced Buchanan, the Lecompton constitution, and all attempts
to extend slavery into the territories. It opposed Cuban annexa-
tion, pronounced the reopening of the slave trade a crime against
humanity, favored a homestead law, and called for a protective
tariff for infant industries. A document not unlike the teachings
of Henry Clay and the Whigs.
Thus, "Free labor, free speech, free soil, and free men," became
the Republican battle-cry, and on this platform Lincoln was able
to stand four square. A local railroad attorney, he was satisfactory
to the conservatives and the business interests. Moreover, Lincoln
was devoted to the Union and the Constitution, favored a stable
government, and was opposed to any interference with slavery in
the slave states. His opposition to the extension of slavery into
the territories placated the Free Soilers, while his humble birth,
good fellowship, homely wit, and advocacy of the rights of labor
and of a homestead law endeared him to the hearty, expanding
West. Pennsylvania and other manufacturing states were pleased
because the low Walker Tariff of 1846, which had brought on a
Northern panic, would be repealed. In truth, every element had
been captured except violent abolitionists of the Wendell Phillips
146 CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
type. Infuriated because some fanatic, favoring immediate aboli-
tion, had not been nominated, they sneered at Lincoln and called
him "the sleuth hound of slavery ! . . . The fellow had struck one
blow for freedom where Webster had struck a hundred," they
charged.
Thus, full-fledged and Minerva-like, the Republican party came
forth to meet the mighty hosts of Democracy which had dominated
America since the days of Old Hickory Jackson. And what had
the Democratic party to oppose to this program of progress?
Much that was venerable, delightful, and idealistic, it must be said,
but little that was practical, progressive, or cooperative. Under
Jefferson Davis, as we have seen, it had imbibed the Greek idea of
the essential inequality of man and maintained that slave labor
was a necessity. Slavery ennobled the southern white man and
raised him above the "greasy mechanic" of the North. Slaves were
useful as the members of the body are useful, one for each purpose :
a steward, a housekeeper, a spinner, a weaver, a blacksmith, a
lady's maid, a wet nurse, a dry nurse, a footman, a body servant,
a coachman, and a playmate for young master.
Let "George" do the work, was the comfortable doctrine of the
gentle old slave system, a system that reckoned not with stubborn
facts, and that failed to observe an advancing civilization or to
realize that the America of cotton mills, blast furnaces, and a con-
tinental empire was not the America of stage coaches, hand looms,
and seaboard villages. Southern leaders could not indeed dis-
engage themselves from the highfaluting teachings of Cervantes
and Sir Walter Scott. 3
While the historian must admire the nerve of the inflexible Davis
and his followers in their fight to preserve a mediaeval civilization,
perhaps the best since the golden age of Augustus, he cannot fail
to be amazed at their temerity. We have seen that nearly every
civilized country had cast off slavery. The southern "fathers"
Washington, Jefferson, and Monroe had declared slavery to be
morally and financially an evil. Not only had many Southerners
liberated their slaves, but they had provided in substance for the
extinction of slavery by the year 1808. It would seem, therefore,
that the lessons of the past would have given Colonel Davis and
his associates pause, as it had Clay, Robert J. Walker, the Blairs,
8 Mark Twain, 330.
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED 147
and thousands of others. These men advocated gradual abolition,
compensation, and colonization.
But had there been no past to guide Colonel Davis, the living
present might have arrested his attention. It was a day of na-
tionalization. Individualism, isolation, and state rights were gone.
Germany was being nationalized, so was Italy, so was England.
How could America escape? Furthermore, America had become
the home of the oppressed exile, fleeing from a land of tyranny to
one of freedom. Germans, Irish, and Scandinavians were settling
in the West and inhaling the air of freedom. The pens of Emerson,
Channing, Bryant, Stowe, Whittier, and Theodore Parker were
placing the slave owner in an impossible position before the civi-
lized world.
Science was proclaiming the doctrine of the equality of the races
and beginning to discover a common source for all animate beings.
Caste, self-importance, and the divine right of kings were on the
run. Authority, tradition, and orthodox religion were shaken by
discoveries and inventions. The Tribune, edited by Horace
Greeley, was demanding equal rights for women and free homes
for free men. The labor world was becoming articulate. The
child, under Wordsworth's touch, was an object of solicitude ; pub-
lic schools were supplanting private ones. Railroads, telegraphs,
cheap postage, and penny papers were elevating the masses. More-
over, a thousand fads were knocking chivalry and all it ever stood
for into a cocked hat. 4
Exeunt, Lords and Ladies!- Enter the man in overalls, the
woman in pants ! America was becoming a haven for "mad men,
and women, men with beards, Dunkards, Muggletonians, Come-
outers, Groaners, Agrarians, Seventh Day Baptists, Quakers, Aboli-
tionists, Unitarians, Prohibitionists, and Philosophers." 5 Ram-
pant Democracy was threatening to submerge Colonel Davis,
standing Canute-like on the beach, with upraised broom, trying to
sweep back the ocean's tide.
As the campaign progressed, it was plain that the sweep of a
world-wide democratic movement would land the Rail Splitter in
the chair of George Washington. Public opinion, the giant that
had slumbered so long, was aroused at last. Garrison and Phillips
had done their work, Clay had done his and Douglas his. Lincoln,
*Fish, 289. fi Beard, I, 728.
148 CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
the prophet of the new order, with no compromise, was to do his. 6
The canvass was not an exciting one* The result was already
discounted. Douglas took the stump and maintained himself with
dignity. The last months of Stephen A. Douglas's life are worthy
to rank high in American tradition. At Norfolk and at Raleigh
he was heckled by the disunionists. "Senator Douglas, do you ad-
vise secession in the event of Lincoln's election?" they interro-
gated. "No, never ! " spake the patriot. "Under no circumstances
would I advise secession." In the West, where Douglas was strong,
Carl Schurz, canvassing for Lincoln, pressed the homestead issue
and Lincoln's opposition to slave labor. In the East, the versatile
but humane Seward took charge, exhorting his audiences "to show
loving-kindness to the slave owners," and indulging in much opti-
mism. He would extend America north and south. He would
acquire Canada and Cuba, with freedom as the watchword.
In the South, there was no enthusiasm. In the Far South, or-
ganization was unnecessary: only the state rights candidates,
Breckinridge and Lane, were in the running. The whites, especially
the poorer whites who confidently expected to be enslaved if the
abolitionist Lincoln was elected, were a solid mass and a fighting
mass. Even in the Border States the canvass was tame. There the
Republicans stood little chance, and the Whigs were the best bet,
since the Democratic party was split to pieces. 7 In the East, there
was much enthusiasm and a perfect organization. The Wide
Awakes and other political organizations were created, college pro-
fessors took an active part, poets sang, philosophers and pam-
phleteers wrote all in freedom's cause.
When the October elections took place, Lincoln carried the
Democratic state of Pennsylvania and also Indiana. His victory
was assured, and Colonel Davis was thoroughly alarmed. He must
bestir himself. His challenge to the Republican party was out and
about to be accepted. He must therefore get busy. Immediately
he took the matter up with Breckinridge and with Bell, urging
them to withdraw. They both agreed to do so, provided Douglas
would retire. Douglas refused. No one except himself stood the
ghost of a chance of carrying the West, he protested. Late in
October, Colonel Davis, who had been to West Point as a Visitor,
6 Fish, 7; Brown, 89, 104; Hollis, 212, to the contrary.
t Rhodes, II, 487.
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED 149
stopped off in Philadelphia and had a long and confidential talk
with his old cabinet mate, James Campbell. Campbell was sure of
Lincoln's election, but Davis was confident of his defeat. The
election would be thrown into the House, he thought, and Lincoln
repudiated.
In his Illinois home sat Abraham Lincoln, thoughtful and sad-
faced, watching the unfolding drama, conferring with party leaders.
He made no public addresses, his speeches had already been made:
in the canvass with Douglas and at Cooper Union during the pre-
vious February. Everyone knew his position. It was a contest
of principles and not of men.
November 7, 1860, dawned bright and sunny, and the election
passed off quietly, so quietly the newspapers reported it "intoler-
ably dull." Lincoln was elected, fairly elected without a contest,
without a suggestion of fraud or wrong-doing. He had entered the
race, played the game according to the rules, and won out. He
had carried every free state except New Jersey. In the electoral
college he received one hundred and eighty votes. Breckinridge re-
ceived seventy-two; Douglas twelve; Bell thirty-nine. Of the
popular votes, Lincoln got 1,857,610; Douglas, 1,291,574; Breckin-
ridge, 850,082 ; Bell, 646,124.
The die was cast. Colonel Jefferson Davis's challenge had been
accepted. An "abolitionist" was duly elected President of the
United States. It was now up to the Colonel ; the next move was
his.
PART TWOREAPING THE WHIRLWIND
1861-1889
"When I think of him [Gen. Pettigrew] and men not
unlike him and think they, even they, could not save us,
when I see that the cause which catted out all their virtues
and employed all their talents has been permitted to sink in
utter ruin, when 1 find that the great principles oj constitu-
tional liberty, the pure and well ordered society, the vener-
able institutions in which they lived and jor which they died,
have been permitted to perish out of the land I feel as if in
that southern cause there must have been some terrible
mistake. . . !'
WILLIAM HENRY TRESCOTT.
CHAPTER XIII
THE PLUNGE
Before the news of Lincoln's election arrived, anxious days
awaited the Colonel down on his Mississippi plantation. Brierfield
was far from the outside world and therefore the more dear to Mm
and his little family. The three growing children were the delight
of father and mother. Jeff, now a vigorous little chap of six years ;
Margaret, three, and her mother's joy; and Joseph Emory, the
latest arrival, an infant of one year.
The coming of the babe Joe had been the occasion of a partial
reconciliation between Colonel Davis and his brother, Joseph
Emory, for whom the child was named. After this peace offering,
Joseph and Jefferson undertook to forgive each other and the mis-
understanding of fourteen years before was forgotten as far as
such things are ever forgotten* But Mrs. Davis did not try to for-
give her husband's brother ; his conduct in causing the Colonel to
disinherit her had sunk too deep for forgiveness. 1
Brierfield plantation had been sadly neglected these last few
years. The death of James Pemberton and the absence of the Mas-
ter at Washington had left no responsible head. The old trouble
as to the title to Brierfield likewise remained unsettled. Joseph's
promise to make a deed was out, but this was mere word of mouth,
a poor title if any at all to a valuable plantation. Often the women
of the family would talk over the situation and urge Jefferson to
ask for a deed, but he did not wish to press the consummation of
a voluntary gift. Moreover, Joseph was a stern, unrelenting man,
whom none dared to approach. The head of the Davis clan, he
liked to feel "that everyone looked up to him ; he parted with noth-
ing he possessed, and kept everything together in his own name."
Jefferson Davis's relations with his wife and her people were
almost ideal. Mrs. Davis's surrender of her life to his, her solici-
tude for his health and her intelligent interest in his manifold
y, Bowmar.
153
154 THE PLUNGE
duties really private secretary and understudy had made her
husband a perpetual lover. 2 He soon left the Baptist Church, to
which the Davises belonged, and attended the Episcopal Church
with the Howells. In Washington, he worshiped at the Church
of the Epiphany, and though not yet a communicant, was quite a
pillar. The rector often called on him for advice and financial
assistance.
Mrs. Howell, the Howell women, mother and sisters of Mrs.
Davis, were proud of their masterful relative; to them, Colonel
Davis was everything but stubborn and unyielding. Mrs. Howell
called him Jeff, wrote him affectionate letters, and was "verry"
much concerned about his spiritual condition. In 1859, she wrote
a long motherly epistle, in which she gave it as her opinion that
"our Saviour will end this war in person." Exactly what war, the
good lady does not mention. 8 "]tft" she wrote, "do you know that
I do most firmly believe that we are upon the eve of the final cul-
mination of all things ? I beg you to read Cummings on the Apoca-
lypse. ... I never was happy in my life before, I never under-
stood my God and my Bible as I now do. Let me prevail on you,
my dear son, as dear to me as any of my children, to read these
books that we may all be found with our lamps trimmed and our
wedding garments on."
How the Colonel would have loved to live on, unhindered and
unlet at Brierfield, leading the life of a southern gentleman, rearing
blooded horses, watching over his estates, reading, reflecting, doing
as he chose, in the winter-season, going up to Washington, advis-
ing presidents, cabinets, and Congress, himself the most masterful
senator of them all. But the Black Republicans, as the Senator
called his opponents, would not let him do this. They insisted he
had no right to carry his slaves into Kansas, and though he did not
wish to carry slaves there, he wished to have the right to do this
should he ever desire to do so. 4
In the Senate, he had made this plain. In a hundred speeches
he had said he did not approve of the Cass-Nicholson letter of
1848, and of the squatter sovereignty doctrine growing out of that
* She called him by the affectionate name, "Banny," as I have said.
8 Rowland, IV, 116.
4 Senator Wade declared the Democrats were fighting for the privilege of
carrying a nameless nigger into a nameless territory. Globe, XXXIII, 1354.
THE PLUNGE 155
letter. It was too plain for argument that squatter sovereignty, as
interpreted by Douglas, was unconstitutional. "Rightly under-
stood," squatter sovereignty meant that no election on slavery
could be held until a territory had become a state. The shifty
Douglas had made of it "a short-cut to all the ends of Black Re-
publicanism." 5
Moreover, two years before Davis had proclaimed before the
Mississippi legislature that the election of an abolitionist dissolved
the Union, and had advised the state convention at Jackson that
disunion must follow if the Republicans elected their candidate on
Seward's platform. As we have seen, he had issued notice to the
Black Republicans that they must not elect their candidate. 6
Presently a letter came from R. Barnwell Rhett, bearing date
October 27, 1860, ten days before the election. Rhett wished to
know if Mississippi would join South Carolina in secession. It was
an anxious moment in the Colonel's life, and he took time to reply.
War was impending and his instincts as a military man impelled
him to guard each step with care. The Governor of South Caro-
lina had called together the legislature to arrange for secession;
Mississippi was about to follow South Carolina. Finally, on No-
vember 10, the Colonel replied to Rhett.
"If South Carolina has determined to secede," he wrote, "I advise
her to do so before the Government passes into hostile hands and
men have become familiarized to that injurious and offensive per-
version of the General Government from the ends for which it was
established." He then declared that South Carolina occupied a
better position than Mississippi, as she had a coast line. If the
secession of South Carolina was "followed by an attempt of the
Government to coerce her, that act of usurpation, folly and wick-
edness would enlist every true southern man in her defense, and so
would the attempt to blockade her ports and destroy her trade."
On the whole, the Colonel was sure "the planting states had a com-
mon interest of such magnitude, their union was certain" and he
therefore advised waiting till those states could be brought into
cooperation. 7
Scarcely had the Colonel posted this letter, when he was called
B Pollard, Davis, 68.
6 Alex Stephens denies this. Stephens, I, 416.
* Alf riend, 223 ; Tate, 6 an opposite view.
156 THE PLUNGE
to Jackson to advise Governor Pettus as to how and when Missis-
sippi should secede. 8 At the Jackson conference, he stated that
civil war would certainly follow secession and therefore arms and
munitions must be provided and due preparation made. 8 This
would cause some delay. While giving this cautionary advice, a
telegram came from Washington. It called the Colonel to the
Capital to hold Buchanan In line and to assist in formulating his
message to the forthcoming Congress.
While Colonel Davis was making ready to set forth on this mis-
sion, rumblings of war were heard at Charleston, South Caro-
lina. 10 Even before that impulsive state had dissolved the Union,
her troops were mobilizing around Charleston harbor, with intent
to take over the outlying forts. It was plain to Major Robert
Anderson, United States officer in charge of Fort Moultrie, that a
fight was on if he undertook to hold that fort. The secession of
South Carolina was a well understood fact, as her senators and
representatives had resigned from Congress.
On November 23, Major Anderson brought home to the adminis-
tration the perilous position in which he was placed. "Fort Sum-
ter and Castle Pinckney must be garrisoned at once," he wrote, "if
the Government is determined to keep possession of this harbor."
Anderson's request went unheeded. In this condition of affairs,
Senator Davis reached Washington and had an interview with the
President as to his forthcoming message. At first the President
was disposed to yield to his friend, Davis, and to recommend that
the Charleston forts be surrendered to South Carolina. The medi-
ocre man was shaken to and fro as a reed blown by the wind.
His cabinet was divided : southern members urged abandonment
of the forts ; northern members urged that they be garrisoned and
held. Hie President's message was a straddle. Old and almost
feeble-minded, Buchanan's only hope was to preserve the situation
at Charleston just as it was and to pass the buck to Lincoln. The
President finally advised Congress that South Carolina had no right
to secede, but the Government had no right to prevent her from
seceding 1
8 Sdbaff, 113.
Davis, J. f l, 157.
10 No South Carolina senator or congressman returned to Washington after
Lincoln's election.
THE PLUNGE 137
Historians censure Buchanan for this course. They maintain he
should have done as Jackson proposed to do in December, 1832,
send an army and navy to South Carolina and with fire and sword
stamp out treason. 11 But would this have been a wise thing to do?
War would inevitably have broken out in December, i860, as it did
in April, 1861. The southern people, brave, and never counting
the cost, would have rushed to the defense of South Carolina, For
the sake of the Union, therefore, was it not wiser to wait till the
administration had changed hands? A war against the South and
the Democratic party by James Buchanan and Ms advisers 1 How
absurd it would have been.
The President's message was not satisfactory to the country;
something more definite had been looked for. Davis, in particular,
was displeased. He had expected better things of his old friend,
Buchanan, who had been put in the White House by southern
votes. On the mere proposition to print extra copies of the mes-
sage, a war of words broke out in Congress. A southern Senator,
pleading for peace and harmony and calling attention to the blood
and treasure expended for the Union, was called down by Senator
Davis. The Union cost no blood, no treasure, said he ; American
independence cost blood and treasure, but not the Union.
Various compromise resolutions were offered. Senator Davis
proposed his old remedy that the right of property in slaves be
acknowledged. On this resolution he spoke at great length and
with frequent reference to the constitutional guarantees of slavery.
His resolution was defeated and he forthwith wrote Governor Pet-
tus of Mississippi that the Black Republicans were bent on war.
The most popular plan was suggested by the venerable peace-maker
of Kentucky, John J. Crittenden, a wise and patriotic Senator, now
playing the role of Henry Clay but without Clay's magnetic power,
his alluring personality, or his leadership.
The Crittenden Compromise was substantially Davis's old
scheme to extend the line, 36 50' to the Pacific, north of that
line to be free ; south, slave. The Powell amendment, incorporated
in the Crittenden bill, was the heart of the matter. It provided
that territory thereafter acquired south of the line, should also be
slave. This proposition, it will be remembered, had been offered
" Rhodes, III, 16. Here Rhodes takes this view.
1S8 THE PLUNGE
by Da? is in 1850 and refected by Clay and Webster. 12 On Critten-
den's Compromise, a joint committee of thirteen from the Senate
and thirty-three from the House was raised; and, on December 15,
the President of the Senate named the Senate committee. Davis
was given a place on it.
In this joint select committee, the hopes of peace centered if
the committee failed to agree, the Union was doomed. At first,
Senator Davis refused to serve; his sense of propriety deterred
him. His secession views, unless slavery was recognized in the ter-
ritories, were a bar. In truth, Davis was at first quite busy urging
southern members not to take part with the committee. When a
member of the House came over to the Senate and informed him
that his friend Reuben Davis was going to serve on the House com-
mittee, he hastened to Reuben Davis's chair and abruptly asked
him if he really proposed to act. Reuben Davis replied that he
felt in duty bound to do so. "Then it is useless to say anything to
you," said the irate Senator, and he walked away. 13 But on the
next day, Jefferson Davis's friend, R. M. T. Hunter, on the Senate
committee and a state rights man, prevailed on Davis to recon-
sider. Senator Davis did reconsider and served on the committee.
This conduct of the Senator was in contrast to sentiments ex-
pressed by him in 1850. He was then indignant at Senator Footers
statement that he was planning disunion while serving as a United
States Senator. Such a charge was a foul slander, he declared to
do such a thing would be dishonorable. That Senator Davis
favored secession on December 15, when he accepted a place on the
Crittenden committee, seems to be dear.
On December 14, the day before the Senate committee was
named, a meeting of the secessionists was held in Reuben Davis's
room. The result was a manifesto addressed to the people of the
South. TMs manifesto foreclosed all hope of compromise, "and
was so intended." 14t It read, "We are satisfied the honor, safety,
and independence of the southern people require the organization
of a Southern Confederacy, a result to be obtained only by sep-
arate state secession." Was this document a pre-judgment of the
Crittenden Compromise, and ought Senator Davis to have sat with
i* Smith, W. H., 337.
** Davis, R., 396.
14 Ibid, 398; Rhodes, III, 177.
THE PLUNGE 159
the Committee of Thirteen? Howsoever this may be, he did sit
and at the first meeting proposed a resolution destructive of results,
Senator Davis moved that no report should be adopted unless it
had the assent of a majority of the Republican Senators and also a
majority of the other eight members of the committee* When this
motion prevailed, the Crittenden Compromise received its death
blow. Late in December, a vote was taken in the committee and
Davis voted against the measure. He was so recorded. Undoubt-
edly Davis's idea was to shut off discussion. He wished the matter
settled in advance. 15 Now, as always, he was standing for some
general principle a finality towards which he might shape his
course and build up a southern slave empire. 16 During the discus-
sion, Senator Davis had turned to the stalwart Republican com-
mitteemen, Seward, Wade, and Collamer, and had said that if they
would propose the line of 36 30' and make it a finality, he would
accept it. 17 The stalwarts declined to accept this offer. 18 Ten
years before, when they were a small party greatly in the minority,
they had rejected the same proposition; why should they now
accept it? If Senator Davis could not kill the bear, how did he
expect to kill the lion?
Jefferson Davis's real feeling toward the Crittenden Compromise
was manifested when the abolitionist Clark of New Hampshire
offered his famous substitute. Clark proposed a resolution to the
effect that the Constitution was the only guarantee slavery de-
manded. The Clark substitute was adopted, and its adoption bur-
ied the Crittenden Compromise, good and deep. Six southern
senators, Davis included, refused to vote. If they had voted
against the substitute, the Crittenden bill would have come before
the Senate, and might have been adopted. 19
It had been thought that Seward would be the Henry Clay of
this delicate situation and would either offer a comprehensive
measure of his own or support the Crittenden bill. He failed to
pursue this course ; Lincoln, the new President-elect, deterred him.
At Seward's request, Thurlow Weed had visited Lincoln in Spring-
is Speeches, December 7 ; 13.
iAlfriend, Chap. VII.
i* Smith, W. H., 337-
i Davis, J., I, 603 ; Globe, 308.
i 9 "Davis's explanation of his attitude on the Compromise is unsatisfactory,"
Curtis, G. T., Life of James Buchcwan, II, 423, N. Y., 1883.
160 THE PLUNGE
field and tad asked Lincoln's wishes on the Compromise. Lincoln
opposed it he did not wish slavery extended. "The Republican
party must stand on its platform/' he said. "On this point you
must stand firm." Lincoln likewise said to Weed, "In 1830 the
tariff was the excuse for disunion, now it is the line 36 30', next it
will be the acquisition of Cuba and a part of Mexico." Thus did
the minds of Lincoln and Davis move in the same orbit, and thus
did Lincoln fathom the thoughts of his war-like antagonist.
Seward, on behalf of the Republicans and with Lincoln's ap-
proval, offered a compromise measure preserving slavery in the
states forever. It provided that "the Constitution should never be
so altered as to authorize Congress to abolish or interfere with
slavery in the states*" This offer Senator Davis and associates
spurned. 20
The attitude of Senator Davis, in opposing the Crittenden Com-
promise, was consistent* In truth, no other course was open to
him, after Lincoln's election. As Reuben Davis records : To have
backed down after the election would have been dishonorable.
Jefferson Davis had committed himself to disunion and secession ;
that is, unless the Republican party would admit it was wrong on
slavery extension, go back on its platform, and accept the Scott
case. Davis wished no half-way ground ; he was anxious to save
the Union in his own way. And that way was to abide by the
letter of the Constitution. The Constitution declared that slaves
were property and on that declaration he stood. "The remedy
for sectional troubles/' he declared, "is in the hearts of the people."
Meanwhile events In South Carolina were moving with speed.
On December 20, that plucky state left the Union and became the
"Republic of South Carolina." The Bonnie Blue Flag, with but a
single star, was unfurled to the breezes. Governor Pickens dis-
patched a commission of three cultured citizens Rhett the chair-
man to Washington to request the President to vacate the
Charleston forts and restore them to their rightful owner. Bu-
chanan received the commission kindly and promised to preserve
the status and make no change. The situation at Charleston was
this : Major Anderson was stationed at Moultrie with a small force,
some eighty men. Now Moultrie, a fort on Sullivan's Island, was
easy of access to South Carolina troops, but Sumter, a stout little
20 Foote Caskets, 141.
THE PLUNGE 16!
fort a mile away from the shore and in the middle of the channel,
was well nigh impregnable.
Anderson cast longing eyes towards Sumter. If he could only
transfer his force to that island, he would defy capture and save
the lives of his garrison. While the Government hesitated, Ander-
son acted. On the night of December 26, after spiking his guns at
Moultrie, he slipped across the channel and took possession of
Sumter. Never was there a greater uproar in Charleston or in
Washington. The enraged South Carolina commissioners, in com-
pany with Senator Davis, waited on the President and demanded
why he had not kept his word. The President wavered and acted
as though in his dotage. He f alteringly complained to Rhett that
they did not give him time to say his prayers. He asserted that
Anderson had disobeyed orders and must go back to Moultrie. At
the next meeting of the cabinet, the President was overruled.
Southern members, except Thompson of Mississippi and Thomas
of Maryland, had resigned and their places were now filled with
Unionists. Thereafter, Davis's relations with the President were
greatly strained. 21
Major Anderson's position at Sumter was growing more pre-
carious he was almost without food or supplies. Soon he must be
provisioned or evacuate. In response to his earnest request, the
Government finally plucked up courage and on January 5, 1861,
determined to provision Sumter. On that date, The Star of the
West, a small side-wheel vessel, steamed out of Sandy Hook, bound
for Charleston Harbor. Forthwith, Secretary Thompson and Sen-
ator Wigfall notified Governor Pickens that the boat had sailed.
Three days later, when The Star of the West crossed the bar at
Charleston, with relief for Anderson, she was fired on by South
Carolina troops, and limped back to New York. 22
The South Carolina commissioners sent a spirited protest to the
President. They charged falsehood and perfidy. The President
refused to receive them or to entertain their petition. Next day
with this petition in hand, Davis rose in the Senate, and after litter-
ing indignant words characterizing the President's conduct, re-
quested that the Clerk read the protests. Senator King of New
York sharply objected. Davis, with coolness and audacity, replied,
21 Stephenson, Lincoln and the Union, 95.
22 Major P, F. Stevens fired the first shot from Cummings' Point.
162 THE PLUNGE
eulogizing the South Carolina commissioners. King retorted that
they were traitors, "Benedict Arnolds and Judas Iscariots." Davis
branded King's remarks and his conduct as "mean and contempt-
ible." The petition was received and read and Jefferson Davis
gloated over his parliamentary triumph.
The secession of South Carolina, the mission of its commission
to Washington, the incipient state of warfare at Charleston, and
the resignation of Cobb, and particularly of Cass from the cabinet,
startled and alarmed the whole country. The spirit of rejoicing
because of Lincoln's election was gone and gloom pervaded the
people. The stock market went to pieces, business houses failed,
a panic set in. Petitions from millions poured in upon Congress.
"Settle these matters and restore peace at all hazards," was now
the cry.
The President, in his special message, had called attention to the
situation in South Carolina and warned that the legal functions of
the United States must not be obstructed by state officials. "Where
does he get that?" snapped Senator Davis. On another occasion
Senator Hale, addressing the Senate, referred to the right of coerc-
ing a state. He was sharply called down by Senator Davis, and
later explained he did not mean that a state could be coerced.
In the entire Senate, prior to January i, 1861, it must be said
that only one senator stood forth bravely for the Union and entered
Ms protest against the action of South Carolina. 28 That senator
was a Southerner, a "poor white," and a tailor Andrew Johnson,
of Tennessee, 24 With a fist of mail and a voice of thunder, he rose
to the occasion. "Whoever fires on our flag or attacks our forts,"
he exclaimed, "I pronounce a traitor and he should meet a traitor's
doom!" This utterance Davis denounced, characterizing Johnson
as a "degenerate son of the South unworthy to sit in the Senate,
an ally of Ben Wade, the foul abolitionist." The New York
Herald reported that a duel between Davis and Johnson was set,
and in Mississippi it was understood it had come off, and that
Davis had been severely wounded. Joseph Davis wrote a letter to
Jefferson asking about the affair.
Matters in the nation were now hastening to the final explosion.
In the winter of 1860 no northern visitors went to the Sunny South.
January 4, 1861, was given over to fasting and prayer. In Wash-
** Stephens, II, 457* 24 Pollard, Daw, 81,
THE PLUNGE 163
ington circles, Southerners cut the accomplished Mrs. Douglas, her
husband being a "renegade." Congressional debates were mere vio-
lence and abuse. Business could not be transacted, Toombs was
never so revolutionary and dramatic. Wigfall and Iverson trem-
bled with rage. They invited the North to invade the South and
promised "a hospitable welcome to bloody graves."
On the other side of the Chamber, Wade and Sumner were
equally bellicose, while Trumbull and Fessenden presented the
calmer and more logical phases of the situation. Hale continually
ridiculed the so-called southern grievances. He declared the South
had ruled the nation for the past thirty years and "the southern
masses would not know they were maltreated but for the news
from Washington."
And how was Senator Davis deporting himself? Never with
greater assurance, sang-froid, and coolness the coolness of a duel-
ist who flicks the ashes from his cigar while weapons are being
primed. He was now indeed easily the southern leader, without a
peer, and master of personal and direct attack. When Senator
Trumbull declared that Davis's conduct in advising the President
to restore the forts to South Carolina was reprehensible, Davis
turned on him and asked how he got his information. Tramfaull
replied that it was common knowledge. Davis retorted that when
he advised the President, he did not know South Carolina would
secede. "I hope you did not," Trumbull sneered. "Why do you
hope that, Sir ?" said Davis. "Because it would be dishonorable."
Davis: The Senator's sense of honor and my own are totally dif-
ferent. The man who would not have asked the return of the
South Carolina forts to save bloodshed is a scoundrel.
Now, while Senator Davis was attending to his duties as a mem-
ber of the Senate, advocating transcontinental railroads, large
armies and navies and other permanent accessories, he was also
mindful of his primary allegiance to Mississippi. 25 He and Gov-
ernor Pettus were in constant communication; Davis wrote the
Governor in regard to every movement for secession. In response
to the Governor's letter asking where to purchase guns and muni-
tions, he replied that New Orleans was the place. 2 * The Gov-
25 On January 5, 1861, a few days before he set out to lead the hosts of
secession, he spoke, advocating the Pacific railroad
26 Rowland, IV, 559; Tate, 6.
164 THE PLUNGE
ernor desired that Senator Davis would fix a date when Mississippi
should secede. The Senator advised that this must not be later
than March 4, "when the Black Republicans would take charge
and pervert the Government."
Thus day by day, while the hot-heads of both sections were pre-
paring a hell-broth to be pressed to the lips of women, children, and
Unionists* information reached Senator Davis that Mississippi had
seceded. The Senator made preparation for leave taking. His
farewell address was prepared with care. It was temperate and
affectionate. It stated his case plainly, clearly, and fully. No one
could misunderstand it ; every grievance was enumerated. 27
When it was known that Jefferson Davis would bid farewell to
the Senate, the galleries were filled with eager visitors. Pale and
careworn, the Senator rose. He had spent a sleepless night, neural-
gia racked his face. There he stood, erect and unafraid. He could
do no less, for he stood on constitutional grounds. Upon him, the
most masterful spirit in the Senate, every eye was focussed. In a
dear, mellow tone, he bade his fellow-senators farewell. He ad-
vised that Mississippi was leaving the Union as she had a right to
do. This right he had conceded to Massachusetts in 1850 ; Massa-
chusetts should now concede a similar right to Mississippi.
He maintained that the United States had done no wrong to
Mississippi. It was the individual states that had wronged his
state. Northern states had failed to return fugitive slaves ; in this
they had broken the Constitution. They had shut out slavery
from the territories, again violating the Constitution. This con-
duct of the individual states was a breach of the original contract
between the states. Secession was therefore the remedy. If the
United States had violated the Constitution, secession would not
be the remedy, but nullification. No other grievances save these
had the South against her sister states.
"And now," the Senator concluded, "I fed no hostility towards
you of the North I wish you well and such is the feeling of my
people* I express their desire when I say they hope for peaceable
relations with you I carry with me no hostile remembrances.
Whatever offense I have given Senators, in this hour of our part-
ing, I offer my apology for any pain which in the heat of discus-
sion I have inflicted. I go hence unencumbered of the remem-
* T Mississippi seceded January 15, but Davis did not resign uatil the 2ist
THE PLUNGE 165
brance of any injury received, and having discharged the doty of
making the only reparation in my power for any injury offered.
Mr. President and Senators, having made the announcement which
the occasion seemed to me to require, it only remains for me to bid
you a final adieu."
Deeply affected, Senator Davis closed and withdrew from the
Chamber. Many eyes were suffused with tears. Senator Hallory
was seen to weep copiously. Senator C. C. Clay was so overcome
he could not articulate. 28 Three times now had Davis resigned
from Congress: in 1846, to go to war with Mexico, enlarging the
territory of slavery; in 1850, to run for Governor of Mississippi on
the issue of extending slavery into California; and now to lead the
southern people to battle because slavery had been excluded from
Kansas and Lincoln had been elected.
No sooner had Senator Davis and his impetuous colleagues left
the Chamber than the canny Seward moved to admit Kansas as a
free state. The motion prevailed, and after a dozen years of
knocking for admittance, "Bleeding Kansas" became a state of the
American Union.
28 Yankee Doodle, fare ye well,
Rice and cotton flout you.
Once we liked you. very well
But now well do without you.
Yankee Doodle strove with pains
And Puritanic vigor
To loose the only friendly chains
That ever bound a nigger.
But Doodle knows as well as I
That when his zeal has freed *em
He'd see a million niggers die
Before he'd help to feed 'em.
A song of i?6i. New York papers, January 22, 1861 ; Mercury, Jan, 23.
CHAPTER XIV
THE BODY OF THIS DEATH
IE the North, as I have said, the withdrawal of South Carolina
created consternation. Such action had not been anticipated, the
cry of secession having been so often raised and abandoned. A
yearning desire to preserve the Union followed. In response to a
resolution of Congress, every northern state took steps to repeal
its personal liberty laws. Many states repealed them. 1 Moreover,
another offer of the Republicans to preserve slavery in the states
by a constitutional amendment was made. Late in February, a
resolution was adopted by the requisite two-thirds vote and signed
by the President the first measure of the kind bearing the execu-
tive signature. 2
These manifestations of friendliness made no impression what-
soever on Senator Davis and his stalwart associates. "You are too
late/' they exclaimed. "You may repeal all your personal liberty
bills, but the southern movement will go forward."
If the conservatives of the North were alarmed, what shall be
said of the Unionists of the South? They were stricken with horror
their condition was pitiful. They were being dragged into war,
a useless and a foolish war, they thought. "Extreme secessionists
and extreme abolitionists, moved and instigated by the devil,"
Jonathan Worth, a conservative North Carolina leader, afterwards
governor, declared, "are forcing conditions upon us from which
we cannot extricate ourselves." The Border States in particular
were exasperated. A war to enforce the abstract right to carry
slaves into Kansas, a war because Lincoln was elected ! The bare
thought was unendurable.
Judge Manly, of a strong southern family, wrote Chief Justice
1 Rhodes, IV, 253.
2 The Constitution does not require the President to approve a resolution of
this kind. Lincoln also signed the Thirteenth Amendment as adopted. This
amendment would have embalmed slavery in the states forever.
166
THE BODY OF THIS DEATH 167
Ruffin of North Carolina begging him to avert the conflict. 8 "It
will not be creditable to the intelligence of the age/' wrote Manly y
"when posterity reads in the history of the country that our Nation
was destroyed through strife in defending the status of a few
Africans" ; and even Yancey asserted, "The South is going out ia
the wake of an unfair issue/' 4
During the fall campaign, Union meetings had been held in the
Border States, followed by resolutions of attachment to the Union.
At the November election, Virginia and Tennessee had cast their
votes for Bell and Everett for the Union and the Constitution.
Secession conventions were voted down and the Union press was
declaring that secession had met its Waterloo. 5
In Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, the victory for the Union
was overwhelming and permanent. Even in Georgia, Alabama,
Arkansas, and Texas, the little band of Unionists had stood firm.
But their ranks were growing thinner. Secessionists were bel-
ligerent, tireless, and confident. When one secession convention
was defeated, another would be called. Soap-box orators were in
their glory, revelling in an opportunity to appeal to passion and
pose as leaders. So unreal had the situation become, Jonathan
Worth was writing, "Nobody is allowed to retain or assert his
reason and the cartridge box is preferred to the ballot box."
In Tennessee, Andrew Johnson, in his honest, homely way, was
roaring, "Secession is hell born and hell bound!" aad Parson
Brownlow was threatening to put to death Yancey or any other
secessionist who invaded the state. Judge Nelson favored whip-
ping South Carolina back into the Union, and Congressman Dock-
ery, of North Carolina, and Governor Houston, of Texas, concurred
with Nelson,
The attitude of thoughtful southern Unionists towards secession
may be seen in an incident connected with James L. Pettigra, the
Charleston Unionist. The South Carolina Secession Convention
was meeting in St. Andrew's Hall on Broad Street, near St.
Michael's Church. Near-by Pettigru, sorrowful and heart-sick at
the spectacle of a disrupted Union, was standing, when a stranger
accosted him and wished to know the way to the insane asylum.
8 Hamilton, Ruffin Papers, III, 104.
*3rown, 138.
8 Raleigh Standard, Feb. 21, 1861.
168 THE BODY OF THIS DEATH
A relative of his was confined, whom he desired to see. "Is he
dangerously Insane?" Mr. Pettigra asked. The stranger replied
that he was. "Then," said Pettigra, U I expect you will find him
over there in St. Andrew's Hall ! " 6
The story is told of a rough mountain Unionist, who addressed a
gathering at a crossroads. "For God's sake," said he, wildly
throwing his arms in the air, "let South Carolina nullify, revolute,
secesh, and be damned ! " 7
The Unionists of North Carolina were greatly agitated, Governor
Graham, Governor Morehead, and other speakers canvassing the
state. At Salisbury and at Wilmington, they made patriotic
speeches. In January, 1861, Governor Graham addressed a great
crowd of Unionists at Wilmington, advising them to abide in the
house of their fathers.
"Secession, simply because we have been defeated!" Graham
exclaimed. "Why, it is unthinkable. If we pursue this course, we
will be little better than Mexicans. . . ." 8 "There is no such thing
as secession. If we act at all, we should rebel, as our fathers did.
We should defy the North, seize the public property, and plant our
feet on defensible ground , . . Slavery extension is a poor issue on
which to found a new government." 9
Worth was likewise declaring, "We have the best government
ever instituted and it would be unwise and suicidal to secede."
The bare thought of calling a convention looking to secession
moved North Carolina Unionists to indignation. In the state sen-
ate Worth, ex-Congressman Outlaw, and Morehead voted against
calling a convention, and when it was called, protested. 10 They
declared that South Carolina was "trying to legalize secession," and
they insisted that the constitution of the state of North Carolina
did not authorize a secession convention. Moreover, the only way
to change the Constitution was by an amendment. Governor
e "In the great Civil War he withstood his people for his country, but his
people did homage to the man who held his conscience higher than their
praise. . . " From Pettigru's tombstone in St. Michael's Churchyard
* Hii, a a, i, 33.
8 Wilmington Despatch, January, 1861.
8 Raleigh Standard, Feb. 21 ; Connor, II, 135 ; Hill, D. H., Chap, i ; Fayette-
ville Observer, Feb. 4,
^Hamilton, Worth, I, 129-133.
THE BODY OF THIS DEATH 169
Worth, Indeed, maintained that Ms oath forbade Ms In
such a convention.
Virginia, the home of George Washington, how torn and grief
stricken she was! Her very mountains were in travail and
brought forth West Virginia, a natural son born out of lawful
wedlock. 11
And the pity of Unionism in the South was its helplessness,
Like Siamese twins, the Border States were bound to the Seceding
States a condition 'brought about by years of agitation and organi-
zation on the part of the secessionists. Rhett, Yancey, Governor
Brown, and Wigfall, original secessionists, advocating disunion for
the sake of secession and for personal and political reasons ; Davis,
Clingman, and Toombs, advocating secession because of a mistaken
sense of honor not as the object but as the means to attain that
object. The establishment of their constitutional rights in slaves
was their end ; the means to attain that end was the threat of seces-
sion. Confusing the rightfulness of slavery with the sovereignty of
the states, they threatened the timid, cajoled the strong, and ap-
pealed to their honor. Thus they pushed forward the secession
movement. And their main ally was the northern abolitionist.
Worth was writing that abolitionism and democracy, moved and
instigated by the devil, had "forced everyone under the one or the
other banner . . . Democracy is only simulating harmony with
Union men." In this situation, how was it possible to stem the dis-
union tide? Hatred of the North, the appeal to southern man-
hood, the threat and danger of negro domination, these were
thrown into the scales and pressed down by ambitious leaders,
filled with prejudice and disappointed hope. The Unionists were
now powerless. 12
The Far South was erecting an engine of destruction to be called
the Confederacy a creature they were falling down before and
worshiping. Disunion was their hope the preservation of their
honor. Upon the brow of disunion was written, Death before Dis-
honor. Now all this the southern Unionists looked upon as mere
rant and madness. "Who is oppressing the South?" they asked.
11 West Virginia did not become a state by constitutional methods.
12 Chadwick, 150.
170 THE BODY OF THIS DEATH
"Name your grievance/ 5 said John Bell. "For the life of me I see
no grievance sufficient to justify secession/ 7 1S "The politicians are
wheedling the southern masses into war," said General Lee. 14
Unionists therefore insisted that the secession movement was
both useless and wicked. In the words of Saint Paul, secession was
the body of death to which they were lashed. And who could de-
liver them from the body of this death? Day by day the horrid
Thing grew, terrorizing the gentle-spirited southern Unionist, who
shrank from the mere thought of a brothers' war.
In despair this gentle man looked out into the troubled future
and his heart almost ceased to beat, while his wife, with blanched
cheeks, hugged her infant to her breast and shed burning tears upon
its upturned face. 13
Senator Davis at this time came in for a large share of blame.
The sneering and condescending manner in which he treated south-
em Unionists was most irritating. A few days before he quit the
Senate, he turned upon Andrew Johnson with great scorn. John-
son had made an appeal for the Union and had declared that
neither abolitionists nor secessionists could run him out of his
father's house. "Fight it out inside the Union," he exclaimed.
Senator Davis ridiculed Johnson's idea of a war inside the Union.
U I wonder if the Senator's idea of a war," he sneered, "is what
has caused the artillery company to be ordered here and the militia
of this city to be organized ! " Johnson explained that he meant
the fight should be a constitutional one and inside the Union.
"Ah!" Davis came back, "he does not then intend to fight at
all, a mere figure of speech, a sort of a revolution ! As for myself,
Sir, I would not thus attack the Government I am sworn to
support."
Furthermore, the conduct of Senator Davis and other extremists
in urging President Buchanan to surrender the Charleston forts
to South Carolina excited the wrath of southern Unionists. The
18 Globe, 946, May 25, 1854.
14 Feb. 17, 1866. Report of Commission of Fifteen, 1st Session, 39th Con-
gress, p. 1313.
15 The author gets this account from his mother. He was then an infant,
aged six months. . . . Elaine, I, 311, insists that Bell and Badger could have
held Tennessee and North Carolina from secession, but he little understood
the sweep of the movement. Greeley, I, 325.
THE BODY OF THIS DEATH 171
Whig press characterized such conduct as treasonable. 18 The
Union-loving Worth denounced treason and called a meeting in the
Quaker county of Randolph, North Carolina, January 3, 1861,
when resolutions condemning the course of the secessionists were
adopted. Outraged by "the malignity and duplicity of the seces-
sion Democrats," Worth wrote another Union leader, "I confess my
humiliation and indignation, as I think of how we have been forced
to submit to subjugation. 17
Thus during the late winter of 1860 and the early spring of 1861
the battle for and against secession raged in the Border States.
But the secessionists were constantly gaining the advantage, excit-
ing the poorer southern whites by picturing the horrors of emanci-
pation and the setting free of four millions of slaves. These ap-
peals but added to the bitterness of the Unionists. They knew
them to be spurious ; they felt no sense of oppression. They well
knew that the Government at Washington was pro-southern, the
Senate, the House, and the Supreme Court southern and Demo-
cratic. Though a Republican had been elected President, his hands
were tied by the Constitution, and also by the judicial and legisla-
tive departments.
Furthermore, Lincoln had often declared his allegiance to the
constitutional guarantees of slavery and had favored the return of
fugitive slaves. "I have neither the power nor the disposition to
interfere with slavery in the states," he declared. Southern Union-
ists therefore asked, "Why should the people be forced to drink
blood for four long years?" The plea that hostile tariff legislation
justified disunion seemed equally specious to southern Unionists.
Since 1846, the Walker tariff had been in force, a measure hand-
picked by the South. It had been changed but once, in 1857, a
slight change concurred in by southern votes.
The views of southern Unionists were well put by Tom Corwin
of Ohio, author of the Thirteenth Amendment, to which I have
just referred. In a spirited and humorous speech, he depicted the
glories of the South in days gone by and its promise of the future.
He called attention to the extent of its territory. How self-sus-
16 Knoxville Whig; New Orleans Picayune; Richmond WMg for Decem-
ber, i860, and January, 1861 ; Fayettevllle Observer, January 14 and January
16, 1861.
17 Hamilton, I, 148. The author's father was Governor Worth's Counsellor
of State.
172 THE BODY OF THIS DEATH
taining the South might become! It stretches from Delaware to
Mexico and embraces seven and a half million square miles. What
more does the South need, he asked, than what she had and might
have? He spoke of her fruits and flowers, her soil and water
power, her climate and minerals. If the South would remain in the
Union and work out her destiny, he had no fear of her future.
Southern Unionists, moreover, discounted the abuse of abolition-
ists. When Seward characterized slavery as a harlot and a harpy,
they knew he was speaking largely for political effect. They re-
fused to get unduly excited when Mrs. Stowe wrote or GIddings
and Wendell Phillips ranted. Conscious that slavery in the South,
as regards the slave, was a civilizing agency, transporting bar-
barians from the jungles of Africa and making something better of
them, southern conservatives went their way undeterred.
They would not play the baby, fly into a tantrum and bring on
war because of words spoken by an abolitionist a thousand miles
away. In truth, they knew that the rabid abolitionist had been put
out of commission. 18 Not since 1844 had the abolition party
nominated a candidate for President. So far spent was aboli-
tionism in the North, Wendell Phillips declared the United States
government was honeycombed with slavery and, in 1859, organized
a movement in favor of secession by the North. 19
And yet, Wendell Phillips looked to southern Unionists much the
same as Jefferson Davis. If Wade and Sumner, Collamer, Seward,
and Hale had played politics to elect Lincoln, had not Davis and
Slidell and Benjamin played politics to disrupt the Democratic
party and to defeat Douglas? Was not the object of these men,
representing the two extremes, identical, though their methods
were different? 20
Undoubtedly, at an early period, southern Unionists should have
been bolder and more aggressive ; they should not have waited until
secession was accomplished to organize against it. They should
have accepted Webster or Clay as their leader, formulated a clear-
cut platform, and waged a bold confident fight.
In the 1840'$ and 50*3, Union leaders such as Bell and Benton,
Stephens and Badger, Clemens and Qingman, should have done
** Hopkins StwMes, No. 37, p. il. 20 Hodgson, 509.
19 Simons, 217 ; Hart, 218 and 309.
THE BODY OF THIS DEATH 173
more than debate slavery and secession; they should have or-
ganized, tackled those great subjects, fought the devil with fire, and
arranged for gradual emancipation. There was a strong Union
sentiment in the South which should have dealt with slavery in the
light of advancing civilization. The Wilmot Proviso and gradual
emancipation should have been traded for ample compensation.
The common people should have been reached and enlightened.
When Davis circulated his speeches depicting the horrors of aboli-
tion, the Unionists should have met him with the statement that
the war he was precipitating would bring about the evils he would
avoid. When Ohio and the West proposed to meet the southern
states half-way and deal with slavery, the offer should have been
accepted. A plan of gradual emancipation, with compensation and
removal or colonization should have been arranged. If properly
managed, colonization would have received the support of all ex-
cept the extremists. 21
Landless and non-slaveholding poor whites should Iiave been
made to understand they were being exploited, consciously or
unconsciously, to preserve an industrial system which made "mud-
sills" of them. They should have been advised that slavery de-
stroyed free labor and that when slavery was abolished the landed
estates would be cut into small farms available to the poor. In a
word, the eyes of the great southern masses should have been
opened to the fact that the Davis idea that slavery was all good
was a humbug.
In January, 1861, ex-Governor Manly of North Carolina declared
that "the Devil and Bankrupt Politicians are sinking the great
Nation to ruin and contempt." The Governor should have said
this earlier. I would not minimize the difficulties in the way of
emancipation. The mighty Caesar, who realized that slavery was
an evil, was powerless to get rid of it. But it would seem that
nineteen hundred years of civilization would have taught southern
leaders something. Business men of the North would have backed
southern Unionists in an honest effort to get rid of slavery, with
compensation ; and there was territory a-plenty in which the freed
negroes might have been located. 22
As day followed day, in the fatal year 1861, and Jefferson Davis,
from his place in the United States Senate, directed the secession
21 Fish, 278. * 2 Oberholtzer, I, 74-
174 THE BODY OF THIS DEATH
movement, he was racked in body and mind. All during the night,
following his farewell address, he paced his bedchamber, falling on
Ms knees and praying that "God will have us in his holy keeping
and grant that before it is too late, peaceful counsels may pre-
vail." 23 This prayer of the Senator implied peaceful secession, as
he was soon asserting that the separation from the North was final
and no union would ever be considered. 24
Senator Davis's chief concern was with Fort Sumter, now held
by the United States. Sumter must not be attacked until a south-
ern government was organized. In order to preserve the status at
Sumter, Davis called a conference of stalwart southern senators
and representatives. The result was a letter addressed to Gov-
ernor Pickens. Davis advised Pickens that the Far South would
soon join South Carolina in secession. Pickens was requested,
therefore, not to attack Fort Sumter. If Davis could carry this
point and prevent bloodshed till the strategic moment, he would
gain a decided advantage.
Blood is thicker than water, and one drop of blood, secessionists
knew would unify the thorough-going, brave, impetuous southern
people. But that drop must not be prematurely shed. The frame-
work of the new government must first be created, an organization
effected, a president elected, an army raised, a flag hallowed by
the prayers of gentle women unfurled, and all the other acces-
sories of death and destruction provided*
28 Memoir, I, 699.
2 * Rowland, V, 48. Address at Montgomery.
CHAPTER XV
SPRINKLE SOME BLOOD
Ex-Senator Davis and wife remained in Washington one week
after his farewell to the Senate. They were arranging to quit
a city which had been their home for fourteen years. The
rumor that the Senator would be arrested for treason proved un-
founded; he would have welcomed an opportunity to test that
question. The Senator bade an affectionate adieu to Caleb Gush-
ing, then in Washington as a go-between in the Charleston fort
situation. 1 He also wrote his old friends, Pierce and Jones, be-
speaking their sympathy. He knew they would never be found
among his enemies. Pierce replied that if an army should at-
tempt to inarch South, there would be bloodshed in the North. 2
The day before his retirement, Senator Davis had assured Gov-
ernor Pickens that his quiet hours were mostly spent in thoughts
of Sumter and Charleston Harbor. He requested the Governor
not to cut off supplies as "the little garrison in its present position
at Sumter presses on nothing but a point of pride, whereas war is
made of real elements and there will soon be a southern con-
federacy ready to do all which interest or even pride demands,
and in the fullness of a redemption of every obligation . . . The
Star of the West incident has put South Carolina in a favorable
light before the world."
All matters being now arranged, Colonel Davis was ready to set
out upon his great adventure. He had made the plunge and was
off with the old government and on with the new. His route to
Mississippi lay through southwest Virginia and Tennessee, and at
Chattanooga he was called upon to address the crowd. He re-
1 In the 1870*5, Gushing was appointed Chief Justice by Grant, but the
Senate failed to confirma letter of Ctishing*s to President Davis, dated
March, 1861, and recommending a friend to the Confederate President being
the cause.
2 This letter was found by Grant's troops in 1863 at Brierfield; Rowland,
III, 358.
175
176 SPRINKLE SOME BLOOD
sponded, urging Tennessee to join South Carolina in secession. A
Unionist in the audience objected to interference by a stranger
and declared that Tennessee could attend to her own affairs with-
out Colonel Davis's advice. This interruption the Colonel resented.
The native Tennesseean was anxious to assert his manhood and so
was Davis, but the impending clash was averted by friends.
An enthusiastic welcome all along the way greeted Colonel Davis
and late in January he arrived at Jackson, Mississippi. Here new
honors awaited him. "Glamis thou art and Cawdor," the weird
sisters would have hailed him, "and shalt be what thou art prom-
ised." A commission from the "Republic of Mississippi" was
handed him. He had just been chosen Major General of the
Mississippi forces, an office he greatly coveted and which Gov-
ernor Pickens had urged him to accept, insisting that the military
department was more important than the civil. 8
At the end of a week devoted to military affairs, General Davis
and his family ran over to Brierfield to make ready for a long
absence. He called up the negroes and distributed useful articles
among them. To an elderly rheumatic he gave a rocking chair;
to other afflicted ones, cochineal flannels and blankets. "You may
have to defend your mistress and her children," he said, "and I
feel I can trust you."
On February 10, the General and Mrs. Davis were out in the
garden making rose cuttings, when a messenger arrived bearing
news of still further honors. The day before General Davis had
been elected President of the Confederacy, organized at Mont-
gomery, and composed of South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi,
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. 4
A silence "as if a sentence of death had been pronounced" fell
upon man and wife. The all-devouring organism which Senator
Davis had done so much to create was turning to its creator to
guide and direct it. 6 Mrs. Davis was much distressed ; she knew
her impetuous husband too well to feel that he could successfully
direct a civil government* "I thought Mr. Davis's genius was
8 Rowland, V, 46.
*They had seceded respectively December 20, January 7, 9, n, 20, 26, and
February i.
s Rowland, Encyclopedia, I, 624.
6 Memoir* II, 12.
SPRINKLE SOME BLOOD 177
military," she wrote, "but that as a party manager he would not
succeed." On February 12, the General sent in his resignation to
Governor Pettus, feelingly acknowledging the honor done him by
the "Republic of Mississippi." In a few days, the President-elect
set out for the Capital of the new Confederacy, leaving wife and
children at Brierfield,
As the presidential party moved along, the cheers and huzzas
of gallant Mississippians and Alabamians rent the air. Cannon
were discharged, and the President delivered no less than twenty-
five speeches. He did not expect war, but if war came it would be
long and bloody. 7 At Montgomery a vast concourse, Including
fiery secessionists from the Potomac to the Gulf W. L. Yancey
one of these greeted the Hero of Buena Vista, the Gamecock of
the South, the hope of the new government. Loudly a speech was
called for, and the President met the expectations of the most
advanced Southerner. "The time to compromise has passed," he
exclaimed, "and those who oppose us will smell powder and feel
southern steel . . . No Compromise, no Reconstruction, no Recon-
ciliation can now be entertained." (Tremendous applause.) &
The following day came the inaugural ceremony, Rhett and
Yancey much in evidence. In a temperate address, the new Presi-
dent recited the events leading up to the formation of the old gov-
ernment and dwelt on the reserved right of each state to resume
the authority delegated to the general government. He saw "no
antagonism between the agricultural South and the manufacturing
states of the Northeast." It must follow, therefore, "that a mutual
interest will invite good and kind offices ... As a necessity, not
as a choice, we have resorted to the remedy of separation, and
henceforth our energy must be directed to the conduct of our own
affairs ... If the United States are guided by reason, they will
not seek to inflict injury on us ; if they do, the sufferings of millions
will bear testimony to the folly and wickedness of the aggres-
sors. . . . Reverently invoking the God of our fathers to guide
us, we look forward to success, to peace, and to prosperity."
The President did not touch on slavery slavery being a delicate
subject. The new Confederacy was centering its hopes on foreign
T Harper's XXXI, 610.
8 "The separation is perfect, complete, and perpetual/* thus Stephens inter-
preted Davis. Stephens, II, 525 ; Charleston Mercury, February 19.
178 SPRINKLE SOME BLOOD
aid, and human slavery was the chief obstacle to recognition
abroad. 9 Moreover, the "Republic of Mississippi'* had just ex-
pressed President Davis's views on the relation of slavery to seces-
sion. Its convention had declared, "Our position is thoroughly
identified with the institution of slavery. A blow at slavery is a
blow at commerce and civilization . . . There was no choice left
us but submission to the mandates of abolitionism or the dissolu-
tion of the Union." 10
Forthwith President Davis plunged into his new duties, working
from nine in the morning until six in the afternoon. He selected
a cabinet, appointed foreign ministers, purchased arms and muni-
tions abroad, took charge of military affairs, and generally directed
the new government. The Convention, which had been called on
January 2 at the instance of South Carolina and upon a resolution
of the Mississippi legislature, on January 19, had adopted a consti-
tution almost identical with the old constitution. 11 It likewise
acted as a provisional congress and passed laws. It provided for
the necessary revenues, levied an export duty on cotton, enacted
the Tariff of 1857," prohibited the African slave trade, and author-
ized the President to borrow fifteen million dollars on Confederate
bonds.
The chief changes from the United States Constitution may be
summarized as follows : In the preamble, the aid of Almighty God
was invoked ; the President was to be elected for six years and was
ineligible to reelection. Members of the cabinet might sit with
Congress and take part in the debates.
The proceeds of Federal taxes were to be applied strictly to
governmental agencies such as harbors, rivers, and public build-
ings, and could not be applied to foster industrial enterprises or for
commercial purposes.
The word "slave" was used. The foreign slave trade was for-
bidden. The domestic slave trade and the extension of slavery
into new states or territories were guaranteed. The right of prop-
erty in slaves could not be impaired and fugitive slaves should be
* New York Tribune, February 6.
10 Journal of Mississippi Convention, 86.
11 MadDonald, 425.
12 Mercury attacked this tariff and at once began opposition to Davis, Feb-
ruary 12.
SPRINKLE SOME BLOOD 179
returned. Slave owners with their slaves had the right of travel
and sojourn without let or hindrance.
Two or more states might combine to improve rivers dividing
them or flowing between them. The right of Congress to appro-
priate money was restricted and safeguarded Indeed was pro-
hibited In larger matters, except by a two-thirds vote.
As will be seen from this summary. President Davis was now
dominant and all his principles, except the reopening of the slave
trade, were part of the Confederate Constitution. These conten-
tions were state rights, free trade, and the protection of property in
slaves. Now so great was the President's influence and so mas-
terful was he, dissensions arose among the delegates almost at once.
Extreme southerners wished the foreign slave trade reopened;
others were opposed to the restrictions of any constitution, and
many were restless under Davis's mastery. 13 Delegate Withers of
South Carolina resigned and went to his home. When asked why
he had resigned, the old judge retorted, "Oh, I was dead tired of
seeing Chesnut [his associate] play rag dog to Jeff Davis ! " M
Because of the President's familiarity with the national Consti-
tution, he had no difficulty in the performance of Ms new duties.
But his task, keeping peace among belligerent and self-assertive
advisers, was beyond human power certainly beyond the power
of one who was himself sometimes choleric. At all events, the
President did his best, endeavoring to placate all parties in all
sections.
His Vice-President, Alexander H. Stephens, a bachelor and a
mite of a man, was devoted to the old Union and full of excellent
intentions, but unable to cope with a revolution. Almost from
the beginning, Davis and Stephens became estranged undoubtedly
the result of their previous party antagonisms. Cabinet members
were little better fitted for their places than Vice-President Ste-
phens for his. Each state was recognized. Robert Toombs of
Georgia was named Secretary of State and presently joined his
friend Stephens in opposition. Characterizing President Davis as
"a fool and utterly incompetent," Toombs soon washed his hands
of Davis. 15 But this was Toombs's way. In action he was con-
is Tate, 89.
14 This incident furnished the author by Judge Withers's grandson,
is Stovall, 246.
180 SPRINKLE SOME BLOOD
servative 7 in speech violent, and no one paid attention to the
liquor-guzzling, throat-whiskered, and truly eloquent Georgia agi-
tator.
lu P. Walker of Alabama, Secretary of War, was a misfit. An
untried man, Walker soon startled the North and upset Davis's
plans for peaceful secession. "Before May i," he had exclaimed in
a public address, "the Confederate army will be marching down
Pennsylvania Avenue, the Confederate flag will fly over the old
Capitol at Washington, and eventually over Faneuil Hall." Walker
soon resigned. Mallory of Florida, Secretary of the Navy, had no
navy to command, but soon got busy and created one. 16 Mem-
minger of South Carolina was poorly fitted for the Treasury. 17
Attorney General Benjamin of Louisiana, and Postmaster General
Regan of Texas, filled out the cabinet. The suave Benjamin, a man
of the world and of doubtful reputation, was not only the brains of
the cabinet, but one of the great lawyers of the day. Benjamin,
Mallory, and Regan remained true to President Davis until the
very end. 18
In selecting a commission to represent the new government at
Washington, the three political parties were recognized. A. B.
Roman, of Louisiana, had been a Bell and Everett Whig, M. J.
Crawford, of Georgia, a Breckinridge Democrat, and John For-
sythe, of Alabama, a friend of Douglas. 19
i Tate, go.
17 Stephenson, The Day of the Confederacy, 157; Alfriend, 245.
18 During Its existence the Confederate cabinet was constituted as follows :
Secretary of State: Robert Toombs, to July 26, 1861; R. M. T. Hunter, to
Feb. 17, 1862; W. M. Browne, ad interim; J. P. Benjamin, March 18, 1862.
Attorney General: J. P. Benjamin, Feb. 25, 1861; Thomas Bragg, Nov. 21,
1861; Wade Keys, ad interim, George Davis, Jan. 2, 1862. Secretary of the
Treasury : C G. Memminger, Feb. 21, 1861 ; G. A. Trenholm, July 18, 1864,
Secretary of the Navy: Stephen R. Mallory, March 4, 1861. Postmaster
General: H. T. Ellette, Feb. 25, 1861, declined; J. H. Regan, March 6, 1861.
Secretary of War : L. P. Walker, Feb. 21, 1861 ; J. P. Benjamin, Nov. 21,
1861, was also acting from Sept 17, 1861, to Nov. 21, 1861, and from March
18, 1862, to March 23, 1862; G. W. Randolph, March 18, 1862; G. W. Smith,
Nov. 17, 1862; J. A. Seddon, Nov. 21, 1862; J. C. Breckinridge, Feb. 6, 1865
Wright, M. J., General Officers of the Confederate Army, 151, New York,
1911.
19 The U. S. Postal Service operated in the Confederacy until May 31, and
officers of the old states continued to serve in the new. No Supreme Court
was ever organized, only a few Confederate district courts, such as those at
Mobile and Charleston, being created. There were five sessions of Congress
In Montgomery and six in Richmond. Schwab, 221.
SPRINKLE SOME BLOOD 181
Thus was the stage set for the coming tragedy. A Confederacy
of Bine million southerners was facing a Nation of thirty-one mil-
lion northerners, and each country was typified in its chief execu-
tive. Davis, formal, self-sufficient, lacking in humor, aloof from
the vulgar crowd, standing for caste, for privilege, and for medi-
sevalism : Lincoln, gawky, full of mother-wit, patient, self-effacing,
his long rough fingers touching every key on the instrument of
life, standing for the evolution of modern man through an ever-
widening democracy.
On February 18, Davis was inaugurated President of the Con-
federacy. On March 4, Lincoln was inaugurated President of the
United States the task of the one to disrupt the Union ; the task
of the other to preserve it. And the immediate problem confront-
ing each the same: "What shall be done with Fort Sumter?"
At Montgomery, there was neither doubt nor hesitancy. In
secret session, the Congress had resolved that Fort Sumter should
be taken and the President had been given full authority in the
premises. On February 22, the Confederate flag had been hoisted
over the custom house at Charleston, and Governor Pickens had
reluctantly assented to the relinquishment of his authority to Presi-
dent Davis. 20 On March i, Beauregard, the most promising of
southern generals, had been given command of Charleston harbor
Fort Sumter now the only- spot in the state flying the United
States flag. All the other forts were under the Stars and Bars.
At Washington, on the contrary, all was doubt and uncertainty.
Well-nigh since the formation of the Government, Washington had
been under southern influence and that influence was still potent.
Furthermore, Lincoln was an uncouth Westerner, distasteful to the
kid-glove element of his own party ; Seward, Governor Andrew, and
General McClellan looked down upon "the parvenu." The North,
too, was divided, a majority perhaps opposing the coercion of South
Carolina. The abolitionists regarded her departure as a happy
riddance and the business world, desiring peace at any price, was
opposed to war. New York proposed to become an independent
city.
Scarcely was Lincoln's inaugural over, scarcely had Ms pathetic
words echoed from the balcony of the Capitol "I have neither
the power nor the wish to interfere with slavery in the states. I
*> Rowland, V, 56, 58.
182 SPRINKLE SOME BLOOD
will have no war with our brethren of the South, unless they pro-
voke it, but under my oath, I must preserve and protect United
States property wherever the flag floats" before a letter was pre-
sented from President Davis? 1 The Confederate President would
introduce his commissioners to President Lincoln and "would ask
such reception and treatment as corresponded to their station and
mission." This letter Lincoln refused to receive, nor would he
recognize or meet with the commissioners.
But the matter was too serious to be ignored. The United States
must relieve Sumter or recognize the Davis Government and be dis-
credited among the nations of the earth. Meanwhile, the Con-
federate commissioners were seeking out Seward, Davis's old friend,
and Lincoln's Secretary of State. Since his defeat for the Republi-
can nomination, Seward had become less belligerent on the slavery
question, and was now looked to as a peacemaker. If Seward would
promise that Sumter would not be provisioned, no hostile demon-
stration would be made at Charleston.
Seward declined to meet the commissioners or confer with them,
but agreed to see Justice Campbell of the Supreme Court and talk
over the Sumter situation informally. At first Seward gave Camp-
bell to understand he was without authority. On March 15 and 22,
in conferences with Campbell, Seward, however, did agree that
Sumter would not be provisioned. This agreement was made
known to the Confederate commissioners and was telegraphed by
them to the Davis Government.
At a later date, and after Lincoln had concluded to relieve Sum-
ter, Seward again m^t Campbell and changed the former agree-
ment He then stated that Sumter would not be relieved without
notice. Now Lincoln undoubtedly knew that Seward was dicker-
ing with Campbell, but he did not authorize an agreement to sur-
render Sumter. It is reasonable to conclude that Lincoln merely
agreed to give notice before sending reinforcements. 22
President Lincoln undoubtedly desired to avoid war. But war
could be avoided only by surrendering Sumter to the Confederacy,,
which meant the recognition of the Davis Government. By the
* Hichardson, 55.
m Seward deceived Campbell, Stephens, II, 744; Seward's famous "Mem-
oirandum" of April 7, handed to Campbell, "Faith with Sumter fully kept,
wait and see," meant more than the mere agreement to give notice -if meant
Stimter would not be relieved.
GATEWAYS OF CHARLESTON
Above: The Simonton Gateway, Legare Street
Below: The Smyth Gateway, Legare Street.
SPRINKLE SOME BLOOD 183
last of March, indeed, the situation at Sumter had become acute.
As we have seen, Anderson, on the night of December 26, 1860,
without orders and against the policy of President Buchanan, had
removed from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter one of the most un-
usual and far-reaching exploits in American warfare. 23
Since then, Anderson had lived a life of torture, his little army,
women and children included, stalled on an island, a scant acre of
sand and rock. Without food, except such as was brought over
from Charleston before supplies were cut off, Major Anderson was
daily beset by the agents of Governor Pickens and President Davis,
who demanded his evacuation. Less than a mile across the water,
frowning guns were being installed and fortifications erected, pre-
paratory to his destruction.
One day a shell from a Confederate battery struck the parapet
of Sumter and it seemed the bombardment had begun. But no, the
Confederates had not intended to hit Sumter; they were merely
practicing to get the range for the real battle then imminent. A
courteous committee waited on Major Anderson and apologized for
the mischance.
In this state of affairs, Charleston occupied the center of the
stage ; it had become the most noted place in America, far more
noted than Washington. Charleston had news-value ; Washington
had none. Davis was a live wire ; Lincoln was flat and dull. Illus-
trious men, wise and full of counsel for Governor Pickens, swarmed
the streets of Charleston. Down came Senator Wigfall and Con-
gressman Roger A. Prior. The venerable Edmund Ruf&n, of gentle
countenance and Franklin's benign face, spent months in Charles-
ton, his curly locks reaching down to his shoulders. Duly, these
wise men were enrolled as members of the Palmetto Guard and
were accorded the rank of Colonel on Beauregard's staff.
Reporters and artists, representing the press of the world, were
in evidence: Russell of the London Times, representatives of New
York and Boston dailies and of Harper's and Frank Leslie's* Illus-
trated papers bristled with Confederate scenes Fort Sumter,
Secession Hall, the famous Battery, General Beauregard, Major
Alfred Rhett, and President Davis. In comparison with the mad,
wild, gay scenes transpiring on the Battery, which overlooked
28 Floyd, Secretary of War, berated Anderson for thtis violating orders.
Crawford, 145.
184 SPRINKLE SOME BLOOD
Sumter, Washington was cfaopf alien. The Capital on the Potomac
cut but a poor figure. Lincoln was a bad second to the gallant
Davis. A correspondent of Frank Leslie's broke his usual rule that
he would express no opinion and wrote that he favored secession
and that every man, woman, and child in South Carolina would die
the death before they would surrender.
In the issue of April 4, Frank Leslie's repeatedly cartooned "Old
Abe/' once as a cheap story teller, peddling a smutty joke to a
vulgar crowd, again sitting on Confederate bayonets, hiked up in
the air, and screaming with pain. Wild and conflicting rumors
came from Washington : Lincoln was going to let Sumter go and
recall Anderson, as General Scott, Douglas, and Horace Greeley
advised. On this rumor stocks rose and business picked up. This
rumor would be followed by another that Sumter was to be relieved
and a civil war follow. Stocks would then crumble.
The truth is, Lincoln's cabinet was as badly divided as the coun-
try generally. At a meeting of the cabinet on March 29, Seward
and Smith favored abandoning Fort Sumter. Chase, Wells, and
Blair maintained it should be relieved, and Bates was undecided.
When the cabinet adjourned, Lincoln made up his mind to relieve
Sumter and directed the Secretaries of War and Navy to get ready
an expedition by April 6 "to be used or not, according to circum-
stances."
Since the inauguration of Davis, both Washington and Charles-
ton had been playing for time, Charleston and the Montgomery
Government wished to get the forts around Sumter supplied with
guns and men: Washington was anxious for news from the com-
mercial centers, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. And both
had succeeded.
Before steps to relieve Sumter were taken, the Charleston forts
were equipped with eleven frowning batteries and forty-seven guns.
These bristled across the water, menacing the devoted little Union
fort, while ten thousand picked men, among the bravest and best
of the South, stood by to die for the cause.** Washington, too, had
gained its purpose. Lincoln had obtained information from the
governors of northern states that their people earnestly desired
that America remain a nation and be not broken into discordant
parts. 25
24 Crawford, 472. ** Stephens, II, 84, 354.
SPRINKLE SOME BLOOD 185
On April 8, Lincoln caused notice to be sent to Plckens
Beauregard that Sumter would be relieved at once. On the next
day a small fleet consisting of merchant ships and a few tugs set
sail from New York for Charleston harbor. The powerful war
vessel, Powhatan, had been assigned to this duty by Secretary
Wells, but had been deflected by the hopeful Seward and dispatched
to Florida, leaving the fleet without proper support. Governor
Pickens flashed Lincoln's startling news to Davis.
Never was a city more intoxicated with joy than beautiful
Charleston on that April day. On the night of the tenth, thousands
gathered in front of the Charleston Hotel. The festive throng
stretched beyond the Market Place and almost to Secession Hall,
where a year before the Democratic party had broken to pieces and
ten months later the Union had been dissolved. Their joyous
shouts no doubt animated the shades of Calhoun in St. Phillips's
churchyard hard by. A great event was staged Roger A. Prior,
the droll, inimitable Virginia orator, versatile, impossible, pictur-
esque, was booked to address the multitude : his subject, Sumter.
. . . Presently he appears on the balcony a gentleman of the old
school with long coat and longer hair flanked on the right and
on the left by a long row of stately columns of Greek design.
Gracefully he alludes to gallant South Carolina, For three
months she stood alone and unaided. But she no longer stands
alone six loyal sisters have come to her aid. Soon others will
come, and what of Virginia? "As sure as to-morrow's sun shall
rise, Virginia too will come in. Give the old lady time, don't press
her too hard, she is a little slow and rheumatic and there's a little
trouble up in the Pan Handle" . * . (Laughter and uproarious
applause). "But if you would bring in Virginia in one hour by
Shrewsbury's dock, strike a blow sprinkle some blood in her
face!" 26
The following day President Davis directs Beauregard to de-
mand the surrender of Sumter. Ex-Senator Chesnut, Lieutenant
Colonel Chisholm, and Captain Lee, of Beauregard's staff, are dis-
patched on this mission. 27 At three o'clock, Anderson refuses to
surrender, but informs the messengers he has only food sufficient
for three or four days and will soon be starved out Beauregard
wires Anderson's reply to Montgomery . . . Davis calls together
26 Mercury; Courier: April n. 2T Stephenson, 17.
186 SPRINKLE SOME BLOOD
Ms cabinet and asks their advice. All except Toombs vote for war.
"Never ! " thunders Toombs, as to and fro he paces, "Sirs, such
course is suicidal a mere point of pride. Fire on the flag and you
stir up a hornet's nest ! " 2S President Davis assumes the respon-
sibility. "The design of the United States is apparent," he ex-
plains. "They wish to place the besieging forts between the simul-
taneous fire of fleet and fort . . . Nothing therefore remains but
to reduce Sumter before the Union fleet arrives." 29
This conclusion is wired to Beauregard at Charleston. It is now
twelve-forty-five on the morning of the twelfth. The excited
crowds which have swarmed the Battery since noon have retired.
Beauregard's staff again visits Sumter. Anderson deliberates. At
three-fifteen A.M. he decides. Guardedly he agrees to surrender
the fort by the fifteenth, unless Washington orders him not to do
so, or unless he is relieved by the incoming fleet or unless some
hostile demonstration is made against him.
"This is no answer," the messengers indignantly replied. 30 "It is
manifestly futile," and casting the sword of Brennus in the scales
they deliver their cartel and appeal to the god of battle. 81
Fort Sumter, Apr. 12, 1861.
3.30 A.M.
Sir: By order of Brigadier General Beauregard, commanding the
provisional forces of the Confederate States, we have the honor to
notify you that he will open the fire of Ms batteries on Fort Sumter
in one hour from this time.
We have the honor, etc., etc.,
CHESNTJT,
LEE.
Their mission ended, the messengers take hasty leave . . . Soon
the batteries around are lighted up and the busy hum of prepara-
tion is borne across the harbor ... At 4 :so A.M. the harsh roar
28 Stovall, 226.
29 Richardson, Message of April 29 to Congress.
ao Alf riend, 263 : "Davis signed the order for the reduction of Sumter but
did not thereby invoke the calamities of war."
S1 Rhodes contends the "guilt" of firing the first shot must rest on Beaure-
gard's messengers. The careful historian misses the point firing the first
shot at Sumter was not a guilt but a glory, in the eyes of Southerners, scores
of whose families now contend for the honor. Davis, J., Short History of
the Confederacy, 71,
SPRINKLE SOME BLOOD 187
of a mortar from Fort Johnson breaks the stillness : It is a
to the batteries at Moultrie and on Morris Island to open fire. Up
and over comes the missile from the signal gun, bursting just above
the Fort. S2 Again there are a few moments of deathlike stillness.
Then from Stevens's Iron Battery on Morris Island a mighty roar
is heard. A Columbiad has belched forth its deadly contents.
The deed is done : the first gun of the war has been fired : the
lanyard pulled by the venerable Edmund Ruffin. ss In a few
moments the heavy guns at Moultrie leap into action, and the
Floating Battery and Stevens's Iron Battery again and the en-
filading fire from Sullivan's Island. Anderson makes no reply.
Not until six-thirty o'clock do the United States batteries open
fire. Then, unlimbering his barbette guns, Anderson fires directly
at Stevens's Battery. The shot glances off, "as harmless as a boy ? s
marble against a turtle's back," provoking the derisive laughter of
the Confederates. 84
For thirty-six hours the duel continues. Then, the woodwork of
Sumter catches fire, the powder magazine explodes, and little is
left of the gallant fort to tell of Anderson's brave fight. 35 And yet
the old flag continues to fly, unhurt by the bursting shells. But
presently the flag staff is shot away, the men suffocate and wrap
wet blankets over their faces, then the fires of Sumter are heard
no more.
Colonel Wigfall, hastening across from Stevens's Battery, salutes
the gallant Anderson, urges him to surrender, insists that further
resistance is useless ... A parley ensues, and honorable terms of
surrender are arranged. ... At twelve o'clock on Sunday, April
14, in the presence of Governor Pickens and his staff, Fort Sumter
passes into the hands of President Davis. As the salvos of a hon-
dred guns sound across Charleston harbor, and echo through the
home of the distraught Pettigru and against the walls of historic
St. Michael's, the Old Flag is hauled down. In Its stead the new
Stars and Bars is run up.
A portion of the little Union fleet, mostly merchant vessels, had
32 Fired by Captain George S. James. Crawford, 427.
33 Four years later when Lee surrendered, this thoroughly consistent man
blew his brains out, he had nothing more to live for. Harper's, April 29, 1865;
Prior, 121.
34 Charleston papers, April 13, 14, 15 ; Johnson, John, 5.
35 Simons, War of the Rebellion, Vol. I, Series I, 3S
188 SPRINKLE SOME BLOOD
arrived in Charleston harbor in the gray morning of the twelfth
and witnessed the fight. The powerful battleship, Powhatan, how-
ever, was on its way to Florida and some of the tugs had been
detained by strong winds. No aid was therefore rendered An-
derson by the fleet. The anger of Secretary Wells knew no
bounds . . , Four years later to the day, General Robert Anderson
ran up the United States Flag at Sumter, the identical Flag he had
lowered in 1861, now in the War Department building at Wash-
ington.
"Strike a blow," Prior had urged. "Sprinkle blood ! " And truly
a blow had been struck and blood spilt, 38 and "in less than an hour
by Shrewsbury's clock" Virgftiia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and
Tennessee had come in and were singing the war cry, as Prior had
predicted. 87
Wake every minstrel strain,
Ring o'er each Southern plain
God save the. South!
Still let this noble band
Joined now in heart and hand
Fight for our sunny land
Land of the South.
But if sprinkling a little blood had solidified the South, the firing
on Old Glory had enraged and unified the North. The very next
day, Lincoln called for seventy-five thousand volunteers. Soon he
declared a blockade of southern ports, negotiated a loan of four
hundred million dollars, and enlarged the call, of volunteers to five
hundred thousand. 88 Lincoln's action in declaring a blockade was a
master stroke it deprived the South of arms and munitions from
abroad. 39
In this dangerous situation, what was President Davis to do?
He, too, called for volunteers and they came, came by the thou-
86 No one was killed at Sumter though several were wounded. Sumter was
never captured.
* T Virginia, April 28; North Carolina, May i; Arkansas, May 8; Ten-
nessee, June 8. When North Carolina seceded, cannon boomed and church
bells pealed forth; the venerable Badger, a delegate from Raleigh to the
convention, removed himself from the Hall, and as he strolled home was heard
to murmur, "They are tolling the death of slavery."
88 April 19; July 17; July 22.
99 Stephenson, Lincoln, etc.* 173,
SERGEANT HART NAILING THE COLORS TO THE FLAGSTAFF,,
FORT SUMTER
SPRINKLE SOME BLOOD 189
sands gallant young men, the pride of the South. But no arms
awaited them, and no supplies. President Davis's country was
agricultural and had few factories. It was inadequately supplied
with munitions of war, though all United States forts and arsenals
inside the Confederate lines had been seized, and the mint at New
Orleans with nearly a half million of gold. So inadequate was
the supply of arms, not one-fourth of the volunteers could be
equipped and sadly the young fellows returned to their homes.
Evidently the only way to meet this situation was to manufac-
ture arms as fast as possible and also purchase abroad. Davis,
therefore, dispatched a commission of three with W. L. Yancey,
chairman, to Europe, but they were given little authority to nego-
tiate and less money to go upon. Soon the rights of belligerents
were accorded Davis's government, and his sailors and soldiers
were saved the doom of pirates and outlaws. But belligerency was
not enough: Davis must have recognition the right to purchase
supplies, warships, shot, and shell or perish.
To this policy of obtaining foreign recognition, therefore, Presi-
dent Davis now attached his government, all else becoming sub-
servient to this idea. England and France, he concluded, would
be favorable, especially since the United States had enacted* the
Morrill tariff, which imposed heavy taxes on imports. Davis was
confident there was "a common interest between the agricultural
South and the manufacturing centers abroad." He was, therefore,
sure the Confederacy would get recognition.
Now, in arriving at this conclusion, President Davis had omitted
an important factor and had made the same mistake he made when
insisting on the sacredness of slavery and its extension into the
territories. In the year of our Lord 1861, no civilized country
could have justified itself in cooperating with the South to establish
a government whose cornerstone, as Vice-President Stephens ad-
mitted, was to be slavery. 40 Had President Davis recognized this
fact and provided for the gradual extinction of slavery, he might
have had foreign aid. But such a course would have required
the repudiation of the very foundation stone of his Government
When it was explained to the miners of Wales and the opera-
tives of Lancashire and Birmingham that the success of the Con-
40 Vice-President Stephens's speech, Rebellion Record /, Documents, 45;
London Times, April 2 and May 6, 1861.
190 SPRINKLE SOME BLOOD
federacy meant slavery and that they would be thrown Into com-
petition with slave labor, it was all up with Davis's foreign policy
and Gladstone's scheme to recognize the Davis Government. Fur-
thermore, when President Davis adopted this foreign policy, he
abandoned the plan of creating a gold reserve and operating on a
specie basis. This no doubt he might have done as his wisest coun-
sellors urged him to do. In 1861, there was much cotton in the
South which could have been purchased from the planters with
Confederate bonds. This cotton was equivalent to gold, and when
shipped abroad before the blockade became effective, might have
enabled the Confederacy to win. 41
This foreign policy of President Davis proved a mistake and a
continuing mistake he never abandoned the idea of foreign recog-
nition. And yet, with the lights before him, the scheme was not an
impractical one. England was hostile to the United States and was
therefore friendly to her enemy, the South, and the interests of
England coincided with southern interests. 42 The South had the
cotton; England had the spindles.
Moreover, the royalty and nobility of England and her leading
men, except a few philanthropists and scholars Darwin, Mill,
Cobden, and John Bright were urging a recognition of the Con-
federacy. France, too, under Louis Napoleon, was unfriendly to
the United States and anxious to join with England to coerce
America. The French Emperor, it will be recalled, had a grand
idea of a French empire to be established in Mexico, with Dom
Pedro as emperor a policy opposed by the United States. On the
whole, therefore, it must be said that though President Davis was
mistaken in his foreign policy, there were many reasons to justify
his course.
Now, if President Davis was in error in these matters, what must
be said of his firing on Sumter? Was this likewise a mistake?
Suppose Sumter had not been fired on, what would have resulted?
The United States vessels, the Harriet Lane, the Pawnee, and the
rest, would have crossed the bar at Charleston on that murky April
morning, and having supplied Anderson with provisions, would
iiave sailed back to New York. Nothing more. How could leav-
ing Anderson at Sumter have injured the Davis Government?
What difference did it make, except for pride's sake, which govern-
. ^Craven, 175; Schwab, 26. ** Blackwo&d's f September i f 1862.
SPRINKLE SOME BLOOD 191
ment occupied Sumter, three and a half miles from Charleston?
Already now the Confederate Government had been operating for
more than two months, entirely unmolested, and was fast growing
into a nation. It was then President Davis fired on the flag and
stirred up a hornet's nest. But for this act, the Confederacy might
have gone on unhindered till it became a nation and no shot fired.
Suppose, on the other hand, President Lincoln, without an insult to
the flag, had undertaken, in cold blood, to coerce the South and
force her back into the Union, would the North have sustained
him? Did not the firing on the flag at Sumter stir the American
blood and save the Nation ?
Perhaps Artemus Ward understood the situation after the shot
at the flag better than any one of the day. "J. Davis," he says,
"ther is your grate mistake. Many of us was your sincere friends
and thought certain parties amung us was fussin' about and med-
dlin' with your consarns intirly too much. But, J. Davis, the minit
you fire a gun at the piece of drygoods called the Star-Spangled
Banner, the North gits up and rises en massy In defense of that
Banner."
But "J. Davis" had South Carolina on his hands. Had he re-
fused to run Anderson from Sumter, might not South Carolina
have undertaken the job alone seceding from the Confederacy if
necessary? Moreover, from President Davis's point of view, the
first shot at Sumter brought into the Confederacy the four great
states, Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee. But
for the sprinkling of blood in their faces, these Union-loving com-
monwealths might have remained loyal to the Old Flag forever.
CHAPTER XVI
GOD DEFEND THE RIGHT
When President Davis assumed the reins of government, he left
his family at Brierfield, but at once made preparation for them to
join him. In a letter to his wife, he referred to his weary heart and
to the thorns and troubles innumerable, despite smiles, plaudits,
and flowers. 1 In a few days Mrs. Davis, in company with the
President's brother, ran down to New Orleans on business. It
grieved her to leave the well-selected library in the lone Mississippi
woods and she hoped to make provision for her precious books, but
failed. On the boat, she and Joseph talked over family troubles
and she frankly admitted she had not forgiven him. 2 Late in Feb-
ruary Mrs. Davis and the children arrived at Montgomery.
By an act of Congress, it was soon provided that the legislative
department should be removed to Richmond. This measure the
President vetoed, no doubt considering Montgomery a better
strategic point. 8 The reason assigned for the veto was the failure
to provide for the removal of the executive department along with
the legislative. 4 A bill for the removal of the entire Government to
Richmond was then passed, and some time in May the President
and his family took up their residence in that historic city, and
occupied the splendid Brockenborough Mansion. The Davises
found the surroundings of Richmond far different from those of
Montgomery. In the far South, the intrepid Southrons had gone
to war as a bridegroom to meet his bride; whereas, Virginia had
been forced to fight by Lincoln's call for troops. 5
In Montgomery, moreover, the social graces cut a smaller figure,
and one's pedigree made less difference. In Richmond, it must be
1 Memoir, II, 33.
* Davis vs. Bowmar*
8 The President often vetoed bills. Richardson, I, 158-162.
* Knight, 101.
8 In November Davis was elected permanent President and Stephens Vice-
President
192
GOD DEFEND THE RIGHT 193
conceded, ancestry was of much importance, and one's
must conform to severer standards. In the refined and exclusive
atmosphere of the new Capital, Mrs, Davis was not a success. A
western woman of undoubted intellect, she was neither coy nor
winsome, nor could she adapt herself to a society adorned by the
traditions of the Byrds, the Spotswoods, the Custises, the Carters,
and the Lees. She found Richmond quite unlike frontier life,
"more exclusive, more English, and Virginia people more offish to
strangers." 6 Yet those Virginia women, with soft hands and softer
voices might be found in the hospitals among wounded and dying,
while Mrs. Davis remained away "because her husband feared her
presence would impose a restraint." T
Soon refined women were recording in their diaries that Mrs.
Davis was not a Southerner. A bookish woman, she was also
"coarse and brutal, she had a colored seamstress, she did her own
work," and was "mulattoish." 8 Her sisters and associates were
described as women "who wore red frocks and flats on their
heads." 9 Moreover, she indulged in luxuries beyond the occasion,
affecting a coach and pair. Indeed she seemed quite undisturbed at
the havoc of war, while Mrs. Lee, all in black, and other conse-
crated women, were on their knees interceding for their country,
or at home knitting socks for the boys in the trenches.
An incident in St. James Church, of which President Davis had
become a communicant, failed to enhance Mrs. Davis's popularity.
One morning while guns were roaring on the Chickahominy, Mrs.
Davis's sisters came in church handsomely dressed and with no
show of sorrow. Reaching the President's pew, what did they see
but a plain-looking old lady quietly seated therein. An usher was
called and the intruder removed. The intruder was Mrs. Robert
E. Lee. As the gentle lady retired, hisses were heard. 10
It must be said, however, that the brave cheerful outlook of Mrs.
Davis was a tower of strength to her neurasthenic husband ; more
and more he leaned on her and accorded her every honor. Once a
General passed through Mrs. Davis's drawing-room without mak-
6 Memoir, II, 202.
T Ibid., 204.
* Bradford, 178; Pollard, Lost Cause, 185.
9 Chesnut, 79.
10 Bradford, 176; this incident also related to author by Captain and
Reverend W. W. Page of Lee's Body Guard
194 GOD DEFEND THE RIGHT
ing proper acknowledgment of her presence. Her husband was
indignant, refusing to accept excuses or apologies. 11
But President Davis had little time for social or domestic mat-
ters. Since the first gun at Sumter, the war drum had aroused the
martial spirit, and the new President was busy day and night carry-
Ing out the provisions of Congress. He directed every department
of government, purchased or constructed gunboats, erected powder
mills, ammunition factories, and provided war supplies. His task
was much more difficult than Lincoln's.
Behind Lincoln was an organized government; behind Davis
an unorganized experiment. The commercial and manufacturing
North was supplied with shoe and clothing factories, flour, salt,
meat, and ammunition works ; it had a itavy and the nucleus of an
army. The South had none of these things. Again the population
of the North far exceeded that of the South, there being 31,443,321
Northerners and only 9,103,343 Southerners, slaves included. The
man power of the North was therefore three or four times that
of the South. Furthermore, the North had a currency, a monetary
system and a line of credit, though inadequate, in London and
Paris. The agricultural South had little credit and no currency.
All told, financially and commercially, the strength of the North
must have been ten times the strength of the South. 12
In other respects, however, the South had the advantage. After
Lincoln's call, the South was a unit ; there was no division. Adven-
turous southern boys, trained to outdoor life, tiptop horsemen,
accustomed to firearms, were not only eager to fight but well
trained to do so. The South, moreover, was on the defensive
home and fireside were at stake. Again, southern officers out-
ranked those of the North. Joseph E. Johnston and Robert E. Lee,
old West Pointers, were the outstanding military figures of the
army, as Lincoln concluded. He directed General Scott to tender
each .of them the command of the Union forces. Reluctantly they
declined and shared the fate of their states. In the southern army,
there were also Albert Sidney Johnston, P. G. T. Beauregard, Brax-
toa Bragg, Stonewall Jackson, and J. E. B. Stuart, well-trained and
efficient officers. The North was not so well provided. General
Scott was old and unfitted to lead, and Halleck, a superficial
adviser.
318. i* Hosmer, 6.
Ill*
.3 .
si 111
* +-(/! Qj P'
"^: : a w o-
. 5 ^ 2'
- LJ **'. FH _,
!'SV< y
!!? Tfi I
GOD DEFEND THE RIGHT 195
U. S. Grant, the hardest hitter on either side, was unknown,
as were his able lieutenants in days to come George H. Thomas,
W. T. Sherman, and Phil Sheridan. While Lincoln was groping
around for a competent officer, Davis had leaders ready to hand,
In addition to these advantages, the attitude of both England and
France, as we have seen, was favorable to the Confederacy. On the
whole, however, it must be said the odds against the South were
overwhelming.
Such being the obstacles surrounding President Davis, what
should have been his policy? This question is now easy to answer,
but in 1861, it was difficult indeed. As events unfolded themselves,
it became plain that the President's waiting policy was a mistake
he should have forced the fighting. He should have ceased to
quibble over constitutional questions and at once seized the reins
of government and become a dictator. 18
He could have sequestered the cotton crop, converted it into
gold, constructed railroads over which to move the armies along
interior lines, purchased and constructed battleships, and kept open
the southern ports. And above all, he might have fed and clothed
the army. 14 Without foreign intervention or a collapse of northern
morale, the chances of the Davis Government were negligible. If,
however, a stunning blow had been given the northern army and
Washington captured, what might have happened ? Surely nothing
worse for the Confederacy than the resulting disaster from delay.
And of President Davis's foreign policy, this must be said: it
lacked punch. The proud, imperious President would not bend the
knee to England or France. At first he was unwilling to offer the
slightest inducements. 15 He would not agree to form a commercial
alliance with England whereby southern cotton for a term of
years might be exported in exchange for English imports free of
duty. Nor would he deal with France on the basis of guaranteeing
Mexico to Napoleon Third. As ever, pride and self-confidence
deterred the man who was a fighter, but never a compromiser or a
diplomat.
In the Senate he had contended that cotton was king ; as Presi-
18 Schwab, 209.
14 Maurice, 32; Oberholtzer, 64. Davis claimed in his Rise md Fall he
could not have done these things.
* 5 Tate, 93.
196 GOD DEFEND THE RIGHT
dent he still maintained cotton was king. In vain Toombs, Ms
ablest financial adviser, Rhett, chairman of the Foreign Relations
Committee, and Yancey, foreign representative, urged the Presi-
dent to strike some bargain with England and France and win the
war w i n it at any cost. Heedless of this advice, President Davis
followed the dilatory, waiting policy of Mallory, Memminger, and
J. M. Mason, Ambassador to England. Mason assured Davis that
English mills had little cotton and would be starved out by Feb-
ruary i, i862. 16
Now if southern morale at the beginning of the war was better
than northern, the northern plan of campaign far surpassed the
southern. The South had no unified purpose ; whereas, Lincoln and
his advisers soon grasped the war situation and mapped out a com-
prehensive scheme of operations. Lincoln's plan was three-fold:
it comprehended an eastern front, a western front, and vast naval
activities.
On the eastern front, an army was to cross the Potomac, drive
Beauregard and Joseph E. Johnston from Virginia, and capture
Richmond. In the west, another army was to march south through
the friendly regions of Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee, break
the Confederate line, stretching from Bowling Green to Corinth,
open the Mississippi River, and cut the Confederacy in twain.
Simultaneously with the eastern and western advances, the Union
fleet was to move. The navy was expected to close southern ports
from Cape Charles to the Gulf, patrol the rivers, and cooperate
with the attacking armies. 17
Before these major movements took place, however, each side
began operations to capture the Border States. Maryland, a Union
state, was held in line by the high hand of Lincoln and of Governor
Hicks. Lincoln smashed to pieces the Maryland Secession Con-
vention, proclaimed martial law, imprisoned one congressman, all
the secession delegates, legislators, and editors, and closed the
courts to them, refusing them the ancient Writ of Habeas Corpus.
At heart Kentucky and Missouri were likewise Union states, though
it required fierce fighting by Blair, Lyon, and other Unionists to
hold them in line. At all hazards, President Lincoln was deter-
16 Maurice, 10; Schwab, 69.
11 "Because Federal gunboats pierced the southern rivers, the South was
overcome," said Mark Twain, himself a Confederate soldier.
GOD DEFEND THE RIGHT 197
mined to save the Border States, winning them back one by
"Lincoln would like to have God Almighty on his side/ 1 a dis-
gusted abolitionist, "but he must have Kentucky." Virginia and
Tennessee were split on the issue of union and disunion, the ex-
clusively white sections going with the North.
In the minor engagements of 1861, the Federals were generally
successful. Robert E. Lee, incomparably the best southern mili-
tary man, failed in West Virginia and was transferred to South
Carolina. These small Union victories encouraged the North and
as the summer of 1861 approached. Congress and the politicians
demanded a fight. 18 They insisted that Lincoln should order Gen-
eral McDowell to drive the Confederates under Beauregard from
Manassas. "On to Richmond 1 " became the battle cry. Military
operations in the east, it must be said, were always handicapped
by interference of civilians. Reluctantly McDowell yielded and
agreed to take the offensive. But General Joseph E. Johnston must
be held in the Valley by General Patterson.
The result was the battle of Bull Run, the first great engagement
of the war. 19 On the morning of July 21, 1861, President Davis
hastened from Richmond to join Beauregard and lead the army.
But before he reached the battlefield, he was met by hundreds
of straggling soldiers, declaring all was lost. Continuing his jour-
ney, the President soon ascertained that the indiscriminate, mob-
like fight had resulted in a Confederate victory.
Thirty-odd thousand northern troops had engaged a somewhat
smaller number of southern ; to and fro victory had wavered. At
first, McDowell swept all before him, but presently encountered a
brigade, standing on a plateau at the Henry House. This brigade
was commanded by Thomas J. Jackson. Steady Jackson stood,
perhaps the greatest lieutenant since Ney executed the orders of
Napoleon. Victory halted. "See," cried Major Bee to his waver-
ing troops. "See, there stands Jackson like a stone wall I "
But even then victory might have gone to McDowell, as the
furious combatants seized each other by the throat, had not
twenty-five hundred fresh troops from the Valley arrived. "John-
ston has come!" the terrified and untrained Union boys whispered
and fled. The day was lost; the rout of McDowell was complete.
is H&rpeSs, June 8, 1861. 19 Eckenrode, 149.
198 GOD DEFEND THE RIGHT
Three thousand Union troops dead or wounded on the field, two
thousand Confederates and the harvest of death just beginning.
After nightfall, President Davis, proud and self-contained, con-
ferred with his victorious Generals. He suggested pursuit and the
capture of Washington. Beauregard and Johnston explained that
the men were without food or equipment, and that there were no
adequate means of transportation. Moreover, they were exhausted,
and a fresh Union army near by. President Davis acquiesced and
pressed the point no further. 20
News of the Union rout created consternation in Washington,
but its secondary effect was beneficial : it awoke the North from
overconfidence. McDowell was removed and was succeeded by
McClellan. So well had McClellan conducted himself in the West
Virginia campaign, he was hailed as a young Napoleon. The work
of drilling and organizing the Union troops now went steadily for-
ward, and General McClellan, an excellent drillmaster, was soon at
the head of a fighting force which he might have successfully
hurled at the thin Confederate line on the Bull Run battlefield.
This line was guarded by only about forty thousand men and was
poorly protected. Fierce, huge-looking cannon, but quite innocent
as they were made of wood and known as "Quaker guns," consti-
tuted the main artillery. Hundreds of southern boys had left the
army and gone home, concluding the war was over ! 21
Everywhere the old idea that one Southerner could whip half a
dozen Yankees was heard; Yankees were good traders but poor
fighters. Thirteen thousand Confederates had just whipped thirty-
four thousand Unionists, it was said. 22 During the Bull Run fight,
this illustrative incident had occurred. A lank southern boy, whose
chief sport at home had been hunting turkeys, was creeping along
on tiptoes when he heard his file companion's heavy feet cracking
twigs and branches. "Sh'," the turkey hunter whispered, "step
light or we won't get a shot 1 " 2S
Thus disastrously to the North ended the first great offensive
against Richmond. Unfortunately for the South, it suspended fur-
ther military operations for months. But the two other Federal
20 Johnston, J. EL, 64; Davis, J., I, 360; Roman, I, 20&
21 Ibid., 60.
22 Memowr, II, 101.
2 * B. P. Thorpe, a North Carolina soldier, gave the author this incident
LINCOLN ON THE BAYONETS
Old Abe: "Oh, it's all well enough to say that I must support the dignity
of my high office by forcebut it's darned uncomfortable sitting, I can
tell yer."
From, a cartoon in Leslie's, March 2, 1861.
GOD DEFEND THE 199
offensives, the one by water and the other in the West,
successful. In a comparatively short time, Fort Hatteras^
Island, the city of Newberne, and Fort Macon, in North Caroliiiaj
were taken. Hilton Head and Port Royal fell : New Orleans was
captured. 24 These naval victories were not important in them-
selves, but were ominous of disaster to the South. They
that the blockade would be made good and the South would be
strangled to death. Furthermore, thousands of bales of cotton had
been captured by the Federals or set fire to and destroyed by the
Confederates on the approach of the Union gunboats. 25
As President Davis realized the perils to his Government from
the sea, he increased his efforts to keep open the southern ports.
In 1862, Confederate officials ingeniously overhauled the Merrimac
and covered her with sheet iron. Nearly submerged, she now be-
came a fighting machine hitherto Unknown to naval warfare.
At Hampton Roads, the Merrimac sank the United States war-
ship Cumberland, disabled the Congress, and did other damage.
At length the destructive battle ship was checked In her course and
put out of commission. In a fierce engagement with the Momt&r,
a ram designed by Erickson, the Merrimac met her match and the
waters of Virginia were again opened to northern gunboats.
Early in the struggle, President Davis dispatched Captain James
D. Bulloch as special agent to England to negotiate for the pur-
chase and construction of ships. In a short time, the Captain had
got possession of the Oreto, afterwards christened the Florida, and
had arranged with the Lairds of Liverpool for the Alabama.
Admiral Semmes, the greatest Confederate sea-fighter, was trans-
ferred from the Sumter, a small cruiser, to the Alabama, and did
vast destruction to northern shipping. After many a gallant en-
counter, the Alabama was finally sunk near Cherbourg by the jfiTeor-
sage. 26 Three other war vessels were fitted out abroad. These were
the Georgia, commanded by Captain Maury ; the Tallahassee, com-
manded by Captain Woods ; and the Chicamauga, by Captain Wil-
kinson. The Stonewall was fitted out in France, with the approval
of Napoleon III, but so late in the war the boat scarcely got into
2 * Apr. 28, 1862.
25 Fully a million bales of cotton were burned by the Confederates
the war. Rhodes, V, 382.
28 January n, 1864. Gordon, 176-
200 GOD DEFEND THE RIGHT
the fight. The Petrel, the Savannah, and other privateers did effi-
cient blockade work.
On the whole, it must be said of the Confederate navy that it
gave a good account of Itself. The name of Admiral Semmes will
live in the history of naval warfare. This plucky little navy cap-
tured two hundred and sixty American merchant ships, valued at
twenty million dollars. 21
The third Federal movement, the western one, was the most suc-
cessful of the three. The Confederate Government had undertaken
to create a strong defensive line from Bowling Green, Kentucky,
to Corinth, Mississippi. This line, it was expected, would protect
Tennessee from Federal attack. General Albert Sidney Johnston
was assigned to this command. General Beauregard, having been
detached from the East, had reluctantly gone to the western front.
He was ordered to cooperate with Johnston.
A part of the defensive line were two strategic forts, Henry and
Donelson. With skill and audacity, in February, 1862, these posi-
tions were captured by Halleck and Grant, and thereby the Con-
federate defenses were cut in twain. Unfortunately, Grant's old
habits of drink were now upon him and Halleck complained to
Lincoln. Halleck charged that Grant was not only drinking but
was neglecting his duties, and was often out of place. He therefore
recommended his removal, though the fall of Donelson had almost
crushed Confederate hopes, and Grant's terms to General Buckner
at Donelson "Unconditional Surrender" had cheered the nation
and given Grant the popular title of "Unconditional Surrender
Grant."
As I have just said, Beauregard was now on the western front,
his removal thither illustrating his popularity. Roger A. Prior and
other Congressmen had urged President Davis to assign Beauregard
to the West. They maintained that the General, a student of
Napoleon's campaigns, realized the necessity of swift action. It
was well known that shortly after the battle of Bull Run, Beaure-
gard had suggested a forward northern movement, and so confident
was he that he urged this plan at a council of war at Fairfax
Courthouse, which President Davis attended. 28
2T Scharf, 815.
28 Johnston, Beauregard, and Smith wrote an account of this in 1862, but
President Davis does not mention this paper in his Rise and Fall Roman, 142.
A critic has declared that the ex-President tells everything except what one
would like to know. Davis, JL, I, 448; Smith, G. W., 33.
GOD DEFEND THE 201
"This is our golden opportunity," Beauregard had said. "No
time should be lost ; we should fall upon the North before she can
organize her resources." Beauregard's plans were not favored by
the President, who no doubt expected foreign recognition. He
certainly looking for an uprising in the North. From Senator
Bright, of Indiana, and other Copperheads, he had been receiving
letters which recognized the Confederacy and bade it "God-
speed." 29
In lieu of Beauregard's larger plans, President Davis suggested
minor movements one on the lower Potomac, as a diversion ! The
overruling of Beauregard had irritated and discouraged him and he
proceeded to attack General Northrop and the commissary depart-
ment. He charged that Northrop was weak and incompetent and
hence the troops were without food or arms. Northrop's quarrel
was taken up by Secretary Benjamin, and Davis sustained his pet
officials. Louisiana, the home of Beauregard, backed its favorite
general. Because of this controversy, Davis and Beauregard parted
company, 80 and the President was no doubt well pleased fiat the
General went West.
Resuming the story of the western front, it must be said that the
fame which Grant had garnered from the capture of Donekon was
dimmed by a surprise movement against him by A. S. Johnston.
On April 6, Grant, with an army of forty-three thousand men, was
idling around Savannah, six miles from his post of duty at Pitts-
burg Landing. Grant's associates, Pope and Buell, were some dis-
tance away.
Johnston, with an army of forty thousand, determined to attack
Grant before relief could come up. Previously he had offered to
turn over the command of his troops to Beauregard, but Beaure-
gard declined, and was unfavorable to Johnston's plans. Johnston,
smarting under the loss of Henry and Donelson, said he was going
to attack Grant's army if it was a million strong. 81 The result was
the great battle of Shiloh, almost lost by the North before Grant
came on the scene. At the moment of a Confederate victory,
Albert Sidney Johnston, the idol of the South, fell. Wounded in
29 Bright was expelled from the Senate because of this letter. Winston, 216.
80 Roman, 127, 153.
81 W. P. Johnston, a son of the General, thinks his father's army during
this campaign was crippled by the Unionists of Tennessee and Kentucky.
202 GOD DEFEND THE RIGHT
the leg, he fought on, bleeding to death while his own surgeon
attended wounded Federals.
During the night, Buell, with twenty thousand fresh troops,
arrived, and the Confederates were driven from the field. In the
fight, W. T. Sherman bore the brunt and carried off the honors. 82
The losses in the West and the failure to capture Grant's army at
Shiloh, rankled in President Davis's breast and he removed Beaure-
gard and placed his favorite, the unfortunate Braxton Bragg, in
command, perhaps the most disliked of Confederate commanders.
This error was productive of direful results, as we shall see. 33
On June 6, Union gunboats captured Memphis ; the Mississippi
River, except at Vicksburg, was now lost to the South. But Vicks-
burg stood as a mountain in the path of the North, and while
Halleck loitered, failed to press his opportunity, and held back
Grant, Confederate fortifications around Vicksburg were com-
pleted,
Thqse Federal successes in the West somewhat counterbalanced
the Union defeats of Bull Run in July, 1861, and Ball's Bluff in
October. The Ball Bluff defeat, just above Washington, it may be
said, had thoroughly discouraged the Lincoln Government. The
eyes of the North were always upon the eastern front, however,
rather than the western. Indeed the part played in the western
campaigns has been underestimated. In the West and at sea, the
Confederacy received its mortal blow.
Six months had now gone by since the Bull Run attack and no
forward movement in the East had begun. The Lincoln Govern-
ment had been pouring out millions to equip McClellan's army.
More than a hundred thousand well drilled soldiers were at Mc-
Clellan's command, and yet no tangible results. "On to Rich-
mond ! " was again the cry. And in this cry Lincoln joined a mis-
take as after events demonstrated. 84
Had the North been content to play a waiting game around
Washington, the South might have been overcome with less blood-
shed. Each month, southern ports were being closed and southern
rivers occupied. The blockade was becoming effective and the
South beginning to feel the clutch of war. A food riot broke out in
3 Foraby, 133.
ss Beauregard was then transferred to Charleston.
3.
GOD DEFEND THE RIGHT 203
Richmond. Homespun .was the cloth from which
dresses were made; children wore shoes with wooden
uppers of squirrel skins. Coffee, tea, soap, salt, candles^ matches,
starch, glue, and other household necessities almost disappeared.
The Confederate dollar was growing less valuable.
Yet in his message the indomitable Davis sounded a note of tri-
umph. He called attention to the victories of the South, the growth
of the Confederacy and its well directed finances. An optimistic
note, surely, as at that moment gold was selling at one hundred and
twenty, war expenditures had mounted to twenty millions a month,
and less than one per cent of the expenses of government were met
by taxation a fiscal policy leading to ruin. 85 Loans and treasury
notes were the main sources of revenue, and the Confederacy was
slowly perishing. Had McClellan been allowed to entrench him-
self, throwing up breastworks from the Potomac to the Virginia
mountains, and to remain on the defensive till Grant captured
Vicksburg and Farragut made the blockade complete, many a life
might have been saved.
But the North was growing impatient ; it longed to capture Rich-
mond and put an end to the war. Moreover, the morale of the
North was beginning to weaken. Lincoln therefore determined on
a forward movement to begin February 22, 1862. In deference to
McClelland wishes, Lincoln abandoned his plan of attack from
Manassas and agreed to transport troops from Fortress Monroe
and to march on Richmond from the Peninsula, At Richmond,
McDowell coming down from Manassas, was to join forces with
McClellan.
Late in May all was ready and with a hundred and twenty thou-
sand men, McClellan moved north from Fortress Monroe. "On
to Richmond/' was the cry. But in McClelland way stood York-
town, and here he halted and lost valuable time besieging the place.
Moreover, Jackson in the Valley had overcome the divided forces
of Shields, Banks, Fremont, Schenck, and Milroy, and by a series
of brilliant movements, had run them out. By a forced march he
was threatening Washington. McDowell was therefore hastily
called to defend the Capital and prevented from joining McClellan.
In the first engagement, Seven Pines or Fair Oaks, General John-
85 For an account of the financial collapse, consist Stephenson, Day of Con-
federacy, 157; Scharf, 76,
204 GOD DEFEND THE RIGHT
ston was wounded and was succeeded by Colonel R. E. Lee. Lee
was Davis's only choice, and had he done no other act than appoint
this great soldier to command the Army of Northern Virginia, he
would be entitled to high praise. Well-poised, of commanding
presence, and truly magnanimous, Lee was the best product of the
South, and it soon became a by-word that "the Rebellion's lease
of life was borne on the saddle bow of Lee's charger." &6
After Seven Pines, June i, 1862, McClellan remained inactive
for many days, always contemplating "a change of base." It was
during this time the Confederate cavalry leader, J. E. B. Stuart,
feather in cap and at the head of his picked men, galloped around
the entire Union army. But more important than this episode
were the new tactics of Lee. Lee now began his well matured plan
of intrenchment or digging in. "Shovel and spade warfare," it was
derisively called by the impetuous Confederates "Niggers' work ! "
But it soon justified itself.
On June 26, Lee attacked the hesitating Union General. Six days
of incessant fighting followed, deadly and destructive, and on July
i, the mighty Union hosts, under cover of their gunboats, retreated
and made their escape. In seven days Lee had wrought a miracle
and saved Richmond. The North was astounded the South
elated. McClellan's Peninsula Campaign had cost the lives of
twenty-three thousand northern boys and of twenty-seven thousand
southern. And nothing permanent had been accomplished not an
inch of territory taken not a fort captured. Lincoln was dis-
mayed ; Congress enraged and impatient. Yet General McClellan
had undoubtedly played a man's part. He had gone up against
great odds. He was in hostile territory, he was the invader, and the
impetuous southern youth, with back to the wall, was fighting for
home and fireside. McClellan's retreat from his dangerous position
is worthy of all praise. Yet he was soon removed to give place
to the bombastic Pope.
Pope, the hero of Island No. 10 in the Mississippi, began his
campaign by sneering at McClellan and his defensive warfare.
Pope's "headquarters were to be in the saddle" ; in the open, Pope
would meet the enemy! Very soon, at second Manassas, Stone-
wall Jackson, under Lee's directions, rode all around the inflated
ft Roper, II, 498.
GOD DEFEND THE RIGHT 205
man and beat Mm to his knees. In sixty days, General Pope
retired, never to be heard of again.
During the battles around Richmond, Davis and Lee were in
frequent conference and while the President did not interfere
the General's plans in Virginia, he directed all outside movements.
Lee's position, indeed, in the great scheme of operations, was sub-
ordinate. Colonel Marshall, of Lee's staff, concludes that General
Lee was no more than an assistant secretary of war. 81 On March
2 } 1862, and because of the fall of Henry and Donelson and of other
disasters in the West, the Confederate Congress had passed a reso-
lution of the first moment ; Congress removed Davis and made Lee
Commander-in-Chief of the armies.
This resolution grew out of the conviction of the people that their
President was not competent to conduct the operations of the
armies and that a unified head was needed. The resolution was
vetoed by President Davis. But soon thereafter he assigned Lee
to the command of the armies, "subject to the direction of the
President." Davis objected to the measure because, under the Con-
stitution, he was Commander-in-Chief and Lee could not supplant
him. 88 Thereafter, General Lee would sometimes sit for hours with
the President and on reaching his tent would quietly allude to the
"wasting of much precious time."
The differences between Davis and Lee were fundamental,
though they, however, remained friends to the end. Lee was too
broadminded to quarrel or to justify himself. General Lee was
content to do his duty and "leave the consequences to God."
Among other changes, Lee suggested to the President that the plan
of volunteering be abolished and conscription take its place ; that
troops be detached from remote localities and the Confederate
army concentrated. Lee did not hesitate to adopt a policy which
reversed the course previously pursued by the Confederate Govern-
ment. Lee had a more comprehensive view of the whole problem
than Davis and his other advisers. "He did not permit himself to
be diverted from his purpose by considerations which exerted In-
fluence upon those who perceived less clearly the lamentable conse-
quences of defeat." Separate and distinct events, which appeared
7 Maurice, 3 ; Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States, II, 34
88 In his Rise and Fall, Davis does not refer to his veto*
206 GOD DEFEND THE RIGHT
to others as independent, Lee well understood were parts of one
plan of warfare. 39
Lee strongly urged that all officers be appointed and not elected. 40
He did not disregard the possible aid from dissensions at the North
or from European intervention, but he maintained that an energetic
policy would increase the probability of assistance from those
sources. Lee concluded that every other consideration should be
regarded as subordinate to the great end of the public safety and
that since the whole duty of the nation would be war until inde-
pendence should be secured, the whole nation should be converted
into an army, the producers to feed and the soldiers to fight, 41
Lee advocated severe punishment for desertion, while Davis
pardoned with liberality. Once Davis wrote on Lee's complaint
"that when sentences were reduced and remitted that is not a
proper subject for the criticism of a military commander." 42 These
ideas Lee merely suggested ; he was too obedient to intrude them
upon his superior. Content to do his duty, and that duty to drive
"these people" out of Virginia, he went no further.
As the fall of 1862 approached, the hopes of the Confederacy
were high. On the eastern front, Union armies were on the retreat,
and in the West at a standstill a situation which President Davis
proposed to utilize. In the West, the Union army was to be driven
from Mississippi and Tennessee, and Kentucky was to be taken
over. To this great task, President Davis had assigned General
Braxton Bragg. Meantime, Halleck had been called to Washing-
ton to advise Lincoln, and the Union armies in the West were
divided into two sections, one under Grant and the other under
Buell a change that foreboded no good to the Confederates.
Bragg's objective was Louisville. From Chattanooga, therefore,
he marched north into Kentucky, expecting an uprising of the Con-
federates of that state. He was mistaken; Kentucky, a Union
state, gave Bragg no assistance. By rapid marches, Buell inter-
cepted Bragg and, on October 8, an indecisive battle was fought at
Perryville. Utterly disheartened, Bragg and General Kirby-Smith
returned to Tennessee.
Misfortune had likewise overtaken General Van Dorn. Van
Dorn had attacked Corinth and been repulsed by Rosecrans. Rose-
s Maurice, 66. Md. f 32.
Pollard, Darns, 107. 42 Jones, J. B., II. 343.
GOD DEFEND THE RIGHT 207
crans's victory made him the hero of the hour, and he
Buell, who was under fire for delays around Nashville and for
ing to destroy Bragg in Kentucky. Indeed, the only bright In
the western movements of the Confederates were the of
Nathan Bedford Forrest and John H. Morgan. These
raiders had terrified the Unionists throughout Kentucky and Ten-
nessee.
While Bragg and Buell were chasing each other through Ken-
tucky, Grant had received permission from HaJIeck to capture
Vicksburg. But a Confederate army in the vicinity was a menace
to Grant's movements and must first be destroyed. This, however,
could not be done until Bragg's army in Tennessee was likewise
cut to pieces. It was Rosecrans's business, therefore, to destroy
Bragg; it was equally Bragg's business to destroy Rosecrans.
Mighty results awaited this battle. If Rosecrans should defeat
Bragg's army, Vicksburg would fall. If, on the other hand, Bragg
routed Rosecrans, Grant, unsupported, must move his army away.
Out of this situation occurred the tremendous conflicts of Decem-
ber 31, 1862, and January i and 2, 1863 the. battle of Murfrees-
boro or Stone River, one of the stubbomest fights of the entire war.
Murf reesboro, indeed, is considered by some military experts as the
turning point, the crucial battle of the war even more so than
Gettysburg. Though the battle was drawn, General Bragg quit
the field, his army was demoralized, he himself discredited, and the
way was open for the indomitable Grant to capture Vicksburg
Davis's old home, and the Gibraltar of the West. 43
43 The November elections went against the Union a worse blow than
Bull Run or Stonewall's Valley campaigns, or Ball's Bluff.
CHAPTER XVII
ANTIETAM
If consistency be a jewel, then was President Davis rich and
President Lincoln poor indeed ; but if, on the contrary, consistency
is the hobgoblin of small minds, the reverse must be said. Since
Davis had become President, he continued to follow his old methods
of thought: once a conclusion was reached it was final. In the
Senate, in January, 1860, he retorted that the Republican platform
did not interest him, he had not read it, nor did he concern himself
with the disreputable matter. The Scott case had outlawed the Re-
publican party, its platform was illegal, its members law breakers,
and discussion was therefore foreclosed.
So as President, Davis was deaf to passing events, unless favor-
able. Though Great Britain had liberated her slaves and her courts
declared the air of England too free for a slave to breathe, he saw
no inconsistency in asking that country to cooperate in making a
slave confederacy. In October, 1861, he appointed J. M. Mason
ambassador to England and John Slidell to France. 1 Escaping
from Florida on a blockade runner, these officials landed at Havana,
where they embarked on an English ship, the Trent, bound for
Southampton.
Soon the Trent was overhauled by Captain Wilkes, of the United
States navy, who fired two shots across her bow. Wilkes then
permitted the Trent to go on her way, but took off Mason and
Slidell as prisoners. News of the affair was sped to London, where
the excited populace resented the insult to the Union Jack. On
November 27, Lord Russell directed the Earl of Lyons, ambassador
at Washington, to demand his passports unless Mason and Slidell
were released in seven days. At the same time, English war ves-
sels conveyed troops to Canada and war was imminent. Lincoln
wisely consented to surrender the Confederate ambassadors and
the United States escaped trouble by a narrow margin. Lincoln's
1 Mason succeeded Yancey, who had quit in a huff.
208
ANTIETAM 209
legal advisers concluded tliat Wilkes had violated the law, that
after capturing the Trent, he should have brought her into port
and detained her ; when he released the ship, he likewise released
her cargo, Mason and Slidell included.
In England Mason met a varied reception. The upper classes a
not omitting the politicians and the Prime Minister, were hostile ;
but thoughtful Englishmen, Mill, Cobden, and Bright, were cordial.
No sooner had Mason taken up his abode at St. James, than he was
confronted with this editorial in the Times: "Mason and Slidell
are about the most worthless booty it would be possible to extract
from the jaws of the American lion. Champion filibusters, advo-
cates of slavery, British haters ! England has rescued them, not
on their account at all, but as she would two negroes, Tompey and
Caesar. 3 ... So, British Public, please let's have no public recep-
tion for Mason and Slidell ! " 2
The task of the Confederate ambassadors to gain foreign recog-
nition or to float bonds was made more difficult by the interference
of Davis's one-time Mississippi friend, Robert J. Walker. In the
late winter of 1862, Lincoln dispatched Walker abroad as a special
agent. Since Walker left Kansas in 1858, he had not lived in the
South. Early in 1861, he made a ringing Union speech in New
York and now he was to present President Davis's former record
to the people of Europe. Travelling through England and France
in handsome equipages, with out-riders and other attendants,
Walker went from city to city "getting even" with Jefferson Davis
and with the Democratic party because of their repudiation of him
in Kansas.
Walker soon negotiated the sale of two hundred and fifty mil-
lion of the 5-20 U. S. bonds. He likewise kept the printing presses
busy turning light on Jefferson Davis. He declared that Davis
had been the arch repudiator of Mississippi, that in 1849 he had
written a letter to the Washington Union, in which he repudiated
the Union Bank bonds. This letter Walker printed and com-
mented on. 3 Walker likewise laid bare the desperate straits of the
southern Confederacy. Its finances were bankrupt, its seacoast
had been captured by the Federals, its rivers rendered worthless ;
2 Blackwood's, September, 1862.
8 Mississippi historians assert that in this matter of repudiation Walker
was tarred with the same stick as Senator Davis.
210 ANTIETAM
It was cut in two in the West and hastening to its end. Pamphlet
number one was followed by number two and number three, each
new publication more acrimonious and more documented than the
former. 4
In 1862, the Davis Government, in its attempt at foreign recog-
nition, reached high water mark. The French Emperor was urg-
ing England to cooperate and interfere in American affairs. At
Manchester, Gladstone publicly declared "he had no faith in the
perpetuation of free institutions at the point of the sword. . . .
"Davis," he asserted, "has made an army, he is making a navy,
and he has made what is more than either he has made a na-
tion." 5 On October 12, Russell wrote his colleagues, inquiring
if it was not the duty of Europe to interfere in America. The
Times, the Spectator, and the News construed Gladstone's utter-
ance as equivalent to recognition. Charles Francis Adams, the
American ambassador, wrote in his Diary he would be out of
London by Christmas at the farthest. At this time, and until
October, 1863, England and France were selling arms and ammu-
nition to the Confederacy, just as to the North. 6
Encouraged by news from abroad, President Davis's state papers
sounded a triumphant note. The Washington Government, he
declared, "was trampling on the liberties of the people, it had sus-
pended the writ of habeas corpus, unjustly imprisoned the citizens,
and the Border States would soon join the Confederacy. . . . Ere
long the National Government will sink under the burden of a
debt to conquer us, which has assumed enormous proportions. We
have no floating debt ; one year of war has cost us only one hundred
and seventy million ; it has cost the North five hundred and twenty
million . . . We are strong and growing stronger ; we have seven
and a half million miles of territory ... To speak of subjugating
such a people is to speak a language incomprehensible to us." r
Referring to the subject of conscription, which General Lee had
urged, Davis approved and recommended it to Congress.
While the imperious southern President was thus running true
to form, adhering to his domestic and foreign policy without
* In the Library of Congress.
8 This speech was published and the plain Englishman protested against it
Diplomatic Correspondence, Part I, 314; Rhodes, IV, 390.
7 Rowland, V, 201, 203, 321 ; Schwab, 55.
ANTIETAM 211
change, Lincoln and Ms cabinet were preparing to reverse them-
selves. Immediately after the battle of Bull Run, it will be re-
membered, the National Congress passed a resolution that the
object of the war was the preservation of the Union and not inter-
ference with slavery. And this view Lincoln had often declared his
own ; upon it, indeed, the war had been waged for eighteen months
and the Border States encouraged to take sides with the Union.
But now the time had come, as Lincoln concluded, to make a
change. He had begun to sense the world movement for freedom
and was determined to identify the war with that movement. He
would put it up to England and France if they could afford to fight
for the preservation of slavery.
First, however, Lincoln determined to tackle the slavery problem
at home. On March 6, 1862, he sent a special message to Con-
gress, recommending that the United States agree to compensate
any state which would gradually emancipate its slaves. In this
message, he demonstrated that his plan would benefit not only the
slave owners but the National Government. He valued a slave at
four hundred dollars and he reached the conclusion that eighty-
seven days' cost of war would pay for every slave in Delaware,
Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and the District. Total number of
slaves therein 432,622 ; this number multiplied by 400 would give
173,048,000 dollars. Eighty-seven days 7 cost of war would be
174,000,000 dollars, leaving $951,200 to the good! 8 Lincoln's sug-
gestion was acted on by Congress and the measure was passed, but
no state took advantage of the offer. 9
Again, in April, 1862, Congress abolished slavery in the District
and on June 19, passed the most remarkable act of its entire his-
tory: Congress overruled the Scott case and abolished slavery in
the territories. Thus, by drastic and high-handed legislative enact-
ment, was solved the problem which had brought on the war, and
thus the legislative department overran the judicial.
While his Congress was occupied with this aspect of slavery,
Lincoln was engrossed with the greater subject of general emanci-
pation. As the Constitution protected slave property in the slave
states, he could not confiscate such property. Under his war
s Globe, 1102.
MacDonald, 449; 452,
212 ANTIETAM
powers, however, he proposed to free all slaves in the war zone. 10
A slave throwing up breastworks or driving a Confederate ammuni-
tion wagon was as much an enemy, so Lincoln concluded, as a sol-
dier with a gun. In the spicy language of the inimitable Ben
Butler, a captured slave was "contraband of war."
Early in the year 1862, Lincoln determined on his course and at
a cabinet meeting held some time later, laid his plans before his
official advisers. Seward objected, insisting it would be looked
upon as a cry of distress and would injure the North. "Wait till
we have won a victory," Seward cautioned. Lincoln consented and
put aside the Emancipation Proclamation for a suitable occa-
sion. This occasion, he discovered, in the battle of Antietam or
Sharpsburg.
After the battle of second Manassas, the demoralized Pope had
telegraphed his fears to Washington : his army was melting away
and Washington was likely to be captured. The terrified General
was removed and McClellan again called to take command and
save the country. Union troops with shouts of joy hailed the
return of their old chieftain. Meanwhile, Lee was planning an in-
vasion of Maryland ; he was going to "give her people a chance to
liberate themselves." Early in September, with sixty thousand
veteran soldiers, Lee began his march. Stonewall Jackson and
Longstreet were his lieutenants. In a few days, the city of Fred-
erick was reached, but no uprising took place. Western Maryland
was Union to the core. Harrisburg was Lee's objective and after
its capture, probably Philadelphia and Washington.
On September 10, Lee was forced to divide his army. Harpers
Ferry had not been evacuated by the enemy and was a menace ;
it must be taken. Jackson, with his corps, was therefore dis-
patched on this mission, and Lee temporarily lost his "right arm."
In the meantime, McClellan had set out from Washington and on
the thirteenth occupied Lee's old quarters at Frederick. There
fortune favored him a copy of an order of General Lee's entrusted
to D. H. Hill, disclosing the plan of campaign, was brought in. 11
McClellan thus became aware that Jackson was at Harpers Ferry
and Lee's army depleted. At that time, Lee was only a few miles
away. The jubilant McClellan determined to strike Lee, but
10 Stephens, II, Appendix relating to the Hampton Roads Conference.
11 Official Record, XIX t Pt II, 603.
ANTIETAM 213
moved too cautiously and slowly. Before McClellan's full attack,
the swift marching Jackson had swooped down on Harpers Ferry,
captured the town, taken twelve thousand five hundred prisoners
with much material of war, and was on his way to join his chief.
McClellan's advance had surprised the Confederate chieftain,
who at once took a strong position behind the Antietam Creek. On
September 16 and 17, 1862, the battle of the Antietam was fought
perhaps the bloodiest single day's fighting of the war. Fifty-five
thousand Confederates stood up against eighty-seven thousand
Federals. The Confederate loss was 11,172; the Federal, 12,410.
Though this battle was not a Union victory, it checked Lee's inva-
sion of Pennsylvania, and served Lincoln as the occasion for his
Emancipation Proclamation. From a civil and diplomatic point
of view, Antietam, therefore, must be classed among the most im-
portant battles of the four years' conflict.
Forthwith, Lincoln announced that he proposed to emancipate
the slaves on January i, 1863. In the meantime, he likewise noti-
fied each state that its slaves would be set free on that date, unless
it resumed its allegiance to the National Government. "I claim
not to have controlled events," said Lincoln, "but confess plainly
events have controlled me." Hope of foreign intervention dimin-
ished, and thereafter the North inscribed on its banner the in-
vincible phrase, "Union and Freedom." Soon the whole world was
ringing with Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation some praising,
others denouncing it. On the whole the war took on a new aspect.
Lincoln himself was greatly encouraged. Hereafter, he was known
as the Emancipator. A new song was put in the mouth of ex-
tremists men and women shouting the battle cry of freedom
"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."
Slowly but surely was coming to pass William Lloyd Garrison's
raw prophecy : YOUR COVENANT WITH DEATH SHALL BE ANNULLED
AND YOUR AGREEMENT WITH HELL SHALL NOT STAND !
In the South, the Emancipation Proclamation was regarded as
lawless and unconstitutional and as the culmination of the aggres-
sions of the anti-slavery party for thirty years. 12 President Davis,
however, looked deeper into the matter. He concluded that it
"would calm the fears of all who evinced the apprehension that this
war would end in a renewal of political relations with the United
12 Memoir, I, 217.
214 ANTIETAM
State. ... I have never shared those fears," he said, "and the
Proclamation now affords the fullest guarantee of the impossibility
of such result . . . Extermination of the slaves, exile of our white
population or absolute and total separation from the United States
must now follow." In a word, the Confederate President repeated
Ms old doctrine that the South must dominate the Government or
give up slavery. 18
President Lincoln's troubles were not solely in the open field;
there were secret enemies and those in the rear. In the North, a
peace party had grown up more dangerous to the Union than Lee
or Jackson. At the November, 1862, election, Lincoln was dis-
tressed to find his war policy in a measure repudiated. Illinois, his
own state, had sent twice as many Democrats and Copperheads to
Congress as Republicans. New York had gone Democratic. But
for the Border States there would have been a Democratic majority
or more than twenty in Congress. This majority was overcome
by the Border States. 14 Some master stroke must be made and at
once or the war would be ended at the polls Lee's army must be
crushed.
"On to Richmond," was heard again. The slow-moving but de-
pendable McClellan was removed, partly for political reasons, he
being a Democrat. Ambrose B, Burnside, hero of Roanoke Island,
was put in command. By November i, Burnside reached the Rap-
pahannock and would have crossed over and moved on Richmond,
but the pontoons were late. Lee, fearing the enemy would be on
him before he could concentrate, determined to fall back on the
South Anna. Ascertaining the cause of Burnside's delay, however,
Lee, with 78,000 men, fortified himself around Marye's Heights
at Fredericksburg and awaited attack. Lee chose the Rappahan-
nock rather than the South Anna because Davis directed him not to
retire more than he could help, hoping for English intervention if
he held his ground. 15
December 13, 1862, the battle of Fredericksburg was fought a
destructive blow to the Union. After crossing the Rappahannock
on pontoons and protected by a barrage, the Union troops rushed
up the railroad cut and attacked Marye's Heights. They were
* 8 Brown, 83. * Formby, 163.
14 Shotwell, II, 144.
ANTIETAM 215
pitilessly cut to pieces, the Union loss being 12,633, the Confed-
erate 5,377. At night, Burnside's army re-crossed the river and
took position on Stafford's Heights, overlooking Fredericksburg.
Next day, the impetuous Burnside would have renewed the attack,
but was dissuaded. Burnside was removed and on January 25
"Fighting Joe" Hooker succeeded him.
Hooker organized a force of 124,000 men; the Army of North-
ern Virginia was about half this number. The two armies, now
inactive, stood facing each other till the following April. Hooker
then determined to give battle. His plan was to feint an attack
down the Rappahannock while his main army would secretly march
up the stream to Kelly's Ford. There the army would cross, turn
Lee's left flank, and cut off retreat to Richmond. Unfortunately
for Hooker's flanking plans, he was playing at his enemies' game.
Early in May and at midnight, Lee and Jackson were seated on a
cracker box in the Wilderness conferring. "What do you propose,
General Jackson?" Lee asked. "That we turn the enemy's right,
Sir," Jackson replied. "That is also my idea, General," said Lee.
On May 30, 1863, the battle of Chancellorsville was fought.
Stonewall Jackson, by the most famous flanking movement of the
war, turned Hooker's right, commanded by General Schurz.
Hooker was badly defeated, losing 17,197 men. The Confederate
loss was i3,oi9. 16 Alas for the Confederate cause, Stonewall Jack-
son fell, and the South mourned as Rachel for her children. "God
Almighty made up His mind to whip us," sighed an enthusiastic
Southerner, "but He couldn't do it until He removed Stonewall
Jackson ! "
It was now the beginning of summer, and of the third year of
the war. The Confederacy had reached its height and unthinking
Southerners concluded that victory was sure. On the battlefield
southern armies had triumphed almost twice as often as their
enemy. Yet appearances were deceitful ; each day the South was
growing weaker and the North stronger. Foreign intervention
had not come, and the North had not divided. The blockade was
becoming effective, every seaport south of Cape Charles, except
the mouth of the Cape Fear, Charleston, and Mobile, was useless
to the South. 17 The man power of the South was diminishing,
railroads and public highways wearing out. Finances were awry,
i Henderson, II, 519. 1T Schwab, 236.
216 ANTIETAM
the condition of farms and homes deplorable. Pork, cornmeal, and
sorghum molasses were the staple food. 18 The people were war-
weary, but full of fight. Bickerings between the states and the
Richmond Government, and also between the officers, had arisen.
President Davis had an army of enemies in his own ranks. The
Mercury at Charleston and the Examiner at Richmond were assail-
ing him. But he was still strong with the people at large.
Though the Federal Government had failed in the East, it had
succeeded in the West and in its naval plans, and General Lee was
too clear sighted not to look below the surface. Lee anticipated
defeat as the inevitable result. Shortly after Chancellorsville,
therefore, he wrote President Davis advising a compromise. Lee
called attention to Confederate successes and suggested that the
opportune time to compromise had come. Delay might prove
fatal. In substance, he gave it as his opinion that an offer to
return to the Union should be made. This offer would no doubt
be rejected and that would strengthen southern morale. 19 Presi-
dent Davis declined to follow Lee's advice. "What plan of com-
promise is possible?" he significantly asked.
With a heavy heart, Lee went back to his task. He was now
at the parting of the ways. Should he intrench his army around
Richmond, remain idle and repel attack, or should he wage an
aggressive warfare? The former he could not do; delay meant
starvation, strangulation, defeat. Forward he must go, but
whither? Two courses were open the invasion of Maryland and
Pennsylvania, as in 1862, or the relief of General Pemberton at
Vicksburg. Which course should he pursue? Longstreet favored
the latter, and there were strong reasons behind Longstreet's advice.
The loss of Vicksburg and the Mississippi River meant the loss
of Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas, with their armies and with
supplies and granaries ; also the loss of goods smuggled over from
Mexico, But there were obstacles in the way of relieving Vicks-
burg. Richmond would be left exposed ; the wear and tear of re-
moving an army a thousand miles was great and railroad transpor-
tation poor. On the whole, Lee decided to advance into Mary-
land and Pennsylvania, and President Davis wisely sustained Lee.
But the polky the Confederate President had heretofore adopted
"Wilson, W., IV, 291.
19 Jones, J. W., Life of Lee, 24&--date June 10, 1863.
ANTIETAM 217
waging a piece-meal warfare foreboded disaster. Instead of a
mighty army of 200,000 men, Lee had a meager force of about
75,000. Southern governors were more alive to their own states
than to the Confederacy at large. Each state kept at home its
coast guard, its home guard, and large numbers of exempted men.
The Confederate Congress, moreover, had made this bad situation
worse by a measure derisively called, "the twenty nigger law":
the owner of twenty slaves was exempted from service. 20 This situ-
ation Lee was powerless to remedy. He had protested against it.
He had also written President Davis that the soldiers were on half
rations, their equipment scant, and transportation facilities bad.
He had urged the abandonment of outlying posts and the gathering
together of an efficient army of invasion.
General Lee had given it as his opinion that Richmond would be
safer, and so would other cities, if a great army was concentrated
and hurled at the enemy, than if smaller armies were scattered
throughout the South. Lee's advice had been disregarded by the
Davis Government, and the obedient soldier would do no more.
He would not press the matter. In 1861, the versatile Beauregard,
as we have seen, had given the same advice to Davis, complaining
of the lack of food, of equipment, and of transportation. Davis
had tartly replied to Beauregard and their relations had become
strained. The President declared that the General was a dreamer,
"drivelling on possibilities."
The policy of Davis undoubtedly should have been to press into
service the home guard, the coast guard, every man, every eighteen-
year-old boy, and to commandeer every mule, wagon, and cart, to
rush forward every available gun, every ounce of powder, and put
them at Lee's command. The turning point of the war was at hand
as went the Gettysburg campaign, would go the war.
Late in June, General Leep*with his inadequate army, reached
Chambersburg and Carlisle. He proposed to capture Harris-
burg and march on Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. As
he approached Harrisburg, citizens old and young, with shovel and
spade, turned out and worked night and day throwing up forti-
fications.
Since Chancellorsville, the Army of the Potomac had been racked
20 The reason for this measure was to permit the master to remain at home
and raise supplies for the army.
218 ANTIETAM
with dissension the politicians had military matters in charge.
A loud call for McClellan arose. Finally Hooker was removed,
and George G. Meade, the most level-headed officer that had yet
appeared in the East, took his place. Hooker's plan had been to
capture Richmond, exposed by Lee's march northward. The
politicians objected, however. They mistrusted Hooker and
would not suffer Washington to be exposed. "Swapping Queens,"
Lincoln called the probable capture of Richmond by the Fed-
erals and of Washington by the Confederates.
At Gettysburg, June 30, 1863, an accidental clash took place be-
tween some of General Heth's troops and those of General Rey-
nolds. The bulk of Lee's army was then further north. Lee
hastened at the sound of guns. So did Meade, then at Emmitsburg,
Maryland. On the next day and the next was fought the
decisive battle of Gettysburg the only battle of the war fought
outside a slave state. The battle was a Union victory, Meade
losing about 23,000 men and Lee about 28,ooo. 21
That Lee was right in giving battle seems undoubted. Time
meant everything to the Confederacy, and a fight must take place.
Confederate inaction meant defeat. Though Lee had followed
Longstreet's advice and retired from Gettysburg, thereby placing
his army between Meade and Washington, a battle had to be
fought somewhere, and Meade might have intrenched himself,
under these circumstances, as well as at Gettysburg. Further-
more, each day's march carried Lee's army further from its base.
Soon it would have encountered fierce opposition a hostile and
determined population, streams with bridges torn away, roads
obstructed, towns fortified. Moreover, an army, a third larger than
Lee's and vastly better equipped, was on his heels.
In our day Gettysburg is looked upon as the Waterloo of the
Confederacy, yet at the time it was Aot so considered. There was
much rejoicing at the North, but more over Grant's capture of
Vicksburg, which took place the same day. General Halleck,
greatly disappointed, wired Meade, "the escape of Lee's army
without another battle has created great distress in the mind of
the President." In fact, Meade was removed from command.
After waiting two days to be attacked, General Lee, July 5
and 6, marched his army back into Virginia* Shortly thereafter lie
21 Shotwell, II, 201.
ANTIETAM 219
tendered his resignation, which President Davis wisely refused to
accept. The regard of Lee for Davis and Davis for Lee remained
unchanged to the end. After Gettysburg, little fighting in the
East occurred until the following year.
On the western front, conditions were likewise gloomy for the
Confederacy. Grant, having received permission from Halleck to
attack Vicksburg, had been laying plans accordingly. 22 After a
vain attempt to change the course of a stream and to cut a canal,
Grant boldly marched on the west side of the river to a point
below Vicksburg. He then ordered Admiral Porter to come down
the Mississippi, defying the guns on Vicksburg's frowning heights.
Both movements were successful. The Union army was conveyed
across the river by Porter, 23 and, May 16, 1863, Grant attacked
Pemberton and defeated him in the battle of Champion Hill.
Pemberton retreated and shut himself up in Vicksburg. During
subsequent campaigns, Grant rode a fine horse, Jeff Davis, he got
from the Brierfield stables. 24
At that time Joseph E. Johnston was in command of 25,000
troops at Jackson, a few miles from Vicksburg, and was calling for
reinforcements. President Davis was urging Johnston to cooperate
with Pemberton and give battle to Grant. No doubt the wiser
course would have been to order Bragg from Tennessee to join
Pemberton and save Vicksburg. This, however, would have been
contrary to Davis's policy of protecting each state. It would have
meant the loss of Tennessee. Davis would not incur this risk and,
in an effort to save both states, lost both.
The two Confederate Generals could not agree on their plans.
Each urged the other to engage Grant and Sherman, and each
insisted he was not strong enough to do so. President Davis com-
plained of Johnston's inaction and employed sharp and bitter
words. Johnston replied in language fully as bitter that he had
not been sustained from Richmond and had not sufficient force.
After a siege of many weeks, accompanied by untold hunger and
suffering, Vicksburg surrendered on July 3, 1863, The fortress
of the West, its large guns, more than a hundred thousand small
arms, and thirty thousand prisoners fell into the hands of the Fed-
22 General Sherman had attacked Vicksburg and failed. Dodge, 99.
28 Grant, I, 480.
2* Woodward, 294.
220 ANTIETAM
erals. In Lincoln's wonderful words, "the Mississippi now flowed
unvexed to the sea."
After the defeat at Gettysburg and the fall of Vicksburg, the
war would have ended, had it been a war between nations and not
a civil war. In foreign countries these Union victories were de-
cisive. The two English ironclads which would have come to the
Confederacy in the event of a southern victory were now with-
held; England and France realized at last they could not justify
intervention in the American war. Roebuck's motion in the
House of Commons to recognize the Confederacy was withdrawn.
Secretary of State Benjamin ordered Ambassador Mason to return
home and Jefferson Davis expressed his idea of the pusillanimity
and treachery of the English and French. He seemed, indeed,
without foreign sympathy, except from the Pope of Rome.
At this time, the hearts of many Confederates failed them. They
were war-weary. Not so President Davis; he had not begun to
fight. He determined to reinforce Bragg's army in Tennessee and
to crush Rosecrans Bragg, an old West Pointer, being Davis's
weak spot. Johnston's troops were sent over, Buckner of Ken-
tucky, with his army joined Bragg, and so did Longstreet, travel-
ling a thousand miles. The Federals were egually active ; Sherman
and Thomas hurried to the aid of Rosecrans ; Knoxville was taken.
Sixteen thousand of Meade's troops augmented Rosecrans's force.
Chattanooga was headquarters.
Bragg was slow to attack, but on September 18, 1863, Long-
street, practically in command, forced a fight on the field of Chica-
mauga, a few miles from Chattanooga, and won a decided victory.
Had not Thomas, "The Rock of Chicamauga," held on and re-
pulsed Forrest and Preston and Cleburn, the Federal army would
have broken into a panic. Yet the Confederates, who scaled Snod-
grass Hill that day and whose wounded dyed Widow Hunt's mill
pond red with blood, left 20,000 of their number on the field. The
Union army lost 16,000, but it also lost the battle. Before the
fight ended, Rosecrans incontinently fled into Chattanooga, 25 and
Ms fame went into eclipse. Bragg was soon to suffer the same fate
as Rosecrans when many of his officers signed a round robin, urging
his recall. 20
25 Eckenrode, 247.
28 D. H. Hill was the leader in this niovement and ^as removed by Davis.
ANTIETAM 221
Rosecrans was removed and Grant succeeded Mm: Grant, the
man of steady nerves, who never knew when to turn Ioose 9 who
often got drunk but was never defeated : Hero of Henry, of Don-
elson, and of Vicksburg, "Unconditional Surrender" Grant! . . .
"I wish I knew the brand of liquor Grant drinks," said Lincoln to
a grouchy fellow complaining of Grant's habits, "I would like to
furnish a little of it to my other Generals 1 "
Grant hastened to Chattanooga. In the beleaguered city for
weeks he sat, cigar in mouth, gazing at the mountains round about,
listening to the enemy's bugle-call above, to the sound of taps
planning a way to extricate the army from its peril.
One day in September, President Davis arrived on Lookout
Mountain. He had come to patch up the trouble between Bragg
and Longstreet the latter sustained by the men and officers.
He expressed himself as delighted with the situation. Why a bird
could scarcely escape from the position of Grant's army! But lie
was not successful in adjusting the difficulties between Bragg and
Longstreet. In truth, Bragg was an inferior General. "He waited
till good opportunities to fight had passed and then in desperation
seized upon the least favorable one." 2T
Despite Bragg's unnopularity and the lack of confidence of his
men, Davis retained him in command and dispatched Longstreet
with 16,000 troops to East Tennessee a grievous error throughout.
From Tennessee, Davis crossed over into Mississippi and South
Carolina. Everywhere he urged the "non-scripts to come forward
and do garrison duty, thereby relieving recruits for the army."
But he made little impression he was too late. Two years before
he should have assumed the role of Dictator; at that time he
ought to have commanded and forced non-scripts and conscripts
to come forward and do duty at the front with Lee, Bragg, and
Johnston. In Charleston Davis's speech was so violent as to
offend Stephens, his Vice-President, still hoping for peace.
Grant's plans were finally matured. On November 23, 1863,
all was ready. The Federal armies, commanded by Grant, Sher-
man, Sheridan, and Thomas, having constructed rafts and pon-
toons, crossed the Tennessee River. A simultaneous night attack
in front and in rear was made. Missionary Ridge was scaled and
several battles were fought known as the Battle of Chattanooga.
27 O. R. Series I, 52, Pt II, Sup. 560.
222 ANTIETAM
Hooker and Sherman did valuable work. The badly routed Con-
federates fled, jeering Bragg as they ran. In the midst of the
rout, Bragg, really a gallant officer, galloped to the front waving
his sword and shouting, "Soldiers, here's your General!" "And
here's your mule!" the fleeing soldiers jeered. 28 Grant, the Na-
tion's hero, was called to Washington and made Commander-in-
Chief of all the Union forces. And the only real Thanksgiving
the North had had in four years was this November 25, 1863, when
the West was lost to the Confederacy.
Reluctantly, President Davis removed Bragg and promoted Gen-
eral Hardee, without a word of notice to Johnston, who was
Hardee's superior. Hardee declined. On December 16 popular
clamor forced the President to assign Johnston to Bragg's vacant
post. But even so, Bragg was called to Richmond as military
adviser to the President 1 Thus was ending the third year of the
war. In this time, by a winnowing process, lesser men had sunk
beneath the wave, and only two great soldiers survived Lee and
Grant. Lee, who did not believe in slavery and had freed his
slaves, was fighting the battles of slavery; Grant, who believed
in slavery and owned slaves, was fighting the battles of freedom. 29
At Richmond, President Davis was passing into eclipse; the
defeat at Missionary Ridge and the utter demoralization that fol-
lowed were straws that broke the camel's back. Davis's quarrels
with the dependable Johnston and the dashing Beauregard were
likewise recalled, his favoritism to Benjamin, Pemberton, and
Bragg, to Northrop and to Winder. And now Bragg was his mili-
tary adviser, more influential than Seddon, Secretary of War, or
Lee, or Benjamin! 80
28 Ecce tibi Sebosus! Cicero, Ad Atticum, 15.
29 Mrs. Grant owned three slaves. Woodward, 125.
ao Mrs. Davis had urged Bragg's removal as commander in the West.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE THIN GRAY LINE
One by one the plans of President Davis were going awry ; Eng-
land and France had all but abandoned the Confederacy and the
North had not become divided. One hope only remained; the
peace party might yet prevail. Possibly war weariness would
cause the election of a President and a Congress which would cut
off supplies and end the war. Ill-treatment of McClellan had
embittered that proud General and his name was coupled with the
leadership of Democracy and of Copperheadism.
In both North and South conscript laws had been passed which
proved highly unsatisfactory. In 1862, the Confederate Congress
had conscripted able-bodied men from eighteen to forty-five.
Forthwith, Vice-President Stephens, Governor Brown, and R. B.
Rhett opened up, declaring the conscript law destructive of the
very foundation stone of the Confederacy. What had become of
state rights if South Carolina and Georgia might be ordered about
by the tyrannical Davis? The "twenty nigger law" embittered
poor whites. The Sentinel of Raleigh dubbed the war a rich man's
war and a poor man's fight. 1
Southern courts, on writs of habeas corpus, released conscripted
men upon the flimsiest excuse or upon none at all. Thousands
avoided service under exemptions mail clerks, teachers, preach-
ers, office-holders, millers. The result was that the southern army
was composed mostly of brave, loyal spirits, too proud not to
fight. 2
The northern conscript act of March 3, 1863, was equally un-
popular. One provision of this measure authorized the payment
of three hundred dollars in lieu of military service a monstrous
provision, quite as unwise as the twenty-negro exemption. The
writ of habeas corpus was suspended, and the poorer classes in
1 Schwab, 187.
2 Richardson, I, 395.
223
224 THE THIN GRAY LINE
New York and other cities were enraged. 3 In July, 1863, when
the draft was put in force in New York, a riot ensued. Many Dem-
ocrats proclaimed the law unconstitutional; foreigners, the Irish
in particular, resisted conscription. Negroes, being the cause of
the trouble, were shot down and killed without mercy. After four
days of rioting, the mob was dispersed. A thousand people had
been killed and a million and a half dollars of property destroyed. 4
Despite setbacks, the northern steam roller continued to oper-
ate. Stanton, the iron War Secretary, was conducting his depart-
ment with efficiency and with a despot's rod; Seward, Lincoln's
chief adviser, Wells of the navy, and Chase, Secretary of the
Treasury, were straining every nerve to create the machinery neces-
sary to save the life of the nation at war. Attorney-General Speed
was bending the Constitution to the breaking point. Millions were
borrowed abroad on Government bonds; paper money was made
legal tender. 5 Warships were being bought and built, roads con-
structed, arms and munitions gathered together, clothing and food
provided.
How could the impoverished agricultural and slave-ridden South
stand against this organized machine? "War is business, not sen-
timent," Secretary Toombs had said to Davis and it was even
so. Though mighty deeds of valor were enacted in the land of
Dixie, what availed they? Mosby, the Confederate guerilla, with
three hundred men at Berryville, might swoop down on Sheridan's
provision train, escorted by two thousand troops, and capture the
entire outfit, going away with six hundred prisoners, thousands
of beef cattle, and horses ; Forrest, the Dare Devil, with a price
on his head, might gallop his steed at midnight into the hotel,
headquarters of the Federals, at Memphis, surprising and over-
powering them ; John H. Morgan, the Raider, might terrify Ken-
tucky and Missouri in spectacular onslaughts, while Stuart and
Early were circling around the Union army and the Capital city
itself but what of all this?
One efficient machine gun, one well equipped battleship, operat-
ing along scientific lines, was worth a thousand raids. In this, the
last year of the war, the two industrial systems the agricultural
MacDonald, 459, Ibid., 446.
* Rhodes, V, 329.
THE THIN GRAY LINE 225
system of the South and the manufacturing of the North were
at close range and in deadly grips. In the 1850*5, Congressman
Yancey had boasted of his ideals, unwittingly foretelling their
failure. "In Washington," said Yancey, "there are two temples:
one for the South, the other for the North. To the South state-
craftthe Capital is supreme ; to the North, the Patent Office." 6
And Yancey was undoubtedly right: sentiment ruled the South;
business the North. As the war dragged itself along, Yancey's
observation was fully exemplified. The inventive, industrial,
methodical Yankee was winning out, despite war weariness at
home mothers, widows, and orphans weeping for their dead, and
gold bringing 285.
On March 10, 1864, Grant became Commander-in-Chief of the
Union forces and assigned W. T. Sherman to the command of the
West. The objective of Grant was Richmond; of Sherman, At-
lanta. On May 3, Grant crossed the Rapidan and began, his ham-
mering process. "On to Richmond," was the cry as in 1862 and
'63. Before Robert E. Lee, the best tactician and strategist in
either army, McClellan, Pope, Burnside, and Hooker had fallen;
Meade had been fought to a standstill. How would Grant fare?
Lee determined to stop Grant, though he had only about one-half
the number of troops. He, therefore, concentrated his forces in
the Wilderness, a dense thicket beyond the Rapidan, and in a two
days' fight destroyed 17,666 of Grant's army, his own loss being
comparatively light.
A week later, Grant again attacked he was going to "fight it
out along that line if it took all summer." His brave soldiers
almost mutinied ; the slaughter seemed so utterly useless. Grant's
conduct was now indeed little short of rashness ; some of his best
officers thought it "the very abdication of leadership." The gal-
lant Generals, Wardsworth, and Sedgwick, were killed, many of
the bravest of the brave fell. Lee had so out-generaled Grant, the
Union batteries were useless and Grant's army placed at a dis-
advantage.
On May 22, Grant crossed the South Anna and made the mistake
of dividing his axmies. Lee rushed his troops between Grant's
two wings, "completely check-mating Grant." 7 At this time, Gen-
eral Butler, under Grant's orders, with thousands of troops, ap-
Brown, 87. 7 Nicolay and Hay, VIII, 389.
226 THE THIN GRAY LINE
preached Richmond from the Peninsula, and might have taken
the unguarded city, had he been competent. Butler was fright-
ened away by Beauregard's army a miscellaneous group hastily
collected from here and there. Indignantly, Grant made a report
to Washington that Butler had let his army "get bottled up." 8
Grant's army was now fighting on the old battlefields around
Richmond, where McClellan had fought two years before, and
almost in sight of the spires of the Confederate Capital. Dog-
gedly Grant stood, resolved to take the city regardless of human
life. He had no idea of backing out and suffering the fate of the
predecessors. But Lee's well constructed breastworks at Cold
Harbor confronted him. Grant ordered a charge. Forward, the
brave Union soldiers moved and were mowed down like wheat be-
fore the sickle. In an incredibly short time, Grant lost 7,000 men,
admitting he had gained no advantage by the attack, 9 and suffering
greatly as a military leader.
On June 12, Grant abandoned the attempt to capture Rich-
mond from the north and skilfully crossed the James River to
take Petersburg and move thence on to Richmond. 10 Grant's
failure to destroy Lee greatly perplexed President Lincoln. After
the fiercest six weeks' fighting of the war, Grant was no nearer
Richmond than McClellan had been in 1862, or Pope, or Hooker,
Burnside, and Meade, in 1863. Opposition to the war again broke
out, business interests were alarmed, and gold rose to great heights.
. . . The election of McClellan to the Presidency seemed certain.
The removal of Grant was freely discussed and Sherman spoken
of as his successor. Grant wrote Sherman he would gladly serve
as his lieutenant if the change was made. 11
Critics attach blame to Lee for permitting Grant to cross the
James unopposed. But Lee's exhausted army, weary and poorly
provisioned, was in no condition to change base and renew the
attack. How indeed was greater resistance possible? Lee's brave
boys were ragged and hungry. "In one regiment only fifty men
had serviceable shoes four hundred in one division were bare-
foot, and one thousand without a blanket their daily rations a
8 Page, 426.
Grant, II, 276.
* Shotwell, II, 255.
" Rhodes discovers no evidence of this. Rhodes, V, 506; Sherman, II, 307.
THE THIN GRAY LINE 227
quarter of a pound of salt meat and a handful of parched corn. 5 *
The Wilderness campaign was undoubtedly the culmination of
Lee's military career; its very capstone. "Mars' Robert," as his
men lovingly called the General, had not only planned a campaign ;
he had executed it. 12
At Spottsylvania, when Longstreet was shot down and the troops
wavered for a moment, Lee put spurs to his gray horse. Traveler,
and hastened to the front. From a hundred throats came the cry,
"Lee to the rearl" so dearly did his soldiers love the man. For
six long weeks they stood up under the hammering of Grant's
brave men. This too when other battle fronts were lost, when
ultimate defeat was certain. Nevertheless, in a few weeks, Lee
gathered himself together again and confronted Grant, dispatching
his cavalry leader, Early, into the Valley. Early swept the Valley
of the Federals, and on and on he rushed, almost capturing Wash-
ington. . . . 1S
As the proud Confederate President heard the roar of Grant's
guns, he realized that defeat stared him in the face. Yet he
neither wavered nor blanched. Others might yield; he never
would. His position in Richmond, however, was unsatisfactory.
He had played the game, played it his own way and had lost, and
was now the scapegoat of a thousand enemies. From the begin-
ning he had declined to take part in public functions or to partici-
pate in public entertaining, and such exclusiveness had made him
disliked. He could not entertain and administer the govern-
ment at the same time, he said. Moreover, as Mrs. Davis states,
when the President gave an entertainment, "the death of a rela-
tive or disaster to the Confederacy would be announced, destroy-
ing all pleasure,"
The President, "a nervous dyspeptic, could not eat under ex-
citement, without becoming ill for days." Naturally such frugality
and seclusion provoked criticism. The Examiner "sent forth a wail
of regret over the parsimony of the administration ; the President
was getting rich on his savings ; he was putting on airs and assum-
ing the superior dignity of a satrap." 14:
12 The author's favorite uncle, Col. F. W. Byrd, was killed in this cam-
paign.
18 Memoir, II, 161.
14 Ibid., 161; Harrison, 127.
228 THE THIN GRAY LINE
Almost from the first, the President had had trouble with Con-
gress and with Secretary Toombs ; few indeed were those agreeing
with him and sustaining him. Toombs, Yancey, and Rhett broke
with the President and censured his waiting policy, and
