Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 40.djvu/224

With such victories as Fredericksburg, with those that preceded and those that followed, and so many of them, it would seem that our success should have been assured; we failed. The President of the late Confederacy has been much censured and an effort made to throw a portion of the responsibility of the failure on him. I seek not to inflame the bitterness of the past; I enter into no personal contests; I know no man, and seek only to vindicate the truth of history as I understand it. That Mr. Davis had his faults none will deny; that he made mistakes all will concede. Who is so perfect as to be exempt from human fallibility? But that he was justly responsible in any part for our failure, or that his administration by any act of commission or ommission on his part hastened the catastrophe, will not, in my judgment, be sustained by the facts. He brought to the cause of the Confederacy a very high order of ability, an indomitable will, a sincere purpose, and an intense patriotism. The success of the cause was the great end of his administration, and to this he sacredly gave his talents, his strength and power. Could personal sacrifices have promoted it, he would have spurned the costs. Could death itself have accomplished it, he would at any time have gladly welcomed it. He may safely leave his vindication to the impartial historian. Had his cause been successful he would have ranked with the first patriots and the best statesmen of the world. I watched him during the war, when the adversities and misfortunes of our cause were rested upon his head; I saw his patience and heroism; though reviled and persecuted he answered not again, preferring unjust censure to a vindication at the expense of the harmony of the country. I saw him as he stood by the cause, until all else had forsaken it; I heard the slanders uttered by his enemies in his capture; I saw him in case-mate No. 2 at Fortress Monroe, when arrested for treason, and it was declared in all the passion and fanaticism of the hour, that treason must be made odious; I saw him torn inhumanly from wife and child, and denied even the privilege of correspondence; I saw him, when to heap indignity upon cruelty, they outraged the civilization