The Confederate Nation: 1861 to 1865 (46 page)
Read The Confederate Nation: 1861 to 1865 Online
Authors: Emory M. Thomas
Tags: #History, #United States, #American Civil War, #Non-Fiction
Nor did Edmund Ruffin surrender. Unlike Davis, however, Ruffin realized that the cause was lost. And Ruffin had neither the will to adapt to the ways of the victors nor the temperament to live with defeat.
On June 17, 1865, he closed his diary:
I here declare my unmitigated hatred to Yankee rule—to all political, social and business connections with the Yankees and to the Yankee race. Would that I could impress these sentiments, in their full force, on every living Southerner and bequeath them to every one yet to be born! May such sentiments be held universally in the outraged and down-trodden South, though in silence and stillness, until the now far-distant day shall arrive for just retribution for Yankee usurpation, oppression and atrocious outrages, and for deliverance and vengeance for the now ruined, subjugated and enslaved Southern States! … And now with my latest writing and utterance, and with what will be near my latest breath, I here repeat and would willingly proclaim my unmitigated hatred to Yankee rule—to all political, social and business connections with Yankees, and the perfidious malignant and vile Yankee race.
59
Then Ruffin sat straight in his chair and placed the muzzle of his silver-mounted gun in his mouth. With a forked stick he pushed the trigger and joined the Confederacy in violent death.
60
Most Southerners, of course, did not follow the example of Davis or Ruffin. Rather, they turned to the model of Lee for inspiration and set out to rebuild their land and lives. But Reconstruction in the postwar South could not be resurrection of the ante-bellum South, and ex-Confederates who accepted defeat and reunion were often unable to accept the consequences of being a vanquished people. Thus has the “Lost Cause” lingered in the Southern soul. Thus has the Confederacy, real and imagined, as experience and myth, since defined Southern identity and made of Southerners a peculiar people. And thus could the first unquestionably Southern President of the United States since 1865 state that his favorite motion picture was
Gone with the Wind.
Jimmy Carter then added that he may have seen a “different version” of the film in his native Georgia. “My favorite scene was the burning of Schenectady, N.Y., and President Grant surrendering to Robert E. Lee.”
61
1
Raphael Semmes,
Service Afloat, or, The Remarkable Career of the Confederate Cruisers,
Sumter
and
Alabama,
during the War Between the States
(Baltimore, 1887), pp. 750–769; William M. Robinson, Jr., “The
Alabama-Kearsarge
Battle: A Study in Original Sources,”
Essex Institute Historical Collections,
XL (1924), 97–120, 209–218; and William M. Leary, Jr.,
“Alabama
versus
Kearsarge:
A Diplomatic View,”
American Neptune,
XXIX (1969), 167–173. The chapter on the
Alabama-Kearsarge
battle in Norman C. Delaney,
John Mcintosh Kell of the Raider
Alabama (University, Ala., 1973) is a superb account.
2
Emory M. Thomas, “Damn the Torpedoes … : The Battle for Mobile Bay,”
Civil War Times Illustrated,
XVI (April 1977), 5–10, 43–45.
3
Semmes,
Service Afloat,
pp. 799–808; J. T. Scharf,
History of the Confederate Navy
(New York, 1877), pp. 809–812; Frank J. Merli,
Great Britain and the Confederate Navy, 1861–1865
(Bloomington, Ind., 1970), 226–234; 250–259.
4
Thomas L. Connelly,
Autumn of Glory: The Army of Tennessee, 1862–1865
(Baton Rouge, La., 1971), pp. 470–484; James F. Rhodes, “Sherman’s March to the Sea,”
American Historical Review,
VI (1901), 466–474.
5
N. C. Hughes, Jr., “Hardee’s Defense of Savannah,”
Georgia Historical (Quarterly,
XLVII (1963), 43–67.
6
Connelly,
Autumn of Glory
, pp. 484–514; Stanley F. Horn,
The Decisive Battle of Nashville
(Baton Rouge, La., 1956); Thomas R. Hay,
Hood’s Tennessee Campaign
(New York, 1929).
7
Stanley F. Horn,
The Army of Tennessee
(Norman, Okla., 1953), p. 418.
8
John G. Barrett, Sherman’s March Through the Carolinas (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1956); Connelly, Autumn of Glory, pp. 517–526; Allan Nevins, The War’for the Union; The Organized War to Victory, 1864–1865 (New York, 1971), pp. 261–262.
9
Betsy Fleet and John D. P. Fuller (eds.),
Green Mount: A Virginia Plantation Family during the Civil War,
(Lexington, Ky., 1962), p. 351.
10
Douglas S. Freeman,
Lee’s Lieutenants: A Study in Command,
3 vols. (New York, 1942–1944), III, 528–546, 588–636; Joseph P. Cullen, “The Siege of Petersburg,”
Civil War Times Illustrated,
IX (August 1970), 26.
11
Freeman,
Lee’s Lieutenants,
III, 557–587, 595–612. See also Richard H. O’Connor,
Sheridan the Inevitable
(Indianapolis, Ind., 1953); Edward J. Stackpole,
Sheridan in the Shenandoah: Jubal Early’s Nemesis
(Harrisburg, Pa. 1961).
12
Bell I. Wiley,
The Road to Appomattox
, Atheneum edition (New York, 1968), pp. 70–75; Albert Burton Moore,
Conscription and Conflict in the Confederacy
(New York, 1924), pp. 336–353; Emory M. Thomas,
The Confederate State of Richmond: A Biography of the Capital
(Austin, Tex., 1971), pp. 181–187; Richard Cecil Todd,
Confederate Finance
(Athens, Ga., 1954), p. 197; Ella Lonn,
Desertion During the Civil War
(New York, 1928).
13
To Congress Davis said on November 7, 1864, “The truth so patent to us must ere long be forced upon the reluctant Northern mind. There are no vital points on the preservation of which the continued existence of the Confederacy depends. There is no military success of the enemy which can accomplish its [the Confederacy’s] destruction. Not the fall at Richmond, nor Wilmington, nor Charleston, nor Savannah, nor Mobile, nor of all combined, can save the enemy from the constant and exhaustive drain of blood and treasure which must continue until he shall discover that no peace is attainable unless based on the recognition of our indefeasible rights.” James D. Richardson (ed.),
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Confederacy,
2 vols. (Nashville, Tenn., 1906), I, 484–485.
14
Thomas, Confederate State of Richmond, p. 191.
15
Alvy L. King,
Louis T. Wigfall: Southern Fire-Eater
(Baton Rouge, La., 1920), pp. 200–202; Wilfred Buck Yearns,
The Confederate Congress
(Athens, Ga., 1960), p. 182;
Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, 1861–1865,
7 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1904–1905), VII, 458, 465, 466, 490–492.
16
Rembert W. Patrick
.Jefferson Davis and His Cabinet
(Baton Rouge, La., 1944), pp. 234–243; B. S. Baruc to Trenholm, December 9, 1864, and Trenholm to Baruc, December 13, 1864, Trenholm Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
17
Patrick, Davis and His Cabinet, pp. 145–149.
18
Ibid.,
pp. 149–154, 199–200.
19
See Ludwell H. Johnson, Red River Campaign: Politics and Cotton in the Civil War (Baltimore, 1958).
20
bert S. Henry,
“First With the Most” Forrest
(Indianapolis, Ind., 1944), pp. 366–381.
21
John S. Mosby,
The Memoirs of Colonel John S. Mosby,
ed. by Charles W. Russell (Boston, 1917); Major John Scott,
Partisan Life with Col. John S. Mosby
(New York, 1867), pp. 334–339.
22
Freeman,
Lee’s Lieutenants,
III, 637–654; 590 and n.
23
Pa to Fred, January 19, 1865, in Fleet and Fuller (eds.).
Green Mount,
p. 356; Charles L. Price and Claude C. Sturgill, “Shock and Assault in the First Battle of Fort Fisher,”
North Carolina Historical Review,
XLVII (1970), 24–39.
24
“Connelly,
Autumn of Glory,
pp. 526–529; Wade Hampton, “The Battle of Bentonville,” Clarence C. Buel and Robert U.Johnson (eds.),
Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, 4
vols. (New York, 1881–1883), pp. 701–705.
25
Davis to Congress, November 7, 1864, Richardson (ed.),
Messages and Papers,
pp. 482–498.
26
Ibid”
pp. 493–496.
27
Ibid.
28
The existence and significance of this debate are the themes of Robert F. Durden,
The Gray and the Black: The Confederate Debate on Emancipation
(Baton Rouge, La., 1972). See especially vii-viii.
29
Henry W. Allen to James A. Seddon, September 26, 1864, cited in Durden,
Gray and the Black,
p. 74.
30
Cited in
ibid.,
p. 75.
31
Ibid.,
pp. 75–100.
32
Howell Cobb to James A. Seddon, January 8, 1865, cited in
ibid.,
pp. 183–185.
33
Ibid”
106–161.
34
Ibid,
181–183, 193–195, 74, 253, 143–146, 183–185, 250–253, 138, 202–203, 206–207, 242–249; Yearns,
Confederate Congress
95–99.
35
Durden, Gray and the Black, pp. 147–156; D. P. Crook, The North, the South, and the Powers 1861–1865 (New York, 1974), pp. 356–358.
36
See Ludwell H. Johnson, “Lincoln’s Solution to the Problem of Peace Terms, 1864–1865,
“ Journal of Southern History,
XXXIV (1968), 576–586; PaulJ. Zingg, “John Archibald Campbell and the Hampton Roads Conference: Quixotic Diplomacy, 1865,”
Alabama Historical Quarterly,
XXXVI (1974), 21–34.
37
Durden,
Gray and the Black,
pp. 187–198.
38
Ibid.,
pp. 202–203.
39
Ibid.,
pp. 204–209.
40
Ibid,
pp. 199–202, 215–224.
41
lbid.,
pp. 249–250, 268–269.
42
Ibid.,
pp. 274–275; Thomas,
Confederate State of Richmond,
pp. 189–190.
43
Robert Durden’s conclusion
(Gray and the Black,
pp. 289–290) is at some variance with the view expressed here and drawn much from his evidence.
44
Southern Literary Messenger, XXXVII (1863), 286.
45
Freeman,
Le’s
Is
Lieutenants,
III, 655–681.
46
Thomas,
Confederate State of Richmond,
pp. 194–197; Rembert W. Patrick,
The Fall of Richmond
(Baton Rouge, La., 1960).
47
Davis to People, April 4, 1865, Dunbar Rowland (ed
.), Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers, and Speeches,
10 vols. (Jackson, Miss., 1923), VI, 529–531.
48
Hampton to Davis, April 19, 1865, cited in Hudson Strode (ed
.), Jefferson Davis: Private Utters, 1823–1889
(New York, 1966), pp. 154–155.
49
Mumford to soldiers, April 21, 1865,
War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies,
70 vols, in 127 (Washington, D.C., 1880–1901), ser. I, XLVI, pt. 3, 1395.
50
Freeman,
Lee’s Lieutenants,
III, 712–730; Burke Davis,
To Appomattox: Nine April Days,
1865 (New York, 1959); Philip Van Doren Stern,
An End to Valor: The Last Days of the Civil War
(Boston, 1958).
51
Cited in Douglas S. Freeman,
R. E. Lee: A Biography,
4 vols. (New York, 1934–1935), IV, 123.
52
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain,
The Passing of the Armies
(New York, 1915) quoted in Henry Steele Commager (ed.),
The Blue and the Gray
(Indianapolis, Ind., 1950), pp. 142–143.
53
Lee to Davis, April 20, 1865, Clifford Dowdey and Louis H. Manarin (eds.),
The Wartime Papers of R. E. Lee
(New York 1961), p. 939.
54
Davis to Johnston, April 25, 1865, cited in Joseph E. Johnston,
Narrative of Military Operation,
ed. by Frank E. Vandiver (Bloomington, Ind., 1959), p. 411.
55
Ibid.,
pp. 411–412.
56
Henry,
Forrest,
pp. 436–438.
57
See David M. Potter, “The Enigma of the South,” in
The South and the Sectional Conflict
(Baton Rouge, La., 1968), pp. 3–16.
58
See Hudson Strode,
Jefferson Davis,
3 vols. (New York, 1955–1964), III, 227 ff.; Jefferson Davis,
The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government,
2 vols. (New York, 1881, Collier edition, New York, 1961), p. 562.
59
Edmund Ruffin Diary, June 17, 1865, Library of Congress, Washington.
60
Edmund Ruffin, Jr., to his sons, June 20, 1865, in “Death of Edmund Ruffin,”
Tyler’s Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine,
V (1924), 193.
61
See Emory M. Thomas,
Honest to Clio: The New History of the Old South
(Macon, Ga., 1973). The Carter quote is from
Newsweek,
November 28, 1977, 85.
The Constitution of the
Confederate States of
America, March 11, 1861
We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity—invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God—do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Confederate States of America.
A
RT.
I
S
EC.
1.—All legislative powers herein delegated shall be vested in a Congress of the Confederate States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
S
EC.
2. (1) The House of Representatives shall be … chosen every second year by the people of the several States; and the electors in each State shall be citizens of the Confederate States, and have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature; but no person of foreign birth, not a citizen of the Confederate States, shall be allowed to vote for any officer, civil or political, State or Federal.
(2) No person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained the age of twenty-five years, and be a citizen of the Confederate States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.
(3) Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Confederacy, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all slaves. The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the Confederate States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct. The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every fifty thousand, but each State shall have at least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made the State of South Carolina shall be entitled to choose six; the State of Georgia ten; the State of Alabama nine; the State of Florida two; the State of Mississippi seven; the State of Louisiana six; and the State of Texas six.
(4) When vacancies happen in the representation of any State, the Executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies.
(5) The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other officers; and shall have the sole power of impeachment; except that any judicial or other federal officer resident and acting solely within the limits of any State, may be impeached by a vote of two-thirds of both branches of the Legislature thereof.
S
EC.
3. (1) The Senate of the Confederate States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen for six years by the Legislature thereof, at the regular session next immediately preceding the commencement of the term of service; and each Senator shall have one vote.
(2) Immediately after they shall be assembled, in consequence of the first election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three classes. The seats of the Senators of the first class shall be vacated at the expiration of the second year; of the second class at the expiration of the fourth year; and of the third class at the expiration of the sixth year; so that one-third may be chosen every second year; and if vacancies happen by resignation or otherwise during the recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary appointments until the next meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such vacancies.
(3) No person shall be a Senator, who shall not have attained the age of thirty years, and be a citizen of the Confederate States; and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of the State for which he shall be chosen.
(4) The Vice-President of the Confederate States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided.
(5) The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice-President, or when he shall exercise the office of President of the Confederate States.
(6) The Senate shall have sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that purpose they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the Confederate States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside; and no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of the members present.
(7) Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit, under the Confederate States; but the party convicted shall, nevertheless, be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment, and punishment according to law.
S
EC.
4. (1) The times, places, and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof, subject to the provisions of this Constitution; but the Congress may, at any time, by law, make or alter such regulations, except as to the times and places of choosing Senators.
(2) The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year; and such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall, by law, appoint a different day.
S
EC.
5. (1) Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business; but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent members, in such manner and under such penalties as each House may provide.
(2) Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds of the whole number, expel a member.
(3) Each House shall keep a journai of its proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such parts as may in their judgment require secrecy, and the ayes and nays of the members of either House, on any question, shall, at the desire of one-fifth of those present, be entered on the journal.
(4) Neither House, during the session of Congress, shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.
S
EC.
6. (1) The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the Treasury of the Confederate States. They shall, in all cases except treason and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place.
(2) No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the Confederate States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no person holding any office under the Confederate States shall be a member of either House during his continuance in office. But Congress may, by law, grant to the principal officer in each of the Executive Departments a seat upon the floor of either House, with the privilege of discussing any measure appertaining to his department.
S
EC.
7. (1) All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other bills.
(2) Every bill which shall have passed both Houses shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the President of the Confederate States; if he approve he shall sign it; but if not, he shall return it with his objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If, after such reconsideration, two-thirds of that House shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two-thirds of that House, it shall become a law. But in all such cases, the votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and nays, and the names of the persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on the journal of each House respectively. If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law, in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress, by their adjournment, prevent its return; in which case it shall not be a law. The President may approve any appropriation and disapprove any other appropriation in the same bill. In such case he shall, in signing the bill, designate the appropriations disapproved; and shall return a copy of such appropriations, with his objections, to the House in which the bill shall have originated; and the same proceedings shall then be had as in case of other bills disapproved by the President.
(3) Every order, resolution, or vote, to which the concurrence of both Houses may be necessary (except on a question of adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the Confederate States; and before the same shall take effect shall be approved by him; or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two-thirds of both Houses, according to the rules and limitations prescribed in case of a bill.
S
EC.
8.—The Congress shall have power—
(1)
To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, for revenue necessary to pay the debts, provide for the common defence, and carry on the Government of the Confederate States; but no bounties shall be granted from the treasury; nor shall any duties or taxes on importations from foreign nations be laid to promote or foster any branch of industry; and all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the Confederate States.
(2) To borrow money on the credit of the Confederate States.
(3) To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes; but neither this nor any other clause contained in the Constitution shall be construed to delegate the power to Congress to appropriate money for any internal improvement intended to facilitate commerce; except for the purpose of furnishing lights, beacons, and buoys, and other aids to navigation upon the coasts, and the improvement of harbors, and the removing of obstructions in river navigation, in all which cases, such duties shall be laid on the navigation facilitated thereby, as may be necessary to pay the costs and expenses thereof.
(4) To establish uniform laws of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the Confederate States, but no law of Congress shall discharge any debt contracted before the passage of the same.
(5) To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures.
(6) To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the Confederate States.
(7) To establish post-offices and post-routes; but the expenses of the Post-office Department, after the first day of March, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and sixty-three, shall be paid out of its own revenues.
(8) To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.
(9) To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court.
(10) To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations.
(11) To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water.
(12) To raise and support armies; but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years.
(13) To provide and maintain a navy.
(14) To make rules for government and regulation of the land and naval forces.
(15) To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Confederate States; suppress insurrections, and repel invasions.
(16) To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the Confederate States; reserving to the States, respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.
(17) To exercise exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever, over such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of one or more States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the Government of the Confederate States; and to exercise a like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the Legislature of the State in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, and other needful buildings, and
(18) To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the Confederate States, or in any department or officer thereof.
S
EC.
9. (1) The importation of negroes of the African race, from any foreign country, other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same.
(2) Congress shall also have power to prohibit the introduction of slaves from any State not a member of, or Territory not belonging to, this Confederacy.
(3) The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.
(4) No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.
(5) No capitation or other direct tax shall be laid unless in proportion to the census or enumeration hereinbefore directed to be taken.