Read Ebook: The Real Jefferson Davis by Knight Landon

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In August he joined General Taylor's army just as it moved forward into Mexico. On Sept. 19, 1846, General Taylor with six thousand men reached the strongly-fortified city of Monterey, garrisoned by ten thousand Mexican regulars under command of the able and experienced General Ampudia. Two days later the attack began, and at the close of a sharp artillery duel, General Taylor gave the order to carry the city by storm. The Fourth Artillery, leading the advance, was caught in a terrific cross fire, and was speedily repulsed with heavy losses, producing the utmost confusion along the front of the assaulting brigade. The strong fort, Taneira, which had contributed most to the repulse, now ran up a new flag, and amidst the wild cheering of its defenders redoubled its fire of grape, canister and musketry, under which the American lines wavered and were about to break.

Colonel Davis, seeing the crisis, without waiting for orders, placed himself at the head of his Mississippians, and gave the order to charge. With prolonged cheers his regiment swept forward through a storm of bullets and bursting shells. Colonel Davis, sword in hand, cleared the ditch at one bound, and cheering his soldiers on, they mounted the works with the impetuosity of a whirlwind, capturing artillery and driving the Mexicans pell mell back into the stone fort in the rear.

In vain the defeated Mexicans sought to barricade the gate; Davis and McClung burst it open, and leading their men into the fort, compelled its surrender at discretion. Taneira was the key of the situation, and its capture insured victory. On the morning of the twenty-third, Henderson's Texas Rangers, Campbell's Tennesseeans and Davis' Mississippians the latter again leading the assault, stormed and captured El Diabolo, and the next day General Ampudia surrendered the city.

Two months later, General Taylor again moved forward toward the City of Mexico, and on February 20 was before Saltilo. Santa Anna, the ablest of the Mexican generals, with the best army in the republic, numbering twenty thousand men, there appeared in front. Taylor could barely muster a fourth of that number, and for strategic purposes fell back to the narrow defile in front of the hacienda of Buena Vista, where, on the twenty-third, was fought the greatest battle of the war.

The conflict began early in the morning, and raged with varying fortunes over a line two miles long, until the middle of the afternoon when the furious roar of musketry from that quarter apprised General Wool that Santa Anna was making a desperate effort to break the American center. Colonel Davis was immediately ordered to support that point, and the Mississippians went forward at a double quick. As they came upon the field, the wildest disorder prevailed, and only Colonel Bowles' Indiana regiment held its ground. After trying in vain to rally the fugitives of a routed regiment, Colonel Davis speedily formed his own into line of battle and rapidly pushed forward across a deep ravine to the right of the Indianians just in time to meet the shock of a whole brigade, which the two commanders succeeded in repulsing with great gallantry.

But the battle was not over. Under cover of the smoke, Santa Anna's full brigade of lancers flanked the Americans, and now at the sound of their trumpets, the Mexican infantry advanced once more to the charge. Thus assailed on two sides by overwhelming numbers, the situation was truly critical, but Colonel Davis, forming the two regiments into the shape of a re-entering angle, awaited the assault.

With flying banners and sounding trumpets the gailey caparisoned lancers came down at a thundering gallop until a sheet of flame from the angle wrapped their front ranks and bore it down to destruction. Quickly recovering, the survivors, with the fury of madmen, threw themselves again and again upon those stubborn ranks, which, now assailed on two sides, refused to give an inch, and met every onslaught with a withering fire, which soon so cumbered the ground with the dead that it was with difficulty the living could move over it.

At last utterly demoralized by the awful carnage, the Mexican lines broke and fled from the field. The day was over. Buena Vista was won, and Colonel Davis had accomplished a feat which, when Sir Colin Campbell imitated it at Inkerman two years later, he was sent by England to retrieve her fallen fortunes in India.

Notwithstanding the fact that Colonel Davis' right foot had been shattered early in the morning, he had refused to leave the field for aid, but now at the close of the action he fell fainting from his horse. The wound was a dangerous one, and as the surgeons were of the opinion that more than a year must elapse before he could hope to walk, as soon as he was able to travel, General Taylor insisted on his going home, and thus closed his career in the Mexican War.

This exploit at Buena Vista created the profoundest enthusiasm throughout the country, and the Legislatures of several states passed resolutions thanking him for his services. Governor Brown of his own state, in obedience to an overwhelming popular sentiment, a few weeks after his return, appointed Colonel Davis to fill a vacancy that had occurred in the Senate--an appointment which was speedily ratified by the Legislature.

When, in 1847, Mr. Davis took his seat in the Senate, that irrepressible conflict, inevitable from the hour that the Constitutional Convention of 1787 sanctioned slavery as an institution within the United States, had reached a crisis which was threatening the very existence of the Union. The Missouri Compromise prohibiting slavery north of 36? 30' had failed to sanction it in express terms south of that parallel, and while in 1820 probably no one would have denied that this was the logical and obvious meaning of that measure, such was not the case thirty years later. The Abolitionists had opposed the annexation of Texas, believing, as Mr. Adams declared, that such an event would justify the dissolution of the Union.

In finally accepting Texas with bad grace, they served notice that it was their last concession. Therefore when the application of the Missouri Compromise to the vast territory acquired from Mexico would have given over a large portion of it to slavery, they brought forward the Wilmot Proviso, a measure, the effect of which was to abrogate the Missouri Compromise in so far as it affected slavery south of that line, while leaving its prohibition as to the north side in full force.

Mr. Davis participated in the discussion of these questions and at once became the ablest and most consistent of those statesmen who, contending for the strict construction of the Constitution and the broadest principles of state sovereignty, sought to prevent Congress from violating the one by infringing on the prerogatives of the other. Holding that the Constitution sanctioned slavery, that Congress had specified its limits, that the territories belonged in common to the states, he contended that the South could not accept with honor anything less than that the Missouri Compromise extended to the Pacific Ocean.

Reasoning from these premises, his speeches were masterpieces of logic, and whatever one may think of their philosophy, all must agree that they were among the greatest ever delivered in any deliberative body. Had the leaders of his party stood with him in that great battle, they would have been able to force some definite legislation which would have postponed the Civil War for many years--possibly beyond a period when the operation of economic laws might have effected the abolition of slavery as the only salvation of the South--but Henry Clay's dread of a situation that endangered the Union prompted him to bring forward his last compromise measures, which he himself declared to be only a temporary expedient. Calhoun, equally strong in his love for the Union, anxious to preserve it at all costs, abandoned his former position, and against the warnings of Jefferson Davis, soon to become prophetic, his party accepted the measure which, as he declared, guaranteed no right that did not already exist, while abrogating to the South the benefits of the Compromise of 1820.

With temporary tranquillity restored, Mr. Davis soon afterward resigned his seat in the Senate to become a candidate for governor of his state--a contest in which he was defeated by a small plurality. He retired once more to Briarfield, and there is little doubt that he at that time intended to abandon public life. However, in 1853, he yielded to the insistence of President Pierce, and reluctantly accepted the portfolio of war in his cabinet.

Only a brief summary is possible, but if we may judge by the reforms inaugurated, the work accomplished during the four following years, Jefferson Davis must be considered one of our greatest secretaries of war. The antiquated army regulations were revised and placed upon a modern basis, the medical corps was reorganized and made more efficient, tactics were modernized, the rifled musket and the minie ball were adopted, the army was increased and at every session he persistently urged upon Congress the wisdom of a pension system and a law for the retirement of officers, substantially as they exist at present.

But more enduring and farther reaching in beneficent results were those great public works originated or completed under his administration, prominently among which may be mentioned the magnificent aqueduct which still supplies Washington with an abundance of pure water; the completion of the work on the Capitol, which had dragged for years; and the founding of the Smithsonian Institute, of which he was, perhaps, the most zealous advocate and efficient regent.

Transcontinental railways appealed to him as a public necessity. He therefore had two surveys made and collected the facts concerning climate, topography and the natural resources of the country, which demonstrated the feasibility of the vast undertaking, which was subsequently completed along the lines and according to the plans that he recommended.

From his induction into office he set at naught the spoils system of Jackson, and may very justly be regarded as a pioneer of civil service reform, for he altogether disregarded politics in his appointments, and when remonstrated with by the leaders of his party, informed them that he was not appointing Whigs or Democrats, but servants of the government who, in his opinion, were best qualified for the duties to be performed. The same principle he adhered to in matters of the greatest moment, as he demonstrated in the Kansas troubles. A state of civil war prevailed between the advocates and opponents of slavery, and it could not be doubted where his own sympathies were in the controversy. From the nature of the case, the commander of federal troops in Kansas must be armed with practically dictatory powers. The selection remained altogether with himself, and he sent thither Colonel Sumner, an avowed abolitionist, but an officer whose honor, ability and judgment recommended him as the best man for the difficult duty.

How the absurd story ever originated that Mr. Davis used the power of his great office to weaken the North and prepare the South for warlike operations, is inconceivable to the honest investigator of even ordinary diligence. No arms or munitions of war could have been removed from one arsenal to another or from factory to fort without an order from the Secretary of War. Those orders are still on record, and not one of them lends color to a theory which seems to have been adopted as a fact by Dr. Draper, upon no better proof than that afforded by heresay evidence of the most biased kind. In fact, arsenals in the South were continuously drawn upon to supply the Western forts during his term of office, and at its close, while all defenses and stores were in better condition than ever before, those south of the Potomac were relatively weaker than in 1853.

Other less serious charges are equally baseless, and the historian who would try Mr. Davis upon the common rules of evidence must conclude that his administration was not only free from dishonor but was characterized by high ability and unquestioned patriotism--a verdict strengthened by the fact that contemporaneous partisan criticism furnished nothing to question such a conclusion.

When, in 1857, Mr. Davis was again elected to the Senate, the Compromise of 1850 had already become a dead letter, as he had predicted that it would. The anti-slavery sentiment had, like Aaron's rod, swallowed all rivals, and party leaders once noted for conservatism, had resolved to suppress the curse, despite the decision of the Supreme Court statute, of law, of even the Constitution itself. Those who have criticised Mr. Davis most bitterly for his attitude at that time have failed to appreciate the fact that he then occupied the exact ground where he had always stood.

Others had changed. He had remained consistent. He had never countenanced the doctrine of nullification; he had always affirmed the right of secession. Profoundly versed, as he was, in the constitutional law of the United States, familiar with every phase of the question debated by the Convention of 1787, his logical mind was unable to reach a conclusion adverse to the right of a sovereign state to withdraw from a voluntary compact, the violation of which endangered its interests. He believed that the compact was violated by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise; he felt that it was being violated now, but as in 1850 he had declared that nothing short of the necessity of self-protection would justify the dissolution of the Union, he now pleaded with the majority not to force that necessity upon the South. Secession he frankly declared to be a great evil, so great that the South would only adopt it as the last resort; but at the same time he warned the abolitionists that if the guarantees of the Constitution were not respected, that if the Northern states were to defy the decrees of the Supreme Court favorable to the South, as they had done in the Dred Scott decision, that if his section was to be ruled by a hostile majority without regard to the right, the protection thrown around the minority by the fundamental law of the land, that the Southern states could not in honor remain members of the Union, and would therefore certainly withdraw from it.

He undoubtedly saw the chasm daily growing wider, and had he possessed that sagacious foresight, that profound knowledge of human nature, in which alone he was lacking as a statesman of the first order, he would have realized then, as Abraham Lincoln had before, that the die was cast and that the Union could not longer endure upon the compromises of the Constitution which had implanted slavery among a free, self-governing people, a majority of whom were opposed to it. But there is no recorded utterance of Jefferson Davis, no act of his, that would lead one to believe that he had despaired of some adjustment of matters, or that secession was wise or desirable, until after the nomination of Mr. Lincoln. Then, for the first time, he declared before a state convention at Jackson, Miss., that the Chicago platform would justify the South in dissolving the Union if the Republican party should triumph at the coming election. But he did not expect that triumph. Shortly previous to that speech, he had introduced resolutions in the Senate embodying the principles of the constitutional pro-slavery party.

They affirmed the sovereignty of the separate states, asserted that slavery formed an essential part of the political institutions of various members of the Union, that the union of the states rested upon equality of rights, that it was the duty of Congress to protect slave property in the territories, and that a territory when forming a constitution, and not before, must either sanction or abolish slavery. The resolution passed the Senate, and Mr. Davis hoped to see it become the platform of a reunited party, which would have meant the defeat of the Republican ticket and a consequent postponement of the war.

The foregoing facts alone make ridiculous the assertions of Mr. Pollard that during this Congress Jefferson Davis, with thirteen other senators, met one night in a room at the Capitol, and perfected a plan whereby the Southern states were forced into secession against the will of the people thereof.

What the plan was, how it was put into operation so as to circumvent the will of the people of eleven states who more than a year later decided the question of secession by popular vote, why Mr. Davis later introduced the above resolution and why he worked so zealously thereafter to prevent the threatened disruption and why he sought to induce the Charleston Convention to adopt his resolution as the principles of the party, Mr. Pollard does not attempt to explain. In fact, any rational explanation would be impossible, for at every point the evidence refutes the allegation.

Then, again, those who, like Mr. Pollard, have sought to saddle the chief responsibility of secession upon Jefferson Davis have overlooked the fact that while not an avowed candidate, he nevertheless hoped to be the nominee of his party in 1860 for the presidency, and that much of his strength lay in Northern states, as Massachusetts demonstrated by sending him a solid delegation to the Charleston Convention. His conduct during his last year in the Senate is consistent with this ambition, but the ambition is wholly inconsistent with the theory that he had long planned the destruction of the Union. The truth is that the impartial historian must conclude from all of his utterances, from his acts, from the circumstances of the case, that in so far from being the genius and advocate of disunion, he deprecated it and sought to prevent it, until political events rendered certain the election of Mr. Lincoln. Then, sincerely believing the peculiar institutions of the South to be imperiled, and never doubting the right of secession, he advocated it as the only remedy left for a situation which had become intolerable to the people of his section.

His advocacy, however, was in striking contrast to that of many of his colleagues. Always free from any suggestion of demagoguery, always conservative, his utterances on this subject were marked with candor and moderation. Nor did the ominous shadows that descended upon the next Congress disturb his equanimity or unsettle his resolution to perform his duty as he saw it. For days the impassioned storm of invective and denunciation raged around him, but he remained silent. At last the news came that his state had seceded. He announced the event to the Senate in a speech, which in nobility of conception has probably never been surpassed. He defined his own position and that of his state, and as he bade farewell to his colleagues, even among his bitterest opponents there was scarcely an eye undimmed with tears, and whatever others thought in after years, there was no one in that august assemblage who did not accord to Jefferson Davis the meed of perfect sincerity and unblemished faith in the cause which he had espoused.

On the evening of the day Mr. Davis retired from the Senate, he was visited by Robert Toombs of Georgia, who informed him that it was reported from a trustworthy source that certain representatives, including themselves, were to be arrested. He had intended to leave the capital the following day, but changed his plans to await any action the government might take against him.

To his friends he declared the hope that the rumor might be well founded, for should arrests be made, he saw therein the opportunity to bring the question of the right of a state to secede from the Union before the Supreme Court for final adjudication. Nothing of the kind happened, and after waiting for about ten days, Mr. Davis left Washington.

During his stay he freely discussed the situation with the leading Southern statesmen who called upon him. The general opinion was the first result of secession, which most of them assumed to be final, must be the formation of a new federal government, and the consensus of opinion designated Mr. Davis as the fittest person for the presidency. On the first proposition he did not agree with his colleagues. He expressed the belief that the action of the states in exercising the right of secession would serve to so sober Northern sentiment that an adjustment might be reached, which, while guaranteeing to the South all of the rights vouchsafed by the Constitution, would still preserve the Union. He therefore sought to impress upon them--especially the South Carolina delegation--the necessity of moderation, the unwisdom of any act at that time which might render an adjustment impossible.

The second proposition he refused to consider at all, and begged those who might be instrumental in the formation of a new government, if one must be created, not to use his name in connection with its presidency. That he at this time entertained a sincere desire for the preservation of the Union can be doubted by no one familiar with his private correspondence. In a letter dated two days after his resignation from the Senate he defends the action of his state, it is true, but at the same time deplores disunion as one of the greatest calamities that could befall the South.

In another letter written three days later, he uses this significant language: "All is not lost. If only moderation prevails, if they will only give me time, I am not without hope of a peaceable settlement that will assure our rights within the Union." That he did not abandon that hope until long afterward, that he clung to it long after it became a delusion, is very probable, as we shall see.

Nothing could be farther from the truth than the theory so often advanced that presidential ambition was responsible for Mr. Davis' attitude on the question of secession. This I have indicated in the last chapter. The truth of this position is established if he were sincere in his declarations that he did not covet the honor of the presidency of the new government. Those declarations were made to the men who, of all others, could further his ambition; they knew his stubbornness of opinion, understood how likely it was that he would never abandon that or any other position; there were other aspirants whom he knew to be personally more acceptable to a majority of these statesmen, and his attitude, of course, released them from any responsibility imposed by popular sentiment in his favor in the South. If one is still inclined to accept all this, however, as another instance of Caesar putting the crown aside, the question arises, Why did he assume the same attitude with those who possessed no power to influence his fortunes? Why in his letters to his wife, to his brother, to his friends, in private life, did he express the strongest repugnance to accepting that office should it be created and offered? But even stronger evidence that he did not seek or want it is afforded by another circumstance. Mississippi, in seceding from the Union, had provided for an army. The governor had appointed him to command it, with the rank of major-general. In the event of war, that position opened up unlimited possibilities in the field, which was exactly what he desired; for, unfortunately, he then and always cherished the delusion that he was greater as a soldier than he was as a statesman. All of this is consistent with his sincerity--inconsistent with any other reasonable theory.

Mr. Davis must also be acquitted of the charge made by no inconsiderable number of the Southern people that he first failed to anticipate war and later underestimated the extent and duration of the approaching conflict. On his way from Washington to Mississippi, he made several speeches. All of them were marked by moderation, but to the prominent citizens who on that journey came to confer with him, he declared in emphatic terms that the United States would never allow the seceded states to peacefully withdraw from the Union, and warned them that unless some adjustment were effected, they must expect a civil war, the extent, duration and termination of which no one could foresee.

At Jackson he reiterated those views, along with a hope for reconciliation, in a speech delivered before the governor and Legislature of his state. Peaceful adjustment he declared not beyond hope, yet if war should come, he warned them that it must be a long one, and that instead of buying 75,000 stands of small arms, as proposed, that the state should only limit the quantity by its capacity to pay. Those views, it may be here remarked, were not coincided with by his own state or the people of the South generally. They were far in advance of their representatives on the question of secession, but the belief was generally prevalent at even a much later date that no attempt would be made to coerce a seceding state.

The convention of the seceding states met at Montgomery, Feb. 4, 1861, and proceeded to adopt a constitution as the basis for a provisional government. The work was the most rapid in the history of legislative proceedings, being completed in three days. With the exceptions of making the preamble read that each state accepting it did so in "its sovereign and independent capacity," fixing the president's and vice-president's term of office at six years and making them ineligible for re-election, prohibiting a protective tariff, inhibiting the general government from making appropriations for internal improvements, requiring a two-thirds vote to pass appropriation bills and giving cabinet officers a seat, but no vote, in Congress, the Confederate constitution was, practically, a reaffirmation of that of the United States.

It was adopted on the eighth, and the provisional government to continue in force one year, unless sooner superseded by a permanent organization, was formally launched upon the troubled waters of its brief and stormy existence. The following day, an election was held for president and vice-president, the convention voting by states, which resulted on the first ballot in the selection by a bare majority of Jefferson Davis and Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia. Mr. Davis, as we have seen, was not a candidate. He was not in, nor near, Montgomery at the time, and took no part, by advice or otherwise, in the formation of the new constitution.

His selection over Mr. Toombs was the result of a single set of circumstances. Mr. Davis' military education, his experience in the field, his services as secretary of war, a widespread popular belief in his ability as a military organizer, and his known capacity as a statesman in times of peace, all marked him as the fittest man for a place which evidently required a combination of high qualities. Had Mr. Toombs possessed either military education or experience, there is scarcely a doubt that he would have been chosen.

The news of his election reached Mr. Davis while working in his garden, and is said to have caused him genuine disappointment and grief. That the convention was uncertain of his acceptance is indicated by the fact that with the notification was sent an earnest appeal to consider the public welfare, rather than his own preferences, in considering the offer of the presidency. Upon this ground he based his action in accepting the office and hastening to Jackson, he resigned his position in the state army, expressing the hope and belief that the service would be but temporary.

All along the route to Montgomery, bands and bonfires, booming cannon and the peals of bells heralded his approach, and vast concourses greeted him at every station.

What purported to be an account of this journey was printed in the leading papers of the North, which pictured Mr. Davis as invoking war, breathing defiance and threatening extermination of the Union. Nothing of the kind, however, occurred. The speeches actually delivered were moderate, conservative and conciliatory. So much so, in fact, that they were disappointing to his enthusiastic audiences, and there are yet living many witnesses to the frequent and repeated declaration of the fear that "Jeff. Davis has remained too long amongst the Yankees to make him exactly the kind of president the South needs."

Monday, Feb. 18, 1861, there assembled around the state capitol at Montgomery such an audience as no state had ever witnessed--as perhaps none ever will witness. Statesmen, actual and prospective; jurists and senators; soldiers and sailors; officers and office-seekers, the latter, no doubt, predominating; clerks, farmers and artisans; fashionably attired women in fine equipages decorated with streamers and the tri-colored cockades; foreign correspondents--in fact, representatives from every sphere and condition of life, each eager to witness a ceremonial which could never occur again.

At exactly one o'clock Mr. Davis and Mr. Stephens appeared upon the platform in front of the capitol, and when the mighty wave of applause had subsided, Howell Cobb, President of the Constitutional Convention, administered to them the oath of office. Then in that peculiarly musical voice which had never failed to charm the Senate in other days, a voice audible in its minutest inflections to every one of the vast throng, Mr. Davis delivered his inaugural address.

Strangely enough, both sections of the divided country then and thereafter attached a widely varying value to the address. It was so simple, clear and direct that it is amazing two interpretations should have been placed upon it. As an exposition of the causes leading to secession, it was a masterpiece. It is impossible to read it today without feeling that in every sentence it breathed a prayer for peace.

Viewed in connection with the events that produced it, as the first official advice of the chief executive of a new nation beset with the most stupendous problems, confronted by the gravest perils, it certainly added nothing to Mr. Davis' reputation as a statesman. Beyond the declaration that the Confederacy would be maintained, a desire for peace and freest of trade relations with the United States, he outlined no policies and offered neither suggestions nor advice.

The question of revenue was, of course, of paramount importance, but no idea, no plan, no suggestion was offered along that line. The more one studies that remarkable production, the more puzzling it becomes, if we assume that Mr. Davis was altogether sincere in his declaration that the severance was final and irremediable.

If he were not, if he still hoped for some adjustment that would reunite the severed union, one may readily understand why he refrained from assuming the vigorous attitude that the occasion demanded, but which might have placed compromise beyond the pale of possibility. The significant omissions were not compatible with Mr. Davis' well-known views of official duty. Nor is the matter in any way explained by assuming that as Congress was charged with the performance of all of these important matters, that it was not Mr. Davis' duty to suggest plans and methods. His office invested him with those powers and he was elected to it for the express reason that he was supposed to be eminently qualified in all practical administrative and legislative details, especially those of a military nature.

While Mr. Davis must be absolved from the charge that his cabinet appointments were the result of favoritism, they were, nevertheless, for the most part, unfortunate. The portfolio of the treasury, undoubtedly the most important place in the cabinet, was intrusted to Mr. Memminger, of South Carolina, an incorruptible gentleman of high principles and mediocre ability, a theorist, devoid of either the talents or experience that would have fitted him for the difficult place. Toombs, Benjamin and Reagan were better selections. The others were men honest, sincere of purpose, but little in their antecedents to recommend them for the particular positions which they were called upon to fill. With at least two of them, Mr. Davis was not previously personally acquainted, and political considerations probably secured their appointment.

One of the president's first official acts was to appoint Crawford, Forsyth and Roman as commissioners "to negotiate friendly relations" with the United States. They were men of different political affiliations, one being a Douglas Democrat, one a Whig and the other a lukewarm secessionist. All were conservative and shared fully in the president's desire for peace on any honorable terms.

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