Confederate Leaders

Jefferson Davis
Born June 3, 1808
Southwestern Kentucky

Died December 6, 1889
New Orleans, Louisiana

President

Robert E. Lee
Born January 19, 1807
Westmoreland County,
Virginia

Died October 13, 1870
Lexington, Virginia

General

Alexander H. Stephens
Born February 11, 1812
Crawfordsville, Georgia

Died March 4, 1883
Atlanta, Georgia

Vice president

Robert A. Toombs
Born July 2, 1810
Wilkes County,
Georgia

Died December 15, 1885
Washington, Georgia

Secretary of state

"[I favor] the maintenance of the honor, the rights, the equality, the security, and the glory of my native state … but if these cannot be maintained in the Union, then I am for their maintenance, at all hazards, out of it."

The Confederate States of America (CSA) was founded in 1861 after years of often angry debate over slavery and whether the federal government or states had the power to abolish, maintain, or expand the institution. On February 4, 1861, representatives from the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas met in Montgomery, Alabama, to form a new republic. Those states seceded (separated) from the United States. On February 8, representatives at the convention announced that the Confederate States of America had been created and that members of the convention were serving as the CSA Congress until one could be elected.

—Alexander Stephens

Key leaders

Former U.S. senator Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) of Mississippi and former U.S. representative Alexander Stephens (1812–1883) of Georgia were chosen as president and vice president, respectively, and they served in those capacities from the founding of the CSA until it dissolved at the end of the Civil War (1861–65). Robert A. Toombs (1810–1885), also a former U.S. representative from Georgia who had worked with Stephens to defend the expansion of slavery to new territories and states, was named secretary of state. When the Civil War broke out in April 1861, the CSA government was responsible for overseeing the Confederate war effort. Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas joined the Confederacy shortly after the war began.

During the war, Robert E. Lee (1807–1870) emerged as the most successful military leader of the Confederacy. Confederate forces won or battled to a draw on most of the early battles of the war, but momentum moved to the Union side during the summer of 1863. Following the Union victory in April 1865, the era of Reconstruction (1865–77) was underway to address key issues: how seceded states would return to the Union; what punishment, if any, should be ordered on members of the former Confederacy; and what federal government support, if any, should be afforded to former slaves (slavery was abolished with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865).

Jefferson Davis: soldier and politician

Jefferson Davis served in both houses of U.S. Congress, fought with distinction in the Mexican War (1846–48), and was secretary of war in the administration of President Franklin Pierce (1804–1869; served 1853–57). Davis was elected president of the Confederate States of America in 1861 and served in that position throughout the Civil War.

Davis was born on June 3, 1808, in Christian (now Todd) County, Kentucky. He was the tenth child of Samuel and Jane (Cook) Davis, who had moved westward from Georgia. Davis's father had been a commander during the Revolutionary War (1775–83). The family moved to Mississippi when Davis was a young boy and settled on a small plantation near Woodville. Joseph Emory Davis, the eldest son in the family, became one of the wealthiest men in the South.

An especially bright youngster, Davis was enrolled at age seven in a school at St. Thomas College in Washington County, Kentucky, a thousand miles north of the family home. At nine, he was back in Mississippi and attended local schools before entering Transylvania University in 1821. A Mississippi congressman nominated him to the West Point military school, and Davis began studying there in 1824. He graduated in 1828 and became a second lieutenant in the United States Army.

Davis spent seven years stationed on the frontier in Wisconsin and Illinois and fought in the Black Hawk War (1832), which put down a Native American uprising in that area. Stationed at Fort Crawford, Wisconsin, after the war, Davis met and fell in love with Sarah Taylor, the daughter of the fort's commandant and future U.S. president, Zachary Taylor (1784–1850; served 1849–50). The couple eloped and settled in Mississippi.

Davis's wife died three months after marriage from malaria, a disease transmitted by mosquitoes. Davis spent the next ten years working primarily as a farmer. The Davis family was prominent in Mississippi, and Davis was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1844. He married Varina Howell in 1845. At the time Davis entered Congress, the nation was growing more divided over slavery. Davis supported the power of states to determine whether or not to permit slavery.

With the outbreak of the Mexican-American War (1846–48) in 1846, Davis resigned from Congress and accepted command of a volunteer regiment known as the Mississippi Rifles. He served under Taylor, his ex-father-in-law. Along with his Mississippi Rifles regiment, Davis fought with distinction in the war and was selected to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate in August 1847 created by the death of Jesse Speight (1795–1847). Davis was elected on his own in 1848 and served until 1851. He served as secretary of war from 1853 to 1857 in the administration of Franklin Pierce, and then was elected again to the U.S. Senate in 1856.

After Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865; served 1861–65) was elected president in 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union and other Southern states considered secession as well. Davis was against secession until Lincoln declared that there should be no further expansion of slavery. Mississippi then seceded from the union, and Davis withdrew from the Senate in January 1861. On February 18, 1861, at Montgomery, Alabama, he was inaugurated (sworn in) as president of the Confederate States of America.

As the Confederate army was facing defeat in the Civil War in early April 1865, Davis left Richmond, Virginia, the political base of the Confederacy, on April 3. He approved the surrender of the Confederacy in Greensboro, North Carolina, in late April. Davis continued southward, hoping to leave the country. On May 2, 1865, President Andrew Johnson (1808–1875; served 1865–69; see entry) offered $100,000 for his arrest under charges that Davis helped plan the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Davis was captured in Irwinville, Georgia, by the Federal cavalry on May 10. He was held as prisoner in Fortress Monroe in Virginia and charged with treason (disloyalty) and complicity (taking part) in Lincoln's assassination. At first, Davis was kept in irons, but later, when his health began failing, he was provided with comfortable living quarters and his family was permitted to stay with him.

Government lawyers were not sure they would win a case against Davis, and after nearly two years, Davis was released on bond. One of the people putting up bond money (funds paid to free a prisoner as assurance the prisoner will abide by obligations set by a court) was journalist Horace Greeley (1811–1872; see entry), a longtime abolitionist. Greeley wanted to bring reconciliation to the nation and put the war behind.

New charges were filed and preparations were made to try Davis in May 1868. However, the case was delayed by the impeachment (formal accusation of wrongdoing) trial of President Johnson. Davis's trial did not begin until November 1868 and, because of constitutional issues, was soon referred to the Supreme Court. In the meantime, on Christmas Day, 1868, President Johnson issued a general amnesty proclamation for ex-Confederates. Davis was finally freed on February 26, 1869.

Davis lived for twenty more years, but he had lost his fortune as well as his home. Despite suffering from a number of health conditions, he managed to travel throughout Europe. As he entered his seventies and the Reconstruction era ended, his health improved. However, Davis failed in business ventures and moved to a home provided to him by a friend of his wife. He spent the years 1878 to 1881 writing The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. He could have easily won a U.S. Senate seat from Mississippi, but Davis had refused to request a Federal pardon, which was necessary for any ex-Confederate if he wanted to hold federal office. Davis died in New Orleans, Louisiana, on December 6, 1889.

Robert E. Lee: officer and gentleman

Robert E. Lee was the most respected and successful military leader of the Confederacy during the Civil War. He led Confederate forces to impressive victories early in the war, attempted two invasions of the North that were repelled after fierce fighting, and remained in command to the end of the war in 1865. Lee did not fight the war for political reasons. Ultimately, the decision he faced was whether to fight for his country or his state. He chose his state.

Robert Edward Lee was born on January 19, 1807, in Westmoreland County, Virginia. His father, Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee, was a member of a famous Virginia family and fought in the Revolutionary War as a cavalry officer. The Lee family moved to Alexandria, Virginia, in 1811, when Lee was four. The family had lost much of its fortune because of bad investments. After attending schools in Alexandria, Lee followed in his father's footsteps and pursued a career in the military that began at West Point Military Academy in 1825. He graduated second in his class in 1829. While serving as an engineer at Fort Monroe, Virginia, from 1831 to 1834, Lee met and married Mary Ann Randolph Custis, granddaughter of the nation's initial first lady, Martha Washington (1732–1802). The Lees would have seven children.

Lee had a variety of other assignments before fighting with distinction in the Mexican-American War. After the war, he was placed in charge of the construction of Fort Carroll, in the harbor of Baltimore, Maryland. In August 1852, at the age of forty-five, Lee was named superintendent at West Point. He returned to military service as lieutenant-colonel of the 2nd Cavalry in March 1855. He was in Washington, D.C., when abolitionist John Brown (1800–1859) led a small group in a raid of a nearby federal arsenal (weapons supply). Brown wanted to use the weapons to arm slaves to begin a revolt. Lee was sent to the arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, where he quickly stopped the insurrection (rebellion).

As the nation grew more divided over slavery during the 1850s, Lee was not sympathetic to the movement toward secession by Southern states. Still, he debated whether his state or his country had earned his primary allegiance. He decided that if Virginia seceded, he would support his home state. Lee was summoned to Washington, D.C., in February 1861 and placed on waiting orders, likely to be promoted to a commander if war began. On March 16, 1861, he was made colonel of the 1st Cavalry of the federal army.

Meanwhile, officials in Virginia considered seceding from the union, and Lee realized he could not fight against his own state. When he was offered the field command of the U.S. Army in April 1861, Lee declined the offer. After learning that the Virginia convention voted in favor of secession, Lee resigned his military commission. He was selected, instead, to command the forces of Virginia late in April. He was a general by July and the favorite commander of Confederate president Jefferson Davis.

Lee led Confederate forces to victories in early battles or helped fight off Union forces during the first two years of the Civil War. In 1863, Confederate leaders believed they could invade the North and possibly capture Washington, D.C. Lee's forces reached Gettysburg, in southern Pennsylvania, but the offensive stalled there and Confederates were forced to retreat. For the remainder of the war, Lee led a crafty defense of Virginia and forced the Union into a prolonged offensive, testing its determination.

By 1864, Union forces were making headway in Virginia and the lower Southern states. On February 6, 1865, orders were issued making Lee the general-in-chief of all the Confederate armies. By this time, however, he was consumed with a final defense of Virginia. Forced into a final retreat in early April 1865 and then blocked from retreat, Lee surrendered on April 9, 1865, and the Civil War was effectively over. Lee and his Union counterpart, General Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885; see entry), negotiated an honorable surrender.

Lee was most concerned following the war with national reunification and rebuilding the war-ravaged South. He remained in Richmond and was treated with respect by federal officials. In September 1865, he became president of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia. He wanted to help bring stability and new opportunities for development for younger people, and, as always, led by example. He obeyed the law and counseled all Southerners to do the same. Lee was indicted for treason for his wartime activities. Though he was never brought to trial, neither was he offered a pardon. He died on October 12, 1870, in Lexington. Just over a century later, President Gerald Ford (1913–; served 1974–77) restored Lee's citizenship.

Alexander Stephens: powerful speaker

An engaging speaker, Alexander Stephens attempted to maintain the Union during years leading up to the Civil War, then became an eloquent spokesman for states that seceded and joined the Confederacy. Following the war, he worked actively for reunification of the nation and supported the Reconstruction policies of President Andrew Johnson.

Alexander Hamilton Stephens was born on February 11, 1812, on a farm in Wilkes County (later Taliaferro County), Georgia. Always small, Stephens barely weighed 100 pounds as an adult and was nicknamed "Little Aleck." Stephens grew up working on the farm and going to school. An uncle paid for his education at an academy in Washington, Georgia, where Stephens's admiration for his teacher, Reverend Alexander Hamilton Webster, led him to adopt Hamilton as his middle name. He went on to the University of Georgia and graduated in 1832 at the head of his class. He worked as a teacher before beginning a law practice in 1834 in Crawfordville, near the place of his birth.

Stephens was a good public speaker and was elected to the Georgia legislature and then to Congress in 1843. A staunch supporter of states' rights, Stephens helped launch the Constitutional Union party in Georgia with Robert A. Toombs to aggressively defend Southern interests. Like Toombs, Stephens shifted to the Democratic Party in the mid-1850s. Stephens left Congress in 1859.

Despite suffering from ill health, Stephens resumed his law practice in Crawfordville. He campaigned for Democratic solidarity in 1860, but the party split into three factions and lost the presidential election to Republican Abraham Lincoln. The Georgia legislature was in session when Lincoln was elected. Georgia's governor, Joseph E. Brown (1821–1894), immediately recommended a state convention to address secession. Stephens spoke at the convention and advocated a conference of all the Southern states. "My position," he stated in the conclusion of his speech, "is for the maintenance of the honor, the rights, the equality, the security, and the glory of my native state in the Union, if possible, but if these cannot be maintained in the Union, then I am for their maintenance, at all hazards, out of it." The speech was published and widely distributed, bringing a flood of letters, including one from President Lincoln. Lincoln wrote, "You think slavery is right and ought to be extended; while we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted." By then, South Carolina had seceded and other Southern states soon followed.

Stephens was elected to be a delegate to the convention in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1861, where the Confederate States of America was formed. At the convention, he was elected vice president of the Confederacy. Stephens attempted several times during the Civil War to forge a peace agreement with the federal government. In 1863, he negotiated from a position of some strength, but his last attempt in February 1865 came when Union forces were closing in for victory.

After the end of the Civil War in April 1865, Stephens was taken into custody and held at Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. Upon being released on parole on October 12, 1865, Stephens was greeted by crowds in New York, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta as he traveled home. In January 1866, he was elected to the U.S. Senate under President Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction plan, but Congress rejected the plan and excluded Stephens from serving. Meanwhile, Stephens urged his fellow Georgians to be patient with the Reconstruction program, although he supported the policies of Johnson, not those of Congress.

In April 1866, Stephens testified before the congressional joint committee on Reconstruction. He described his state as willing to participate in the Reconstruction effort. But he was against plans for extending voting rights to African Americans. He did not believe that the federal government had constitutional power to impose conditions on states through Reconstruction programs.

Stephens wrote the two-volume A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States, published in 1868 and 1870. The book caused a sensation in its defense of the Confederacy, and Stephens earned some $35,000 in royalties (a percentage of sales paid to an author). Stephens reacted to critics of the book by collecting reviews and replying to them in The Reviewers Reviewed (1872). He later wrote a history book for use in schools, A Compendium of the History of the United States (1872) and an illustrated version, A Comprehensive and Popular History of the United States (1882).

Stephens had been offered a professorship of political science and history at the University of Georgia, but declined. In 1871, he became part owner of the Southern Sun, an Atlanta newspaper. During the election year of 1872, he wrote many editorials in support of presidential candidate Horace Greeley.

Stephens was a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1872, but was defeated. Later that year, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Although he entered Congress in failing health and had to use a cane to walk, Stephens remained in Congress for a decade. He supported the decision of the electoral commission that was formed to decide the controversial presidential election of 1876. When the commission decided in favor of Republican Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893; served 1877–81; see entry) instead of the Democratic candidate, Samuel J. Tilden (1814–1886; see entry), Stephens defended the decision and was pleased when Hayes ended Reconstruction in 1877.

Stephens resigned from Congress in 1882. After being bored by retirement, he ran for and was elected governor of Georgia. However, Stephens died on March 4, 1883, in Savannah, Georgia, shortly after he was inaugurated.

Robert A. Toombs: proslavery advocate

Robert Toombs served in both houses of U.S. Congress. As political division between North and South and Democrat and Republican moved Southern states toward secession and the nation toward war during the 1850s, Toombs attempted to find the means for avoiding drastic actions. After the failure of attempts to avoid separation and war, Toombs resigned from the U.S. Senate in January 1861 and served as a delegate the next month to the convention where the Confederate States of America (CSA) was established. He then briefly served as secretary of state for the CSA. "I am not loyal to the existing government of the United States," he said, "and do not wish to be suspected of loyalty."

Robert Augustus Toombs was born on July 2, 1810, in Wilkes County in eastern Georgia. He was the fifth child of Robert Toombs, a wealthy cotton planter who had been a major in the Revolutionary War, and Catherine Toombs. He entered college at the University of Georgia, but completed his education in the North by graduating from Union College in Schenectady, New York, in 1828. Returning to his home state, Toombs began a profitable law practice in Washington, Georgia, in 1830 and accumulated wealth through investments in a plantation and its slaves. In 1830, he married Julia DuBose. The couple would have three children.

Toombs was elected to the Georgia legislature in 1837 as a member of the Whig Party. In 1844, he was elected to Congress. He was especially effective working on financial matters. As Congress became divided over slavery in the mid-1840s, Toombs was a leader in defense of the South and the right of states to determine whether or not to permit slavery. During the 1850s, he helped launch the Constitutional Union Party in Georgia to wage an aggressive defense of proslavery measures passed by Congress. He was elected to the U.S. Senate as a member of that party. The Constitutional Union Party did not catch on in other states, so Toombs let it dissolve in Georgia and he became a member of the Democratic Party.

Toombs tried to unite Democrats in opposing Abraham Lincoln's bid for the presidency in 1860, but three different candidates emerged and split the party votes in the presidential election. Toombs hoped to avoid secession if Republicans would support slavery as an issue for states to decide. Republicans refused, and Toombs made a farewell speech to the Senate on January 7, 1861. He was chosen as one of the delegates from Georgia to meet with those of the other states that had seceded in Montgomery, Alabama, in February 1861 to launch the Confederate States of America.

Toombs was named secretary of state for the CSA. Unable to work effectively with Confederate president Jefferson Davis, Toombs applied for and received a military commission in July 1861 as commander of a Georgia brigade on the Virginia front. Toombs was an aggressive military leader. In the Battle of Antietam, his brigade held its position in fierce fighting, while Toombs took a bullet that shattered his left hand. He expected a promotion for his bravery and leadership. When it was refused, Toombs resigned his commission. He was critical of the Confederate leadership, but failed in a bid for election to the Confederate Senate. He reentered the war near the end in the battle for Georgia, leading a division and serving as inspector-general.

When the Confederacy collapsed, Toombs remained at home until Federal troops arrived to arrest him about a month after the war ended. Toombs escaped and made his way to New Orleans, where he boarded a boat. He traveled to Havana, Cuba, and then went on to London, England, before returning to his home in 1867. He did not apply for pardon, a step necessary to regain his citizenship under Reconstruction laws. Toombs started a law practice and soon became influential in state politics.

Toombs focused on protecting Southerners from being victimized by carpetbaggers, Northerners who arrived in Southern states with cloth suitcases and were prepared to take advantage of the war-ravished region and victimized people. He also spoke up against dominance of the South by the federal Reconstruction policy spearheaded by congressional Republicans.

Toombs welcomed the end of Reconstruction as announced by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877. A state constitutional convention was held that year in Georgia and Toombs dominated the proceedings: Under his leadership, no action was taken to protect the voting rights of freedmen, the state judiciary system was reorganized, and new regulations were placed on corporations. In 1879, he supported legislation to create a commission to regulate railroad rates.

After turning seventy in 1880, Toombs became less active. He suffered from debilitating eye problems, and mourned the death of his wife in 1883. Toombs was in failing health by then and died on December 15, 1885, in Washington, Georgia. Toombs County, Georgia, was named in his honor.

For More Information

Books

Archer, Jules. A House Divided: The Lives of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. New York: Scholastic, 1995.

Burch, Joann Johansen. Jefferson Davis: President of the Confederacy. Springfield, NJ: Enslow, 1998.

Cannon, Marian G. Robert E. Lee. New York: Franklin Watts, 1993.

Cooper, William J. Jefferson Davis, American: A Biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.

Davis, Jefferson. The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. New York: D. Appleton, 1881. Reprint, New York: Da Capo Press, 1990.

Davis, William C. The Union That Shaped the Confederacy: Robert Toombs and Alexander H. Stephens. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001.

Eaton, Clement. Jefferson Davis. New York: Free Press, 1977.

Freeman, Douglas Southall. Lee. New York: Scribner, 1997.

Kavanaugh, Jack, and Eugene C. Murdoch. Robert E. Lee. New York: Chelsea House, 1994.

Kerby, Mona. Robert E. Lee: Southern Hero of the Civil War. Springfield, NJ: Enslow, 1997.

King, Perry Scott. Jefferson Davis. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 1990.

Lee, Fitzhugh. General Lee: A Biography of Robert E. Lee. New York: Da Capo Press, 1994.

Marrin, Albert. Virginia's General: Robert E. Lee and the Civil War. New York: Atheneum, 1994.

Phillips, Ulrich Bonnell. The Life of Robert Toombs. New York: Macmillan, 1913. Reprint, New York: B. Franklin, 1968.

Schott, Thomas Edwin. Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia: A Biography. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988.

Stephens, Alexander Hamilton. Recollections of Alexander H. Stephens: His Diary Kept When a Prisoner at Fort Warren, Boston Harbour, 1865. New York: Doubleday, 1910. Reprint, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998.

Thomas, Emory Morton. Robert E. Lee: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995.

Thompson, William Y. Robert Toombs of Georgia. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1966.

Von Abele, Rudolph. Alexander H. Stephens: A Biography. New York: Knopf, 1946. Reprint, Westport, CT: Negro Universities Press, 1971.

Web Sites

Beauvoir, Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library.http://www.beauvoir.org (accessed on July 27, 2004).

Brasington, Larry, Jr. From Revolution to Reconstruction: Robert E. Lee.http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/B/relee/relee.htm (accessed on July 27, 2004).

"Civil War Biographies." Shotgun's Home of the Civil War.http://www.civilwarhome.com/biograph.htm (accessed on July 27, 2004).

Jefferson Davis Memorial Home Page.http://www.pointsouth.com/csanet/greatmen/davis/davis.htm (accessed on July 27, 2004).

The Papers of Jefferson Davis.http://jeffersondavis.rice.edu/ (accessed on July 27, 2004).

"People of Georgia: Alexander Hamilton Stephens." Netstate.http://www.netstate.com/states/peop/people/ga_ahs.htm (accessed on July 27, 2004).

Robert E. Lee Memorial Association. Stratford Hall Plantation: The Birthplace of Robert E. Lee.http://www.stratfordhall.org (accessed on July 27, 2004).

"Robert Toombs House." Washington, Georgia.http://www.kudcom.com/www/att03.html (accessed on July 27, 2004).