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(From Henry 8. Foote's “War of the Rebellion.’’] Jefferson Davis. I saw him first in the city of Vicksburg, more than thirty years ago, as Lieutenant Davis. He was then a young man of modest and pleasing aspect and manners, but gave slight in ns of any abilities likely to lead to future distinc tion. He married,left the army, and settled himself on a plantation of respectable dimen sions in the southern part of the county of War ren, some twenty miles from the city of Vicks burg, where he has constantly resided since, until he became president of the confederate States. Mr. Davis and his official associates had no correct conception of the true character and dimensions of the war into which they had so hastily plunged, as was afterward frankly con fessed in many a lugubrious harangue, and in more than one solemn official document. They did not believe at first that the conflict would endure for a twelve-month, and were even weak enough to calculate most confidently on strong Northern aid, which it is now well known there never was the least probability of their receiving; albeit ex-President Pierce and sev ral others, whose letters to Mr. Davis have recently seen the light, had plied this confiding personage with secret promises of support, upon which he built in this hopes of one day wielding an imperial scepter. As to the interposition of foreign powers in behalf of the now warring States of the South, though many deceitful assurances were re ceived from abroad at different periods of the contest, no man of sound intellect anywhere now supposes that either the French or Eng lish Government ever seriously thought of em broiling itself in a transatlantic civic feud. Mr. Davis vetoed more bills during the short pro visional regime than all the Presidents of the United States put together, from Washington to Lincoln inclusive, and no attempt to pass a single bill over his head was ever made. DAVIS’ CABINET. There were only two of these functionaries whose official qualifications were even respect able, the attorney general, Mr. Watts, of Ala bama, and the postmaster general, Mr. Reagan, of Texas. The secretary of war, Mr. Benja min, desires his inability to meet the military exigeneiees which he had been encountering, as well as the more serious ones in prospect, was subject to other objections as the incumbent of a high cabinet position of the greatest and most vital character. His reputation for in tegrity had never been good, and of late years it had become deeply tarnished by his known participancy in schemes of notorious corrup tion, both in the State of Louisiana and in Wapengton City. The offensive moral odor arising from the celebrated Houmas fraud, one of the most unblushing and profigate legisla tive transactions, that had ever disgraced the annals of a free people, had affixed such a stig ma upon the reputation both of Mr. Benjamin and his friend and patron, Mr. John A. Slidell, as it was not possible that any lapse of time could entirely efface. SEDDON. The career of Mr. Seddon as secretary of war will long be remembered by all who ever en tered the war department, while he sat en throned therein, with unmingled regret and in dignation. It may be safely asserted that he did not possess one of the qualities needful to a creditable and useful performance of the du ties which were now devolved on him. He was never able to learn even the ordinary routine of official business, and often scornfully declined attendance to matters of the most urgent importance. He was as arrogant and insulting to those who approached him in his official sanctum as he was notoriously servile and fawning to his own executive chief. He evinced, from his very entrance into office, an utter disregard of all constitutional obligations, and in the exercise of the authority committed to him he proved himself to be the most heart less and ruffianly tyrant whom I ever yet saw in the possession of official power. Though he had always been an ardent State-rights man in profession, up to the breaking out of the war, it soon became evident that he had never sin cerely cherished the smallest regard for the principles embodied in the well known State rights creed; and he habitually trampled uno der foot, and without a blush upon his livid and amibilious visage, all the anciently recog nized muniments of State sovereignty. GENERAL HINDMAN ONE OF DAVIS’ PETS. General Hindman, of Arkansas, when a very young man, had in the State of Mississippi been a most noisy and unscrupulous advocate of Jef ferson Lvavis and secession, at that time pro pounded—had afterward gone to Arkansas, where he had led for many years a very tur bulent and disreputable life, but by force of port drill had been sent for a year or two to the Federal Congress—when the war broke out, Was almost immediately ‘as a high military command, and was rapidly promoted until, as a major general, he was sent to the State of his residence for the purpose of holding an impor tant position there. This man, as his own formal report to the war department evidenced, finding, as he said, that the very comprehen sive provisions of the conscription law were not quite comprehensive enough to suit his pur poses, deliberately amplified them by proclama tion, declared martial law throughout Arkan sas and the northern portion of Texas, and de manded the services of all whom he had dug illegally and tyrannically embraced in his own ‘wide-sweeping conscription list. All who refused to obey his mandate, as he expressly confesses, were apprehended, sub jected to trial by a military court appointed at the instant by Hindman himself, and when convicted, as a number of them were, of an of fense, which he unblushingly acknowledges in this same report, wholly unknown to the law of the land, he had them executed, and, going even beyond the infernal Jeffreys himself in barbarity, he, as he also ostentatiously declares in that same report, took care to be present to witness the dying agonies of his victims. This man seized upon all the cotton and other prop erty for which he had used (as he boldly avows), burned some, retained some, and ap ropriated a third portion to such purposes as he pleased. His cruelties were so enormous in Arkansas that it became unsafe that he should remain there longer. SEDDON AS A CHEAT. And yet Mr. Davis retained this man in the office of secretary of war, amid continual in dications of popular indignation and disgust, from month to month and from year to year; nor would he have been at last seen to vacate the official position which he had 80 long deep , dishonored, but for the undeniable fact that had directly charged him upon recorded tes tmony—that is to say, upon the evidences sup plied by the books of his own department—of aving caused to be paid to himself, by his own ficial subordinates, forty dollars per bushel for is whole crop of wheat for the year 1864, while e was, by the instrumentality of forcible im ressment, earns the farmers of North arolina, Georgia, and other States, to yield up feir wheat to the Sheena officials at the s adequate price of from seven to nine dollars 1 confederate paper. I made this exposition in ie last speech which I delivered ‘in the confed rate pe ee Mr. Seddon resigned the department of war ie very next day. As chairman of a special ymmittee of the confederate Congress, organ ic in my own instance, for the purpose of in tiring into cases of illegal imprisonment, I stained from the superintendent of the prison- ruse in Richmond, under the official sanction ,the department of war itself,a grimy and mocking catalogue of several hundred prison s then in confinement therein, not one of vom was charged with any thing but sus ptect political infidelity, and this, too, not von oath in a single instance. Before ,could the proper steps to procure the discharge of tese ouy men, the second suspension of te writ of liberty occurred, and I presume that ech of them as did not die in jail remained un t the fall of Richmond into the hands of the fderal forces. THE ERLANGER LOAN. The celebrated Erlanger loan, the iton tenlist in which came to Richmond under to sinister auspices of Mr. John A. Slidell, gamed to a considerable number of the mem ors of the confederate congress to be a specu laive Lage be roel set on foot chiefly for th benefit of Messrs. Slidell, Jamin Co., thir aiders and abetters in the United States and in foreign countries, and therefore we fled most earnestly to defeat it by every expedient known to parliamentary tactics. By the aid of the celebrated ten minutes rule and the sitting with closed doors, it was carried by a somewhat meager majority in the house. FOREIGN INTERVENTION. The fact was very well known to me that Mr. Davis and his friends were confidently look ing for foreign aid, and from several quarters. It was stated in my hearing repeatedly, and by several special friends of the confederate presi dent, that one hundred thousand French sol diers were expected to arrive within the limits of the confederate states by the way of Mexico; while it was more than rumored that a secret compact, wholly unauthorized by the confeder ate constitution, with certain Polish commis sioners who had been lately on a visit to Rich mond, had been effected, by means of which Mr. Davis would soon be supplied with some thirty thousand additional troops, then refu gees from Poland, and sojourning in several uropean States, which latter force, when it should arrive, not being levied under congres sional authority, would be completely at the command of the President for any purpose whatever. :
Newspaper Details
Cincinnati Commercial
Cincinnati, Ohio, US
Mon, Feb 26, 1866
Page 3
Full Page
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Tanisha C.
USA 01 Jul 2026
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