Dixie Betrayed (30 page)

In the House on the same day, Bragg came up as a prominent subject. Henry Foote inquired about raising a committee to investigate
the country’s “late disastrous defeat before Chattanooga.” Foote was incensed by Davis’s comments. “A more valiant body of
men the world never saw,” he exclaimed. He yelled violently, charging “Jefferson Davis with the responsibility of the defeat.
. . . The President has persisted at keeping Bragg in office against the protest of both the army and the people.” He accused
Davis of treating Pemberton, “his bosom friend,” the same way. “I charge the President with gross misconduct in retaining
his favourites in office,” he barked. If continued, he suggested, it “will prove fatal to our course.”
²³

Three weeks later in the House, a discussion arose about the letter sent by officers of the Army of Tennessee which had been
signed by twelve generals. The generals requested keeping the men in the ranks, without reorganization, for the duration of
the war. They also wanted to extend conscription to an age range of fifteen to sixty and to prohibit leaves and furloughs.
Incensed, Foote addressed the House. He defended the rights of the common soldiers by insisting they be able to choose their
own officers and reacted most violently to the notion of expanded conscription. “If you extend the conscript law in the manner
now recommended, the President, as the commander-in-chief, would have more power given to him than any monarch now living,”
he bellowed. Davis, said Foote, would not be likely to wield such power “either wisely or with a due regard to the rights
of the States or the people. . . . When this country is called on to select a dictator, Jefferson Davis will not be, and ought
not be . . . chosen, but . . . General Lee.”
²⁴

Congress also fought bitterly—once again—over the issues of the general staff. It was as if they were a team arguing about
uniform colors as their opponents rounded the bases unmolested. On the session’s opening day in the Senate, the body received
a message from President Davis recommending abolition of the gradation in rank for staff officers who served in different
levels of command—Davis wanted to systematize everything. Rather than taking this seriously, however, the Senate and House
attacked one of Davis’s pet staff officers, Commissary of Subsistence Lucius Northrop. The allegation arose that Yankee prisoners
were not getting enough to eat, which was true. “It is the fault of the Commissary-General, Mr. Northrop,” barked Foote, “and
his way of doing business. This man has been a curse to the country. He is a pepper doctor from South Carolina. . . . He should
be dragged from his position.”
²⁵

Also in the Senate, Edward Sparrow, chair of the powerful Military Affairs Committee, resolved to determine whether Quartermaster
General Abraham Myers was discharging his duties correctly. Secretary of War James Seddon wrote the Senate reporting that
Alexander Lawton had been serving as quartermaster general since August 7, 1863. The secretary’s reply to a query directed
at the president infuriated members of Congress. “I do not understand it,” Wigfall said of the letter. “I do not understand
why the President has been shuffled to the bottom and the Secretary turned up. General Myers is still the quartermaster general,”
he said, “and that General Lawton had been assigned to the duties does not effect [
sic
] the case. . . . The Senate has been cheated by his assignment.” Essentially ignoring Davis’s assignment of Lawton to the
post, on December 23, seventy-six members of Congress sent a letter to the president recommending that “Abraham C. Myers,
Quartermaster General, be appointed a brigadier general.”
²⁶
This infuriated Davis.

The old issue of a Confederate Supreme Court came up again, about which no progress had been made since the first time it
was mentioned on the House floor. Rufus Garland of Arkansas nevertheless wanted to push ahead. “It is dangerous to society
to be without the properly established tribunals of justice,” he proclaimed. “While the pending war is in progress we have
no use for a supreme appellate tribunal,” said Foote. “No, sir, the establishment of the court would have inevitable effect
of bringing the sovereign States in our system in dire conflict with the central government.” Moreover, Foote asserted, he
would never assent to a Supreme Court as long as “Judah P. Benjamin shall continue to pollute the ears of majesty with his
insidious counsels,” further evidence of Foote’s anti-Semitism.
²⁷

And in the midst of this arguing, indications of the wheels coming off surfaced in North Carolina. Confederates there were
becoming increasingly discontented, and support for the war in the Tar Heel State seemed to be waning. On December 30 Davis
received a letter from Governor Vance referring to the unrest in his state. “After a careful consideration of all the sources
of discontent in North Carolina,” the governor wrote, “I have concluded that it will be perhaps impossible to remove it, except
by making some effort at negotiation with the enemy.”
²⁸
On receiving this barrage, Jefferson Davis must have felt a sting as deep as a shot through the side at Chattanooga or Vicksburg.
And, like the wounds that brought down Stonewall Jackson, the pain was all the greater knowing the assailant was supposed
to be a friend. The sparks that were supposed to ignite a great Southern torch were drifting apart in the wind, extinguished
in the wet and cold of the December midnight.

T
HE
nature of the war would transform considerably during the year 1864. No longer would the Confederacy feel such confidence
in its ability to outlast the conviction of the North or to win support from foreign powers. Never again would the eastern
Confederate army bring the war onto Northern soil, apart from small-scale raids. Now the issues of diminishing supplies and
an increasingly harder life for citizens on the home front would begin to plague the decisions being made by Confederate commanders.
And the decisive Union victory at Chattanooga would allow a Yankee penetration deep into the South that would endanger the
Confederacy’s ability to continue waging war.

During the final weeks of 1863, the eastern armies under Lee and Meade had engaged in a fruitless exercise known as the Mine
Run campaign. Lee’s army, somewhat scattered, constructed quarters south of the Rapidan River, west of Fredericksburg, Virginia,
to serve as winter lodging. Meade’s plan of attack was poorly executed, and by the opening days of December, both armies sat
inactive, resigned to the harsh weather. In part due to Lincoln’s ongoing frustration with the eastern commanders, and largely
due to Grant’s successive victories in the West, Lincoln had appointed Grant general-in-chief of all armies in the field.
Grant was also commissioned lieutenant general in the regular army, the first use of that grade since George Washington. Now
Grant would direct all military operations, save for those of the navy. Warned to stay away from Washington by his good friend
William T. Sherman, Grant established his headquarters in the field, where politicians couldn’t meddle with him. As a result
he would accompany Meade and the Army of the Potomac.

This assignment of Grant’s would prove to be the solution Lincoln had been looking for all along to the problems of command.
The arrangement eased friction that had existed between Secretary of War Stanton and Grant, both of whom now had direct access
to Lincoln. Lincoln had allowed the assignment of two chiefs of staff, one in Washington (Halleck) to continue on as the chief
military paper pusher, and the other, Brig. Gen. John A. Rawlins, in the field, to serve as Grant’s personal attaché to military
departments and field forces. Both Halleck and Rawlins now performed at their full potential, filtering communications, summarizing
the consequential and blocking the trivial, interpreting military and political jargon, and effectively interacting with Lincoln
and Grant. Thus, Lincoln was freed to concentrate on policy matters, while Grant considered matters of strategy. It was a
smooth, efficient system in the making, hit on by pure experimentation. The Confederates, by contrast, would never discover
such efficiency.

T
HE
calendar may have turned, but familiar subjects continued to upset congressmen and members of the administration. The touchy
business of who could appoint officers to act in the field still, after months of war, presented problems. On January 9 the
Senate, led by Edward Sparrow, discussed Davis’s custom of antedating his nominations, which the Senate felt was an abuse
of power. Davis had had enough. On January 15 he sent the Congress an angry explanation of his powers and why he should be
enabled to order military commissions as he chose. Responding to the Senate’s Military Affairs Committee Report Number 15,
which disapproved of the president’s action and challenged his authority, he wrote,

I confess my surprise at finding myself apparently charged with a violation of the Constitution . . . the only difficulty
. . . is that . . . the date [of] rank is anterior to the last session of Congress. The Committee are of the opinion that
the Constitution contemplates that all officers appointed in the recess of Congress shall only hold under such appointments
to the close of the next session of Congress . . . and that they should be renominated, if it is intended to retain them in
their office. . . .

The Senate cannot but agree with me that the plain inference from these passages is that the Constitution has been violated
by my having appointed these offices during the recess and retained them in office without nominating them to the Senate at
its next session. It has thus become incumbent on me . . . to repel any inference that might hereafter be drawn from my silence
on the subject, by stating that not only had no appointments of these officers been made prior to the nominations on which
the Senate has just acted, but in fact of the necessity for the appointments reached the Executive only since the commencement
of your present session, by communication received last month from the Trans-Mississippi Department.

Upon the point suggested in the close of the resolution, that the Executive is without the right to make a nomination to a
military grade, coupled with a rank from a date prior to a former session of the Senate, it is not deemed proper to anticipate
any future disagreement with the Senate by presenting the reasons for the opposite conclusion as being the only one consistent
with the laws for the regulation of the Army, as well as with long-settled usage and the necessity of the service.

Davis went on almost endlessly, the words gushing with volume but not force,

When the occasion shall arise I cannot doubt that the Senate will, notwithstanding this resolution, refuse to abandon its
own constitutional power to act on nominations at its pleasure, according to the merits of each case and the good of the service.
I am confirmed in this conclusion by observing that the resolution passed without a call for the yeas and nays, and therefore
with probably less than the usual consideration, as well as by the further reflection that as Executive nominations which
meet the disapproval of the Senate on any ground are always subject to rejection without assignment of reasons, experience
will show that no advantage can arise from the Senate’s curtailing its own discretion in future cases by binding its own judgment
in advance.
¹

Most senators were dumbstruck by Davis’s angry, long legalese. Wigfall ordered that Davis’s reply be tabled, and the situation
smoldered without resolution.

On January 21 the Senate resolved that Abraham Myers was legally recognized as the quartermaster general of the army, not
Alexander Lawton, whom the president had appointed the previous August.
²
A showdown over the Myers-Lawton controversy now began. On January 27 Davis decided to go back to square one. “I submit to
the Senate herewith,” he wrote, “the Nomination of A. R. Lawton, of Georgia, to be Quartermaster General, with rank of Brigadier
General to take rank from the 13th day of April 1861, and deem it proper to communicate the reasons which induce this course.”
In an effort to appoint the most competent person, Davis reported that

the office of Quartermaster General was offered to General Lawton, who was adverse to accepting it if it involved a nomination
and new appointment, for the reason that it withdrew him from service in the field, interfered with his chances for promotion,
and that, as he was then the oldest [
sic;
senior] brigadier in the service, he would, by acceptance of a new commission, be deprived of his relative rank as compared
with other brigadiers. There were two other officers recommended to me . . . and they were both Major Generals and could not
therefore be expected to accept a lower grade in the staff than that which they held in the line.

Davis then continued with his explanation of the Lawton case, and just as with his response to the antedating report, his
argument lacked all conclusion. On and on he went, for pages, with technical detail and legal qualification.

The name of the officer then performing the duties of Quartermaster General was also presented to me [But Davis did not approve
of the promotion or retention of the incumbent, Myers]. . . . On examination of the law above referred to, its language, although
not free from doubt, was held, after consultation and advice, to justify the conclusion that the intention of Congress would
be fulfilled by assigning to the performance of the duties of Quartermaster General an officer already confirmed as Brigadier
General in the Provisional Army, without again submitting his nomination to the Senate. The grounds for this conclusion were
that the eighth section of the Act of 6th March, 1861, organizing the Regular Army, expressly authorized the Executive to
assign Brigadier Generals to any duties he might specially direct, and when the five Brigadier Generals were raised to the
rank of General in the Act of 16th May, 1861, the president was again empowered to assign them to such command and “duties”
as he might specially direct. As it had therefore been permitted by Congress that any one of the Generals of the Regular Army
might be assigned to staff or any other duty at Executive discretion, it seemed a fair inference that when by the law of last
session provision was made that the rank, pay, and allowances of Quartermaster General should be those of a Brigadier General
in the Provisional Army the will of the Legislature was as well fulfilled by assigning to the duties of that office one who
was already a Brigadier General of the Provisional Army as by nominating a new officer.