376 Chapter 14 The War to Save the Union
Of course, the Confederacy made heavy use of
the precedents and administrative machinery taken
over from the United States. The government quickly
decided that all federal laws would remain in force
until specifically repealed, and many former federal
officials continued to perform their duties under the
new auspices.
The call to arms produced a turnout in the
Confederacy perhaps even more impressive than that
in the North; by July 1861 about 112,000 men were
under arms. As in the North, men of every type
enlisted, and morale was high. Some wealthy recruits
brought slave servants with them to care for their
needs in camp, cavalrymen supplied their own horses,
and many men arrived with their own shotguns and
hunting rifles. Ordinary militia companies sporting
names like Tallapoosa Thrashers, Cherokee Lincoln
Killers, and Chickasaw Desperadoes marched in step
with troops of “character, blood, and social position”
bearing names like Richmond Howitzers and
Louisiana Zouaves. (“Zouave” mania swept both
North and South, prospective soldiers evidently con-
sidering broad sashes and baggy breeches the embod-
iment of military splendor.)
President Jefferson Davis represented the best
type of southern planter, noted for his humane
treatment of his slaves. In politics he had pursued a
somewhat unusual course. While senator from
Mississippi, he opposed the Compromise of 1850
and became a leader of the southern radicals. After
Pierce made him secretary of war, however, he took
a more nationalistic position, one close to that of
Douglas. Davis supported the transcontinental rail-
road idea and spoke in favor of
the annexation of Cuba and other
Caribbean areas. He rejected
Douglas’s position during the
Kansas controversy but tried to
close the breach that Kansas had
opened in Democratic ranks.
After the 1860 election he sup-
ported secession only reluctantly,
preferring to give Lincoln a
chance to prove that he meant
the South no harm.
Davis was courageous, indus-
trious, and intelligent, but he
was too reserved and opinion-
ated to make either a good
politician or a popular leader. As
president he devoted too much
time to details, failed to delegate
authority, and (unlike Lincoln)
was impatient with garrulous
and dull-witted people, types
political leaders frequently have to deal with. Being a
graduate of West Point, he fancied himself a military
expert, but he was a mediocre military thinker. Unlike
Lincoln, he quarreled frequently with his subordi-
nates, held grudges, and allowed personal feelings
to distort his judgment. “If anyone disagrees with
Mr. Davis,” his wife Varina Davis admitted, “he
resents it and ascribes the difference to the perversity
of his opponent.”
Davis,Address to the Provisional Congress
atwww.myhistorylab.comThe Test of Battle: Bull Run
“Forward to Richmond!” “On to Washington!”
Such shouts propelled the armies into battle long
before either was properly trained. On July 21 at
Manassas Junction, Virginia, some twenty miles
below Washington, on a branch of the Potomac
called Bull Run, 30,000 Union soldiers under
General Irvin McDowell attacked a roughly equal
force of Confederates commanded by the “Napoleon
of the South,” Pierre G. T. Beauregard. McDowell
swept back the Confederate left flank. Victory seemed
sure. Then a Virginia brigade under Thomas J.
Jackson rushed to the field by rail from the
Shenandoah Valley in the nick of time, held doggedly
to a key hill, and checked the advance. (A South
Carolina general, seeking to rally his own men,
pointed to the hill and shouted, “Look, there is
Jackson with his Virginians, standing like a stone wall
against the enemy.” Thus “Stonewall” Jackson
received his nickname.)ReadtheDocumentEighteen-year-olds were the largest age group in the first year of the war in both armies. Soldiers
were universally called “the boys”; and officers, even in their thirties, were called “old men.” One
of the most popular war songs was “Just Before the Battle, Mother.”