Jefferson Davis, American Page 17

  Although slavery as a political or ideological issue did not become central in Davis’s initial congressional session, he did not hesitate to speak forthrightly on behalf of the South’s major social institution when the occasion presented itself. He certainly did not believe that slave property should be kept out of Oregon by congressional mandate. Only ten days after Davis took his seat, a Massachusetts representative declaimed against slavery, asserting that whenever it existed, “the high moral character and perfectibility of man was not to be found.” Riposting, Davis asked whether the speaker had forgotten that John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and other worthies hailed from a state that for a long time had tolerated slavery. Uneasy about the “envy, jealousy, and sectional strife” that he saw “eating like rust in the bonds our fathers expected to bind us,” Davis ascribed these negative characteristics to certain northerners, not to southerners. Focusing on the monument at Bunker Hill just outside Boston as a symbol of freedom and union, he declared that the South gloried in the nation and in national triumphs. He condemned abolitionism while he distinguished the “manly and patriotic sentiments” of northerners who loved the Constitution and the Union. “Yes, sir, when ignorance, led by fanatic hate, and armed by all uncharitableness, assails a domestic institution of the South, I try to forgive, for the sake of the righteous among the wicked—our natural allies, the Democracy of the North.”68

  Jefferson Davis did not spend all of his working time on the floor of the House listening to colleagues and making speeches. From the outset he recognized the importance of directly serving his constituents, and he realized that many voters expected tangible results from those they elected. Davis had no doubt about who had sent him to Congress and who would control his tenure there. He worked on his correspondence until two or three in the morning, and with only Varina’s assistance, he franked every letter and document sent back to Mississippi. She worried about the effect on his eyes, which became so red and painful that she wrote her mother they “even lose their beauty to me.” She wished he would work less and go out more. Despite Varina’s concern, Davis did participate in the social season, attending and enjoying parties and dinners with his wife. Illness also continued to assault him, with recurrent painful earaches and high fever, but never deterred his work for long.69

  Myriad concerns occupied the attention of the freshman congressman. He made sure that Mississippi newspapers, even some of the Whig persuasion, received pertinent government publications. To the House he presented private petitions requesting action on military pensions and various matters involving land titles. He worked to get Mississippians appointed to West Point and other federal positions. In these endeavors he used whatever tack he thought would be effective. Attempting to get a midshipman’s warrant in the United States Navy for a young Mississippian, Davis reminded the secretary of the navy that “we of Mississippi have less than our proportionate share of Navy appointments.” When bureaucratic or congressional action was slow in coming, he remained active. Reporting to a constituent that he did not yet have the answer to a land problem, he went on, “not willing to delay any longer I write now to assure you that your case shall not be neglected.” He told his correspondents that he would be “glad at all times” to hear from them and that he wanted to serve them “whenever and however I can.”70

  Congressman Davis stood as a stalwart administration man, though he never became a party robot. On matters it identified as crucial, the Polk administration could count on him. He was especially active in defending Secretary of the Treasury Robert J. Walker, formerly a U.S. senator from Mississippi, against charges of venality. In fact, he attached himself to Walker both politically and socially. Yet as a member of the House committee to investigate accusations that the celebrated Massachusetts Whig senator Daniel Webster had been guilty of malfeasance when serving as secretary of state under John Tyler, Davis refused to let the inquiry turn him into a zealous partisan. Convinced of Webster’s innocence, Davis voted to absolve him of any wrongdoing. Davis’s general performance impressed another notable Massachusetts Whig, ex-president, now congressman, and often acerbic, John Quincy Adams. Although Davis was a good Democrat, he was a skilled political trader as well as a party loyalist. In the summer of 1846, he delayed leaving Washington for service in the Mexican War until the House had decided on tariff reduction. In return for promising President Polk that he would remain in Congress until the crucial vote, Davis won the president’s pledge that he would direct the secretary of war to fill promptly all of Davis’s military requisitions.71

  While Jefferson Davis learned the political ways of Washington, the capital electrified Varina Davis. To her the people looked so grand and sophisticated; the social life she found exhilarating and the talk at times almost intoxicating. She attended parties and gave her own, proudly informing her mother that she was known for “giving the most delightful little hops of the season.” Whether guest or hostess, Varina carefully noted her clothes and her impressions. Picturing her new hat of black silk velvet with a long drooping plume on the shoulder and white velvet flowers inside, she reported, “it becomes me very much.” At a White House dinner she contrasted herself, in a “black watered silk, and a white polka dress made of bobbinet, and trimmed with my wedding lace—a white japonica in my hair,” with Mrs. Polk, who appeared, in Varina’s eyes, “dressed to death.” President Polk fared no better; “an insignificant looking little man,” she called him. Nothing excited her more than the intelligence and cleverness of so many of the men and women she met. Participating in a conversation with her husband and former president John Tyler, whom she thought impressive, especially thrilled her. She vividly remembered one “delightful evening” when a congressman and the vice president of the United States “talked to each other and to me of Byron and Wordsworth, of Dante and Virgil.” Even after four and a half decades her enthusiasm and wonder at the place and the people leap from the pages of her Memoir.72

  But although Washington captured her spirit and imagination, Jefferson remained the center of her world. She confided to her mother that she did not desire “any admiration but Jeffy’s,” and she esteemed his speeches, copies of which she sent her parents, as “great of course.” When she had to choose between going to social functions or staying at home with a sick husband, she remained by his side. On those occasions, caring and tender, she nursed a husband who in her own words always bore suffering “patiently.” But she was obviously thrilled when they went out together, and especially with “Jeff’s elegant manners.” She did not even mind his “flirt[ing] to his heart’s content” at one of her own gatherings. Even in the midst of this social whirl, Varina still thought seriously about herself. “My manners are much improved,” she stated to her mother. And she noted with pride, “I have lost a great deal of that emb[ar]rassed angry looking manner which made me [appear] to so much disadvantage.” Clearly, Washington was a maturing as well as a stirring experience for the young woman of nineteen.73

  For his part, Jefferson evinced emotions equally strong and solicitous. Sometime in the spring of 1846 the Davises engaged a place in Virginia no more than a day’s travel west of Washington, where they could escape the rising heat and humidity of the city. From this retreat in late June, Varina wrote her husband that she had become ill with an undisclosed malady. Responding immediately, he thanked her for the “sweet letter … bearing on its face that ardent love you have always manifested.…” Anxious about her illness, he wanted to be present “to cheer [your] heart and to relieve [your] pain.” He wished her with him, but reflection convinced him that she would be better off in the cooler climate. Before joining her, he was waiting for the vote on the tariff bill, but he made clear that “if my presence is necessary to you all other things must yield.” Unmentioned in his communication was any reference to a tension that in the previous two weeks had grown between them and might easily have contributed to Varina’s distress. By early June, Jefferson Davis had made a unilateral decision that would be crucial f
or his future and his marriage. He had decided to join the forces heading for the Mexican War.74

  CHAPTER SIX

  “It May Be That I Will Return with a Reputation”

  War broke out between the United States and Mexico because of James K. Polk’s expansionist policy. Not only was he determined to have an American Oregon, he also coveted California, the area below Oregon, which belonged to Mexico. At the same time President Polk was negotiating with Great Britain over Oregon, he was also attempting with intimidation and money to settle territorial matters with Mexico. When Texas entered the Union as a state in December 1845, it claimed the Rio Grande as its boundary. Mexico, never having recognized Texas’s independence, broke diplomatic relations with the United States to protest the annexation; and it insisted that the southern and western boundary of Texas rested on the Nueces River, around 130 miles north of the Rio Grande. Polk moved on two fronts, in the summer ordering a military force to cross the Nueces and in the fall of 1845 sending a diplomatic mission to Mexico with instructions to secure by purchase his territorial goals: the Rio Grande boundary; New Mexico as a land bridge between Texas and California; and, the great prize, California itself. But, confronting a public opinion extremely hostile to giving up any more territory, the Mexican government unceremoniously rebuffed Polk’s financial overtures.

  Even before the complete failure of his attempt to buy what he wanted, Polk had ordered an army of some 4,000 men under Brigadier General Zachary Taylor from the Nueces to the Rio Grande. While Mexico considered this movement an invasion, Polk wanted to position himself to defend American interests if war occurred after his diplomatic gambit failed, as it indeed did in March 1846. With word of the Mexican rebuff, he began to prepare a war message to Congress arguing that Mexico refused to recognize legitimate American claims. In the meantime two opposing forces glared at each other across the Rio Grande, and with such proximity conflict was almost inevitable. In late April an exchange of fire between Mexican and American units on the northern side of the river left eleven Americans dead. When that news reached Washington two weeks later, President Polk, proclaiming that Mexico had killed American soldiers on American soil, sent a war message to Congress on May 11. Responding promptly, Congress in two days voted men and money along with a declaration that war was the consequence of Mexican aggression. By that time, north of the Rio Grande, two pitched battles had taken place between the contesting armies, both resulting in American victories.1

  From the beginning, Congressman Jefferson Davis fell into step with the Mexican War. On May 11 he cast his ballot for the declaration of war and for raising men and money to fight it. Shortly thereafter the president asked for Davis’s opinion on appointments of officers for a new regiment. In his response Davis commented generally on the rank given those placed in the additional unit and suggested specifically a name for its commander. From the battle zone itself he heard from a former friend in uniform, “We have war in earnest on the Rio Grande.” When tidings of the American victories at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma reached Washington, Davis requested a suspension of House rules to propose a resolution specifying awards for all those engaged. Congress did commend all, but only General Taylor received a medal.2

  In Mississippi, war fever reigned. “TO ARMS TO ARMS!!!—MISSISIPPIANS!!!,” the cry of one newspaper reverberated throughout the state. In almost every county, militia units rushed to volunteer for service in the conflict. One Davis correspondent captured the ardor: “We are in great excitement, drums, beating, fifes, playing, flags flying, meetings holding, and ‘To Arms, to arms,’ in large Capitols stuck up at every corner of the streets, and at every fork of the roads.” In the eyes of this enthusiast, patriotism had superseded partisanship. “There is no Whig & Democrat now!” he wrote. “We are all one; striving shoulder to shoulder to prepare for the coming strife.” All hungered for news from Taylor’s army.

  Eager to join the fight, by June some 17,000 Mississippians in twenty-two separate militia organizations congregated at Vicksburg, the point designated for volunteers to be received into the United States Army. Bitter disappointment followed the information that the War Department had authorized from the state only one regiment of infantry for twelve months’ service. That directive held despite an effort by the governor to have the quota increased. In Vicksburg, the receiving officer selected ten companies to make up the First Mississippi Regiment. For this virgin unit of 936 officers and men, the initial order of business was the election of field officers, a colonel, a lieutenant colonel, and a major. The secretary of war had directed that officers be selected according to the laws of each given state.3

  Davis took a direct part in Mississippi events. He joined with others in the state’s congressional delegation to recommend to President Polk the appointment of John A. Quitman of Natchez as one of the new brigadier generals. Then, in a letter to a friend, which appeared in the Sentinel and Expositor and several other sheets in the state, he announced that he would very much like to command a Warren County unit. He thought his military education and experience would enable him “to be of service to Mississippians who take the field.” “If they wish it,” he declared, “I will join them as soon as possible, wherever they may be.”4

  The men of the First Mississippi certainly knew about Davis and his interest in leading them. The Democratic editor in Vicksburg pumped Davis as “a man of military knowledge—experience—sagacity—character, and high and soldier like bearing.” Furthermore, this champion of Congressman Davis proclaimed, “He is burning to leave the luxurious Halls of Congress and join his brethren on the Soldier’s field of toil and glory!” In addition, of the ten companies chosen for the regiment, three came from Davis’s home counties, two from Warren and one from Wilkinson, where he enjoyed particularly strong support even among Whigs. Of course, Davis’s statewide campaigns of 1844 and 1845 had given him a name and reputation throughout Mississippi. And he had clearly signaled that he would accept command of the regiment if offered to him.5

  Although Davis surely had his partisans among the volunteers, he was not the only person desirous of the colonelcy, and he was still in Washington when the vote took place on June 18. Five names, including Davis’s, were placed in nomination, including two major generals in the Mississippi militia, one of whom had been in the Second Seminole War. On the initial ballot, that veteran, Alexander B. Bradford, a fifty-six-year-old Whig from Marshall County in the northern part of the state, won a plurality with 350 votes. Davis ran a strong second with 300; the remainder were scattered. Under the laws of Mississippi, Bradford was elected because militia elections did not require a majority. Bradford, however, expressed the view that the colonel of the regiment should have a majority, not merely a plurality, and he immediately resigned. On the second ballot Davis emerged as almost the consensual choice, winning more than two-thirds of the votes. Now he was a full colonel and regimental commander, quite an advance beyond his previous highest rank of first lieutenant.6

  While Davis made himself visible both in Washington and in Mississippi as an advocate of the Mexican War and a possible participant in it, the subject became a major issue in his private life. From the onset of hostilities he had been talking with Varina about once again donning a uniform. She left him no room to doubt her wishes. Forcefully opposing his volunteering for active service, she termed their discussion “a struggle.” Although “it was carried on in love,” she found it “not the less bitter.” Finally, Jefferson promised Varina that he would not volunteer.

  That promise he did not keep. Almost as soon as he made it, he broke it. Despite his wife’s vigorous resistance, he decided unilaterally that once again he would become a soldier, but he did not forthrightly share with her that resolution. The allure of the war was simply too potent. He saw duty calling; with his nation drawing its sword, he could not envision remaining at home while his countrymen and literally his neighbors rushed to its defense. Moreover, the conflict presented an opportunity to test his educati
on and military training on a battlefield, a powerful magnet for a former professional soldier. Combat could also mean military glory for himself, an ambition shared by so many from his time and place. Finally, though he never articulated this consideration, Davis knew what accomplishments in war could mean for his political career. Since George Washington, military heroes had captivated Americans. Davis’s own personal hero, Andrew Jackson, had secured his place with American voters because of his performance at New Orleans in 1815. Antebellum Mississippians lived in a society filled with militia companies and militia officers. Military rank, even won as political patronage, carried prestige and respect. For Davis, as for most of his constituents, nothing else could match the esteem and honor of upholding the flag on the field of battle.

  Davis’s decision stunned his wife. Telling her mother that she “found out last night accidentally that he had committed himself about going,” she confessed, “I have cried until I am stupid, but you know there is ‘no use crying, better luck next time.’ ” Still, she grieved, “I am so miserable I feel as if I could lay down my life to be near you and Father.” She supposed that he could not help deciding to go, and in so doing violating his commitment to her, but her hurt was real. “Jeff thinks there is something the matter with me, but I know there is not,” she informed Margaret Howell. She did qualify her lament: “if Jeff was a cross bad husband, old, ugly, or stupid I could better bear for him to go on a year’s campaign, but he is so tender, and good that I feel like he ought never to leave me.” But he probably will, and “god only knows how bitter it is to me.” Still, “I can bear it.” Bearing it, however, would mean joining her parents. “If I must lose my only treasure, I will be with those equally dear to me.”7