shoulder is eloquently Neapolitan, saying as it version with all its "pecooliar" phraseology and does unmistakably, "Che lo sa!" unmodulatable rhythm. To him it is "Familiar as his mother's face, And grand as is the countenance of heaven with stars." Grand indeed it is in its divine simplicity and exact conformity to the very letter of God's psalmody. But there is a sunny, or better, a heavenly side to humanity in Naples. Bibles and Protestant books are openly sold in the streets, as well as scathing caricatures (which the most illiterate can read) setting forth the abominations and follies of priestcraft, which in their point and impression "are as goads and as nails fast-rian Church in Naples, is doing yeoman's servened by the masters of assemblies." Art is already using the liberty which Italy has bought with a great price in depicting the crimes of the old absolutism. The most attractive pictures in the recent exhibition by Neapolitan artists of to-day were two or three inquisitorial scenes, and another representing Galileo arraigned for blasphemy. "But it does move!" We were so fortunate as to make our way to the Scotch Presbyterian service on the Sunday which we spent in Naples. It is held, thank God! openly, and with free consent of the Government; and not like our Protestant services in Rome, under the sheltering wings of our strong eagle within the walls, or under the rose without. The service is held in an upper chamber, a bright, attractive apartment looking out upon the beautiful bay; and as we worshiped with the large congregation gathered that day we grew more hopeful than before for the Luxurious, idle, cruel community in which this pure leaven of a free Gospel is working. Rev. Mr. Buscarlet, of the Scotch Presbyte ice in the mighty service of regenerating Italy. Our party had the pleasure of visiting with him the schools under his care. Turning into a bystreet, and ascending several flights of stairs, they came out upon a house-top; this they crossed, and one or two others besides; then entering a door they descended a few steps, and came into a pleasant apartment. Here was gathered a busy group of perhaps fifteen little boys, who were under the supervision of a monitor somewhat older than themselves. A second room contained fifty boys between the ages of ten and fifteen, pursuing various studies, including that of the Bible. Still a third room was set apart for the instruction of young men in book-keeping and other préparatory studies for a business life. These were under the tutelage of two converted Romish priests. The boys had committed to memory nearly all the Gospel of St. Luke, and, as M. Buscarlet remarked, "whatever the priests may do hereafter, they can not extract that Gospel from my boys' hearts." But it is a mighty task to I doubt if mine were the only eyes which re-uplift a people so long enslaved by superstition. sponded tearfully when the good minister in charge included in his earnest prayer a fervent petition for "that great country beyond the sea, so highly favored of God; so instrumental in the work of the world's evangelization, but now rent by the wicked rebellion." And as he besought that the right might prevail, and good government be restored, we recognized the grateful notes of a trumpet which gave no uncertain sound. To a homesick American it was good to join in such prayers, led by a stranger of Swiss birth and Scotch education, and responded to by Christians from various lands. The Neapolitan boys are singularly bright and sharp of apprehension, but deficient in perseverance. As they grow from under the firm control of the teacher, up to an age when they ought to be competent to pursue their studies without coercion, they sometimes disappoint the hope of their former instructors, and sink back into the national dolce far niente. But a "great patience" is directing and watching over the experiment, and there is reason to hope that ere long this "Paradise lost" will be "regained" for our Lord. So at least thought our party, as they climbed still another stairway, after their examination of the schools was ended, and came When the minister had "wailed a portion out into a garden from which the whole beautiwith judicious care" from David's Psalms, the ful panorama of city and bay was visible. Here entire congregation sung it to a simple air with- they discovered that in their labyrinthine ascent out accompaniment. The quaint old song re- to the school-rooms through and over houses called a somewhat comical incident of the domi- they had been gradually climbing one of the nie's experience. Having arranged an exchange hills which surround Naples, up whose slope of pulpits with a Scotch Presbyterian clergyman, houses are built to the very summit; the lower early on the Sunday morning the dominie was domiciles being thus subject to the inconvenwaited upon solemnly by the conscientious pre-ience of serving as the only passage-way to the centor, armed with a true copy of the Psalms, upper. | from which he begged him to select the portions As they came down from these heights, their he intended to give out for singing, and read hands laden with luscious oranges and lemons them over carefully to himself, "For," he add-plucked in the hanging-gardens, and their hearts ed, apologetically, "they are summat pecooliar, and ye must modulate your voice as ye read 'em!" But I can fully appreciate the loving tenacity with which a man of that ilk clings to this very VOL. XXXI.-No. 185.-S s full of what they had heard and seen, their tongues were eloquent upon the theme of New Italy and the glorious promise these children gave that they would one day go forth in stalwart Christian manhood for her salvation. JEFFERSON DAVIS. [The following article is written by General THOMAS JORDAN, chief of staff to General Beauregard from June, 1861, to May, 1864, and subsequently on Beauregard's staff at the close of the war. Without indorsing all the opinions of the writer, we present it as giving the views of one who, from his position, had the most ample means of forming a correct judgment as to the character and abilities of the Chief of the late Confederacy.-ED. HARPER'S MAGA ZINE] Α LL that can throw light upon the hitherto hidden causes of events, uncover somewhat the ruling motives, or give a correct measure of the character, capacities, and purposes of Confederate leaders, will of course be eagerly sought after by the historian who shall fitly write the story of our time. Moreover, any thing tending to these ends must have present interest, especially that which may aid in form- | ing a just conception of the chief personage to whom the Southern people intrusted the conduct of their ill-fated movement. Believing that I have possession of historical matter that may serve these purposes-that will indeed explain, in some measure, much that otherwise may appear inexplicable in the course of events, I am induced at this early day to venture upon a sketch of Jefferson Davis, at the risk of saying much that, just now, may not be acceptable to many-much that may wear the seeming of personal feelings. the watchful, effective friend of the Military Academy and of the Coast Survey, doing much to avert injurious legislation, as well as to add materially to the value of these two public establishments, which have rendered such conspicuous services to the United States in the course of the war just ended. As Secretary of War the influence of Mr. Davis was overruling in all matters connected in any way with his Department, and his strong will was constantly felt in the councils of a Cabinet of which Mr. Marcy was the Premier. It was Mr. Davis who sent to the Crimea a commission of three officers-one of whom was General M'Clellan, then a Captain of Cavalry, and another the present chief of the United States Military Engineer Corps-to study and report upon the state of the science of war and the condition of European armies. By the efforts of Mr. Davis likewise, four regiments were added to the regular army, two of which were cavalry, particularly valuable to the United States in the last four years. On the whole, it may be said that his administration of the War Office was received by the army and the people as able and successful, though indeed there were some who found in it strong traces of passion-decided traits of character, which gave cause for grave apprehension that he was unsuited for the place of Chief Magistrate of the new Confederation to a degree that must imperil success even with much larger resources than the Southern States could command. JEFFERSON DAVIS received a military education. He was graduated at West Point in 1828, and, entering the army, served as a subaltern One example of these perilous qualities may in the First Regiment of Infantry until March, be seen in the course of Mr. Davis relative to 1833, when, on the formation of the First Regi- staff organization. The United States staff sysment of Dragoons, he was transferred to it, and tem then as now was substantially that of the became Adjutant. In 1835 he resigned his com- French army. It had worked with notable efmission, became a planter, and subsequently a ficiency during the Mexican war, while the politician in Mississippi, making his first ap- French staff had just gone through the Russian pearance on the stage of Federal politics in 1845, war with confessed superiority over that of the as a member of the House of Representatives. British army. But Jefferson Davis had enAt the outbreak of the war with Mexico, May, countered in the American staff officers perma1846, Mr. Davis promptly resigned his seat in nently attached who proved personally objecCongress, went to Mississippi, and raised a reg- tionable, and, on the other hand, officers of the iment of volunteer riflemen, which, under his line whom he wished to provide with staff pocommand, won signal distinction at Monterey sitions not within his disposal. Only a radical and Buena Vista. In 1847 he was tendered by change of organization would enable him to President Polk the grade of Brigadier-General gratify his wishes. With these motives to aniof Volunteers, which he declined.* He then re- mate and color his views, ignoring American entered political life as a Senator in Congress, and yet more recent European experience, with in which high post he remained until his State specious arguments and dogmatic assertion, he withdrew from the Union in 1861, except dur- sought to induce Congress to throw aside the ing the period he was called to the Cabinet of permanent staff organization for one of details Mr. Pierce, as Secretary of War-that is, from on staff duty, such as existed in the British servMarch 4, 1853, to March 3, 1857. ice and had given such signal dissatisfaction As Senator Mr. Davis unquestionably ac- there, showing that for the gratification of perquired a commanding influence, and was re-sonal aims, prejudices, or a spirit of nepotism he garded with marked respect. His speeches, was capable of subverting the organization of always carefully prepared, breathed an air of a vital branch of the army, which was approved conviction, and were gracefully and effectively by the experience of the military world. spoken. He signalized himself particularly as * Declined because, as he asserted, the Federal Executive had no lawful right to confer the commission tendered, which could rightly be bestowed only by the Governor of his State. It is the habit both here and abroad to speak of Mr. Davis as the very incarnation of the ideas, aims, and inspirations which led the Southern people into the course of disunion. On all sides we see ascribed to him the prominence—if not the exponent of the movement, that he was elected Provisional President of the new Confederacy by a bare majority, not because of any recognized political leadership, but on account of his military education, experience, and reputation, and for his acquaintance with military administration, for which it was supposed he had spe thought to be especially desirable at that juncture in their Chief Executive. crime-of the arch-plotter who deeply contrived | regard him in the light of the peculiar leader or and resolutely inaugurated the revolution. So prevalent is this notion that we fully appreciate how difficult it will be to sketch him as one of the leaders of the Confederate States, in his true proportions, upon the historical canvas. Nevertheless the facts revealed by a mere glance at his political antecedents during the eight years preceding secession mark him not as the cham-cial aptitudes; qualities and training which were pion of revolution, not as a fanatical sectional chief by any means, but as one who, keenly alive to the value of great national establishments, sought to foster them; as one, too, whose ambition evidently looked up to a larger sphere than that which should embrace a section rather than the whole Union. This was conspicuously the inspiration of his speech delivered in Maine, when there in pursuit of health, during the administration of Buchanan. Hence, too, after the election of Mr. Lincoln, and certain occurrences in South Carolina clearly portended her ultimate course, on the arrival of Mr. Davis in Washington in December, 1860, he was taken to Mr. Buchanan, and gave assurances that he would counsel moderation on the part of his section, and the exhaustion of all measures for accommodation, at least until after the 4th of March, 1861. Unable, however, to comprehend the proportions of the struggle impending, or to realize that downright war for coercing the seceded States back into the Federal Union would be the result, Mr. Davis from the outset failed to avail himself of the resources of the cotton States to provide arms and munitions of war in the least degree adequate to the exigency. A just measure of his ideas of the state of affairs and of possible contingencies is to be found in the first orders sent to Europe for arms, which were for but ten thousand Enfield rifles. Ten thousand rifles with which to meet the shock of armas with a Power of such energies and resources as were wielded by his adversary! One in his place, of mere civil experience, might be partially excused for such a mistaken policy; but an educated soldier, with views enlarged by connection with the functions of Senator and War Minister, surely must be held to the severest accountability for such a fatal misconception of the situation.* At that time the Southern people were anxious that their Government should take their cotton and tobacco. There was a very large amount of foreign exchange also in possession of the banks, which I know was offered at favorable rates. There would have been little difficulty in exporting the cotton and tobacco, and quite as little in importing arms and supplies into Southern ports at that early stage of the blockade, as was shown by the ease with which the commercial operations of John Frazer and Co. (including their large voluntary der) were carried on, not to speak of the large commercial marine successfully engaged in running the blockade in 1863 and 1864. It will be seen, too, that his course in open Senate accorded with this agreement. His set oration of the 21st January, 1861, was a welldigested, careful statement of the alleged causes or grievances which had driven the slave-labor States into the path which they considered they must surely take in the event of the triumph of aggressive sectionalism by the election of Mr. Lincoln; nevertheless it was conceived in a temperate spirit. Several of the Senators of his section had already spoken. Mr. Pugh, of Ohio, also had previously addressed the Senate in somewhat similar terms, with a lofty and fervid eloquence that no one who heard him can forget. The fact is, the people of the cotton States had gone far ahead of those of their leaders who had been so long their representatives at Wash-importation of small-arms, artillery, and powington as to be possessed with strong personal attachments for the life and associations there of national politicians, which they abdicated with extreme reluctance. The constituency of The Provisional Congress made their legislathese gentlemen, ahead of their representatives, tion square implicitly with the wishes and views had been brought with remarkable unanimity to of Mr. Davis touching military matters, found look upon a dissolution of the Union as their reflected here and there in his Reports as Fedonly means of relief from a state of political in-eral Secretary of War or otherwise. Hence if equality, which they believed was fraught with provisions were not made by that body for an the political, social, and industrial subordina-army organization and state of military prepation of the Southern to the Northern States. ration commensurate with the emergency, and Mr. Davis, with higher, better-founded hopes for Federal preferment than any other Southern statesman, naturally was more reluctant to enter upon a movement that made that preferment impossible. His course, both as Secretary of War and Senator, we affirm, must acquit him of any tendency to extreme sectional sentiments, which made compromise under the Union impossible-disunion inevitable. So little, in fact, did the Provisional Congress such as a wise experienced statesman of military education and knowledge would devise, Mr. Davis is rightly responsible. Yet that legislation gives no traces of a proper conception of the measures which were really called for in a conflict with such an adversary as the Southern people had profoundly affronted and defied. * Mr. Toombs, then Secretary of State, claims that it was first proposed to send for 8000 rifles, and that only at his earnest suggestion the number was increased to 10,000. Mr. Davis had been at West Point, and sub- | that was also abundant in the adjoining counsequently served for several years in the dragoons at a frontier post with a subaltern officer to whom it happened he became attached. About the time the former resigned his commission to turn planter in Mississippi, the latter was disabled by an accident, quit his border post likewise, went to his home, studied medicine, and turned parish doctor. Mr. Davis became in time a politician, Lieutenant Northrop a Catholic convert, but so eccentric and full of mental crotchets as to be generally regarded in Charleston as of unsound intellect, and unfit for the management of his own small affairs. He had not served long enough in the army, nor been thrown in connection with considerable operations, to acquire familiarity with military administration; neither had his retired habits of life, his cast of thought, or avocations in Charleston, brought him in relation with men engaged in large commercial affairs, or turned his mind to the study of such subjects, and in that way attained to that breadth of view and knowledge of general business details and of men which may make up for the want of professional bureau experience after a separation of twenty-five years from army life. This man, with whom Mr. Davis had no personal association since they were cavalry lientenants together on the Indian frontier, he did not hesitate to make his chief of subsistence, nor scruple to intrust with the organization and administration of a bureau upon which the very existence of the Confederate armies must depend, and for the labors of which it is apparent the soundest practical order of intellect was essential. One member of Mr. Davis's Cabinet* at least knew the local repute of Dr. Northrop; and we assert that had the inquiry been made in Charleston, his pre-eminent unfitness would have been universally certified. As might be anticipated, his administration at once took all the characteristics of that unhealthy brain. Mr. Davis supported him, however, in every vagary, permitted him to override all opposition, and ignored the views and wishes of every army commander when, as was of daily occurrence, they chanced to differ from those of Colonel Northrop. Indeed, the crazy courses in which this man was suffered to indulge, to the mortal injury of every Confederate army, are incredible. ties of Fauquier and Loudon. Not required for the transportation of troops or ordnance supplies, that road was therefore available for the almost exclusive use of the Subsistence Department; and substantial supplies, we repeat, lay convenient to it, sufficient for all the forces the Confederates could possibly muster in that quarter. Nothing, indeed, could be more favorable for the Confederates than the arrangement of these two divergent roads. But all this was lost sight of by Colonel Northrop, who by some influence was led to determine that subsistence officers with General Beauregard should not draw their flour or meat either from the rich garners and stores of Loudon, Fauquier, or the valley counties. Forbidding his subordinates, imperatively and angrily, from purchasing supplies within easy reach and with ample means of otherwise idle transportation at hand, leaving them to fall into the hands of the enemy, he set other subordinates to gathering subsistence in the rear of the army, which he was obliged to send over the already overburdened Alexandria and Orange Railroad, for which he had to pay much more than such supplies could have been bought for in the Valley or in Loudon.* The consequences were that there was never in dépôt such a supply of subsistence as General Beauregard needed, and there was not one day's rations for the army at the time of the battle of Manassas (or Bull Run, as it is usually styled), nor more than forty-eight hours' supplies for weeks afterward of the material part of the ration. General Beauregard having urged the provision of a fortnight's supply for some twenty or twenty-five thousand men, Northrop fell into a passion, wrote to the General a letter of surpassing insolence, and at the same time relieved the staff officer from duty who, under General Beauregard's orders, had attempted to remove the evil. Mr. Davis, blind to the consequences, obdurately sustained this extraordinary conduct. But we have not the space for their relation, which would fill a volume. One example must serve to illustrate the surprising character of an administration which made success impossible. All reinforcements, ammunition, ordnance, and the greater part of the quarter-masters' supplies were necessarily transported to the Confederate forces assembled at Manassas Junction by the Alexandria and Orange Railroad, which, of course, was thus tasked to the utmost tension of its resources. But another railroad, branching from it at Manassas, communicated with the most fertile region of Virginia, the famous Shenandoah Valley, which teemed with subsistence • Mr. Memminger, Secretary of the Treasury. more than twenty-four hours, and the wishes forth from his seclusion, his favorite church po- Loudon was carried to Richmond, sold to the Subsistence lemics and squabbles and monomaniac habi- | hended that the requisitions of his General were tudes, to be thrust into duties profoundly inter- both in accordance with exigent military needs mixed with the very existence of his govern- and not in excess of the available supply of the ment, must ever remain one of the inexplicable country. mysteries of human history. Rendered arrogant beyond bearing, at length he used language one day which his doting patron could not brook, and a quarrel resulted, it is understood. It was only then-about February, 1865 -that this veritable tenacious "Old Man of the Sea" for the South was shaken off and his successor appointed; but too late for any radical benefit, for, in no small degree from commissariat follies, the Confederate cause was already in the throes of death. We know that General Johnston dwells upon other reasons for not pursuing M'Dowell than the want either of subsistence or transportation for munitions of war; but, be it observed, this was in connection with any direct movement upon the line of retreat of that General's routed forces. Had it been practicable for the Confederates to take the offensive at once after the battle of Manassas, assuredly Johnston's main army would not have lost time by following M'Dowell, but would have been thrown across the Potomac near Leesburg, and marched rapidly to the rear of Washington. This was rendered impracticable by the want not only of It is in this connection that Mr. Davis may be rightly blamed for the failure of his army to pursue and reap the legitimate fruits of a really wondrous victory, and not because he opposed at the time a proposed forward movement, as has been ignorantly alleged by partisans of the two Generals. As is known, he was at Manassas the evening of the 21st July, 1861. Until a late hour that night he was engaged with Generals Johnston and Beauregard, at the quarters of the latter, in discussing the momentous achievements of the day, the extent of which was not as yet recognized at all by him or his Generals. Much gratified with known results, his bearing was eminently proper. He certainly expressed no opposition to any forward movement; nor at the time displayed a disposition to interpose his opinions or authority touching operations and plans of campaign. If Mr. Davis did not fill the position of Quarter-Master-General with a special favorite, but permitted its duties to be devolved upon the senior officer of the United States Quarter-subsistence, but of means of transportation. Master's Department, who had entered his service, he is none the less responsible for the administration of that branch of his staff. We say this because we know that he constantly interfered with and decided matters that absorbed time which might have been better occupied. One instance of this kind will serve to show both his habitual course and his responsibility for what was ineffective in any Department under him. General Beauregard, early in June, 1861, in view of the similarity of the flags of the United States and the Confederate States, and of the uniforms also of their troops at that time, had proposed to distinguish his men by a scarf to be worn in battle, which he asked should be supplied without delay by the Quarter-Master's Department. But even this small matter Mr. Davis could not suffer his General to decide. Accepting the idea, he directed that not the proposed scarf, but an altogether different contrivance, should be provided. Therefore—if occupied with such petty details the historian must hold him accountable when his main army is found unprovided, as it was, with the means of wheel transportation needful for the ordinary operations of the camp not to speak of an offensive campaign. Looking back, however, we see a marvelous array of proof that Mr. Davis lacked the very qualities the supposed possession of which had elevated him to the head of the Confederate Government-those of the military organizer and statesman acquainted with the higher ranges of war administration. Without showing by his measures of preparation, by recommendations to Congress, or in any way whatsoever, that he believed the war would be prolonged beyond a year, but the contrary indeed; yet before leaving Montgomery for Richmond he had declined to receive a large number of men tendered for twelve months,* for the reason that they were not offered for the war or three years. If he had anticipated a long war, few and short indeed were his steps for the con tingency. But the fact is, his course and the utterances of his Cabinet indicate that he looked for an early pacification, either through that recognition by France and England "in ninety days" which Mr. Benjamin was ever confident On assuming command at Manassas, early in June, 1861, General Beauregard at once gave his attention to this material element of military operations. He made urgent, repeated requisitions for what he anxiously regarded as essential for the safe mobility of his force. The question was one which, as far as practicable, it was his province to determine If possible, his requisitions should have been filled. Mr. Davis knew all about them, as well as of the badge matter. He had been besought to order compliance. The Quarter-Master-General either did not realize the scale of impending operations, and had little conception of the resources of the State of Virginia, or in his com-ly looking for and predicting, or from other munications concerning this matter and his actions was but the echo and organ of the Executive, to whom the responsibility must attach in either case. If competent to be the chief of a great revolution, he would have compre causes; therefore it is hard to understand why he should have inflexibly proscribed these enrollments for less time than three years or the war ⚫ We are assured quite 100,000 of these men were tendered. |