Beschreibung:

DAVIS, JEFFERSON, President, C.S.A. . Autograph letter signed ("Jefferson Davis") to Bishop William Mercer Green of Sewanee, Tenn.; Beauvoir, Mississippi, n.d. [probably 7 February 1878]. 6 pages, 8vo, 187 x 128mm. (7 3/4 x 5 in.), consisting of about 500 words. DAVIS'S ACCOUNT OF HIS CAPTURE BY FEDERAL TROOPS IN 1865, ANGRILY DENYING THE "VILE STORY" THAT HE ATTEMPTED TO ESCAPE IN FEMALE DRESS An exceptionally interesting letter in which Davis attempts to set the record straight regarding his attire when he was captured by troops of the 4th Michigan Cavalry at an encampment near Irwinsville, Georgia in the early morning hours of 10 May, 1865. Controversy over this incident, in which it was claimed that Davis had been attired in women's clothes, was to dog the former Confederate President for the rest of his life. Davis is pleased that Green has recovered from a recent illness and reports that "Mrs. [Varina] Davis has been detained in Memphis by the precarious health of our daughter Margaret..." He goes on: "You will exercise your pleasure in the matter of the Photograph. I have on several occasions presented copies from the same negative, with a statement that I wore [in the photograph]...the same clothes I had on when captured. To be full and minute,...when ordered to 'halt', I dropped the waterproof cloak and shawl from my shoulders, and advanced towords the man who ordered me to halt, in the identical clothes I put on for the purpose of having this photograph taken. The only difference being that my hat was on my head instead of in my hand, and I wore a pair of brass spurs, large and conspicuous from having silver devices on the bars. The spurs having been stolen after my capture they do not appear [in the photograph]. My good Wife seeing the Cavalry man drop his Carbine to fire at me, ran up behind me and threw her arms round my neck to stop me. My purpose was thus thwarted and saying 'God's will be done' I turned to lead her back to her tent, for now others of the Enemy were gathering round us. The morning was chilly & I passed in to a camp fire to warm and there remained unmolested and I suppose unrecognized for some time. A soldier from Maine published a statement in contradiction of the vile story of my being disguised in female dress, and said he had known me in Portland Maine and recognized me at the moment of my capture. I had not undressed, but laid down with even riding boots and spurs on, having been warned that a band of robbers would probably visit the camp that night. So when my servant came to tell me that there was firing near to our camp, I immediately went out, and saw the Cavalry deployed around the camp and closing in on it. The firing was by two Regts. who on meeting each other commenced firing each supposing the other to be confederates... The demoralization of War had filled the land with roving plunderers, the news that such a gang was in pursuit of my Wife and Childeren to rob them of their teams, induced me to change my course and follow after them, and so I was with them when captured, not having seen them, before overtaking them in Georgia, since they left Richmond, some weeks before the evacuation..." William Mercer Green was Episcopal Bishop and Chancellor of the University of the South. Many of the telling details which Davis supplies here are incorporated into a carefully researched account of this highly controversial incident by William C. Davis, Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour , New York 1991, pp.635-637 and fn. Not in Correspondence , ed. D. Rowland, although other letters to Green are collected in vol.7, pp.441-449. Green's letter which apparently prompted Davis's account is published there (a copy accompanies the lot). See also Julian G. Dickinson, The Capture of Jeff. Davis (Detroit 1888) for a Union account and Chester Bradley, "Was Jefferson Davis Disguised as a Woman When Captured?" in Journal of Mississippi History , 36 (August 1974), pp.243ff. Provenance : Anonymous o