Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/398

360 The convention was composed of the following members:

South Carolina.—R. B. Rhett, James Chestnut, Jr., W. P. Miles, T. J. Withers, R. W. Barn well, C. G. Memminger, L. M. Keitt, W. W. Boyce.

Georgia.—Robert Toombs, Howell Cobb, Benjamin H. Hill, Alexander H. Stephens, Francis Bartow, M. J. Crawford, E. A. Nisbett, A. R. Wright, T. R. R. Cobb, A. H. Kenan.

Alabama.—Richard W. Walker, J. L. M. Curry, Robert H. Smith, C. J. McRae, John Gill Shorter, S. T. Hale, David P. Lewis, Thomas Fearn, W. P. Chilton.

Mississippi.—W. P. Harris, Walter Brooke, A. M. Clayton, W. S. Barry, J. T. Harrison, J. A. P. Campbell, W. S. Wilson.

Louisiana.—John Perkins, Jr., D. F. Kenner, C. M. Conrad, Edward Sparrow, Henry Marshall, A. DeClouett.

Florida.—Jackson Morton, James Powers, J. P. Anderson.

Texas.—L. T. Wigfall, J. H. Reagan, J. Hemphill, T. N. Waul, John Gregg, W. S. Oldham, W. H. Ochiltree.

Under the adopted Provisional Constitution the Congress proceeded at noon, February Qth, to elect the President and Vice- President of the new Republic. The ballots were taken by States, and Mr. Jefferson Davis, who was at his home in Mississippi, received the entire vote for the presidency, as also did Mr. Alexander A. Stephens for the vice-presidency. It may be noted that while the names of other great men of the South had been most favorably mentioned, among them prominently that of Mr. Howell Cobb and Mr. Toombs, yet this prudent Convention turned at length without dissent to the two men who fully represented the cool, firm, conservative sentiment of their section. Mr. Davis had despairingly pleaded before the United States, within less than a month of the assembling of this Southern Congress, for a compromise that would arrest the pending secession of