LS, signed "Jefferson Davis," seven pages on four sheets, 5.5 x 9, September 2, 1873. Marked "Private," a letter to legislator, author, and diplomat William B. Reed, who sent Davis a critique of J. Esten Cooke's Life of General Robert E. Lee, which had appeared in the Edinburgh Review. Davis responds with his penetrating criticism of both the biography and reviewer, while soundly defending Lee.
In part: "I intended before this to have written to you on the subject of the review on the life of R. E. Lee by Esten Cooke which you had the kindness to hand me. If, as I suppose, the article in the Edinburg was by an English officer who was among us during the war, I am surprised that his information did not correct the many inaccuracies of the author, & detect the malevolent spirit which pervades his book. You will no doubt remember how sharp was the criticism of Lee in the early part of the war & that the President was abused, for confiding high commands to Lee merely because he had been a school fellow & early friend; a variety of interest combined to make Lee the scape goat of the failure of the campaign in Western Virginia & so much was he discredited at that time that when he was sent to South Carolina, the President thought it necessary to write to Gov. Pickens & assure him of the high merit of Gen’l Lee & explain his special qualifications for the service required in Carolina. How very unlike the biography is the fact!
The battle of Seven Pines which is represented as an advantage gained by an unexpected attack was a pure accident, no attack being intended. But then the writer says ‘accident rather than the choice of the Confederacy put Lee in command of the army.’ It may be regarded as an accident that Johnston was wounded, but if the Confederate authorities had not chosen to put Lee in his place the second in command would have succeeded the wounded general. In regard to the strategic movement preparatory to the crossing the Chickahominy, the story as told is all fustian but it would exceed the limit of a letter to tell you the whole truth. The statement of Lee being forbidden by the President to commence his retreat from Petersburg in Feb’y is utterly false & it is to be hoped that the writer was as ignorant in that as in regard to the cause of Johnston’s removal from command at Atlanta. Several persons have descanted very pathetically upon the want of supplies at Farmville & blamed the administration for misdirecting the provisions intended for the army. The Commissary Gen’l has fully refuted that story & shown that neither he nor any department of the executive was at all responsible for the failure to have provision when & where they wanted during that retreat. Though Gen’l Lee had never been a student of Constitution at law, he was generally too well informed to have believed that the Constitutional right of Secession was submitted to the arbitrament of the sword & that the South had lost the rights claimed by her as the consequence of defeat. It is a base slander upon that true patriot & faithful man to ascribe to him any such abandonment of his country in the day of her misfortune.
I regret to say that I have mislaid the Review & cannot therefore refer to other points which I would have noticed. As my memory serves me it contained a long letter purporting to have been written by Gen’l Lee to his son. That letter is a bald forgery because at the date of it, Gen’l Lee was a Capt. of Engineers stationed on the Fort which was under construction below Baltimore, yet it represents him as being about to start to Texas to provide for the wants of his fine, old regiment. Gen’l Lee’s first Commission in the line of the army was in 1855, he was then appointed a Lieut. Col. of the new regiment of which Albert Sidney Johnston was the Colonel & who was present with the regiment & commanded it from the date of its organization until he was detached to command the expedition to Utah, & before Gen’l Lee was appointed in that cavalry regiment his son had ceased to be a cadet & was on duty as Lieut. of Engineers. The manufacturer of that letter probably knew that Gen’l Lee had in the absence of his Col. commanded his regiment in Texas & he may have known that Gen’l Lee might say that ‘Duty was the sublimest word in the language’ for surely no man was ever more surely devoted to the discharge of every duty in life than Rob’t E. Lee, but I think if he had uttered that sentiment & wanted to enforce it he probably would have found other means than the poor story which is given of terror in a puritan legislature. I have probably written you more than the occasion required though less than the perversion & misrepresentation provokes." In very good to fine condition, with toning to the first page, and nearly complete separations along the hinges.
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