Mr. Brooke:

Hello, I though the following might be of interest concerning your opinion of Jeff Davis Trying to leave the country via Charles James Munnerlyn. Regards, Hoyt Cagle

Taken from: "The Annals of the Civil War Written by Leading Participants North and South"
Alexander Kelly McClure, Ed. (Philadelphia, 1878) The person speaking is John H. Reagan, CSA Postmaster.

In confirmation of this view, I may state that when Mr. Davis was informed that General Sherman would allow him to leave the United States on a United States vessel, with whoever or whatever he pleased to take with him, his reply was that he would do no act which would place him under obligations to the Federal Government, and that he would not leave Confederate soil while there was a Confederate regiment on it. I referred to this afterward in conversation with Mr. Davis, and he told me I would remember that he was one of the Senators who refused to vote the honors of the United States Senate to General Kossuth, and that his reason was that Kossuth abandoned Hungary, and left an army behind him. I may also mention that after this General Breckenridge and myself proposed that we should take what troops we had with us and go westward, crossing the Chattahoochie between Atlanta and Chattanooga, and get as many of them across the Mississippi as we could, and in the meantime keep up the impression that Mr. Davis was with us, and for him to go to the coast of Florida and cross to Cuba, and charter a vessel under the English flag and go to Brownsville, Texas, and thence return and meet us to the west of the Mississippi. He refused to assent to this plan, on the ground that he would not abandon Confederate soil. I ought to add that we were influenced to make this suggestion, because we thought him so exhausted and enfeebled that we did not think he could make the trip by land to where it was hoped to embody the troops west of the Mississippi. [151] I know, too, that it was Mr. Davis' purpose to try to get to the west of the Mississippi before our troops were disbanded, and to get together as many as we could, he hoped sixty or eighty thousand, and place them where they and their horses could be subsisted on the beef and grass of Texas, and where they could not be flanked by railroads and navigable rivers, and there to try and hold out for better terms than unconditional surrender.

From all this it will be seen how absurdly untrue the statement of General Wilson is. The following passage is found in his paper: “When Davis and his companions left Richmond, in pursuance of this plan, they believed that Lee could avoid surrender only a short time longer. A few days thereafter the news of this expected calamity reached them, when they turned their faces again toward the south. Breckenridge, the Secretary of War, was sent to confer with Johnston, but found him only in time to assist in drawing up the terms of his celebrated capitulation to Sherman. The intelligence of this event caused the rebel chieftain to renew his flight, but while hurrying onward some fatuity induced him to change his plans, and to adopt the alternative of trying to push through to the southwest,” etc. I have answered so much of this as refers to the supposed plan of escape. The writer seems to have been in the same predicament as many others have been, who have sought to force or to make facts to suit fanciful theories. Mr. Davis and his Cabinet were not, when they left Richmond, laboring under the belief that General Lee could avoid surrendering only a short time. It was still hoped at that time that Generals Lee and Johnston might be able to unite their armies at some point between the armies of Generals Grant and Sherman, and turn upon and defeat one of them, and take their chances for defeating the other by fighting them in detail. If I knew then where the “Shenandoah” was, I have now forgotten, and I certainly never heard the subject mentioned of an intended or desired escape from the country by her.

I think I am entirely safe in saying that neither Mr. Davis nor any member of his Cabinet contemplated leaving the country when we left Richmond, but two of them afterward determined to do so. And I do not believe that Mr. Davis or any other member of his Cabinet afterward desired to leave the country. Mr. Trenholm, prostrated by a long and dangerous illness, resigned his position as Secretary of the Treasury while we were on our way south, and went to his home. Mr. Mallory, Secretary of the Navy, and Mr. Davis, Attorney General, went to their homes, and all of them remained there until put under arrest by the authority of the [152] United States. Mr. Davis and myself were captured while endeavoring to make our way to the west of the Mississippi for the purpose of continuing the struggle there, if practicable, long enough to get better terms. General Breckenridge was not sent to confer with General Johnston as soon as Mr. Davis heard of the surrender of General Lee, if that is what the writer means to assert. Mr. Davis and his Cabinet remained at Danville, Virginia, for several days after being informed of the surrender of General Lee, and then went to Greensboroa, North Carolina, where they remained a week or two. It was after we had left Greensboroa for Charlotte, North Carolina, and had gone as far as Lexington, in that State, that Mr. Davis received a dispatch from General Johnston, requesting him to send him assistance in his negotiations with General Sherman. General Breckenridge and myself were then sent back by him to join General Johnston at his headquarters, near Hillsboroa, and to aid him in his negotiations. This was done at this time, and at the suggestion of General Johnston, and not as soon as Mr. Davis heard of the surrender of General Lee, as supposed by General Wilson. Much as Mr. Davis, no doubt, respected and esteemed General Breckenridge, it is not true that he confided his hopes to him, or to any other single person. What is said by General Wilson about the “last council of the Confederacy,” is, no doubt, a fancy sketch, intended to round up handsomely this fiction, unrelieved by a single fact.