Part 6
At last on Sunday, April 2, 1865, a courier entered old St. John's in the midst of services and handed the President a telegram. It was General Lee's notice that he could no longer hold his lines. Mr. Davis quietly left the church, but all understood and soon a panic reigned in the quiet old city. This was increased by the terrific explosions that came from the river and arsenals where warships and military supplies were being destroyed. That night the fires from burning warehouses lighted the train that bore out of the doomed city the President and his cabinet and the archives of the fugitive government. Whether from the sparks of the burning arsenals or from the torches of incendiaries will never be known, but that night a fierce conflagration swept over the city, and when in the gray dawn of the next morning General Godfrey Weitzel's cavalry rode through the smoldering streets and raised the stars and stripes over Virginia's ancient and the Confederates' recent capital, it floated over a scene of desolation only a little less complete than Napoleon beheld when he looked for the last time from the ancient Krimlin upon destroyed Moscow.
XXVIII. General Lee's Surrender
History has fully recorded the last scenes of the heroic effort of the peerless Lee to fall back upon Danville and effect a junction with General Johnston and it is unnecessary here to relate how surrounded by overwhelming numbers and reduced to starvation he finally at Appomattox surrendered the remaining 7,500 of that superb army which, without doubt, had been the most magnificent fighting machine in the world's history.
In the meantime the fugitive government reached Danville in a pouring rain. There were no accommodations for the officials, no place to install the executive machinery. General Breckenridge, sitting upon a camp stool in front of the damp dingy little station, studied a map and drew the lines along which Johnston and Lee should advance. The Secretary of State, reclining upon a knapsack, talked hopefully of the recognition that was certain to arrive from England and France in a few days. Mr. Reagan chewed a straw and said nothing. It was a dull day in the department of justice, and the Attorney-General paced the platform and looked thoughtfully toward Canada. At last it was decided to begin work and the clerks seated themselves around tables in the cars, and the government was soon once more issuing all kinds of orders. Mr. Davis, calm and tranquil as usual, had made up his mind never to surrender as long as resistance was possible unless he could secure favorable terms for his people. For himself he asked nothing, but he believed it his duty to continue the struggle until the fundamental principles of a free people should be secured for the South. This he did not doubt could be accomplished by the junction of Lee and Johnston. It was, of course, a great blow to his hopes when the news of Lee's surrender reached him, but he belonged to that rare type of man whose courage and resolution grow stronger in the face of adversity. His only hope now lay in Johnston's army, but with it he declared the South could conquer an honorable peace against the world in arms.
With this idea in view the wandering government moved on to Greensboro. There, the President was informed by General Johnston of the utter hopelessness of longer continuing the struggle. That the old veteran was right now admits of no doubt, but Mr. Davis combated the idea most vigorously. Johnston assured him that while a surrender was a matter of days in any event that Sherman would sign an agreement guaranteeing the political rights of the people in the subjugated states. This Mr. Davis rightfully believed the Federal government would repudiate, but left his general full discretion in the matter, moving on southward, intending to cross the Mississippi, join the army of Kirby Smith and continue the war in Texas.
Just as he was leaving Greensboro he received the news of President Lincoln's assassination. None who ever really knew Mr. Davis can doubt what his feelings were upon that occasion. General Reagan, who was with him, says his face expressed surprise and horror in the most unmistakable manner. "It is too bad, it is shocking, it is horrible!" he declared, and then after a moment's reflection added, "This is bad for the South. Mr. Lincoln understood us and at least was not an ungenerous foe."
That very morning the little daughter of his host came running in and in wide-eyed terror said that some one had told her that "Old Lincoln was coming to kill everybody." Mr. Davis, taking her upon his knees, said soothingly: "You are wrong, my dear, Mr. Lincoln is not a bad man. He would not willingly harm any one, and he dearly loves little girls like you." These incidents, trivial enough in themselves, are nevertheless interesting as indices of Jefferson Davis' opinion of Mr. Lincoln.
XXIX. The Capture of Davis
Proceeding to Charlotte, Mr. Davis there learned of the surrender of General Johnston. Determining to make his way to Texas he decided to take a southerly route which he hoped to find free from Federal troops. A cavalry force of about two thousand accompanied him as far as the Savannah River, but there discovering General Wilson's brigade to be in the country in front it was deemed advisable for the force to disband and Mr. Davis, with Burton Harrison, his secretary, and a few others to go forward in the hope of escaping discovery.
At Irwinsville, Ga., he learned that his family, which was also proceeding westward, was but a few miles away and he was advised that the country was filled with marauders who were rifling and robbing all strangers whose appearance indicated the possession of valuables. This information, coupled with the story that Mrs. Davis' party was believed to possess a valuable treasure, so alarmed Mr. Davis for the safety of his family that he resolved to join it at all hazards. This resolution cost him his liberty.
Perhaps no event of history has ever been so grossly and malignantly misrepresented as the capture of Jefferson Davis. At the time an absurd story was published along with a cartoon in even so respectable a paper as _Harper's Weekly_, which represented Mr. Davis at the time of his capture arrayed in shawl, bonnet and hoop-skirts, and, strange as it may seem, this ridiculous screed is still accepted by thousands of intelligent people as correct history. The true facts of the case, as learned from Mr. Davis and corroborated by both General Wilson and Mr. Burton Harrison, are as follows:
The Confederate President reached the spot where his wife's party had pitched its tent after nightfall. During the evening it was decided that, to avoid discovery, he would leave the party on the following day and thenceforward would proceed westward alone. About daylight the travelers were awakened by firing across a nearby stream, and Mr. Davis thinking it an attack from marauders remarked to his wife that he hoped he still had enough influence with the Southern people to prevent her robbery and stepped out of the tent. Almost immediately he returned saying it was not marauders but Federal soldiers. Mrs. Davis, frantic with fright, begged him to fly. In the darkness of the tent he picked up a light rain coat, which he supposed to be his own but which belonged to his wife, and she threw a shawl around his shoulders. His horse stood saddled by the roadside and he ran toward it, but before he could reach it a trooper interposed and with leveled carbine bade him surrender. Intending to place his hand under the foot of the soldier and topple him out of the saddle he gave a defiant answer and rushed forward. Mrs. Davis, however, now interposed and Mr. Davis seeing the opportunity lost walked back to the tent, where a few moments later he surrendered to Colonel Pritchard of the Fifth Michigan Cavalry.
No soldier who took part in the capture of Mr. Davis ever supposed that he attempted to disguise himself, and the story of the bonnet and the hoop-skirts is, of course, pure fiction. The picture of the illustrious captive, presented in this edition, represents him exactly as he appeared at the time of his capture, when divested of the shawl and raglan, which in no way served to conceal his identity, much less his sex.
Despite the efforts of Colonel Pritchard to spare Mr. Davis all indignities, many insults were heaped upon him enroute to Macon. Once arrived at that point he was furnished with a comfortable suite of rooms and after a time General Wilson sought an interview, during the course of which Mr. Davis first learned that he was accused of complicity in the assassination of President Lincoln, and of Andrew Johnson's proclamation offering $100,000 reward for his apprehension.
Those who knew Mr. Davis will remember him best by his habitual expression of calm dignity and benign gentleness. One would imagine that scorn or contempt could never disturb that face, but General Wilson says that when he imparted the above information that his lips curved in contempt, that his brows were knitted and that there was a deep gleam of anger in his eyes which, however, soon softened away as he remarked, with a half rueful smile, that there was at least one man in the United States who knew that charge to be false. General Wilson, of course, asked who it was, and Mr. Davis replied, "The author of the proclamation himself, for he, at least, knows that of the two I would have preferred Lincoln as president."
From Macon Mr. Davis was sent under guard to Augusta, and from thence on a river tug in company with Clement C. Clay and Alexander H. Stephens, to Port Royal, where they were transferred to a steamer which conveyed them to Fortress Monroe. During the time they were anchored off shore crafts of all descriptions swarmed around, and the insults and gibes of the morbid sight seekers keenly annoyed the illustrious prisoner, and it was a relief when a file of soldiers came to escort him ashore. He requested permission from General Miles for his family to proceed to Washington or Richmond, but this was curtly refused and they were sent back to Savannah.
XXX. A Nation's Shame
In fortress Monroe, Mr. Davis was confined in a gun room of a casement which was heavily barricaded with iron bars. Two sentries with loaded muskets and fixed bayonets were posted in the room, while two others paced up and down in front of his cell.
Escape would have been impossible for any one, however strong and vigorous, and he, now an old man, was weak, feeble and emaciated.
Yet on the third day after his incarceration, while the victorious troops of the republic were passing in solemn review before the President and generals of a great nation, there was enacted in that little cell at Fortress Monroe a scene which must forever cause the blush of shame to mantle the brow of every American at its mere mention. A file of soldiers entered the cell and Captain Jerome Titlow, with evident pain and reluctance informed Mr. Davis that he had a most unpleasant duty to perform, which was to place manacles upon him. Mr. Davis demanded who had given such an order, and upon being informed that it was General Miles, asked to see him. This was refused by Captain Titlow, who sought to induce him to submit peaceably to the inevitable. "It is an order which no soldier would give and which none should obey. Shoot me now and end at once this miserable persecution!" At the same time the fallen chieftain drew himself up to his full height and faced the soldiers, his hands clenching in convulsive grasps and his eyes gleaming like those of a hunted tiger driven to bay. A word from Captain Titlow and a soldier with the shackles in hand advanced, but before he could touch the captive he dealt him a blow which felled him upon the floor. Necessarily the struggle was a short one and in a few moments heavy irons were riveted upon his ankles and one of the foremost of living statesmen lay upon a miserable straw mattress chained as though he had been the vilest of desperate criminals.
Had Garibaldi or Napoleon after Sedan been subjected to the crowning indignity inflicted upon Jefferson Davis all Europe would have rung with the infamy of the brutal act, and yet the whirlwind of sectional strife had so fanned the fires of prejudice and hatred that the act was generally applauded at the North, and the officer responsible for this crime against civilization for many years exhibited the shackles as though they had been a trophy of honorable victory.
Let us as Americans be thankful that such perverted sentiment was short lived, and that a day came when the infamous act was repudiated as wantonly cruel and brutal, and its perpetrators were more anxious to avoid the responsibility for it than formerly they had been to assume it. There is now no longer any doubt as to the person who is responsible for placing Jefferson Davis in irons, but it is only fair to General Miles to say that he was very young at the time. The grave charges against Mr. Davis, no doubt, served to mislead his immature judgment, and from the fact that Louis Napoleon had recently escaped from a fortification in France he, no doubt, believed that the extreme and cruel measure was necessary.
In justice it should be further stated that as soon as General Miles believed the danger of escape no longer great he gave orders for the removal of the shackles, and thereafter treated Mr. Davis with much kindness. The story of Mr. Davis' two years' imprisonment at Fortress Monroe is too well known from Dr. Craven's impartial, if somewhat fragmentary, account to need further repetition here.
XXXI. Efforts to Execute Mr. Davis
It is a difficult matter at this distance of time to realize the attitude of public sentiment against Jefferson Davis the state prisoner of Fortress Monroe. As the chief executive of the late Confederacy, he was, in popular estimation, the incarnation, if not the proximate cause, of all the sins and suffering of Rebellion, but worse than all the administration which in feverish, puerile haste had declared him an accessory to the assassination of Mr. Lincoln and upon that score had paid out of the public treasury $100,000 for his capture, could not, or rather dared not reverse its attitude and speak the truth. The result was, of course, that the vast majority of the people at the North believed Mr. Davis to be as guilty of murder as he was of treason, and consequently there was a mighty clamor for his summary execution.
Had there been a scintilla of evidence, nay, had there been any fact which human ingenuity could have tortured into a plausible resemblance to guilty knowledge of Mr. Lincoln's death, no one will now doubt that Jefferson Davis would have been murdered as was Mrs. Serrat.
Andrew Johnston within ninety days after he had issued his ridiculously false proclamation admitted it to be without foundation--a fact which all along was fully realized by every member of the government who had personally known the accused. And yet a coterie of radicals, headed by a conspicuous member of the Cabinet, continued to search by such questionable means for incriminating evidence that it disgusted the just, conservative men of all parties, and they demanded that the senseless accusation be dropped for all time.
However, a chance yet remained to dispose of the fallen chieftain without incurring any of the trouble and risk that must arise from a trial according to the laws of the land.
Thousands of Federal prisoners had starved and died at Andersonville and throughout the North this tale of suffering had inspired such horror and indignation that there was a general demand for the punishment of those who were supposed to be responsible for it. Captain Wirz, the commandant of Andersonville, was accordingly haled before a drum-head court martial and, despite the fact that he conclusively demonstrated that conditions responsible for the horrors of that pest hole were beyond his own control, or that of any man or number of men in the Confederacy, he was promptly convicted and was sentenced to death.
Then a serviceable, if not honorable, idea seized the hysterical radicals, which was nothing less than the feasibility of holding Jefferson Davis responsible for the horrors of Andersonville. But there again the ingenuity of malice failed to discover any evidence except that which was highly creditable to the intended victim.
All that followed in the nefarious plot is not and never will be fully known, but from the declaration of the priest, who was Captain Wirz's spiritual adviser, as well as from other authentic information, there is no room whatever to doubt that the condemned man was offered his life and liberty if he would swear that in the management of the prison he had acted under the direction of Jefferson Davis. Captain Wirz, however, was a brave and honorable man and scorning to purchase his life with such a lie, he met his fate like a soldier. This left but one other course open. If Mr. Davis were to be punished at all, it must be for treason. The idea appealed to the radicals with something of the same zest that a child experiences from its first gaudy toy, and for a time they fairly reveled in visions of a court martial which, unincumbered of the troublesome rules of evidence observed in courts of law, would speedily give the desired result.
But fortunately for the American people, there were men in the Cabinet and in Congress, who knowing the law, clearly saw that such a course of procedure must shock the whole civilized world and reduce the guarantees of the Constitution to a parity with the so-called organic law of the revolutionary despotisms of Central American and South America. Against this sentiment the ravings of the vindictive cabal availed nothing, and, as the months went by, it became evident that if a trial ever came, it must be according to the laws of the land.
XXXII. Indictment of Mr. Davis
In the meantime Mr. Davis was constantly demanding that he be given the speedy and impartial trial provided in such cases by the Constitution.
Charles O'Connor, then the greatest of living lawyers, Henry Ould and many other leading members of the bar from the Northern states volunteered to defend Mr. Davis, while Thaddeus Stevens proffered his services to Clement C. Clay. Horace Greeley, through the columns of the _Tribune_, constantly demanded that Mr. Davis be either liberated or brought to trial, and by the spring of the year 1866 he had created such a sentiment throughout the country in favor of his contentions that the government could no longer delay some action.
Accordingly in May an indictment was procured, charging Jefferson Davis with high treason against the United States, and in June of the same year Mr. Boutwell offered a resolution in Congress that the accused should be tried according to the laws of the land, which passed that body by a vote of 105 to 19.
But despite that resolution, there were those who clearly foresaw the danger involved in it, and hoping that time might dispose of the necessity for any trial at all, urged delay as the wisest measure. Consequently, despite the efforts of Greeley and Gerritt Smith, and other great men of the North, the trial was postponed until May, 1867.
Mr. Davis, weak pale and emaciated, appeared before Chief Justice Chase sitting with Justice Underwood in the Circuit Court at Richmond. The court-room was crowded to its utmost capacity and despite the stern discipline sought to be enforced it was with the greatest difficulty that the applause could be suppressed that from time to time greeted the profound logic and masterly eloquence of Charles O'Connor's great speech on a motion to quash the indictment. The arguments lasted two days and at their conclusion Chief Justice Chase voted to quash the indictment, while Justice Underwood voted to sustain it, thus necessitating a reference of the matter to the Supreme Court of the United States for final decision. In accordance with a previous arrangement Mr. Davis was soon afterward admitted to bail, Horace Greeley, Gerritt Smith, Augustus Schell and a number of other former political enemies becoming his bondsmen.
XXXIII. Why Davis Was Not Tried for Treason
From that moment the administration knew that Jefferson Davis would never be tried for treason and drew a long breath of relief. Yes, the administration knew, but the general public, beyond the gilded vagaries about humanity and the magnanimity of a great nation to a vanquished foe, sedulously promulgated to obscure the real reason, has never understood why Jefferson Davis was never tried for the high crime which it was alleged that he had committed against the United States.
Unfortunately the restricted space at this time at the disposal of the author precludes anything more than setting forth the conclusions based upon the evidence now in his possession, of why this charge was so joyously abandoned by an administration which less than two years before had moved heaven and earth to discover any pretext which might lend the color of justice to the summary execution of the illustrious chieftain of the Confederacy.
To one in any way acquainted with popular sentiment, with the temper of the administration even in 1867, all declarations of magnanimity, generosity and abhorrence of extreme measures must seem the merest cant. It is, of course, not beyond the pale of possibility that those who in 1865 were willing to descend to any depths of infamy to secure a pretext for the execution of Mr. Davis _might_ have experienced a change of heart in two years sufficiently marked to create conscientious scruples against putting him upon a fair trial in a court of justice on the charge of treason. But that theory of the case would be altogether unlikely even if we did not know that the desire of the administration to hang Jefferson Davis was just as intense in 1867 as it was two years before. That it did not attempt to accomplish that result through the regular channels of justice, is due entirely to the fact that such a trial would have opened up the whole question of secession for final adjudication by our highest court of last resort. It would have been a trial not so much of Mr. Davis as of the question of state rights, and the able lawyers of the administration, partisans as they were, had no desire to see the highest judicial body of the land reverse an issue which had been satisfactorily decided by the sword.
Charles O'Connor's bold declaration that Jefferson Davis could never _be_ convicted of treason under the Constitution as it then stood first aroused the administration to the dangers of the task that it had assumed. Mr. Johnson sent for his attorney-general and had him prepare an opinion on the case. In due time it was submitted. It was a veritable bombshell which fairly demolished every theory upon which Jefferson Davis might have been convicted of treason or any other crime.
Mr. Johnston then called to his aid two of the greatest constitutional lawyers of the age, and they agreed with the conclusions of Mr. Stanberry. Not satisfied with this, he invited the chief justice to a conference for a full discussion of the matter.
If there was ever a partisan, it was Salmon P. Chase, but at the same time he was a great lawyer and an honest and fearless man. "Lincoln," he said, "wanted Jeff. Davis to escape. He was right. His capture was a mistake, his trial will be a greater one. We cannot convict him of treason. Secession is settled. Let it stay settled!" Significant words truly from that source, and they explain the vote of the great judge who would have quashed the indictment against Mr. Davis no less than the question so often asked, "Why was Jefferson Davis never tried for treason?"