Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 21.djvu/165

 Yum-ey. 157

organize a government prior to the induction of Mr. Lincoln into office. Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia seceded in the spring of 1861.

Mr. Yancey never believed secession would be followed by war. Peaceable secession was the cuckoo song. It was the universal belief in the South that there would be no war. Here and there, Southern men were encountered, who predicted war, but they were branded as " submissionists," and suspected of disloyalty to the South. This disbelief as to war was shared by Jefferson Davis and his cabinet, and the result was, hardly any preparations for war was made before the inauguration of Lincoln in the purchase of cannon, muskets, lead, powder, ships, etc. A large proportion of the cotton crop grown in 1860, was still on hand in the South, which could have been shipped to Europe, and used in the purchase of arms and ammunitions. But none apprehended war, and so preparations were scant.

While Mr. Yancey contributed more than any other individual to launch secession, he cut no great figure afterward. In the Alabama State convention, he was defeated as a delegate to the provisional congress, through a combination of the friends of other aspirants. There was a great jealousy of Mr. Yancey, on account of his superior eloquence and his influence in bringing about secession, and this ignoble feeling manifested itself in attempts to retire him to private life. Jefferson Davis appointed him one of the commissioners to England to negotiate a treaty recognizing the Confederate States, but seeing this could not be accomplished, he returned by way of Mexico, and made his way overland to Montgomery. On his return, he was much disheartened by the aspect of affairs. In the winter of 1 862-' 3, he was elected a senator in the Confederate Senate, and took his seat. My impression is he somewhat antagonized Jefferson Davis' administration he thought militaryism was too much over- slaughing the civil authority in the South at least he expressed himself in that way in a letter written to this writer in the spring of 1864, from Richmond. In the then situation of the South, the mili- tary authority needed to be strengthened. A Danton was needed to procure a decree for a levy en masse in the South for placing negroes in the army, and for converting the South into a camp. A cold, stern, unyielding dictatorship was required, but Jefferson Davis was not the man for such a dictator. Clearly.. Mr. Yancey was