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The Last Capital of the Confederacy

From Richmond, Mr. Davis went to Danville. Major Sutherlin, the Commandant, met him at the station and carried him and members of his Cabinet to the Sutherlin Mansion, which then became practically the Southern Capitol.

The President was busy night and day, examining and improving defenses and fortifications and planning the junction of Lee’s and Johnston’s forces. Men were seeking his presence at all hours; couriers coming and going; telegrams flying hither and thither.

“In the midst of turmoil, and with such fearful cares and responsibilities upon him, he did not forget to be thoughtful and considerate of others,” I have heard Mrs. Sutherlin say. “He was concerned for me. ‘I cannot have you troubled with so many interruptions,’ he said. ‘We must seek other quarters.’ But I would not have it so. ‘All that you call a burden is my privilege,’ I replied. ‘I will not let you go.’ He had other quarters secured for the Departments, but he and members of his Cabinet remained my guests.”

In that hospitable home the table was set all the time for the coming and the going. The board was spread with the best the bountiful host and hostess could supply. Mrs. Sutherlin brought out all her treasured reserves of pickles, sweetmeats and preserves. This might be her last opportunity for serving the Confederacy and its Chieftain.

The Sutherlins knew that the President’s residence in their home was a perilous honour. In case the Confederacy failed—and hope to the contrary could not run high—their dwelling would be a marked spot.

Major Sutherlin had been a strong Union man. Mrs. Sutherlin has told me how her husband voted against secession in the first convention to which he was a delegate, and for it in the second, with deep regret. “I saw in that convention,” he told his wife, “strong, reserved men, men of years and dignity, sign the Secession Ordinance while tears coursed down their cheeks.”

It is just to rehearse such things of men who were called “traitors” and “rebels.” It is just to remember how Jefferson Davis tried to prevent secession. His letters to New England societies, his speeches in New England and in Congress, testified to his deep and fervent desire for the “preservation of the bond between the States,” the “love of the Union in our hearts,” and “the landmarks of our fathers.”

But he believed in States’ Rights as fervently as in Union of States; he believed absorption of State sovereignty into central sovereignty a violation of the Constitution. Long before secession (1847) he declined appointment of Brigadier General of Mississippi Volunteers from President Polk on the ground that the central government was not vested by the Constitution with power to commission officers of State Militia, the State having this authority.[3]

Americans should not forget that this man entered the service of the Union when a lad; that his father and uncles fought in the Revolution, his brothers in the War of 1812. West Point holds trophies of his skill as a commander and of his superb gallantry on the fields of Mexico. That splendid charge without bayonets through the streets of Monterey almost to the Plaza, and the charge at Buena Vista, are themes to make American blood tingle! Their leader was not a man to believe in defeat as long as a ray of hope was left.

ST. PAUL’S CHURCH, RICHMOND, VA.

It was to this church that the message was brought from Lee

to Davis announcing the necessity of evacuating Richmond.

As Secretary of War of the United States, Mr. Davis strengthened the power that crushed the South; in every branch of the War Department, his genius and faithful and untiring service wrought improvements. In the days of giants like Webster, Clay and Calhoun, the brilliant Mississippian drew upon himself many eyes and his course had been watched as that of a bright particular star of great promise. The candidacy of Vice-President of the United States had been tendered him—he had been mentioned for the Presidency, and it is no wild speculation that had he abjured his convictions on the States’ Rights’ issue, he would have found himself some day in the seat Lincoln occupied. He has been accused of overweening ambition. The charge is not well sustained. He did not desire the Presidency of the Confederacy.

In 1861, “Harper’s Weekly” said: “Personally, Senator Davis is the Bayard of Congress, sans peur et sans reproche; a high-minded gentleman; a devoted father; a true friend … emphatically one of those born to command, and is doubtless destined to occupy a high position either in the Southern Confederacy or in the United States.” He was “gloriously linked with the United States service in the field, the forum, and the Cabinet.” The Southern Confederacy failed, and he was “Davis, the Arch-Traitor.”

“He wrote his last proclamation on this table,” said Mrs. Sutherlin to me, her hand on the Egyptian marble where the President’s fingers had traversed that final paper of state which expressed a confidence he could not have felt, but that he must have believed it duty to affirm. He had tried to make peace and had failed. Our armies were still in the field. A bold front on his part, if it could do no more, might enable our generals to secure better terms than unconditional surrender. At least, no worse could be tendered. That final message was the utterance of a brave soul, itself disheartened, trying to put heart into others. All along the way to Danville, people had flocked to the railroad to hear him, and he had spoken as he wrote.

He was an ill man, unutterably weary. He had borne the burden and heat of the day for four terrible years; he had been a target for the criticism even of his own people; all failures were laid at the door of this one man who was trying to run a government and conduct a war on an empty treasury. It must have cost him something to keep up an unwavering front.

Lieutenant Wise, son of General Henry A. Wise, brought news that Lee’s surrender was imminent; on learning of it, he had taken to horse and run through the enemy’s cavalry, to warn the President. Starvation had brought Lee’s army to bay. Men were living off grains of parched corn carried in their pockets. Sheridan’s cavalry had captured the wagon-trains of food supplies. Also, the President was called from the dinner-table to see an old citizen, who repeated a story from some one who had seen General Lee in General Grant’s tent. Other information followed.

Scouts came to say that Federal cavalry were advancing. There was danger that the President’s way to the South might be cut off, danger that he might be captured. All were in haste to get him away; a special train was made up. The Sutherlin carriage drove hurriedly to the Mansion, the President and Major Sutherlin got out and entered the house.

“I am to bid you goodbye,” said he to Mrs. Sutherlin, “and to thank you for your kindness. I shall ever remember it.”

“O, but it is a privilege—an honour—something for me to remember!”

As explanations were being made and preparations hastened, the President said: “Speak low, lest we excite Mr. Memminger or distress his wife more than need be.”

Mr. Memminger, ex-Secretary of the Treasury, was upstairs, very ill; the physician had just left after giving him a hypodermic of morphine and ordering absolute quiet. Friends decided that the sick man and his wife ran less risk in remaining than in following the President. But Mrs. Memminger, leaning over the balustrade, heard; and she and her husband came down and went after the President in a rude farm wagon, the only vehicle Mrs. Sutherlin could impress.

“Mr. Davis kept up a cheerful countenance the whole time he was here,” his hostess has borne witness, “but I was sure that deep down in his heart he was not cheerful—I felt it. He was brave, self-possessed. Only once did he betray evidence of break-down. When he was leaving, I knew that he had no money in his pockets except Confederate notes—and these would buy next to nothing. We had some gold, and I offered it to him, pressed it upon him. He shook his head. Tears came into his eyes. ‘No, no, my child,’ he said, ‘you and your husband are much younger than I am. You will need it. I will not.’ Mr. Davis did not expect to live long. He was sure he would be killed.”

When General Sherman was accused by Stanton of treachery because he was not hotter on the scent of “Jeff Davis and his $13,000,000 treasure-trains,” he retorted indignantly that those “treasure-trains dwindled down to the contents of a hand-valise” found on Mr. Davis when captured.

Mrs. Sutherlin pointed out to me the President’s sleeping-room, an upper chamber overlooking the lawn with its noble trees, in whose branches mocking-birds lodge. At his first breakfast with her, Mr. Davis told Mrs. Sutherlin how the songs of the mocking-birds refreshed him.

Another thing that cheered him in Danville was the enthusiasm of the school-girls of the Southern Female College; when these young ladies, in their best homespun gowns, went out on dress parade and beheld Mr. Davis riding by in Major Sutherlin’s carriage, they drew themselves up in line, waved handkerchiefs and cheered to their hearts’ content; he gave them his best bow and smile—that dignified, grave bow and smile his people knew so well. I have always been thankful for that bright bit in Mr. Davis’ life during those supremely trying hours—for the songs of the mocking-birds and the cheers of the school-girls.

Some weeks after his departure, General Wright, U. S. A., in formal possession of Danville, pitched his tent opposite the Sutherlin Mansion. The next Mrs. Sutherlin knew, an orderly was bearing in a large pitcher, another a big bowl, and between them General Wright’s compliments and his hopes “that you may find this lemonade refreshing” and “be pleased to accept this white cut sugar, as the drink may not be sweet enough for your taste.” Another day, an orderly appeared with a large, juicy steak; every short while orderlies came making presentation.

The Sutherlins accepted and returned courtesies. “We had as well be polite,” said Major Sutherlin. “There’s no use quarrelling with them because they have whipped us.” When they came to him for official information as to where Confederate Government ice-houses were, he responded: “It is not my business to give you this information. Your commanders can find out for themselves. Meanwhile, General Wright and his staff are welcome to ice out of my own ice-houses.” They found out for themselves with little delay.

LAST CAPITOL OF THE CONFEDERACY

The Sutherlin Mansion, Danville, Va., which, for a short time after the evacuation of Richmond,

was the headquarters of the Confederate Government. President Davis and the members

of his Cabinet were guests of Major Sutherlin at that time.

Photograph by Eutsler Bros., Danville, Va.

On the verandah where the Confederate President and his advisers had lately gathered, Federal officers sat at ease, smoking sociably and conversing with the master of the house. If a meal-hour arrived, Major Sutherlin would say: “Gentlemen, will you join us?” Usually, invitation was accepted. Social recognition was the one thing the Northern soldier could not conquer in the South by main strength and awkwardness; he coveted and appreciated it.

All were listening for tidings of Johnston’s surrender. At last the news came. Around the Sutherlin board one day sat six guests: three Federal officers in fine cloth and gold lace, three Confederate officers in shabby raiment. A noise as of a terrific explosion shook the house. “Throw up the windows!” said the mistress to her servants, an ordinary command when shattering of glass by concussion was an every-day occurrence in artillery-ridden Dixie. Save for this sentence, there was complete silence at the table. The officers laid down their knives and forks and said not one word. They knew that those guns announced the surrender of Johnston’s army. I suppose it was the salute of 200—the same that had been ordered at every post as glorification of Lee’s surrender.

Some time after this, Mayor Walker came to Major Sutherlin with a telegram announcing that General Meade and his staff would stop in Danville over night. They had been or were going to South Carolina on a mission of relief to whites who were in peril from blacks. At the Mayor’s request, Major Sutherlin met the officers at the train.

“General,” was his cordial greeting to General Meade, a splendid-looking officer at that day, “I am here to claim you and your staff as my guests.” General Meade, accepting, said: “I will have my ambulance bring us up.” “O, no, General! You come in my carriage, if you will do me that honour. It is waiting.”

At breakfast, General Meade said to his hostess: “Madam, Southern hospitality has not been praised too highly. I trust some day to see you North that I may have opportunity to match your courtesy.” Another time: “Madam, I trust that no misfortune will come to you because of the troubled state of our country. But if there should, I may be of service to you. You have only to command me, and I ask it as a favour that you will.”

A Northern friend had warned her: “Mrs. Sutherlin, I fear your property may be confiscated because of the uses to which it has been put in the service of the Confederate Government. You should take advantage of General Wright’s good will and of the good will of other Federal officers towards Major Sutherlin to make your title secure.” Did she ask General Meade now to save her home to her?

“General, hospitality is our privilege and you owe us no debt. But I beg you to extend the kindly feelings you express toward Major Sutherlin and myself to one who lately sat where you now sit, at my right hand. I would ask you to use your influence to secure more gracious hospitality to our President who is in prison.”

Dead silence. One could have heard a pin fall.

Wholesale confiscation of Greensboro was threatened because of Mr. Davis’ stop there. Major Sutherlin strove with tact and diligence to prevent it. He lost no opportunity to cultivate kindly relations with Northerners of influence, and to inaugurate a reign of good-will generally. Receiving a telegram saying that Colonel Buford, a Northern officer, and his party, would pass through Danville, the Major went to his wife and said: “I am going to invite those Yankees here. I want you to get up the finest dinner you can for them.” Feeling was high and sore; she did not smile. The day of their arrival he appeared in trepidation. “I have another telegram,” he said. “To my surprise, there are ladies in the party.”

This was too much for the honest “rebel” soul of her. Men she could avoid seeing except at table; but with ladies for her guests, more olive branches must be exchanged than genuine feeling between late enemies could possibly warrant. But her guests found her a perfect hostess, grave, sincere, hospitable.

There was a young married pair. When her faithful coloured man went up to their rooms to render service, they were afraid of him, were careful he should not enter, seemed to fear that of himself or as the instrument of his former owners he might do them injury.

Such queer, contradictory ideas Yankees had of us and our black people. A Northern girl visiting the niece of Alexander H. Stephens at a plantation where there were many negroes, asked: “Where are the blood-hounds?” “The blood-hounds! We haven’t any.” “How do you manage the negroes without them? I thought all Southerners kept blood-hounds—that only blood-hounds could keep negroes from running away.” “I never saw a blood-hound in my life,” Miss Stephens replied. “I don’t know what one is like. None of our friends keep blood-hounds.”

But to the Sutherlin Mansion. The bride asked: “Mrs. Sutherlin, what room did Mr. Davis occupy?”

“That in which you sleep.”

The bride was silent. Then: “It is a pleasant room. The mocking-birds are singing when we wake in the morning. Sometimes, I hear them in the night.”

A shadow fell on the hostess’ face. The words recalled the thought of Mr. Davis, now shut out from the sight of the sky and the voice of the birds.

It has been said of this or that place at which Mr. Davis, moving southward from Danville, stopped, that it was the “Last Capital of the Confederacy.” He held a Cabinet meeting in Colonel Wood’s house in Greensboro; was in Charlotte several days; held a Cabinet meeting or council of war in the Armistead Burt House, Abbeville, S. C.; and in the Old Bank, Washington, Ga. He said in council at Abbeville: “I will listen to no proposition for my safety. I appeal to you for our country.”

He stopped one night at Salisbury, with the Episcopal minister, whose little daughter ran in while all were at the breakfast-table, and standing between her father and Mr. Davis, cried out in childish terror and distress: “O, Papa, old Lincoln’s coming and is going to kill us all!” President Davis laid down his knife and fork, lifted her face, and said reassuringly: “No, no, my little lady! Mr. Lincoln is not such a bad man, and I am sure he would not harm a little girl like you.”

While the President was at Charlotte, there was another memorable peace effort, Sherman and Johnston arranging terms. Johnston’s overture was dated April 13; Sherman’s reply, “I am fully empowered to arrange with you any terms for the suspension of hostilities,” April 14, the last day of Lincoln’s life. Mr. Davis wrote General Johnston: “Your course is approved.” Mr. Stanton nearly branded Sherman as a traitor. Sherman gave Johnston notice that he must renew hostilities. Mr. Davis left Charlotte, thinking war still on.

THE OLD BANK BUILDING, WASHINGTON, GA.

The last meeting place of the Confederate Cabinet when that body was reduced to two or three members.

Photographed in 1899

In Washington, Ga., the first town in America named for the Father of his Country, the Confederate Government breathed its last. A quiet, picturesque, little place, out of track of the armies, it was suddenly shaken with excitement, when Mr. Davis, attended by his personal staff, several distinguished officers, besides a small cavalry escort, rode in.

Mrs. Davis had left the day before. As long as her wagons and ambulances had stood in front of Dr. Ficklen’s house, the people of Washington were calling upon her; first among them, General Toombs with cordial offers of aid and hospitality, though there had been sharp differences between him and Mr. Davis. Here, it may be said, she held her last reception as the First Lady of the Confederacy. She had expected to meet her husband, and went away no doubt heavy of heart—herself, her baby, Winnie, and her other little children, and her sister, Maggie Howell, again to be wanderers of woods and waysides. With them went a devoted little band of Confederate soldiers, their volunteer escort, Burton Harrison, the President’s secretary, and one or two negro servants whose devotion never faltered.

On a lovely May morning, people sat on the Bank piazza asking anxiously: “Where can Mr. Davis be?” “Is he already captured and killed?” Dr. Robertson, an officer of the bank, and his family lived in the building. With them was General Elzey, on parole, his wife and son. Kate Joyner Robertson and her brother, Willie, sixteen years old and a Confederate Veteran, were on the piazza; also David Faver, seventeen, and a Confederate Veteran; these boys were members of the Georgia Military Institute Battalion. A description of this battalion was recently given me by Mr. Faver:

“There were as many negroes—body-servants—in our ranks as boys when we started out, spick and span. We saw actual service; guarded the powder magazines at Augusta and Savannah, fought the Yankees at Chattanooga, stood in front of Sherman in South Carolina. Young Scott Todd lost his arm—Dr. Todd, of Atlanta, carries around that empty sleeve today. I bore handsome Tom Hamilton off the field when he was shot. I was just fifteen when I went in; some were younger. Henry Cabaniss and Julius Brown were the smallest boys in the army. We were youngsters who ought to have been in knee pants, but the G. M. I. never quailed before guns or duty! I remember (laughing) when we met the Cits in Charleston. They were all spick and span—‘Citadel Cadets’ blazoned all over them and their belongings. We were all tattered and torn, nothing of the G. M. I. left about us! Rags was the stamp of the regular, and we ‘guyed’ the Cits. We had seen fighting and they had not.” Sixteen-year-old Lint Stephens, Vice-President Stephens’ nephew, was of this juvenile warrior band. On the occasion of his sudden appearance at home to prepare for war, Mr. Stephens asked what he had quit school for. “To fight for the fair sex,” he replied. And to this day some people think we fought to keep negroes in slavery!

A “Georgia Cracker” rode in from the Abbeville road, drew rein before the bank, and saluting, drawled: “Is you’uns seen any soldiers roun’ here?” There were Confederate uniforms on the piazza. “What kind of soldiers?” he was asked, and General Elzey said: “My friend, you have betrayed yourself by that military salute. You are no ignorant countryman, but a soldier yourself.” The horseman spurred close to the piazza. “Are there any Yankees in town?” “None. Tell us, do you know anything about President Davis?” After a little more questioning, the horseman said: “President Davis is not an hour’s ride from here.”

The piazza was all excitement. “Where should the President be entertained?” Ordinarily, General Toombs was municipal host. Everybody is familiar with the reply he made to a committee consulting him about erecting a hotel in Washington: “We have no need of one. When respectable people come here, they can stop at my house. If they are not respectable, we do not want them at all.” Everybody knew that all he had was at the President’s command. But—there had been the unpleasantness. “Bring the President here,” Mrs. Robertson said promptly. Dr. Robertson added: “As a government building, this is the proper place.” Willie Robertson, commissioned to convey the invitation, rode off with the courier, the envy of every other G. M. I. in town. The little “Bats” were ready to go to war again.

Soon, the President dismounted in front of the bank. Mrs. Faver (Kate Joyner Robertson that was) says: “He wore a full suit of Confederate gray. He looked worn, sad, and troubled; said he was tired and went at once to his room. My mother sent a cup of tea to him. That afternoon, or next morning, all the people came to see him. He stood in the parlor door, they filed in, shook hands, and passed out.” So, in Washington, he held his last Presidential reception.

“To hear Mr. Davis,” Mr. Faver reports, “you would have no idea that he considered the cause lost. He spoke hopefully of our yet unsurrendered forces. Secretary Reagan, General St. John and Major Raphael J. Moses were General Toombs’ guests. That night after supper, they walked to the bank; my father’s house was opposite General Toombs’. I walked behind them. I think they held what has been called the Last Cabinet Meeting that night.”

Mr. Trenholm, too ill to travel, had stopped at Charlotte; Secretary of State Benjamin had left Mr. Davis that morning; at Washington, Secretary of the Navy Mallory went; Secretary of War Breckinridge, whom he was expecting, did not come on time. News reached him of Johnston’s surrender. General Upton had passed almost through Washington on his way to receive the surrender of Augusta. The President perceived his escort’s peril. To their commander, Captain Campbell, he said: “Your company is too large to pass without observation, and not strong enough to fight. See if there are ten men in it who will volunteer to go with me without question wherever I choose?” Captain Campbell reported: “All volunteer to go with Your Excellency.”

He was deeply touched, but would not suffer them to take the risk. With ten men selected by Captain Campbell, and his personal staff, he rode out of Washington, the people weeping as they watched him go. When he was mounting, Rev. Dr. Tupper, the Baptist minister, approached him, uttering words of comfort and encouragement. “ ‘Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him,’ ” the President responded gently. He had made disposition of most of his personal belongings, giving the china in his mess-chest to Colonel Weems, the chest to General McLaws; to Mrs. Robertson his ink-stand, table, dressing-case, some tea, coffee, and brandy, portions of which she still retained when last I heard; the dressing-case and ink-stand she had sent to the Confederate Museum at Richmond.

His last official order was written at the old bank; it appointed Captain H. M. Clarke Acting Treasurer of the Confederacy. The last Treasury Department was an old appletree at General Basil Duke’s camp a short distance from Washington, under whose shade Captain Clarke sat while he paid out small amounts in coin to the soldiers. General Duke’s Kentuckians, Mr. Davis’ faithful last guard, were the remnant of John H. Morgan’s famous command.

Soon after his departure, the treasure-train, or a section of it, reached Washington. Boxes of bullion were stored in the bank; Mrs. Faver remembers that officers laughingly told her and her sisters if they would lift one of the boxes, they might have all the gold in it; and they tried, but O, how heavy it was! She recalls some movement on the part of her parents to convey the treasure to Abbeville, but this was not practicable.

“It was a fitting conclusion of the young Government … that it marked its last act of authority by a thoughtful loyalty to the comfort of its penniless and starved defenders,” says Avery’s “History of Georgia,” commenting on the fact that under that act Major Raphael J. Moses conveyed to Augusta bullion exceeding $35,000, delivering it to General Molineux on the promise that it would be used to purchase food and other necessaries for needy Confederate soldiers and our sick in hospitals.

Soon after the treasure-train left Washington, some one galloped back and flung into General Toombs’ yard a bag containing $5,000 in gold. The General was in straits for money with which to flee the country, but swore with a great round oath he would use no penny of this mysterious gift, and turned it over to Major Moses, who committed it to Captain Abrahams, Federal Commissary, for use in relieving needy Confederates home-returning. At Greensboro, General Joseph E. Johnston had taken $39,000 for his soldiers. There have been many stories about this treasure-train.[4] It carried no great fortune, and Mr. Davis was no beneficiary. He meant to use it in carrying on the war.

The point has been made that Mr. Davis should have remained in Richmond and made terms. Since governments were governments, no ruler has followed the course that would have been. He thought it traitorous to surrender the whole Confederacy because the Capital was lost. Even after Lee’s surrender the Confederacy had armies in the field, and a vast domain farther south where commanders believed positions could be held. He believed it would be cowardly to fail them, and that it was his duty to move the seat of government from place to place through the Confederacy as long as there was an army to sustain the government. To find precedent, one has but to turn to European history. In England, the rightful prince has been chased all over the country and even across the channel. Mr. Davis believed in the righteousness of his cause; and that it was his duty to stand for it to the death.

His determination, on leaving Washington, was to reach the armies of Maury, Forrest, and Taylor in Alabama and Mississippi; if necessary, withdraw these across the Mississippi, uniting with Kirby-Smith and Magruder in Texas, a section “rich in supplies and lacking in railroads and waterways.” There the concentrated forces might hold their own until the enemy “should, in accordance with his repeated declaration, have agreed, on the basis of a return to the Union, to acknowledge the Constitutional rights of the States, and by a convention, or quasi-treaty, to guarantee security of person and property.” What Judge Campbell thought could be secured by submission, Mr. Davis was confident could only be attained by keeping in the field a military force whose demands the North, weary of war, might respect. What he sought to do for his people in one way, Judge Campbell sought to do in another. Both failed.

GENERAL AND MRS. JOHN H. MORGAN

While Mr. Davis was riding out of Washington, Generals Taylor and Maury, near Meridian, Mississippi, were arranging with General Canby, U. S. A., for the surrender of all the Confederate forces in Alabama and Mississippi. These generals were dining together and the bands were playing “Hail Columbia” and “Dixie.”

THE COUNSEL OF LEE