1 “Now … they will repent”
Details of life in Richmond from John B. Jones, A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, Vol. 2, Phila., 1866; Varina H. Davis, Jefferson Davis … a Memoir, Vol. 2, N.Y., 1890; T. C. DeLeon, Belles, Beaux & Brains of the Sixties, N.Y., 1907; Burke Davis, To Appomattox, N.Y., 1959.
The medical problems of Jefferson Davis are cited in W. A. Evans, Jefferson Davis, His Diseases & His Doctors, Aberdeen, Miss., 1942, p. 7; and in Frederick W. Gray, M.D., and Chester D. Bradley, M.D., “The Medical History of Jefferson Davis,” Virginia Medical Monthly, Vol. 94 (Jan. 1967), pp. 19–23.
The effects of age upon the appearances of Davis and his wife were described by Mrs. H. L. Clay, 1/17/1865 in family correspondence. C. C. Clay letters, “Confederate Notables” collection, National Archives.
General sources on Jefferson and Varina Davis throughout are his Rise & Fall of the Confederate Government, Vol. 2, N.Y., 1881; her Memoir; Robert McElroy, Jefferson Davis, The Unreal & The Real, Vol. 2, N.Y., 1937; Hudson Strode, Jefferson Davis, Vol. 3, N.Y., 1964; and Ishbel Ross, First Lady of the South, N.Y., 1958.
Comments on Robert E. Lee are drawn from Armistead L. Long, Memoirs of Robert E. Lee, N.Y., 1886; Lee’s story of his visit to the tobacco-chewing Confederate Congress is by George T. Lee in South Atlantic Quarterly, July 1927, pp. 236–37; and the general’s comment on Davis is from John B. Gordon’s Reminiscences, N.Y., 1903.
The theory that the Confederacy was doomed by aggressive field tactics is advanced by Grady McWhiney, Southerners & Other Americans, N.Y., 1973, p. 105 ff.
His opinion that Davis had a “screw loose” and was otherwise unfit for office was advanced by Henry A. Wise in letters to Dr. A. Y. P. Garnett, the President’s personal physician, 11/17 and 11/26, 1863.
Burton N. Harrison’s accounts of the final days in Richmond and the President’s flight, all invaluable to historians, appeared in several forms, and ultimately in The Harrisons of Skimino, Fairfax Harrison, ed. Privately printed, N.Y., 1910.
The departure of Varina Davis is drawn from her Memoir, Vol. 2, p. 575 ff.
2 “We should abandon our position to-night”
Davis on the eve of departure is described by John H. Reagan in his Memoirs …, N.Y., 1906; Frank R. Lubbock, Six Decades in Texas; and the Rise & Fall, Vol. 2, by Davis and Memoir, Vol. 2, of Varina Davis.
The Richmond Whig’s picture of panic in the city’s streets appeared 4/4/1865; Alfred Hoyt Bill’s The Beleaguered City, N.Y., 1946, and B. Davis, op. cit., collate accounts of numerous witnesses, including W. A. Tomlinson, Mann S. Quarles and Walter Philbrook; the most complete of the unsatisfactory reports on the Confederate treasure as it departed Richmond is in William H. Parker, Recollections of a Naval Officer, N.Y., 1883; James Morris Morgan’s Recollections of a Rebel Reefer, Boston, 1917, also offers some information on the composition and handling of the hoard of gold and silver at this stage.
The unrealistic summary of remaining Confederate troop strength was offered by Davis in Rise & Fall, Vol. 2, p. 699. Details of his move of household goods were written to his wife on 5 April, from Danville. (See Strode’s Jefferson Davis, Private Letters, N.Y., 1966, for this and subsequent correspondence between the two.)
Clement and Virginia Clay material from Ruth K. Nuermberger, The Clays of Alabama, Lexington, Ky., 1958; Clement C. Clay Papers, Manuscript Division, Perkins Library, Duke University; C. C. Clay’s comment on the deep reserve of Davis in letter to Senator William L. Yancey, 1863 (undated), cited by Clement Eaton, Jefferson Davis … N.Y., 1977, pp. 267–68.
The stay of Varina Davis in Charlotte is recorded in James M. Morgan’s Recollections and in Harrison; op. cit.
The courage and generosity of Abram Weill in aiding Mrs. Davis were acknowledged by the President, who gave the host the gold-headed cane he had used during his final speech in the Senate. Robert D. Meade, Judah P. Benjamin, N.Y., 1943. P. 316.
3 “Blow her to hell”
Richmond Times citation, 4/22/1865.
Admiral Semmes left his graphic account in Memoirs of Service Afloat … Baltimore, 1869. The order to burn tobacco in Richmond, issued by Robert E. Lee 1/15/1865, is cited by McElroy, op. cit., p. 451—an order which contributed to the destruction of the heart of the city, but one seldom acknowledged by Southern sympathizers.
Captain Sulivane’s account of his departure and the destruction of Mayo’s Bridge is in Battles & Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. 4, pp. 725–26. (B&L hereafter.)
Colonel Blackford’s description of the chaotic retreat of civilians and military men is in his War Years with Jeb Stuart, N.Y., 1945, pp. 282–83.
Mrs. Pember’s testimony is found in Phoebe Yates Pember, A Southern Woman’s Story, N.Y., 1879. The account of George Bruce is from his The Capture and Occupation of Richmond, n.d., n.p.
The story of Edmund Ruffin is drawn largely from Betty L. Mitchell, Edmund Ruffin, Bloomington, 1981; Avery Craven’s earlier Edmund Ruffin, Southerner, is regarded as definitive.
4 “a fire bell in the night”
The flight to Danville was recorded by Davis in Rise & Fall, and by Reagan, Mallory and Lubbock in their memoirs. Minor contributors were Captain M. H. Clark and Robert G. Kean (see Notes, Chapter 6). Revealing sketches of Cabinet members are in Rembert W. Patrick’s Jefferson Davis & His Cabinet, Baton Rouge, 1944; and Meade, op. cit., offers a penetrating analysis of the personality of Judah Benjamin. Reagan’s career is also studied in W. F. McCaleb, “The Organization of the Post Office Department of the Confederacy,” American Historical Review, VII, pp. 67–74, N.Y., 1906. The comment on Benjamin’s easy social graces is from DeLeon, op. cit., p. 91; and the domestic difficulties of the Benjamins are clarified by Meade’s citation (op. cit., 123–26, 393) from the diary of Gabriel Manigault and an interview with Benjamin’s niece, Alma Kruttschritt, of New York.
Davis’s reluctance to delegate authority is from William L. Katz, Teachers’ Guide to American Negro History, Chicago, 1968, pp. 71–77.
The story of John S. Wise and his encounter with the trains of Confederate fugitives is found in his The End of an Era, Boston, 1902, p. 444 ff.
Danville’s brief career as temporary capital is recorded by narratives cited above, and The Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, 1881–1901, Wash., D.C., 70 vols. (Hereafter O.R.), Ser. 1, Vol. XLVI, Pt. 3, p. 1393 ff; Edward Pollock, Sketch Book of Danville, Va., Danville, 1885; Danville Weekly Register, 4/7/1865; and in Confederate Veteran, Vol. 19, p. 377 ff.
The highly informal accounting for the Confederate treasure and the Treasury’s operations in Danville are based upon a later account by Captain Micajah H. Clark, detailed in A. J. Hanna, Flight into Oblivion, Richmond, 1938, pp. 90–92. (See Notes, Chapter 8, below: “You’re Southern gentlemen, not highway robbers.”)
The exchange between Davis and Raphael Semmes is reported by W. Adolphe Roberts in Semmes of the Alabama, Indianapolis, 1938, pp. 236–37.
The demands from the Northern press for revenge are from Harper’s Weekly, 4/15/1865; New York Times, 4/12/1865; and New York Tribune, 4/13/1865.
Lincoln’s visit to Richmond, observed by U.S. Admiral David Porter, is described clearly by McElroy, op. cit., pp. 460–61.
The departure of John Breckinridge from Richmond and his journey through the ranks of Lee’s army to Danville are described by W. C. Davis in his Breckinridge … N.Y., 1974; see also Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. III, p. 102; Breckinridge–Jefferson Davis, 4/8/1865, in B. N. Harrison Papers, Library of Congress. W. C. Davis, op. cit., summarizes this journey, pp. 502–08.
John Wise, op. cit., p. 446, describes his report to Davis and the Cabinet in Danville.
Clement Clay’s departure is recorded in American Historical Review, Vol. XLIV, July 1939, an account declaring that Clay “turned pale as a sheet” upon learning of Lee’s surrender.
Colonel Blackford, op. cit., described Lee’s tearful return to his troops after surrender, pp. 294–95.
The glimpse of the Lincolns returning to Washington is from Adolphe de Chambrun, Impressions of Lincoln and the Civil War, N.Y., 1952.
There is some doubt that Davis and his party escaped capture by only five minutes as they entered Greensboro; some sources set the burning of the vital trestle at one hour after the train’s passage. H. K. Weand, in “Our Last Campaign …”; Charles H. Kirk, History of the 15th Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry, Phila., 1906; O.R., Vol. XLVI, Series 1, Pt. 3, pp. 393–94; and Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. XXV, p. 270, offer views of the incident.
5 “We could rally our forces”
Three of the companions who fled with Davis and left accounts of the epic journey were unanimous in declaring Greensboro cold and inhospitable. (Mallory, op. cit.; Harrison, op. cit.; and Captain John T. Wood, in his Diary, Vol. 3, Southern Historical Collection, UNC Library, Chapel Hill.) These accounts were hotly challenged by local citizens—immediately by one “Athos” (probably the Confederate Major James R. Cole), who declared, “It is a … slander upon the chivalry of the town to say … that no home was offered to Jefferson Davis … I know of my own personal knowledge that several invitations were extended to him, but for some reason he declined …” Other local traditions mention several houses in which Davis was purported to have stayed during his five-day visit. In this narrative the reports of the Davis companions are accepted as generally accurate—though they may have overstated the case.
Even more incendiary was the charge of Harrison, op. cit., p. 232, that Governor John M. Morehead sought to coerce Secretary Trenholm into exchanging gold for Morehead’s bonds and currency, then nearly worthless. Morehead’s daughter Letitia, upon reading such accounts in 1901, said she was “furious” and denounced them as “false slanders.” She insisted that President and Mrs. Davis had been in the town together, and were offered the hospitality of the Morehead home, Blandwood, but that Davis refused, fearing Federal retaliation upon the family. Mrs. Letitia Morehead Walker’s several lapses of memory and her response (Charlotte Observer, 1905) at such a late date have caused historians to dismiss her protests. But Morehead’s great-great-granddaughter, Mrs. Mary Lewis Edmunds of Greensboro, maintains persuasively, “It is hard to believe that any host, particularly Governor Morehead, known for his tact, kindness, and hospitality, would force himself into a guest’s sick room and try to bully him!… How could Morehead have expected to get the gold from Trenholm? I’m sure that Trenholm, sick as he was, could not have personally carried the gold to Blandwood.”
In any case, a small body of literature presents the local side of the matter: William B. Bushong, History of Blandwood, Greensboro, 1979; Burton A. Konkle, John Motley Morehead and the Development of North Carolina, 1922; Ethel S. Arnett, Confederate Guns Were Stacked at Greensboro, Greensboro, 1965; The Reverend Jacob Henry Smith, Diary, microfilm, Southern Historical Collection, UNC Library, Chapel Hill.
Movement of the Confederate treasure through Greensboro is reported in W. H. Parker, op. cit., p. 355.
A full account of the difficult negotiations between Davis and his two generals is in “Davis and Johnston,” Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. XX, pp. 95–108.
Robert E. Lee, Jr., left his account in Recollections and Letters of Robert E. Lee, N.Y., 1904.
Captain John Taylor Wood, whose Diary, though terse in style and occasionally inaccurate, is indispensable, came into his own in Greensboro. As the President’s most competent, forceful associate, he might have led the party to safety, given the opportunity. His singular life is rendered in Royce Shingleton, John Taylor Wood …, Athens, Ga., 1979.
Sketch of Breckinridge from W. C. Davis, op. cit., pp. 20, 23, 32, 254 ff.
The failure of Southern negotiators to consider slavery as an issue in framing terms for peace stemmed from the view that the Confederacy had fought over the constitutional issue of state sovereignty, to defend themselves against a strong central government. Jefferson Davis in particular clung to this view. He believed that defense of slavery by the South was coincidental, “an inferior aspect of the conflict.”
Mrs. Davis later, lacking other means, sent Abram Weill a pitcher from her family silver service as a token of appreciation, and wrote in her Memoir, “This acknowledgement … is … a relief to my heart, which has borne his goodness in grateful memory for 25 years.” Mrs. Edward Loewenstein of Greensboro, N.C., Weill’s great-granddaughter, owns the pitcher as well as a letter from Mrs. Davis written at Weill’s death, praising his “exceeding kindness to me and mine at much risk to himself and his family … as long as I shall live he has left me his grateful debtor.” (Varina Davis–Carolina Weill, August 31, 1902.)
Mrs. Mary B. Chesnut’s comments on Mrs. Davis are found in her familiar A Diary from Dixie, Ben Ames Williams, ed., Boston, 1949.
Semmes reported desertions in Greensboro, op. cit., pp. 219–20; David P. Conyngham’s report comes from his Sherman’s March … N.Y., 1865, p. 393.
Ethel Arnett, op. cit., describes the rioting and looting by Confederate soldiers (and some civilians) in Greensboro.
The oft-described final Cabinet meeting of the Lincoln administration is presented here from Gideon Welles, “Lincoln and Johnson,” Galaxy Magazine, Vol. XIII, pp. 522–27 (no access to file of magazine); and from Benjamin Thomas, Abraham Lincoln, 1952, pp. 516–17.
The departure of the Davis party from Greensboro is reported in Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. IX, pp. 542–43; Mallory’s account is in “The Last Days of the Confederate Government,” McClure’s Magazine, Vol. XVI, p. 242; Harrison’s in The Harrisons of Skimino, Fairfax Harrison, ed., N.Y., 1910, p. 239.
Sketch of Frank Vizetelly from W. Stanley Hoole, Vizetelly Covers the Confederacy, Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1957, p. 141 ff.
6 “I cannot feel myself a beaten man!”
The strikingly relaxed, outgoing Davis, enjoying life in his fugitive’s camps, is depicted in Mallory’s Diary, Vol. 2, p. 80.
Zebulon Vance gave his own version of his meeting with Davis, cited in Clement Dowd’s Life of Zebulon B. Vance, Charlotte, N.C., 1897, pp. 485–86.
The skirmish which saved the railroad bridge at the Yadkin River crossing was recalled by Henry Mills of Stanly County, N.C., a participant; in Charlotte Observer (n.d.), 1907, quoted by James Brawley, Salisbury Post, 3/4/1979.
Varina Davis, op. cit., pp. 627–29, tells the story of the Salisbury visit of her husband, and the anecdote of the fearful child; from an unidentified but contemporary letter.
The party’s stop in Concord was verified by Meade, op. cit., 408n, through Dr. Paul Barringer, Charlottesville, Va., nephew of Victor B. Barringer.
William Johnston, who had been an unsuccessful candidate for governor of North Carolina against Vance, served as mayor of Charlotte and became a railroad builder after the war. Files, Charlotte Observer, courtesy Jack Claiborne, associate editor.
The erroneous quotation of Davis by Bates appeared in the New York Times, 5/31/1865.
Numerous comments on the death of Lincoln have been attributed to Davis, including one recorded by Mallory: “I certainly have no special regard for Mr. Lincoln, but there are a great many men of whose end I would much rather hear than his. I fear it will be disastrous to our people, and I regret it deeply.” A. K. McClure, a prominent magazine publisher from Pennsylvania, quoted Davis as saying in 1875, “Next to the destruction of the Confederacy, the death of Abraham Lincoln was the darkest day the South has ever known.”
The sermon at St. Paul’s church by Everhart, and Davis’s reaction, are described in Harrison, op. cit., p. 243; added comments, perhaps by Everhart, in the Church Intelligencer, Charlotte, 5/4/1865.
Basic sources for final negotiations between Johnston and Sherman, and the ineffectual efforts of the distant Davis to influence their course, are Davis, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 678 ff.; Sherman, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 326; and Johnston, op. cit., p. 404 ff.
The remarkable letter, Jefferson Davis to Varina Davis, from Charlotte, was dated 23 April, Strode, Jefferson Davis, Private Letters.
The departure of George Davis from the caravan was noted in Lubbock, op. cit., p. 566.
Raphael Semmes’s story of his parole appears in W. Adolphe Roberts, op. cit, pp. 240–41.
For Breckinridge and Kean and the Confederate archives in Charlotte, see Edward Younger, ed., Inside the Confederate Government: The Diary of Robert Garlick Kean … N.Y., 1957, p. 207.
7 “Why are you still in the field?”
William Preston Johnston reported the President’s chagrin at being greeted with such high confidence in Abbeville, S.C.
Senator Orr’s bitter comment was made in a letter to F. W. Pickens, 4/29/1865, cited by John K. Aull, Columbia (SC) State, 9/20/1931.
The young Benthuysens, who were Brooklyn-born, had been reared in New Orleans. Their aunt was the wife of Joseph Davis, the President’s brother.
The scene of Davis and three of his Cabinet members playing marbles with the Springs boys is described by Katherine W. Springs, The Squires of Springfield, Charlotte, N.C., 1965, pp. 235–36 (based on Mallory’s account in “Pen & Ink Sketches,” otherwise unidentified).
Trenholm’s letter of resignation, dated 4/29/1865, appears as a copy in the Edwin M. Stanton Papers, Library of Congress. The jesting over Reagan’s assumption of the role of Secretary of the Treasury was reported by Lubbock, op. cit., p. 565.
Sherman’s disdain for Stanton’s gossip of the Confederate “millions” is revealed in his Memoirs, Vol. II, p. 372.
Orders to Palmer’s troopers and their route southward may be found in O.R., Ser. 1, Vol. XLIX, Pt. 1, pp. 545–47.
The Boston Transcript quotation, edition of 1/5/1865.
General Grant’s admonition that Confederate officers were not to be harmed, expressed to Robert Bingham, is cited in McElroy, op. cit., Vol. 2 p. 468.
The crossing of the Catawba River is described in Tench Tilghman, Diary, April–May, 1865, cited in Hanna, op. cit., p. 58.
Comments on Bragg by Davis are in McWhiney, op. cit., pp. 93, 99–100, and his opinions of other leading Confederates are detailed in this valuable work.
Senator Orr’s sally on the Davis-Bragg relationship appears in a letter from Dr. J. H. Claiborne of Petersburg, Va. to his wife, 3/29/1864 (Claiborne papers, Univ. of Va. library).
The comment by Gorgas on Davis as an administrator is cited in McWhiney, op. cit., p. 85.
Breckinridge and Bragg are compared as to personal appearance in Eliza F. Andrews, Diary of a Georgia Girl … ed. Spencer B. King, Jr., Macon, Ga. 1960, p. 169. (Hereafter Andrews, Diary.)
See Palmer’s final movements in pursuit of Davis in O.R. Ser. 1, Vol. XLIX, Pt. 1, p. 346 ff.
Varina’s long letter to her husband, including a warning about General Bragg, is dated 4/28/1865, Strode, Private Letters.
Edmund Kirby Smith and his domain are sketched by Andrew F. Rolle in The Lost Cause, The Confederate Exodus to Mexico, Norman, Okla., 1965, pp. 38–51 and passim.
Sketch of Virginia Clay is drawn from C. C. Clay Papers, esp. her scrapbooks; Nuermberger, op. cit.; and Chesnut, op. cit., p. 285.
Parker, op. cit. pp. 351–52, describes movement of the treasure to and from Abbeville; and in Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. 21, pp. 304–12, this author adds further details. Robert M. Willingham, Jr., in No Jubilee …, Washington, Ga., 1976, p. 192, notes that five of Parker’s young guards refused to leave, and remained on duty. John F. Wheless made his report in Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. 10, p. 137.
For Varina’s arrival in Washington, Ga., see Andrews, op. cit., date of April 30, 1865 (pp. 190 ff.) for the President’s sojourn in the town. Varina’s own account of the flight omits the final phase around Washington and Irwinville, Ga., and substitutes the narrative of her husband.
The “final” meeting of the Confederate Cabinet in Abbeville is described in Duke, op. cit.; Lubbock, op. cit.; and several other writers. Battles & Leaders, Vol. 4, pp. 764–65, has a summary; see also Southern History Assn. Publications, Vol. 5, pp. 291–92; 296–97. There is no agreement as to where the “last” meeting was held, and the claimants for the honor range from Danville, Va. through Greensboro and Charlotte, N.C. to Fort Mill, Abbeville, S.C. and Washington, Ga. The last session attended by all members of the Davis Cabinet was held in Charlotte; the quorum was steadily reduced in subsequent sessions during the flight.
The transfer of the gold and silver from the railroad cars at Abbeville added to the air of confusion surrounding the journey of the treasure. Basil Duke, in his Reminiscences … (Reprint of 1969, Freeport, N.Y.), p. 388, noted that there were so many guards at the train “that some of them might have appropriated a considerable sum and the others have not been aware of it.” Duke never knew the exact amount of the treasure he was guarding on the last leg of the flight, but he personally searched the box cars by candlelight in Abbeville, gathering stray coins. Even afterward, he reported, an officer discovered a small box containing from $2000 to $3000 in gold coins which had been overlooked.
The Richmond Whig, then issued as a Union paper, commented on the Davis flight 4/25/1865; the Augusta Constitutionalist and the Edgefield Advertiser were quoted by John K. Aull, Columbia State, 9/13/1931.
The New York Times urged on the Federal pursuers on 5/1/1865.
8 “You’re Southern gentlemen, not highway robbers”
Mallory’s resignation to Davis, dated 5/2/1865, is in Harrison papers, Library of Congress; his protest that he felt further resistance useless is in his Diary, Vol. 2, p. 79.
It is unlikely that a completely satisfactory account of the fate of the Confederate treasure will be written. Otis Ashmore’s account in Georgia Historical Quarterly, Vol. 2, pp. 119–33, accepted as the most reliable, does not include the scene of the looting of the money wagons. The account by C. E. L. Stuart, a rather shadowy figure, appeared in Benson J. Lossing’s Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War, Vol. 3, p. 577. The author was unable to locate the work cited, Stuart’s “History of the Last Days and Final Fall of the Rebellion.” Though Lossing is not always reliable, his voluminous historical works include unique and valuable material, and an assessment of the worth of Stuart’s testimony is difficult.
The scene of Breckinridge and the unruly troops is sketched by W. C. Davis, op. cit., p. 521, though without mention of looting.
In addition to Ashmore’s article, which reviews testimony of witnesses, Willingham, op. cit., reviews the entire affair as it occurred in Georgia, and cites a number of local sources. Captain Micajah H. Clark’s account, accepted as most nearly authoritative, appeared in Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. 9, pp. 542–56; that of Paymaster John F. Wheless is in the same papers. Vol. 10, pp. 138–41; Captain W. H. Parker, who is quoted by Ashmore, wrote an additional account in Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. 21, pp. 304–12. A bibliography covering the transfer of all funds from Richmond into Georgia is in Publications of the Southern Historical Association, Vol. V, No. iii, pp. 188–227; (previous articles on the subject appeared in the same volume—No. i, pp. 1–34; No. ii, pp. 95–150).
Though Captain Clark’s “complete” accounting appears in Hanna, op. cit., p. 92, balancing the books at $327,000 received and disbursed, Ashmore’s careful study concluded that some $43,800 was unaccounted for. Several omissions are obvious, and witnesses who had knowledge of details offered conflicting statements.
Captain Clark wrote of the matter as late as January 16, 1882, in the Louisville Courier-Journal. Walter Philbrook and others were quoted in the New York Times in the spring of 1865 (April 12; May 1 and 28; June 1), and in January 1882.
Varina Davis placed Benjamin’s departure from Davis in the “Vienna Valley,” a few miles from Washington, Ga. (Letter to Francis Lawley, 6/8/1898, Pierce Butler Collection, Tulane Univ. library). Benjamin was carrying $1500 in gold, drawn from the Confederacy’s “Secret Service” fund in Richmond on April 1; he presumably used this in his escape. (Manuscript Division, Perkins Library, Duke Univ.) Colonel Leovy’s role in this escape is detailed in Lousiana Historical Quarterly, Vol. XIX, p. 965.
The plea from Varina Davis to her husband, urging that he “cut loose” and flee, is found in Strode, Private Letters, under “May 1865” (n.d., n.p.).
The President’s “wish” to be captured is discussed in Patrick, op. cit., pp. 354–55.
The movements of Breckinridge, as he prepared to leave the Presidential column near Washington, are found in W. C. Davis, op. cit., p. 522.
Distribution of the final substantial amounts of the treasure in Washington, Ga. is described by Clark in accounts cited above. (For final disposition, see Notes, Chapter 13.)
The story of Varina Davis traveling as “Mrs. Jones” is given in Dunbar Rowland, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist … 10 vols., Jackson, Miss., 1923, Vol. 7, p. 819 (citing Burton Harrison’s “Narrative”).
9 “God’s will be done”
Lieutenant Yeoman’s account (which has been challenged by other Federal soldiers) appeared in Four Years in the Saddle. History of the First Regiment of Ohio Volunteer Cavalry, W. L. Curry, compiler, Columbus, 1898, p. 248 ff. Yeoman’s claim to a portion of the $100,000 reward drew the ire of Michigan troopers who actually captured Davis.
The “disguise” adopted by Davis was noted in Wood’s Diary, Vol. 3, May 4, 1865; the account of Davis for this period is in his Rise & Fall, Vol. 2, pp. 700–05. The President’s reckless decision to join his wife, on the basis of a rumor that her camp was to be attacked, is described in Patrick, op. cit., p. 356, among numerous other sources. Except for this delay, Davis would almost certainly have escaped abroad—as Lincoln had hoped he would.
See Harrison, op. cit., pp. 253 ff.; Harrison sent proofs to Davis, who made numerous corrections, as he frequently did when Harrison presented writings about the flight.
Wood’s criticism of the lack of security in the camp at Irwinville is in his Diary, Vol. 3, 10/5/1865.
Federal reports on the capture of Davis and his party are in O.R., Ser. 1, Vol. XLIX, Pt. 1, p. 515 ff; and pp. 530–32; and in Pt. 2, pp. 556, 665. A full report by General Wilson is in Senate Document 13, 39th Congress, 2d Session, reported 1/31/1867; this also includes reports of Colonel Harnden of the 1st Wisconsin, Colonel R. H. G. Minty, commander, Second Cavalry Corps, and others.
See “The Capture of Jefferson Davis,” a pamphlet accompanying Bill No. 1277, 40th Congress, 2d Session. A Report by the Committee of Claims. (Problems of distribution of the $100,000 reward. A valuable source on the capture itself.)
Also consulted: Record of Service of Michigan Volunteers in the Civil War, Vol. 34, Fourth Michigan Cavalry; James Green, The Life and Times of General B.D. Pritchard, Allegan, Mich., 1979; Lauren H. Ripley, 4th Mich. Cavalry, “Personal Reminiscences of the Flight and Capture of Jeff Davis,” typescript, Bentley Historical Library, Univ. of Michigan; diaries and letters of Henry Albert Potter and diary of Orlando E. Carpenter, typescripts, Bentley Library.
Pritchard, who led the Michigan troopers, became the leading citizen of Allegan after the war, practiced law and served as State Treasurer, but declined offers to run for governor and for Congress. His share of the reward for the capture of Davis was $3,000. Pritchard died in 1905.
Claude B. Denison, the Adjutant of the 4th Michigan Cavalry, wrote “The Capture of Jefferson Davis” for The Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, Michigan Commandery, War Papers No. 10—an account consistent with the versions of Jefferson and Varina Davis.
Major Confederate sources are Jefferson Davis, Rise & Fall; Varina Davis, Memoir; Burton Harrison, op. cit.; Francis R. Lubbock, op. cit.; John T. Wood, op. cit; W. T. Walthall, “The True Story of the Capture of Jefferson Davis” in Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. 5, pp. 97–126 is detailed and accurate, and cites correspondence with Lubbock, Raphael Semmes, Colonel W.P. Johnston and George Davis; the definitive discussion of Davis’s “disguise” is an article by Chester D. Bradley, M.D. in the Journal of Mississippi History, August 1974, pp. 243–68.
The current text is a synthesis of the accounts of participants most directly involved, striving for clarity of the brief action during the capture, and attempting to illuminate the enduring controversy which followed. (Actual participants were few. As Burton Harrison wrote, “I have not found there was anyone except Mrs. Davis, the single trooper at her tent, and myself, who saw all that occurred and heard all that was said at the time. Any one else who gives an account of it has to rely upon hearsay or upon his own imagination.” Cited in McElroy, op. cit., p. 513. This view, of course, was challenged by Julian Dickinson, Andrew Bee and James H. Parker of the Federal forces.)
10 “He must be executed”
The reported Confederate heckling of Davis is from Ripley, op. cit., pp. 40–41. Other incidents on the road to Macon, under Federal guard, are described by Varina in Memoir, Vol. 2, pp. 641 ff.
Henry A. Potter’s critical view of Varina is in his letter to his father, 5/19/1865, Bentley Library, Univ. of Michigan.
The story of the solicitous Negro waiter is given by Varina in Memoir, Vol. 2, p. 643n.
Virginia Clay’s recollection of her husband’s surrender is from Belle of the Fifties, p. 246 ff; the train ride from Macon to Augusta is described by Mrs. Clay, op. cit., p. 248 ff; her sketch of Davis at this time is found on p. 68. Other detailed observations by Mrs. Clay are in the C. C. Clay Papers, Manuscript Division, Perkins Library, Duke University, especially in her Scrapbook No. 2 (1886–93), consisting chiefly of undated, unidentified newspaper clippings.
Sketch of Stephens from Dictionary of American Biography; E. Ramsey Richardson, Little Aleck, a Life of Alexander H. Stephens; Myrta L. Avary, Recollections of Alexander H. Stephens; Patrick, op. cit., p. 40 ff. The apocryphal story of the butler’s denial that Stephens was married is from Morgan, op. cit., p. 203. The sketch of the physical appearance of the Confederate Vice-President in earlier days is from John Peyton, The American Crisis, London, 1867.
Woodrow Wilson’s glimpse of the captive Confederate leaders is recorded in William B. Hale’s Woodrow Wilson, N.Y., 1912, p. 30.
Virginia Clay, op. cit., described her treatment of Davis’s headache, pp. 59–60.
The call for the execution of Davis by Harper’s Weekly appeared in the edition of 5/27/1865.
Varina Davis, op. cit., p. 645n, recalled the parting with Jim Limber and his later betrayal.
Many Southerners, hearing rumors of the “disguise” worn by Davis at his capture, defended him by recalling heroes of the past who had sought to escape danger by wearing female attire: Charles II after Woodstock, the Young Pretender after leaving Flora Macdonald—even King Alfred dressed as a cowherd, Richard the Lion-Hearted as a pilgrim, and Abraham Lincoln entering Washington in a “Scotch cap and cloak.” Such defenses were anathema to Davis, who protested that he would never have stooped to such deceit as “unbecoming a soldier and a gentleman.” (McElroy, op. cit., pp. 517–18.)
11 “This is not like being Secretary of State”
Benjamin’s journey through Florida is fully described by Hanna, op. cit., Meade, op. cit., Pierce Butler, op. cit., and by Louis Gruss, “Judah Philip Benjamin,” Louisiana Historical Quarterly, Vol. XIX, p. 965. The parrot story told by Benjamin was found by Butler in “Lawley Manuscripts,” otherwise unidentified. (Meade, 320.) Fred Tresca and H. A. McLeod described their roles in Lillie B. McDuffee, The Lures of Manatee, Nashville, 1933, p. 158; also see Galveston Daily News, 5/27/1894.
Despite his testimony, Benjamin’s route through north-central Florida is difficult to trace, since he went alone much of the way, through sparsely settled country, avoiding towns and settlements. His progress from Tampa onward is clearly defined and documented.
The squalls and water spouts described by Benjamin from his hair-raising sea voyage appeared in a letter to his sister Rebecca.
There is a minor controversy about the identity of the boats used by Benjamin. Hanna, op. cit., p. 200, names the Blonde, the first, smaller, vessel; Meade, op. cit., p. 322 identifies this craft as the second, larger, boat found in the Keys. Meade offers full citations, but this text follows Hanna, long the dean of Florida’s local historians.
The companion adventure of John Breckinndge in escaping was first told in a letter to his son Owen, written from the British steamer Shannon and mailed in London in July 1865. The account, presented as a diary, appeared in the Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society, October 1939, edited by A. J. Hanna.
The diary of John T. Wood, though helpful, was so sparse as to contribute little drama to the hegira. It was Wood to whom Breckinridge owed his life and safe arrival in Cuba. Wood himself went to Nova Scotia, where he settled as a shipper and insurance agent. He flew a Confederate flag from his office building until his death. Fortunately, Wood expanded his diary into a narrative of the escape, which appeared in Century Magazine, November 1893, pp. 110–23.
The flight of George Davis is sketched in Hanna, op. cit., p. 219 ff; Davis left an account in a letter to his son Junius, November 14, 1865; see also Samuel A. Ashe, George Davis, Raleigh, N.C. 1916 and W. W. Davis, The Civil War & Reconstruction in Florida, pp. 53, 351–52.
Stephen Mallory’s recollections, which appeared in several versions, are in typescript, Southern Historical Collection, Univ. of N.C. Library, Chapel Hill; see also Hanna, op. cit., p. 242 ff. Hanna consulted an unpublished thesis by Occie Clubbs, “Stephen Mallory, the Elder,” at the Univ. of Fla.
Raphael Semmes’s Memoir and W. Adolphfe Roberts, op. cit., were sources for the homeward journey of the general-admiral. Semmes later taught at the future Louisiana State Univ., and edited a Memphis newspaper, but was driven from these posts by the hostile influence of Andrew Johnson. He practiced law in Mobile with his son, and died in 1877, at the age of sixty-seven.
The defiance of Robert Toombs and his fate in these days are recorded in Patrick, op. cit., pp. 87–89 and 359.
12 “Oh, the shame! The shame”
The surprising leniency of the U.S. government in the treatment of Davis and his Cabinet is discussed in Patrick, op. cit., pp. 363–65.
The imprisonment of Davis is detailed in Strode’s Jefferson Davis, p. 226 ff; in McElroy, op. cit., p. 524 ff, and, more recently and in greater detail, by Dr. Chester Bradley, especially in “Dr. Craven and the Prison Life of Jefferson Davis,” Virginia Magazine, Vol. 62, p. 60. Most valuable of all is John J. Craven, Prison Life of Jefferson Davis, N.Y., 1866. The most vivid account was left by Captain Jerome Titlow, who supervised the shackling of Davis; letter to Titlow’s son, preserved in the Confederate Museum, Richmond. Titlow died in 1912 in the Minnesota Soldiers’ Home, Minneapolis.
See also the accounts by Davis himself, op. cit., and by Varina Davis, op. cit., p. 647 ff. In virtually all sources, Davis is depicted as long-suffering in face of gross and cruel mistreatment. The lone dissent came from Clement Clay, who wrote his wife, “Mr. Davis is petulant, irascible, and offensive in manner to officers … though they say he is able, learned, high-toned and imposing in manner.” Cited by Virginia Clay-Clopton, op. cit., pp. 288–89.
The comment of Sidney Lanier on the “guilt” of Davis and his enshrinement in the hearts of the Southern people is found in his Tiger Lilies, p. 120.
13 “Ankle deep in gold and silver”
The scene of the looting of the Virginia bank funds is drawn from Otis Ashmore, The Georgia Historical Quarterly, Vol. 2, December 1918, pp. 171 ff; a somewhat different version is found in Eliza Andrews, op. cit., pp. 269 ff. See also Willingham, op. cit., p. 195 ff. Ashton Chapman, a Wilkes County, Ga. native, wrote in The Charlotte Observer, February 2, 1941 in considerable detail, citing several documents, as well as the account left by Eliza Andrews. The narrative of Lewis Shepherd is cited by Ashmore.
For the fate of the bank funds see report of House Committee on Claims, 49th Congress, 1st session, 1886, and subsequent Joint Resolution. (Cited by Ashmore, op. cit., pp. 185 ff.)
The author failed to discover traces of the $86,000 given to Semple, and the $30,000 given to U.S. General E. L. Molineux by Major Moses. Molineux, of Brooklyn, N.Y. reported June 17, 1865, in a family letter, that he had captured millions in Rebel property in and around his Macon headquarters—and that $275,000 of this was in gold and silver bars (probably none of which was a part of the official Confederate treasure). The whimsical Molineux wrote, “I tried hard to chip off a piece of gold, but my conscience was too sharp or my knife was too dull, I don’t know which.” Letter owned by Will Molineux of Williamsburg, Va., the general’s great-grandson.
The disbursement of the last of the official treasure in Confederate hands, the $25,000 remainder of the money carried by President Davis and his party, is reported in Clark’s various accounts, as cited, and in a diary of Tench F. Tilghman, edited by A. J. Hanna in Florida Historical Quarterly, January 1939. See reprint, The Confederate Baggage Train Ends Its Flight in Florida, by A. J. Hanna, n.p., n.d.
Those belongings of Davis found by a Federal patrol near the Yulee plantation were kept in government offices in Washington until 1874, when some of them were returned to Davis.
14 “Watch and wait for the morning”
The story of the diehard Judge Perkins is told by Sarah Dorsey, Recollections of Henry Watkins Allen, N.Y., 1866. For an able presentation of Southern postwar attitudes, see Andrew F. Rolle, The Lost Cause: The Confederate Exodus to Mexico, Norman, Okla., pp. 8 ff; also see Robert S. Henry, The Story of Reconstruction, Indianapolis, 1938, pp. 26 ff. The quotation from Joel C. Harris also appears here, p. 28.
General Lee’s postwar life is eloquently chronicled in Charles Bracelyn Flood’s Lee: The Last Years, Boston, 1981. For Lee’s application for a pardon, see pp. 62–3.
The story of Shelby’s men is told in Rolle, op. cit., pp. 3–4 and pp. 57 ff. For another version of the crossing of the Rio Grande see W. C. Nunn, Escape from Reconstruction, Fort Worth, 1956, p. 34 (citing John N. Edwards, an early Shelby biographer).
The opposition of Davis to Confederate migration is expressed in Rowland, op. cit., Vol. 7, p. 69.
The restless stirring of the freed Negroes at the end of the war is described in Henry, op. cit., p. 29, quoting Sidney Andrews of Massachusetts, a reporter for “radical newspapers in Boston and Chicago.”
15 “We cannot convict him of treason”
Varina Davis, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 648 ff, tells her experiences on shipboard at Fort Monroe, and cites testimony of Dr. Craven, Captain Titlow, and Davis himself as to her husband’s life in prison.
The death of Edmund Ruffin is fully described in both Mitchell, op. cit., and Avery Craven, op. cit.
The Sanford Conover story is told in Rolle, op. cit., pp. 286 ff. Edwin Stanton’s role in the execution of Mrs. Surratt is shown, from Stanton’s point of view, in Benjamin P. Thomas and Harold P. Hyman, Stanton …, N.Y., 1962, p. 432. Despite the conclusion of these writers, there is evidence that Stanton did play a villain’s part in “railroading” Mrs. Surratt.
Judah Benjamin’s letter to Varina Davis, notifying her of money held for her account in England, was dated 1 September 1865. (Cited in Strode, Jefferson Davis, Vol. 3, p. 265.)
Thorough accounts of government legal actions against Davis, and their suspension, appeared over a span of many years. George Shea explained his willingness to defend Davis and discussed many aspects of the case in Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. 37, pp. 244–52; George S. Boutwell’s “Why Jefferson Davis Was Never Tried” is in ibid., Vol. 38. pp. 347–49. The most able later study is “The U.S. vs. Jefferson Davis,” by Ray F. Nichols, American Historical Review, Vol. 3, No. 2, January 1926, pp. 266 ff. Other discussions include “The Trials and Trial of Jefferson Davis,” a paper read before the Virginia Bar Association 1900, and published by this organization.
The alleged guilt of Henry Wirz and the Confederate government in mistreating prisoners at Andersonville was hotly denied by Varina Davis, op. cit., pp. 537 ff. (She devoted an entire chapter to the defense, citing correspondence of Davis, Grant and others, newspaper accounts, and messages of Davis to the Confederate Congress.)
16 “The President is bailed!”
Mrs. Virginia Clay-Clopton, in op. cit., p. 300 ff. tells her own story of her husband’s imprisonment and her successful campaign to free him. She includes voluminous correspondence not to be found elsewhere. Her account is supplemented in her Scrapbook No. 2, Duke Univ. Mss. Dept., chiefly through unidentified newspaper clippings.
Varina Davis gave her account of her effort to free her husband in her Memoir in somewhat scattered form, and frequently in the words of others. In Vol. 2, p. 768 ff. she tells briefly of her encounters with Andrew Johnson and Edwin Stanton.
Some have claimed that Richard Taylor, the ex-President’s brother-in-law, was actually responsible for persuading Johnson to free Davis. Rolle, op. cit., p. 191.
Thomas and Hyman, op. cit., sought to revise the conventional view of Stanton’s role in the postwar era, denying that Stanton conspired against Johnson, and presenting the Secretary of War as honest and forthright. In the opinion of these historians, Stanton’s reputation as an intemperate, vindictive partisan traces from his quarrel with President Johnson.
The remarkable Colonel Charles Halpine, Dr. John Craven’s “ghost” for The Prison Life of Jefferson Davis, is discussed by two hostile critics, William Hanchett and David Rankin Barbee. Hanchett’s Irish Charles G. Halpine in Civil War America, N.Y., 1970, and Barbee’s “Dr. Craven’s Prison Life of Jefferson Davis’—an Exposé,” Tyler’s Quarterly, April 1951; pp. 282–95, find the Halpine-Craven book dishonest. This view was convincingly challenged by Dr. Chester Bradley, Newport News, Va. in correspondence with Hanchett and in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 62, January 1954. Bradley, a former curator of the Jefferson Davis Casemate Museum at Fort Monroe, has made valuable contributions to the understanding of the capture and imprisonment of Davis, and of Craven’s book and its influence.
Payment of the reward for the capture of Davis, and the political maneuvers in Congress by the Michigan and Wisconsin delegations on behalf of army veterans, are clarified by Lauren H. Ripley of the 4th Michigan Cavalry in his Personal Reminiscence, typescript, Bentley Historical Library, Univ. of Michigan.
The motivation of prominent Northerners, including Abolitionists, in defending Davis and providing bond for his release is clear from a statement of Horace Greeley to Varina Davis, “I will sign his bond though it will cost me a Senate seat, the Tribune circulation, and kill the sale of my last volume on the history of the war. I will do it because it is right.” Gerrit Smith, another signer of the bond, felt that the North bore a heavy burden of guilt for the war, a guilt rooted in attitudes toward slavery. “The North did quite as much as the South to uphold slavery,” he said. “She did it wickedly because more calculatingly. Slavery was an evil inheritance of the South, but the wicked choice, the adopted policy, of the North.” (Cited in McElroy, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 567, 588.)
17 “Preserve the traditions of our fathers”
Myrta L. Avary, in Dixie after the War, N.Y., 1906, recounts numerous stories of hardship in Southern families, including those of men and women who hitched themselves to plows to make a crop in 1865. Pp. 155–63.
Flood, op. cit., pp. 99–100, describes Lee’s installation as President of Washington College, and traces his subsequent career. Thomas L. Connelly, in The Marble Man: Robert E. Lee and His Image in American Society, N.Y., 1977 studies Lee’s final years (and the memorialization of the general thereafter) from a detached and “irreverent” point of view.
The historian who saw Lee as “the embodiment of the spirit of the New South” was Henry Steele Commager, in his introduction to The Blue & The Gray, 2 vols., N.Y., 1955.
The attempted collection of the debt from Watson Van Benthuysen by Davis is partially recounted in Hanna, op. cit., p. 265. (Citing the Burton Harrison Papers, Library of Congress.)
The scene of Davis kissing pretty girls on a train during his Southern tour is from “Nannie Davis Smith narrative,” McElroy Papers, New York Public Library. (Cited by Ishbel Ross, op. cit., p. 305.)
The granting of amnesty to Davis by President Johnson was received with joy in the South, but the “turncoat” Tennessean’s reputation was not altered in the ex-Confederacy. The ex-General Carl Schurz, speaking for Northern intellectuals, said of the amnesty proclamation and the decision to drop the trial of Davis, “There is not a single example of such magnanimity in the history of the world, and it may be said that in acting as it did, this Republic was a century ahead of its time.” (Cited in McElroy, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 594.)
Lee’s tour of the Carolinas is described in Flood, op. cit., pp. 231 ff.; and in Marshall Fishwick, Lee After the War, N.Y., 1940, p. 198 ff. Flood also wrote feelingly of the last hours of Lee.
The movement to erect monuments to Lee is well and amusingly told in Connelly, op. cit., pp. 27 ff.
The story of Lee’s burial in his stocking feet is drawn from Washington & Lee Alumni Magazine, Jan. 1927, p. 8; and from Charles H. Chittum, The Story of Finding the Coffin in Which Gen. Robert E. Lee was Afterwards Buried. Lexington, Va., 1928 (?).
Though Davis insisted in his Richmond eulogy of Lee that the two never differed, the two leaders were clearly at odds in their views of the proper Southern attitude toward the Northern conquerors. Davis never accepted Lee’s embrace of the new order. Their positions had lingering effects beyond the borders of the old Confederacy. As the late historian William B. Hesseltine said, in Confederate Leaders in the New South, Baton Rouge, 1950, “It was a conflict with many manifestations. Men divided along the lines of Davis and Lee in religion, in politics, and in economics. Eventually, in both the South and the nation as a whole, a working compromise was found between the antagonistic ideologies; but the struggle itself left a long legacy in the life of the South.”
18 “Alas for frail humanity!”
The story of the alleged Pullman-car incident is found on page 4 of the Louisville Commercial of July 15, 1871. Microfilm, Library of Congress. Except for comments in newspapers cited in the text, the author was unable to find mention of this report. Two weeks after the first publication, the Commercial listed other newspapers which had challenged the story, including the Frankfort (Ky.) Yeoman. The editor of the Commercial defended the story in strong terms, pointed out that he had given “names and dates,” and noted that Davis had not denied the facts: “He may not be able to deny them, or he may feel that he has no need to deny such a story. We have no desire to do him an injustice in any way, and, if the tale prove groundless, will make every amend in our power, but we will not retract it because papers which know nothing about it say it is a slander.”
The tradition that Virginia Clay was on the Pullman car with Davis should be accepted as no more than tradition, since proof is obviously impossible. The author heard the story more than twenty-five years ago from a Civil War historian and obtained a copy of the Louisville Commercial’s story. It was only after a study of the C. C. Clay papers at Duke University that written evidence argued strongly that the couple might indeed have been together on the train from Memphis to Huntsville on the night of July 11, 1871.
Davis wrote his daughter Maggie from Memphis, June 29: “… Some of my friends at Sewanee … have urged me to visit them on the 12th of July, their commencement, and if it should be practicable I will do so and go thence to Maryland.” He wrote again, to his wife, the following day, saying that his friend Bishop Green had sent an “urgent request” that he attend the Sewanee exercises, and Davis said, “If I can get away in time I will go.” Strode, Jefferson Davis, Private Letters, pp. 351–52. Strode declared, “Davis did go to Sewanee and delivered the commencement address.”
It was only a day after Davis wrote Varina about this that Virginia Clay wrote her husband, to say that she wanted to accompany Davis on the trip. (Her letter, in the C. C. Clay papers, is dated July 1, 1871; the two warm letters from Davis to Virginia Clay, in the same collection, are dated September 14, 1870 (?) and February 14, 1871.)
Archivists at the University of the South find no evidence that Davis was on the campus for the 1871 commencement (but report he was there the following year).
Though the C. C. Clay papers include Virginia Clay’s diaries for several years, there are no volumes for 1870 or 1871—and some of the others have been carefully erased in some passages. Her scrapbook, crowded with newspaper clippings, has one notably uncluttered page. A small engraving clipped from a newspaper or magazine, depicting an illicit meeting of lovers, is accompanied by a few lines of doggerel:
Stolen Sweets
“At ten o’clock, when the house is still,
The maid leans out on the window-sill,
And gives her hand to the gallant bold
Who has waited an hour in the bitter cold.…
But maidens are coy when they want to be,
And we are all fond of mystery.
This kind of love the other beats,
For there’s nothing so nice as stolen sweets.”
The failure of The Carolina Insurance Company was caused by poor management—and a ruinous yellow fever epidemic in the Memphis region. Policies had been issued recklessly and excessive claims doomed the firm. Davis was untrained in business, and though he grasped the mathematical principles of actuarial tables, he had no gift for meeting the public. Ishbel Ross, op. cit., p. 317; Varina Davis, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 312–13.
McElroy, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 631 if, and Strode, Jefferson Davis, pp. 431 ff offer full accounts of the Beauvoir period, and Ishbel Ross, op. cit., offers even more intimate detail, through the addition of material from correspondence of the Davis family.
The Davises left the basic accounts of the writing of Rise and Fall, but these fail to reveal Varina’s substantial contributions to the work. The Confederate Major J. J. Hood later observed that she did nearly all of the writing and copying for the two massive volumes, and added, “… the world does not know what Mrs. Jefferson Davis suffered all these long, trying years at Beauvoir.” Note on clipping from Jackson (Miss.) Daily News, June 2, 1908, State Archives, Montgomery.
The later writings of Davis are indebted to James Redpath, a young Scot who edited the North American Review, and came to admire Davis despite his own Abolitionist leanings. Redpath said of Davis, “I never met any public man who reverenced the Constitution as Mr. Davis reverenced it … if the Constitution had been lost, I think Mr. Davis could have rendered it from memory.”
Major Walthall’s contributions may also have been undervalued. Not only did this veteran tour the South, collecting material for Davis; he persisted until Washington officials opened to him Confederate records seized at the end of the war. The Federal government bought the papers of many of the leading Confederates, but Davis refused to part with those left to him.
Attacks on Davis in the war memoirs of Beauregard and Johnston—and the latter’s charge that Davis had stolen much Confederate gold—are ably discussed in Connelly, op. cit., pp. 79–80. Varina Davis, op. cit., Vol. 2, offers a strongly partisan view, in pp. 854 ff. The original Johnston charges were published in the Philadelphia Press, 18 December, 1881.
19 “My ambition lies buried”
The dramatic story of the Compromise of 1877, and the role of the New York Times in this unsavory affair, are retold in Henry, op. cit., pp. 571 ff.
McElroy, op. cit.. Vol. 2, pp. 672 ff, pictures Davis on the lecture trail and emphasizes the influence of this tour upon Southern public opinion. Carl Schurz gave an extreme view of the Davis postwar role. “[He] stimulated the brooding over the past disappointments rather than a cheerful contemplation of new opportunities. He presented the sorry spectacle of a soured man who wished everybody else to be soured, too.” (McElroy, ibid., p. 617.) McElroy contended that there was no evidence of such an effect from the Davis speeches.
There is, however, evidence that the rather vain Davis saw himself as the one legitimate Southern spokesman. Burton Harrison, who wrote on the capture of Davis for Century magazine, found his former chief displeased even by this friendly account, and hesitated to write further about his years with the Confederate President. Davis, Harrison said, was “very sensitive to criticism or to any remark by a friend which is not all praise.”
20 “No infidelity to the Union”
The story of the Lee monument in Richmond is discussed, as it relates to the theme of “The Image Molders,” in Connelly, op. cit., pp. 27 ff; also consulted: Ulrich Troubetzkoy, “The Lee Monument,” Virginia Cavalcade, Spring 1962, pp. 5 ff; numerous Richmond newspaper articles, particularly by R. B. Munford, Jr., Richmond News-Leader, May 5, 29, 1930; and Herbert T. Ezekiel, News-Leader, May 28, 1935.
Contemporary issues of the Richmond Dispatch, and “The Programme of Exercises … in Laying the Corner Stone …,” Richmond, 1887 were also useful.
The lingering influence of the reverence for Lee, exhibited so forcefully in Richmond in May 1890, was brought home to the author by President Harry Truman, who wrote to protest the “solecistic” sin of referring to the General as “Robert Lee” in the pages of a military biography. “Our great heroes are all too few,” Truman said, and he urged that they be treated with the utmost respect; this, he said, was the theme of his collections in the Truman Memorial Library in Independence, Mo.
The quotations from Bernard deVoto are from Saturday Review, March 6, 1937. p. 8.
EPILOGUE
The brief sketches of the chief actors in this narrative are drawn from entries in the Dictionary of American Biography; also, for Judah P. Benjamin, see Meade, op. cit.; John Breckinridge, W. C. Davis, op. cit.; Jo Shelby, Rolle, op. cit.; Edwin Stanton, Thomas and Hyman, op. cit.: Virginia Clay, Nuermberger, op. cit.; Varina Davis, Ishbel Ross, op. cit.
The lingering echoes of the Civil War are presented throughout Connelly, op. cit.; the quotation from D. S. Freeman is from Time, Oct. 18, 1948; further details from B. Davis, Our Incredible Civil War, N.Y. 1960 (republished as The Civil War: Strange and Fascinating Facts, N.Y. 1982).
The career of Traveler’s skeleton is taken from releases of Washington and Lee University; Charles McDowell, now a Washington columnist and television commentator, served as a guide in the Lee Chapel at about age twelve, and recalled the story of presenting the miniature skeleton as that of Traveler in colthood. The Richmond Times-Dispatch, May 7, 1967, has a report on Traveler’s post-mortem career by Web deHoff.
Lee’s frustration in seeking a pardon and restoration of his civil rights are detailed in Flood, op. cit.