The Life of Jefferson Davis

by Frank H. Alfriend

General Lee was not dilatory in his preparations to gratify that longing aspiration which the President, on his own behalf, and in the name of the country, briefly expressed, that “something should be done.” Lee had a carte blanche, but frequent and anxious were the consultations between the President and himself. The world now knows what followed those days and nights of anxious conference, in which were weighed the chances of success, the cost of victory, and the possibilities of defeat. The plan executed by General Lee was one of the most hazardous ever attempted in war, but it was not less brilliant than bold, and at least one precedent had been furnished by the great master of the art of war at Austerlitz. Its perils were obvious, but the sublime confidence of Lee in the success of his combinations went far to secure its own justification.

During the week of engagements which followed, the President was constantly with the army and fully advised of its movements.[56] The cordial recognition of this advisory relation between himself and Lee, is indicated by the natural pride, and becoming sense of justice, with which the latter, in the report of his operations against McClellan, mentions the approving presence of the President, during the execution of his plans. This noble harmony between Davis and Lee, equally creditable to each, was never interrupted by one single moment of discord. It was never marred by dictation on one side, or complaint on the other. Unlike other commanders, Lee never complained of want of means, or of opportunity for the execution of his plans. Satisfied that the Government was extending all the aid in its power, he used, to the best advantage, the means at hand and created his opportunities. Lee never charged the President with improper interference with the army, but freely counseled with his constitutional commander-in-chief, whom he knew to be worthy of the trust conferred by the country in the control of its armies. President Davis fully comprehended and respected the jealous functions of military command, and in the exercise of that trust no one would have more quickly resented unauthorized official interference. A soldier himself, he recognized freedom of action as the privilege of the commander; as a statesman, he rendered that cordial coöperation, which is the duty of government.

When Lee had driven McClellan from his position along the Chickahominy, he had raised the siege of Richmond. The retreat of McClellan to the James River, conducted with such admirable skill, and aided by good fortune, placed the Federal army in a position where, secure itself, another offensive movement against the Confederate capital might, in time, be undertaken. Confederate strategy, however, soon relieved Richmond from the apprehension of attack, and in less than two months from the termination of the pursuit of McClellan, Lee, by a series of masterly strokes, demolished the armies under Pope, united for the defense of Washington, and was preparing an invasion of Maryland.

An almost magical change in the fortunes of the Confederacy was wrought by these active and brilliant operations, embracing so short a period, and marked by results of such magnitude.

Not only were the two main armies of the enemy defeated, but the entire Federal campaign in the East had been entirely disconcerted. Richmond was saved, Washington menaced, and McClellan forced back to the initial point of his campaign. Western Virginia, the Carolina coast, and other localities, for months past in Federal occupation, were almost divested of troops to swell the hosts gathering for the rescue of Washington, and to meet the dreaded advance, northward, of Lee’s invincible columns. From the heart of Virginia the cloud of war was again lifted to the Potomac frontier; the munificent harvests of the valley counties, of Fauquier, Loudon, and the fertile contiguous territory, were again in Confederate possession, and a numerous and victorious army was now anxious to be led across the Rubicon of the warring sections.

From harrowing apprehension, from vague dread of indefinable but imminent peril, the South was transported to the highest round of confident expectation. The North, which, in the last days of June, eagerly awaited intelligence of McClellan’s capture of Richmond, now regarded its own capital as doomed, and did not permit itself to breathe freely until McClellan announced the safety of Pennsylvania, when Lee had retired to Virginia.

The inducements which invited a movement of the Confederate forces across the Potomac were manifold. Whatever judgment the result may now suggest, the invasion of Maryland was alike dictated by sound military policy and justified by those moral considerations which are ever weighty in war. The overwhelming defeat of Pope more than realized the hope of President Davis and General Lee, when the strategic design of a movement northward was put in execution, by which was sought the double purpose of withdrawing McClellan from James River and effectually checking the advance of Pope. The successive and decisive defeats of Pope offered the prospect of an offensive by which the splendid successes of the campaign might be crowned with even more valuable achievements. Demoralized, disheartened, in every way disqualified for effectual resistance, the remnants of the armies which Lee had beaten, each in succession, and then combined, would be an easy prey to his victorious legions, could they be brought to a decisive field engagement. There yet remained time, before the end of the season of active operations, for crushing blows at the enemy, which would finish the work thus far triumphantly successful.

To inflict still greater damage upon the enemy—to so occupy him upon the frontier as to prevent another demonstration against Richmond during the present year—to indicate friendship and sympathy for the oppressed people of Maryland—to derive such aid from them as their condition would enable them to extend, were the potent inducements inviting the approbation of the Confederate authorities to a movement across the Potomac. President Davis was pledged to an invasion of the enemy’s country whenever it should prove practicable. Now, if ever, that policy was to be initiated. Hitherto the enemy’s power, not the will of the Confederate Government, had prevented. Now that power was shattered. The mighty fabric trembled to its base, and who would now venture to estimate the consequences of a brilliant victory by Lee, on Maryland soil, in September, 1862? What supporter of the Union can now dwell, without a shudder, upon the imagination, even, of a repetition, at Antietam, of the story of the Chickahominy, or Second Manassas?

The climax of the Maryland campaign was the battle of Antietam—a drawn battle, but followed by the early withdrawal of the Confederate army into Virginia. It is unnecessary to dwell upon the causes conspiring to give this portion of the campaign many of the features of failure. With a force greatly reduced by the straggling of his weary and exhausted troops, Lee was unable to administer the crushing blow which he had hoped to deliver.[57] As a consequence, the people of Maryland, of whom a large majority were thoroughly patriotic and warm in their Southern sympathies, were not encouraged to make that effective demonstration which would inevitably have followed a defeat of McClellan.

Nevertheless, there was some compensation in the terrible punishment inflicted upon the enemy at Antietam; and there was the heightened prestige, so greatly valued by the South at this period, in the eyes of Europe, arising from the temper and capacity of the weaker combatant to undertake so bold an enterprise. In the tangible evidences of success afforded by the capture of Harper’s Ferry, with its numerous garrison supplies of arms and military stores, was seen additional compensation for the abandonment of the scheme of invasion.