The Life of Jefferson Davis

by Frank H. Alfriend

Painfully wounded and disabled at Gettysburg, he accompanied his old division to Georgia, and, while his previous wound was yet unhealed, he lost a leg at Chickamauga. After months of painful confinement, he was again in Richmond, soliciting the privilege of additional service to his country. His conspicuous devotion challenged equally the admiration of the people and the Government, and President Davis was universally declared never to have conferred a more deserved promotion than that by which he made Hood a Lieutenant-General. General Hood was assigned to the command of a corps under Johnston, and accompanied the army in its movements from Dalton to Atlanta.

The appointment of Hood as the successor of Johnston was the occasion of renewed anticipation to the South. His aggressive qualities, it was thought, would supply that bold and energetic policy which the country believed to be the great need of the situation in Georgia. Nor was there any thing in the record of Hood, to cause apprehension that his possession of these qualities excluded such an equipoise of mental faculties, as should ensure a sound and discreet system of operations.

We shall not discuss in detail the operations which General Hood so speedily inaugurated. They were necessitated, to a large extent, by a situation of affairs for which he was not responsible. The one object of Hood, and the one hope and necessity of the Confederacy, was the expulsion of Sherman from a vital section. Sherman had not delayed an hour in his purpose of securing possession of the Macon road, and severing the communications of Atlanta. Already he was preparing operations similar to those by which Grant sought the isolation of Petersburg; and if his strength was not then adequate, there could be no question of his capacity to obtain ample means from his Government to secure the great results of his skillfully conducted and successful campaign. The situation required precisely that immediate execution of a vigorous policy by which Lee had relieved Richmond of the presence of McClellan.

While thus foreseeing the fatal result of permitting himself to be besieged in Atlanta, General Hood did not rashly assail the enemy. A favorable opportunity was presented, by a gap between two of Sherman’s columns, for a concentrated assault upon that which was most exposed. Though the Confederate forces were admirably massed and skillfully led, they were eventually repulsed by the murderous fire of the Federal artillery, which was concentrated with signal promptitude and served with rare ability. This demonstration was a failure, though it had promised favorably, and, for a time, exposed the entire Federal army to serious danger. A series of subsequent engagements, fought by Hood to prevent the consummation of Sherman’s design to isolate Atlanta, left the enemy in possession of the Confederate line of supply, and Atlanta was evacuated on the 1st of September.

Such was the melancholy conclusion, for the Confederacy, of the first stage of the Georgia campaign. Military judgment must decide, how far an able offensive policy, at the outset of the campaign would have delayed, if not entirely checked the march of Sherman to Atlanta; how far an offensive was then practicable; to what extent Hood’s course was imposed upon him by a situation which he did not create, and whether his accession to command, either altered or hastened the ultimate fate of Atlanta.

The emergency consequent upon the fall of Atlanta, summoned President Davis to Georgia. His visit was dictated by the double purpose, of healing dissensions in that State, and of devising measures for the restoration of the campaign. The perverse course of Governor Brown had proven successful in the dissemination of disaffection, and his teachings were beginning to mature those fruits of demoralization in Georgia, which the subsequent march of Sherman abundantly developed. It would be impossible to characterize the conduct of this official in terms of extravagant severity. Capricious and perverse in his hostility to the Confederate Government, while yet professing fealty to the cause, he contrived, in the most distressing exigencies, to paralyze the energies of Georgia, and finally to create a feeling bordering closely upon open disaffection.

The conduct of Governor Brown, acceptable only to the clique of malcontents who followed him, was the subject of criticism throughout the Confederacy, and of suspicion by a large portion of the public. It is a matter of record that after the fall of Atlanta he refused to coöperate with the Confederate authorities for the defense of Georgia, and demanded the return of the Georgia troops in Virginia, unless the President would send reënforcements. Yet he was perfectly aware that the Confederate Government then, had not one man to spare in any quarter, and was in a crisis, produced solely by the want of numbers. His communications to the Confederate Government were usually splenetic assaults upon the President, whose military administration he offensively criticised, and whom he charged with an ambition to destroy every protection to the reserved rights of the States. There is no point of view in which the course of Governor Brown is not equally incomprehensible and indefensible. It was freighted with disaster and defeat to the cause which he professed to serve. Considered in the aspect of partisan administration, or the indulgence of personal spleen, its inconsistency was paralleled only by its folly. It demoralized public sentiment, and tended largely to that corruption of the public and the army which, in the last stage of the war, was so palpable. Not the least injurious feature of Governor Brown’s official policy was the unpropitious seasons which he selected for the indulgence of his capricious and splenetic moods. Upon the heels of crushing military disasters, and when the Confederate authorities were most helpless, Governor Brown was most exacting.

The purposes of his persistent and vindictive impeachments of the Confederate Government, at such periods, must remain a subject of speculation. Certainly he did not exalt his dignity as a statesman, nor approve his earnestness as a patriot, by giving precedence to his personal animosities over his official duties, and by substituting for coöperation in support of a cause to which he protested his devotion, a system of malignant controversy with the national authorities.

The interviews of President Davis, with Governor Brown, during his visit to Georgia, in September, failed, as had all previous efforts to that end, to effect an accommodation of differences. Governor Brown was determined not to be satisfied, and though Mr. Davis, having made nearly every concession demanded, left him under the impression that Brown was at last prepared to coöperate with him heartily and zealously, he was speedily convinced of the error of such a calculation.

While on his way to Hood’s army Mr. Davis addressed the citizens of Macon, and spoke with great candor, concerning the perils of the situation, which, though serious, he believed, might be repaired. Alluding to the demand made upon him for reënforcements from Virginia, he said that the disparity in Virginia was greater than in Georgia; the army under Early had been sent to the Valley, because the enemy had penetrated to Lynchburg; and now should Early be withdrawn, there would be nothing to prevent the Federal army from forming a complete cordon of men around Richmond. He had counseled with General Lee upon all these points; his mind had sought to embrace the entire field, and the necessities of every quarter, and his conclusion was, that “if one-half of the men now absent from the field, would return to duty, we can defeat the enemy. With that hope, I am now going to the front. I may not realize this hope, but I know that there are men there, who have looked death too often in the face to despond now.”