Bloody Times: The Funeral of Abraham Lincoln and the Manhunt for Jefferson Davis Read online

  JAMES L. SWANSON

  BLOODY

  TIMES

  THE FUNERAL OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND

  THE MANHUNT FOR JEFFERSON DAVIS

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Introduction

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Epilogue

  A Note to the Reader

  Who’s Who

  Union

  Glossary

  For Further Reading

  Places to Go

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  In the spring of 1865, the country was divided in two: the Union in the North, led by Abraham Lincoln, fighting to keep the Southern states from seceding from the United States. The South, led by its president, Jefferson Davis, believed it had the absolute right to quit the Union in order to preserve its way of life, including the right to own slaves. The bloody Civil War had lasted four years and cost 620,000 lives. In April 1865, the war was about to end.

  Introduction

  In April of 1865, as the Civil War drew to a close, two men set out on very different journeys. One, Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America, was on the run, desperate to save his family, his country, and his cause. The other, Abraham Lincoln, murdered on April 14, was bound for a different destination: home, the grave, and everlasting glory.

  Today everybody knows the name of Abraham Lincoln. But before 1858, when Lincoln ran for the United States Senate (and lost the election), very few people had heard of him. Most people of those days would have recognized the name of Jefferson Davis. Many would have predicted Davis, not Lincoln, would become president of the United States someday.

  Born in 1808, Jefferson Davis went to private schools and studied at a university, then moved on to the United States Military Academy at West Point. A fine horseback rider, he looked elegant in the saddle. He served as an officer in the United States army on the western frontier, and then became a planter, or a farmer, in Mississippi and was later elected a United States Congressman and later a senator. As a colonel in the Mexican-American War, he was wounded in battle and came home a hero.

  Davis knew many of the powerful leaders of his time, including presidents Zachary Taylor and Franklin Pierce. He was a polished speech maker with a beautiful speaking voice. Put simply, he was well-known, respected, and admired in both the North and the South of the country.

  What Davis had accomplished was even more remarkable because he was often ill. He was slowly going blind in one eye, and he periodically suffered from malaria, which gave him fevers, as well as a painful condition called neuralgia. He and his young wife, Sarah Knox Taylor, contracted malaria shortly after they were married. She succumbed to the disease. More than once he almost died. But his strength and his will to live kept him going.

  Abraham Lincoln’s life started out much different from Jefferson Davis’s. Born in 1809, he had no wealthy relatives to help give him a start in life. His father was a farmer who could not read or write and who gave Abe an ax at the age of nine and sent him to split logs into rails for fences. His mother died while Lincoln was still a young boy. When his father remarried, Abe’s stepmother, Sarah, took a special interest in Abe.

  By the time Abe Lincoln grew up, he’d had less than a year of school. But he’d managed to learn to read and write, and he wanted a better life for himself than that of a poor farmer. He tried many different kinds of jobs: piloting a riverboat, surveying (taking careful measurement of land to set up boundaries), keeping a store, and working as a postmaster.

  He read books to teach himself law so that he could practice as an attorney. Finally in 1846 he was elected to the U.S. Congress. He served an unremarkable term, and at the end of two years, he left Washington and returned to Illinois and his law office. He was hardworking, well-off, and respected by the people who knew him—but not nearly as well-known or as widely admired as Jefferson Davis.

  It may seem that two men could not be more different than Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. But in fact, they had many things in common. Both Davis and Lincoln loved books and reading. Both had children who died young. One of Davis’s sons, Samuel, died when he was still a baby, and another, Joseph, died after an accident while Davis was the president of the Confederacy. Lincoln, too, lost one son, Eddie, at a very young age and another, Willie, his favorite, while he was president of the United States.

  Both men fell in love young, and both lost the women they loved to illness. When he was twenty-four years old, Davis fell for Sarah Knox Taylor. Called Knox, she was just eighteen and was the daughter of army general and future president Zachary Taylor. It took Davis two years to convince her family to allow her to marry him—but at last he did. Married in June of 1835, just three months later both he and Knox fell ill with malaria, and she died. Davis was devastated. His grief changed him—afterward he was quieter, sterner, a different man.

  Eight years later, he found someone else to love. He married Varina Howell, the daughter of a wealthy family. For the rest of his life, Davis would depend on Varina’s love, advice, and loyalty. They would eventually have six children; only two would outlive Jefferson Davis.

  Lincoln was still a young man when he met and fell in love with Ann Rutledge. Everyone expected them to get married, but before that could happen, Ann became ill and died. Lincoln himself never talked or wrote about Ann after her death. But those who knew him at the time remembered how crushed and miserable he was to lose her. Some even worried that he might kill himself.

  Abraham Lincoln recovered and eventually married Mary Todd. But their marriage was not as happy as that of Jefferson and Varina. Mary was a woman of shifting moods. Jealous, insulting, rude, selfish, careless with money, she was difficult to live with.

  By far the greatest difference between Davis and Lincoln was their view on slavery. Davis, a slave owner, firmly believed that white people were superior to blacks, and that slavery was good for black people, who needed and benefited from having masters to rule over them. He also believed that the founding fathers of the United States, the men who had written the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, a number of whom had owned slaves, had intended slavery to be part of America forever.

  Lincoln thought slavery was simply wrong, and he believed that the founders hadn’t intended it always to exist in the United States. Lincoln was willing to let slavery remain legal in the states where it was already permitted. But he thought that slavery should not be allowed to spread into the new states entering the Union in the American south and southwest. Every new state to join the country, Lincoln firmly believed, should prohibit slavery.

  Lincoln explained his views in several famous debates during his campaign for Senate in 1858. The campaign debates between Lincoln and Stephen Douglas brought Lincoln to national attention for the first time. Though he lost that Senate race, his new visibility enabled Lincoln to win the presidential nomination and election in 1860. To the surprise of many, it was Abraham Lincoln who became the president of the United States by winning less than 40 percent o
f the popular vote. More people voted for the other three candidates running for president than for Lincoln.

  Oil portrait of Lincoln as he appeared on the eve of victory in 1865.

  Chapter One

  On the morning of Sunday, April 2, 1865, Richmond, Virginia, capital city of the Confederate States of America, did not look like a city at war. The White House of the Confederacy was surprisingly close to—one hundred miles from—the White House in Washington, D.C. But the armies of the North had never been able to capture Richmond. After four years of war, Richmond had not been invaded by Yankees. The people there had thus far been spared many of the horrors of fighting. This morning everything appeared beautiful and serene. The air smelled of spring, and fresh green growth promised a season of new life.

  As he usually did on Sundays, President Jefferson Davis walked from his mansion to St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. One of the worshippers, a young woman named Constance Cary, recalled the day: “On the Sunday morning of April 2, a perfect Sunday of the Southern spring, a large congregation assembled as usual at St. Paul’s.” As the service went on, a messenger entered the church. He brought Jefferson Davis a telegram from Robert E. Lee.

  The telegram was not addressed to Davis, but to his secretary of war, John C. Breckinridge. Breckinridge had sent it on to Davis. It told devastating news: The Union army was approaching the city gates, and the Army of Northern Virginia, with Lee in command, was powerless to stop them.

  Headquarters, April 2, 1865

  General J. C. Breckinridge:

  I see no prospect of doing more than holding our position here till night. I am not certain that I can do that. . . . I advise that all preparation be made for leaving Richmond tonight. I will advise you later, according to circumstances.

  R. E. Lee

  On reading the telegram, Davis did not panic, but he turned pale and quietly rose to leave the church. The news quickly spread through Richmond. “As if by a flash of electricity, Richmond knew that on the morrow her streets would be crowded by her captors, her rulers fled . . . her high hopes crushed to earth,” Constance Cary wrote later. “I saw many pale faces, some trembling lips, but in all that day I heard no expression of a weakling fear.”

  Many people did not believe that Richmond would be captured. General Lee would not allow it to happen, they told themselves. He would protect the city, just as the army had before. In the spring of 1865, Robert E. Lee was the greatest hero in the Confederacy, more popular than Jefferson Davis, who many people blamed for their country’s present misfortunes. With Lee to defend them, many people of Richmond refused to believe that before the sun rose the next morning, life as they knew it would come to an end.

  Jefferson Davis walked from St. Paul’s to his office. He summoned the leaders of his government to meet with him there at once. Davis explained to his cabinet that the fall of Richmond would not mean the death of the Confederate States of America. He would not stay behind to surrender the capital. If Richmond was doomed to fall, then the president and the government would leave the city, travel south, and set up a new capital in Danville, Virginia, 140 miles to the southwest. The war would go on.

  Jefferson Davis at the height of his power.

  Davis told the cabinet to pack their most important records and send them to the railroad station. What they could not take, they must burn. The train would leave tonight, and he expected all of them to be on it. Secretary of War John C. Breckinridge would stay behind in Richmond to make sure the evacuation of the government went smoothly, and then follow the train to Danville. Davis ordered the train to take on other cargo, too: the Confederate treasury, consisting of half a million dollars in gold and silver coins.

  After spending most of the afternoon working at his office, Davis walked home to pack his few remaining possessions. The house was eerily still. His wife, Varina, and their four children had already evacuated to Charlotte, North Carolina. His private secretary, Burton Harrison, had gone with them to make sure they reached safety.

  Varina had begged to stay with her husband in Richmond until the end. Jefferson said no, that for their safety, she and the children must go. He understood that she wanted to help and comfort him, he told her, “but you can do this in but one way, and that is by going yourself and taking our children to a place of safety.” What he said next was frightening: “If I live,” he promised, “you can come to me when the struggle is ended.”

  On March 29, the day before Varina and the children left Richmond, Davis gave his wife a revolver and taught her how to use it. He also gave her all the money he had, saving just one five-dollar gold piece for himself. Varina and the children left the White House on Thursday, March 30. “Leaving the house as it was,” Varina wrote later, “and taking only our clothing, I made ready with my young sister and my four little children, the eldest only nine years old, to go forth into the unknown.” The children did not want to leave their father. “Our little Jeff begged to remain with him,” Varina wrote, “and Maggie clung to him . . . for it was evident he thought he was looking his last upon us.” The president took his family to the station and put them aboard a train.

  While Jefferson Davis spent his last night in the Confederate White House, alone, without his family, he did not know that Abraham Lincoln had left his own White House several days ago and was now traveling in Virginia. Lincoln was visiting the Union army. The Union president did not want to go home until he had won the war. And he dreamed of seeing Richmond.

  Chapter Two

  On March 23 at 1:00 P.M., Lincoln left Washington, bound south on the ship River Queen. His wife, Mary, came with him, along with their son Tad. A day later the vessel anchored off City Point, Virginia, headquarters of General Grant and the Armies of the United States.

  Lincoln met with his commanders to discuss the war. General William Tecumseh Sherman asked Lincoln about his plans for Jefferson Davis. Many in the North wanted Davis hanged if he was captured. Did Lincoln think so, too? Lincoln answered Sherman by saying that all he wanted was for the Southern armies to be defeated. He wanted the Confederate soldiers sent back to their homes, their farms, and their shops. Lincoln didn’t answer Sherman’s question about Jefferson Davis directly. But he told a story.

  There was a man, Lincoln said, who had sworn never to touch alcohol. He visited a friend who offered him a drink of lemonade. Then the friend suggested that the lemonade would taste better with a little brandy in it. The man replied that if some of the brandy were to get into the lemonade “unbeknown to him,” that would be fine.

  Sherman believed that Lincoln meant it would be the best thing for the country if Jefferson Davis were simply to leave and never return. As the Union president, Lincoln could hardly say in public that he wanted a man who had rebelled against his government to get away without punishment. But if Davis were to escape “unbeknown to him,” as Lincoln seemed to be suggesting, that would be fine.

  At City Point Lincoln received reports and sent messages. He haunted the army telegraph office for news of the battles raging in Virginia. He knew that soon Robert E. Lee must make a major decision: Would he sacrifice his army in a final, hopeless battle to defend Richmond, or would he abandon the Confederate capital and save his men to fight another day?

  In the afternoon of April 2, Lee telegraphed another warning to Jefferson Davis in Richmond. “I think it absolutely necessary that we should abandon our position tonight,” he wrote. Lee had made his choice. His army would retreat. Richmond would be captured.

  Davis packed some clothes, retrieved important papers and letters from his private office, and waited at the mansion. Then a messenger brought him word: The officials of his government had assembled at the station. The train that would carry the president and the cabinet of the Confederacy was loaded and ready to depart.

  Davis and a few friends left the White House, mounted their horses, and rode to the railroad station. Crowds did not line the streets to cheer their president or to shout best wishes for his journey. The citi
zens of Richmond were locking up their homes, hiding their valuables, or fleeing the city before the Yankees arrived. Throughout the day and into the night, countless people left however they could—on foot, on horseback, in carriages, in carts, or in wagons. Some rushed to the railroad station, hoping to catch the last train south. Few would escape.

  But not all of Richmond’s inhabitants dreaded the capital’s fall. Among the blacks of Richmond, the mood was happy. At the African church, it was a day of jubilation. Worshippers poured into the streets, congratulated one another, and prayed for the coming of the Union army.

  When Jefferson Davis got to the station, he hesitated. Perhaps the fortunes of war had turned in the Confederacy’s favor that night. Perhaps Lee had defeated the enemy after all, as he had done so many times before. For an hour Davis held the loaded and waiting train in hopes of receiving good news from Lee. That telegram never came. The Army of Northern Virginia would not save Richmond from its fate.

  Dejected, the president boarded the train. He did not have a private luxurious sleeping car built for the leader of a country. Davis took his seat in a common coach packed with the officials of his government. The train gathered steam and crept out of the station at slow speed, no more than ten miles per hour. It was a humble, sobering departure of the president of the Confederate States of America from his capital city.

  As the train rolled out of Richmond, most of the passengers were somber. There was nothing left to say. “It was near midnight,” Postmaster General John Reagan, on board the train, remembered, “when the President and his cabinet left the heroic city. As our train, frightfully overcrowded, rolled along toward Danville we were oppressed with sorrow for those we left behind us and fears for the safety of General Lee and his army.”