The Life of Jefferson Davis

by Frank H. Alfriend

General Johnston’s operations between Dalton and Atlanta were unsatisfactory to Mr. Davis. Here again arises a military question, which we shall not seek to decide, in the evident difference as to the capacity of the Army of Tennessee, for any other than purely defensive operations. It was, indeed, not so much an opposition on the part of the President, to Johnston’s operations, as the apprehension of a want of ultimate aim in his movements. Whatever the plans of General Johnston may have been, they were not communicated to Mr. Davis, at least in such a shape as to indicate the hope of early and decisive execution. Alarmed for the results of a policy having seemingly the characteristics of drifting, of waiting upon events, and of hoping for, instead of creating opportunity, Mr. Davis yet felt the necessity of giving General Johnston an ample trial. During all this period strong influences were brought to bear against Johnston, and upon the other hand, he was warmly sustained by influences friendly both to himself and the President.

For weeks the President was importuned by these conflicting counsels, the natural effect of which was to aggravate his grave doubts as to the existence of any matured ultimate object in General Johnston’s movements. Upon one occasion, while still anxiously deliberating the subject, an eminent politician, a thorough patriot, a supporter of Mr. Davis, and having to an unlimited extent his confidence, called at the office of the President, with a view to explain the situation in Georgia, whence he had just arrived. This gentleman had been with the army, knew its condition, its enthusiasm and confidence. He was confident that General Johnston would destroy Sherman, and did not believe that the Federal army would ever be permitted to reach even the neighborhood of Atlanta. Mr. Davis, having quietly heard this explanation, replied by handing to his visitor a dispatch just received from Johnston, and dated at Atlanta. The army had already reached Atlanta, before the gentleman could reach Richmond, and he acknowledged himself equally amazed and disappointed.

Despite his doubts and apprehensions, however, Mr. Davis resisted the applications of members of Congress and leading politicians from the section in which General Johnston was operating, for a change of commanders, until he felt himself no longer justified in hazarding the loss of Atlanta without a struggle. There appeared little ground for the belief that Johnston would hold Atlanta, nor did there appear any reason why his arrival there should occasion a departure from his previous retrograde policy. Of the purpose of General Johnston to evacuate Atlanta the President felt that he had abundant evidence. Not until he felt fully satisfied upon this point, was the removal of that officer determined upon. Indeed, the order removing Johnston sets forth as its justification, that he had expressed no confidence in his ability to “repel the enemy.” If Atlanta should be surrendered, where would General Johnston expect to give battle?[77]

Subsequently to his removal, General Johnston avowed that his purpose was to hold Atlanta; and, therefore, we are not at liberty to question his purpose. But this does not alter the legitimate inference drawn by Mr. Davis at the time of his removal. Can it be believed that the President would have taken that step, if satisfied of Johnston’s purpose to deliver battle for Atlanta?

This entire subject belongs appropriately only to military discussion, and no decision from other sources can possibly affect the ultimate sentence of that tribunal. Yet the most serious disparagement of Mr. Davis, by civilian writers, has been based upon the removal of Johnston from the command of the Western army. Granting that General Johnston would have sought to hold Atlanta, can it be believed that the ultimate result would have been different? When Sherman invested Atlanta, the North found some compensation for Grant’s failures in Virginia; and even though his force should have been inadequate for a siege, can it now be doubted that he would have been reënforced to any needed extent? The mere presence of Sherman at Atlanta was justly viewed by the North as an important success. He had followed his antagonist to the very heart of the Confederacy, and was master of innumerable strong positions held by the Confederates at the outset of the campaign. To suppose that he would, at such a moment, be permitted to fail from a lack of means, is a hypothesis at variance with the conduct of the North throughout the war.

General Johnston has that sort of negative vindication which arises from the disasters of his successor, though, as we shall presently show, Mr. Davis was nowise responsible for the misfortunes of General Hood.[78] The question is one which must some day arise as between the general military policy of the Confederacy, and the antagonistic views which have been so freely ascribed to General Johnston by his admirers. We have no desire to pursue that antagonism, which, if it really existed, can hardly yet be a theme for impartial discussion. Towards the close of the war, it was usual to accredit Johnston with the theory that the Confederacy could better afford to lose territory than men, and that hence the true policy of the South was to avoid general engagements, unless under such circumstances as should totally neutralize the enemy’s advantage in numbers. We are not prepared to say to what extent these announcements of his views were authorized by General Johnston, or to what extent they were based upon retrospection. Some confirmation of their authenticity would seem to be deducible from General Johnston’s declaration since the war, that the “Confederacy was too weak for offensive war.” Certainly there could be no theory more utterly antagonistic to the genius of the Southern people, and that is a consideration, to which the great commanders of history have not usually been indifferent. Nor was it the theory which inspired those achievements of Southern valor, which will ring through the centuries. It was not the theory which Lee and Jackson adopted, nor, we need hardly add, that which Jefferson Davis approved.

Indeed, the philosophy of the Southern failure is not to be sought in the discussion of opposing theories among Confederate leaders. The conclusion of history will be, not that the South accomplished less than was to be anticipated, but far more than have any other people under similar circumstances. Southern men hardly yet comprehend the real odds in numbers and resources which for four years they successfully resisted. Other questions than those merely of aggregate populations and material wealth, enter into the solution of the problem.

By the census of 1860, the aggregate free population of the thirteen States, which the Confederacy claimed, was 7,500,000, leaving in the remaining States of the Union a free population of over twenty millions. This statement includes Kentucky and Missouri as members of the Confederacy; yet, by the compulsion of Federal bayonets, these States, not less than Maryland and Delaware, were virtually on the side of the North. Kentucky proclaimed neutrality, but during the whole war was overrun by the Federal armies, and, with her State government and large numbers of her people favoring the North, despite the Southern sympathies of the majority, her moral influence, as well as her physical strength, sustained the Union. The legitimate government of Missouri, and a majority of her people, sided with the South; but early occupied and held by the Federal army, her legitimate government was subverted, and her moral and physical resources were thrown into the scale against the Confederacy.

To say nothing of the large numbers of recruits obtained by the Federal armies from Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri, (chiefly from their large foreign populations,) their contributions to the Confederate army were nearly, if not quite, compensated by the accessions to Federal strength from East Tennessee, Western Virginia, and other portions of the seceded States. It would be fair, therefore, to deduct the population of these two States from that of the South, and this would leave the Confederacy five and one-half millions. Dividing their free populations between the two sections, and the odds were six and a half millions against twenty and a half millions. This is a liberal statement for the North, and embraces only the original populations of the two sections at the beginning of hostilities. There can hardly be a reasonable doubt, that had the struggle been confined to these numerical forces, the South would have triumphed. But hordes of foreign mercenaries, incited by high bounty and the promise of booty, flocked to the Federal army, and thus was the North enabled to recruit its armies to any needed standard, while the South depended solely upon its original population. As the South was overrun, too, negroes were forced or enticed into the Federal service, and thus, by these inexhaustible reserves of foreign mercenaries and negro recruits, the Confederate army was finally exhausted.

The following exhibition of the strength of the Federal armies is from the report of the Secretary of War, at the beginning of the session of Congress in December, 1865: