The Life of Jefferson Davis

But the assumption that events have indicated the wisdom of General Johnston’s views, in their declared antagonism to those of Mr. Davis, is altogether unsustained. The immediate results of a change of commanders, and a consequent inauguration of a different policy[55 - It is only fair to state that General Johnston proposed operations, similar in their main features to those of Lee, though it does not therefore follow that they would have been equally successful. Johnston’s ability as a strategist can not be questioned, and to those who closely and intelligently studied his campaigns, there can be little doubt as to his aggressive qualities, though in this respect, results were not in his favor.]– a policy in accordance with Mr. Davis’ own views, may, with far more reason, be alleged in support of a contrary theory. The vigorous and aggressive policy adopted and executed by Lee not only accorded with the wishes of the President, but fulfilled the long-deferred popular expectation, and agreeably disappointed the public in Lee’s capacity. For despite the general disappointment at the absence of decisive achievements by the Army of Northern Virginia, General Johnston commanded far more of public confidence, than did General Lee at the period of the latter’s accession to command.

Nothing could have been more disadvantageous to Lee, than the contrast so freely indicated between himself and other officers. Johnston was criticised merely because of the absence of brilliant and decisive achievements. Lee was assumed to have proven his incompetency by egregious failure. He was ridiculed as a closet general. His campaigns were said to exist only on paper – to consist of slow methodical tactics, and incessant industry with the spade, and he was pronounced totally deficient in aggressive qualities. A prominent Richmond editor, criticising his North-western Virginia campaign, asserted that the unvarying intelligence from Lee was that he was “hopelessly stuck in the mud,” and an officer was heard to compare him to a terrapin, needing the application of a hot coal to his back to compel him to action. But with the lapse of a fortnight that army, which received the intelligence of Lee’s appointment to command with misgiving and distrust, began to experience renewed life and hope. It was not the few additional brigades given to that army which so soon started it upon its irresistible career of victory. A mighty hand projected its impetus, and directed its magnificent valor against those miles of intrenchments which it had seen grow more and more formidable, itself meanwhile an inactive spectator.

Lee found the army within sight of Richmond; he lifted it from the mud of the Chickahominy, defeated an enemy intrenched and in superior force; pursued the panting and disheartened fugitives to the shelter of their shipping; defeated a second army – then both together – within hearing of the Federal capital; fought an indecisive battle upon the enemy’s soil, and reëstablished the Confederate line upon the frontier. Is it a matter of wonder that the President, the army, and the people recognized the significance of these results, and applauded the substitution of the new system and the new status for the old? A better explanation of so pronounced a contrast is needed than that the “prejudice” or “injustice” of Davis withheld from Johnston, five or even ten thousand men, which he gave to Lee.

Yet there could be no hypothesis more presumptuous, in view of the abundant testimony of competent military judgment, and none more palpably untenable, than that which would deny greatness as a soldier to Johnston. As a consummate master of strategy, in that sense which contemplates the movements of heavy masses, and looks to grand ultimate results, Johnston has probably few equals. His sagacity in the divination of an enemy’s designs is remarkable; and if he be considered as having marked deficiencies, they must be counted as a lack of Jackson’s audacity, of Lee’s confident calculation and executive perfection. The South regards Lee as beyond criticism. Jefferson Davis is accustomed to say “the world has rarely produced a man to be compared with Lee.” Yet in mere intellectuality, it is at least questionable whether Johnston had his superior among the Southern leaders.

But it often happens that qualities, however great, are not those which the occasion demands. That marvelous union of qualities in Lee, which has placed him almost above parallel, probably made him alone adequate to the hazardous posture of affairs at Richmond in the summer of 1862. The result, at least, made evident to the world, the wisdom of the President, in that choice, which was at first declared the undeserved reward of an incompetent favorite.

Whatever may be alleged to the contrary, President Davis at all times, to the full extent of his power, aided General Johnston in the consummation of his designs. To assert that, upon any occasion, he either interposed obstacles to Johnston’s success, or denied him any means in his power to confer, is to question that personal fidelity of Jefferson Davis, which his bitterest enemy should be ashamed to deny. Few Southern men, at least, have yet attained that measure of malignity, or that hardihood of mendacity.

General Lee was not dilatory in his preparations to gratify that longing aspiration which the President, on his own behalf, and in the name of the country, briefly expressed, that “something should be done.” Lee had a carte blanche, but frequent and anxious were the consultations between the President and himself. The world now knows what followed those days and nights of anxious conference, in which were weighed the chances of success, the cost of victory, and the possibilities of defeat. The plan executed by General Lee was one of the most hazardous ever attempted in war, but it was not less brilliant than bold, and at least one precedent had been furnished by the great master of the art of war at Austerlitz. Its perils were obvious, but the sublime confidence of Lee in the success of his combinations went far to secure its own justification.

During the week of engagements which followed, the President was constantly with the army and fully advised of its movements.[56 - Mr. Davis was every day upon the battle-field, and from this circumstance the impression prevailed in Richmond that he was directing the army in person. A common report, which I have never seen contradicted, was that the President narrowly escaped death during the progress of the battles. As related to the writer, the circumstance was as follows: The President, in company with General Magruder and other officers, was at a farm-house, upon which one of the Federal batteries was preparing to open. General Lee, apprised of the President’s whereabouts, sent a courier to warn him of his danger, and he and his companions escaped without injury, just as the Federal battery opened fire.] The cordial recognition of this advisory relation between himself and Lee, is indicated by the natural pride, and becoming sense of justice, with which the latter, in the report of his operations against McClellan, mentions the approving presence of the President, during the execution of his plans. This noble harmony between Davis and Lee, equally creditable to each, was never interrupted by one single moment of discord. It was never marred by dictation on one side, or complaint on the other. Unlike other commanders, Lee never complained of want of means, or of opportunity for the execution of his plans. Satisfied that the Government was extending all the aid in its power, he used, to the best advantage, the means at hand and created his opportunities. Lee never charged the President with improper interference with the army, but freely counseled with his constitutional commander-in-chief, whom he knew to be worthy of the trust conferred by the country in the control of its armies. President Davis fully comprehended and respected the jealous functions of military command, and in the exercise of that trust no one would have more quickly resented unauthorized official interference. A soldier himself, he recognized freedom of action as the privilege of the commander; as a statesman, he rendered that cordial coöperation, which is the duty of government.

When Lee had driven McClellan from his position along the Chickahominy, he had raised the siege of Richmond. The retreat of McClellan to the James River, conducted with such admirable skill, and aided by good fortune, placed the Federal army in a position where, secure itself, another offensive movement against the Confederate capital might, in time, be undertaken. Confederate strategy, however, soon relieved Richmond from the apprehension of attack, and in less than two months from the termination of the pursuit of McClellan, Lee, by a series of masterly strokes, demolished the armies under Pope, united for the defense of Washington, and was preparing an invasion of Maryland.

An almost magical change in the fortunes of the Confederacy was wrought by these active and brilliant operations, embracing so short a period, and marked by results of such magnitude.

Not only were the two main armies of the enemy defeated, but the entire Federal campaign in the East had been entirely disconcerted. Richmond was saved, Washington menaced, and McClellan forced back to the initial point of his campaign. Western Virginia, the Carolina coast, and other localities, for months past in Federal occupation, were almost divested of troops to swell the hosts gathering for the rescue of Washington, and to meet the dreaded advance, northward, of Lee’s invincible columns. From the heart of Virginia the cloud of war was again lifted to the Potomac frontier; the munificent harvests of the valley counties, of Fauquier, Loudon, and the fertile contiguous territory, were again in Confederate possession, and a numerous and victorious army was now anxious to be led across the Rubicon of the warring sections.

From harrowing apprehension, from vague dread of indefinable but imminent peril, the South was transported to the highest round of confident expectation. The North, which, in the last days of June, eagerly awaited intelligence of McClellan’s capture of Richmond, now regarded its own capital as doomed, and did not permit itself to breathe freely until McClellan announced the safety of Pennsylvania, when Lee had retired to Virginia.

The inducements which invited a movement of the Confederate forces across the Potomac were manifold. Whatever judgment the result may now suggest, the invasion of Maryland was alike dictated by sound military policy and justified by those moral considerations which are ever weighty in war. The overwhelming defeat of Pope more than realized the hope of President Davis and General Lee, when the strategic design of a movement northward was put in execution, by which was sought the double purpose of withdrawing McClellan from James River and effectually checking the advance of Pope. The successive and decisive defeats of Pope offered the prospect of an offensive by which the splendid successes of the campaign might be crowned with even more valuable achievements. Demoralized, disheartened, in every way disqualified for effectual resistance, the remnants of the armies which Lee had beaten, each in succession, and then combined, would be an easy prey to his victorious legions, could they be brought to a decisive field engagement. There yet remained time, before the end of the season of active operations, for crushing blows at the enemy, which would finish the work thus far triumphantly successful.

To inflict still greater damage upon the enemy – to so occupy him upon the frontier as to prevent another demonstration against Richmond during the present year – to indicate friendship and sympathy for the oppressed people of Maryland – to derive such aid from them as their condition would enable them to extend, were the potent inducements inviting the approbation of the Confederate authorities to a movement across the Potomac. President Davis was pledged to an invasion of the enemy’s country whenever it should prove practicable. Now, if ever, that policy was to be initiated. Hitherto the enemy’s power, not the will of the Confederate Government, had prevented. Now that power was shattered. The mighty fabric trembled to its base, and who would now venture to estimate the consequences of a brilliant victory by Lee, on Maryland soil, in September, 1862? What supporter of the Union can now dwell, without a shudder, upon the imagination, even, of a repetition, at Antietam, of the story of the Chickahominy, or Second Manassas?

The climax of the Maryland campaign was the battle of Antietam – a drawn battle, but followed by the early withdrawal of the Confederate army into Virginia. It is unnecessary to dwell upon the causes conspiring to give this portion of the campaign many of the features of failure. With a force greatly reduced by the straggling of his weary and exhausted troops, Lee was unable to administer the crushing blow which he had hoped to deliver.[57 - A serious disadvantage suffered by General Lee was the capture of his plan of battle by General McClellan. Completely informed as to his adversary’s movements, and with ninety thousand men against thirty-three thousand, the wonder is, that McClellan did not overwhelm the Confederate army. The means by which the enemy obtained this important paper was a subject of much gossip in the Confederacy.] As a consequence, the people of Maryland, of whom a large majority were thoroughly patriotic and warm in their Southern sympathies, were not encouraged to make that effective demonstration which would inevitably have followed a defeat of McClellan.

Nevertheless, there was some compensation in the terrible punishment inflicted upon the enemy at Antietam; and there was the heightened prestige, so greatly valued by the South at this period, in the eyes of Europe, arising from the temper and capacity of the weaker combatant to undertake so bold an enterprise. In the tangible evidences of success afforded by the capture of Harper’s Ferry, with its numerous garrison supplies of arms and military stores, was seen additional compensation for the abandonment of the scheme of invasion.

An interval of repose was permitted the Army of Northern Virginia, after its return from Maryland, in its encampments near Winchester, during which it was actively strengthened and recruited to the point of adequate preparation for expected demonstrations of the enemy.

The operations of the Western army, in many respects, were a brilliant counterpart to the campaign in Virginia, though lacking its brilliant fruits. We have mentioned the circumstance which placed General Braxton Bragg in command of the Western army, after its successful evacuation of Corinth. General Bragg was equally high in the confidence of the President and the Southern people. Greatly distinguished by his services in Mexico, his skillful handling, at Shiloh, of the magnificent corps of troops, which his discipline had made a model of efficiency, more than confirmed his Mexican fame.

Space does not permit us to follow, in detail, the execution of the able and comprehensive strategy, by which General Bragg relieved large sections of Tennessee and Alabama from the presence of the enemy, penetrated the heart of Kentucky, maintained an active offensive during the summer, and transferred the seat of war to the Federal frontier. A part of these operations was the hurried retreat of Buell’s immense army, from its posts in Alabama and Tennessee, for the defense of Louisville and Cincinnati; large captures of prisoners, horses, arms and military stores; and the brilliant progress and successive victories of Kirby Smith and Morgan. For weeks the situation in Kentucky seemed to promise the unqualified success of the entire Western campaign. There was, indeed, reasonable hope of a permanent occupation of the larger portion of Kentucky and Tennessee by the Confederate forces.

But the battle of Perryville – an engagement not unlike Antietam in its doubtful claim as a Federal victory – was followed by the retreat of General Bragg, which was executed with skill, and with results going far to relieve the disappointment of the popular hope of a permanent occupation of Kentucky. Buell, on his arrival at Louisville, whither he had retreated, received heavy reënforcements, which greatly increased his already superior numbers; and Perryville, a battle which General Bragg fought, rather to secure his retreat than with the expectation of a decisive victory, would have been an overwhelming Confederate success, had Bragg been sufficiently strong to follow up his advantage.

No Confederate commander, save Lee and Jackson, was ever able to present a claim of a successful campaign so well grounded as the Kentucky campaign of Bragg. With a force of forty thousand men, he killed, wounded, and captured more than twenty thousand of the enemy; took thirty pieces of artillery, thousands of small arms; a large supply of wagons, harness, and horses; and an immense amount of subsistence, ample not only for the support of his own army, but of other forces of the Confederacy. During the succeeding autumn and winter, Bragg’s army was conspicuous for its superior organization, admirable condition and tone; was abundantly supplied with food and clothing, and in larger numbers than when it started upon its campaign in August. Moreover, General Bragg redeemed North Alabama and Middle Tennessee, and recovered possession of Cumberland Gap, the doorway, through the mountains, to Knoxville and the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad – the main avenue from Richmond to the heart of the Confederacy. Evincing his determination to hold the recovered territory, General Bragg, within a month from his return from Kentucky, was confronting the principal army of the enemy, in the West, before Nashville.

Incidental to the movement of Bragg into Kentucky, and constituting a part of the programme, attempted upon the large theatre of the Western campaign, were the repulse of the first attack of the enemy upon Vicksburg, the partial failure of General Breckinridge’s expedition to Baton Rouge, and the serious reverse sustained by Van Dorn at Corinth. In connection with the more important demonstration into Kentucky, these incidents of the Western campaign may be briefly aggregated as the recovery of the country between Nashville and Chattanooga, and the important advantage of a secure occupation of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, thus closing the Mississippi to the enemy for two hundred miles.

Subsequent operations in Virginia, at the close of 1862, were entirely favorable to the Confederacy. While the two armies were confronting each other, with the imminent prospect of active and important operations, General McClellan was relieved, and one of his corps commanders, General Burnside, assigned to the command of the Federal army of the Potomac. As is now universally acknowledged, General McClellan was sacrificed to the clamor of a political faction. By this act Mr. Lincoln became responsible for much of the ill-fortune which awaited the Federal arms in Virginia.

Perhaps among his countrymen, a Southern tribute to General McClellan may constitute but feeble praise. He was unquestionably the ablest and most accomplished soldier exhibited by the war on the Northern side. “Had there been no McClellan,” General Meade is reported to have said, “there would have been no Grant.” In retirement, if not exile, General McClellan saw the armies which his genius created, achieve undeserved distinction for men, his inferiors in all that constitutes true generalship. He saw the feeble and wasted remnant of an army, with which he had grappled in the day of its glory and strength, surrender to a multitudinous host, doubly as large as the army with which he had given Lee his first check at Antietam. A true soldier, McClellan was also a true gentleman, an enemy whose talents the South respects none the less, because he did not wantonly ravage its homes, nor make war upon the helpless, the aged, and infirm. President Davis, who, while Federal Secretary of War, conferred upon McClellan a special distinction, held his genius and attainments in high estimation. He received the intelligence of his removal with profound satisfaction.

The North was not required to wait long for a competent test of the new commander’s capacity. Foiled and deceived by Lee, in a series of maneuvres, the results of which made him only less ridiculous than the gasconading Pope among Federal commanders, Burnside finally assailed Lee, on the 13th December, at Fredericksburg. The result was a bloody slaughter, unequaled in previous annals of the war, an overwhelming repulse, and a demoralized retreat across the Rappahannock.

The Western campaign terminated with the battle of Murfreesboro’. The Federal commander, Rosecrans, the successor of Buell, advanced from Nashville to drive Bragg from his position. A brilliant and vigorous attack by Bragg, on the 31st December, routed an entire wing of the Federal army; on the second day the action was more favorable to Rosecrans, who had retreated, after his reverse on the first day, to stronger positions. Receiving information that the enemy was strongly reënforcing, General Bragg fell back to Tullahoma, a position more favorable for strategic and defensive purposes.

The transfer, after the battle of Shiloh, of the troops of Price and Van Dorn to the army east of the Mississippi, had almost divested the Trans-Mississippi Department of interest in the public mind. After Elk Horn, there was but one considerable engagement, in 1862, west of the Mississippi. This was the battle of Prairie Grove, a fruitless victory, won by General Hindman, about the middle of December. The country north of the Arkansas River continued to be nominally held by the Federal forces.

Thus, in nearly every quarter, the second year of the war terminated with events favorable to the prospects of Southern independence. Though the territorial jurisdiction of the Confederacy was contracted, the world was not far from regarding the task of subjugation as already a demonstrated and hopeless failure. All the invasive campaigns of the enemy, save the first shock of his overwhelming onsets against weak and untenable posts, in the winter and early spring, had been brought to grief, and nowhere had he maintained himself away from his water facilities. An unexampled prestige among nations now belonged to the infant power, which had carried its arms from the Tennessee to the Ohio, had achieved a week of victories before its own capital, and carried the war back to its threshold. After such achievements the Southern Confederacy rightly claimed from those powers which have assumed to be the arbiters of international right an instant recognition upon the list of declared and established nationalities.

In our brief and cursory glance at military operations, we have omitted to mention the action of the Government designed to promote the successful prosecution of the war. This action is mainly comprehended by the various suggestions of the President’s messages to Congress. These recommendations related chiefly to measures having in view the increased efficiency of the service. He invited the attention of Congress, especially, to the necessity of measures securing the proper execution of the conscription law, and the consolidation of companies, battalions and regiments, when so reduced in strength as to impair that uniformity of organization, which was necessary in the army. Legislation was urged, having in view a better control of military transportation on the railroads, and the improvement of their defective condition. The President also recommended various propositions relating to organization of the army, and an extension of the provisions of the conscription law, embracing persons between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five years.

About the middle of December President Davis visited the camps of the Western Department, spending several weeks in obtaining information as to the condition and wants of that section of the Confederacy, and devising expedients for a more successful defense in a quarter where the Confederate cause was always seriously menaced. His presence was highly beneficial in allaying popular distrust, founded upon the supposition that Virginia and the Atlantic region engrossed the attention of the Government to the exclusion of concern for the West and the Mississippi Valley. When the President returned to Richmond, there were signs of popular animation in the South-west, which justified a more confident hope of the cause, than the South was permitted to indulge at any other period of the struggle.

An incident of this visit was the address of the President before the Mississippi Legislature. The warm affection of Mr. Davis for Mississippi is more than reciprocated by the noble and chivalrous people of that State. He was always proud of the confidence reposed in him by such a community, and Mississippi can never abate her affection for one who so illustrated her name in the council chamber and upon the field of battle. In this address he alluded, with much tenderness, to this reciprocal attachment, declaring, that though “as President of the Confederate States, he had determined to make no distinction between the various parts of the country – to know no separate State – yet his heart always beat more warmly for Mississippi, and he had looked on Mississippi soldiers with a pride and emotion, such as no others inspired.”

Declaring that his course had been dictated by the sincere purpose of promoting the cause of independence, he admonished the country to prepare for a desperate contest, with a power armed for the purposes of conquest and subjugation. He characterized severely the conduct of the war by the North. Reviewing its progress, and recounting the immense disadvantages, with which the South contended, he maintained that the South should congratulate itself on its achievements, and not complain that more had not been accomplished. The conscription law was explained and defended as to many of its features not clearly understood by the people. We give an extract from Mr. Davis’ remarks as to the Confederate conscription, a subject of vast misrepresentation during the war, and of much ignorant censure since:

“I am told that this act has excited some discontentment, and that it has provoked censure far more severe, I believe, than it deserves. It has been said that it exempts the rich from military service, and forces the poor to fight the battles of the country. The poor do, indeed, fight the battles of the country. It is the poor who save nations and make revolutions. But is it true that, in this war, the men of property have shrunk from the ordeal of the battle-field? Look through the army; cast your eyes upon the maimed heroes of the war whom you meet in your streets and in the hospitals; remember the martyrs of the conflict; and I am sure you will find among them more than a fair proportion drawn from the ranks of men of property. The object of that portion of the act which exempts those having charge of twenty or more negroes, was not to draw any distinction of classes, but simply to provide a force, in the nature of a police force, sufficient to keep our negroes in control. This was the sole object of the clause. Had it been otherwise, it would never have received my signature. As I have already said, we have no cause to complain of the rich. All our people have done well; and, while the poor have nobly discharged their duties, most of the wealthiest and most distinguished families of the South have representatives in the ranks. I take, as an example, the case of one of your own representatives in Congress, who was nominated for Congress and elected, but still did a sentinel’s duty until Congress met. Nor is this a solitary instance, for men of largest fortune in Mississippi are now serving in the ranks.”

The President strongly and eloquently recommended the provision by the Legislature for the families of the absent soldiers of Mississippi. Said he: “Let this provision be made for the objects of his affection and his solicitude, and the soldier, engaged in fighting the battles of his country, will no longer be disturbed in his slumbers by dreams of an unprotected and neglected family at home. Let him know that his mother Mississippi has spread her protecting mantle over those he loves, and he will be ready to fight your battles, to protect your honor, and in your cause to die.”

The address concluded with an earnest appeal for unrelaxed exertion, and the declaration that, “in all respects, moral as well as physical, the Confederacy was better prepared than it was a year previous” – a declaration verified not less by the favorable situation than by the evident apprehension of the North and the expectations of Europe.

CHAPTER XIV

RESPECT OF MANKIND FOR THE SOUTH – THE MOST PROSPEROUS PERIOD OF THE WAR – HOW MR. DAVIS CONTRIBUTED TO THE DISTINCTION OF THE SOUTH – FACTION SILENCED – THE EUROPEAN ESTIMATE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS – HOW HE DIGNIFIED THE CAUSE OF THE SOUTH – HIS STATE PAPERS – HIS ADMINISTRATION OF CIVIL MATTERS – THE CONTRAST BETWEEN THE TWO PRESIDENTS – MR. DAVIS’ OBSERVANCE OF CONSTITUTIONAL RESTRAINTS – ARBITRARY ADMINISTRATION OF MR. LINCOLN – MR. DAVIS’ MODERATION – HE SEEKS TO CONDUCT THE WAR UPON CIVILIZED IDEAS – AN ENGLISH CHARACTERIZATION OF DAVIS – COLONEL FREEMANTLE’S INTERVIEW WITH HIM – MR. GLADSTONE’S OPINION – THE PURELY PERSONAL AND SENTIMENTAL ADMIRATION OF EUROPE FOR THE SOUTH – INCONSISTENT CONDUCT OF THE EUROPEAN GREAT POWERS – THE LONDON “TIMES” BEFORE M’CLELLAN’S DEFEAT – THE CONFEDERACY ENTITLED TO RECOGNITION BY EUROPE – ENGLAND’S SYMPATHY WITH THE NORTH – DIGNIFIED ATTITUDE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS UPON THE SUBJECT OF RECOGNITION – HIS EARLY PREDICTION UPON THE SUBJECT – FRANCE AND ENGLAND EXPOSED TO INJURIOUS SUSPICIONS – TERGIVERSATIONS OF THE PALMERSTON CABINET – THE BROAD FARCE OF “BRITISH NEUTRALITY” – ENGLAND DECLINES TO UNITE WITH FRANCE IN AN OFFER OF MEDIATION BETWEEN THE AMERICAN BELLIGERENTS – ENGLAND’S “POLICY” – SHE SOUGHT THE RUIN OF BOTH SECTIONS OF AMERICA – CULMINATION OF THE ANTISLAVERY POLICY OF THE NORTH – MR. LINCOLN’S CONVERSATION WITH A KENTUCKY MEMBER OF CONGRESS – THE WAR A “CRIME” BY MR. LINCOLN’S OWN SHOWING – VIOLATION OF PLEDGES AND ARBITRARY ACTS OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT – THE MASK REMOVED AFTER THE BATTLE OF ANTIETAM – THE REAL PURPOSE OF EMANCIPATION – MR. DAVIS’ ALLUSION TO THE SUBJECT – INDIGNATION OF THE SOUTH AT THE MEASURE – MILITARY OPERATIONS IN TEXAS AND MISSISSIPPI – VICKSBURG – PORT HUDSON – LOSS OF ARKANSAS POST – FEDERAL FLEET REPULSED AT CHARLESTON – PREPARATIONS FOR THE CAMPAIGN – UNITY AND CONFIDENCE OF THE SOUTH – MR. DAVIS’ ADDRESS TO THE COUNTRY – IMPORTANT EXTRACTS – GENERAL LEE PREPARES FOR BATTLE – HIS CONFIDENCE – CONDITION OF HIS ARMY – BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE – JEFFERSON DAVIS’ TRIBUTE TO STONEWALL JACKSON

There is much justice in the sentiment that declares that there can be magnificence even in failure. Men often turn to the contemplation of rôles enacted in history, ending in disaster and utter disappointment of the originating and vitalizing aspiration, with far more of interest than has been felt in following records marked by the palpable tokens of complete success.

It may well be doubted, whether the Confederate States of America, even had victory crowned their prolonged struggle of superhuman valor and unstinted sacrifice, could have commanded more of the esteem of mankind, than will be awarded them in the years to come. Retrospect of the most prosperous period of the fortunes of the Confederacy – the interval between the battle of Fredericksburg, December, 1862, and the ensuing midsummer – reveals a period in which there was wanting no element of glory, of pride, or of hope. Many a people, now proudly boasting an honored recognition at the council-board of nations, might envy the fame of the meteor power which flashed across the firmament, with a glorious radiance that made more mournful its final extinguishment.

A notable feature of the distinction which the South, at that time especially, commanded in the eyes of the world, was the enthusiastic and universal tribute of mankind to the leader, whose genius, purity, dignity, and eloquence so adorned the cause of his country. The North sought to console its wounded national pride by accounting for the crushing and humiliating defeats of the recent campaign, by contrasts between the able leadership of its antagonist, and its own imbecile administration. At the South faction was silenced, in the presence of the wondrous results achieved in spite of its own outcries and prophecies of failure. Demagogues, in such a season of good fortune, ceased their charges of narrowness, of rash zealotry, of favoritism, of incompetency, seemingly conscious, for once, of the praise which they bestowed upon the Executive, whom they accused of usurping all the authority of the Government, in ascribing such results to his unaided capacity.

From Europe, in the beginning, so prejudiced against the South and its cause, so misinformed of Southern motives, and unacquainted with Southern history, came the tribute of disinterested eulogy, the more to be valued, because reluctantly accorded, to the Confederacy and its ruler. To Europe the South was now known not only through a series of unparalleled victories; as a people who had successfully asserted their independence for nearly two years, against such odds as had never been seen before; as a land of valiant soldiers, of great generals, and of large material resources. If possible, above these, the statesmen and politicians of Europe admired the administrative capacity, which, they declared, had given a superior model and a new dignity to the science of statesmanship. To the educated circles of Europe the new power was introduced by State papers, which were declared to be models, not less of skilled political narration and exposition, than of literary purity and excellence. Accustomed to hear the South twitted as a people dwarfed and debased by the demoralization of African slavery, the educated classes of England acknowledged the surprise and delight they experienced from the powerful and splendid vindications of the cause of the Confederacy, in the messages of Mr. Davis. It has been truthfully remarked that there could be no better history of the war than that contained in his numerous state papers. They are the exhaustive summary, and unanswerable statement of the imperishable truths which justify the South, and overwhelm her enemies with the proof of their own acts of wrong and violence.

Under the new light given to mankind, as to the origin, nature, and purposes of the American Union, which Mr. Davis so lucidly explained, Europe soon recognized his position as something else than that of a ruler of an insurgent district. But not only as the chosen Executive of eleven separate communities, several of which European governments had previously recognized as sovereign; as one who had organized great armies, maintained them in the field, and selected leaders for their command already illustrious in the annals of war; not for these and other features of enduring fame, alone, was Jefferson Davis admired in Europe. The contrast between the civil administrations of the hostile sections was viewed as, perhaps, the chiefly remarkable phase of the struggle.

President Lincoln, beginning the war with usurpation, had committed, in its progress, every possible trespass upon the Federal Constitution, and was now under the influence of a faction whose every aim contemplated the overthrow of that instrument. President Davis, supported by a confiding people, and an overwhelming majority of every Southern community, ruled in strict conformity with the laws of the land and its Constitution. In the midst of a revolution, unexampled in magnitude, in fierceness, and vindictiveness on the part of the enemy, and of difficulties in his own administration, he furnished an example of courage, humanity, and magnanimity, together with the observance of order, civil freedom, and legal and constitutional restraints unexampled in history. In the Confederacy, the Roman maxim, Inter arma silent leges, universally recognized and practiced among nations, had an emphatic repudiation, so far as concerned the exercise of power by the executive department. Whatever may have been the exceptional cases of unauthorized oppression or violence, there was always redress in the judiciary department of the Government, which continued in pure and dignified existence until the end.

The President, obeying the dictates of exalted patriotism – acting always for the public good, if not always with unimpeachable wisdom, at least with incorruptible integrity – made no attempt at improper interference with Congress, nor sought to exercise undue influence over its deliberations. The press, usually the first bulwark of the public liberties to attract the exercise of despotism, so trammeled at the North, was free in the South every-where; in some instances, to the extent of licentiousness, and to the positive injury of the cause.

In marked contrast with these exhibitions were the evidences of coming despotism at the North. The Federal judiciary was rapidly declining from its exalted purity, before the exactions of military power; the Federal Congress was charged by the press with open and notorious corruption, and was aiding Mr. Lincoln in usurpations which startled the despotisms of Europe, and have since led to the annihilation of the republican character of the Government.

Conspicuous, too, was the desire of Mr. Davis to conduct the war upon a civilized and Christian basis. His forbearance, his moderation, and stern refusal to resort to retaliation, under circumstances such as would have justified its exercise in response to the cruelties and outrages of the enemy, amazed the European spectator, and at times dissatisfied his own countrymen. “Retaliation is not justice,” was his habitual reply to urgent demands, and again and again did he decline to “shed one drop of blood except on the field of battle.” Never forgetting the dignity of the contest, he, up to the last moment of his authority, redeemed the pledge which he had made in the first weeks of the war: “to smite the smiter with manly arms, as did our fathers before us.”

There have been few spectacles presented to the admiring gaze of mankind, more worthily depicted than that union of capacities and virtues in Jefferson Davis, which so eminently qualified him, in the opinion of foreigners, for the position he held. An English writer has eloquently sketched him as “one of the world’s foremost men, admired as a statesman, respected as an earnest Christian, the Washington of another generation of the same race. A resolute statesman, calm, dignified, swaying with commanding intellect the able men that surrounded him; eloquent as a speaker, and as a writer giving state papers to the world which are among the finest compositions in our time; of warm domestic affections in his inner life, and strong religious convictions; held up by vigor of the spirit that nerved an exhausted and feeble frame – such was the chosen constitutional ruler of one-fourth of the American people.”

Colonel Freemantle, a distinguished English officer, whose faithful and impartial narrative of his extended observations of the American war, commended him to the esteem of both parties, thus concludes an account of an interview with President Davis, in the spring of 1863:

“During my travels many people have remarked to me that Jefferson Davis seems, in a peculiar manner, adapted to his office. His military education at West Point rendered him intimately acquainted with the higher officers of the army; and his post of Secretary of War, under the old Government, brought officers of all ranks under his immediate personal knowledge and supervision. No man could have formed a more accurate estimate of their respective merits. This is one of the reasons which gave the Confederates such an immense start in the way of generals; for, having formed his opinion with regard to appointing an officer, Mr. Davis is always most determined to carry out his intention in spite of every obstacle. His services in the Mexican war gave him the prestige of a brave man and a good soldier. His services as a statesman pointed him out as the only man who, by his unflinching determination and administrative talent, was able to control the popular will. People speak of any misfortune happening to him as an irreparable evil too dreadful to contemplate.”

Mr. Gladstone, a member of the British cabinet, the eminent leader of a party in English politics, and a sympathizer with the objects of the war as waged by the North, avowed his enthusiastic appreciation of the lustre reflected upon the new Government, by its able administration, in the assertion that “Mr. Jefferson Davis had created a nation.”