Jefferson Davis, American Page 11
Joseph Davis was an unusual person. He was born in Wilkes County, Georgia, in 1784, and as a young man in Kentucky he clerked in a store, then read law. Following his family to Mississippi, he read more law and in 1812 established his legal practice in Jefferson County, a near neighbor of Wilkinson. Able and ambitious, Joseph Davis made his mark in his new home. In 1817 he was chosen as a delegate from Jefferson County to the first Mississippi Constitutional Convention; the next year he won a seat in the legislature. At the same time Joseph Davis was prospering, and he put his money into the major asset of his adopted state. In 1818 he and a partner bought from the United States more than 7,000 acres of rich bottomland along the Mississippi River in Warren County, some twenty miles south of the settlement that would become the town of Vicksburg and the county seat. Soon thereafter he bought out his partner and purchased even more land, pushing his total up to 11,000 acres. At this juncture he owned the entire peninsula jutting into the Mississippi, which became known as Davis Bend. In 1820 he moved his legal practice to Natchez, the most prominent town in the state, where he fraternized with the social and economic elite.23
In a portrait painted in 1818, Joseph Davis has the look often associated with aristocrats: a proud, intelligent countenance and long, angular features dominate. The dark eyes are engaging. The face, with an appearance frequently deemed sensitive, could be called handsome. The Joseph Davis presented in the painting makes understandable his reputation as a ladies’ man.24
While Joseph Davis tended to his law practice and added to his fortune, he never lost sight of his huge investment in Warren County. He sold large portions of the land to friends, including John A. Quitman, another successful immigrant to Natchez who would appear in Jefferson Davis’s future, but he still retained some 5,000 acres. He wanted to begin transforming this virgin land into a productive plantation, though he was not ready to leave Natchez. As a result, he made arrangements with his brother Isaac, who agreed to move to Davis Bend and begin the work of transformation. In 1827, shortly after Isaac built a dwelling place, a massive storm hit, destroying the house, injuring him, and killing his infant child. The storm had a substantial impact: the plantation was thereafter known as Hurricane; Isaac left, never to return; Joseph decided to become a resident planter.
Joseph Davis, c. 1818 (painting by William E. West).
Courtesy of Percival T. Beacroft, Jr., Rosemont Plantation, Woodville, Mississippi, Gift of Estate of Jefferson Hayes-Davis, grandson of President Jefferson Davis (photo credit i4.2)
Davis Bend.
Wartime map from Harper’s Weekly, May 23, 1863
When Joseph went upriver from Natchez to Davis Bend, he took with him his new wife and three daughters. In New Orleans on October 5, 1827, the forty-three-year-old Joseph Davis married sixteen-year-old Eliza Van Benthuysen, whose widowed mother had lived in Natchez before moving to the Louisiana metropolis where she ran a boardinghouse. Eliza Davis was the same age as Joseph’s oldest daughter, Florida. His younger two, Mary and Caroline, were eleven and four, respectively. Although Joseph had three daughters living with him, there is absolutely no record of any marriage; nor is the name of their mother or mothers known. Joseph Davis’s biographer suggests that perhaps he perceived the isolation of Davis Bend as more hospitable to his unusual family than the town of Natchez.
As a planter, Joseph Davis thrived. The bottomland of Hurricane plantation, enriched over the centuries by the periodic floods of the Mississippi, yielded cotton crops that made him immensely wealthy. By 1830, he owned 102 slaves, which placed him among the largest and richest slaveowners in the state. In the mid-1830s he built a mansion that would also be called Hurricane.
A substantial three-storied house of stucco-covered brick with two-storied galleries all around, Hurricane conveyed in authority and dignity what it may have lacked in architectural grace. Thick walls and small windows helped keep the interior cool despite the heat and humidity of the long summers. Each floor had four rooms. On the first floor, a wide entrance hall separated the public rooms on the right from the master bedroom and private office on the left. Each of the upper floors contained four large bedrooms and a bathroom, installed by plumbers from Cincinnati, with water supplied from an attic tank kept filled by a slave-operated pump. A large annex extended west of the main structure, with a brick-paved dining room on the first floor and above it a large room with many windows used for entertaining. Behind this wing a brick building of two stories housed the kitchen, laundry, a storeroom, and six bedrooms for the house servants. In the early 1840s, Joseph added to the southwest a cottage with squared Doric columns on all four sides; this became his office and library and sleeping quarters for overflow guests.
Having reached the highest level of the southern ruling class, composed of those who owned the most land and the most slaves, Joseph in 1835 welcomed his youngest brother. The possibility of settling close to home had always appealed to Jefferson, who in 1824 had confided to a sister, “I hope someday to be permanently settled near you.” In the early 1830s he had discussed with Joseph and his brother-in-law William Stamps the feasibility of joining one of them in a farming venture. Stamps did propose a partnership, but Jefferson decided instead to join Joseph at Davis Bend. Joseph, who thought of Jefferson more as a son than a brother, obviously wanted him close by, and clearly made the best proposition. According to Stamps, Joseph encouraged Jefferson to resign his commission and provided him the land to begin his career in agriculture.25
Joseph offered Jefferson a part of Davis Bend adjacent to Hurricane that became known as Brierfield. A land appraiser who saw it at that time described the tract as “an old burn, with stumps of trees, some cane & many briers, so that I afterwards thought the place was well named when I heard it called Brierfield.” The area lay to the east of Hurricane on the southern side of Davis Bend, facing the Mississippi. With its two and a half miles of river frontage, the property totaled more than 900 acres. Dense brush and bramble coated much of the ground; stands of hardwood denoted the ridges; lakes and sloughs dotted the acreage. Of course, as part of the alluvial lowlands along the Mississippi, it did not have much elevation. Both Brierfield and Hurricane ranged between 80 and 85 feet above sea level.26
Turning the almost primeval-looking Brierfield into a productive cotton plantation would necessitate arduous work. In the fall of 1835, an emotionally distraught and malaria-ravaged Jefferson Davis was in no condition to commence such an undertaking. Emaciated and suffering also from a persistent cough, he seemed almost like a consumptive specter. Therefore a decision was made, with Joseph undoubtedly having an important say: the weakened, sad widower would go to Havana for the upcoming cold months. That autumn Davis made the easy sea voyage from New Orleans to Cuba. With little interest in social life, he spent most of his time wandering and sketching among the hills and fortifications. The former soldier also enjoyed watching the troops drilling, but he was a bit too attentive for the authorities, who told him to refrain from his drawing and observing. Informing him that they knew he had been an army officer, the Spanish evidently feared that Davis was doing more than entertaining himself. No evidence suggests, however, that the recovering Davis had any clandestine motives.27
Sometime in the late winter or early spring of 1836, Davis returned to Davis Bend and plunged himself into the task of plantation building. To make Brierfield fit for cultivation and human habitation would require a vast amount of physical labor. In Jefferson Davis’s world that labor was provided by black slaves. The young would-be planter could not imagine clearing Brierfield and growing cotton without them. He owned but one, James Pemberton, who would have a central role in the opening of Brierfield, but he and Pemberton alone could not make cultivated cotton rows out of the tangle of Brierfield.
It is likely that Joseph advanced him money to begin the building of a slave force. Late in her life Jefferson’s widow reported that Joseph had loaned him $10,000 to buy his first group of slaves. Certainly Jefferson did not possess that
kind of money, nor did he have any other likely source. Borrowing money with Brierfield as collateral would have been difficult because he had no title to the land. Although Joseph surely gave the place to him, and although both brothers always spoke of Brierfield as Jefferson’s, Joseph never conveyed legal title to his youngest brother, either in 1835 or 1836 or at any other time. Though certainly genuine, Joseph’s generosity did not come uncircumscribed. In the next decade he also gave a plantation to his eldest daughter and her husband, without including the title.28
Jefferson Davis’s first purchase of slaves occurred in Natchez in Joseph’s presence, either in 1835 or in 1836 just after his return from Cuba. On this buying trip Jefferson bought sixteen slaves, both men and women, of unknown ages. Except for James Pemberton, they were the first slaves he owned; by October 1836 he possessed twenty-three slaves between five and sixty years of age.29
These slaves went to Brierfield. Some agricultural activity most probably began there in 1835, though contemporary records are unrevealing. Writing in 1890, Davis’s widow claimed that he planted a crop in 1835. Fifteen years earlier, William Stamps, who should have known, placed the beginning of real labor at Brierfield in 1836. Certainly by that year a full-scale assault on the wilderness was underway. At the outset some of Joseph’s slaves assisted Jefferson’s bondspeople in taming Brierfield.30
The initial task consisted of finding the appropriate spots for cabins that would shelter the slaves. The location chosen was on a ridge along a road about a mile east of Joseph’s residence. There the slaves cut trees and put up a cabin, the first structure at Brierfield. Afterwards this site would hold the central buildings of the plantation, including the master’s home and the slave quarters.
Jefferson Davis took charge at Brierfield. Although he still resided at Hurricane with Joseph and Eliza, he appeared at Brierfield every day. One of the slaves he acquired in the first lot in Natchez remembered that at times Davis would even remove his jacket and join in cutting down trees. But along with his own active involvement, Davis relied on a crucial assistant—James Pemberton, who served as Davis’s overseer, the person who actively directed the work of the other slaves under the master’s orders. In so utilizing Pemberton, Davis was exceptional, for the overwhelming majority of planters employed white overseers. Pemberton occupied this critical post until his death in 1850. The other slaves recognized Pemberton’s special status; one even called him the “master man.” Pemberton knew his position, however. When he gave his fellow slaves their daily orders, he always cited his authority for doing so: “Masr Jeff” said so. Master and slave forged a powerful personal bond. When the slaveowner was away, news from this slave invariably reached him, and the slaveowner always wanted to be remembered to his slave.31
Slowly the trees, the cane, the bramble disappeared. By 1837, at the latest, Davis made an excellent cotton crop. Quarters were erected for the slave force, which at first grew slowly, then more rapidly. In 1838 Davis owned twenty-five souls, only two more than in 1836. The next year saw no increase, but by 1840 he had made significant additions. At that time he possessed around forty, which meant that between 1839 and 1840 the number of his slaves increased by 60 percent. What portion came from natural increase and what portion from purchase is unknown, though at that period Davis was buying slaves in New Orleans.32
Not surprisingly, Davis’s slave force consisted chiefly of young people. As a beginning planter, who commenced with only one inherited bondsman, he would logically want to obtain youthful slaves, who would presumably have a long work career before them. In 1840 he also had an exceptionally balanced sex ratio, twenty-one men and eighteen women. The federal census for that year broke them down into the following groups: children under ten, three boys and six girls; older children and young people between ten and twenty-four, eight males and six females; young adults between twenty-four and thirty-six, five men and four women; adults between thirty-six and fifty-five, four men and but one woman; old people over fifty-five, one of each sex. Of this total of thirty-nine, the census reported that twenty-nine were occupied in agriculture, meaning that the youngest and possibly oldest did not work in the fields. Although the record is silent on the familial relationships among these slaves, the substantial number of children coupled with an almost exact sexual division in the next two age categories suggest slave families. This possibility could also mean that natural increase provided a superb way for slavemaster Davis to expand his slave population.33
As Jefferson became a planter in his own right, he remained close to Joseph. After all, he still lived under Joseph’s roof, where he would stay until after his second marriage. He also turned to his surrogate father for advice. At the same time no one questioned his ownership of Brierfield; very few people even knew that Joseph had never relinquished the title.
In business transactions Brierfield and Jefferson were considered independent of Hurricane and Joseph. Between 1838 and 1844, Jefferson used the factorage house of Oakey, Payne & Hawkins in New Orleans to handle his marketing and supply needs. George E. Payne, who handled Jefferson’s affairs in these years, testified that he worked with Jefferson, not Joseph, and not the brothers together. According to Payne, the cotton received from Jefferson was clearly marked “Brierfield,” and all proceeds from its sale went directly into Jefferson’s account, which in the spring of 1842 had a positive balance of $1,000, a considerable sum at that time when cotton prices were depressed and the annual per capita income of free Mississippians totaled around $92. Payne’s firm furnished and paid for whatever items Jefferson ordered, including slaves, and debited his account. Everything went upriver by steamboat to Davis Bend with invoices and bills of lading in Jefferson’s name. Jefferson was succeeding as a planter, though information about his finances is scarce. A friend congratulated him on “escap[ing] the vortex of Speculation, as also its twin Sister credit.” His land had come free of charge, and Joseph was always there as a lender of last resort, though no evidence indicates that any cash ever came from Joseph after his outlay of $10,000. Moreover, taxes were minimal. Between 1836 and 1841, Jefferson’s annual payments on his slaves never exceeded $16. The total taxes on his personal property, including slaves, ranged from $28.19 in 1842 to $56.82 in 1845.34
Between the brothers harmony prevailed. When Jefferson took off on an extended trip to the Northeast during the winter of 1837–38, Joseph looked after affairs at Brierfield. He reported on the health of the slaves and the harvesting of the corn and cotton to Jefferson in January 1838. He also indicated that the ginning of cotton had been delayed, which meant that it would be “Some time to Come” before he could send Jefferson’s crop to market. The next month he wrote that because of the severe winter at Davis Bend he had been unable to start spring planting. He continued that Jefferson’s “people [slaves] are about as usual they have done as well as they Could but like mine have been hindered by the weather from effecting much.” While traveling in the summer of 1838, Joseph informed Jefferson that in Louisville he had purchased “Some linsey & c for the Supply of the people Sufficient for yours & mine.” By all accounts the Davis brothers had established a close, effective business relationship. Clearly, Jefferson was thought of as an independent man, but Joseph gave advice and assistance when needed.35
Love and respect characterized their personal interaction. Joseph’s letters communicated all of his doings, not just plantation business. He surely took Jefferson into his confidence on family, financial, and political matters. When he learned in August 1838 that his young protégé planned to spend “the Season” at Davis Bend, Joseph worried “that you may Suffer from the influence of the Season & the increased exposure.…” He warned the younger man “against an error that I have too often committed & which you I think are Some what liable to an attempt at too much.” Yet an obviously concerned Joseph acknowledged Jefferson’s maturity: “You Can judge better being on the Spot than I can.” For his part, Jefferson continued to rely on his oldest brother for guidance and sup
port. To Joseph, he was always “affectionately your Brother.”
While Joseph remained special, Jefferson also maintained other family ties that had been so important to him when he was far away from Mississippi. His mother’s adoration of her youngest child had not diminished. Staying with daughters either in Wilkinson County or West Feliciana Parish, Jane Davis still hoped to see and hear from him more often, but she assured her last-born of “the Sincere love of your affectionate Mother.” Reciprocating, Jefferson helped provide for his mother’s needs by having his nephew draw on his New Orleans factor. His sister Lucinda reported to him “how mutch pleasure” his letters gave her. The newsy, affectionate communications that he received from his nieces made clear just how comfortable they were with their “Dear Uncle.” Their correspondence leaves no doubt that Uncle Jefferson made them feel important as individuals in their own right as well as in his life. Joseph’s daughter Florida articulated the sentiment all her cousins obviously shared: “I Know you love me.”36
Joseph’s wife Eliza, only three years younger than Jefferson, did not disguise her opinion of her brother-in-law, whom she addressed as “My dear brother,” and penned detailed letters to him when away from Hurricane. Their affinity clearly included playfulness, for on one occasion when Jefferson had been left alone at Hurricane, she wanted to know how he was succeeding as a housekeeper.37
After his Cuban trip only once in the next eight years did Jefferson venture far from the homeland of Davises. In November 1837 he left for an extended trip to the Northeast. His first major stop was New York City, where he stayed with Eliza Davis’s brother, Watson Van Benthuysen. After a sojourn of at least two weeks he departed for Washington, the focus of his journey. Along the way, in Baltimore, Davis became “too unwell to proceed.” He related to Joseph that an army surgeon traveling with him “stopped and attended to me.” Davis provides no clue about the nature of his illness, though he seemingly recovered quickly. The very next day he was “much better,” so much so that he went a short distance in the country to see the finest shorthorn Durham cattle he had ever seen.38