Confederate Leaders
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Reconstruction Bio MB 10/12/04 12:17 PM Page 30 Confederate Leaders Jefferson Davis Alexander H. Stephens Born June 3, 1808 Born February 11, 1812 Southwestern Kentucky Crawfordsville, Georgia Died December 6, 1889 Died March 4, 1883 New Orleans, Louisiana Atlanta, Georgia President Vice president Robert E. Lee Robert A. Toombs Born January 19, 1807 Born July 2, 1810 Westmoreland County, Wilkes County, Virginia Georgia Died October 13, 1870 Died December 15, 1885 Lexington, Virginia Washington, Georgia General Secretary of state “[I favor] the he Confederate States of America (CSA) was founded in maintenance of the T 1861 after years of often angry debate over slavery and honor, the rights, the whether the federal government or states had the power to abolish, maintain, or expand the institution. On February 4, equality, the security, and 1861, representatives from the states of Alabama, Florida, the glory of my native Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas state … but if these met in Montgomery, Alabama, to form a new republic. Those cannot be maintained in states seceded (separated) from the United States. On Febru- the Union, then I am for ary 8, representatives at the convention announced that the their maintenance, at all Confederate States of America had been created and that hazards, out of it.” members of the convention were serving as the CSA Congress until one could be elected. —Alexander Stephens Confederate leaders (seated, from left): Jefferson Davis, John Reagan, and Alexander Key leaders Stephens; (standing, from Former U.S. senator Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) of left) Robert E. Lee, Mississippi and former U.S. representative Alexander Christopher Memminger, Stephens (1812–1883) of Georgia were chosen as president and Robert A. Toombs. and vice president, respectively, and they served in those ca- Photo by MPI/Getty Images. pacities from the founding of the CSA until it dissolved at the 30 Reconstruction Bio MB 10/12/04 12:17 PM Page 31 end of the Civil War (1861–65). Robert A. Toombs (1810– 1885), also a former U.S. representative from Georgia who had worked with Stephens to defend the expansion of slavery to new territories and states, was named secretary of state. When the Civil War broke out in April 1861, the CSA govern- ment was responsible for overseeing the Confederate war ef- fort. Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas joined the Confederacy shortly after the war began. During the war, Robert E. Lee (1807–1870) emerged as the most successful military leader of the Confederacy. Confed- erate forces won or battled to a draw on most of the early bat- tles of the war, but momentum moved to the Union side dur- ing the summer of 1863. Following the Union victory in April 1865, the era of Reconstruction (1865–77) was underway to ad- dress key issues: how seceded states would return to the Union; what punishment, if any, should be ordered on members of the former Confederacy; and what federal government support, if any, should be afforded to former slaves (slavery was abolished with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865). Jefferson Davis: soldier and politician Jefferson Davis served in both houses of U.S. Con- gress, fought with distinction in the Mexican War (1846–48), and was secretary of war in the administration of President Franklin Pierce (1804–1869; served 1853–57). Davis was elect- ed president of the Confederate States of America in 1861 and served in that position throughout the Civil War. Davis was born on June 3, 1808, in Christian (now Todd) County, Kentucky. He was the tenth child of Samuel and Jane (Cook) Davis, who had moved westward from Geor- gia. Davis’s father had been a commander during the Revolu- tionary War (1775–83). The family moved to Mississippi when Davis was a young boy and settled on a small planta- tion near Woodville. Joseph Emory Davis, the eldest son in the family, became one of the wealthiest men in the South. An especially bright youngster, Davis was enrolled at age seven in a school at St. Thomas College in Washington County, Kentucky, a thousand miles north of the family home. At nine, he was back in Mississippi and attended local schools before entering Transylvania University in 1821. A Mississippi Confederate Leaders 31 Reconstruction Bio MB 10/12/04 12:17 PM Page 32 congressman nominated him to the West Point military school, and Davis began studying there in 1824. He grad- uated in 1828 and became a second lieutenant in the United States Army. Davis spent seven years sta- tioned on the frontier in Wisconsin and Illinois and fought in the Black Hawk War (1832), which put down a Native American uprising in that area. Stationed at Fort Crawford, Wisconsin, after the war, Davis met and fell in love with Sarah Taylor, the daughter of the fort’s commandant and future U.S. president, Zachary Taylor (1784–1850; served 1849–50). The couple eloped and settled in Mississippi. Davis’s wife died three months after marriage from malaria, a disease transmitted by mosquitoes. Davis spent the next ten years working pri- marily as a farmer. The Davis family was prominent in Mississippi, and Davis was elected to the U.S. House of Jefferson Davis, president of Representatives in 1844. He married Varina Howell in 1845. the Confederate States of At the time Davis entered Congress, the nation was growing America. The Library of Congress. more divided over slavery. Davis supported the power of states to determine whether or not to permit slavery. With the outbreak of the Mexican-American War (1846–48) in 1846, Davis resigned from Congress and accept- ed command of a volunteer regiment known as the Mississip- pi Rifles. He served under Taylor, his ex-father-in-law. Along with his Mississippi Rifles regiment, Davis fought with dis- tinction in the war and was selected to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate in August 1847 created by the death of Jesse Speight (1795–1847). Davis was elected on his own in 1848 and served until 1851. He served as secretary of war from 1853 to 1857 in the administration of Franklin Pierce, and then was elected again to the U.S. Senate in 1856. After Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865; served 1861–65) was elected president in 1860, South Carolina seceded from 32 Reconstruction Era: Biographies Reconstruction Bio MB 10/12/04 12:17 PM Page 33 the Union and other Southern states considered secession as well. Davis was against secession until Lincoln declared that there should be no further expansion of slavery. Mississippi then seceded from the union, and Davis withdrew from the Senate in January 1861. On February 18, 1861, at Mont- gomery, Alabama, he was inaugurated (sworn in) as president of the Confederate States of America. As the Confederate army was facing defeat in the Civil War in early April 1865, Davis left Richmond, Virginia, the political base of the Confederacy, on April 3. He ap- proved the surrender of the Confederacy in Greensboro, North Carolina, in late April. Davis continued southward, hoping to leave the country. On May 2, 1865, President An- drew Johnson (1808–1875; served 1865–69; see entry) of- fered $100,000 for his arrest under charges that Davis helped plan the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Davis was cap- tured in Irwinville, Georgia, by the Federal cavalry on May 10. He was held as prisoner in Fortress Monroe in Virginia and charged with treason (disloyalty) and complicity (taking part) in Lincoln’s assassination. At first, Davis was kept in irons, but later, when his health began failing, he was pro- vided with comfortable living quarters and his family was permitted to stay with him. Government lawyers were not sure they would win a case against Davis, and after nearly two years, Davis was re- leased on bond. One of the people putting up bond money (funds paid to free a prisoner as assurance the prisoner will abide by obligations set by a court) was journalist Horace Greeley (1811–1872; see entry), a longtime abolitionist. Gree- ley wanted to bring reconciliation to the nation and put the war behind. New charges were filed and preparations were made to try Davis in May 1868. However, the case was delayed by the impeachment (formal accusation of wrongdoing) trial of Presi- dent Johnson. Davis’s trial did not begin until November 1868 and, because of constitutional issues, was soon referred to the Supreme Court. In the meantime, on Christmas Day, 1868, President Johnson issued a general amnesty proclamation for ex-Confederates. Davis was finally freed on February 26, 1869. Davis lived for twenty more years, but he had lost his fortune as well as his home. Despite suffering from a number Confederate Leaders 33 Reconstruction Bio MB 10/12/04 12:17 PM Page 34 of health conditions, he managed to travel throughout Eu- rope. As he entered his seventies and the Reconstruction era ended, his health improved. However, Davis failed in busi- ness ventures and moved to a home provided to him by a friend of his wife. He spent the years 1878 to 1881 writing The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. He could have easily won a U.S. Senate seat from Mississippi, but Davis had refused to request a Federal pardon, which was necessary for any ex-Confederate if he wanted to hold federal office. Davis died in New Orleans, Louisiana, on December 6, 1889. Robert E. Lee: officer and gentleman Robert E. Lee was the most respected and successful military leader of the Confederacy during the Civil War.