The Life of Jefferson Davis

by Frank H. Alfriend

CHAPTER XII.

POPULAR DELUSIONS IN THE EARLY STAGES OF THE WAR—A FEW CONFLICTS AND SACRIFICES NOT SUFFICIENT—MORE POSITIVE RECOGNITION OF MR. DAVIS’ VIEWS—HIS CANDID AND PROPHETIC ANNOUNCEMENTS—MILITARY REFORMS—CONSCRIPTION LAW OF THE CONFEDERACY—THE PRESIDENT’S VIEWS AND COURSE AS TO THIS LAW—HIS CONSISTENT REGARD FOR CIVIL LIBERTY AND OPPOSITION TO CENTRALIZATION—RECOMMENDS CONSCRIPTION—BENEFICIAL RESULTS OF THE LAW—GENERAL LEE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, “UNDER THE PRESIDENT”—NATURE OF THE APPOINTMENT—FALSE IMPRESSIONS CORRECTED—MR. DAVIS’ CONFIDENCE IN LEE, DESPITE POPULAR CENSURE OF THE LATTER—CHANGES IN THE CABINET—MR. BENJAMIN’S MANAGEMENT OF THE WAR OFFICE—DIFFICULTIES OF THAT POSITION—THE CHARGE OF FAVORITISM AGAINST MR. DAVIS IN THE SELECTION OF HIS CABINET—HIS PERSONAL RELATIONS WITH THE VARIOUS MEMBERS OF HIS CABINET—ACTIVITY IN MILITARY OPERATIONS—THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI—BATTLE OF ELK HORN—OPERATIONS EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI—GENERALS SIDNEY JOHNSTON AND BEAUREGARD—ISLAND NO. 10—CONCENTRATION OF TROOPS BY THE CONFEDERATE AUTHORITIES—FAVORABLE SITUATION—SHILOH—A DISAPPOINTMENT—DEATH OF SIDNEY JOHNSTON—TRIBUTE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS—POPULAR VERDICT UPON THE BATTLE OF SHILOH—GENERALS BEAUREGARD, BRAGG, AND POLK ON THE BATTLE—THE PRESIDENT AGAIN CHARGED WITH “INJUSTICE” TO BEAUREGARD—THE CHARGE ANSWERED—FALL OF NEW ORLEANS—NAVAL BATTLE IN HAMPTON ROADS—NAVAL SUCCESSES OF THE ENEMY.

We have briefly indicated the causes which now elevated the Southern people to a more intelligent appreciation of the nature and necessities of the struggle in which they were engaged. There was reason for the congratulation which President Davis experienced at the unmistakable evidences of the awakening of the public mind to the stern duties which, from the beginning, he had sedulously inculcated.

The progress of the war had already developed the existence of numerous errors upon both sides, and had exploded many cherished theories having possession of the popular mind of each section, with reference to the power, resources, and spirit of its antagonist. Both parties had entered into the contest with the firm conviction of certain triumph, and with the purpose to make the struggle as short as possible. The war-cry of the North was “Let it be short, sharp, and decisive;” and they appealed to their numbers, wealth, and sectional hatred, as elements of superiority, which would inevitably end the war in their favor in a few months. The South was equally disposed to a speedy conclusion. With the masses of the South and the majority of their advisers, the predominant idea and aspiration was to teach the enemy, by prompt and heavy blows, the impossibility of successful invasion, and thus shorten the period of bloodshed. Thus both, from a necessity which neither was able to avoid, began with gigantic preparations, hoping, by a few mighty conflicts of arms, and one lavish sacrifice of life and treasure, to bring to prompt arbitrament an issue which was the growth of a century.

But the aroused spirit of sectional strife was not to be appeased by a single holocaust. The American people, a youthful giant, totally uneducated in the experience of war, having never yet tested their strength and dimensions, would not consent that the game of empire should be decided by a single dramatic denouement, a Waterloo, a Solferino, or Sadowa. Manassas had been the bitter but beneficent chastisement of the North, and the reproof was accepted with that wonderful elasticity, which afterwards amazed the world with its manifestations after the most disheartening failures. A rebuke no less signal waited upon the South, and its correcting influence immediately exhibited a temper which was the temporary salvation of the Confederacy, and the inspiration to a series of campaigns among the most memorable in the annals of warfare.

With the inauguration of the permanent government came not only renewed resolution in the prosecution of the war, but a more positive recognition and adoption of the views of President Davis. We have elsewhere described the antagonism between those views and the theory of the leaders at Montgomery, shared by the press and people of the South, which derided any other hypothesis than a six-months’ war, with the certainty of independence. Whatever weight may be accredited to the statements which we have made in demonstration of Mr. Davis’ conviction, that the war would be one of unexampled magnitude and long duration; whatever may be the rational inference from his opposition to a military system contemplating a war lasting six or twelve months; whatever the credence extended to his own subsequent declarations of the difficulties preventing the complete preparation for the emergency, which he contemplated,[44] at least there was no room for misconception of his expectations as to the war in its future stages.

Congratulating the Confederate Congress upon the auspicious awakening of the popular mind from dangerous delusions, even through the hard experience of adversity, he admonishes Congress and the country to prepare for a “war lasting through a term of years.” But a few weeks later and he invited the Legislature of Virginia to contemplate a possible duration of the war for twenty years upon the soil of that State. In all his declarations, public and private, was evidenced the adherence to that original conviction of a struggle long, bloody, and exhaustive, and with varying fortune, which had prompted the heroic assurance, at his first inauguration at Montgomery, of an “inflexible” pursuit of the object of independence.

President Davis sufficiently exposed, in his first message to the new Congress, the evil consequences of the pernicious military system under which the war had thus far been conducted. Indeed, its evils were apparent, and the country responded to the urgent appeals of the President for a more efficient organization of the armies of the Confederacy—one that should insure a force sufficient to meet the present exigency and to provide for future defense. It was with considerable reluctance that he finally recommended the adoption of the act of conscription. Constitutional scruples were at least debatable, but there could be no question as to the appearance of bad faith by the Government, with the patriotic volunteers, who had responded at the first call to arms, and who were now compelled to remain in the field, by a law adopted, just as their term of service was expiring. Yet this was the class necessarily constituting the majority of those who would be subject to the operation of the law, as they were a majority, or an approximate majority, of the arms-bearing population.

To one so peculiarly jealous of encroachments by the central power upon the privileges of the States, the proposition had additional objections. Mr. Davis had hoped to avoid the necessity of a measure, so much after the manner of military despotism, and sought to take advantage of the patriotic ardor exhibited upon the first rush to arms, by inducing enlistments for the war. Especially distasteful was a resort to compulsion into the ranks, in a war the success of which necessarily depended upon the voluntary and patriotic aid of the people, while the enemy, without difficulty, raised a half million of men for their schemes of conquest.

Second to the object of independence only, the controlling aspiration of President Davis was, that the war might not terminate in the destruction of civil liberty. With evident pride, he proclaimed the honorable fact that, “through all the necessities of an unequal struggle, there has been no act on our part to impair personal liberty or the freedom of speech, of thought, or of the press.”[45] His consistent regard for civil liberty was preserved even in instances where additions to the executive authority would result. The rôle of Louis Quatorze, of Frankenstein, or of Cæsar, presented no attractions to the republican executive, whose position and authority were, themselves, a protest against the exercise of arbitrary and ungranted powers.