Description:

Davis Jefferson

Jefferson Davis handwritten 3 page memo to Major W.T. Walthall who was assisting him in preparing “The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government"



Important Autograph Letter, not signed, 3p, 5.5” x 8” front & verso on two conjoined sheets. Beauvoir, May 26 [1879]. To Major [William T.] Walthall. Docketed on verso of third page “Pres. Davis / Mem. for Gen. Hood / 26 May 1879” by Walthall. Mended on verso of lower blank area on third page. Fine condition.



Headed “Memo” by Jefferson Davis, completely in his hand, but not signed. At the time, Major William T. Walthall (1820-1899) was assisting Davis in the preparation of “The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government” (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1881) and this was information Davis wanted Walthall to have. Journalist William T. Walthall joined the Confederate States Army in 1861 and, by the end of the War, had risen to the rank of Major. After the War, Walthall was editorial writer for the “Mobile Register.” In 1876, he moved from Alabama to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, to assist Jefferson Davis in the preparation of “The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government” of which Walthall was the reputed “ghost writer.”



In full, “If you see our friend Genl.[John Bell] Hood, please say to him that I called when in the city last week, but failed to find him, to my special regret. Since I saw Genl Hood I have read the book of my deceased and much lamented friend Genl. R. Taylor, [Confederate Gen. Richard Taylor, Zachary Taylor’s only son, had died April 12th; Jefferson Davis’ first wife was Richard’s sister Sarah who had died in 1835 at the age of 21, just three months after they had married.] and was struck with his account of the expedition of the army under the command of Hood; called the Tenn. Campaign p.204 at bottom is a misapprehension as to what I certainly meant by moving north on to the Chan. & Atlanta R.R. pp. 206-7 – Is quite wrong as to the orders under which Beauregard went to the South and the purpose I expected him to promote. P 208 – The plan of crossing the Tenn. River was first made known to me through a cypher dispatch from Bgd. [Beauregard] and was never sanctioned by me, instead of having him as stated first adopted by me so as to filter Bgd.



“Hood will remember my conversations with him at his Hd.Qrs. next to Atlanta, and probably saw the orders of the C.S. Adj. Genl. to Bgd. and may have heard from him of the conference I held with him at Augusta, in the presence of Genl. Hardee. Hood may also have, or remember the cypher dispatch sent by Bgd. to me announcing the plan to move across the Tenn. as well as my answer to it. As I have told you when the matter had passed beyond the stage at which the pursuit of Sherman was feasible, I was one of those who wished more than was expected from the invasion of Tenn. and objected to the tour of unmeasured censure heaped upon it after the failure. How did Bgd. abandon the Army after joining it, why & for what object as these declared as intimated. You know my recollections & may explain fully to Genl. Hood.”



“Destruction And Reconstruction: Personal Experiences of The Late War” by Richard Taylor (New York: D. Appleton And Company, 1879) was just reaching bookshops at the time of Gen. Taylor’s death on April 12, 1879, six weeks before Davis wrote the letter here offered.



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