The Life of Jefferson Davis

by Frank H. Alfriend

PROSPECTS AT THE BEGINNING OF 1862—EXTREME CONFIDENCE OF THE SOUTH—EXTRAVAGANT EXPECTATIONS—THE RICHMOND EXAMINER ON CONFEDERATE PROSPECTS—WAR BETWEEN ENGLAND AND THE UNITED STATES PREDICTED—THE BLOCKADE TO BE RAISED—THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY DECREED BY HEAVEN—RESULT OF THE BOASTFUL TONE OF THE SOUTHERN PRESS—THE CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DISASTERS OF 1862—PRESIDENT DAVIS URGES PREPARATION FOR A LONG WAR—HIS WISE OPPOSITION TO SHORT ENLISTMENTS OF TROOPS—PREMONITIONS OF MISFORTUNES IN THE WEST—THE CONFEDERATE FORCES IN KENTUCKY—GENERAL ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON—HIS CAREER BEFORE THE WAR—CHARACTER—APPEARANCE—THE FRIEND OF JEFFERSON DAVIS—MUTUAL ESTEEM—SIDNEY JOHNSTON IN KENTUCKY—HIS PLANS—HIS DIFFICULTIES—THE FORCES OF GRANT AND BUELL—CRUEL DILEMMA OF GENERAL SIDNEY JOHNSTON—A REVERSE—GRANT CAPTURES FORTS HENRY AND DONELSON—LOSS OF KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE—FEDERAL DESIGNS IN THE EAST—BURNSIDE CAPTURES ROANOKE ISLAND—SERIOUS NATURE OF THESE REVERSES—POPULAR DISAPPOINTMENT—ORGANIZED OPPOSITION TO THE CONFEDERATE ADMINISTRATION—CHARACTER AND MOTIVES OF THIS OPPOSITION—AN EFFORT TO REVOLUTIONIZE PRESIDENT DAVIS’ CABINET—ASSAULTS UPON SECRETARIES BENJAMIN AND MALLORY—CORRECT EXPLANATION OF THE CONFEDERATE REVERSES—CONGRESSIONAL CENSURE OF MR. BENJAMIN—SECRETARY MALLORY—CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SOUTHERN MIND—THE PERMANENT GOVERNMENT—SECOND INAUGURATION OF MR. DAVIS—SEVERITY OF THE SEASON—THE CEREMONIES—APPEARANCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS—HIS INAUGURAL ADDRESS—ITS EFFECT—POPULAR RE-ASSURANCE—MESSAGE TO CONGRESS—COMMENTS OF RICHMOND PRESS.

When President Davis held his first New-Year’s reception, as the chief magistrate of the infant Confederacy, there were not wanting signs of the approaching shadows, which were to throw in temporary eclipse the brilliant foreground of the first year of the war. Richmond was then in its exultant spirit, its gayety, festivity, and show, the type of that fatal confidence in Southern invincibility, which, in a few weeks of disaster, was brought to grief and humiliation.

In that numerous and brilliant assemblage, representing the various branches of the new government, civil, naval, and military, members of Congress and of State Legislatures, and admiring citizens, eager to make formal tender of their esteem to the first President of the South, there were few who discerned the omens of the coming storm, which was to shake its foundation, the power of which that occasion was an imposing symbol. Perhaps there were as few who could penetrate his assuring exterior of grace, gentleness, and dignity, and share the anxiety with which, even in the midst of popular adulation, he contemplated the approach of that stern trial for which the country was so deficient in preparation.

With singular accord of opinion, writers, who had an inside view of the Southern conduct of the war, have commented upon the disasters consequent upon the period of fancied security and relaxed exertions which followed the battle of Manassas. We can not share, however, the shallow and unphilosophical conclusion which pronounces the glorious triumph of Manassas a calamity to the South. The temporary salvation of the Confederacy, guaranteed by that victory, was not its only fruit. Manassas gave a stamp of prestige to Southern valor and soldiership, which not even a deluge of subsequent disasters could efface. It gave an imperishable record and an undying incentive to resolution.

Yet it is not to be questioned that the public apathy, engendered by an exaggerated estimate of the value of the numerous and consecutive triumphs of the preceding summer and autumn, was measurably productive of evil consequences. Encouraged by the press, in many instances, the Southern people saw, in the comparatively easy triumphs of their superior valor over undisciplined Northern mobs—for which Manassas, Belmont, Leesburg, and similar engagements constituted the mere apprenticeship of war—the auguries significant of a speedy attainment of their independence. Inflated orators and boastful editorials proclaimed the absolute certainty of early interference of foreign powers, in behalf of the South, as the source of the indispensable staples of cotton and tobacco. In the face of the enormous preparations of the enemy, his monster armies, numbering, in December, 1861, more than six hundred thousand men; his numerous fleets for sea-board operations, and iron-clad floating batteries for the interior streams, comparatively insignificant successes were pointed to as sufficient proofs of the inability of the enemy to make any serious impression upon Southern territory.

The Richmond Examiner, which had early evinced a disposition hostile to President Davis and his administration, the ablest and most influential journal of the South, destined to furnish both the brains and inspiration in support of future opposition, was conspicuous in its contempt for the fighting qualities of the North, and vehement in its prophesies of good fortune for the Confederacy. Late in December, the Examiner, commenting upon recent intelligence from the North, said: “All other topics become trifles beside the tidings of England which occupies this journal, and all commentary that diverts public attention from that single point is impertinence. The effect of the outrage of the Trent on the public sentiment of Great Britain more than fulfills the prophesy that we made when the arrest of the Confederate ministers was a fresh event. All legal quibbling and selfish calculation has been consumed like straw in the burning sense of incredible insult. The Palmerston cabinet has been forced to immediate and decisive measures; and a peremptory order to Lord Lyons comes with the steamer that brings the news to the American shore. He is directed to demand the unconditional surrender of Messrs. Mason and Slidell, to place them in the position they were found beneath the British flag, and a complete disavowal of their seizure as an authorized act. Now, the Northern Government has placed itself in such a position that it can do none of these things. The Abolitionist element of the Northern States would go straight to revolution at the least movement toward a surrender of the captives; the arrest was made by the deliberately written orders of the Government, already avowed and published beyond the hope of apology or possibility of retraction.

“The United States can do absolutely nothing but refuse the demands of Great Britain, and abide the consequences of that refusal. What they will be can be clearly foretold: first, there will be the diplomatic rupture; Lord Lyons will demand his passports, and Mr. Adams will be sent away from London; then will follow an immediate recognition of the Southern Confederacy, with encouragement and aid in fitting out its vessels, and supplying their wants in the British ports and islands. Lastly, a war will be evolved from these two events.”

Continuing its comments upon what it terms the “raving madness” of the North, the Examiner says: “Then came the proclamation of Lincoln. Nothing but insanity could have dictated it; and without it the secession of Virginia was impossible. Then their crazy attempt to subdue a country not less difficult to conquer than Russia itself, with an armed mob of loafers.”

In the contemplation of the pleasing sketch which its imagination had executed, the Examiner asks: “Spectators of these events, who can doubt that the Almighty fiat has gone forth against the American Union, or that the Southern Confederacy is decreed by the Divine Wisdom?” It declares that the “dullest worldling, the coolest Atheist, the most hardened cynic, might be struck with awe by the startling and continued interposition of a power beyond the control or cognizance of men in these affairs;” and triumphantly asks: “Who thought, when the Trent was announced to sail, that on its deck, and in the trough of the weltering Atlantic, the key of the blockade would be lost?”

The natural and inevitable result of the assurances tendered to the people, was to lull the patriotic ardor which marked the first great uprising for defense, when two hundred thousand men sprung to arms. There can be no justice in holding the Confederate Government responsible for the popular apathy, which it had no agency in producing, or for the weakness of the armies, which, next to the naval weakness of the South, was the immediate cause of the disasters of the early months of 1862.