Thomas Davis

“ Davis' pride in Lee's genius was unbounded, his confidence in his judgment perfect.
Lee was absolutely sure that his army raised to eighty-five thousand effective men could go anywhere on the continent and do anything within human power. He had crushed McClellan's army of two hundred thousand with seventy-five thousand men, and driven him from his entrenchments at Richmond down the Peninsula. With sixty thousand he had crushed Pope and hurled his army into the entrenchments at Washington, a bleeding, disorganized mob. ”

“ The fierce junta of malcontents in the Confederate Congress were eager to seize on any excuse to attack the President. They were now demanding the removal of Albert Sidney Johnston from his command. Davis knew that his commanding general in Tennessee was the greatest soldier of his time—and that all he needed was a single opportunity to demonstrate his genius. He refused with scorn to sacrifice such a man to public clamor. At the White House reception the night before he had heard Jennie Barton stoutly defending him against his accusers who demanded the head of General Johnston. ”

“ Davis threw both arms up in a gesture of impatient refusal.
"It's a waste of breath, Benjamin. I'll die first!"
The elastic spirit of the younger man recovered its poise at once and accepted the decision.
With a genial smile he slipped one arm around the tall figure.
"Brave, generous, big-hearted, foolish—my captain! Well, I've done my duty as your chief counselor. Now I'll obey orders—one thing more I must add in warning. Richmond swarms with spies. It will be impossible to defend the Capital on the approach of McClellan's army without a proclamation of martial law." ”

“ So did your Congress. I urged the uncovering of Richmond and the concentration of our forces into one great army for an offensive—"
Rives interrupted.
"We ask you to take the supreme power and decide these questions."
Lee replied with a touch of anger.
"But I may be wrong in my policies. Mr. Davis is a man of the highest character, devoted soul and body to the principles to which he has pledged his life. He is a statesman of the foremost rank. He is a trained soldier, a West Point graduate. He is a man of noble spirit—courageous, frank, positive. A great soul throbs within his breast. ”

“ Cadet Davis saw it first and calmly turned to his tormentor:
"The fire-ball has ignited, sir,—what shall I do?"
The professor dashed for the door:
"Run! Run for your lives!"
The cadet snatched the fire-ball from the floor, dashed it through the window and calmly walked out.
He had saved many lives and the building from destruction. His revenge was complete and sweet. But deeper and sweeter than his triumph over an enemy was the consciousness that he was master of himself. He had learned life's profoundest lesson. ”

“ Let it be your pride to relax in nothing which can promote your future efficiency; your one great object being to drive the invader from your soil, and, carrying your standards beyond the outer borders of the Confederacy, to wring from an unscrupulous foe the recognition of your birthright and independence."
Within the year from the fatal victory at Bull Run the South had through bitterness, tears and defeat at last found herself. Under the firm and wise leadership of Davis, her disasters had been repaired and her army brought to the highest standard of efficiency. ”

“ The diplomatist makes it his business to know the facts in the lives of the leaders of a nation to whose Government he is accredited. Mr. Davis spent four years at West Point. He gave seven years of his life to the service of the army in the West. He carried your flag to victory in Mexico and hobbled home on crutches. He was one of your greatest Secretaries of War. He sent George B. McClellan and Robert E. Lee to the Crimea to master European warfare, organized and developed your army, changed the model of your arms, introduced the rifled musket and the minie ball. ”

“ Davis is too slow. He's got no blood in his veins. I don't like him. He'll pull us back into [Pg 99] the Union yet if we don't watch him. He's a reconstructionist at heart. The State of Mississippi is dragging him out of Washington by the heels. He makes me tired. The time for talk has passed. To your tents now, O Israel!"
Dick hurried to the gallery and watched Socola talking in his graceful Italian way with Jennie. ”

“ Jefferson Davis had created the most compact and terrible engine of war set in motion since Napoleon founded the Empire of France. It had been done under conditions of incredible difficulty, but it had been done. The smashing of McClellan's army brought to the North the painful realization of this fact. Abraham Lincoln must call for another half million soldiers and no man could foresee the end.
Davis had begun in April, 1861, without an arsenal, laboratory or powder mill of any capacity, and with no foundry or rolling mill for iron except the little Tredegar works in Richmond. ”

“ The Nations of Europe may rest assured that Jeff Davis and Co. will be swinging from the battlements at Washington, at least by the fourth of July. We spit upon a later and longer deferred justice."
The New York Times gave its opinion with equal clearness:
"Let us make quick work. The Rebellion is an unborn tadpole. Let us not fall into the delusion of mistaking a local commotion for a revolution. A strong active pull together will do our work in thirty days. We have only to send a column of twenty-five thousand men across the Potomac to Richmond to burn out the rats there ”

“ By the fall of 1862, through the port of Wilmington, from the arsenals at Richmond and Fayetteville, and from the victorious fields of Manassas and the Seven Days' Battle around Richmond, sufficient arms had been obtained to equip two hundred thousand soldiers and supply their batteries with serviceable artillery.
On April 16, 1862, Davis asked of his Congress that every white man in the South between the ages of 18 and 35 be called to the colors and all short term volunteer contracts annulled. The law was promptly passed in spite of the conspirators who fought him at every turn. ”

“ She might look on their dead faces to-morrow. Her father had rushed to Charleston from Washington at the first news of the sailing of the fleet. He had begged and pleaded with General Beauregard to reduce the Fort immediately, with or without orders from Davis.
"For God's sake, use your discretion as Commanding General and open fire. If that fleet reaches Sumter the cause of the Confederacy is lost. Old Davis is too slow. He's still crying peace, peace, when there is no peace. The war has begun!" ”

“ On hearing that the Federal cavalry were scouring the country, Breckinridge and Reagan proposed that Davis disguise himself in a soldier's clothes, a wool hat and brogan shoes, take one man with him and go to the coast of Florida, ship to Cuba.
His reply was firm:
"I shall not leave Southern soil while a Confederate regiment is on it. Kirby Smith has an army of 25,000 men. He has not surrendered. General Hampton will cut his way across the Mississippi. We can lead an army of 60,000 men on the plains of Texas and fight until we get better terms than unconditional surrender." ”

“ The Washington Government had proclaimed the vessels flying the Confederate flag under letters of marque to be pirates and subject to the treatment of felons.
The Captain and the crew of the Savannah when captured had been put in irons and condemned to death as pirates. If the Washington Government could make good this daring assumption, the power of the Confederacy to damage the commerce of the North would be practically destroyed at a blow.
Davis met the crisis with firmness. He selected an equal number of Federal prisoners of war in Richmond and threw them into a dungeon below Libby Prison. ”

“ A body of 200 German catholics met at the Tabernacle, in New York, and made a public and formal secession from the Romish church.
1853. Tristram Burgess, a Rhode Island statesman, died, aged 83. He stood in the front rank of the public men of his day.
1853. Thomas Kemper Davis died at Boston. He stood high in his profession as a lawyer, and having acquired a fortune, devoted himself to and became learned in English and classical literature. ”

“ The old secession leaders who had been thrust aside for the presidency by the people who had forced the office on Jefferson Davis now pressed forward to put their knives into the sensitive soul of the man they envied. Wm. L. Yancey, Barnwell Rhett and Robert Toombs joined his foes in a chorus of criticism and abuse. Every man who had been slighted in high positions bestowed on rivals rushed now to the attack.
Davis was never a man who could hedge and trim and lie and be all things to all men. He was totally lacking in the p [Pg 230] atience that can flatter a fool. ”

“ In no act of his long, eventful life did Davis evince such clearness of vision and quick decision, under trying conditions. Lee had failed in Western Virginia and McClellan had out-generaled him, the yellow journals had declared. They called Lee "Old Spade." So intense was the opposition to Lee that Davis had sent him to erect the coast defenses of South Carolina. The Governor of the State protested against the appointment of so incompetent a man to this important work. Davis sent the Governor an emphatic message in reply:
"If Robert E. Lee is not a general I have none to send you." ”

“ The Emancipation Proclamation and the victories of Davis' army had not only divided and demoralized the North, they had solidified Southern opinion.
Even Alexander H. Stephens, the Vice-President of the Confederacy, who had been a thorn in the flesh of Davis from the beginning in his advocacy of foolish and impossible measures of compromise now took his position for war to the death. In a fiery speech in North Carolina following Lincoln's proclamation Stephens said:
"As for any reconstruction of the Union—such a thing is impossible—such an idea must not be tolerated for an instant. ”

“ Davis had asked again and again that all prisoners be exchanged. The Federal War Department had obstructed this exchange until thousands of Northern soldiers crowded the prisons of the South and it was impossible for the Confederate authorities to properly care for them. Medicine had been made contraband of war by the North and the simplest remedies could not be had for the Confederate soldiers or their prisoners. Behind this humane purpose of Stephens' mission lay the bigger proposition, which was a verbal one, to propose peace on Lee's victory on Northern soil. ”

“ Every Confederate prisoner exchanged and sent back home meant a recruit to Lee's army. It was cruel to leave his men to languish in beleaguered Richmond whose citizens were rioting in the streets for bread, but he figured these prisoners as soldiers dying in battle. The Confederate Government had no medicine for them. The blockade was drawn so tight scarcely an ounce of medicine could be obtained for the Confederate army. Davis offered the Washington Government to let their own surgeons come to Richmond and carry medicine and food to their prisoners. ”

“ This time his Cabinet was persistent and in dead earnest in their purpose to force his hand.
Davis faced his angry council with unruffled spirit.
"I understand your feelings, gentlemen," he said evenly. "You have had a narrow escape. The South does not use such met [Pg 441] hods of warfare. Nor will I permit our Government to fall to such level by an act of retaliation. The prisoners we hold are soldiers of the enemy's army. ”

“ The man with the pearl stud leaned forward with a nervous gesture. “Hush! be careful!” he whispered. But at that instant, for the third time, a servant, hastening through the room, handed him a piece of paper which he scanned eagerly. The message on the paper read, “The light over the Commons is out. The House has risen.”
The man with the black pearl gave a mighty shout, and tossed the paper from him upon the table.
“Hurrah!” he cried. “The House is up! We’ve won!” He caught up his glass, and slapped the Naval Attache violently upon the shoulder. ”

“ She unearthed him, or rather ran him to earth, in the graveyard of the Presbyterian church at Bordentown. He was no less a person than General Hiram Greene, and he had fought with Washington at Trenton and at Princeton. Of this there was no doubt. That, later, on moving to New York, his descendants became peace-loving salesmen did not affect his record. To enter a society founded on heredity, the important thing is first to catch your ancestor, and having made sure of him, David entered the Society of the Sons of Washington with flying colors. ”

“ But she spoke as though she were arguing against her own conviction. “He cannot be so vain—so spoiled,” she protested, “that because one woman fails to fall on her knees to him, he must punish her.”
The talk between the mother and daughter had taken place a week before Colonel Vega’s arrival from Paris. On the day his steamer was due, Señora Rojas again spoke to Inez.
“After mass this morning,” she said, “I consulted Father Paul about Pino. He hopes it will be possible for you not to give him a direct answer. He says Pino will be leaving us almost at once. ”

“ Inez, who, with her sister, stood eagerly intent behind the chair in which their mother was seated, laid her hand soothingly upon the Señora’s shoulder.
“Is it best,” she asked, “to turn the young man away without learning what he wishes to do? Living in Porto Cabello, he may know something we could not know. Did you find out,” she asked the Consul, “in what way Mr. Forrester wishes to help us?”
“No,” confessed Captain Codman, “I did not. ”

“ It swept the wharves, showing them black with people; it moved between the custom-house and the fort, and disclosed the waters of the harbor alive with boats, loaded to the gunwale with armed men. Along the ramparts of the fort the shaft of light crept slowly, feeling its way, until it reached the flag-staff. There it remained, stationary, pointing. From the halyards there drooped a long, white cloth.
With a cheer, Roddy spun the wheel, and swung the bow of the launch toward Miramar.
“You needn’t go to Curaçao to-night, General!” he cried. “This city votes solid for Rojas!” ”