The Life of Jefferson Davis

by Frank H. Alfriend

When the Confederate cabinet was organized at Montgomery, Robert Toombs was placed at its head; yet between Davis and Toombs there had not been close intimacy, hardly mutual confidence—certainly nothing like ardent friendship. But Mr. Toombs represented an overwhelming majority of the people of Georgia, the wealthiest and largest State of the Confederacy at that period, as determined at their last election. He was peculiarly the representative public man of Georgia; the most prominent citizen of his State, repeatedly selected for its highest honors, and then a reputed statesman. When Mr. Toombs resigned, his successor was Mr. Hunter, who had served with Mr. Davis in the Senate, and in whose qualifications the President had confidence. They had both been friends of Mr. Calhoun, and disciples of his political school. Political accord by no means signifies personal intimacy, and while Mr. Hunter has many admirers, and was greatly respected in Virginia and in the Senate, he has not been generally accredited with marked sympathetic tendencies.

Mr. Benjamin was originally made Attorney-General, because of his high legal reputation, and because Louisiana was entitled to a representative in the cabinet, but not because of personal considerations, since his relations with Mr. Davis were neither intimate nor cordial. The partiality of the President for Mr. Benjamin was, indeed, an after-thought—the result of observation of his wonderful mental resources, his unequal capacity for labor and zealous devotion to the cause.

Mr. Mallory was recommended for the Navy Department by his previous experience. There had been mutual kind feeling between himself and Mr. Davis as Senators, but nothing like close association. Mr. Davis had never seen Mr. Walker until he was appointed Secretary of War, in accordance with the emphatic choice of Alabama. General Randolph was appointed solely in consequence of Mr. Davis’ convictions of his fitness. Previous to the war General Randolph was undistinguished, save in Virginia, where his fine capacity and exalted worth were becomingly appreciated. General Breckinridge, the last Confederate Secretary of War, was sufficiently recommended by his talents and position. Mr. Memminger was made Secretary of the Treasury, not as the friend of Mr. Davis, but as the choice of South Carolina. With Mr. Trenholm, his successor, the President had no personal acquaintance, until he became a member of the cabinet. Mr. Davis, the last Attorney-General, was originally neither a personal friend nor a party associate of the President; nor was Mr. Watts, his predecessor.

With the favorable response of Congress and the people to the vigorous and timely suggestions of the President, began a more spirited prosecution of the war, though the season of peril was not yet tided over, nor the current of adversity exhausted. Already there were numerous indications of the increased scale, and enlarged theatre of operations, which the war now demanded.

At the conclusion of active operations in the Trans-Mississippi district, in the autumn of 1861, the State forces of Missouri, still retaining their separate organization, under General Price, and the Confederate forces of McCulloch, were located south of Springfield, near the Arkansas line. An unfortunate phase of the Southern conduct of the war in this quarter, and one from which arose no little apprehension, was the apparently irreconcilable difference between Generals Price and McCulloch. With a view to secure the indispensable element of harmony, President Davis, during the winter, appointed Major-General Earl Van Dorn, an able and gallant officer, to the supreme command of military operations in the Trans-Mississippi department. General Van Dorn was a favorite with the President, and his services had already been of a character to justify the high expectations, indulged not less by himself than by the public, of fortunate results of the unanimity, at last secured in a quarter where its absence had been severely felt.

The result of the enemy’s movements, begun early in January, 1862, was the retreat of the weak column of Price to the Boston Mountains, in Arkansas, where McCulloch was encamped. This junction of the two commands did not result in coöperation until the arrival of General Van Dorn, early in March. With a vigor characteristic of this officer’s career, Van Dorn advanced against the enemy, advantageously posted, and with numbers superior to his own force. The result was the battle of Elk Horn, a brilliant but fruitless engagement, in which the Southern commander, in consequence of the want of discipline among his soldiers, and partially through the effects of those earlier dissensions with which he had no connection, failed to realize the ends at which he aimed.[49]

Elk Horn was probably the most considerable engagement, in point of the numbers engaged, fought during the war, west of the Mississippi. Unimportant in its bearing upon the general character of the war, it was a decided check upon the aspiration of the Confederate Government to recover Missouri, and to give its authority a solid establishment in the Trans-Mississippi region. This was afterward the least important theatre of the war, though subsequent events there were by no means unworthy of record. Even at this early stage, the war was rapidly tending to a concentration of the energies of both parties, upon the more vital points of conflict in Virginia, and the central zone of the Confederacy. A few weeks later Generals Van Dorn and Price, with the major portion of the Trans-Mississippi army, were transferred to the scene of operations east of the great river.

General Albert Sidney Johnston, after his retreat from Nashville, consequent upon the fall of Fort Donelson, paused at Murfreesboro’, Tennessee, for a sufficient period to receive accessions to his force, which increased it to the neighborhood of twenty thousand men. These accessions were portions of the command lately operating in South-eastern Kentucky, and remnants of the forces lately defending Fort Donelson. General Beauregard, having evacuated Columbus, which, in common with the other posts of the former Confederate line of defense in Kentucky and Tennessee, became untenable with the loss of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, concentrated his forces at Corinth, in the northern part of Mississippi.

The evacuation of Columbus did not necessarily give the enemy control of the Mississippi above Memphis. A strong position was taken by the Confederate forces at Island No. 10, forty-five miles below Columbus. Considerable anticipation was indulged by the Southern public, of a successful stand at this point for the control of the Mississippi. It was, however, captured by the enemy; and in the loss of two thousand men and important material of war by its surrender, the Confederacy sustained another severe blow, and the Federal Secretary of the Navy justly congratulated the North, upon a “triumph not the less appreciated because it was protracted and finally bloodless.”

The retirement of the forces of General Albert Sidney Johnston south of the Tennessee River, and the location of General Beauregard’s command at Corinth, readily suggested the practicability of a coöperation, by those two commanders, for the defense of the valley of the Mississippi, and the extensive railroad system, of which Corinth is the centre. With the approbation of President Davis, a concentration of troops, from various quarters, ensued, and, about the first of April, an admirable army of forty thousand men was assembled in the neighborhood of Corinth, and upon the railroads leading to that point. There was no situation during the war more assuring of good fortune to the Confederates, than that presented in Northern Mississippi in the early days of April, 1862. President Davis indulged the highest anticipations from this grand combination of forces which he so cordially approved. He confidently expected a victory from the Western army, led by that officer whose capacity he trusted above all others, which should more than compensate for the heavy losses of the previous campaign. General Johnston was no less hopeful of the situation. The conjuncture was indeed rare in its opportunities. The exposed situation of General Grant, whose command lay upon the west bank of the Tennessee River, with a most remarkable want of appreciation of its precarious position by its commander, and a total absence of provision for its safety, invited an immediate attack by the Confederate commander, before the Federal column could be reinforced by Buell, then making rapid marches from Nashville.