Bloody Crimes (3 page)

If he lived? Varina could not admit that it was possible he might not. But Jefferson prepared her for the worst: “I do not expect to survive the destruction of constitutional liberty.”

Varina did not want to leave behind all that she owned in Rich
mond, confessing a feminine attachment to her possessions. “All women like bric-a-brac, which sentimental people call ‘household goods,’ but Mr. Davis called it ‘trumpery.’ I was no superior to my sex in this regard. However, everything which could not be readily transported was sent to a dealer for sale.”

Varina wanted to ask friends and neighbors to hide her large collection of silver from the Yankee looters, but her husband vetoed her scheme, explaining that enemy troops might punish anyone who helped them. “They may be exposed to inconvenience or outrage by their effort to serve us.”

The president did insist that she carry with her on the journey something more practical than bric-a-brac. On March 29, the day before Varina and the children left Richmond, he armed his wife with a percussion-cap, black-powder .32- or .36-caliber revolver. “He showed me how to load, aim, and fire it,” she said. The same day, Davis dispatched a written order for fresh pistol ammunition to his chief of ordnance, Josiah Gorgas: “Will you do me the favor to have some cartridges prepared for a small Colt pistol, of which I send the [bullet] moulds, and the form which contained a set of the cartridges furnished with the piece—The ammunition is desired as promptly as it can be supplied.” Gorgas endorsed the note and passed it on to a subordinate: “Col. Brown will please order these cartridges at once and send them here. 50 will be enough I suppose.”

The image was rich with irony. In the endangered war capital, home to the great Tredegar Iron Works, the principal cannon manufactory of the Confederacy, at a time when tens of thousands of battling soldiers were expending hundreds of thousands of rifle cartridges in a single battle, an anonymous worker in the Confederate ordnance department collected a handful of lead, dropped it into a fireproof ladle, melted the contents over a flame, poured the molten metal into a brass bullet mold, and cooled the silver-bright conical bullets in water. Then he took black powder and paper and formed finished, ready-to-fire cartridges for the first lady of the Confederacy.
She needed to be able to protect herself. The president feared that roving bands of undisciplined troops or lawless guerillas might seek to rob, attack, or capture his family.

He told Varina: “You can at least, if reduced to the last extremity, force your assailants to kill you, but I charge you solemnly to leave when you hear the enemy approaching; and if you cannot remain undisturbed in our own country, make for the Florida coast and take a ship there to a foreign country.”

Davis gave Varina all the money he possessed in gold coins and Confederate paper money, saving just one five-dollar gold piece for himself. She would need money to pay—or bribe—her family’s way south. Varina and the children left the White House on Thursday, March 30. “Leaving the house as it was, and taking only our clothing, I made ready with my young sister and my four little children, the eldest only nine years old, to go forth into the unknown.”

Food was scarce in Richmond—there had been bread riots during the war—and it might prove rarer on the road, so Varina had ordered several barrels of flour loaded onto a wagon assigned to transport her trunks to the railroad station. When the president discovered the flour hoard, he forbade her to take it. “You cannot remove anything in the shape of food from here. The people want it, and you must leave it here.” The sight of a wagon loaded with food ready to be shipped out of Richmond might have provoked a riot.

The children did not want to leave their father, and it was hard for Varina to part them from him. “Mr. Davis almost gave way, when our little Jeff begged to remain with him,” she wrote. “And Maggie clung to him convulsively, for it was evident he thought he was looking his last upon us.” Davis escorted his family to the depot and put them aboard the train. “With hearts bowed down by despair…,” Varina remembered, “we pulled out from the station and lost sight of Richmond, the worn-out engine broke down, and there we sat all night. There were no arrangements possible for sleeping, and at last, after twelve hours’ delay, we reached Danville.”

On the night of March 30, Davis returned home to his empty mansion and his imperiled city. There was much to do. He knew that over the next few days the fate of his capital was beyond his control. It was in the hands of the Army of Northern Virginia, which was engaged in a series of desperate battles to save Richmond.

On Saturday, April 1, Robert E. Lee sent word to Davis that the federal army was tightening the vise:

The movement of Gen. Grant to Dinwiddie C[ourt] H[ouse] seriously threatens our position, and diminishes our ability to maintain our present lines in front of Richmond and Petersburg…it cuts us off from our depot at Stony Creek…It also renders it more difficult to withdraw from our position, cuts us off from the White Oak road, and gives the enemy an advantageous point on our right and rear. From this point, I fear he can readily cut both the south side & the Danville Railroads being far superior to us in cavalry. This in my opinion obliged us to prepare for the necessity of evacuating our position on the James River at once, and also to consider the best means of accomplishing it, and our future course. I should like very much to have the views of your Excellency upon this matter as well as counsel.

Lee’s use of the phrase “future course” might seem vague or open-ended, suggesting that he felt they would be making a choice from many options. But he knew there was just one course of action—the abandonment of Richmond. At the end of the dispatch, Lee advised Davis that the situation was too dire for him to leave the front and come to Richmond to confer with the president. The Union forces, with their superior strength, could break through the Army of Northern Virginia’s thin lines at any moment, without warning. If that happened, Lee must be in the field leading his men in battle, not idling and stranded in the capital, miles from the action.

Davis replied by telegraph, agreeing with his general that it was all in the hands of Lee and the army now: “The question is often asked of me ‘will we hold Richmond,’ to which my only answer is, if we can, it is purely a question of military power.”

Lee invited the president and the secretary of war to visit his headquarters to discuss war planning, but Davis was too occupied with official business to leave Richmond, and so, during the next crucial days that might determine the fate of the Confederacy, the president and his general in chief never met in person. They communicated only through written dispatches and telegrams. Indeed, for the remainder of the Civil War, Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee would not meet again.

While Davis awaited news of further developments from Lee, he took stock of his armies in other parts of the country. In addition to Lee’s army in the field in Virginia, there was General Joseph E. Johnston’s army in North Carolina and General Kirby Smith’s forces west of the Mississippi River in Texas. With these forces, the cause was not lost. Davis would not sit passively in Richmond and surrender the city, his capital, and his government to the Yankees. If the Army of Northern Virginia, in order to save itself from annihilation and live to fight another day, had to move off and uncover the city, then the government would move with it. Indeed, on April 1, Davis wrote to General Braxton Bragg, revealing his dreams of future Confederate attacks and a war of maneuver:

My best hope was that Sherman while his army was worn and his supplies short would be successfully resisted and prevented from reaching a new base or from making a junction with Schofield. Now it remains to prevent a junction with Grant, if that cannot be done, the Enemy may decide our policy…Our condition is that in which great Generals have shown their value to a struggling state. Boldness of conception
and rapidity of execution has often rendered the smaller force victorious. To fight the Enemy in detail it is necessary to outmarch him and surprise him. I can readily understand your feelings, we both entered into this war at the beginning of it, we both staked every thing on the issue and have lost all which either the public or private Enemies could take away, we both have the consciousness of faithful service and may I not add the sting of feeling that capacity for the public good is diminished by the covert workings of malice and the constant irritations of falsehood.

On April 1, Davis also received a message that, unlike the military dispatches that brought only news of military setbacks, offered some relief. It was from his wife, telegraphing from Greensboro, North Carolina, where she had gone after Danville. Varina’s text was brief, written in haste, but precious to him: “Arrived here safely very kindly treated by friends. Will leave for Charlotte at Eight oclock tomorrow Rumors numerous & not defined have concluded that the Raiders are too far off to reach road before we shall have passed threatened points Hope hear from you at Charlotte all well.” Lee’s army was on the verge of destruction, Richmond in danger of occupation, and his own fate unknown, but Davis went to bed that night knowing that his family was safe from harm. What he did not know was that this was his last night in the White House.

Nor did Davis know that his nemesis, Abraham Lincoln, was on the move. Lincoln had left his White House several days earlier and was now traveling in Virginia, in the field with the Union army. The president of the United States wanted to witness the final act. Lincoln did not want to go home until he had won the war. He did not say it explicitly in conversation, nor did he reveal his desire by committing it to paper, but he wanted to be there for the end. And he dreamed of seeing Richmond fall.

I
n March 1865, Abraham Lincoln was restless in his White House. A number of times during the war, he had gone to the field to see his generals and his troops, and he had seen several battlefields, among them Antietam and Gettysburg. He had cherished these experiences and regretted that he could not visit his men more often. But the dual responsibilities of directing a major war and administering the civil government of the United States anchored him to the national capital. He always enjoyed getting away from the never-ending carnival parade of special pleaders, cranks, favor beggars, and officeseekers who were able to enter the White House almost at will. He had endured their impositions for four years, and now that he had won reelection, they tasted fresh spoils. Lincoln knew the war had now turned to its final chapter. It could be over within a few weeks. He had alluded to it in his inaugural address on March 4 when he said: “The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all.”

Relief came in the form of an invitation from General Grant that sent Lincoln on a remarkable journey.

On March 23 at 1:00
P.M.,
Lincoln left Washington from the Sixth Street wharf, bound on the steamer
River Queen
for City Point, Virginia, headquarters of the armies of the United States. His party included Mrs. Mary Lincoln and their son Tad, Mary’s maid, White House employee W. H. Crook, and an army officer, Captain Charles B. Penrose. The warship
Bat
accompanied the presidential vessel. The next day the
River Queen
anchored off Fortress Monroe, Virginia, around 12:00
P.M.
to take on water, and at 9:00
P.M.
anchored off City Point, Virginia.

Lincoln rose early on the twenty-fifth, and after receiving a briefing from his son Robert, a captain on Grant’s staff, the president went ashore and walked to Grant’s headquarters. Lincoln wanted to see the battlefield. At 12:00
P.M.
a military train took him to General Meade’s
headquarters. From there, Lincoln rode on horseback and watched reverently as the dead were buried. On the way back to City Point, he rode aboard a train bearing wounded soldiers from the field. He saw prisoners too. As Lincoln gazed upon their faces, he saw the costs of war. That night he was supposed to have dinner with General Grant but said he was too tired and returned to the
River Queen.
Later, he sent a message to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton: “I have seen the prisoners myself.”

The next morning Lincoln went up the James River and then went ashore at Aiken’s Landing. On March 27, he met with Generals Grant and Sherman and Admiral Porter on the
River Queen.
This conference carried over to the next day.

Their conversation was free-ranging and off the record, and General Sherman asked Lincoln about his plans for his rebel counterpart, Jefferson Davis. Many in the North had demanded vengeance if Davis was captured, and they wanted him to be hanged. Did Lincoln share that opinion, Sherman wondered, and did he approve of trials and executions not only of Davis, but of the entire Confederate military and political hierarchy?

“During this interview I inquired of the President if he was all ready for the end of the war,” Sherman remembered.

What was to be done with the rebel armies when defeated? And what should be done with the political leaders, such as Jefferson Davis…? Should we allow them to escape…? He said he was all ready; all he wanted of us was to defeat the opposing armies, and to get the men composing the Confederate armies back to their homes, at work at their farms and in their shops. As to Jeff. Davis, he was hardly at liberty to speak his mind fully, but intimated that he ought to clear out, “escape the country,” only it would not do for him to say so openly. As usual, he illustrated his meaning by a story: “A man once had taken the totalabstinence pledge. When visiting 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 brandy-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.” From which illustration I inferred that Mr. Lincoln wanted Davis to escape, “unbeknown” to him.