Dixie Betrayed (10 page)

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these men came together in the great move to Richmond, which was accomplished by the end of May 1861. Before the war Richmond
was something of a contradiction. A city of 37,910 built along the James River, it embodied the upper South as well as the
cultural and historical richness of old Virginia. Richmond consisted of a blend of old aristocrats, ambitious lawyers and
businessmen, farmers and marketers, and plantation aristocracy with their precious slaves. The travelers bustling in and out
of the countryside to and from Washington to the north, Petersburg to the south, and Charlottesville and Lynchburg to the
west could be considerable—not to mention the river traffic. To the east lay the Virginia peninsula, with the towns of Hampton,
Norfolk, and the old Colonial center of Williamsburg. The mountains of western Virginia spread to the west and north, separating
the Virginians from the Yankees in Ohio, though the mountain men were more loyal to the North than Southerners initially imagined,
and even most of Richmond initially balked at leaving the Union before Virginia itself adopted its ordinance of secession.
Many Richmonders were conservative Whigs who were not particularly keen on seeing the Union dissolve. So the Confederacy would
be hosted by a somewhat inhospitable city.

Richmond ranked third in size among Southern cities, after New Orleans and Charleston. About a third of the city’s population
consisted of slaves. Richmond’s mayor, Joseph Mayo, supervised the slaves and free blacks in the city, all of whom had to
be careful in their conduct and lived with considerable limitations on their freedoms. For white Richmonders, be they professionals,
merchants, farmers, planters, or simply poor, bloodlines were held supreme: if you could trace yourself back to an early Virginia
Anglo-Saxon line, you were in good social standing among the city’s elite. If not, you simply didn’t matter. Many important
families with money and accomplishments stuck together in business and social events; they also intermarried, building wealth
and networks of social purity and aristocracy. Most labored in the city, which had the greatest concentration of heavy industry
in the South and a booming tobacco business fed by vast farms and plantations scattered throughout the Virginia countryside.

Richmond was a gridded city laid along the James River, with its central business and government district built on the northern
riverbank, north of what became known as Mayo’s Island. Two bridges, Mayo Bridge and the Richmond & Danville Railroad Bridge,
spanned the island. A second railroad bridge, that of the Richmond & Petersburg Railroad, stood to the west, halfway to the
largest nearby island in the James, Belle Isle. The southern riverbank held the city of Manchester. North of the Petersburg
bridge was Brown’s Island and the industrial area that was home to the Tredegar Iron Works, the most significant iron factory
in the South, chartered in 1837. West of this area sprawled Hollywood Cemetery, the city’s extravagant burial ground, founded
on a hilly plot in 1848. (James Monroe was entombed here.) Overlooking Hollywood and Brown’s Island stood Gamble’s Hill, near
which the Spotswood Hotel, the city’s most famous, was the place to be seen. North of the city lay a geographical rise that
came to be known as Shockoe Hill, which contained Shockoe Cemetery as well as many residences. The hill on the southeastern
edge of the city supported an extensive military drilling camp and was termed Chimborazo Hill, named after an Ecuadoran mountain.
(A Richmonder who had visited Ecuador likened the hill to the South American mountain, and the name stuck.) As the war accelerated,
this area was transformed into the largest hospital in the Confederacy. Nearby stood Oakwood Cemetery, another significant
burial ground. Southwest along the river was Rocketts Landing, the major docks of the city, and extensive tobacco warehouses,
as well as the fledgling Confederate States Navy Yard.

When the Confederacy went to war, Richmonders got organized. The organization focused on one spot: the city’s central, monumental
building was the Virginia State Capitol, a fantastic, Greek Revival structure with stunning porticoes finished with Ionic
columns. The cornerstone was laid in 1785, after the structure had been designed by Thomas Jefferson. By the mid-1800s the
surrounding ground, Capitol Square, had become a fashionable city park for all Richmonders. The square stood on high ground
overlooking the James River to the south. Inspired by the Roman temple at Nîmes, France, Jefferson had carefully planned the
structure, had plaster models of it created in Paris, and had personally overseen the building’s detailed construction until
the final exterior was finished, in 1797.
³

A walk of just a few minutes’ duration brought Richmonders to several other areas of interest around Capitol Square. Northwest
past the green grassy lawns, abundant spring flowers, and tall, handsome trees was the showpiece of the city, a bronze equestrian
statue of George Washington, which had been dedicated on Washington’s birthday in 1858. Southwest, parallel to Ninth Street,
down a terrace of lovely brick steps, was another prominent feature of Capitol Square, the Richmond Tocsin, or bell tower.
Constructed in 1824, this square brick building served both to warn Richmonders of fire and to commemorate glorious or sorrowful
events. On April 21, 1861, the Tocsin had sounded, warning of the reported approach of the gunboat USS
Pawnee
on the James. Citizens scrambled along with militia to high ground in the city as well as down to Rocketts Landing on the
James. The gunboat never came, however, on what was later recalled as Pawnee Sunday.

The remaining corner of the square, to the northeast, held the Executive Mansion, finished in 1813. This Federal-style house,
on the corner of Governor and Capitol streets, served as Governor John Letcher’s abode at the start of the war.

Wartime Richmond was, by modern standards, a small city with a downtown district that would today be considered quaint. Most
of the government buildings were clustered in the area between Capitol Square and the riverfront to the south. On Main Street,
between Tenth and Eleventh streets, on the southern side of the square, was the U.S. Post Office and Customs House, a Tuscan-Italianate
edifice constructed in 1858 (and rebuilt and enlarged since). On its move to Richmond, the Confederacy took over this building
and used it as the Treasury Department quarters and as an executive office for Jefferson Davis. The Confederate State Department
met on the building’s second floor, which also hosted cabinet sessions. The Confederate president’s office, where much of
the business of the war took place, was on the third floor of this building, facing the Capitol. Mechanic’s Hall, the site
of the Confederate War and Navy departments and the offices of Samuel Cooper and Robert G. H. Kean, chief of the Bureau of
War, stood on the corner opposite the Richmond Tocsin. In between the Customs House and Mechanic’s Hall stood a block of offices
housing the Signal Corps, the Paymaster’s Department, the Bureau of Nitre and Mining, and the Quartermaster’s Department.
The Signal Corps facilitated field and telegraphic communications. The Bureau of Nitre and Mining was charged with mining
resources.

Three long blocks northeast of Capitol Square, at Twelfth and Clay streets, stood the John Brockenbrough House, now known
as the White House of the Confederacy. This lovely mansion, built in 1818 and lived in by several occupants before the war—including
would-be Confederate Secretary of War James A. Seddon—had been purchased in 1861 by the city of Richmond as a residence for
the Jefferson Davis family. The beautiful two-story house had a basement that was used as a breakfast room and children’s
dining room. The first story contained an entrance hall and four large rooms: a dining room, central parlor, drawing room,
and library. The second floor included Jefferson Davis’s office—where he greeted many Confederate officials and held some
memorable meetings—a secretary’s office (occupied by Burton Harrison, the president’s secretary), a waiting room, the Davises’
bedroom, a dressing room, and the large nursery, where all the children slept. A third story, newly added at the time of the
war, contained rooms for Harrison, military aides, house servants, and family guests.
⁴

Immediately northwest of Capitol Square stood the city’s most celebrated house of worship, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. This
Greek Revival structure was completed in 1845; the Davis family attended church here, as did the Robert E. Lee family, when
in town. On Broad Street, the Monumental Church (Episcopalian) was completed in 1814 as a memorial to seventy-two victims
of a theater fire that had occurred on the spot three years earlier. The Old First Baptist Church, another Greek Revival structure
at East Broad and Twelfth streets, was built in 1839 and served as a Confederate hospital during the war. To the east, across
Shockoe Valley, stood St. John’s Church, where Patrick Henry delivered his “Give me liberty or give me death!” speech.

O
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July 20, 1861, the ninety-nine members of the Confederate Congress, led by Howell Cobb, met for their first session in Richmond,
which would last until the end of August.
⁵
The military situation was so dominated by organizing, recruiting, and drilling on both sides that little in the way of battles
had taken place since Sumter. Minor skirmishes had occurred in Virginia at the towns of Fairfax Court House, Philippi, and
Big Bethel, and in the western part of the state the situation was heating up. But so far the war had involved mostly pregame
preparation. That was about to change along the banks of a little creek near Manassas dubbed Bull Run. Here, the armies of
Gen. Joe Johnston, commanding the Army of the Shenandoah, and Brig. Gen. G. T. Beauregard, leading the Army of the Potomac
(the armies adopted geographical names for two of the region’s important rivers) met the Yankee army of Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell,
the so-called Army of Northeastern Virginia. The battle of First Manassas (or First Bull Run) commenced on July 21, 1861.
Spectators had packed picnic baskets and carried wagonloads of citizens from surrounding villages and from Washington to see
the great battle. Some U.S. congressmen were even in attendance—one, Alfred Ely, was captured by the Rebs. When the smoke
cleared, most of the Yankee army had bid the battlefield a hasty retreat and skedaddled back to Washington, and the Confederates
considered themselves victorious in a day of glory.

Richmond celebrated. At the Confederate Department of State, Robert Hunter reported on Manassas:

It affords me extreme pleasure to announce to you in my first official communication the glorious victory achieved by our
army over the forces of the United States, on Sunday, the 21st instant, at Manassas, in this state. . . . For weeks previous
to the battle of Manassas the Northern press teemed with boastful assurances of the vast superiority of the Federal Army over
that of the Confederate States. . . . The result has proved how delusive was their confidence in their superiority and in
our weakness.
⁶

Jefferson Davis himself had ridden out to the field to supervise the effort. “Night has closed upon a hard-fought field,”
he reported in a message to Congress. “Our forces were victorious. The enemy was routed, and fled precipitately, abandoning
a large amount of arms, ammunition, knapsacks, and baggage. The ground was strewn for miles with those killed, and the farmhouses
and the ground around were filled with wounded. . . . Too high praise cannot be bestowed, whether for the skill of the principal
officers or for the gallantry of all of our troops.”
⁷
In what would turn out to be the single verifiable instance of a “battlefield promotion” in the war, Davis bestowed upon
G. T. Beauregard the appointment of full general in the Army of the Confederate States. However, divisive splits already were
appearing between Davis and the general.

Beauregard’s history with Davis had been good. On Davis’s oath as president, Beauregard had immediately sent him a letter
of congratulations; in response Davis had made him the first brigadier general in the Confederacy, the ranking brigadier general,
and sent him to South Carolina’s governor, Francis Pickens. Beauregard had become the first great hero of the Confederacy
at Sumter, and as such, he was treated everywhere with the utmost respect and profound awe. Beauregard had become the first
commander of the Army of the Potomac (C.S.A.), occupying Centreville, Virginia, after Union forces beat him to Alexandria.
At Manassas he and Johnston more or less had combined forces to defeat McDowell, and Davis’s battlefield reward sat well with
the Little Creole, as he was called due to his short stature.

But Beauregard, bolstered by his ego from successes at Sumter and Manassas, wanted to be an independent army commander, with
his own army and no superior to answer to, and Davis wouldn’t allow this. Davis pointed out sharply that when Johnston was
absent, Beauregard, as number two, would be in command. But Johnston was not about to leave and allow Beauregard to take over.

Although Beauregard did not hold this against Johnston, he was furious with Davis—despite the fact that the Confederate president’s
refusal of his request made military sense. As for Johnston, he was still furious with Davis over the rank question. As the
Confederate armies settled in after Manassas, camping within staring distance of each other, the bad feelings percolated.
It was a rocky start for Davis and his two most important field generals.

In the wake of First Manassas, these thistles would be wrapped in a veneer of success and pushed away in the glow of Confederate
patriotism. “We arrived here safely on Wednesday evening, and immediately drove out to the Texas camp to see President Davis
present a flag that Mama had made for them,” wrote Louise Wigfall, daughter of Louis Wigfall, the aide of President Davis
and a Confederate senator. “He made a beautiful speech and was vociferously cheered. . . . Oh! how glad I was when I first
put my foot on Confederate soil. . . . We went to the President’s last night and he was very agreeable as usual, we took tea
with him the night we arrived, and I had the honor of a kiss from Jeff, I declare I have almost fallen
in love
with him.”
⁸
In Richmond Howell Cobb, leader of the Congress, penned his wife a letter, suggesting fast independence. “From the tone of
the Northern papers I infer that the people there are getting sick of the war and since their disastrous defeat at Manassas
they begin to talk of peace,” he declared. “Besides their people are not volunteering very freely for the war and their treasury
is getting low and their credit lower. From all which it would seem a very natural conclusion that they cannot continue the
war much longer.”
⁹