The conception of the Gettysburg campaign has been properly attributed to Mr. Davis, but much of the criticism that it has evoked is unfair being based upon a misconception of the object sought to be attained. If one will consider the moral effect that the victory of Chancellorsville produced throughout the North, that many influential leaders and a large part of the press openly declared that another such calamity must be followed by the recognition of the Confederacy, the idea of this Northern campaign, it must be conceded, was founded upon sound military principles. Military critics are very generally agreed that Gettysburg would have been a Confederate instead of a Union victory had the Southern troops occupied Little Round Top on the evening of the first day. That they did not is a fortuitous circumstance, which can militate nothing against the soundness of the idea involved in the campaign, while the fact that a victory so great as to have been decisive lay within easy grasp of the Confederates would seem to amply justify the hazard on the part of President Davis.

The last reasonable hope of success was over when Lee retreated from Pennsylvania, but if Mr. Davis recognized that fact he gave no indication of it. On the other hand, adversity had begun to develop that real strength of character which a little later was destined to win the respect of his enemies and the admiration of the rest of the world.

Confederate finances had now sunk to so low an ebb that a collapse seemed inevitable. Congress passed one futile piece of legislation after another, each worse than its predecessor, and matters went from bad to worse with startling rapidity. Mr. Davis was not a financier, but he brought forward a plan which, while it laid perhaps the heaviest burden of taxation ever placed upon a people, nevertheless served for a time to stem the fast rising tide of national bankruptcy.

About the same time, deeply impressed with the suffering of Federal prisoners caused by the cruel policy of refusing exchanges, he attempted to send Vice-President Stephens to Washington to negotiate a general cartel with President Lincoln, but Stephens was allowed to proceed no farther than Fortress Monroe, and nothing came of the mission which was conceived by Mr. Davis purely in the interest of humanity.

As the fall drew on, Bragg was being pressed steadily back by an overwhelming force under Rosecrans, and it became apparent that another disaster was impending over the Confederacy. To avert it President Davis hurried Longstreet’s corps forward as reinforcements, a policy the soundness of which was demonstrated a little later by the great victory of Chickamauga.

But again Bragg failed to measure up to the situation, and instead of capturing or destroying his antagonist, which a prompt pursuit must have insured, he actually refused to understand that he had won a victory until its fruits were beyond his reach. Not even that costly piece of stupidity could quite shake the confidence of the President in his old friend, and it was not until Bragg had insured and received his own disastrous defeat at Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain, by sending Longstreet’s whole corps away on a wild-goose chase against Knoxville, that his resignation was accepted; and even then he was taken to Richmond and duly installed as the military adviser of the Chief Executive.

The Battle of the Crater

The fortunes of the Confederacy were now at a low ebb. The Western army was demoralized and so hopeless seemed the task of reorganization that one general after another refused to undertake it, until in his dilemma the President turned once more to General Johnston. That splendid soldier, forgetting past injuries, accepted the command and soon succeeded in creating an army whose very existence infused new courage throughout the Confederacy. In the meantime, Mr. Davis’ resolution rose superior over the reverses that were everywhere overwhelming his government, and our admiration for the man vastly increases as we see him steering, wisely now, his foundering nation into that dark year 1864, destined to reveal to us a great man growing greater, better and more lovable under the heavy accumulation of terrible misfortune.