Southerners continued to memorialize Jefferson Davis. His capture site languished in obscurity for years and was, in time, overgrown by pines and brush. It was a quiet, forgotten place. This was no landmark of Confederate glory, and few Southerners cared to visit the spot where Davis’s presidency and their last hope for independence had died. At some point, Davis loyalists marked the place when they hammered into the ground a wooden stake nailed to a crude, handmade sign that said: SITE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS’ CAMP AT THE TIME OF CAPTURE, MAY 10, 1865.
On June 3, 1936, seventy-one years after the end of the Civil War, and the 128th anniversary of Jefferson Davis’s birthday, the ladies of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Ocilla, Georgia Chapter, dedicated a handsome monument at the site. Consisting of a large concrete slab bearing a concrete plaque sculpted in bas relief, with a bronze bust of Davis, the main text of the memorial reads: “Jefferson Davis—President of the Confederate States of America. 1861–1865.” This monument was meant to celebrate not capture, defeat, or imprisonment, but the “unconquerable heart” of the man who, in enduring those trials, became a beloved symbol to his people.
Other monuments to Davis mark the landscape near his birthplace in Kentucky, and in his home state of Mississippi. At the U.S. Capitol, a larger-than-life bronze sculpture of Davis stands in National Statuary Hall, its presence a tribute to two things: his service as a U.S. senator and his significant influence on the architecture and modern-day appearance of the Capitol building.
In 2009, America celebrated Abraham Lincoln’s two hundredth birthday with great fanfare. President and Mrs. George W. Bush hosted several pre-bicentennial events, including the first black-tie White House dinner ever held in Lincoln’s honor. The Library of Congress and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History mounted major exhibitions. The Ford’s Theatre Society raised fifty million dollars to renovate the theater and its museum in time for Lincoln’s birthday on February 12. The Newseum, located on a stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue overlooking the route of the April 19, 1865, funeral procession, offered an exhibition on the assassination, mourning pageant, and manhunt for Lincoln’s killer. Museums in several other cities also put on exhibitions. Filmmakers produced several documentaries, and in 2008 and 2009, authors published nearly one hundred books on the sixteenth president. The U.S. Mint and Post Office produced commemorative coins and stamps.
On June 3, 2008, another bicentennial passed almost without notice. Not many Americans were aware of, let alone chose to celebrate, the two hundredth birthday of Jefferson Davis. There were no White House dinners, major exhibitions, shelves of new books, or coins and stamps. Few people know his story. Most have never read a book about him, and no one reads his memoirs anymore. Many people would not recognize his face, and some would not even remember his name. Jefferson Davis is the lost man of American history.
What explains the rise and fall of Davis in American popular memory? He lost, and history tends to reward winners, not losers. But there must be more to it than that. Perhaps it comes down to the slaves, the song, and the flag. The Confederate past is controversial. In the spring of 2010, on the eve of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the governor of Virginia created a furor by proclaiming Confederate History Month, a celebration condemned by some as, at best, insensitive and, at worst, racist. A historical figure who owned slaves, wished he “was in the land of cotton,” and waved the Stars and Bars must today be rebuked and erased from popular memory, not studied. Better to forget. Perhaps, someday, someone will demand that his statue be banished from the U.S. Capitol. In Richmond, the Confederate White House and the Museum of the Confederacy, two of the finest Civil War sites in the country, are in trouble. Once central to that city’s identity, they now languish in semi-obscurity, overshadowed physically by an ugly complex of medical office buildings and challenged symbolically by a competing, sleek new Civil War museum at the Tredegar Iron Works, the former cannon manufactory. The Museum of the Confederacy has fallen on hard times and into local disfavor, dismissed by some as an antiquarian dinosaur, by others as an embarrassing reminder of the racial politics of the Lost Cause. Its very name angers some who insist that perpetuating these places of Confederate history is tantamount to a modern-day endorsement of secession, slavery, and racism. According to numerous newspaper stories, the Museum and the White House are barely hanging on, and have considered closing, or dividing the priceless collection among several institutions. Their failure would be a loss to American history. Unless a benefactor comes forward to save them, their long-term future remains uncertain.
There was one place where the legacy of Jefferson Davis was safe, at his beloved postwar sanctuary, Beauvoir. There, on the Mississippi Gulf, he had found the peace that had eluded him during his presidency and during his unsettled postwar wanderings. In an outbuilding, a three-room cottage he set up as his study, he shelved hundreds of books and piled more on tables. A photograph preserves the interior of this time capsule: books everywhere, his desk and chair where he sat and composed his letters and articles and where he wrote The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government.
After Davis’s death, Beauvoir lived on as a monument, and it became a retirement home for aged Confederate veterans who came to live there. When the last of them died off, Beauvoir became a Davis museum and library. The institution flourished for decades until one day in late August 2005, when Hurricane Katrina hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast hard. The main house, a lovely, nine-room Gothic cottage set upon pillars, was gutted down to the walls and all seven of the outbuildings were destroyed. Countless artifacts were lost, including Davis’s Mexican War saddle, as well as the notorious raglan and shawl he wore on the morning he was captured.
His library did not escape the hurricane either. On that day, the sanctuary where Jefferson Davis labored to preserve for all time the memory of the Confederacy, its honored dead, and the Lost Cause was, by wind and water, all swept away.
A Note to the Reader
The spring of 1865 remains the most remarkable season in American history. It was a time to mourn the Civil War’s 620,000 dead. The war was ending. It was a time to lay down arms, to count up plantations and cities laid to waste, and to plant new crops. It was a time of two presidents on their final journeys, of the hunt for Jefferson Davis and the funeral pageant for Abraham Lincoln.
The title of the adult version of this book, Bloody Crimes, was inspired by three sources. First, in October 1859, in an attempt to start a slave uprising, abolitionist John Brown launched a doomed raid on the U.S. arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. Brown was captured, tried, and sentenced to hang. While in jail he marked his favorite passages in a copy of the Bible, including this verse from Ezekiel 7:23: “Make a chain: for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence.” On the morning he was hanged, he handed to one of his jailers the last note he would ever write, preceding the outbreak of the war by two years. “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.”
Second, on March 4, 1865, Abraham Lincoln delivered a speech to mark the start of his second term as president. Lincoln warned that slavery was a bloody crime that might not be wiped out without the shedding of more blood. “Fondly do we hope,” he declared, “fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue . . . until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.’”
Third, within days of Lincoln’s assassination on April 14, 1865, a Boston photographer published a remarkable image to honor the fallen president. A stern-faced woman, a symbol of the United States, along with an eagle about to take flight in pursuit of its prey, keeps a vigil over a portrait of the murdered president and proclaims John Brown’s old warning: “Make a chain, for the land is full of bloody crimes.”
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Northerners believed that Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy had committed many bloody crimes, including the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the starvation, torture, and murder of Union prisoners of war, and the battlefield slaughter of soldiers. In the South Lincoln and his armies were seen as guilty of great crimes as well. The people of the Union and the Confederacy could agree about one thing. In the spring of 1865, an era of bloody times had reached its climax.
“Make a chain, for the land is full of Bloody Crimes.”
Who’s Who
Confederacy
Judah Benjamin: Confederate secretary of state
John C. Breckinridge: Confederate secretary of war
Constance Cary: a young woman living in Richmond, Virginia, during the Civil War; married to Burton Harrison after the war
Jefferson Davis: president of the Confederate States of America, 1861–1865
Jefferson (Jeff) Davis, Jr.: son of Jefferson and Varina Davis; eight years old in 1865
Margaret (Maggie) Davis: daughter of Jefferson and Varina Davis; ten years old in 1865
Varina Davis: wife of Jefferson Davis
Wade Hampton: Confederate cavalry general, under the command of General Joseph Johnston
Burton Harrison: Jefferson Davis’s private secretary; engaged to Constance Cary
Joseph Johnston: Confederate general of the Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida and the Department of North Carolina and Southern Virginia
Jim Jones: Jefferson Davis’s coachman
Robert E. Lee: general of the Army of Northern Virginia
Frank Lubbock: former governor of Texas
Stephen R. Mallory: Confederate secretary of the navy
William Parker: Confederate naval captain, in charge of guarding the Confederate treasure train
John Reagan: postmaster general
Union
Phineas Taylor (P. T.) Barnum: owner of the American Museum in New York City, and later, of the Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show on Earth circus
Dr. Charles Brown: embalmer
John Brown: leader of a raid on a government arsenal, or place where weapons were stored, at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, in 1859. He hoped to use the weapons to arm slaves in a rebellion against their owners. He was captured, tried, and executed.
William Clarke: a boarder at the Petersen house in Washington, D.C.
Charles Crane: assistant surgeon general
Elizabeth Dixon: friend of Mary Lincoln
George Francis: a boarder at the Petersen house in Washington, D.C.; husband of Huldah Francis
Huldah Francis: a boarder at the Petersen house in Washington, D.C.; wife of George Francis
Benjamin Brown French: commissioner of public buildings and grounds in Washington, D.C.
Ulysses S. Grant: general of the Armies of the United States
George Harrington: United States assistant secretary of the treasury; in charge of organizing Lincoln’s funeral in Washington, D.C.
Clara Harris: fiancée of Henry Rathbone
Elizabeth Keckly: dressmaker, friend of Mary Lincoln
Charles A. Leale: army surgeon
Abraham Lincoln: president of the United States, 1861–1865
Edward (Eddie) Lincoln: son of Abraham and Mary Lincoln; died in 1850 at the age of three
Mary Lincoln: wife of Abraham Lincoln
Robert Lincoln: son of Abraham and Mary Lincoln; twenty-one years old in 1865
Thomas (Tad) Lincoln: son of Abraham and Mary Lincoln; twelve years old in 1865
William (Willie) Lincoln: son of Abraham and Mary Lincoln; died in 1862 at the age of eleven
David Dixon Porter: rear admiral, U.S. Navy
Benjamin D. Pritchard: United States lieutenant colonel in command of the Fourth Michigan Cavalry unit that captured Jefferson Davis
Alfred Purington: United States lieutenant serving in the Fourth Michigan Cavalry unit that captured Jefferson Davis
Henry Rathbone: United States army major, married to Clara Harris after the war
Henry Safford: a boarder at the Petersen house in Washington, D.C.
Frank Sands: undertaker
William Seward: United States secretary of state
William T. Sherman: One of Lincoln’s top three generals, along with Grant and Sheridan, and known for “Sherman’s March” through the deep South to the sea
Edwin M. Stanton: United States secretary of war
Edward Townsend: United States brigadier general; in command of Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train
Gideon Welles: United States secretary of the navy
Mary Jane Welles: wife of Gideon Welles
Janvier Woodward: doctor; participated in the autopsy on Lincoln’s body
Glossary
abolitionist: someone who opposes slavery and works to end it
bier: a table or platform on which a coffin is laid
cabinet: a group of the most important officials in a government and advisers to the president
carbine: lightweight rifle with a short barrel
cavalry: soldiers mounted on horseback
choice: fine, special
Confederate: belonging to or connected with the Confederate States of America, the independent country that the South of the United States attempted to create during the Civil War
conscripts: soldiers who have been drafted or forced to fight
Constitution: the ultimate law of the United States. All laws made by Congress must abide by what is written in the Constitution.
coveted: strongly wanted or desired
crepe: a lightweight, fine fabric. When black, it was often used to symbolize death or mourning.
Declaration of Independence: the statement of the United States’ freedom from England and its existence as an independent country
dirge: sad music played at a funeral
dormant: not active, but able to become active later
embalmer: someone who preserves a body for viewing before burial
extricate: take out, remove
fatigue: the state of being tired or exhausted
fortitude: strength, endurance
guerrilla warfare: war fought by sabotage and secret attacks rather than conflict on the battlefield between armies
haversack: backpack
illumination: celebration during which buildings are lit up with lamps, lanterns, or candles
malaria: a disease caused by the bite of a mosquito. An infected person often suffers from chills and fevers.
motto: brief phrase or statement, often written on a banner or flag
neuralgia: severe pain that occurs from time to time in a particular part of the body
reconstruction: the process of rebuilding something that has been destroyed or damaged
subsistence: food or supplies, just enough to keep someone or something alive
treasury: place where a government’s money is stored
uniform: regular, unchanging
Union: belonging to or connected with the northern part of the United States during the Civil War, which wanted to keep the country together and not divide it into two separate countries
United States Congress: the part of the government that makes laws for the United States. The Congress has two parts, the Senate and the House of Representatives.
United States Senate: one of the two bodies that make up the U.S. Congress
utterance: speech
venerable: respected, honored
For Further Reading
There are thousands of books about Abraham Lincoln, and even more about the Civil War. Here are a few titles for anyone who would like to pursue the stories of Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis in more detail. Readers of Bloody Times: The Funeral of Abraham Lincoln and the Manhunt for Jefferson Davis who want to learn more about the Lincoln funeral and Davis manhunt can move up to the adult book upon which is it based, Bloody Crimes: The Chase for Jefferson Davis and the Death Pageant for Lincoln’s Corpse. Bloody Crimes
also contains an extensive bibliography for further reading. For the story of the Lincoln assassination and the hunt for John Wilkes Booth, see my young adult book Chasing Lincoln’s Killer, or its adult version, Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer.
There are no completely satisfactory biographies of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis for young adults. Their stories are almost too detailed and complex to reduce them to short books that can only highlight the most important themes. The moment a young reader is ready to tackle an adult biography on Lincoln, I recommend Benjamin Thomas’s classic work, Abraham Lincoln. For the best illustrated books on the Lincoln assassination, see Twenty Days: A Narrative in Text and Pictures of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln by Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt and Philip B. Kunhardt Jr., and my full-color book Lincoln’s Assassins: Their Trial and Execution. The best general photographic history is Lloyd Ostendorf’s Lincoln’s Photographs: A Complete Album.
To find all of Abraham Lincoln’s letters, speeches, and other writings, the best source is the multivolume set edited by Roy P. Basler, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. For the multivolume collected works of Lincoln’s opponent, see Lynda Lasswell Crist’s The Papers of Jefferson Davis. The best adult biography of Jefferson Davis is William J. Cooper’s Jefferson Davis, American. The ultimate book on Lincoln is Michael Burlingame’s magnificent two-volume biography, Abraham Lincoln: A Life. Too detailed and expensive for the home bookshelves of young readers, Burlingame’s work is an invaluable, encyclopedic library resource for anyone researching the Lincoln story.
Places to Go
Today you can visit many of the places that you have read about in Bloody Times. In Washington, D.C., Ford’s Theatre still stands on Tenth Street, and looks exactly like it did on April 14, 1865, the night Abraham Lincoln was shot. Go inside the theater, and while you listen to a talk by a National Park Service ranger, look up at the box where John Wilkes Booth shot the president and then leaped to the stage below. Be sure to visit the splendid museum in the basement and view, among the treasured relics there, Booth’s compass, revolvers, knives, and carbine, and even the very derringer pistol he used to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. Do not leave Tenth Street without visiting the Petersen House, where the president died on the morning of April 15.