Dixie Betrayed (15 page)

Two days after Foote’s motion, on March 3, the issue again came up in the House. William Porcher Miles, chairman of the Committee
on Military Affairs, said he was frustrated that various important topics were brought up only to be subjected to “long, rambling,
and desultory debate.” Hines Holt of Georgia declared that if Miles pressed for the topic to be discussed, he would respond
by moving for a postponement. Nothing but stalemate resulted. Later on the same day, noting that the subject of replacing
the secretary had risen in secret session—in a subcommittee behind closed doors—South Carolinian Milledge L. Bonham cautioned
against discussing the matter publicly. Pryor, who had brought up the bill, claimed he did not wish it to go into secret session,
and Foote testily cut in to say that the subject should be resolved in the open. He was overruled, and the point went into
secret session.
¹⁵

On March 10 the general-in-chief debate heated up when the House bill was discussed in the Senate. Davis now clearly felt
that the issue couldn’t be avoided, and four days later, he reacted angrily. With the bill passed in the House and pending
in the Senate, the House received a startling veto message from the president. Davis announced that he feared the legislation
would create a quasimilitary dictator. He refused to have an officer who could “take the field at his own discretion and command
any army or armies he may choose, not only without the direction but even against the will of the President, who could not
consistently with this act prevent such conduct of the general otherwise than by abolishing his office.”
¹⁶

But the House of Representatives seemed willing to fight. A representative at this moment wrote that “Congress is raising
a perfect storm” over the issue and would have rid the government of President Davis if only any of them had faith in the
abilities of Vice President Stephens.
¹⁷
On March 20 the House attempted to override Davis’s veto, and a vote was taken in open session. In the end, however, not
wishing to seem against prosecution of the war, of sixty-nine representatives, only Joseph P. Heiskell of Tennessee voted
to override.

The backing off of the House resulted in one change: for the rest of the war, Davis would assign a general officer to act
as a sort of executive assistant. This would be a highly capable military mind—at least in Davis’s view—and also someone who
politically would not threaten him. His choice was none other than Robert E. Lee, who lately had been supervising field operations
down in the Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and East Florida, while stationed in the swampy outpost town of Coosawhatchie,
South Carolina. Certainly, Davis felt, another general could take over there, and Lee was told to make his way north to Richmond,
becoming chief adviser to the president.

In Washington, meanwhile, adjustments on the fly were being made fairly effectively. In the Lincoln cabinet the least competent
and most troublesome member had been Simon Cameron, a corrupt Pennsylvania politician, as secretary of war. The appointment
had been made as a concession to Pennsylvania Republicans. Not only did Cameron possess no particular qualifications for the
office, but he clashed with the president and other cabinet members over the building of the army, its training, and army
logistics. For example, Cameron believed that volunteer and militia officers should rank along with the regular army—that
their relative ranks should depend only on the seniority of their commission. Long-prevailing regulations allowed all regulars
to outrank volunteers, who in turn outranked all militia officers of the same grade, regardless of their commission dates.
Cameron’s desires favored the political generals, while the regulations favored those with experience, training, and competence.
After much debate the traditional viewpoint prevailed, which influenced the command structure at the very top. Cameron was
finally appointed minister to Russia (a move most called, with a smile, exile to Siberia), which removed him from the political
scene, allowing Lincoln to appoint the Ohio politician Edwin M. Stanton to take over the War Department. When situations became
too tense or unworkable, Lincoln found a way to resolve them, unlike his Confederate counterpart.

D
URING
war, in any time or place where constitutional principles apply, civil liberties and fundamental rights of citizens always
spark considerable controversy regarding the government’s ability to control despotism. With the feud over the commanding
generalship simmering down, Congress and President Davis formed a tense alliance over another sensitive topic—suspension of
the writ of habeas corpus. In a statedom steeped in personal liberties and individual rights, no issue so fueled the fire
of controversy.

Early 1862 was a troublesome time for Confederates, both on the battlefield and on the home front, and everyone seemed to
understand the dire consequences if the Yankees won the war. In late February Congress passed a bill suspending the writ of
habeas corpus. This allowed the president to suspend civil rights and declare martial law in cities, towns, and areas in danger
of assault by the Yankees. Extensive discussions and arguments flared within Congress, the administration, and the press and
with governors over the wisdom and right of suspension. Among other things the bill would allow the government to hold suspects
in confinement for long periods without bringing them to trial.
¹⁸
Davis’s old friend Louis T. Wigfall of Texas spoke eloquently in the Senate and argued that such a law rarely would be needed,
that individual rights of Southerners would be held as sacred as possible, and that Jefferson Davis could be trusted.

Davis didn’t wait long to act. On February 27 he issued a proclamation suspending the writ in Norfolk and Portsmouth and “the
surrounding country to the distance of ten miles from said cities, and all civil jurisdiction and the privilege of the writ
of
habeas corpus
are hereby declared to be suspended within the limits aforesaid.”
¹⁹
Two days later the president extended his suspension to include Richmond itself, to a distance of ten miles out. He assigned
Brig. Gen. John H. Winder to carry out the proclamation; liquor was prohibited immediately. On the same day Winder assigned
Capt. Archibald C. Godwin as provost marshal of the city. He also ordered all persons with arms to deliver them to the Ordnance
Department. Winder assembled a gang of provost marshal “plug-uglies” who marched around town, keeping order and intimidating
citizens, many of whom were alarmed by “seeing the glimmer of bayonets in the streets.” All of a sudden Richmonders began
to take a sterner look at the national government to which they played host.
²⁰

Seeing the effects of martial law on the streets of Richmond, the very places where they walked and talked and went to church,
the members of Congress began to rethink their position. Certainly in a climate of such strict control, even Davis, who justly
felt suspension of the writ necessary to keep chaos from sinking in, had to wonder about how his own people saw him. This
was especially true in an age when he was now regularly receiving threats. One letter read, “You rebel traitor here is the
beauty of America one of the greatest treasures that ever wavest over your sinful head. How I want you to look at this motto
and think of me for I say death to cesession [
sic
] and death to all traitors to their country and these are my sentiments exactly.” This little ditty was scrawled on patriotic
letter sheet with the imprinted motto Death to traitors! and an American flag.
²¹
It had not, to state what was becoming obvious to Davis, been sent from the North.

W
HEREAS
Davis often wanted to restrict power, reserving it for himself, in other ways he was happy to give it away. For the judicial
branch the president favored formulating a Confederate Supreme Court. The House of Representatives discussed the matter in
mid-March. In fact the Confederate Constitution had provided for a Supreme Court, but without sufficient detail on how it
would be put together. On March 11 Senator Thomas J. Semmes of Louisiana introduced a Supreme Court bill, which proposed a
chief justice and three associate justices. The sessions would commence in January and August, and the chief would make seven
thousand dollars per year, the associates six thousand. The bill was ordered to be printed and placed on the calendar. In
the House William Porcher Miles brought out the legislation about a month later. The subject was then infected with a disease
that pervaded much of the new Southern law: debatitis. Day after day after day, representatives and senators discussed how
a Supreme Court might work. Before long it was clear that the whole topic may as well have been buried in the subbasement
of the Capitol Building. The bill was going nowhere.
²²

As the Supreme Court legislation stagnated, another hot topic reared its head. Among his other worries President Davis was
daily growing more and more concerned that the South could lose its army to attrition. Twelve-month volunteers, who had enlisted
for a period that originally seemed to be longer than any war could last, might well not reenlist, the president reasoned.
And yet there was no method in place to conscript soldiers to fight out the rest of the war. On March 28 President Davis delivered
a message to the Senate, telling his countrymen, “There is also embarrassment from conflict between state and Confederate
legislation . . . on conscription.” He pleaded with Congress for a conscription act, which would help raise a large, standing
army for defense. The next day debate erupted. Davis wrote that a general conscription law was needed to provide for uniformly
organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia to execute the laws of the Confederate States. Williamson S. Oldham of Texas
bluntly shouted that Congress “does not have the power to force citizens into the Army of the Confederate States.” Fellow
Texan Louis Wigfall disagreed, saying he “is and always will be a state rights man, but the right to make war was transferred
by the States to the central government.”
²³

As the debate continued, Wigfall’s temperature rose. “Cease this child’s play!” he screamed. “The enemy are in some portions
of almost every State in the Confederacy; they are upon the borders of Texas; Virginia is enveloped by them. We need a large
army. How are you going to get it? . . . No man has any individual rights, which come in conflict with the welfare of the
country.” In response Oldham said, “It was the object and theory of our government to secure and preserve the liberties of
the people. If they are to be destroyed, I don’t care a fig whether it is effected by the General or State government.”
²⁴
The topic was referred to the Committee on Military Affairs, where it would live another day—and longer. But by April 16
Congress passed the First Conscription Act, which drafted for military service all white males between the ages of eighteen
and thirty-five for a period of three years, unless the war came to an end. For the time being Davis had bested his opponents.

S
OMEHOW
life in Richmond carried on. At the White House Varina Davis gave birth to another son, William Howell, on December 16. The
Davises were both exhausted and feeling rather ill, independent of the demands of the Confederacy. The president confided
in his closest associates his worries about the state of the country. “Recent disasters have depressed the weak,” the president
declared to Joe Johnston, away in the field, “and are depriving us of the aid of the wavering. Traitors show the tendencies
heretofore concealed, and the selfish grow clamorous for local, and personal, interests.”
²⁵

And the spring brought little comfort. Virginia governor John Letcher might have declared conscription “the most alarming
stride towards consolidation that has ever occurred” but would not fight Davis because the alternative would be ruin. Brown,
however, believed the draft was a measure aimed at destroying the states. Addressing Davis, the Georgia governor wrote:

If the State Regiments are broken up, and the conscripts belonging to them forced into other organizations against their consent,
it will have a very discouraging effect. . . . This Act, not only disorganizes the military system of all the States, but
consolidates almost the entire military system of the State in the Confederate Executive, with the appointment of the officers
of the militia, and enables him at his pleasure, to cripple or destroy the civil government of each State, by arresting, and
carrying into the Confederate Service, the officers charged by the State Constitution.
²⁶

Davis, predictably, was incensed. He wrote:

I have received your letter of the 22nd inst. informing me of your transfer of the Georgia State troops to General Lawton
commanding Confederate forces at Savannah, suggesting that there be as little interference as possible on the part of the
Confederate authorities with the present organization of those troops. . . . Interference with the present organization of
companies, squadrons, battalions, or regiments tendered by Governors of States, is specially disclaimed.
²⁷

So began a bitter clash, a wicked one—and the Union had no intention of waiting until the Southern leaders stopped fighting
among themselves.

T
HE
conscription bill that President Davis pushed through Congress alarmed the city as much as the military setbacks had. So
had the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and the authorization of martial law within the city. Soldiers on leave from
their regiments filled the city’s streets, dining halls, and private houses. Crime was picking up; rioting erupted occasionally
as gangs of drunken soldiers and civilians spoke too loosely. John Winder’s military agents made the situation only worse—Richmond
felt like a police state, complete with the hypocrisy that seems requisite of tyranny. For example, in no time at all, recorded
one historian, Winder’s agents were “forging prescriptions for brandy, drinking the brandy and then arresting unfortunate
apothecaries who had sold it to them.”
¹
No one was immune: “Every Virginian,” wrote a clerk in the war office, “and other loyal citizens of the South—members of
Congress and all—must now, before obtaining Gen. Winder’s permission to leave the city for their homes, bow down before the
aliens
in the Provost Marshal’s office, and subscribe to an oath of allegiance, while a file of bayonets are pointed at his back!”
²