The Puzzling Fate of Jefferson Davis

What happened to Jefferson Davis after the Civil War? Did he stand trial for his role in the nation's bloodiest conflict? Did he face the hangman's noose? Why does the figure of Davis seem to drop out of the history books after the events of 1865? Join us in discovering the surprising fate of one of America's most divisive figures. 

Opening Music 

"Space 1990-B" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

 

* Begin Show Notes *

Jefferson Davis’s Fate

Hook

On April 9th, 1865, the guns of the Civil War finally went quiet. Meeting in the spacious parlour of the home of Wilmer McLean in Appomattox, Virginia, the two most eminent generals at the time exchanged small talk and discussed the terms of surrender. Despite being known as Unconditional Surrender Grant, the Union general offered extremely favorable terms to his vanquished foe. After fighting until the bitter end, Confederate General Robert E. Lee was out of options. He was outnumbered. He was cornered. And his troops had hardly eaten in nearly a week. General Grant allowed the Army of Northern Virginia to return home on parol with their sidearms and their horses along with a generous helping of rations to ease their hunger. To many, this marked the unofficial end of the American Civil War. But for others, this was just the beginning of a long ordeal. 

 

The war had been headed up by two warring presidents. The Union was led by Abraham Lincoln, perhaps the greatest leader in American history, while the South was headed by Jefferson Davis, a capable politician in his own right. On April 9th, many believed that a meeting between these two men was inevitable, but less than a week later, everything changed when a shot rang out at Ford’s Theater in Washington DC, punctuated by the chilling words Sic Semper Tyrannus. There will always be tyrants. 

 

With the death of Abraham Lincoln, any hope for a peaceful dissolution of the Confederate Government seemed to melt away. Jefferson Davis was connected to the assassination, and a generous reward of $100,000 was offered for his capture. There were many in the Union who were now determined to see Jefferson Davis tried for the assassination of Lincoln. 

 

Meanwhile, Davis began a long trek south, south and farther south. He was pushed out of Richmond after the Union armies closed the noose around the city. And he was deprived of his largest army and his best general by the events at Appomattox. So Davis took his closest advisors and allies and fled. Davis still hoped that he could reorganize the scattered remnants of the Confederate Army and make a final bloody stand in the West where most of the Union armies had vacated in a bid to besiege Richmond and trap Lee in the east. From April 9th onward,  Davis moved into southern Virginia, then through the Carolinas, and finally ended up in Georgia, where he was constantly pursued by Union cavalry, hoping to cash in on the bounty.

 

On the morning of May 10th, 1865, Davis was sleeping in a camp set up along a creekbed near Irwinville, Georgia when he was awoken by the sound of gunfire. He emerged from his tent and found himself surrounded by cavalry of the First Wisconsin and Fourth Michigan regiments. Davis was taken into custody and many at the time believed that this was the beginning of the end of Jefferson Davis. But that proved not to be the case. Not only did Davis outlive his rival, Lincoln, he would also outlive both President Andrew Johnson and President Grant. Jefferson Davis somehow managed to evade the hangman’s noose and live to the ripe old age of 81. But how? How did the leader of the United States’s greatest rebellion manage to survive what seemed like a guaranteed death sentence? Why wasn’t Davis prosecuted and sentenced to death for his crimes against the United States? 

Intro

Hello everybody, and welcome to Forgotten & Found, a history podcast. I am your host Grant Piper and today we are going to be talking about the puzzling fate of Jefferson Davis. The period directly following the American Civil War is one of the most turbulent and least understood in all of American history. When the guns went silent at Appomattox, Jefferson Davis seemingly vanishes from the history books. Most people do not know what happened to the Confederate leader, and many understandably assume that he was hanged for his crimes. But he wasn’t. In order to understand how remarkable this is, we need to look at some other prominent examples of people who were executed for treason against the United States. Many of these people were killed for far less than leading a full scale rebellion against the United States. So let us look at those who were not as fortunate as Jefferson Davis and then see what happened to Davis in the wake of his arrest in May of 1865.

 

Other Executions

On October 16, 1859, radical abolitionist John Brown stole into Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. He and a small band of like-minded ruffians cut the telegraph lines and arrested the watchman of the local armory. Indeed, it was the armory that was at the center of Brown’s plans. The goal was to secure the armory, and the nearby rifle factory, in a bid to gain weapons for a slave uprising. With Harper’s Ferry captured, Brown wanted to haul the weapons south to the nearby plantations and arm any slaves willing to fight for their freedom. John Brown was every plantation owner’s nightmare. 

While Brown captured the armory, and the town, with no resistance, he blundered by allowing a single train of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad to pass through the town.The train dutifully stopped at the next station, which still had its telegraph wires intact, and sent a missive to their headquarters in Baltimore. The news quickly reached nearby Washington and a contingent of Marines was dispatched to capture John Brown.

The Marines, under the leadership of one Robert E. Lee, surrounded John Brown and captured him in just three minutes. Brown was arrested despite protesting that he would rather die than being taken in. While he was shot, none of the bullets were fatal. 

Brown was quickly tried and convicted of treason and sentenced to death. The date of his execution was December 2nd, 1859, mere weeks after the failed raid. John Brown’s last words were:

I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.

Brown was forced to ride atop his own coffin on the way to the gallows where he was hanged at 11:15 a.m. John Brown was pronounced dead 35 minutes later by the coroner. Less than two months after the raid at Harper’s Ferry, John Brown was dead. Tried, convicted, and executed all in brisk and efficient order. 

 

Another case worth referencing is the execution of one William Bruce Mumford in 1862. In May of 1862, Union naval forces landed at New Orleans and seized the city in short order. The Union had always vastly outclassed the Confederacy in terms of naval assets, and the South had no defense against well organized coastal raids and amphibious invasions. Union forces entered the town and ordered that all Confederate flags be removed from important government buildings, such as the Mint. These actions angered the pro-Confederate citizens who protested in the streets. During the protests, William Bruce Mumford, climbed up and tore down the Union flag. Mumford then carried the flag to the mayor of the city and presented it to him. It seemed like a simple act of protest in a dire situation. 

On May 1st, 1862, Union Major General Benjamin Butler saw Mumford wearing a piece of the Union flag as a badge of honor and decided that such insolence could not go unpunished. Mumford was arrested on orders of Butler, who was now the leader of the city under wartime martial law. Butler was charged with “high crimes and misdemeanors against the laws of the United States, and the peace and dignity thereof and the Law Martial” and sentenced to death.

On June 7th, Mumford was hanged in the courtyard of the mint where he had ripped down the flag. Mumford was a veteran and he invoked what he saw as the true spirit of the United States during his final remarks and upheld his patriotism for the Confederacy. He was hanged by the neck until dead. Again, less than two months after being arrested, Mumford had met his final end at the hands of the Union.

 

Lastly, we must look at the most recent executions for treason against the United States in the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, commonly known as The Rosenbergs. During the emotional start of the Cold War, the Rosenbergs were accused of spying for the Soviet Union. The couple, married for eleven years at the time of their arrest, was accused of passing along US military and technological secrets, including information about American radar and sonar along with plans for advanced jet propulsion engines, and nuclear weapon designs. The Rosenbergs had managed to recruit sources working on the Manhatten Project during World War II and had passed along vital nuclear information to the Soviets. During their trial, they were given the death penalty because their actions were perceived to have gravely harmed the security and safety of the United States. They were even blamed for the American casualties suffered as a result of the Korean War. The judge said in part:

I believe your conduct in putting into the hands of the Russians the A-bomb years before our best scientists predicted Russia would perfect the bomb has already caused, in my opinion, the Communist aggression in Korea, with the resultant casualties exceeding 50,000 and who knows but that millions more of innocent people may pay the price of your treason. Indeed, by your betrayal, you undoubtedly have altered the course of history to the disadvantage of our country.

The pair was arrested in 1950, convicted in 1951, and executed in 1953. They were sent to the electric chair, where they were shocked until dead. If the indirect cause of 50,000 American casualties in Korea warranted the death penalty, what did 642,427 Union casualties, including 110,000 dead, warrant for Jefferson Davis?

The Imprisonment of Jefferson Davis

Let us rewind back to May of 1865 where Jefferson Davis had just been arrested for treason and in connection to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. As we have seen, there was ample precedent at the time, for a speedy trial and execution. Many believed that Davis would be hanged by the end of the summer. 

Davis was quickly marched to Fort Monroe in Virginia, one of the Union’s most formidable fortresses which had managed to hold out for the entire Civil War. Davis was placed into a casement, a dank cement room which was designed to store volatile gunpowder and cannon balls. He was placed under guard morning and night, forced to eat meager meals and was not allowed to leave the room. Initially, he was even placed in clunky iron fetters which bound his ankles. He was allowed no visitors, not even supervised visits by his wife. A close eye was kept on him to ensure that he didn’t attempt to escape, contact any sympathizers, or commit suicide. 

 

During his imprisonment in the uncomfortable casement, Davis kept up his spirits by planning for his eventual trial. Against all common sense, Davis was actually looking forward to his trial. He was relishing it. Davis believed that a public trial would give him the best and last, chance to defend his views. Davis vehemently believed in the right of succession. He believed that the initial action of secession was legally valid. A trial would give him the perfect opportunity to defend himself, not to the courts which he cared little for, but to the American people as a whole. 

The government knew of Davis’s plans for a grand display at his trial for treason and was immediately wary. Some feared that allowing Davis to speak would reignite the embers of the Civil War, which were still scorchingly hot. Would letting Davis speak at a trial be akin to letting Marc Antony speak after the death of Julius Caesar? 

 

After a few months in solitary confinement, Davis was allowed to read more materials than just his Bible. Newspapers and books were brought in at his request. Then Davis was allowed to leave the casement for exercise including walks by the water. Finally, in early 1866, he was allowed to see his wife, Varina again. 

Then, in September of 1866, Davis was permitted to live under house arrest in a four room apartment with his wife. Public sentiment was slowly changing. Instead of viewing Davis as a traitor needing to be hanged immediately, many now saw him as a prisoner, indeed even a political prisoner, who deserved to be treated like an aristocrat or a proud fallen enemy. Keeping Davis in irons and under guard was unbefitting to the class and character of the newly reunited United States of America. This was a rapid and surprising change of heart for those in the North who were previously seen as bitter enemies of the South.

 

With the change in public sentiment and the knowledge that Davis was both an expert orator and deft politician, new questions were raised about how exactly to try Davis. Unlike those who were executed in recent years, the public profile of Jefferson Davis would not allow for a quick trial. Any trial for Davis (or Lee, or any other high profile Confederate figure) was guaranteed to be a circus. Any attempts to try Davis, despite the fact that his crimes seemed obvious and his case open and shut, would have to be handled carefully.

How To Try JD

The question about what to do with Jefferson Davis was an interesting one. Looking back, it seems obvious that the president of the Confederate States of America should have been quickly put on trial for treason. But President Andrew Johnson puzzled over the issue for months. Johnson was a suspected Southern sympathizer, and he was torn about what to do with Davis. The initial charges brought against Davis implicated him in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Those charges were now defunct as John Wilkes Booth had been captured, and no links could be drawn between the disgruntled actor and the Southern President. Then, it was floated that Davis be charged by a military tribunal for war crimes, specifically the mistreatment of American prisoners at Andersonville Prison in Georgia. But again, no definitive link between Davis and the charges could be found. Trying Davis unsuccessfully would have been a travesty, and the government could not risk an acquittal in any type of courtroom. 

 

Frustrated with Johnson’s inability to make a decision regarding the fate of Jefferson Davis, Congress passed a resolution in June of 1866 calling for Davis to be tried for treason. The resolution passed resoundingly with a vote of 105 to 19. But questions persisted. Davis’s lawyers already postulated that Davis could not be charged with treason because he had forsaken his US citizenship during secession. His native Mississippi was no longer a part of the United States when Davis was tapped to become the president of the Confederacy, so he was not liable for treason. Again, these arguments sent jolts of fear through the government that a trial would give legal validity to the idea of secession. The Union had just fought the bloodiest war in American history to prove once and for all that secession was not valid. They could not risk having that statement undone in a courtroom by lawyers and orators. 

 

Meanwhile, Unionists, veterans and freemen began singing a diddy which had the lyrics “Oh we'll hang Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree” in it. This song proved to be problematic. It spoke to a deep anger and a thirst for vengeance on the part of some living in the Union. On the one hand, the government wondered if they hanged Jefferson Davis it would be the end of it. However, there was always the worry that Jefferson Davis would only be the start. Would those singing the lyrics, Oh we'll hang Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree, then demand to hang every person who had participated in the rebellion? In that case, the United States could easily slide into a period not dissimilar to the Terror which had gripped France during the French Revolution. Would suspected ex-Confederates be dragged into the public square and hanged, one after another, until there were none left? That was a situation that the United States could not abide. Such a broad reprisal could kick off a guerilla movement in the South, which was already being watched closely with the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. Or worse, it could reignite a war. If the South believed that their fate was death and that there was no hope for amnesty or clemency, why not continue fighting? 

Charged With Treason

Despite their misgivings, Congress mandated that Davis be charged, so he was indicted. With an official indictment on the books, the time came to transfer Davis to civilian custody. Up until this point, Davis was in military custody. Now, the legal system demanded that Davis be given his rights as due to him as a US citizen. Remember, the United States had to treat Davis like citizen because treating him like a foreign combatant would give life to his arguments that he wasn’t a US citizen under the guise of secession. Therefore, Davis was allowed to be released on bail and wait to stand trial like any regular US citizen. On May 13, 1867, Davis was transferred to civilian custody and offered bail of $100,000, roughly $2 million today. Davis’s bail was raised by prominent citizens in the Union including the likes of Cornelius Vanderbilt and Horace Greenley who were eager to see due process seen out. Many in the Union now wanted to show that their system, the rightful legal system, was legitimate and robust. Allowing Davis to be treated properly, and given his rights, was a vindication of the American system which was to be contrasted against Davis’s vision of the legal system which claimed that secession was legitimate and legal. 

Upon his release, Davis immediately traveled to Quebec where he was reunited with his children, and other members of his family who had fled fearing repsials from the United States. Davis was allowed to remain in Quebec while the government prepared its case. He was kept under watch to ensure that he did not flee further or attempt to contact anyone in the South. He did neither. Jefferson Davis continued to believe that his fate demanded that he give account for himself in a courtroom and he was eager to unleash his legal arguments and deepest convictions before his peers. 

Trial Preparations and Pardon

The government asked for multiple delays in the trial as they prepared their case. They were gathering evidence to show that Davis provided arms and orders for the Southern invasion of Union territory in Maryland and Pennsylvania. They were afraid that Davis would argue that the war was purely defensive and that he only armed his armies for the purposes of defending Southern territory. The fact that Confederate armies crossed the border into the Union gave them legal liscense to charge Davis with treason. But the underlying legal questions about secession and the uniqueness of Davis’s character in position continued to bewilder the Union lawyers. The trial was delayed from 1867 to 1868 and then it was delayed again until 1869. Meanwhile, questions about Johnson’s fitness for office, the state of the South and the ultimate goal of Reconstruction were being hotly debated. There were two leading factions in the Reconstruction debate. One the one side, there were those who wanted to see the South made whole. If America was to heal completely from her wounds, the South would have to be reintegrated into the Union with a light touch. Southerners had to be treated like Americans again and efforts on both sides would have to be made to put a balm on the gaping wound that was now threatening to fester. On the other side were those who wanted to see the South punished. These were the people who were chanting Oh we'll hang Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree.

Ultimately, the reconciliation faction won out. 

On Christmas Day, 1868, President Johnson gave a general pardon to everyone who had been involved with the Civil War. The pardon read:

The United States offers, unconditionally, and without reservation, ... a full pardon and amnesty for the offence of treason against the United States, or of adhering to their enemies during the late civil war, with restoration of all rights, privileges, and immunities under the Constitution and the laws.

Those who accepted the pardon were required to sign a pledge which read:

I, _____, do solemnly swear or affirm, in presence of Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Union of the States thereunder. And that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithfully support all laws and proclamations which have been made during the existing rebellion with reference to the emancipation of slaves, so help me God.

At first, some didn’t know if such a blanket pardon was legal or if it applied to high ranking officials like Davis or Robert E. Lee. While the pardon went out with the hopes of finally putting the Civil War in the rearview mirror, the government continued to prepare its case against Davis.

Then, on February 15, 1869, the Attorney General issued a “nolle prosequi” for Jefferson Davis - a decision not to prosecute. In total, the government dropped thirty seven indictments for treason against a slew of high ranking Confederate officials, including Robert E. Lee. With Johnson’s pardon making waves and the persistent fear of giving Davis a soapbox from which to preach about the righteousness of secession, the government ultimately decided to drop all charges. 

One of the things that clouded the case against Davis was the reluctance on the part of Chief Justice Salmon Chase to prosecute the case. Chief Justice Chase’s attitude was part of the reason that the proceedings had been drawn out for so long. It was later found that Chase had aspirations to run for president after Johnson and that he had had private correspondence with Davis’s legal team. It seems as though Salmon Chase was afraid that prosecuting Jefferson would damage his prospects at rising to the office of the President. The other judge on the case was radical Republican John C. Underwood who was eager to see Davis brought to justice. So, the legal environment on the Union side was fractured and tainted by politics and partisan loyalties, undermining the case.

The last thing that influenced the decision on the part of the government to forgo prosecuting Davis was the fact that the trial was slated to take place in Richmond, Virginia. The government remained terrified of an acquittal of Davis, which was seen as potentially worse than not charging him at all. No one knew what a Richmond jury would rule in such a case, and many were convinced that the citizens of Richmond would acquit Davis just to stick it to the Union. Davis had been extremely popular in Richmond and had garnered the sympathies of large numbers of average Southern citizens. Trying Davis in Richmond was extremely risky, but moving the trial somewhere else, like New York or Washington, would have been decried as unfair and a bid for the case to be weighted against Davis. With all of these things in mind, it was determined that dropping the charges was the best decision.

 

Jefferson Davis was a free man.

 

Not only did Jefferson Davis escape the noose, but he also never made it to trial. For a man who literally led a rebellion against the United States and waged a war that resulted in hundreds of thousands of casualties, this is a stunning outcome.

 

While the government dodged the media and legal circus that was inevitable with a Jefferson Davis trial, they still managed to get their legal assurance that secession was invalid and would never be a valid part of the democratic discourse in the nation again.

The United States pursued two cases in the coming years aimed at dismantling secession without giving Davis a platform. The first case, Texas v. White, in April 1869, stated succinctly but firmly that the Confederacy’s secession had been “absolutely null.” A second case in 1877, Williams v. Bruffy, elaborated further on secession’s illegality with a thorough examination by the court. These rulings remain the current authority on the status of secession in American law. Secession remains illegal, and the basis of this legal foundation was established by these two cases and not United States v. Davis.

But what about Jefferson Davis himself? What did he do with his newfound freedom? What kind of life was in store for the ex-president of the Confederate States of America?

 

Unsurprisingly, Jefferson Davis entered his new life both broke and as an enigmatic figure. His legal fees combined with the fact that he had not generated any income for himself for multiple years had left him hard up for money. It was time to find a job. But what kind of job could the leader of a break away state hope to get? Davis was offered multiple positions by universities across the South but he turned them all down. In some cases, he felt the salary too low and in other cases he said that he didn’t want his person to hinder or damage the reputation of the school. The reality was that Davis, always a Southern aristocrat, saw himself as above menial work. He viewed himself as a war veteran (of the Mexican-American War), a former US Senator and a former President. Other people in his position were not forced to work for a living, so why should he? After turning down teaching positions he tried to find employment in Europe and failed. Ultimately, he had to return to the United States and take an insurance job to try and make end’s meet. After a decade of wandering the face of the Earth, going to and fro, Davis finally received an offer that he felt was befitting of his station. 

 

In 1877, a Southern author by the name of Sarah Dorsey offered him a residence at her estate, Beauvoir, in Biloxi, Mississippi. She offered to sponsor Davis so he could write his memoirs. It was an offer that he accepted, to the chagrin of his wife who believed that Dorsey had ulterior motives for her largess. Davis ultimately moved to Beauvoir and became an author. He wasn’t able to make his grand statement on secession in court but now he used the pen to write out his position in a volume entitled The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. When Dorsey died, she entrusted the estate to Davis and the home remains linked to his person to this day. You can still visit Beauvoir in Biloxi and see the home for yourself. 

 

Finally, in the final years of his life, Davis was called out of exile and was asked to return to the public light. Jefferson Davis was asked to be present at various ceremonies and monument raisings to remember the civil war. The twentieth anniversary of the start of the war was approaching and many were eager to tout Davis as an example of the healing that the country had experienced. Not only was Davis still alive, but he was now a regular American citizen, an example of how the country was coming back together and healing. Thousands of people turned out to see Davis as he toured the South. Some were veterans who wanted to pay respects to their former leader, others were simply curious to see the face of the man who had waged war agains the United States years earlier. It was a final hurrah for Davis who managed to pass from this life to the next with an amount of respect and dignity that many would have thought unthinkable a decade prior. 

 

Jefferson Davis died on December 9th, 1889 after outliving Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson and Ulysses S. Grant. He died of bronchitis after riding a steam boat in the rain on one of his tours. 

 

The saga surrounding the late life of Jefferson Davis, including his imprisonment, a trial that never was and the inexplicable fact that he escaped execution, remain a fascinating, and relatively unknown part of American history. Was it wrong to deny Americans the justice they sought in a trial of Davis? Were the concerns of the government about giving Davis such a broad platform to speak from overblown? Did letting Davis walk really help the country heal after a brutal civil war? Should Jefferson Davis have been hanged for his crimes? That is up to those in the present to debate amongst themselves as history was already written. Forgotten and now found. 

 

Outro

Thank you for listening to Forgotten & Found. We hope to catch you next time. If you liked what you heard and want to hear more, be sure to hit that subscribe button. If you want to read more of my work on hundreds of unique history topics be sure to head over to Grant Piper Writing DOT Medium DOT Com. Catch new episodes of Forgotten & Found every Monday. For those of you who are already here, you are getting in on the ground floor of something that I am truly excited about. 2025 is going to be a phenomenal year for Forgotten and Found and I am happy to have you along for the ride. I am your host Grant Piper. Be good and Godbless.