During this time the Western army suffered one disaster after another in such rapid succession that the warmest friends of the Confederacy began to despair of its future. Thoroughly alarmed. President Davis overcame his animosity sufficiently to send General Johnston to the rescue, but instead of giving him full authority over one or both of the armies he designated him as the commander of a geographical department with little more than the power usually invested in an inspector general.
Bragg, the most unfortunate of all the Southern generals, commanded in Tennessee, where he was out-generaled and defeated at Murfreesboro when he held all of the winning cards in his own hands. His blundersupon that field so enraged his officers that they were almost in revolt against him. However, in his fidelity to his old friend and comrade, Mr. Davis failed to discover what was evident to every intelligent lieutenant in the army, and Bragg was continued in command to perpetrate other blunders still more costly and unpardonable.
The Southern corps of the Western army was still worse handled. The Mississippi River, after the fall of New Orleans and Memphis, was of little or no use to the Confederacy, but Mr. Davis conceived the idea that it must be defended although that course, necessarily would weaken Bragg and render success impossible to either corps.
To the command of the Southern corps, Mr. Davis appointed General Pemberton, a theoretical soldier who it was alleged had never witnessed any considerable engagement. However this may be, his conduct fully sustainedthe allegation, for, from start to finish, he seems to have been mystified by the tactics of Grant and Sherman, and after a series of marches and countermarches in which he lost much and gained nothing he fell back on Vicksburg, perhaps the most indefensible city in America, and prepared to sustain a siege, the outcome of which could not be doubtful for a moment.
On the Field of Cold Harbor Today
Being safely driven into a position from which there was but one line of retreat, Pemberton appealed to the President for aid, and General Johnston was instructed to furnish it. His soldierly mind saw at a glance that the proper thing to do was to abandon Vicksburg, and he accordingly ordered Pemberton to do so. That officer protested and appealed to Mr. Davis, who sustained him and notified Johnston that under no circumstances must Vicksburg be abandoned. That decision sealed the fate of Pemberton’s army, and on the day General Grant invested it he telegraphed toWashington that its fall was only a question of time. How that prediction was verified by the surrender of Pemberton’s army of 30,000 men, thus leaving Grant and Sherman free to double back on Bragg, are too well known to need any discussion at this time. All thinking men realized that it sealed the doom of the Confederacy unless the Northern campaign of General Lee should prove successful.
The conception of the Gettysburg campaign has been properly attributed to Mr. Davis, but much of the criticism that it has evoked is unfair being based upon a misconception of the object sought to be attained. If one will consider the moral effect that the victory of Chancellorsville produced throughout the North, that many influential leaders and a large part of the press openly declared that another such calamity must be followed by the recognition of the Confederacy, the idea of this Northern campaign, it must be conceded, was founded upon sound military principles. Military critics are very generally agreed that Gettysburg would have been a Confederate instead of a Union victory had the Southern troops occupied Little Round Top on the evening ofthe first day. That they did not is a fortuitous circumstance, which can militate nothing against the soundness of the idea involved in the campaign, while the fact that a victory so great as to have been decisive lay within easy grasp of the Confederates would seem to amply justify the hazard on the part of President Davis.
The last reasonable hope of success was over when Lee retreated from Pennsylvania, but if Mr. Davis recognized that fact he gave no indication of it. On the other hand, adversity had begun to develop that real strength of character which a little later was destined to win the respect of his enemies and the admiration of the rest of the world.
Confederate finances had now sunk to so low an ebb that a collapse seemed inevitable. Congress passed one futile piece of legislation after another, each worse than its predecessor, and matters went from bad to worse with startlingrapidity. Mr. Davis was not a financier, but he brought forward a plan which, while it laid perhaps the heaviest burden of taxation ever placed upon a people, nevertheless served for a time to stem the fast rising tide of national bankruptcy.
About the same time, deeply impressed with the suffering of Federal prisoners caused by the cruel policy of refusing exchanges, he attempted to send Vice-President Stephens to Washington to negotiate a general cartel with President Lincoln, but Stephens was allowed to proceed no farther than Fortress Monroe, and nothing came of the mission which was conceived by Mr. Davis purely in the interest of humanity.
As the fall drew on, Bragg was being pressed steadily back by an overwhelming force under Rosecrans, and it became apparent that another disaster was impending over the Confederacy. To avert it President Davis hurriedLongstreet’s corps forward as reinforcements, a policy the soundness of which was demonstrated a little later by the great victory of Chickamauga.
But again Bragg failed to measure up to the situation, and instead of capturing or destroying his antagonist, which a prompt pursuit must have insured, he actually refused to understand that he had won a victory until its fruits were beyond his reach. Not even that costly piece of stupidity could quite shake the confidence of the President in his old friend, and it was not until Bragg had insured and received his own disastrous defeat at Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain, by sending Longstreet’s whole corps away on a wild-goose chase against Knoxville, that his resignation was accepted; and even then he was taken to Richmond and duly installed as the military adviser of the Chief Executive.
The Battle of the Crater
The fortunes of the Confederacy were now at a low ebb. The Western army was demoralized and so hopeless seemed the task of reorganization that one general after another refused to undertake it, until in his dilemma the President turned once more to General Johnston. That splendid soldier, forgetting past injuries, accepted the command and soon succeeded in creating an army whose very existence infused new courage throughout the Confederacy. In the meantime, Mr. Davis’ resolution rose superior over the reverses that were everywhere overwhelming his government, and our admiration for the man vastly increases as we see him steering, wisely now, his foundering nation into that dark year 1864, destined to reveal to us a great man growing greater, better and more lovable under the heavy accumulation of terrible misfortune.
The world has never witnessed a more sublime spectacle than that presented by the Southern people at the beginning of 1864. The finances of the government had gone from bad to worse until it required a bursting purse to purchase a dinner. Or, rather it would have done so had the dinner been procurable at all, which in most cases it was not. Gaunt famine stalked through a desolate land scarred by the remains of destroyed homes and drenched in the blood of its best manhood. Scarcely a home had escaped the besom of death and destruction, and, on the lordly domains where once a prodigal and princely hospitality had been daily dispensed, children cried in vain for the bread that the broken-hearted mother could no longer give. Thatsuch terrific desolation should have failed to force submission is almost beyond understanding, but it produced exactly the opposite result.
Delicately nurtured women, reared in ease and luxury, cheerfully chose to starve in thread-bare garments while they sent their silver and jewels to the government to enable it to continue the struggle. They bade their husbands and sons and brothers to remain at the front and never sheathe their swords unless in an honorable peace; and forthwith the stripling of tender years and the gray-bearded grandsire, bowed with the infirmities of time, went forth to perform prodigies of valor upon the last sanguinary fields of the dying Confederacy.
The President of the Confederacy was too wise a man not to realize the significance of the situation at that time. He fully realized the awful suffering of his people. He saw his armies driven from the West, thelines of the Confederacy daily contracting. He saw the last hope of foreign intervention die and he witnessed the birth, even in the government, of a strong spirit of hostility to himself. What this must have meant to a man of his sensitive, kindly nature we may readily guess, but to the world his attitude was most admirable. Calm, resolute, majestic he stood at the helm, steering the foundering craft of state through the last storm as steadily, as resolutely as though he knew a haven of safety instead of destruction to lie just beyond.
Mr. and Mrs. Davis in 1863
Early in 1864 it became apparent that such an effort as had never been made before to crush the Confederacy was impending. General Grant was transferred to the East, and early in the spring with a magnificent army of 162,000 began his advance upon Richmond. The great Confederate chieftain, Lee, with a force one-third as great confronted him, and then began that mighty duel which mustalways remain the wonder and admiration of the world. In the Wilderness Lee struck a staggering blow, which halted the advance and doubled up the Federal army. Grant announced that he proposed to fight it out on that line if it took all summer, straightened his lines and began the campaign, which one may more readily understand if he will imagine some Titan armed with a ponderous hammer, confronting a wily, agile antagonist, who must rely upon a rapier sharp, indeed, but slender to a dangerous degree. Incessantly through those spring days the forests rang with the clamor of blows. At Culpepper and Spottsylvania and North Anna the hammer fell and was parried by the rapier, Grant always moving by the flank and seeking to out-maneuver his antagonist and always failing to do so. By June, the two armies in their side-stepping tactics had reached Cold Harbor, where Grant in a great frontal attack lost 13,000 men ina few moments, which must have convinced him that it would take longer than all summer to fight it out on that line, as he then and there abandoned it and adopted a new one. In three months he had lost 150,000 men and was not so near Richmond as McClellan had been in 1862.
In the meantime that campaign which was destined to place Sherman and Johnston in the very front rank of the world’s great commanders, was in progress. Both were masters of military strategy and each fully appreciated the ability of the other. Sherman ever seeking to draw Johnston into a pitched battle was constantly thwarted. At Dalton, Resaca and Marietta Johnston delivered hard blows, falling back before his antagonist could use his superior numbers to any advantage.
By this means he reached Atlanta with a larger army than he had in the beginning of the campaign, while that of Sherman had decreased from one hundred to little more than fifty thousand. Johnston’s tactics of wearing out the enemy by drawing him through ahostile country away from his base of supplies is now admitted by military critics to have been a piece of masterly strategy. It is also generally conceded that Sherman could not have captured Atlanta by siege with three times his force. But although Johnston had repulsed every assault upon his works and was daily growing stronger, President Davis was greatly displeased with this defensive policy and constantly importuned him to give battle. This Johnston refused to do and was relieved of the command by the President, who appointed General Hood, whom he declared “would at least deliver one manly blow for the South.”
In so far as the delivery of the blow was concerned he was destined not to be disappointed, but very greatly so in the result.
The Davis Children in 1863
The very day that he took command, Hood, a brave, impetuous man of slight ability and poor judgment, left his works, furiouslyassaulted Sherman, and was promptly cut to pieces. The Confederate army was practically annihilated, and the fall of Atlanta made certain the success of that famous march to the sea which alone would have doomed the Confederacy.
General Johnston, too great to cherish resentment, once more yielded to the appeals of the President and took command of the shattered army. But the time had passed when he might have accomplished any substantial results and henceforth even his genius could not serve to postpone the end.
In the meantime, amidst these disasters and the gloomy forebodings that were settling over the South, Mr. Davis did not forget the sufferings of the army of captives that languished in Southern prisons. Time and again he had sought to establish a cartel for the exchange of all prisoners but it had never been faithfully observed by the Federal government, and at last General Grant had refused to exchange upon any terms, declaring that to do so would ensue the defeat of Sherman’s army. The result was that the Southern prisons were rapidly filled, and as supplies and medicines failed, the sufferings in some places, notably Andersonville, became intense. The prisoners were placed upon the same rations as the Confederate soldiers, but they had never been used tosuch fare and it meant starvation to them. The ravages of malaria among them was appalling, and yet as the Federal government had made quinine contraband of war not an ounce of it could be procured for their use.
Mr. Davis, whose strongest trait of character was gentleness and humanity, felt keenly this state of affairs, and sought by every power at his command to ameliorate it. When the proposition to exchange was rejected, he asked that medicines and supplies be sent for the exclusive use of Northern prisoners. When that was refused, he asked that doctors and nurses be furnished from the Federal army. That also failing, and the condition of the sufferers at Andersonville growing worse he finally offered to liberate them provided the government would take them out of the South—a proposition which was not accepted until after many months of useless delay which cost thousands of lives.
The Famous Libby Prison as It Appeared at the Close of the War
Thus it will be seen how baseless was that calumny which yet survives in some quarters that Jefferson Davis was responsible for the sufferings of those poor unfortunates who in reality were sacrificed by an indifferent government, which feared to recruit the ranks of the Confederate army by the exchange of prisoners although such a course was dictated by the laws of civilized warfare no less than by motives of humanity. In reality Mr. Davis did far more than required by the laws of nations, and the verdict of history not only acquits him of any share in that great iniquity, but places him in marked contrast to his antagonists who chose to sacrifice their soldiers rather than jeopardize the prospects of an early final victory.
The brilliant victory of Colquitt at Ocean Pond, of Forest at Fort Pillow, and other minor successes gained by the Confederate leaders added scarcely a transient ray of hope. Clouds of smoke by day, a pillar of fire bynight, marked the advance of Sherman through Georgia. The most fruitful region of the South was left a charred and desolate ruin. Tilly, the Duke of Alva, nor Wallenstein ever left destruction so complete and irremediable as that which marked the path of that great soldier who declared war was hell and fully lived up to that harsh conviction.
After the fall of Savannah, the blue legions now irresistible, turned northward, and it became apparent that the vitals of the Confederacy lay between the two huge iron jaws of Grant’s and Sherman’s armies which were closing with a steady force that nothing could resist.
Day and night Grant rained his mighty sledge-hammer blows upon the defenses of the devoted capital, which Lee met and parried with the skill of consummate military genius. But the blade of the rapier was growing thinner and the time must come when it would break. Holding works forty miles in length with lessthan a thousand soldiers to the mile, he inflicted repulse after repulse until the Southern people came to regard him as invincible.
Even Mr. Davis, who was now almost constantly with his great Captain, seems to have shared the delusion, and despite his warnings that the end must soon come delayed his departure from Richmond.
At last on Sunday, April 2, 1865, a courier entered old St. John’s in the midst of services and handed the President a telegram. It was General Lee’s notice that he could no longer hold his lines. Mr. Davis quietly left the church, but all understood and soon a panic reigned in the quiet old city. This was increased by the terrific explosions that came from the river and arsenals where warships and military supplies were being destroyed. That night the fires from burning warehouses lighted the train that bore out of the doomed city the President and hiscabinet and the archives of the fugitive government. Whether from the sparks of the burning arsenals or from the torches of incendiaries will never be known, but that night a fierce conflagration swept over the city, and when in the gray dawn of the next morning General Godfrey Weitzel’s cavalry rode through the smoldering streets and raised the stars and stripes over Virginia’s ancient and the Confederates’ recent capital, it floated over a scene of desolation only a little less complete than Napoleon beheld when he looked for the last time from the ancient Krimlin upon destroyed Moscow.
History has fully recorded the last scenes of the heroic effort of the peerless Lee to fall back upon Danville and effect a junction with General Johnston and it is unnecessary here to relate how surrounded by overwhelming numbers and reduced to starvation he finally at Appomattox surrendered the remaining 7,500 of that superb army which, without doubt, had been the most magnificent fighting machine in the world’s history.
In the meantime the fugitive government reached Danville in a pouring rain. There were no accommodations for the officials, no place to install the executive machinery. General Breckenridge, sitting upon a camp stool in front of the damp dingy little station, studied a map and drew the lines along whichJohnston and Lee should advance. The Secretary of State, reclining upon a knapsack, talked hopefully of the recognition that was certain to arrive from England and France in a few days. Mr. Reagan chewed a straw and said nothing. It was a dull day in the department of justice, and the Attorney-General paced the platform and looked thoughtfully toward Canada. At last it was decided to begin work and the clerks seated themselves around tables in the cars, and the government was soon once more issuing all kinds of orders. Mr. Davis, calm and tranquil as usual, had made up his mind never to surrender as long as resistance was possible unless he could secure favorable terms for his people. For himself he asked nothing, but he believed it his duty to continue the struggle until the fundamental principles of a free people should be secured for the South. This he did not doubt could be accomplished by the junction of Leeand Johnston. It was, of course, a great blow to his hopes when the news of Lee’s surrender reached him, but he belonged to that rare type of man whose courage and resolution grow stronger in the face of adversity. His only hope now lay in Johnston’s army, but with it he declared the South could conquer an honorable peace against the world in arms.
The Surrender of Lee
With this idea in view the wandering government moved on to Greensboro. There, the President was informed by General Johnston of the utter hopelessness of longer continuing the struggle. That the old veteran was right now admits of no doubt, but Mr. Davis combated the idea most vigorously. Johnston assured him that while a surrender was a matter of days in any event that Sherman would sign an agreement guaranteeing the political rights of the people in the subjugated states. This Mr. Davis rightfully believed the Federal government would repudiate, but left hisgeneral full discretion in the matter, moving on southward, intending to cross the Mississippi, join the army of Kirby Smith and continue the war in Texas.
Just as he was leaving Greensboro he received the news of President Lincoln’s assassination. None who ever really knew Mr. Davis can doubt what his feelings were upon that occasion. General Reagan, who was with him, says his face expressed surprise and horror in the most unmistakable manner. “It is too bad, it is shocking, it is horrible!” he declared, and then after a moment’s reflection added, “This is bad for the South. Mr. Lincoln understood us and at least was not an ungenerous foe.”
That very morning the little daughter of his host came running in and in wide-eyed terror said that some one had told her that “Old Lincoln was coming to kill everybody.” Mr. Davis, taking her upon his knees, saidsoothingly: “You are wrong, my dear, Mr. Lincoln is not a bad man. He would not willingly harm any one, and he dearly loves little girls like you.” These incidents, trivial enough in themselves, are nevertheless interesting as indices of Jefferson Davis’ opinion of Mr. Lincoln.
Proceeding to Charlotte, Mr. Davis there learned of the surrender of General Johnston. Determining to make his way to Texas he decided to take a southerly route which he hoped to find free from Federal troops. A cavalry force of about two thousand accompanied him as far as the Savannah River, but there discovering General Wilson’s brigade to be in the country in front it was deemed advisable for the force to disband and Mr. Davis, with Burton Harrison, his secretary, and a few others to go forward in the hope of escaping discovery.
At Irwinsville, Ga., he learned that his family, which was also proceeding westward, was but a few miles away and he was advised that the country was filled withmarauders who were rifling and robbing all strangers whose appearance indicated the possession of valuables. This information, coupled with the story that Mrs. Davis’ party was believed to possess a valuable treasure, so alarmed Mr. Davis for the safety of his family that he resolved to join it at all hazards. This resolution cost him his liberty.
Perhaps no event of history has ever been so grossly and malignantly misrepresented as the capture of Jefferson Davis. At the time an absurd story was published along with a cartoon in even so respectable a paper asHarper’s Weekly, which represented Mr. Davis at the time of his capture arrayed in shawl, bonnet and hoop-skirts, and, strange as it may seem, this ridiculous screed is still accepted by thousands of intelligent people as correct history. The true facts of the case, as learned from Mr. Davis and corroborated by both General Wilson and Mr. Burton Harrison, are as follows:
Richmond as Gen. Weitzel Entered It
The Confederate President reached the spot where his wife’s party had pitched its tent after nightfall. During the evening it was decided that, to avoid discovery, he would leave the party on the following day and thenceforward would proceed westward alone. About daylight the travelers were awakened by firing across a nearby stream, and Mr. Davis thinking it an attack from marauders remarked to his wife that he hoped he still had enough influence with the Southern people to prevent her robbery and stepped out of the tent. Almost immediately he returned saying it was not marauders but Federal soldiers. Mrs. Davis, frantic with fright, begged him to fly. In the darkness of the tent he picked up a light rain coat, which he supposed to be his own but which belonged to his wife, and she threw a shawl around his shoulders. His horse stood saddled by the roadside and he ran toward it, but before he could reach it a trooperinterposed and with leveled carbine bade him surrender. Intending to place his hand under the foot of the soldier and topple him out of the saddle he gave a defiant answer and rushed forward. Mrs. Davis, however, now interposed and Mr. Davis seeing the opportunity lost walked back to the tent, where a few moments later he surrendered to Colonel Pritchard of the Fifth Michigan Cavalry.
No soldier who took part in the capture of Mr. Davis ever supposed that he attempted to disguise himself, and the story of the bonnet and the hoop-skirts is, of course, pure fiction. The picture of the illustrious captive, presented in this edition, represents him exactly as he appeared at the time of his capture, when divested of the shawl and raglan, which in no way served to conceal his identity, much less his sex.
Despite the efforts of Colonel Pritchard to spare Mr. Davis all indignities, many insultswere heaped upon him enroute to Macon. Once arrived at that point he was furnished with a comfortable suite of rooms and after a time General Wilson sought an interview, during the course of which Mr. Davis first learned that he was accused of complicity in the assassination of President Lincoln, and of Andrew Johnson’s proclamation offering $100,000 reward for his apprehension.
Those who knew Mr. Davis will remember him best by his habitual expression of calm dignity and benign gentleness. One would imagine that scorn or contempt could never disturb that face, but General Wilson says that when he imparted the above information that his lips curved in contempt, that his brows were knitted and that there was a deep gleam of anger in his eyes which, however, soon softened away as he remarked, with a half rueful smile, that there was at least one man in the United States who knew that charge to be false.General Wilson, of course, asked who it was, and Mr. Davis replied, “The author of the proclamation himself, for he, at least, knows that of the two I would have preferred Lincoln as president.”
From Macon Mr. Davis was sent under guard to Augusta, and from thence on a river tug in company with Clement C. Clay and Alexander H. Stephens, to Port Royal, where they were transferred to a steamer which conveyed them to Fortress Monroe. During the time they were anchored off shore crafts of all descriptions swarmed around, and the insults and gibes of the morbid sight seekers keenly annoyed the illustrious prisoner, and it was a relief when a file of soldiers came to escort him ashore. He requested permission from General Miles for his family to proceed to Washington or Richmond, but this was curtly refused and they were sent back to Savannah.
In fortress Monroe, Mr. Davis was confined in a gun room of a casement which was heavily barricaded with iron bars. Two sentries with loaded muskets and fixed bayonets were posted in the room, while two others paced up and down in front of his cell.
Escape would have been impossible for any one, however strong and vigorous, and he, now an old man, was weak, feeble and emaciated.
Yet on the third day after his incarceration, while the victorious troops of the republic were passing in solemn review before the President and generals of a great nation, there was enacted in that little cell at Fortress Monroe a scene which must forever cause the blush of shame to mantle the brow of every American at its mere mention. A file of soldiers entered thecell and Captain Jerome Titlow, with evident pain and reluctance informed Mr. Davis that he had a most unpleasant duty to perform, which was to place manacles upon him. Mr. Davis demanded who had given such an order, and upon being informed that it was General Miles, asked to see him. This was refused by Captain Titlow, who sought to induce him to submit peaceably to the inevitable. “It is an order which no soldier would give and which none should obey. Shoot me now and end at once this miserable persecution!” At the same time the fallen chieftain drew himself up to his full height and faced the soldiers, his hands clenching in convulsive grasps and his eyes gleaming like those of a hunted tiger driven to bay. A word from Captain Titlow and a soldier with the shackles in hand advanced, but before he could touch the captive he dealt him a blow which felled him upon the floor. Necessarily the struggle was a shortone and in a few moments heavy irons were riveted upon his ankles and one of the foremost of living statesmen lay upon a miserable straw mattress chained as though he had been the vilest of desperate criminals.
Had Garibaldi or Napoleon after Sedan been subjected to the crowning indignity inflicted upon Jefferson Davis all Europe would have rung with the infamy of the brutal act, and yet the whirlwind of sectional strife had so fanned the fires of prejudice and hatred that the act was generally applauded at the North, and the officer responsible for this crime against civilization for many years exhibited the shackles as though they had been a trophy of honorable victory.
Let us as Americans be thankful that such perverted sentiment was short lived, and that a day came when the infamous act was repudiated as wantonly cruel and brutal, and its perpetrators were more anxious to avoid theresponsibility for it than formerly they had been to assume it. There is now no longer any doubt as to the person who is responsible for placing Jefferson Davis in irons, but it is only fair to General Miles to say that he was very young at the time. The grave charges against Mr. Davis, no doubt, served to mislead his immature judgment, and from the fact that Louis Napoleon had recently escaped from a fortification in France he, no doubt, believed that the extreme and cruel measure was necessary.
In justice it should be further stated that as soon as General Miles believed the danger of escape no longer great he gave orders for the removal of the shackles, and thereafter treated Mr. Davis with much kindness. The story of Mr. Davis’ two years’ imprisonment at Fortress Monroe is too well known from Dr. Craven’s impartial, if somewhat fragmentary, account to need further repetition here.
It is a difficult matter at this distance of time to realize the attitude of public sentiment against Jefferson Davis the state prisoner of Fortress Monroe. As the chief executive of the late Confederacy, he was, in popular estimation, the incarnation, if not the proximate cause, of all the sins and suffering of Rebellion, but worse than all the administration which in feverish, puerile haste had declared him an accessory to the assassination of Mr. Lincoln and upon that score had paid out of the public treasury $100,000 for his capture, could not, or rather dared not reverse its attitude and speak the truth. The result was, of course, that the vast majority of the people at the North believed Mr. Davis to be as guilty of murder as he was of treason, andconsequently there was a mighty clamor for his summary execution.
Had there been a scintilla of evidence, nay, had there been any fact which human ingenuity could have tortured into a plausible resemblance to guilty knowledge of Mr. Lincoln’s death, no one will now doubt that Jefferson Davis would have been murdered as was Mrs. Serrat.
Andrew Johnston within ninety days after he had issued his ridiculously false proclamation admitted it to be without foundation—a fact which all along was fully realized by every member of the government who had personally known the accused. And yet a coterie of radicals, headed by a conspicuous member of the Cabinet, continued to search by such questionable means for incriminating evidence that it disgusted the just, conservative men of all parties, and they demanded that the senseless accusation be dropped for all time.
However, a chance yet remained to dispose of the fallen chieftain without incurring any of the trouble and risk that must arise from a trial according to the laws of the land.
Thousands of Federal prisoners had starved and died at Andersonville and throughout the North this tale of suffering had inspired such horror and indignation that there was a general demand for the punishment of those who were supposed to be responsible for it. Captain Wirz, the commandant of Andersonville, was accordingly haled before a drum-head court martial and, despite the fact that he conclusively demonstrated that conditions responsible for the horrors of that pest hole were beyond his own control, or that of any man or number of men in the Confederacy, he was promptly convicted and was sentenced to death.
Then a serviceable, if not honorable, idea seized the hysterical radicals, which wasnothing less than the feasibility of holding Jefferson Davis responsible for the horrors of Andersonville. But there again the ingenuity of malice failed to discover any evidence except that which was highly creditable to the intended victim.
All that followed in the nefarious plot is not and never will be fully known, but from the declaration of the priest, who was Captain Wirz’s spiritual adviser, as well as from other authentic information, there is no room whatever to doubt that the condemned man was offered his life and liberty if he would swear that in the management of the prison he had acted under the direction of Jefferson Davis. Captain Wirz, however, was a brave and honorable man and scorning to purchase his life with such a lie, he met his fate like a soldier. This left but one other course open. If Mr. Davis were to be punished at all, it must be for treason.The idea appealed to the radicals with something of the same zest that a child experiences from its first gaudy toy, and for a time they fairly reveled in visions of a court martial which, unincumbered of the troublesome rules of evidence observed in courts of law, would speedily give the desired result.
But fortunately for the American people, there were men in the Cabinet and in Congress, who knowing the law, clearly saw that such a course of procedure must shock the whole civilized world and reduce the guarantees of the Constitution to a parity with the so-called organic law of the revolutionary despotisms of Central American and South America. Against this sentiment the ravings of the vindictive cabal availed nothing, and, as the months went by, it became evident that if a trial ever came, it must be according to the laws of the land.
In the meantime Mr. Davis was constantly demanding that he be given the speedy and impartial trial provided in such cases by the Constitution.
Charles O’Connor, then the greatest of living lawyers, Henry Ould and many other leading members of the bar from the Northern states volunteered to defend Mr. Davis, while Thaddeus Stevens proffered his services to Clement C. Clay. Horace Greeley, through the columns of theTribune, constantly demanded that Mr. Davis be either liberated or brought to trial, and by the spring of the year 1866 he had created such a sentiment throughout the country in favor of his contentions that the government could no longer delay some action.
Accordingly in May an indictment was procured, charging Jefferson Davis with high treason against the United States, and in June of the same year Mr. Boutwell offered a resolution in Congress that the accused should be tried according to the laws of the land, which passed that body by a vote of 105 to 19.
But despite that resolution, there were those who clearly foresaw the danger involved in it, and hoping that time might dispose of the necessity for any trial at all, urged delay as the wisest measure. Consequently, despite the efforts of Greeley and Gerritt Smith, and other great men of the North, the trial was postponed until May, 1867.
Mr. Davis, weak pale and emaciated, appeared before Chief Justice Chase sitting with Justice Underwood in the Circuit Court at Richmond. The court-room was crowded to its utmost capacity and despite the stern discipline sought to be enforced it was with the greatestdifficulty that the applause could be suppressed that from time to time greeted the profound logic and masterly eloquence of Charles O’Connor’s great speech on a motion to quash the indictment. The arguments lasted two days and at their conclusion Chief Justice Chase voted to quash the indictment, while Justice Underwood voted to sustain it, thus necessitating a reference of the matter to the Supreme Court of the United States for final decision. In accordance with a previous arrangement Mr. Davis was soon afterward admitted to bail, Horace Greeley, Gerritt Smith, Augustus Schell and a number of other former political enemies becoming his bondsmen.
From that moment the administration knew that Jefferson Davis would never be tried for treason and drew a long breath of relief. Yes, the administration knew, but the general public, beyond the gilded vagaries about humanity and the magnanimity of a great nation to a vanquished foe, sedulously promulgated to obscure the real reason, has never understood why Jefferson Davis was never tried for the high crime which it was alleged that he had committed against the United States.
Unfortunately the restricted space at this time at the disposal of the author precludes anything more than setting forth the conclusions based upon the evidence now in his possession, of why this charge was so joyously abandoned by an administration which lessthan two years before had moved heaven and earth to discover any pretext which might lend the color of justice to the summary execution of the illustrious chieftain of the Confederacy.
To one in any way acquainted with popular sentiment, with the temper of the administration even in 1867, all declarations of magnanimity, generosity and abhorrence of extreme measures must seem the merest cant. It is, of course, not beyond the pale of possibility that those who in 1865 were willing to descend to any depths of infamy to secure a pretext for the execution of Mr. Davismighthave experienced a change of heart in two years sufficiently marked to create conscientious scruples against putting him upon a fair trial in a court of justice on the charge of treason. But that theory of the case would be altogether unlikely even if we did not know that the desire of the administration to hang Jefferson Davis was just as intense in 1867 as it was two yearsbefore. That it did not attempt to accomplish that result through the regular channels of justice, is due entirely to the fact that such a trial would have opened up the whole question of secession for final adjudication by our highest court of last resort. It would have been a trial not so much of Mr. Davis as of the question of state rights, and the able lawyers of the administration, partisans as they were, had no desire to see the highest judicial body of the land reverse an issue which had been satisfactorily decided by the sword.
Charles O’Connor’s bold declaration that Jefferson Davis could neverbeconvicted of treason under the Constitution as it then stood first aroused the administration to the dangers of the task that it had assumed. Mr. Johnson sent for his attorney-general and had him prepare an opinion on the case. In due time it was submitted. It was a veritable bombshell which fairly demolished every theoryupon which Jefferson Davis might have been convicted of treason or any other crime.
Mr. Johnston then called to his aid two of the greatest constitutional lawyers of the age, and they agreed with the conclusions of Mr. Stanberry. Not satisfied with this, he invited the chief justice to a conference for a full discussion of the matter.
If there was ever a partisan, it was Salmon P. Chase, but at the same time he was a great lawyer and an honest and fearless man. “Lincoln,” he said, “wanted Jeff. Davis to escape. He was right. His capture was a mistake, his trial will be a greater one. We cannot convict him of treason. Secession is settled. Let it stay settled!” Significant words truly from that source, and they explain the vote of the great judge who would have quashed the indictment against Mr. Davis no less than the question so often asked, “Why was Jefferson Davis never tried for treason?”
Immediately after Mr. Davis’ release on bond, he went with his family to New York, and a few weeks later to Montreal, where he continued to reside until May of the following year when he again appeared before the Circuit Court in Richmond for trial. But despite the efforts of his counsel to force a trial of the case, it was dismissed by the government and thus ended ingloriously the boast of the government that it intended “in the arch traitor Davis to make treason odious.”
Impaired in health and longing for rest far away from the tragic scenes of the past few years, Mr. Davis accepted the invitation of English friends to visit them. But it was soon discovered that his visit was to be a continuous ovation. Everywhere he was greeted as though he had been the conqueror instead of the vanquished. The spirit that prompted those manifestations he appreciated, but it revived sad memories of the cause for which he had staked all and lost, and to avoid this lionizing he took up his residence in Paris.
The cordiality of the Frenchmen, however, surpassed that of their English brethren, and Mr. Davis soon found himself so much in the public eye that he decided to return to England. Before quitting Paris, the emperorconveyed his desire for an audience, which Mr. Davis courteously refused. Napoleon, he conceived, had acted in bad faith with the South and such was the moral rectitude of the man that he could never disguise his contempt for any one, of however exalted station, whom he believed to be guilty of double dealing of any kind.
As the guest of Lord Leigh and the Duke of Shrewsbury in Wales, Mr. Davis’ health gradually improved until he felt himself once more able to enter an active business of life. The war had left him a poor man, and when a life insurance company of Memphis offered him its presidency with a fair salary he accepted, and with his family returned to America. The people of Memphis soon after his arrival presented him a fine residence, but this he refused.
Mr. Davis was probably a very poor business man and his associates of the insurancecompany were in no way superior, for its affairs soon became anything but prosperous. All of his available capital was invested in it, but this he gladly sacrificed in order to sell his own company to a stronger one which could protect the policies of the former.
The Davis Mansion
The people of Texas, learning of Mr. Davis’ losses offered to give him an extensive stock farm in that state, but this he also refused.
Upon the Gulf of Mexico, near the little station of Beauvoir, Mr. Davis owned a tract of land which he conceived would support his family, and there, far from the strife of the busy world, he resolved to spend the declining years of his life. However, retirement at best could only be partial, for a man loved and venerated as Mr. Davis was throughout the South, and Beauvoir accordingly became the shrine of the public men who sought the counsel of its sage. But with the modesty characteristic of the man he refused to advise any one uponmeasures of national import, since by the action of Congress he was forever disfranchised.
He would not ask pardon, sincerely believing that he had done no wrong, and when the people of Mississippi would have elected him to the United States Senate he declined the honor in words which should be perused by all who know the man as he was, during this period of his life: “The franchise is yours here, and Congress can but refuse you admission and your exclusion will be a test question,” ran the invitation to which Mr. Davis replied: “I remained in prison two years and hoped in vain for a trial, and now scenes of insult and violence, producing alienation between the sections, would be the only result of another test. I am too old to serve you as I once did and too enfeebled by suffering to maintain your cause.”
Any word that might serve to stillfurther increase that alienation never passed the lips of the gentle, kindly old man, who still the idol of his people, preferred to all honors the quiet life there among the pines, where amidst his flowers he played with his children and their little friends, and far into the night, surrounded by his books, he worked assiduously upon his only defense, “The Rise and Fall of the Confederate States of America.” The concluding paragraph of that book, written in the gray dawn of a summer morning after a night of continuous labor, should be read by every one who would understand the motives that actuated Jefferson Davis in the great part that he played in the world’s history.
“In asserting the right of secession it has not been my wish to incite to its exercise. I recognize the fact that the war showed it to be impracticable, but this did not prove it to be wrong; and now that it may not be againattempted, and the Union may promote the general welfare, it is needful that the truth, the whole truth, should be known so that crimination and recrimination may forever cease, and then on the basis of fraternity and faithful regard for the rights of the states there may be written on the arch of the Union ‘Esto perpetua.’”
It is the voice of the soul in defeat, yet strong and conscious of its own integrity, recognizing the inevitable and praying for peace and the perpetuation of that Union which Jefferson Davis still loved.
His life’s work was done with the completion of his book, and trusting to impartial posterity for that vindication of his motives which he realized must come some day, he turned away from the scenes of controversy and contentions, seeking in books, the converse of his friends, in long rambles with his children across wood and field, for oblivion of all painful memories. Defeat and persecution never embittered him. Cruel and false accusations found their way to his sylvan retreat. That they grievously wounded can be doubted by no one who knew his proud spirit, supersensitive to every insinuation of dishonor, but with the gentle smile of a philosopher he passed them by, fully realizing that his beloved people of the South, at least, wouldunderstand the stainless purity of all his motives.
A harsh or an unkind word never passed his lips concerning any of his personal or political enemies. In fact, it would be no more than the truth to say that this gentle old man cherished no sentiment of enmity toward any of God’s creatures. The storm and stress of life were over, its hopes and its passions were dead, and grandly, majestically this man, who at once embodied the highest type of American manhood and all of the virtues of the perfect Christian gentleman, calmly awaited the end. It came on the 6th of December, 1889, in New Orleans, at the home of Judge Fenner, his life-long friend. When the news of his death went forth, even the voice of malice was subdued, and many of those who had sought to fix everlasting infamy upon his name ceased for a time to be unjust and agreed that a majestic soul had passed. Over the bier of thedead chieftain the whole South wept and nine of its governors bore him to the grave.
The Davis Monument at Richmond
No proper estimate of the life and character of Jefferson Davis is possible in the restricted scope of this work, but lest I should be accused of partiality I shall here append the conclusion of Ridpath, the historian, written after a residence of almost a year under the same roof with Mr. Davis, which I heartily endorse as a correct estimate of the man.
“Before I had been with Mr. Davis three days every preconceived idea utterly and forever disappeared. Nobody doubted Mr. Davis’ intellectual capacity, but it was not his mental power that most impressed me. It was his goodness, first of all, and then his intellectual integrity. I never saw an old man whose face bore more emphatic evidences of a gentle, refined and benignant character. He seemed to me the ideal embodiment of ‘sweetness andlight.’ His conversation showed that he had ‘charity for all and malice toward none.’ I never heard him utter an unkind word of any man and he spoke of nearly all of his famous opponents. His manner may be best described as gracious, so exquisitely refined, so courtly, yet heart warm. Mr. Davis’ dignity was as natural and charming as the perfume of the rose—the fitting expression of a serene, benign and comely moral nature. However handsome he may have been when excited in battle or debate, it surely was in his own home, with his family and friends around him, that he was seen at his best; and that best was the highest point of grace and refinement that the Southern character has reached.”
Lest any foreigner should read this statement, let me say for his benefit that there are two Jefferson Davises in American history—one is a conspirator, a rebel, a traitor and “the Fiend of Andersonville”—he is a mythevolved from the hell-smoke of cruel war—as purely an imaginary a personage as Mephistopheles or the Hebrew Devil; the other was a statesman with clean hands and pure heart, who served his people faithfully from budding manhood to hoary age, without thought of self, with unbending integrity, and to the best of his great ability—he was a man of whom all his countrymen who knew him personally, without distinction of creed political, are proud, and proud that he was their countryman.
This is a conclusion by no means extravagant, a conclusion which, despite the fact of some mental faults that prevented him from quite attaining to the first rank of the greatest statesman, nevertheless leaves him pre-eminent as one of the purest and best of the men who has played a conspicuous part in the world’s history.
FINIS.