Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 29.djvu/16

 * 4 Southern Historical Society Papers.

interwoven with the history of the country, but rather to recall a few personal reminiscences which he cherished of this great and noble leader. Mr. McCaleb said that the first time he saw Mr. Davis was when the speaker was a mere child. Mr. Davis was returning from the sanguinary fields of Mexico crowned with honors. The people of his adopted State had turned out en masse to welcome him. The boys threw up their hats as he passed, riding erect as an arrow, his face wreathed with smiles as he received the plaudits of his fellow- men.

It was at Manassasthat Mr. McCaleb next saw the great president. It was the day after the battle of Bull Run. And again he saw him in the last dying hours of the Confederacy, when he learned more and more to esteem, honor and love him. The Confederate govern- ment had abandoned Richmond, and was temporarily stationed at Danville, Va., when General Extra Billy Smith brought the sad news of Lee's surrender. All was confusion, and in hot haste. Mr. Mc- Caleb said, we hurried to Charlotte, N. C. "There Mr. Davis sent for me, and told me that the Confederate cabinet was about to begin its journey southward, and in command of a brave band of Missis- sippians belonging to Harris' and Humphreys' Mississippi brigades. I accompanied him as far south as Washington, Ga. In that distin- guished cavalcade was President Davis himself, General John C. Breckenridge, Secretary of War; Hon. Stephen R. Mallory, Secre- tary of the Navy; Hon. Judah P. Benjamin, Secretary of State; Hon. John H. Reagan, Postmaster General, and the President's personal staff: Colonel Wm. Preston Johnston, Colonel Thos. L. Lubbock, Colonel Burton N. Harrison, private secretary, and Colonel John Tay- lor Wood. It was on this journey that Mr. Davis heard of the asssassi- nation of President Lincoln. He denounced the assassination from the start, because he believed that the Confederate government, in the heated state of the Northern mind, would be censured for the assas- sination and because he believed that in case of defeat the people of the Confederacy could have expected better treatment from Mr. Lin- coln, who was personally a kinder and more humane man than his successor, who was both an enemy and a traitor to his country.

Mr. McCaleb indulged in some very interesting personal reminis- cences, telling how Jefferson Davis believed that, though the cause was lost, the principles lived, and would reassert themselves at another and more favorable time.

One morning when Mr. McCaleb went to him to express his fears about the. condition of the Secretary of State, who was not an expert