Dixie After the War

“There was something like misgiving in his eyes as he sat in the carriage with Shepley, gazing upon smoking ruins on all sides, and a rabble of crazy negroes hailing him as ‘Saviour!’ Truly, I never saw a sadder or wearier face in all my life than Lincoln’s!”

He had terrible problems ahead, and he knew it. His emancipation proclamation in 1863 was a war measure. His letter to Greeley in 1862, said: “If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If I could preserve the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it; if I could preserve the Union by freeing all the slaves, I would do it… What I do about the coloured race, I do because I think it helps to save the Union.”

To a committee of negroes waiting on him in the White House, August 14, 1862, Mr. Lincoln named colonisation as the one remedy for the race trouble, proposing Government aid out of an appropriation which Congress had voted him. He said: “White men in this country are cutting each other’s throats about you. But for your race among us, there would be no war, although many men on either side do not care for you one way or the other… Your race suffers from living among us, ours from your presence.” He applied $25,000 to the venture, but it failed; New Grenada objected to negro colonisation.

Two months before his visit to Richmond, some official (Colonel Kaye, as I remember) was describing to him the extravagancies of South Carolina negroes when Sherman’s army announced freedom to them, and Mr. Lincoln walked his floor, pale and distressed, saying: “It is a momentous thing – this liberation of the negro race.”

He left a paper in his own handwriting with Judge Campbell, setting forth the terms upon which any seceded State could be restored to the Union; these were, unqualified submission, withdrawal of soldiers from the field, and acceptance of his position on the slavery question, as defined in his proclamations. The movement gained ground. A committee in Petersburg, headed by Anthony Keiley, asked permits to come to Richmond that they might coöperate with the committee there.

“Unconditional surrender,” some commented. “Mr. Lincoln is not disposed to humiliate us unnecessarily,” was the reassurance. “He promised Judge Campbell that irritating exactions and oaths against their consciences are not to be imposed upon our people; they are to be encouraged, not coerced, into taking vows of allegiance to the United States Government; Lincoln’s idea is to make allegiance a coveted privilege; there are to be no confiscations; amnesty to include our officers, civil and military, is to be granted – that is, the power of pardon resting with the President, he pledges himself to liberal use of it. Lincoln is long-headed and kind-hearted. He knows the best thing all around is a real peace. He wishes to restore confidence in and affection for the Union. That is plain. He said: ‘I would gladly pardon Jeff Davis himself if he would ask it.’”

I have heard one very pretty story about Mr. Lincoln’s visit to Richmond. General Pickett, of the famous charge at Gettysburg, had been well known in early life to Mr. Lincoln when Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Johnson, General Pickett’s uncle, were law partners in Illinois. Mr. Lincoln had taken warm interest in young George Pickett as a cadet at West Point, and had written him kindly, jovial letters of advice. During that hurried sojourn in Richmond, Abraham Lincoln took time for looking up Mr. Johnson. His carriage and armed retinue drew up in front of the old Pickett mansion. The General’s beautiful young wife, trembling with alarm, heard a strange voice asking first for Mr. Johnson and then about General Pickett, and finally: “Is General Pickett’s wife here?” She came forward, her baby in her arms. “I am General Pickett’s wife.” “Madam, I am George’s old friend, Abraham Lincoln.” “The President of the United States!” “No,” with a kindly, half-quizzical smile, “only Abraham Lincoln, George’s old friend. And this is George’s baby?” Abraham Lincoln bent his kindly, half-sad, half-smiling glance upon the child. Baby George stretched out his hands; Lincoln took him, and the little one, in the pretty fashion babies have, opened his mouth and kissed the President.

“Tell your father,” said Lincoln, “that I will grant him a special amnesty – if he wants it – for the sake of your mother’s bright eyes and your good manners.” A short while after that – when Lincoln was dead – that mother was flying, terror-stricken, with her baby to Canada, where General Pickett, in fear of his life, had taken refuge.

Mr. Lincoln left instructions for General Weitzel to issue passes to the legislators and State officials who were to come to Richmond for the purpose of restoring Virginia to the Union. The “Whig” had sympathetic articles on “Reconstruction,” and announced in due order the meeting of citizens called “to consider President Lincoln’s proposition for reassembling the Legislature to take Virginia back into the Union.” It printed the formal call for reassembling, signed by the committee and many citizens, and countersigned by General Weitzel; handbills so signed were printed for distribution.

General Shepley, whose cordial acquiescence in the conciliation plan had been pronounced, said in after years that he suffered serious misgivings. When General Weitzel directed him to issue the passes for the returning legislators, he inquired: “Have you the President’s written order for this?” “No. Why?” “For your own security you should have it, General. When the President reaches Washington and the Cabinet are informed of what has been done and what is contemplated, this order will be rescinded, and the Cabinet will deny that it has ever been issued.”

“I have the President’s commands. I am a soldier and obey orders.”

“Right, General. Command me and I obey.”

Mr. Lincoln’s written order reiterating oral instructions came, however.

Admiral Porter, according to his own account, took President Lincoln to task for his concessions, and told him in so many words that he was acting outside of his rights; Richmond, being under military rule, was subject to General Grant’s jurisdiction. The Admiral has claimed the distinction of working a change in the President’s mind and of recovering immediately the obnoxious order from Weitzel, killing, or trying to kill, a horse or so in the undertaking. He characterised the efforts of Judges Campbell and Thomas to serve their country and avert more bloodshed as “a clever dodge to soothe the wounded feelings of the people of the South.” The Admiral adds: “But what a howl it would have raised in the North!”

Admiral Porter says the lectured President exclaimed: “Well, I came near knocking all the fat in the fire, didn’t I? Let us go. I seem to be putting my foot into it here all the time. Bless my soul! how Seward would have preached if he had heard me give Campbell permission to call the Legislature! Seward is an encyclopedia of international law, and laughs at my horse sense on which I pride myself. Admiral, if I were you, I would not repeat that joke yet awhile. People might laugh at you for knowing so much more than the President.”

He was acting, he said, in conjunction with military authorities. General Weitzel was acting under General Grant’s instructions. The conciliatory plan was being followed in Petersburg, where General Grant himself had led the formal entry.

“General Weitzel warmly approves the plan.”

“He and Campbell are personal friends,” the Admiral remarked significantly.

Whatever became of those horses driven out by Admiral Porter’s instructions to be killed, if need be, in the effort to recover that order, is a conundrum. According to Admiral Porter the order had been written and given to General Weitzel while Mr. Lincoln was in the city. According to Judge Campbell and General Shepley, and the original now on file in Washington, it was written from City Point.

Dated, “Headquarters Department of Virginia, Richmond, April 13, 1865,” this appeared in the “Whig” on the last afternoon of Mr. Lincoln’s life:

“Permission for the reassembling of the gentlemen recently acting as the Legislature is rescinded. Should any of the gentlemen come to the city under the notice of reassembling already published, they will be furnished passports to return to their homes. Any of the persons named in the call signed by J. A. Campbell and others, who are found in the city twelve hours after the publication of this notice will be subject to arrest, unless they are residents. (Signed) E. O. C. Ord, General Commanding the Department.”

General Weitzel was removed. Upon him was thrown the blame of the President’s “blunder.” He was charged with the crime of pity and sympathy for “rebels” and “traitors.” When Lincoln was dead, a high official in Washington said: “No man more than Mr. Lincoln condemned the course General Weitzel and his officers pursued in Richmond.”

In more ways than one General Weitzel had done that which was not pleasing in the sight of Mr. Stanton. Assistant Secretary of War Dana had let Stanton know post-haste that General Weitzel was distributing “victuals” to “rebels.” Stanton wired to know of General Weitzel if he was “acting under authority in giving food supplies to the people of Richmond, and if so, whose?” General Weitzel answered, “Major-General Ord’s orders approved by General Grant.”

Mr. Dana wrote Mr. Stanton, “Weitzel is to pay for rations by selling captured property.” General Weitzel apologised for magnanimity by explaining that the instructions of General Ord, his superior, were “to sell all the tobacco I find here and feed those in distress. A great many persons, black and white, are on the point of starvation, and I have relieved the most pressing wants by the issue of a few abandoned rebel stores and some damaged stores of my own.” “All receivers of rations must take the oath,” Mr. Stanton wrote back.

In Northern magazines left by Federal soldiers visiting negroes in Matoaca’s yard, black Cato saw caricatures of Southern ladies mixing in with negroes and white roughs and toughs, begging food at Yankee bureaus. “Miss Mato’ca,” he plead earnestly, “don’ go whar dem folks is no mo’. It will disgrace de fam’ly.” She had put pride and conscience in her pocket, drawn rations and brought home her pork and codfish.

Revocation of permission for the reassembling of the Virginia Legislature was one of Mr. Lincoln’s last, if not his last, act in the War Department. Stanton gave him no peace till it was written; he handed the paper to Mr. Stanton, saying: “There! I think that will suit you!” “No,” said the Iron Chancellor of the Union. “It is not strong enough. It merely revokes your permission for the assembling of the rebel legislators. Some of these men will come to Richmond – are doubtless there now – in response to the call. You should prohibit the meeting.” Which was done. Hence, the prohibitory order in the “Whig.”

Mr. Lincoln wrote, April 14, to General Van Alen, of New York: “Thank you for the assurance you give me that I shall be supported by conservative men like yourself in the efforts I may use to restore the Union, so as to make it, to use your own language, a Union of hearts as well as of hands.” General Van Alen had warned him against exposing himself in the South as he had done by visiting Richmond; and for this Mr. Lincoln thanked him briefly without admitting that there had been any peril. Laconically, he had thanked Stanton for concern expressed in a dispatch warning him to be careful about visiting Petersburg, adding, “I have already been there.”

When serenaded the Tuesday before his death, he said, in speaking of the bringing of the Southern States into practical relations with the Union: “I believe it is not only possible, but easier to do this, without deciding, or even considering, whether these States have ever been out of the Union. Finding themselves safely at home, it would be utterly immaterial whether they had ever been abroad.”

His last joke – the story-tellers say it was his last – was about “Dixie.” General Lee’s surrender had been announced; Washington was ablaze with excitement. Delirious multitudes surged to the White House, calling the President out for a speech. It was a moment for easy betrayal into words that might widen the breach between sections. He said in his quaint way that he had no speech ready, and concluded humorously: “I have always thought ‘Dixie’ one of the best tunes I ever heard. I insisted yesterday that we had fairly captured it. I presented the question to the Attorney-General and he gave his opinion that it is our lawful prize. I ask the band to give us a good turn upon it.” In that little speech, he claimed of the South by right of conquest a song – and nothing more.

THE LAST CAPITAL

CHAPTER V

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.

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.

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.