May 4, 1862 (Satuday): Davis' Driver Talks?

Confederate President6 Jefferson Davis

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE RAPPAHANNOCK, May 4, 1862.
Hon. E. M. STANTON,
Secretary of War:
    A (edit) man came in to-day from the other side of the river and represented himself as Jeff. Davis' coachman, and from my examination of him I am satisfied he was so. He reports scraps of conversation overheard by him while driving Mr. and Mrs. Davis in the carriage, and between Mr. Davis and those who came to see him. Mr. Davis and General J. E. Johnston had some heated discussion about the latter's retreat from Manassas; Mr. Davis disapproving of it and ordering a stand to be made at Gordonsville, which Johnston declined to do, and offered to resign, and was even indisposed to go to Yorktown. Mrs. Davis said she thought this very bad in him to be unwilling to go and help General Magruder. The coachman overheard the conversation between Johnston and Davis' wife, the former saying if he had not left Manassas when he did that McClellan would have come out against him and cut him all to pieces. Mrs. Davis read an article in the Richmond Examiner to her husband, saying that it was part of the Yankees' plans that General Blanks and McDowell were to form a junction in Louisa or Carolina Counties and move down on Richmond. Davis remarked that he thought that was so, but that his generals would take care of them. On the same subject he overheard a conversation between Davis and Doctor Gwin, former U. S. Senator from California. Davis said that he had sent General J. R. Anderson from North Carolina to resist the march of the Federals from Fredericksburg and to delay them long enough for him to see the probable result of the contest before Yorktown, so that if that was likely to be unsuccessful he would have time to extricate his army form the Peninsula and get them into Richmond and out of Virginia; that otherwise they would all be caught. The coachman represents that Mrs. Davis said the Confederacy was about played out; that if New Orleans was really taken she had no longer any interests in the matter, as all she had was there; that it was a great pity they had ever attempted to heed Virginia and the other non-cotton-growing States; that she said to Mrs. D. R. Jones, daughter of Colonel James Taylor, U. S. Commissary-general of subsistence, and who very anxious to get to Washington, where she has one of her children, not to give herself any trouble, but only to stay where she was, and when the Yankees came into Richmond she could go. He says Mr. and Mrs. Davis have all their books, clothing, and pictures packed up ready to move off; that there is much outspoken Union feeling in Richmond that, having been waiter in a hotel, he knows all the Union men of the place, and that the Yankees are looked for with much pleasure, more by the whites than even by the (edit) people. The Confederate money is not taken when it can be avoided. Mrs. Davis herself was refused when she offered a ten-dollar Confederate note, which she did in payment for something purchased for Mrs. Brown. Many of the Richmond people wish the Union troops to come, as they are half starved out. The bank and Government property are all packed up for Danville, N. C. [Va.] General Johnston did not think they would succeed at Yortkown. Overheard officers say if they failed at Yortkown and New Orleans they would leave Virginia.



IRVIN McDOWELL,
Major-General.

Series I., Vol. 51, Part 1, Page 597.

How much of this story is true and how much was invention is difficult to say.  The level of detail argues for the account, but the idea Davis wanted to make a stand at Gordonsville is not validated by any other accounts.  Johnston, who after the war never shrunk from detailed disagreements with Davis, makes no mention in his writings of an intention by Davis to make a stand at Gordonsville.  But Gordonsville was a supply depot and Johnston did move supplies there on leaving Manassas.  Davis was greatly upset with the abandonment of public property in the withdrawal and he may well have instructed Davis to secure the safety of supplies sent to Gordonsville before retreating further.