Confederate Home Front and
Jefferson Davis
Lsn 13
Jefferson Davis: Qualifications
• “If modern computer-calculators had been
available in 1861, they would have surely
forecast that Jefferson Davis would be a great
war director and Abraham Lincoln an indifferent
one.”
– T. Harry Williams
• Davis had an excellent military background
– West Point Class of 1828
– Regimental commander in the Mexican War
– Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce
Jefferson Davis: Mexico
• “Davis’s breadth of background probably
better qualified him for high army
command than any man in the United
States….Yet some of Davis’s background
would also be a handicap.”
– Herman Hattaway and Archer Jones, 9
• Part of this handicap can be traced to
Davis’s experience in the Mexican War.
Jefferson Davis: Mexico
• After graduating from West Point, Davis
served seven years on the northwest
frontier, resigning in 1835 as a first
lieutenant.
• He settled down to a life as a Mississippi
planter until 1845 when he was elected to
Congress.
• When the Mexican War broke out, Davis
left Congress in order to enlist.
Jefferson Davis: Mexico
• Commanded the Mississippi Rifles, a
volunteer regiment
• Fell under the command of Brigadier
General Zachary Taylor, the father of
Davis’s first wife Sarah Knox who had
died just three months after their
marriage
– Unlike Scott who made maximum use of
his staff, Taylor’s forte was individual
command rather than collective effort
– From Davis would learn a very self-reliant
command style
Zachary Taylor
Jefferson Davis: Mexico
• At Buena Vista, Taylor
ordered Davis’s
Mississippi Rifles to hold
the faltering east flank
– The Mississippians and
other reinforcements were
able to halt the Mexican
advance
• Santa Anna then
launched another attack
against the extreme
American east flank
• Taylor detected this move
and immediately sent
Davis’s Mississippi Rifles
and the 3rd Indiana to
intercept it
Jefferson Davis: Mexico
• Davis positioned the two
regiments in an
unorthodox but highly
effective inverted V
formation on top of a ridge
overlooking the Mexican
approach
• He waited until the enemy
reached a point just 70
yards away and opened
fire all at once, destroying
the Mexican attack
“Mississippi Rifles at Buena Vista”
The National Guard Heritage Series
Jefferson Davis
• Buena Vista won Davis
much fame
• In 1847, he was
offered but declined an
appointment as
brigadier general in the
United States Army
• Instead he returned to
his political career
Jefferson Davis: Mexico
• But Buena Vista made Davis very confident in
his own abilities
• “... Buena Vista was a relatively minor battle, so
that the young colonel should not have
assumed, as he did, that he was expert as a
tactician and strategist. This assumption led to
overconfidence when Davis was called upon to
direct the military effort of the Confederacy”
– Cass Canfield
• Near the close of the Civil War, the Richmond
Examiner lamented, “If we are to perish, the
verdict of posterity will be, Died of a V”
Jefferson Davis: President
• Took his title as
Commander in Chief of the
Confederate Army quite
literally
– “considered himself a
military leader first and
a politician second”
• Chris Fonvielle
– Had six secretaries of
war in four years, but
for all practical
purposes, served as his
own secretary of war
and chief of staff.
Confederate Secretaries of War
Leroy Pope Walker 1861
Judah Benjamin 1861-1862
George Randolph 1862
Gustavus Smith 1862 (acting)
James Seddon 1862-1865
John Breckinridge 1865
Jefferson Davis: President
• “as everything about the
military fascinated him and he
believed only he was capable
of running things, the
President performed tasks
that belonged properly to
clerks in the War Office, and
even in the Adjutant
General’s office. Conversely,
as he squandered his time
and energies in the field of
his interests, Davis neglected
affairs which properly
belonged in the President’s
office”
• Clifford Dowdey
The White House of
the Confederacy
The Confederate Home Front
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Challenges
Resources
Politics
Social life
Wartime life
The Confederate Home Front:
Challenges
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Starting a nation virtually from scratch
Limited resources
Natural resistance to centralization
Varying degrees of loyalty to secession
Slave revolt would always be a threat
The Confederate Home Front:
Resources
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9 million people (5.5 million whites)
18,000 manufacturing establishments
8,500 miles of railroad
Wealth lay in land and slaves (non-liquid)
No existing military
The Confederate Home Front:
Resources
• Two days after the inauguration of President Lincoln, the
Congress of the Confederate States of America voted
that 100,000 volunteers be enlisted for one year
• Soon the Confederates began enlisting soldiers for the
duration of the war as well as offering the one-year
enlistees various inducements to reenlist for two
additional years
• Nonetheless, in early 1862, it became apparent that
such measures would not meet the Confederacy’s
manpower needs and the South turned to the drastic
measure of conscription
• Men could receive exemptions on many counts
The Confederate Home Front:
Resources
• Josiah Gorgas became the
Chief of Confederate
Ordnance in 1861 and did an
admirable job with the difficult
task of converting the
Confederate industrial base
for wartime purposes
• The South’s key arsenal was
Richmond’s Tredegar Iron
Works
– Produced about half the
Confederacy’s artillery pieces
The Confederate Home Front:
Resources
• The antebellum rail transportation
system had been designed to
drain goods to such ports as New
Orleans, Richmond, Norfolk,
Charleston, Savannah, and
Wilmington rather than to ship
them across the South
– Few east-west lines connected
the southern system, and only one
line traversed the mountain barrier
connecting Richmond with
Chattanooga and the Mississippi
River at Memphis
– Additionally, southern railroad
systems featured different gauges
which necessitated the unloading
and reloading of cargo en route
• More efficient Federal railroads
often nullified Confederate interior
lines
The Confederate Home Front:
Resources
• “Without the firing of a gun, without
drawing a sword, should they
[Northerners] make war upon us
[Southerners], we could bring the
whole world to our feet. What would
happen if no cotton was furnished
for three years? . . England would
topple headlong and carry the whole
civilized world with her. No, you dare
not make war on cotton! No power
on earth dares make war upon it.
Cotton is King.”
– Senator James Hammond of South
Carolina, 1858
• Led to the idea that “cotton
diplomacy” would force Europe to
intervene on the Confederacy’s
behalf
The Confederate Home Front:
Resources
• Because so much of
the Southern acreage
was devoted to cotton
and other staple
crops, much of the
South had received
significant foodstuffs
such as beef, pork,
corn, flour, fruits,
butter, and cheese
from Northern states
Thomas Nast cartoon
depicting “King Cotton”
The Confederate Home Front:
Resources
• Some such as Mississippi planter James
Alcorn got rich during the war selling cotton
to both Federal and Confederate sources
purely for economic gain
– “I wish to fill my pockets. I can in five years
make a larger fortune than ever. I know how
to do it and will do it.”
• Alcorn went on to become Mississippi’s first
Republican governor in 1870 and the
state’s most prominent scalawag
– Governed from a practical economic
perspective and sought to manipulate the
new black vote to keep aristocratic
businessmen like himself in power
• During his administration Alcorn University
was founded as the first land-grant college
for blacks in the United States.
The Confederate Home Front:
Resources
• Secretary of Treasury
Christopher Memminger
expected a short war and
did not take the
necessary measures to
raise the funds the
Confederacy would need
• Raised money through
minor war taxes, imported
duties, and bond sales
– All proved inadequate and
the South soon suffered
from serious inflation
• Began income and
property taxes in 1863
The Confederate Home Front:
Resources
• Slaves were both an
advantage and disadvantage
to the Confederacy as the war
progressed
– They provided needed
manpower to support the war
but required guarding and
were an unreliable resource
– Some remained loyal to their
masters, some ran away,
some joined the Federal Army
– Many masters scared their
slaves into being loyal by
terrifying stories of the Federal
soldiers
– Federal armies often became
overwhelmed with slaves who
had left their masters
The Confederate Home Front:
Resources
• As things became
increasingly desperate,
the Confederate
Congress passed a bill on
March 13, 1865 that
called for mustering
300,000 black soldiers
into service
• The war ended before
any of these new soldiers
ever fought for the
Confederacy
Patrick Cleburne was one of the
first Confederate generals to
suggest slaves be emancipated in
exchange for military service
The Confederate Home Front:
Resources
• The Emancipation Proclamation
freed the slaves in the
Confederate states but even
before that emancipation was
occurring in isolated places
• After the Battle of Port Royal
Sound, Confederate plantation
owners fled St. Helena Island
leaving behind their homes and
10,000 slaves
• Philanthropic Northern volunteers
developed an education program
for the blacks stressing literacy,
economic independence, and civil
rights
– Became known as the “Port Royal
Experiment”
The Penn Center was the first
school for blacks established
as part of the Port Royal
Experiment
The Confederate Home Front:
Politics
• David Donald assesses that the Confederacy “Died of
Democracy” because of the Southern people’s
steadfast insistence to retain their democratic liberties
in wartime.
• The Confederacy owed its very existence to the
notion of state’s rights, and President Davis would
meet strong opposition to any efforts at
nationalization.
– Davis faced with the dilemma that even seemingly
rational responses to the emergencies of war
would destroy the political philosophy upon which
his nation existed
The Confederate Home Front:
Politics
• Davis was continually
challenged by locallyminded governors such as
Joseph Brown of Georgia
who condemned Davis as
attempting “fearful strides
towards a centralized
government with unlimited
powers.”
• Even Davis’s vicepresident Alexander
Stephens undercut
Davis’s authority
The Confederate Home Front:
Politics
• Governor Brown argued
the “unconstitutionality”
of the draft and promptly
exempted most of
Georgia’s civil and
military officials
• He unilaterally cut taxes
for soldiers’ families
• He ordered his militia to
confiscate vital raw
materials previously
impressed by the Army
The Confederate Home Front:
Politics
• Only about one-fourth of
whites in the Confederacy
owned slaves and 50% of
that group owned five or less
• Still the slave system was key
to the sense of cultural
identity in the white South
• An entire generation of
Southern young men who
had come of age with this
sense of Southern cultural
identity, commitment to
slaveholding, and a
willingness to defend these
values against a Northern
culture
The Confederate Home Front:
Social Life
• Women assumed new roles,
especially in managing farms
– Also became government clerks,
factory workers, school teachers,
and nurses
• Many such as Sarah Morgan, Mary
Chesnut, and Judith McGuire wrote
detailed journals
• Many women took great pride in their
Confederate womanhood and wore it
as a badge of honor in defending
their homes, for example against
Sherman’s march through the
Carolinas
The Confederate Home Front:
Wartime Life
• Life across the South,
especially in those areas of
frequent fighting, became
difficult
– Shortages
– Inflation
– Displacement
– Casualties
– Violence from deserters
and fugitives
– Loneliness
– War weariness
– Hopelessness
Richmond Bread Riot
April 2, 1862
The Confederate Home Front:
Wartime Life
• “In the South, the
soldiers knew it was
wartime, but not the
politicians.” (David
Donald)
– Very hesitant to
suspend habeas
corpus, censor
newspapers, or
interfere with due
process
The White House of the Confederacy
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