14

Unwelcome Guest: Vallandigham in Dixie

THE PRESENCE OF Clement L. Vallandigham in Dixie proved embarrassing to both General Bragg and Jefferson Davis. Since Southerners were fighting for their independence, they could not welcome with open arms a man who wanted compromise and reunion. He was truly an unwelcome guest, yet Southern newspapers tried to squeeze propaganda value out of his presence.

Bragg accepted Vallandigham’s presence as a fait accompli, and dutifully took responsibility for not turning back the Union detail affecting the transfer. He also felt obligated to be a gracious host in the Southern tradition. When Vallandigham visited Bragg’s headquarters on the morning of May 26, the general congratulated the exile upon his arrival in a “land of liberty” and told his guest that he would find freedom of speech and conscience in Dixie. Vallandigham curtly denied that he sought citizenship or rights and freedom in Dixie, insisting that he was a prisoner of war. Somewhat surprised, Bragg told Vallandigham he could be his guest until instructions relative to the exile came from Richmond. The exile, in turn, asked for a pass so that he might visit former friends or travel to a seaport to arrange for passage on a blockade runner.¹

General Bragg, like a responsible commander, wrote a letter to formalize his relationship with the exile. After congratulating Vallandigham again upon his arrival in a land of liberty, he stated that the exile’s freedom, of necessity, would have some boundaries or restrictions. He could give Vallandigham a pass “within the Department,” not for travel elsewhere. Such permission would have to come from officials of the Confederacy.²

The next day, somewhat belatedly, Bragg reported Vallandigham’s presence to Confederate authorities in Richmond and accepted the responsibility for permitting the exile to come within his lines. He had received the exile “with the courtesy due any unfortunate exile seeking a refuge from tyranny.” Vallandigham, Bragg added, wanted to go to Georgia—evidently to run the blockade out of Savannah—and he had granted him oral permission for that purpose. Meanwhile, he awaited instructions from Richmond.³

On the same day that Bragg reported Vallandigham’s presence to Richmond, the exile wrote again to his wife. He was well and had faith in the future. He had been received “very kindly.” Instead of “threats and insults,” officers and citizens whom he had met were ready “to sit down and argue the question.” He added a sentence or two for political effect: “My position in favor of a restoration of the Union is well known here, . . . my opinions and hopes as to a future settlement remain unchanged, and indeed are strengthened.”⁴

Southern newspapers developed considerable propaganda value from Vallandigham’s presence in Dixie. It seemed to substantiate Confederate contentions that Lincoln was a despot, that civil rights had evaporated in the North, and that secession had saved the Southern states from Lincolnian tyranny. “The incarceration and condemnation of Vallandigham,” wrote John Moncure Daniel of the Richmond Examiner, “marks the last step of despotism—there is nothing now to distinguish the politics of the North from that of Austria under Francis, and that of Naples . . . under ‘King Bomba’ [Ferdinand I].”⁵ The editor of the Richmond Sentinel wrote in a like manner: “The trembling Chinaman prostrates himself no more submissively before the ‘celestial’ sovereign, who eats rice with chop-sticks, than they [Northerners] will henceforth before the majestic ABRAHAM, the joker.”⁶

Most Confederate editors, on the other hand, recognized that anyone, exile or otherwise, who preached the doctrine of reunion was an “enemy” to their dream of independence. The Richmond Sentinel stated that Vallandigham was not welcome if he insisted that his loyalty was to the United States. “Unless he intends to renounce his allegiance to our enemies,” stated the editor of the Sentinel, “he owes it to himself and us not to stay here.” By leaving Southern soil and heading for Canada, he could well counter the “cunning and tyranny” of Lincoln and Seward.⁷ Daniel of the Richmond Examiner was even more outspoken against granting Vallandigham hospitality. The exile was no friend. He had opposed the establishment of the Confederacy; he was, in fact, “an earnest agent for its political annihilation.” Since he was really “an alien enemy,” he might well be imprisoned in Richmond until the next exchange of prisoners, under a flag of truce, was arranged at City Point. If the Federals refused to receive him, then he should “be forced to leave the Confederacy.”⁸ The same line of argument appeared in the Chattanooga Rebel. “We do not wish to be inhospitable,” wrote its editor, “but we do not recognize the right of any power or court to send its convicts here as in Botany Bay. The South is not the proper place for political hermits, however dignified, or popular, or noble.”⁹

President Jefferson Davis and his secretary of war, James A. Seddon, also recognized that they dared not welcome an exile who still claimed his loyalty was to the United States. Furthermore, a friendly welcome would play into Lincoln’s hands and give him a chance to say that Vallandigham was among “friends,” thus stigmatizing all antiwar Democrats. This, of course, was exactly what Vallandigham and Confederate officials wanted to prevent.

President Davis, therefore, wanted a formal statement of Vallandigham’s intent and status. He instructed his secretary of war to make the necessary inquiry of General Bragg. “If the Honorable C. L. Vallandigham has come or been forced within your lines,” Secretary Seddon wrote to Bragg, “ascertain and report on what character and under what circumstances he stands. If he claims to be a loyal citizen of the United States, he must be held in charge or on parole as an alien enemy. He may be allowed on parole to proceed to Wilmington, and then to report to General [William H. C.] Whiting.”¹⁰

Seddon’s telegram embarrassed Bragg and caused him to retreat from the independent measures he had taken earlier. He asked his “guest” to return the pass given him on May 26 and to put into writing his “status” and “intentions.” Vallandigham complied. He had come into the Confederate lines, he wrote, under compulsion and against his consent and in pursuance of a military order of the president of the United States, executed by force. “My most earnest desire,” he added, “is for a passport, if necessary, and permission to leave as soon as possible through some Confederate port, or by way of Matamoros, for Canada, where I can see my family, and as far as possible, transact my business unmolested. I am still a citizen of Ohio, and of the United States, recognizing my allegiance to both, and retaining the same opinions and position which I have always held at home.”¹¹

When Vallandigham learned that blockade runners were going to and from Wilmington, North Carolina, “almost with the regularity of packets,”¹² he decided to go there rather than risk the tedious trip to Matamoros, Mexico. Confederate authorities, too, recognized that Vallandigham’s easiest way out of Dixie would be from Wilmington. After General William H. C. Whiting had assumed command of the military district of Wilmington, he had made the Cape Fear River the best haven for blockade runners in the South, and had fortified Fort Fisher at the mouth of the river, making it a near impregnable fortress.

When Bragg received Vallandigham’s “formal statement” of May 31, he again reported to Richmond authorities. He not only summarized the exile’s statement but added the suggestion that Adjutant General Samuel Cooper or “a confidential agent” interview Vallandigham.¹³

President Davis liked Bragg’s suggestion. One telegram instructed Bragg to send Vallandigham “as an alien enemy under guard of an officer” to Wilmington “where further orders await him.”¹⁴ A second asked his secretary of war to arrange a meeting of Vallandigham with Colonel Robert Ould, Confederate commissioner for the exchange of prisoners, in Lynchburg, Virginia. After the interview Ould should conduct his “guest” to Wilmington.¹⁵

Bragg immediately carried out President Davis’s instructions, adding a penciled note to the president’s telegram so it could also serve as a pass: “Upon Mr. Vallandigham’s earnest request, he was permitted to go this morning to Lynchburg to confer with a distinguished friend [Ould] of Virginia. He reports from there on parole to the War Department.”¹⁶

Seddon complied with Davis’s orders by writing a note to Ould, asking him to meet Vallandigham in Lynchburg and then assume “direction and control over his future movements.” In part, Seddon’s directive read:

You will see that he is not molested or assailed or unduly intruded upon, and extend to him the attentions and kind treatment consistent with his relation as an alien enemy. After a reasonable delay, with him at Lynchburg to allow rest and recreation from the fatigue of his recent exposure and travel, you will proceed with him to Wilmington, N. C., and there deliver him to the charge of Major-General Whiting, commanding in that district, by whom he will be allowed at an early convenient opportunity, to take shipping to any neutral port he may prefer, whether in Europe, the Islands, or on this Continent. More full instructions on this point will be given General Whiting, and your duty will be discharged when you shall have conducted Mr. Vallandigham to Wilmington and placed him at the disposition of that commander.¹⁷

As an “alien enemy,” Clement L. Vallandigham waited in Shelbyville for instructions to proceed. He passed most of the time in seclusion, although he took a brief walk daily. Several newspaper correspondents sought him out, anxious to provide a description of the exile for subscribers and readers. “Mr. Vallandigham,” wrote a correspondent for the Richmond Examiner, “is about fifty years of age, five feet eight inches high, brown short hair, slightly grey, a large twinkling blue eye, aquiline Roman nose, full face, ruddy complexion, rather stout, has a very affable, pleasant manner, and smiles most graciously, exhibiting a white set of teeth, but has one of the incissors [sic] out at the left corner of his mouth. He is what may be called a good looking man, with a very prepossessing, popular manner, and admirably adapted to electioneering and stump speaking.”¹⁸

A second reporter, also favorably impressed with Vallandigham, wrote an even fuller description of the exile: “His manner has nothing studied or affected; he speaks without effort or hesitation, and his face bears a permanent expression of good humor and friendship. His eyes are blue, full, and look right into yours; whilst they beam with vivacity and intelligence, there is an honesty in them which has won your regard and admiration before you know it. His complexion is florid, his nose rather hooked, chin and lips well chiselled and firm, teeth strong and white, hair and whiskers dark chestnut, and close trimmed, height about 5 feet 10. His frame is robust, compact, and graceful. Altogether he is certainly a man of extraordinary mental and physical vigor. . . . A man of great natural abilities, improved by cultivation, combining impulse with deliberation, and enthusiasm with remorseless determination of purpose.”¹⁹

Reporters and correspondents who came to Shelbyville after June 1 missed an opportunity to observe or interview the noted exile. On that day General Bragg gave instructions to Vallandigham to proceed to Wilmington via Lynchburg and report on parole to General Whiting. Bragg detached an officer from his staff to accompany Vallandigham, and John DeWitt Atkins, who had served in Congress before the war and considered himself a friend, also received permission to travel part of the way. Both Atkins and Vallandigham had attended the Democratic National Convention when it met in Cincinnati in 1856, one representing Ohio and the other Tennessee. As a member of the Thirty-fifth Congress, Atkins had helped the Ohio Democrat gain Lewis D. Campbell’s seat in 1858. The crisis which developed after that year strained their friendship and the start of hostilities caused each to go his own way. In 1861 Atkins accepted a colonelcy in the Confederate army. After winning election to the Confederate congress in 1862, he sheathed his sword and returned to the political arena. Fate played strange tricks upon the two friends of prewar years. One was now an exile, the other his traveling companion.

As Vallandigham, Atkins, and Bragg’s aide passed through the camps to the Shelbyville depot, crowds of Confederate soldiers gathered along the route. Some expressed their sympathy for the exile through cheers and “friendly demonstrations,” but Confederate officers took steps to suppress the demonstrations, quite embarrassing to Vallandigham.²⁰

The three travelers arrived in Chattanooga early in the afternoon of June 2. Citizens of that city knew of Vallandigham’s arrival and a large number of the city’s residents assembled at the depot to see a man who was exiled because he had the courage to speak out and criticize the Lincoln administration.

Edward M. Bruce, a member of the Confederate congress from Kentucky, met the arrivals at the railway depot and conducted the three to the Crutchfield House, the finest hotel in town. There Bruce presented the exile to Judge Robert L. Caruthers and other distinguished citizens of Tennessee. After the exchange of pleasantries and a brief visit, Vallandigham was taken to his room. He spent the rest of the day visiting with strangers in the lobby of the hotel or with old acquaintances in the privacy of his room.²¹

The next morning, Vallandigham and the officer who had him in charge left for Knoxville. There was a long delay between trains in the largest city of eastern Tennessee, for provision and troop trains monopolized the main line. Later in the day Vallandigham’s train proceeded toward Lynchburg via Abingdon, but did not arrive until Wednesday evening, June 5. In Lynchburg the officer in charge conducted the parolee to the Norvell House and instructed him to rest and relax until Colonel Robert Ould arrived to interview him.

Southerners, meanwhile, continued to treat Vallandigham with civility, as befitted “an alien enemy.” Editors and others stated time and again that he was “a mortal enemy,” but felt some hope that the exile might learn that the South wanted independence, not compromise and reunion. The South would never accept peace “without independence.” If Vallandigham supposed that Southern states would return to the Union if concessions were belatedly offered, they declared, he was mistaken and “badly deluded.” No, reunion could never occur until “the terrible past” was “wiped out” and sinking into oblivion, or “until the many thousands who had been slain should be brought back to life” and the many “outrages” committed upon the Southern people undone.²²

Southern editors advanced three reasons why Vallandigham ought to leave Dixie and go to Bermuda or Canada. In the first place, if he stayed in the South for a year or two, it would give “a color of probability” to the innuendoes which stamped him as a traitor to the Northern government. Republican propagandists could claim that the exile enjoyed the company of his “friends.” In the second place, Vallandigham’s position on peace and reunion conflicted directly with the objectives of the Southern war for independence. “So odious to us has the idea of reunion with the North become,” stated the editor of the Richmond Sentinel, “that we denounce the party of which Vallandigham is chief” as bitterly as Lincoln’s supporters. Some Southerners evidently regarded peace-and-compromise men like the exile as “most dangerous enemies,” to be abhorred as much as Thaddeus Stevens or Charles Sumner. In the third place, it was likely that Vallandigham would receive his party’s gubernatorial nomination at the Ohio State Democratic Convention of June 11. It would be more expeditious for him to conduct his campaign from Canada rather than from the Confederacy. Expediency, then, dictated that Vallandigham shake Southern dust from his soiled shoes and leave the Confederacy as soon as possible.²³

While Southern editors were urging Vallandigham to leave Dixie, Colonel Robert Ould arrived in Lynchburg for his interview with the exile. Ould, on assignment as “special interrogator” for the Confederate government, had a long and friendly discussion with Vallandigham. Never a shrinking violet and at times quite garrulous, the exile answered Ould’s queries frankly and often at great length. If the Confederates held out for fifteen months the peace party in the North would sweep “the Lincoln dynasty” out of political existence. An invasion of the North by Confederate armies, on the other hand, would “unite all parties” and strengthen Lincoln’s hand. It might, in fact, enable him to crush all political opposition and trample even more upon the constitutional rights of the people.

Vallandigham offered the opinion that the Southern cause was crumbling or “sinking,” and that the peace movement in the North would also collapse “if Northern arms triumphed.” Northerners, whether radical Republicans or peace Democrats, had the same final objective—reunion. The Democracy wanted reunion through conciliation and concession; radical Republicans sought reunion through coercion and conquest. Any reconstruction which was not voluntary on the part of the South could not be permanent; it would be followed by another separation and a worse war than the present.

If reunion could not be effected through either compromise or coercion, Vallandigham continued, the Northern government would be compelled to recognize the independence of the South, albeit reluctantly. In any event, Vallandigham reiterated, he had not changed his views since the beginning of the war. Compromise could have prevented the war; compromise should be the means to restore “the Union as it was.”²⁴

After completing his interview with the exile, Ould escorted him to Wilmington via Petersburg. It was necessary to change trains again in Petersburg. No reception was given Vallandigham in that city and the two left as quietly as they had come.²⁵

In Wilmington, Colonel Ould turned the parolee over to Gen. Whiting and headed back to his desk and his many duties in Richmond. General Whiting secured passage for Vallandigham on a blockade runner, the Lady Davis, previously called the Cornubia, owned by Secretary of War James A. Seddon. Through Seddon’s influence, Vallandigham received a priority rating on the passenger list.

It took several days to unload the cargo which the Lady Davis had brought in from Bermuda, to reload the 600-ton, two-masted side-wheeler with cotton bales, and to ready her for another game of hide-and-seek with Yankee ships of the blockading squadron. On June 17, Captain Richard H. Gayle directed the passengers to file aboard and instructed the pilot to take the 210-foot ship, with a reputation for being “very fast,” to a position behind the New Inlet bar, not far from the mouth of the Cape Fear River. While they waited for darkness, the firemen stoked the furnaces until the flames flashed over the tops of the smokestacks. After darkness set in, Captain Gayle ordered the Lady Davis headed for the high seas. The side-wheeler ran the blockade successfully and headed for St. George’s harbor, Bermuda. The trip, evidently without incident,²⁶ ended some eighty-two hours later, and Vallandigham left the Lady Davis and set foot on British soil.²⁷

Most Confederates seemed happy to see Vallandigham’s twenty-four-day stay in their country come to an end. “We are glad that Vallandigham has gone,” wrote the editor of the Augusta Chronicle, “for his presence in the Confederacy was a source of perplexity to the Government, and general uneasiness to the people.”²⁸ The editor of the Richmond Sentinel also expressed satisfaction with the way the Confederate officials had handled the Vallandigham case. “We are glad, indeed,” he wrote, “that the matter was managed as it was . . . [in a way] most likely to frustrate Lincoln’s amiable designs.”²⁹

¹ Charles Martin, an intimate friend during Vallandigham’s college days, was a professor at Hampden-Sidney College in 1863.

² 26 May 1863, copy in Vallandigham Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland. Also in the Vallandigham Papers is a pass dated 26 May 1863 and signed by Bragg. It reads: “Mr. Vallandigham, the bearer, a citizen of the State of Ohio, is permitted to pass as a citizen of the Confederacy, within the limits of this department.”

³ Bragg to Adjutant General [Samuel Cooper], 27 May 1863, copy in Vallandigham Papers.

⁴ 27 May 1863, published in part in Dayton Daily Ledger, 27 May 1863.

⁵ 20 May 1863.

⁶ 18 May 1863.

⁷ Ibid., 29 May 1863.

⁸ Richmond Daily Examiner, 30 May 1863.

⁹ Chattanooga Daily Rebel, 29 May 1863.

¹⁰ 30 May 1863, Official Records, ser. 2, 5: 963.

¹¹ Bragg to Vallandigham, 31 May 1863, and Vallandigham to Bragg, same date, Vallandigham Papers.

¹² Vallandigham, in a postwar speech of 24 October 1867, published in Dayton Daily Ledger, 30 October 1867.

¹³ Bragg to Samuel Cooper, 1 June 1863, Official Records, ser. 2, 5:965.

¹⁴ Davis to Bragg, 2 June 1863, Vallandigham Papers.

¹⁵ The instructions of Davis to Seddon are not included in the Official Records. Seddon’s instructions to Ould, however, indicate that Davis ordered his secretary of war to interview Vallandigham; see Official Records, ser. 2, 5:968.

¹⁶ The penciled note is on the Davis-to-Bragg telegram of 2 June 1863, Vallandigham Papers.

¹⁷ Seddon to Ould, 5 June 1863, Official Records, ser. 2, 5:968.

¹⁸ Richmond Daily Examiner, 8 June 1863.

¹⁹ Atlanta Confederacy (n.d.), quoted in Chattanooga Daily Rebel, 3 June 1863.

²⁰ Richmond Daily Examiner, 8 June 1863.

²¹ Chattanooga, Daily Rebel, 3 June 1863.

²² Richmond Daily Examiner, 2 June 1863; Chattanooga Daily Rebel, 2 June 1863; entry of 6 June 1863, in Kate Cummings, Kate: The Journal of a Confederate Nurse, Richard Harwell, ed. (Baton Rouge, 1959), p. 108.

²³ Richmond Sentinel, 6 June 1863; Petersburg (Va.) Daily Express, 8 June 1863; Richmond Daily Examiner, 4 June 1863; Wilmington (N.C.) Daily Journal, 5 June 1863.

²⁴ Ould’s memorandum, which summarized Vallandigham’s views and gave an account of the interview, seems to be lost. John B. Jones’s statement of what Ould had reported (Jones saw the memorandum in the Confederate War Department files) is summarized in Jones, A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary (New York, 1958), pp. 229-30. Jones’s entry of 22 June 1863 also appeared in the Dayton Daily Journal, 8 May 1866. Jones mentioned that Jefferson Davis endorsed Ould’s memorandum and added a note that Vallandigham’s views regarding a Northern reaction to an invasion by Lee’s army were in error.

²⁵ Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, undated clipping in Vallandigham Folder, New York Historical Library, New York City.

²⁶ Vallandigham, Vallandigham, pp. 314-15, recounts an incident which has all the earmarks of a myth. While the Lady Davis was on the high seas it was approached by a U.S. warship, a faster steamer than the Lady Davis. Captain Gayle, in panic, rushed to Vallandigham’s cabin to seek help and advice. After being apprised that a number of British uniforms were aboard, Vallandigham advised Captain Gayle to have his men don the British uniforms and parade up and down the deck, so as to produce the impression that the steamer was an English transport with troops aboard. Captain Gayle followed Vallandigham’s advice and the ruse worked like “a charm.” Vallandigham’s ingenuity thus saved the day and the cargo.

The story seems quite improbable. In the first place, it is unlikely that any Union warship was fast enough to catch or even approach the Lady Davis on the high seas. In the second place, a seasoned blockade runner like Captain Gayle would hardly panic and run to a landlubber’s cabin to seek advice. If Captain Gayle had carried British uniforms to fool Yankee blockade captains, he would have known when to use them. Furthermore, when the Lady Davis was captured on November 8, 1863, after having run aground off South Inlet, all contents were seized and inventoried. The list fails to mention any British uniforms.

²⁷ Bermuda Royal Gazette, 27 June 1863, quoted in Daily Ohio State Journal (Columbus), 4 July 1863; Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, 26 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1894-1922), ser. 1, 9: 274, 277-78; ibid., ser. 2, 1: 66.

²⁸ Undated clipping in Vallandigham Folder, New York Historical Library.

²⁹ 25 June 1863; see also Bermuda Royal Gazette, 23 June 1863, quoted in Crisis, 8 July 1863.