Dixie Betrayed (21 page)

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then there was the unresolved matter of habeas corpus. The fight to preserve individual rights against the tyrannical Davis
administration, as some extremists saw it, soldiered on. On August 26 in the House, Ethelbert Barksdale of Mississippi introduced
a law to limit the president’s ability to declare martial law to twenty days, unless continuation was allowed by Congress.
In the discussion that followed, Muscoe Garnett of Virginia angrily alluded to arbitrary proclamations like those of Provost
Marshal Gen. John Winder in Richmond, which attempted to silence the press, fix prices for goods and services, and commit
other abuses. The bill was referred to the Judiciary Committee.
²⁷

In mid-September the Senate Judiciary Committee declared the president’s use of martial law had effects “far beyond a mere
suspension of the writ of habeas corpus.” It reaffirmed that only Congress should have the authority to suspend the writ of
habeas corpus and asked for new legislation to limit the president’s authority. At the same time in the House, Virginian Charles
Russell offered a resolution to authorize suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in certain cases. Foote strongly opposed
it. “I will never again consent to a suspension of the writ of Habeas Corpus unless the enemy is within sight of the city,”
he said, “and then only so long as circumstances might render absolutely necessary.”
²⁸

A few days later Thomas Semmes of Louisiana reported that the Judiciary Committee had formulated a bill enabling the president
to declare suspension in towns or cities in danger of rebellion, in the neighborhoods of armies, or in areas of potential
attack. Such arrests would be confined to those to maintain discipline of the army or for crimes against the Confederate States.
²⁹

Early in October the debate flared again in the House. Foote argued to limit the powers of the president so Davis could not
threaten the Constitution. The next day Foote’s amendment was defeated, forty-five to fourteen—an easy fail, and yet the minority
in support constituted almost a quarter of the House, and they would not let the issue die.
³⁰

As habeas corpus bubbled, so did issues relating to the general staff. Davis saw most of this as interference in matters that
should be purely in the domain of the executive branch, and for the most part, he was right. Nonetheless, on September 23
Orr introduced a bill asking for the quartermaster general to have the “rank, pay, and allowance” of a brigadier general.
This was an attempt to have his friend Abraham Myers, the quartermaster general, promoted. “The experience of seventy years
under the old government shows the necessity of giving to the quartermaster general a higher rank than colonel,” Orr declared.
Davis, however, disliked Myers, whose wife had cracked that Varina Davis was “an old squaw,” and would not stand for his promotion.
John Clark of Missouri suggested extending the bill to cover the commissary general, chief engineer, and chief of ordnance
as well. The bill went to committee and was sent to the House.
³¹

The next day in the House, Miles reported on the bill and recommended it should be approved. Barksdale supported the extension
to include the commissary, ordnance, and engineering chiefs. Miles opposed the amendment. Barksdale argued that the four offices
were equally important. Foote objected to any amendment. The bill passed without amendment, and Davis responded with a veto
once the Senate sent up its version.
³²

A week later the House introduced a bill to make the surgeon general a brigadier general. Again Davis struck with a veto.
On the same day he returned a bill regarding the building of warships, claiming it afforded insufficient discretion for the
secretary of war. Davis also returned an act to provide relief for the Confederate States Bible Society, concluding that Congress
did not have the authority to use government funds for repaying civilians whose property may have been damaged or destroyed
through acts of war.
³³
What chemistry there was between Davis and Congress seemed to have broken down completely. The chemistry between senators
wasn’t so positive, either. Nothing, it would seem, was destined to get done anytime soon.

On the day of the battle of Antietam, September 17, House members passed a resolution requesting that the Judiciary Committee
organize a Supreme Court. A week passed, and then the Senate got involved. Benjamin Hill of Georgia, chair of the Judiciary
Committee, proposed taking up the Supreme Court bill. Edward Sparrow opposed the motion, feeling any such court would be too
powerful over the states. Louis Wigfall was strongly in favor of organizing the court. “There should be some tribunal to decide
questions between the States and the Confederate States,” he said. After further debate the topic was postponed. The next
day the debate flared again but was then postponed. As with many topics, nothing would be resolved at present because of the
divisive split between viewpoints. And Union generals had no plan to pause until the Confederacy was ready with its paperwork.
³⁴

On September 12 Davis asked the advice of the Senate on military reappointments, reminding senators that the sixth article
of the Constitution had something to say about the appointments that had already been made: “All the officers appointed by
the [Provisional Government] shall remain in office until their successors are appointed and qualified, or the offices are
abolished.” On September 23 the Senate debated renominations and how they should be made. This was a sensitive issue because
it allowed a weeding out of undesirable officers whose commissions were carried over from the Provisional Congress, and many
of these officers had powerful advocates in Congress. Little was resolved despite the intensity of debate.

The same issues dragged on through autumn. On October 10 Davis requested an extra Executive Session of the Senate to process
a backlog of pending nominations. These were simply referred to the Judiciary Committee. On the same day a bill allowing the
president to make recess appointments, subject to later confirmation, passed in the Senate but failed in the House.
³⁵

Also in October a long debate erupted in the Senate over the confirmation of Joseph R. Davis as a brigadier general. Aside
from being the president’s nephew, Davis had a serviceable record in the army, having entered as a Mississippi captain. By
the summer of 1861, the younger Davis was commissioned colonel and joined his uncle’s staff; this apparent nepotism upset
many congressmen. After considerable argument the Senate confirmed Joseph Davis as a brigadier general by a vote of thirteen
to six. The Senate also argued over the confirmations of others of Davis’s friends, including John Pemberton, who would become
famous as the defender of Vicksburg, and Henry Heth, who would end up as a trusted lieutenant of Robert E. Lee’s. The confirmation
of Pemberton as a lieutenant general was shot down thirteen to five, with Sparrow and Wigfall voting for and Robert M. T.
Hunter against the motion. The confirmation of Heth as major general also failed, Hunter, Sparrow, and Wigfall all voting
for disapproval. On October 13, 1862, however, Pemberton’s confirmation was reconsidered and approved, with Wigfall still
holding out. Such was how they spent their days.

With troop shortages a big factor in the minds of everyone during this summer and autumn of battle, a new, almost unspoken
subject arose in the arena of Confederate politics. Along Antietam Creek, west of Frederick, Maryland, the bloodiest single
day of the war had occurred on September 17. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia clashed with McClellan’s Army of the Potomac,
sending 4,808 men to their graves, with another 21,000 wounded or missing. The Union infantry struck southward into Lee’s
Rebels early in the morning, thrusting forward in savage attacks, and heavy artillery and infantry battles raged along a huge
line of battle all day. In the end the Confederates, endangered and forced back, were reinforced late in the afternoon and
counterattacked handsomely. But at nightfall they abandoned the field and retreated southward, ending what was effectively
a gigantic raid onto Northern soil. The battle, a strategic victory for the Yankees, had enabled President Lincoln to issue
the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Shocked Confederate politicians were outraged at the freeing of slaves who, in
their point of view, were theirs and living in their nation. On October 1 the Confederate House issued a response to Lincoln:
“Resolved that after the first day of January 1863, no officer of the Lincolnite army or navy ought to be captured alive,
and if so captured should be immediately hung.” The resolution was sent to committee, and the next day a final resolution
was drafted. It included the inflammatory clause, “All slaves taken in arms against the Confederate States shall be delivered
to the authority of the State in which they were taken, to be punished or otherwise dealt with according to the law of such
State or States.” The final response continued, “Every white person who shall act as a commissioned or non-commissioned officer,
commanding negroes or mulattoes in arms against the Confederate States, or who shall arm, organize, or prepare negroes or
mulattoes for military service against the Confederate States, or who shall voluntarily aid negroes or mulattoes in any military
enterprise, attack, or conflict, in such service, shall, if captured, be put to death by hanging.”

In the Senate Semmes declared the Emancipation Proclamation was “leveled against the citizens of the Confederate States, and
as such is a gross violation of the usages of civilized warfare, an outrage upon private property and an invitation to a servile
war, and therefore should be held up to the execration of mankind and counteracted by such severe retaliatory measures as,
in the judgment of the president, may be best calculated to secure its withdrawal or arrest its execution.” John Clark of
Missouri thought the proclamation so shocking that he felt “every person found in arms against the Confederate Government
and its institutions, on our soil, should be put to death.” Likewise, Gustavus Henry of Tennessee believed the time had come
to “declare a war of extermination upon every foe that puts his foot upon our soil, no matter what the bloodshed it may cause.”
³⁶

O
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the battlefield the bloody war certainly did continue. The awful struggles of the Antietam campaign in Maryland, which soon
would be shown in battlefield photographs in exhibitions in American cities, would shock the American nation with up-close
evidence of death and woe. The scale of the carnage seemingly knew no bounds.

In Mississippi, at Corinth, Confederates under Earl Van Dorn and Sterling Price battled fiercely with Yankees commanded by
Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans, leaving a body-strewn town with the Yankee army pursuing the retreating Southerners. As the
year wound down, a bloody fight took place in the far west at Prairie Grove, Arkansas, as a genuine brawl shaped up at Fredericksburg,
Virginia, between Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and the Yankee army commanded by Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside. After
hellish fighting in which the Northerners attacked across the Rappahannock River and uphill through the town of Fredericksburg,
the battle accomplished little but more death.

The bloody horrors of the battlefield touched everyone on a personal level. Casualties meant losses of sons and fathers and
brothers in thousands of families, and if your own family didn’t lose someone, you certainly knew a family who did. Even Howell
Cobb, who had served as the Confederacy’s provisional president, had to write his wife a heartfelt letter on the day of Antietam.
“My telegraph from Richmond will have informed you of the death of your brother [Col. John B. Lamar],” he penned, “who fell
in the hottest of the fight, struggling to rally our broken columns. He lived until the next day and suffered no great pain.
. . . I need hardly, my dear wife, say how my own heart has bled and how it flows with sympathy for you in this trying hour.”
³⁷

And death had not finished with the Cobb family. The talented soldier and attorney Thomas R. R. Cobb, who had helped his brother
in the early days of the Provisional Congress, fell mortally wounded at Fredericksburg as a colonel, never having been confirmed
as a brigadier general (as he often is reported to have been). Having written a tender letter informing his wife of the death,
Cobb now received one from a fellow officer. “In performing the sad office of having sent to you today a dispatch of Major
Lamar Cobb [Howell Cobb’s son] informing you of the death of your noble and gallant brother, I cannot refrain from expressing
to you my heartfelt sympathy in this terrible bereavement. His death has cast a gloom over this city.”
³⁸

Amid the wreckage one thing was clear: now it was Lee’s army, and the soldiers adored their commander, whose beard and gray
hair made him look grandfatherly and wise. Gone were the barbs about Lee’s timidity in western Virginia; he was now seen as
a magnificent leader—by his boss, most of all. “Too much praise cannot be bestowed upon the skill and daring of the commanding
General who conceived, or the valor and hardihood of the troops who executed, the brilliant movement,” wrote Davis following
the Second Bull Run campaign.
³⁹
For his part Lee now had to command the battlefield but also play politics. In touch with Congress as well as with the president,
Lee lobbied for help for his army, the preeminent force of the South. “I have not yet heard from you with regard to the new
Texas regiments which you promised to endeavour to raise for this army,” he inquired of Louis Wigfall shortly after Antietam.
“I need them much. I rely on those we have in all tight places and fear I have to call upon them too often. . . . With a few
more such regiments . . . I could feel much more confident of the results of the campaign.”
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