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| Johnston and Sherman at the Bennett Place |
On March 26, 1865,
Federal general William T. Sherman met with US President Abraham Lincoln,
General US Grant, and Admiral David Porter on the steamer River Queen near Grant's headquarters at City Point, Virginia. When
Sherman asked Lincoln about what to do with Confederate president Jefferson
Davis, Lincoln responded with a story: "A man once had taken the total-abstinence
pledge. When visiting with a friend, he was invited to take a drink, but
declined, on the score of his pledge; when his friend suggested lemonade, which
was accepted. In preparing the lemonade, the friend pointed to the
branch-bottle, and said the lemonade would be more palatable if he were to pour
in a little brandy; when his guest said, if he could do so 'unbeknown' to him,
he would not object." Sherman added "From which illustration I
inferred that Mr. Lincoln wanted Davis to escape, 'unbeknown' to him." (Sherman,
Memoirs, 2:324-328.)
So Lincoln wanted
Davis, and probably the Confederate cabinet, to simply disappear. To catch Davis
and his cabinet would present unique problems for the Lincoln administration. If
the leader of the "rebellious" Southern states was captured, indicted
for treason, tried, found guilty, and executed, would this not be a driving
factor for the resumption of the war? Or, if Davis was tried and found not guilty,
well, that would lead to all kinds of other problems.
Three weeks later,
Sherman, back in North Carolina, had just met with his Confederate counterpart,
Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. They had discussed the surrender of not only the Army
of Tennessee, but the civil officers as well. Sherman was in Raleigh, meeting
with his top lieutenants. "We discussed all the probabilities, among which
was, whether, if Johnston made a point of it, I should assent to the escape
from the country of Jeff. Davis and his fugitive cabinet; and some one of my
general officers, either Logan or Blair, insisted that, if asked for, we should
even provide a vessel to carry them to Nassau from Charleston." (Sherman, Memoirs, 351-352).
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| Jefferson Davis |
Johnston does not
come out and say that Sherman ever offered a ship to Davis and the cabinet to expedite
their escape. Or does he? Meeting at the Bennett Farm outside Durham on April
18, Johnston writes that everything was agreed to "except that General
Sherman did not consent to include Mr. Davis and the officers of his cabinet in
an otherwise general amnesty. Much of the afternoon was consumed in endeavors
to dispose of this part of the question in a manner that would be satisfactory
both to the Government of the United States and the Southern people, as well as
to the Confederate president; but at sunset no conclusion had been reached, and
the conference was suspended..." (Johnston, Narrative of Military Operations, 403-404.) So what was
satisfactory to the "Government of the United States"? The escape of
Jefferson Davis? Neither Johnston or Sherman make mention of such an offer, and
nothing appears in Davis's papers or in the Official
Records that states such an offer was ever made. Yet, Sherman provides such
a warning to John C. Breckinridge. Once the first set of terms were worked out,
and sent to Andrew Johnson and Jefferson Davis, Sherman recalled telling
Breckinridge "that he had better get away, as the feeling of our people
was utterly hostile to the political element of the South, and to him
especially, because he was the Vice-President of the United States, who had as
such announced Mr. Lincoln, of Illinois, duly and properly elected the
President of the United States, and yet that he had afterward openly rebelled
and taken up arms against the Government. . . I may have also advised him that
Mr. Davis too should get abroad as soon as possible." (Sherman, Memoirs, 353.)
We know that Davis
did not "get abroad" and was captured on May 10, 1865, near
Irwinville, Georgia. Breckinridge did escape, making his way through Florida to
Cuba, then Great Britain, and finally Cuba. Other Confederate cabinet members who
fled the county include Robert Toombs, Judah P. Benjamin, and George W.
Randolph (he fled in 1864). George Davis was attempting to flee when he was
captured in Key West on October 18, 1865.
Did Davis ever know
that he might have escaped on a boat out of Charleston? Unlikely. Davis really
didn't really seem to want to escape in the first place, holding on to the
ideal of a Southern Confederacy when everyone else had already abandoned the
attempt. He could have left Charlotte on April 24, when he learned of the
rejection of the first set of terms between Johnston and Sherman. He could have
pressed on harder when in the state of Georgia. Others, like Breckinridge and
Benjamin, were able to escape successfully. But not Davis. It almost seems that
Davis wanted to be captured.
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