The Civil War: A Narrative: Fredericksburg to Meridian (132 page)

The shock felt by Davis at this all but final evidence that the Confederacy would have to “fight it out,” as he had said, without the hope of foreign intervention—for it was generally understood that France could not act without England, and Russia had been pro-Union from the start—was lessened somewhat, or at any rate displaced, by an even greater shock which he received on reading a letter the South’s first soldier had written him four days after Benjamin wrote Mason. From Orange Courthouse, his new headquarters south of the Rapidan, Lee sent the President on August 8 what seemed at first to be some random musings on the outcome of the Gettysburg campaign. His tone was one of acceptance and resolution, of confidence in what he called “the virtue of the whole people.… Nothing is wanting,” he declared, “but that their fortitude should equal their bravery to insure the success of our cause. We must expect reverses, even defeats. They are sent to teach us wisdom and prudence, to call forth greater energies, and to prevent our falling into greater disasters. Our people have only to be true and united, to bear manfully the misfortunes incident to war, and all will come right in the end.” Davis agreed. In fact he had spent the past month saying much the same thing, not only to the public at large, but also, more specifically, to the heads of the nation’s armies, including Lee. Nor did he disagree with what came next, having heard it before from his dead
friend and hero Albert Sidney Johnston, who had been the subject of far more violent attacks by the press in another time of crisis. “I know how prone we are to censure,” Lee continued, “and how ready [we are] to blame others for the non-fulfillment of our expectations. This is unbecoming in a generous people, and I grieve to see its expression. The general remedy for want of success in a military commander is his removal. This is natural, and in many instances proper. For no matter what may be the ability of the officer, if he loses the confidence of his troops disaster must sooner or later ensue.” For all his basic agreement with the principle here expressed, Davis was by no means prepared for the application Lee made in the sentence that followed: “I have been prompted by these reflections more than once since my return from Pennsylvania to propose to Your Excellency the propriety of selecting another commander for this army.”

There was where the shock came in. Davis read on with mounting apprehension as Lee explained what had brought him to make this request. Moreover, the care with which he had chosen his words indicated plainly that the letter had not been written as a mere gesture, but rather with publication in mind, as the closing document of a career that had ended in failure and sadness, but not in bitterness or despair:

Davis was dismayed. He had by now become reconciled to the permanent loss of some 15,000 of the South’s best fighting men at Gettysburg, but if that defeat was also going to cost him Lee, who had held the North’s main army at bay for more than a year and had provoked the removal of four of its commanders in the process, the loss might well be insupportable. Moreover, recent adversity East and West had drawn the two men even closer to one another, in their service to an imperiled cause, than they had been fifteen months ago in Richmond during a similar time of strain. Whether the nation could survive without Lee at the head of its first-line army Davis did not know, but he doubted that he himself could. “I need your counsel,” he had written him earlier that week. Besides, for Davis, loyalty rendered was invariably returned, and Lee was not only personally loyal, he was also modest, magnanimous, and unselfish. Contrasting these qualities with those lately encountered in that other Virginian, that other Johnston—Joe—Davis could tell his ranking field commander: “Were you capable of stooping to it, you could easily surround yourself with those who would fill the press with your laudations, and seek to exalt you for what you had not done rather than detract from the achievements which will make you and your army the subject of history and object of the world’s admiration for generations to come.” Such words might serve to ease the sting of the lashings the journalists had been handing out. As for the general’s failing health, this too could be set aside as no valid reason for resigning, Davis believed, even without the example of his own debilitation, which included loss of sight in one eye and searing pain that sometimes made the other almost useless. “I am truly sorry to know that you still feel the effects of the illness you suffered last spring, and can readily understand the embarrassment you experience in using the eyes of others, having been so much accustomed to make your own reconnaissances. Practice will however do much to relieve that embarrassment, and the minute knowledge of the country which you have acquired will render you less dependent for topographical information.”

These things he could and did say, along with much else, in an attempt to dissuade Lee from resigning and thus spare the nation the calamitous loss of his service in the field. Fully conscious of the importance of choosing the proper tone and phrasing, he spent two days studying the general’s letter and composing his own thoughts by way of rebuttal.
Then on August 11, incorporating the sentences quoted above, he wrote his answer:

After this, there was no more talk of Lee resigning. As long as the Army of Northern Virginia existed he would remain at its head.

III

Riot and Resurgence