Rockbridge County, VA-- Lexington Gazette- Jefferson Davis

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Lexington Gazette, Friday June 12, 1936, p. 7.

                         JEFFERSON DAVIS

                         By: Mrs. James S. Moffatt

     Editor's Note-- Following is an address on Jefferson Davis, delivered by
Mrs. James S. Moffatt over Station WSVA, Harrisonburg, VA June 3, the birthday
of the Leader of the Confederacy.    Mrs. Moffatt, who is president of the Mary
Curtis Lee chapter, Daughters of the Confederacy, has always taken a leading
part in the civil and social activities of Lexington.
                         _____________________

     Today, one hundred and twenty-eight years ago, Jefferson Davis was born in
Christian county, Kentucky -- now Todd county -- in the village of Fairview. 
While he was yet an infant, his father, Samuel Davis, a native of Georgia, and
a captain of infantry at the seige of Savannah during the Revolution, removed
to Mississippi.  Young Jefferson, after attending the neighborhoodschools and
Transylvania College, entered West Point in 1824, at the age of sixteen.  After
his graduation from the [Ar]my school in 1828 he was as[  ]ed to duty on the
Western frontier.  But the romance and color and adventure of military service
among the pioneers held him over only a few years, and in 1835 Davis resigned
his commission to marry a young lady who for some time had made other things in
life seem but pin-points of existence - General Zachary Taylor's daughter.  But
Davis and the General's daughter did not elope, as has sometimes been
sentimentally declared in history.  It is true that the old General made some
objection to the marriage on the ground of the bride's mother being dead, and
that the young couple had the ceremony performed at the home of a near relative
of the bride, but there was no stealthy flight from the paternal roof tree
followed by blistering adjectives.  Following the marriage Jefferson Davis and
his wife retunred to their cotton plantation in Warren county, Mississippi. 
But this ideally happy life lasted for all too brief a time, and after the
young wife's death, the husband lived in almost hermit-like seclusion 'till
1848.  These dragging and lonely and grief-burdened years , however, were not
without their bearing on Davis' later career; and the foundation for his
conduct along the [    ]ge and unusual path that the [      ] had marked out
for him was perhaps laid in these sad years before 1848.
     On February 26, 1845, Davis' second marriage took place.  If the early
termination of his first marriage had steeled him to endure the uses of
adversity, his second served as a reservoir of comfort and hope and peace in
the world that was soon to be full of turmoil and confusion, for Varina Howell,
his second wife, was with him 'till that December midnight when the worn
soldier and statesman joined the ranks of the patient and prevailing ones.
     The name of Jefferson Davis has been so long identified with the
Confederate States of America that the pre-War service to the government of the
Untied States has almost entirely faded from the memory of even educated and
well read Americans.  But he did many things in the days before the War Between
the States for the political regime which he afterwards fought against, and
these things should have an important place in enabling us to form our estimate
of Davis' patriotism, his ability, and his lofty devotion to what he conceived
to be life's highest duties.  He served valiantly in the Black Hawk War with
Mexico; in the latter he fought heroically at Monterey, suffered wounds at
Buena Vista, and was in the party which scaled the walls of Mexico City.  In
politics, he was united States Senator from Mississippi, he was appointed
Secretary of War in Pierce's cabinet, and he was nominated for President by
Massachusetts men in 1860.  He was a keen and discriminating judge of men and
of the ability of his subordinates; he sent George D. McClellan to Crimea to
study the military tactics of the British and the Russian armies, and he was
chiefly responsible for the appointment of Robert E. Lee as Superintendent of
West Point.  He urged preparededness for war, he enlarged the United States
Army by four regiments, he organized a cavalry service in accordance with the
needs of a growing country, he advocated increased manufacture of military
arms, he had much to do with training young officers for surveying expeditions,
he had forts reparied and rebuilt, and he strengthened those on the Western
Frontier.  But Davis was not a soldier with a narrow mind or a politician with
a restricted outlook or a swivel chair official cracking the whip over meek
subordinates; he possessed the vision of a statesman.  The suggestion that
trans-continental railroads connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific be built
first came from him, and the scientific and geographical exploration of the
West was forwarded by him.  He looked forward to the day when America should
spread its influence beyond its continental bounds and should become a member
of the great family of nations, for he suggested buying the Panama Canal Zone
and purchasing Cuba, and he planned trade relations with China and Japan.  Thus
Jefferson Davis has a claim upon the honor and affections of all who study his
life as a devoted and loyal and far-seeing servant of the national government.
                         (Continued next week)

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The Lexington Gazette, Friday, June 19, 1936, p. 6.

                         JEFFERSON DAVIS

                         By: Mrs. James S. Moffatt 

     But it is natural that we should think of him most often as one of the
chief heroes of a just and not forgotten cause.  It is to be expected that the
part of his career which throws the man most vividly against the faded, but
still romantic and beautiful, tapestry of the Old South, and against the
background of the tragedy which followed this era of color and charm, should
stand out in our minds and hearts as revealing qualities of humanity and
courage and fortitude that nothing else could have done.  It is the tragedies
of life that reveal us as we are, and not our happier moments.  Jefferson
Davis' existence of waste that tested the fibre and gallantry and the steadfast
devotion of the South in a way that only a national crisis could do.  Davis,
like his people, encountered danger with courage and endured misfortune with
matchless fortitude.
     .......We have loved him all
               these years.
         Since that torn flag was fold-
              ed, we've been true.
         The love that bound us, now
              revealed in tears,
         Like webs unseen 'till heavy
              with the dew.
     There are two Jefferson Davises in history.  One is a conspirator, a
rebel, a traitor; this person is a myth that came out of the hell-smoke of war
as purely imaginary as a Mephistopheles or a mediaeval dragon or a Hebrew
Devil.  The other is a statesman who served his people faithfully from early
manhood to unrewarded age with unbending integrity and ability.  Senator Davis
remained in his Federal office untill officially informed that Mississippi had
seceded.  He then took formal leave of the Senate in a manner at once touching
and dignified, voicing the opinions that he before and so often expressed to
that body -- his belief in State Sovereignty and thus in the right of a state
to withdraw its delegated powers from national jurisdiction.  The South feels
today that he then stood for what the signers of the Constitution themselves
stood for, for what Lincoln himself believed; not to overthrow the
Constitution, but to rid American political life of men who perverted the
Constitution.
     When Davis reached Mississippi after leaving the Senate, he found himself
elected Commander-in-Chief of the army of his State and at once entered into
his military duties.  But he was soon chosen Provisional President of the
Confederate States and was inaugurated at Montgomery, Alabama, February 18,
1861.  From that moment all his ambitions and aspirations were merged into the
one burning passion for Confederate independence.  We do not need to follow him
through the four succeeding years of, first, victory, and then defeat; through
his unremitting struggle to keep the South in condition to fight its battle to
the end; through his conferences with Lee and Confederate generals; through his
difficulties with the Confederate Congress; through his enforced flight from
Richmond to the last meeting of his Cabinet in Abbeville, South Carolina;
through the persecution and imprisonment that followed the surrender; and
through the last days 'till the frail and sorrow-marked figure was covered with
the sod that he loved -- such phases of his life are landmarks in history to
all of us.
     When we look back upon the giants of the old days, we are in danger of
losing sight of the fact that they were men, with human qualities of intellect
and feeling.  We too often tend to make the great figures of the past into mere
legends, and we see them as if we were looking at a colossal statue through a
mist.  The figure of Davis is still, in the popular imagination, too frequently
a cold embodiment of historical fact.  On the contrary, Jefferson Davis was as
warmly human in both his virtues and his weaknesses as other outstanding
personalities of the War Between the States.  His concern for the welfare of
those who served him is shown in the letter that his tenants wrote his wife
after his death, given in Schaff's "Jefferson Davis:"
          We, the old servants and 
          tenants of our beloved master,
          Honorable Jefferson Davis,
          have cause to mingle our tears
          over his death who was always
          so kind and thoughful
          of our peace and happiness.
          We extend to you our humble
          sympathy.
                         Respectfully,
          Your old tenants and servants.
          (to be continued)

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