A Tribute to Jefferson Davis page 5

A Tribute to Jefferson Davis

Mr. Davis has been blamed for many of his official acts, but no man has ever been able to face him with any charge of unfaithfulness to the cause or his State, or one which would reflect on him. As a pure-minded, stainless patriot, the Hon. B. H. Hill says: "I would be ashamed of my own unworthiness if I did not venerate Lee; I would scorn my own nature if I did not love Dixie; I would question my own integrity and patriotism if I did not honor and admire both. There are some who affect to praise Lee and condemn Davis, but of all such Lee himself would be ashamed."

Though Mr. Davis has been most severely criticized for his determined upholding of Albert Sidney Johnston, his attitude towards that great soldier was ably vindicated by the battle of Shiloh, and his judgment in the selection of a soldier was indisputably upheld by his unswerving friendship for Gen. R. E. Lee after his West Virginia campaign. At this time Gen. Lee was severely censured by the newspapers, and nearly all of the officers on the South Carolina and Georgia coast signed a protest against his being placed in that important command. Mr. Davis, however, knew the man he was dealing with and stood firm to his own judgment in the matter.

When, after the battle of Gettysburg, Lee asked ro be removed from command on account of the adverse criticism of the press, Davis said, in a letter replying to him: "Were you capable of stooping to it you could easily surround yourself with those who would fill the press with your laudations and seek to exalt you for what you have not done, rather than detract from the achievements which wild make vou and your army the subject of history and the object of the world's admiration for generations to come. To ask me to substitute you by some one in my judgment more fit to command or who would possess more of the confidence of the army or of the reflecting men of the country, is to demand an impossibility."

Mr. Davis has also been accused of having been responsible for the sufferings at Andersonville. It has been proven, however, by indisputable authority, both Confederate and Federal, "that the mortality in Southern prisons was over three per cent. Less than the mortality in Northern prisons; that after medicine had been declared contraband of war the Federal Government refused the proposition of Judge Ould that each Government should send its own surgeons with medicines and hospital stores for soldiers in prison; that the Federal Government also declined a proposition to send medicine to its own men in Southern prisons without being required to allow the Confederates the same privilege; that it refused to allow the Confederate Government to buy medicine for gold, cotton or tobacco, although it offered to pledge its honor that these medical stores should be used for Federal prisoners only; that it refused to exchange sick and wounded, and neglected, from August to December, 1864, to agree to Judge Ould's proposition to send transports to Savannah and receive, without equivalent, from ten to fifteen thousand Federal prisoners, and finally that when Judge Ould did agree upon an exchange with Gen. Butler, Gen. Grant refused to approve it and Mr. Stanton, United States Secretary of War, repudiated it.

Mr. Davis' courage in the face of disaster was wonderful. Note the ring of hopefulness even in his last message to Congress, March, 1865:

"While stating to you that our country is in danger, I desire also to state my deliberate conviction that it is within our power to avert the calamities which menace us, and to secure the triumph of the sacred cause for which so much sacrifice has been made, so much suffering endured and so many precious lives lost. This result is to be obtained through fortitude, by courage, by constancy in enduring the sacrifices still needed; in a word, by the prompt and resolute devotion of the whole resources of men and money, in the Confederacy to the achievement of our liberties and independence."

After this message, events hurried the life of the Confederacy to its close. On April and the Confederate Cabinet moved from Richmond to Danville, Va., and then to Greensboro, N. C., where it consulted with Gens. Joseph E Johnston and Beam regard. After this conference the Cabinet moved farther South, and finally disbanded at Washington, Ga. Mr. Davis now determined to join his family, who were traveling in Georgia, and he was eventually captured while with them by the Fourth Michigan Cavalry early on the morning of May 10, 1865. at Irwinsville, Ga.