The solicitude of Mr. Davis for the safety of his family led to his capture. Several weeks had elapsed since he had parted with them, and almost the first positive information that he received, made him apprehensive for their safety. In the then disorganized condition of the country through which he was passing, the inducements to violence and robbery by desperate characters were numerous. Hearing that the route which Mrs. Davis was pursuing was infested by marauders, he determined to see that his family was out of danger, before putting into execution his design of crossing the Mississippi. While with his family, Mr. Davis was surprised by a body of Federal cavalry, and at the time being unarmed and unattended by any force competent for resistance, he was made a prisoner. On the 19th May, 1865, he was placed in solitary confinement at Fortress Monroe.
CHAPTER XXII.
MOTIVE OF MR. DAVIS’ ARREST—AN AFTER-THOUGHT OF STANTON AND THE BUREAU OF MILITARY JUSTICE—THE EMBARRASSMENT PRODUCED BY HIS CAPTURE—THE INFAMOUS CHARGES AGAINST HIM—WHY MR. DAVIS WAS TREATED WITH EXCEPTIONAL CRUELTY—THE OUTRAGES AND INDIGNITIES OFFERED HIM—HIS PATIENT AND HEROIC ENDURANCE OF PERSECUTION—HIS RELEASE FROM FORTRESS MONROE—BAILED BY THE FEDERAL COURT AT RICHMOND—JOY OF THE COMMUNITY—IN CANADA—RE-APPEARANCE BEFORE THE FEDERAL COURT—HIS TRIAL AGAIN POSTPONED—CONCLUSION.
All doubt has long since been dispelled as to the motive of the pursuit and arrest of Mr. Davis. His arrest and imprisonment were the after-thought of the saturnine Secretary of War, and his associate inquisitors of the Bureau of Military Justice, at Washington. The details given by Mr. Mallory, of the circumstances of Mr. Davis’ progress through North Carolina, South Carolina, and a part of Georgia, added to facts which are yet fresh in the public memory, fully justify the conclusion that the Federal authorities connived at his supposed purpose to escape the country. The reputation of Mr. Lincoln among his countrymen, for humanity as well as good sense, renders it extremely probable that such would have been his method of avoiding the perplexity which must arise from the capture of Mr. Davis.
Well understanding that the inflamed public sentiment of the North, regarding Mr. Davis as a political offender of the worst possible character, would not tolerate his immediate release, the Federal Government would have served the ends of humanity and sound policy by encouraging his escape. On the other hand the laws of the United States tolerate prolonged imprisonment only after trial and sentence. Hence the arrest of Mr. Davis must open an endless perspective of embarrassments. He could not be tried simply as an individual, nor could his punishment for any alleged crime of his own, be the sole object to be sought. His arraignment before a judicial tribunal, would be the arraignment of the principle of State Sovereignty, of the States which had sought to put that principle in practice, of the five millions of American citizens who had supported it, and who had cheerfully risked their lives and earthly possessions for its maintenance.
Nay, more, the trial of Jefferson Davis, upon a charge of treason, meant the trial of the North also. Should all efforts to convict the South in the person of Mr. Davis, of treason, fail, the recoil might well be dreaded by those who instigated the war upon the rights and existence of the States. It was not to be safely assumed that the legal decision of a constitutional question, which divided the framers of the Federal Constitution, would necessarily affirm the party and sectional dogmas upon which the North waged the war. Should secession be legally justified, what justification could the North claim, that is rightfully denied to Russia in her conduct towards Poland? What plea should England need for her outrages upon Ireland? With Jefferson Davis acquitted of treason, what could the conduct of the North for four years have been, but a revelry in blood—the wanton perpetration of a monstrous crime?
In this dilemma the industry of the Bureau of Military Justice, which afterwards achieved an immortality of infamy, by its record of judicial murders, aided by the ingenuity of Stanton, devised a scheme for the arrest of Mr. Davis, upon charges designed to cover him and the cause which he represented, with everlasting obloquy. Not content with having triumphed by superior numbers, in a war of political opinions, which in the beginning was declared not to be waged for social or political subversion; not content with having settled a grave constitutional question, by brute force, in a government founded upon the idea of popular consent, the Federal authorities were now made a party to infamous falsehoods, the circumstances and results of which have fixed a stigma upon the American name.
Contemporary with the announcement of events, which proclaimed the irretrievable downfall of the Confederacy, were the calumnies of the Northern press, under the alleged inspiration of Stanton, representing that Mr. Davis was escaping with wagons filled with plunder, and with the gold of the Richmond banks; and that he had endeavored to escape in the concealment of female apparel. No one knew better than those who promulgated this paltry defamation, its utter falsity, and we would not insult Mr. Davis and the Southern people by bestowing consideration upon such palpable calumnies. It was not calculated that such a portraiture of one, whose personal honor, courage, and manhood had triumphantly endured every test, would be accepted by the intelligence even of the North. But it nevertheless had an obvious purpose, which was well answered. It imposed upon the weak and credulous. The besotted and cowardly mobs of the Northern cities, who filled the air with clamor for the “blood of traitors,” while the men who had conquered the South, were touched with sympathy for the misfortunes of foes whom they respected, of course eagerly accepted any caricature of Mr. Davis agreeable to their own vulgar imaginations. In this manner was consummated the first step in the object of delaying the feeling of personal respect, and of sympathy for misfortunes, which eventually assert themselves in the masses, for a fallen foe, whom it was already resolved to persecute with oppression and cruelty previously unknown under the American political system.