What Happened to the Food Sent to Amelia Court House?

   It is a fairly well known story about the war. In 1865, Robert E. Lee asked that rations for his army be sent to Amelia Court House. After being forced from the trenches protecting Richmond and Petersburg, Lee found not rations awaiting him, but ammunition.

   Writing in 1875, just ten years after the events, George C. Eggleston recalled an interesting turn of events concerning those provisions. Born in Indiana, Eggleston was living in Amelia County when the war began and joined Lamkin’s Battery on May 9, 1861, serving as a first sergeant and then as sergeant major. At the battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina, in October 1862, Eggleston was wounded by “concussion of shell.”[1] Lamkin’s Battery, Virginia Light Artillery, saw service in the Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, until returning to Virginia in October 1863. The rest of their service was connected to the Army of Northern Virginia.

Marker in Amelia (HMdg.org)

   Eggleston accompanied his battery on at least part of the retreat toward Appomattox Court House, although it appears he was not present for the surrender, coming in for his parole at Burkeville on April 21, 1865. Eggleston had a great deal to say about food and rations in a chapter entitled “Red Tape” in his 1875 memoir. Concerning the waiting train of provisions at Amelia Court House, Eggleston wrote:

   When the evacuation of Richmond was begun, a train load of provisions was sent by General Lee’s order from one of the interior depots to Amelia Court House, for the use of the retreating army, which was without food and must march to that point before it could receive a supply. But the president and his followers were in haste to leave the capital and needed the train, wherefore it was not allowed to remain long enough to be unloaded, but was hurried on to Richmond, where its cargo was thrown out to facilitate the flight of the president and his personal followers, while the starving army was left to suffer in an utterly exhausted country, with no source of supply anywhere within its reach.”[2]

   While Lee had been warning those in Richmond that his ability to defend the entrenchments was nearing its end, the breakthrough on April 2, 1865, caught many by surprise. J.H. Averill wrote after the war that he was serving as trainmaster for the Richmond and Danville Railroad at the time. His first telegraph note on April 2 was to hold all trains at Danville. Averill asked for clarification but got no response. He believed that raiders might have cut the line between Burkeville and the Staunton River. The next message over the wire was: “Come to Richmond with all engines and empty passenger and box-cars you can pick up. Bring no freight or passengers.” Averill readied the four engineers and whatever rolling stock he could find. Asking for further instructions, he was told “Too late. Richmond is being evacuated. We will all leave this P.M. Arrange for all track room possible in Danville.” Averill also wrote that in Danville “were large government storehouses…all filled to the ceiling, as well as many loaded cars, awaiting shipment.”[3] It is interesting to note that the telegram told Averill to bring “all engines and empty passenger and box-cars you can pick up.” Since the rations would have been in between Danville and Amelia, they certainly would have fallen under the “all you can pick up” order.

   There appears to be an even older version of this story. Writing in 1866, James D. McCabe, Jr., wrote that the “the trains which had been sent from Danville [to Lee at Appomattox] had been ordered to Richmond to help carry off government property, and that, through inexcusable blundering of the Richmond authorities, the cars had been sent on to the Capital without unloading at the stores at Amelia Courthouse.”[4]

   Lee went as far as to say in his final report to Davis in April 1865 that “Not finding the supplies ordered to be placed there [Amelia] twenty-four hours were lost.” The same was repeated on April 4, when Lee sent his appeal to “the Citizens of Amelia County, Va.” The army had arrived at Amelia Court House “expecting to find plenty of provisions, which had been ordered to be placed here by the railroad several days since…”[5]

   These reports obviously rankled Jefferson Davis in the postwar years. In July 1873, Isaac M. St. John, who had replaced the inept Lucius Northrop as commissary general in the last months of the war, wrote Davis on the resources of the Confederacy. St. John could recall or find “No calls by letter or requisition from the General Commanding [Lee], or from any other source, official or unofficial, had been received, either by the Commissary General or the Assistant Commissary General; nor…was any communication transmitted through the Department channels to the Bureau of Substance—for the collection of supplies at Amelia Courthouse. Had any such requisition or communication been received at the Bureau as late as the morning of April 1^st, it could have been met from the Richmond reserve.”[6]

   Eggleston certainly remembered seeing the discarded rations or hearing this story, as did McCabe. Based upon his appeal to the farmers in Amelia County, and his final report to Davis, Lee expected rations to be waiting for his army in Amelia Court House when he arrived on April 4. Would the rations and the lost twenty-hours have made a difference in Lee’s ability to outpace the Federal army? Maybe the    war might have lasted a little longer.

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[1] George C. Eggleton, CMSR, Roll 0318, M324, RG109. NA.

[2] Eggleston, A Rebel’s Recollections, 228.

[3] SHSP, 25:267-9. Originally in the Nashville Banner.

[4] quoted in Freeman, R.E. Lee, 4:509.

[5] Confederate Veteran, 7:233.

[6] SHSP 3:101-2.

Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and biographer Frank Alfriend

   Recently, on one of the online auction sites, a letter from Robert E. Lee to Jefferson Davis was listed. Lee, writing on April 2, 1868, thanks Davis for a copy of Frank H. Alfriend’s The Life of Jefferson Davis. Born in Richmond in January 1841, Alfriend was a graduate of William and Mary College and taught school in Richmond during at least part of the war.[1] By early 1863, he was writing for the Southern Literary Messenger, publishing a piece entitled “The Great Danger of the Confederacy.”[2] In December 1863, it was announced that Alfriend was now the editor of the publication.[3]

Lee to Davis letter on eBay in 2026.

   Alfriend continued writing after the war, becoming a contributor to the Raleigh-based Field and Fireside.[4] Some of his pieces were biographical in nature, such as a piece on Italian revolutionary Garibaldi.[5] All the while, Alfriend was working on a biography of Jefferson Davis. The Biblical Recorder reported in January 1868 that Alfriend, “an attractive writer,” was working on as biography of Jefferson Davis. “The time for that book has not yet arrived, but we feel sure that Mr. Alfriend will execute the work in a manner fully equal to the expectations of his numerous admirers.”[6]

   Alfriend’s book was not the first. Alfred Taylor Bledso released Is Davis a Traitor, or was Secession a Constitutional Right Previous to 1861 in 1866.

   Alfriend reached out to Davis on July 22, 1867, about the biography. Davis confessed that he had “always been very reluctant to give an account of my own deeds.” Sketches that had been released to date were “very defective and often erroneous.” Davis then writes about his time in the U.S. Senate, the Missouri Compromise, working with President Buchanan, and the Crittenden Compromise. Concerning treason, with which Davis was being charged, he wrote “The first congress of the Confederation defined treason, and there was unmistakably declared the doctrine to which the founders of the Union steadily adhered, the paramount allegiance of the citizen to his state. The departure from that creed has been the source of all our ills.” Davis confessed that he had “no books to which to refer and write from memory entirely.”[7] Davis wrote in 1888 that he had only this one “conversation” with Alfriend prior to the publication of the biography.[8]

   The Life of Jefferson Davis was released by the National Publishing Company in March 1868. It was not widely available, and readers needed to subscribe to obtain a copy. The Cincinnati Commercial considered it possibly the best book on the life of Davis, but noted Alfriend’s confession that he was writing from a Southern viewpoint. Despite this bias, the Ohio newspaper believed Alfriend’s work “will excite a lively interest and have a permanent historic value. . . All in all, this volume is the most valuable contribution yet made to the history of the war by any Southern author.”[9] While some praised Alfriend’s biography, it did not meet the approval of everyone. In the December 1868 issue of D.H. Hill’s The Land We Love came a scathing review. “We regard this book as a great misfortune to Mr. Davis,” wrote the editor. “This is much of real value in this book, and it is to be regretted that Mr. Frank H. Alfriend did not confine himself to matters he understood. His military criticisms are not worth a button.”[10]

   Obviously, Davis either asked Alfriend to send a copy of the book to Lee, or Alfriend took it upon himself to send a copy to Lee. On April 2, Lee wrote to Davis: “I am very much obliged to you for the copy of your “Life of Jefferson Davis” which you have kindly sent me. I will take pleasure in its perusal.” Did Davis actually mail the book to Lee? Probably not. Writing to Alfriend in April 1871, Davis confessed that he had “not seen your biography of myself and have failed in my efforts to get a copy.”[11]

   Alfriend continued to work for various newspapers, including the Wilmington Star, the Louisville Courier-Journal, and the Atlanta Constitution. While in Atlanta, he befriended John B. Gordon. When Gordon went to Washington, D.C., as a senator, he got Alfriend a job as an assistant librarian. Alfriend was working on a revised biography on Davis when he died on May 3, 1887. He is buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond.[12]

      While this letter has recently come to light, does Lee’s copy of The Life of Jefferson Davis survive?

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[1] Richmond Dispatch, August 26, 1862, September 24, 1863, September 12, 1864.

[2] Staunton Spectator, February 3, 1863.

[3] Richmond Dispatch, December 30, 1863.

[4] Field and Fireside, January 6, 1866.

[5] The Field and Fireside, July 28, 1866.

[6] The Biblical Recorder, January 22, 1868.

[7] The Papers of Jefferson Davis, 12:239-43.

[8] Ibid, 12:244n20.

[9] quoted in the Clarion-Ledger, March 7, 1868.

[10] Book Notes. The Land We Love (December 1868): 179-181.

[11] The Papers of Jefferson Davis, 13:20-21.

[12] The Papers of Jefferson Davis, 12:243.

Robert E. Lee’s Compiled Service Record

    For anyone wishing to research a person, regiment, or just about anything else connected to the War, the first place to stop is the Compiled Service Records. At the very end of the war, scores of boxes from the Confederate War Department were turned over to Federal officials in Charlotte (you can learn more about this here). These papers were transported to Washington, D.C., where they were gone through by officials, trying to tie Jefferson Davis to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

   Part of the War Department papers were the muster roll sheets for the various regiments in Confederate service. These muster rolls were completed once every two months and were used to pay the individual troops. Other correspondence was also included. All of this wound up in Washington, D.C.

   After the war, there were various pension acts passed. For Federal soldiers, the pensions came from the US Congress. For Confederate soldiers, pensions came from their various states. The validity of each claim had to be verified. Were they good soldiers who were honorably discharged versus not-so-good soldiers: men who had deserted or been dishonorably discharged. Beginning in the 1890s, the War Department began creating the Compiled Service Records. The muster roll sheets, regimental returns, descriptive books, information from hospitals, and any other materials the clerks could find were copied onto various cards (usually one for each surviving muster). With other surviving documents, these cards were placed in envelopes and filed away by states and regiments. When a pension applicant or state official wrote the War Department inquiring about a veteran’s service, it was (usually) easy to pull those records, summarize the information, and send a letter with the necessary details.

   Robert E. Lee never served in a regiment. He, along with thousands of others who were staff officers, had a special category  (now known as “Confederate officers). Although Lee served as a military advisor to Jefferson Davis, as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, and then, toward the end of the conflict, as overall Confederate commander, his folder only contains 66 pieces.

   Several of the cards refer to letters found in other places. For example, there is a card for a letter that Lee wrote to Jefferson Davis on February 19 and February 23, 1865. They are in the file of Charles E. Jones. Both letters deal with correspondence from Beauregard. Another refers to a special order issued on June 2, 1862, assigning Lee to command the army in Virginia.

   One card outlines Lee’s service as commander of the department of South Carolina, Georgia, and East Florida, including a list of his staff; his promotion to brigadier general in the regular Confederate Army; and his parole at Appomattox on April 9, 1865.

   And then there are more mundane things, like a requisition for forage for the third quarter of 1864. Lee had two horses (Traveler and Lucy) and asked for eight pounds of corn and eight pounds of oats, daily. It is interesting that in August 1864, the voucher listed four horses.

   There are pay vouchers for his thirty years of service. It is interesting to note that Lee was paid $301 a month, plus an additional $100 a month for commanding an army, plus an extra $54 a month for his thirty years of service. There are several official letters that Lee wrote. One is dated March 26, 1863, and addressed to Maj. A. H. Cole. His total pay for the months of April, May, June, and July, 1863, was $1,820.00.

   Included is a telegram from Lee to Secretary of War James Seddon, written December 4, 1862, regarding corn in the upper Rappahannock valley; a note from Secretary of War Seddon regarding the nomination of Lee for Commander in Chief; and various other letters while Lee was serving as military advisor to Davis in the spring of 1862.  These include notes to Beauregard, E. Kirby Smith, Lovill, and Josiah Gorgas.

   Also included are a handful of letters from twentieth-century people, including Douglas Southall Freeman, asking for details on Lee’s military service. Writing on August 15, 1925, Freeman was interested in any correspondence from Lee between April 1 and April 10, 1865. Freeman was advised to consult on the Official Records.

   I was curious about how Lee’s Compiled Military Service Record, at 67 pages, stacked up against some of the other Confederate commanders: P.G.T. Beauregard comes in at 170 pages; E. Kirby Smith, 81 pages; and Joseph E. Johnston, 129 pages.

   Once again, if you are going to research a person or regiment/brigade, etc., the Compiled Military Service Records, now housed at the National Archives and available online at fold3.com, is the place to start. You might find nothing, and you might discover a gold mine!

Nassau Bacon – from Ohio

 

      “We are eating new beautiful onions from Nassau,” Charles Blackford wrote in June 1864. Blackford was Longstreet’s assistant judge advocate.  Blackford’s letter home about the onions is a little more revealing concerning foodstuffs in the ANV in the spring and summer of 1864. He continues: “With our onions we have bacon cured in Ohio and shipped to Nassau to be sent to us by blockade runners.” It is well known that by 1864, most foodstuffs for the Army of Northern Virginia were coming from Nassau on blockade runners and into the port at Wilmington.[1]

   Almost everyone is familiar with the role of the blockade in supplying the Confederate armies. Agents from various states and the Confederate government worked out trade deals – either cotton, or promises of future cotton – in exchange for munitions of war, medicines, and foodstuffs. These items were then loaded onto ships, making their way to the ports in the Bahamas, largely Nassau. The items were then transferred to shallow-draft blockade runners and steamed into various Southern ports. By 1864, it was really only the port of Wilmington that was still open and supplying Lee’s army in Virginia. 

The Advance, a North Carolina blockade runner.

   “Nassau bacon is a term frequently used during the war. James C. Elliott, 56^th North Carolina, recalled that in 1864 “Our food was miserable—musty meal and rancid Nassau bacon. Our bread was cooked at the wagon yard on canal, west side of Petersburg.”[2] Another Tar Heel reminisced that “old soldiers will all remember Nassau bacon, a very gross, fat, porky substance which ran the blockade at Wilmington and was distributed among Lee’s veterans as bacon.”[3] Moxley Sorrel, also on Longstreet’s staff before being promoted to brigadier general in the fall of 1864, thought that some “bacon from Nassau was coming through the blockade, and it would not be incredible for the blockading fleet to allow it to come through in hope of poisoning us.”[4]

   But what of Blackford’s claim – that his bacon had been cured in Ohio and sent to Nassau? Hamilton Cochran, writing in Blockade Runners of the Confederacy  in 1958, explains how the process worked. Brokers, or “bacon buyers,” would visit hog farms in New York and other states “and offer hog raisers far more per pound for their hams and bacon than the United States government or civilian merchants were offering.” After the brokers bought large quantities of hog meat, it was  “salted and shipped out of New York or Philadelphia to Bermuda or Nassau. . .  Upon arrival in the islands, the hams and bacon were sold at quadruple their cost to agents of the Confederate States Quartermaster Corps, then shipped to hungry soldiers on the firing line.”[5] Eugene R. Dattel notes that at times, the meat shipped out of Boston or New York was sent to Canada first, then on to Bermuda or Nassau. The meat was also sent to Liverpool, unloaded and then reshipped to the Caribbean.  By January 1865, over eight million pounds of meat had arrived in the port of Wilmington alone. “This was extremely good business for Northern farmers whose sons were dying on Southern battlefields,” Dattel notes.[6]

   This round-about way of importing bacon (and other items) produced in the North to feed Confederate armies was not really a secret. Major General W.H.C. Whiting wrote in June 1863 that many of the blockade runners in Wilmington were “mostly filled with Yankee goods.” Whiting arrested the crew of one steamer, the Arabian, which had bypassed Nassau and sailed directly from New York.[7] War Clerk John Jones noted in October 1864 that Beverly Tucker was in Canada, contracting with a New York firm, to trade bacon for cotton “pound for pound.” The Secretary of the War had authorized the negotiations.[8] Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, James Seddon and others all knew about this operation. And it was not just limited to Wilmington. The trade was so heavy in eastern North Carolina and eastern Virginia that in January 1864 the Subsistence Department needed 600 to 800 bales of cotton each week, delivered to Weldon.[9] Writing after the war, Robert Tannahill told former Commissary General Lucius B. Northrop that “there is no telling the amount of supplies we could have gotten from the North in the way of exchange for cotton.”[10]

   Even Northern officials knew of the trade, much of which originated in New York. The American consul at St. George’s Bermuda, wrote to Secretary of State William H. Seward in June 1863: “I beg to apprise you that large quantities of mdse [merchandise] are shipped from N. Yk  [New York] to these islds and transshipped o/board steamers for blockaded ports. There is no doubt that Major Walker who styles himself Confederate States Agent, is receiving goods ex N. Yk by almost every vessel under various marks. A large portion of the goods shipped from here to Wilmington are from N. Yk.”[11] The trade continued, even after the capture of the Cape Fear River and Wilmington. On March 8, 1865, U.S. Grant telegraphed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton that “We have supplies going out by Norfolk to the rebel army stopped, but information received shows that large amounts still go by way of the Blackwater.” In another telegraph, Grant told Stanton that spies or informants in Richmond “send word that Tobacco is being exchanged for Bacon…” Lincoln gave Grant the authority on March 10 to suspend all trade permits and licenses, regardless of whoever issued them, within the state of Virginia, with a few exceptions.[12]

   If you would like to learn more about food and the Confederate Army in Virginia, check out my book, Feeding Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, here.

 

[1] Blackford & Blackford, Letters from Lee's Army, 252.

[2] Elliott,  The Southern Soldier Boy, 26.

[3] Clark, ed., Histories of the Several Regiments and Battalions, 4:53.

[4] Sorrel, Recollections of a Confederate Staff Officer, 281.

[5] Cochran, Blockade Runners of the Confederacy, 47.

[6] Dattel, Cotton and Race in the Making of America, 198.

[7] Jones, A Rebel War Clerk, 1:319, 321.

[8] Jones,  A Rebel War Clerk, 2:290.

[9] OR, Series 1, XLVI, pt. 2, 1104; Goff, Confederate Supply, 167.

[10] quoted in Goff, Confederate Supply, 168.

[11] “American Consular Records-Civil War Period.” Pt. 1, Bermuda Historical Quarterly, 17 (Summer 1961) 66.

[12] Basler, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 8:342-4.

The 3rd Georgia Infantry Commandeer Breckinridge’s Train

   In reading through Jefferson Davis’s papers, there is an interesting discussion regarding a train. It is April 1865. Davis and most of the Confederate cabinet have moved from Greensboro to Charlotte. John C. Breckinridge, Secretary of War, had caught up with Davis in Greensboro. As the group makes its way across the piedmont of North Carolina, Breckinridge is called away to meet with Joseph E. Johnston as Johnston is meeting with William T. Sherman at the Bennett farm outside Durham.

John C. Breckinridge (LOC)

   Davis, who had reached Charlotte on April 18, was anxious for Breckinridge to rejoin him. While Federal cavalry had wrecked most of the railroad around Greensboro and Salisbury, it was still possible to get trains almost to Salisbury. Breckinridge telegraphs Davis from Salisbury on April 20: “We have had great difficulty in reaching this place. The train from Charlotte which was to have met us here had not arrived. No doubt seized by stragglers to convey them to that point. I have telegraphed the commanding officer at Charlotte to send a locomotive and one car without delay. The impressed train should be met before reaching the depot and the ringleaders severely dealt with.” Davis responds: “Train will start for you at midnight with guard.”[1]

   Now, the rest of the story…

   In 1916, W. Frank Marsh was in Charlotte, reading a historical marker that described the last meeting of the Confederate cabinet in the city. Marsh, a member of the 3^rd Georgia infantry, had made it all the way through the war, surrendering at Appomattox Court House. “We were not able to secure transportation back home, so many of us started to walk through Virginia and North Carolina, half starved and some of us almost barefooted. We reached a point past China Grove [Rowan County] coming into Charlotte, some two hundred of us, hungry and sad and a motley lot all bent upon getting back into the country where we had our homes. We came upon a train destined for China Grove to bring back General Breckinridge from there to the conference of the Confederate Congress in Charlotte [the Confederate Congress never met in Charlotte, only the Cabinet], but we took possession of that train and demanded that the conductor take us to Charlotte. He refused and said he was under orders to get General Breckinridge and take him to Charlotte as fast as possible. We insisted and took charge of the train with the result that we told the conductor he could detach the engine and tender and go to China Grove to get the general, who would have to ride upon the woodpile in the tender.”

   “We remained in charge of the cars until the engine came back from China Grove with the General riding in the tender and I guess he was mad, but we hooked onto the cars and were brought in toward Charlotte. Finally, the conductor announced we were in Charlotte, and we all got out of the train only to find that we were not in Charlotte but in a bull pen some half a mile or more from the town and all held prisoners. The home guards had been ordered out in Charlotte and they had us in charge, while they took away our three officers and locked them up in Charlotte for failing to keep the soldiers in subjection instead of letting them confiscate the train.”

   “The next morning we were all released and going into Charlotte found that they had released our officers. Something to eat in those times looked bigger to our eyes than a gold brick. Well, we went down to the railroad station and there we found a train of cars with an engine attached and steam up, ready to go somewhere.”

   “We all rushed on, but the doors were locked and we couldn’t get in, so a lot of us climbed onto the roofs and this broke in the old timber. We found that it was Jeff Davis’ special loaded with Confederate gold and silver, with many kegs of coins aboard and when Jeff Davis found us so determined to get to Georgia he ordered a train made up and we were carried to Chester, S.C., which was as far as the train could go as the bridge had been burned. Those were stirring times and no mistake.”[2]

   There is much to process between these two accounts – trains still running in North Carolina in April 1865, telegraphs still operating, the passage of Lee’s paroled men through North Carolina after Appomattox, a glimpse of the remnants of the Confederate treasury, along with the charming magnanimity of Davis, it is just nice to flesh out the fragments of two communications between Davis and Breckinridge.

  

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[1] OR, Vol. 47, pt. 3, 814. See also Davis letters, Vol. 11, 553.

[2] The Charlotte Observer, October 20, 1916.

Jefferson Davis v. Stonewall Jackson

   Confederate historiography is rife with accounts of Jefferson Davis’s legendary support of certain commanders, like Braxton Bragg, Leonidas Polk, and Lucius B. Northrop, along with politician Judah P. Benjamin, and his equally legendary feuds with others, like Joseph E. Johnston. Even with Johnston, the fault was more his than that of Davis, as in his correspondence, the President, often exhibits a great deal of grace and aplomb.

   But Davis was not, at least early on, an enthusiast of Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson. That might come as a shock, considering that many still celebrate Lee-Jackson Day across the South. Often, Lee is number one, with Jackson a close second in admiration of military skill.

   It appears that Davis and Jackson had never met prior to the spring of 1862. Davis was an 1828 United States Military Academy graduate. During his West Point years, he is described as frequently challenging the academy’s discipline, which includes being involved in the famous Eggnog Riot of Christmas 1826.[1] While serving in the regular army, Davis was court-martialed for insubordination in 1835.[2] Davis resigned from the U.S. Army shortly thereafter. He then became a cotton planter and politician, serving in the U.S. House from 1845-1846. During the Mexican-American War, Davis raised a regiment, for which he served as colonel, and fought at Monterrey and Buena Vista. He then served in the U.S. Senate from 1847 to 1851, as Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce, and then again in the U.S. Senate from 1857 to 1861.

   Jackson was not a politician, nor a planter. He did gain entrance to the United States Military Academy, graduating in 1846, 17^th out of 59^th students. Jackson was also in the Mexican-American War, serving as a second lieutenant in Company K, 1^st United States Artillery. His unit saw action at the Siege of Veracruz, and the battles of Contreras, Chapultepec, and Mexico City. After Mexico, Jackson saw action in Florida battling the Seminoles. Jackson also resigned from the U.S. Army, taking a position of professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy and Instructor of Artillery at the Virginia Military institute.

   Davis, being so intimate with the going-ons of the War Department, would have seen Jackson’s name in the reports and telegraphs that arrived in Richmond after the start of the war. Colonel Thomas J. Jackson took command of the garrison at Harpers Ferry in late April 1861. Robert E. Lee was critical of Jackson for occupying Maryland Heights, undoubtedly relaying the fears of others. Jackson wanted Confederate forces to take the offensive at once. Jackson would next clash with Joseph E. Johnston. While Jackson commanded over 7,000 men at Harper’s Ferry, he had a commission only in Virginia. Johnston, after Virginia joined the Confederacy, was a brigadier general in the Confederate army. When Johnson arrived to assume command of the post at Harper’s Ferry, no one had notified Jackson, who refused to relinquish command. Eventually, Johnston found an endorsement with Lee’s signature on it, and Jackson acquiesced. Jackson then assumed command of all Virginia regiments at Harpers Ferry.[3] Promotion to brigadier general came on June 17, 1861. Jackson went on to become the first icon of the South, earning the sobriquet of Stonewall Jackson at the battle of First Manassas in July 1861. A promotion to major general came in November 1861.

   It was Jackson who came up with the plan for the Romney Campaign. Jackson asked for reinforcements for the campaign and received W.W. Loring’s division. Finding few Federals in Romney, Jackson withdrew his brigade back to Winchester, leaving Loring at Romney. Loring has been described as incompetent and not having the ability to control his already demoralized soldiers. Loring’s officers believed that Jackson’s men were living high (and warm) in Winchester while they suffered through one of the coldest winters on record at Romney. Loring signed and forwarded a petition from eleven of his officers to Richmond asking that Jackson’s orders be overridden and they be allowed to withdraw from Romney. Others wrote to their Congressmen, and with Loring’s approval, Brig. Gen. William B. Taliaferro went to Richmond to plead their case. All of this happened without using the proper chain of command, as Loring believed Jackson would not endorse and forward the letters. Davis sided with Loring and ordered the Secretary of War to telegraph Jackson, ordering him to move Loring’s men. Jackson complied with the orders, then telegraphed, “With such interference in my command I cannot expect to be of much service in the field.” He requested to be assigned back to his old teaching job or allowed to resign.[4]

   Davis considered the Romney Campaign, and Jackson, “utterly incompetent.” It was only through the work of Joseph E. Johnston that the ruffled feathers of Jackson were smoothed and his resignation returned to him.[5] Jackson preferred charges against Loring, charges that Johnston endorsed and forwarded, but the matter was dropped in Richmond. A few days later, Loring was promoted to major general at Davis’s request and sent to the Western Theater.

   A couple of months later, Jackson commanded all the troops in the Shenandoah Valley, with orders from Johnston to prevent Banks from reinforcing McClellan on the Peninsula. The next squabble came with Richard Ewell. Ewell was angry over Jackson’s secrecy, so angry, that Ewell sent one of his brigadier generals, Richard Taylor, to meet with Davis. Taylor just happened to be Davis’s brother-in-law (Davis’s first wife). It was Ewell and Taylor’s request that an officer be sent to the Valley, an officer who outranked Jackson and who could take command. Davis agreed and wanted to send either James Longstreet or Gustavus W. Smith. Davis agreed to send Longstreet as soon as possible and Taylor returned to Ewell with the news. Lee stepped in, and as one historian put it, prevented Davis from “making a truly colossal blunder.” Over the next few weeks, Jackson, with Lee’s encouragement “carried out one of the more brilliant campaigns of military history.”[6]

   The first meeting of Davis and Jackson is thought to have occurred on July 2, 1862, at Lee’s Headquarters near Malvern Hill. Lee was meeting with several of his generals when Davis arrived unannounced. Introductions were made. Dr. Hunter McGuire was an observer at the event, and it was McGuire who informed Jackson who Davis was, although he probably already knew. Woodward writes that Jackson’s “feelings toward Davis, however, were none too cordial, for he had not forgotten the Romney campaign and Davis’s intervention in Loring’s favor during the affair.” Hunter McGuire wrote that Jackson “stood as if a corporal on guard, his head erect, his little fingers touching the seams on his pants, and looked at Davis.” It was Lee who broke the awkward silence. “Why President, don’t you know General Jackson? This is our “Stonewall Jackson.” Davis bowed stiffly, and Jackson saluted. Lee and Davis soon adjourned into another room to talk. Davis and Jackson spoke later that day. Jackson was alone among Lee’s generals to continue to pursue McClellan.[7]

   Davis, Lee, Jackson, and others met in Richmond on July 13, devising the strategy of pursuing John Pope and his army in Northern Virginia. Jackson’s brilliant Second Manassas campaign still did not seem to inspire trust with Davis. When the army was reorganized after the Maryland Campaign, the rank of lieutenant general was created. Davis told Lee that “You have two officers now commanding several divisions and may require more. Please send to me as soon as possible the names of such as you prefer for Lt. General.” Lee could request promotions for Longstreet and Jackson, or Lee could recommend someone else, bypassing Jackson. Woodward believed that Davis was giving Lee “a convenient opportunity for reducing Jackson’s responsibilities.”[8] Lee responded with: “My opinion of the merits of General Jackson have been greatly enhanced during this expedition. He is true, honest, and brave; has a single eye to the good of the service, and spares no exertion to accomplish his object.”[9]

Did Davis, during the war, ever come around to being a supporter of Jackson? Perhaps. Davis was ill during the Chancellorsville campaign. However, like many others, he was concerned over Jackson’s wounding. Varinia Davis wrote that one of the Davis servants (slaves) was sent to the railroad depot where the latest news about Jackson’s health was reported on the arriving trains.[10] It was Davis who sent the first (new) national flag to rest on the casket of Jackson as it arrived in Richmond. In a letter to Lee on May 11, Davis described the event as “a great national calamity.”[11] In the funeral procession, Davis followed near the hearse in a carriage. Later that day, when someone came to the White House to discuss business with Davis, Davis “remained silent for a while and then said, ‘You must excuse me. I am still staggering from a dreadful blow. I cannot think.”[12]

   Is it possible to read more into the attitude of Jackson in meeting with Davis at Malvern Hill in July 1862? Maybe. Jackon was “stiff” around many people. Did Jackson know of Ewell and Taylor’s mission to get him replaced? Maybe. Did Jackson smart from the interference of Loring and his officers after the Romey campaign? Yes. Jackson did resign over the event. A larger question: why did David dislike Jackson so much? Was it disdain because Jackson was not of the social class of Davis and Lee? That is just something to consider.

[1] Cooper, Jefferson Daivs, 33.

[2] Davis, Jefferson Davis, 68-69.

[3] Robertson, Stonewall Jackson, 234-44.

[4] Woodworth, Davis & Lee, 87-88.

[5] Tanner, Stonewall in the Valley, 83, from the diary of Thomas Bragg.

[6] Woodworth, Davis & Lee, 121-22; Parrish, Richard Taylor, 153.

[7] Woodworth, Davis & Lee, 171.

[8] Woodworth, Davis & Lee, 202.

[9] OR, 19, pt.2:643-4.

[10] Davis, Jefferson Davis, 2:382-83.

[11] OR 25, pt. 1:791.

[12] Davis, Jefferson Davis, 2:382-83.