Jefferson Davis

Front matter

FIGURES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY

BY

ARMISTEAD C. GORDON

Contents

CHAPTER PAQB

I. Ancestry and Early Years 1

II. West Point and the Army 12

Chapter I Ancestry And Early Years

The ancestry of Jefferson Davis, like that of his great democratic prototype and namesake, Thomas Jefferson, was Welsh. Of this ancestry he knew little, and for it he cared less. Not long before his last journey to his home at Davis Bend, he dictated to a friend a brief biography of himself, in which is indicated his lack of accurate knowledge in regard to his origin, but which contains enough of family tradition to vindicate what has since been discovered concerning it.

"Three brothers,'^ he said, "came to America from Wales in the early part of the eighteenth century. They settled at Philadelphia. The youngest of the brothers, Evan Davis, removed to Georgia, then a colony of Great Britain. He was the grandfather of Jefferson Davis. He married a widow, whose family name was Emory. By her he had one son, Samuel Davis, the father of Jefferson Davis.'' 1

There are a number of traditions and stories of Davis's origin and ancestry; but the true story is probably that disclosed by the records of the Welsh Tract Baptist Meeting in Pencader Hundred, New Castle County, Delaware, which contain an account of the origin, settlement, and development of a religious congregation of immigrants from Wales, of which one Shion Dafydd, as his name appears in Welsh upon their pages, was a member.

Early in the eighteenth century WilHam Penn granted to David Evans and WilHam Davis thirty thousand acres of land, which, under the conditions of the grant, were to be divided and conveyed to immigrants from South Wales, some of whom were already settled in Radnor Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania. This grant, still known as '^The Welsh Tract," hes partly in Pencader Hundred, in New Castle County, and partly in Cecil County, Maryland. Prominent among the settlers who came to take up Penn's grant were those who founded "the Baptist Church Meeting near the Iron Hill, in Pencader Hundred, in New Castle County."

The meeting-house Records tell the quaint story of the emigration of the earliest members out of the counties of Pembroke and Caermarthen, in South Wales, to Pennsylvania. They were plain people, who worked with their hands, as tillers of the soil, carpenters, and artisans. John Davis, who in Wales had been Shion Dafydd, the immigrant progenitor of Jefferson Davis, and John^s brother, David, are both denominated "turners" in the deeds conveying the lands which they got from WiUiam Penn^s patentees in Pencader Hundred.^

The members of the Welsh Tract Meeting were non-conformistS; and were professed believers in "baptism, laying on of hands, election, and final perseverance in grace." They were earnest propagandists, and sent out their colonies in various directions, as Pennyslvania, Maryland, Virginia, and the Pedee River section of South Carolina.

During his life Jefferson Davis came under various denominational influences. His father^s family were Baptist, and he attended schools which were of Catholic, Presbyterian, and Unitarian direction; while in his later years he became an Episcopalian. But, though a devout and consistent member of the church of his final choice, he was a "religious cosmopolitan." Caring little for sectarian creed, he was as much at home in one place of religious assemblage as in another.^

Shion Dafydd^s name appears among the signers of " A large confession of faith put forth by upwards of a hundred congregations, holding believers, bap-

* Ancestry, p. 27; Mississippi Valley Historical Review^ extra number, April, 1917, p. 151.

2 Fleming, Religious Life, pp. 327, 342.

tism, election, and final perseverance/^ which, for the benefit of the Welsh Tract Meeting, "was translated to Welsh by Abel Morgan, (minister of the gospel in Philadelphia), to which was added. An article relative to Laying-on-of-hands; singing Psalms; and Church-covenants." This document was signed by the members of the quarterly meeting, February 4, 1716.1

There are a number of other Dafydds and Davids on the Welsh Tract roster; and the name "John'' is written there, with sturdy indifference, Shon, Shons, and Shion; while Davis appears in its English form in the list as well as in the vernacular of the Welsh Dafydd.

Penn's grantee, William Davis, who, with David Evans, had received the "Welsh Tract Grant," conveyed, on May 21, 1717, four hundred acres to John and David Davis. John Davis had a son named David, who was older than his brother, Evan Davis; but the John and the David of the deed were brothers. The latter married Martha Thomas, and they were the parents of the famous Presbyterian divine and president of Princeton College, Samuel Davies.^ A later deed for this tract of four hundred acres was executed May 16, 1743, by John Davis and Ann, his wife, to David Davies, who is described in it as the David Davis of the deed of 1717.

* Records, part I, pp. 18, 21. * Records, part I, p. 26.

It is uncertain when Evan Davis, who was born in Philadelphia/ went South, whither a large colony had already gone out from "the Tract" in 1735. This colony settled at a place which they called "Welsh Neck" on the Pedee River, in South Carolina. The church at Welsh Neck was later eclipsed in religious fame by "Kioka Meeting House" in Georgia, near the Savannah River, which was attended by members from both South Carolina and Georgia; and thither Evan Davis moved. He had married, probably at Welsh Neck, "the widow Williams," whose maiden name was Emory, and who is said to have "illustrated the power and the worth of woman."

Of this marriage was born in 1756 Samuel Davis, the father of Jefferson Davis. He is supposed to have been named in honor of his kinsman, the great preacher, who had then become distinguished both in America and Europe.

Evan Davis's wife survived him, and managed to give her son Samuel an education in "the three R's."2 When he was about twenty years old, his mother sent him with supplies to his two halfbrothers, David and Isaac Williams, who were at that time in the Continental army. Samuel determined also to enHst, and joined them, remaining in the war until its close. "After several years

* Genealogy f pp. 12, 50.

' Memoir, I, p. 4; Genealogy, pp. 50, 51.

of soldiering/' writes his son Jefferson, "he had gained sufficient experience and confidence to raise a company of infantry in Georgia. He went with them to join the Revolutionary patriots then besieged at Savannah."

Captain Samuel Davis appears to have taken his company thence into South Carolina. That his services were recognized and highly esteemed by that State is evinced by its grant to him of a thousand acres of land.

During the Revolutionary War Samuel Davis's mother died; and, upon his return home, he found the place where she had lived in an uninhabitable condition. He moved away and settled near Augusta, where he resided for several years. "His early education," says his son, "had qualified him for the position of county clerk, and the people who had known him from boyhood gave him that office." 1

In 1796 he went from Georgia to southwestern Kentucky, and engaged in tobacco-planting and in horse-raising in Christian County, in "what was known as the Green River country." Here, in a small farmhouse of one story, was born, on the 3d of June, 1808, Jefferson, the youngest of the children of Samuel Davis and his wife, Jane Cook.

The part of Christian County where Samuel Davis resided is now in Todd County. Here he

^Memoir, I, pp. 3, 4; Dodd, Life, p. 16.

continued to live until about 1809, when he again moved to a place in Bayou Teche Parish, Louisiana. But the climate of his new home was not suited to the health of his household; and he departed from Bayou Teche, and finally established himself on a farm a mile east of Woodville, in Wilkinson County, Mississippi, where he died July 4, 1824.

Samuel Davis is described by his son as "naturally a grave and stoical character, and of such sound judgment that his opinions were a law to his children, and quoted by them long after he had gone to his final rest, and when they were growing old."

His "sound judgment," however, does not appear to have helped Samuel Davis to accumulate the material things of life; or else his roving disposition, acquired, perhaps, during the military service of his younger years, hindered him. In the year prior to his death he visited Philadelphia. While on this journey he wrote to his son Jefferson, then at Transylvania University, in Kentucky, a letter in which he expresses the fear that "all is lost here by lapse of time," and exhorts the boy to "remember the short lessons of instruction offered you before our parting. Use every possible means to acquire useful knowledge, as knowledge is power, the want of which has brought mischief and misery on your father in old age." ^

* Genealogy, pp. 13, 14.

Of his mother Jefferson Davis writes that Samuel Davis had first met her during his miHtary service in South CaroHna, and that "after the war they were married. Her maiden name was Jane Cook. She was of Scotch-Irish descent, and was noted for her beauty and sprightHness of mind.''^

Samuel and Jane Davis had ten children, five sons and five daughters, "and all of them arrived at maturity except one daughter.''

Three of the sons were soldiers in the War of 1812.2 jn Wilkinson County young Jefferson attended a country log-cabin school, in the vicinity ^ of his father's house, until he was seven years of age. The boy was then sent on horseback, with a party of his father's friends', through the Choctaw and Chickasaw country to Kentucky, and placed in a Dominican school known as St. Thomas.

He remained at St. Thomas for two years. This rehgious association was wealthy, and owned "productive fields, slaves, flour-mills, flocks and herds." The individuals composing it possessed nothing, and were vowed to poverty and self-denial. A large majority of the boys in the school were Roman CathoHcs; and, after a time, Davis found himself "the only Protestant boy remaining, and also the smallest boy." The priests were very kind to him, and one of them, Father Wallace, who afterward

' Memoir, I, p. 4. * Memoir, I, p. 6.

became the bishop of Nashville, treated him "with the fondness of a near relative/'

His kindly recollections of his stay at St. Thomas lasted through life, and this, together with some later friendships which he formed, caused him always greatly to admire the Roman Catholics. In 1863 he was criticised by extreme Protestants in the South, and ridiculed by many people in the North, because he wrote to the Pope expressing his appreciation of the letter which the Romish potentate had written to the bishops of New York and New Orleans in relation to the war. The Pontiff's repl}^ was a courteous one; and later, when Davis was in prison at Fortress Monroe, Pius IX sent him a portrait of himself, with the inscription: "Come unto me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

Those who were critical saw in this exchange of letters in 1863 an effort on the part of the Confederate President to gain CathoHc indorsement for his cause; but the Pope's later action showed a sympathy which was not of the world.^

After his return home from St. Thomas he was sent by his father to a school called "Jefferson College," in Adams County, Mississippi. His stay here was brief, and from his tenth to his thirteenth year he went to the academy of Wilkinson County, whose master was a scholarly Bostonian, John A.

^ Fleming, Religious Life, p. 333.

Shaw. Davis says that Shaw taught him more, in his time at the academy, than he ever learned from any one else anywhere.

From the county academy, in 1821, he entered Transylvania University, at Lexington, Kentucky. His associations had been with boys older than himself, and he was disappointed to discover that the freshmen of Transylvania were much younger than he was, and was disturbed by being put in classes with the smaller boys. He procured private coaching at the hands of the professor in mathematics, so as to enable him to pass examinations for the sophomore class and thus to get rid of his juvenile associates.

At Transylvania, he states, he "completed'^ his studies in '^ Greek, and Latin, and learned a little of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, surveying, profane and sacred history, and natural philosophy." ^

In spite of his efforts at making up deficiencies, he did not become a senior until the end of his third session; and there are no records of the school left to show his class standing. The later testimony of members of his class is that he was a good student. One says of him, ^^He was considered by the faculty and by his fellow-students as the first scholar, ahead of all his classes, and the bravest and handsomest of all the college boys"; and another, that he was '^ always prepared with his lessons," and ''very respectful and polite to the president and professors/' ^

Samuel Davis died in the last year of his son's stay at Lexington. He had come home a disappointed man from the vain search for an illusive estate in Philadelphia, or at the "Welsh Tract." He was sixty-eight years old at the time of his death, and, though his youngest son had seen little of him, and that little had been marked by stern treatment of the boy by the man, Jefferson Davis's sense of filial respect compelled him to an ever-unfailing affection throughout life for his father's memory.

1 Memoir, I, pp. 27, 29; Dodd, Life, pp. 20, 21.

Chapter II West Point And The Army

The boy had been sent away from home when very young; and to a place that was distant^ without his mother's knowledge or consent; and while his filial reverence for his father was undeviating, the recollection of his mother was a gentler and kindlier one. '^Neither then^ nor in the many years of my life; have I ceased to cherish a tender memory of the loving care of that mother, in whom there was so much for me to admire, and nothing to remember save good/' is his tribute to her in his latest years.^

In the last year of his school life at Transylvania his brother Joseph Emory Davis, who was the oldest of Samuel Davis's ten children, and his youngest brother's senior by more than twenty-four years, obtained for him, through Congressman Christopher Rankin, of Natchez, then the sole representative from the undeveloped State of Mississippi, an appointment to a cadetship at West Point.^

^Biographical Congressional Directory, 1774-1911, pp. 105, 944; So. Hist. Soc. Papers, xxvi, pp. 14-85.

He was appointed by John C. Calhoun, secretary of war under Monroe. The appointment was dated March 11, 1824, but Davis did not learn of it until late the next summer, after he had completed the final examinations of the junior class at Transylvania University.^

The pupils of the academy, at the time of Davis^s appointment, nimibered between two and three hundred. The school was modelled on the Ecole Poly technique J and its superintendent was Sylvanus Thayer, who made its first reputation.^

In mathematics, in which he felt himself especially deficient at Transylvania, his teachers were Charles Davies, D. H. Mahan, and E. C. Ross.

Of these, he was especially fond of Mahan, who had graduated from the academy at the head of his class, and had later studied at the Military School of Application for Engineers and Artillerists at Metz. There was little difference in the ages of instructor and pupil, and a certain similarity of tastes drew them together. For quite a time after his graduation Davis kept up a correspondence with Mahan, who became distinguished, but less so than his son. Admiral A. T. Mahan, author of the books on sea power.^

The MiHtary Academy of to-day is in all its physical aspects different from what it was when

1 Davis at West Point, p. 248. » Ihid., p. 247.

Davis was a cadet there. The woods came down almost to the academy grounds, and ruins of old Revolutionary forts and soldiers^ huts and rehcs of graves of soldiers who had fallen in the time of the revolt of the colonies were still visible among the rocky hills. There were four barracks buildings, a mess-hall, and the academy; and about the place were scattered the cottages of the instructors and officials.

The cadets occupied the barracks by companies, and not by classes; and often members of different classes roomed together. Davis for two years roomed in No. 19 South Barracks, with two other cadets, in an apartment which was eleven feet square. Only two of his roommates can now be identified, A. G. W. Davis of Kentucky and Walter B. Guion of Mississippi.^ "For furniture, there were one small table, three chairs, and shelves for books at the side of an open fire-place. All this furniture was supplied by the cadets themselves. Over the fire-place was a rack for three muskets and accoutrements. At night three narrow mattresses were spread upon the floor. Water, for drinking and bathing, the cadets brought from the spring, and there were no bath-tubs. The fire was fed by wood from huge wood-boxes kept in the halls. South Barracks was considered very cold in winter, and often the cadets in No. 19 sat at study wrapped

1 Davis at West Point, p. 250.

in their blankets, feet upon fender. Fire was kindled in the morning from a tinder-box, and it is a matter of record that this tinder-box was often not to be found when most needed."^

In French he did better than in mathematics. His teacher in this language was Claudius Berard, a Frenchman of Bordeaux, who was a scholar with no military tastes.

The object of Berard's instruction was to impart to his pupils such a knowledge of his mother tongue as would enable them to possess a reading capacity for the French texts used in the several departments. At the conclusion of the subject, in June, 1826, Davis stood fairly well in his class of fortynine.^

He learned enough French from Berard to use the texts in that language. "He could understand the French dialect spoken in the Northwest, '' writes Doctor Fleming, "and when in prison, after the Civil War, he managed to converse in French with his fellow-prisoner Clay, much to the annoyance of Miles, who did not understand the language. But when he visited France, in the 'seventies, a French newspaper writer declared, 'he stumbles much in our language.' "^

Jared Mansfield was his teacher in natural phi-

1 Davis at West Point, pp. 250, 251. ^Ibid., p. 253; Appleton's Cyc, I, p. 243. 3 Davis at West Point, p. 254.

losophy, a subject which is no longer described by this generic term. It then embraced mechanics, physics, astronomy, electricity, and optics. His stand in "natural philosophy" was mediocre; yet some of the subjects greatly interested him.

The third principal subject, following mathematics and natural philosophy, was engineering. David B. Douglas taught this course, assisted by Mahan and A. D. Bache. It embraced both the civil and miHtary branches. His standing in engineering was ordinary.

The highest achievements by him in any course were in some of the varied subjects embraced in the category prescribed for instruction by the chaplain, who happened to be at this time a versatile and scholarly man and an accomplished teacher. The regulations required the chaplain not only to preach in the chapel on Sundays but to conduct the cadets through a course of descriptive, physical, and statistical geography, history — which is described as "universal,'^ and "of the United States in particular '^ — ^moral philosophy, "the elements of natural and political law,'' and grammar. It was a heavy task which was imposed on the Reverend C. P. Mcllvaine, later Episcopal bishop of Ohio; but Davis studied under Mcllvaine, in his fourth year, grammar, rhetoric, ethics, and constitutional law, and stood fourteenth in a class of thirty-four, with a grade of 146 out of a 200 maximum.^ He always regarded his work in Mcllvaine's course as his best at West Point.

The question whether secession was taught at the academy of those days is answered in the affirmative by the story of a text-book. Kent^s Commentaries, then recently published, was used in the chaplain^s course of "constitutional law''; but with it was also used A View of the Constitution of the United States, by William Rawle, first published in 1825, at Philadelphia. Mcllvaine taught Davis's class from Rawle's book that "if a faction should \ attempt to subvert the Government of a State for ' the purpose of destroying its republican form, the national power of the Union could be called forth to subdue it. Yet it is not to be understood that its interposition would be justifiable if a State should determine to retire from the Union." ^ "It depends on the State itself whether it will continue a member of the Union. To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are founded, which is that the people have in all cases the right to determine how they shall ^ be governed." '^The States may then wholly withdraw from the Union." " If a majority of the people of a State deliberately and peacefully resolve to relinquish the republican form of government, they cease to be members of the Union." "The secession of a State from the Union depends on the will

1 Davis at West Point, p. 256. 2 Rawle, p. 289.

of the people of such State/' "This right must be considered an ingredient in the original composition of the general government, and the doctrine heretofore presented in regard to the indefeasible nature of personal allegiance is so far qualified in respect to allegiance to the United States."^

From the beginning the question had assumed serious shape; and the "irrepressible conflict," a term for which Lincoln said that neither he nor Seward was responsible, but that it originated with Roger A. Pryor and the Richmond Enquirer j arose with the birth of the Constitution itself.^ The conservative Madison said, in the convention, in presenting his objections to the principle of State equality : " The perpetuity it would give to the Northern against the Southern scale was a serious consideration. It seemed now to be pretty well understood that the real difference of interest lay, not between the large and small, but between the Northern and Southern States. The institution of slavery, and its consequences, formed the line of discrimination. There were five States on the Southern, eight on the Northern side of this line. Should a propor-

^Rawle, pp. 289, 290, 292, 295; Cotton, p. 252; Davis at West Point, pp. 256, 257. Rawle's work, used by Cadet Benjamin S. Ewell, later president of William and Mary College, and chief of staff of General Joseph E. Johnston, is in the library of the college. It bears on the fly-leaf, ** Cadet Benjamin S. Ewell, West Point, 1832."

2 Debates of Lincoln and Douglas, p. 309 (speech at Cincinnati, September, 1859).

tional representation take place, it was true, the Northern would still outnumber the other; but not in the same degree, at this time; and every day would tend towards an equilibrium.'^^

It has been said that it was the intention of Davis's lawyers, when he was under indictment for treason, to make use of Rawle's essay when his trial should be had; and it is quite probable that the young cadet, who was especially interested in the subjects taught by Mcllvaine, which included constitutional law, gained, from his teaching, those views in regard to State sovereignty that characterized his later political career. Though but a junior officer in the army, he seems four years after leaving West Point to have formed a very clear conception of the rights of the States as then recognized by the Strict Constructionists, and illustrated it in his attitude toward "Nullification" and Jackson's "Force Bill."^

The regulations of the United States Military Academy of Davis's time make no mention of an oath as required from a cadet upon his admission. The later academic regulations of 1839 provide that the cadet shall subscribe a promise to serve in the army for eight years, and to pledge his honor as a gentleman that "he will faithfully observe the rules and articles of war," and the regulations of

^ The Lost Principle, pp. 49, 50. 2 See post, pp. 27, 28.

the academy. 1 No ^^oath of allegiance" to the United States was required.

Classmates of Davis said of him that in military matters he was looked on as a leader by the cadet corpS; and General Crafts J. Wright described him as '^distinguished in the corps for his manly bearing and his high-toned and lofty character. His figure was very soldier-like and rather robust, his springy step resembling the tread of an Indian brave on the war-path." 2

" Spending-money was scarce with most of the cadets. Davis received $16 per month pay, and two rations, equivalent to $28 per month. Out of this he had to pay all expenses. But he was economical, and sent part of his money to his mother each month. There were rules against receiving spending-money from home, but many cadets managed to get it, — 'patches for old clothes,' it was called. Nearly all were in debt to stores at the Point."^

His friends and schoolmates included many who afterward were distinguished in the Union and Con-

1 Letters to the writer, 1917, from Headquarters, U. S. Military Academy, West Point. Prior to 1861 no oath of "allegiance" was required at any time of any one. The only oath taken by United States officials was one "to support the Constitution of the United States," which in the opinion of Southern statesmen satisfied the requirements of the Constitution, whose Tenth Amendment reserved all undelegated powers, including that of secession.

^Blackwood's Magazine, September, 1862; Memoir, I, p. 51.

' Davis at West Point, pp. 264, 265; Memoir, I, p. 54.

federate armies. His most intimate companions were Albert Sidney Johnston and Leonidas Polk. It is said that Polk was the first cadet to kneel in chapel, and Davis, Johnston, and others soon followed his example.^

Davis, although in later years a devout and consistent Episcopalian, did not connect himself with any religious body until 1863. His second wife was an Episcopalian, and it was due to her influence that, with a cosmopolitan indifference to doctrine and dogma, he allied himself with the denomination of her choice.

Johnston, who like Davis had attended Transylvania University before going to West Point, was two classes ahead of him. But class feeling and association were not as strong then as they afterward became, and Davis's friends were chosen by him without regard to class affiliation. Johnston's son, in his biography of his father, says of their relations: "Jefferson Davis, who was two classes below Johnston in the Academy, formed with him a fast friendship, that grew and strengthened, and knew neither decay nor end."^

His years at the academy were fruitful if not studious ones, and were strongly formative of his character. The mental and social training which he received here did much toward developing the

^ Religious Life of Davis, p. 328; Metropolitan Magazine, June, 1908. "Johnston, Life of A. S. Johnston, p. 14.

J unyielding disposition that illustrated his career as President of the Confederacy. Here he laid the foundations of a broad and catholic education, and acquired those tastes for mathematical; philosophical, and engineering problems which lasted into his maturer life. He gained here, too, a habit of wide and extensive reading, which resulted in causing those who knew him well in later years to regard him as one of the best-educated men of his day in America.^

His interest in the place was strong and abiding, and one of his last acts as a United States senator was to aid in revising its course of studies. Kindly memories of his years at West Point stayed with him always, and in his last days, when the hand of death lay on him, he dictated some desultory recollections of the school.

"I have not told," he said, "what I wish to say of my (friends) Sidney Johnston and Polk. I have much more to say of them. I shall tell a great deal of West Point, and I seem to remember more every day."2

Davis graduated from the MiHtaiy Academy in July, 1828, with the usual brevet of second Heutenant of infantry. From West Point he went, on his first furlough, to the home of his brother Joseph in Mississippi. In the late autumn of the year he

^ Davis at West Point, p. 267. 2 Ibid., p. 267.

reported for duty at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, taking with him from Hurricane, his brother^s place at Davis Bend, a young negro slave named James Pemberton, who had accompanied liis father on his visit to Philadelphia in 1823, as far as Harford in Maryland, and of whom Samuel Davis had written his son : "I have notify ed you where I have left your boy James; he is in the care of a David Malsby in the village aforenamed.'^ ^

Until he was twenty-eight years old, when he left the army, Davis had spent only eleven years of his life in the South and Southwest, and they were years of his earliest youth. His acquaintance and association with the negroes of a typical Black Belt section were only casual. James Pemberton, who had been given to him by his mother when they were both boys, and who now accompanied him as a "body-servant" to the armiy-post in Missouri, was the first negro slave with whom he came into personal relations. Pemberton remained with him during his military service on the frontier, from 1829 to 1835. Much of this time he was stationed in free States and in free Territories, but such residence occasioned the negro, who was very intelligent, no discontent with his peculiar situation, nor did it ever occur to him to think of changing it. His devotion to his master was characteristic of the best of the slaves of the period.