Mr. Toomb's successor in the
Confederate State Department after July, 1861,
the Hon. Robert M. T. Hunter, of
Virginia, was a man of very different mold.
Educated at the famous University of Virginia, and for the bar, he went, after a brief law practice, into the service of the
State.
He was always a careful student of history and of the science of politics in its most elevated sphere of action.
Entering the House of Representatives and becoming its Speaker at
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the early age of thirty years, he next became a member of the United States Senate, and there taking the acknowledged lead in all matters of revenue and appropriation, he soon impressed himself on all his contemporaries as one of the very ablest among them.
On all revenue matters he led the Senate.
He left that body in 1861 without a personal enemy and with the sincere respect and esteem of all its members of either party.
His mind was thoughtful, sagacious, well balanced, and pre-eminently conservative.
His elaborate instructions to
Messrs. Slidell and
Mason, who were commissioned to
London and
Paris in September, 1865, embody the general policy of the
Confederate State Department which was pursued to the close.
Like
Mr. Toombs, he was careless as to personal appearanee, but he was far more studious, industrious, and methodical, and he possessed not only a higher scholarship, but a broader, more thoughtful grasp of public affairs coupled with a riper judgment and more conciliatory temper.
The Confederate Government moved from
Montgomery to
Richmond in the latter part of May, 1861.
The
President's offices and those of the State Department were located on the upper floor of the spacious granite building known as the
Federal custom-house.
The President had there his personal office and Cabinet room and also some other rooms for his six aids and his private secretary.
The remainder of the rooms on this floor were assigned to the State Department and were ample for its purposes, the force being only a small one.
On going from the army to
Richmond in the early autumn of 1861, I found
Mr. Hunter in the State Department.
I saw also
Messrs. Mallory,
Reagan, and others.
Mr. Davis I did not see for a few weeks.
He was at this time confined to his home on Shockoe Hill by a protracted illness, but he possessed a great vitality and he recovered in a month or so. After that illness he was careful to take regular exercise.
He used to take very long rides in the country, going out late in the evening and having only a single companion, perhaps one of his aids, or his sister-in-law,
Miss Howell.
The country about
Richmond was at that time thickly wooded, imperfectly guarded, and he ran considerable risk, but on a point like that he would not have relished advice.
His attention to his arduous office work was unremitting.
He was grave, but courteous, a good business man, attentive to official routine and forms.
He had been four years
United States Secretary of war, and knew their value.
He dined late and after his rides, but was always singularly abstemious and temperate.
After dinner he was usually ready for quiet, social
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converse with his family and friends and seemed to enjoy it greatly.
But he never mixed up work and pleasure.
There were no formal receptions or large companies at the
President's. But nevertheless, this old house has its pleasant flavor of social traditions.
During the winter of 1861-‘62
Mr. Hunter's Virginia friends insisted on his giving up the
Cabinet place he held and going into the Confederate Senate, in order to represent
Virginia.
In a matter of that kind he felt that he ought to yield to their wishes and accordingly he was elected to that body, his term beginning February 22, 1862.
Here he gave his attention chiefly to finance.
He was the author of the principal financial measures of the
Confederacy, the tax in kind, the interconvertible bond, and others.
He was also
president pro tempore of the chamber.
When
Mr. Hunter vacated the State Department
Mr. Benjamin was transferred from the War Department to fill the position.
He, therefore, entered on his duties February 22, 1862, and remained with
Mr. Davis so long as there was a semblance of his government.
He was a man of wonderful and varied gifts, rare eloquence and accomplishments, a great lawyer, senator, and man of affairs.
He could dispatch readily and speedily a very large amount of business.
I have known him to compose a most important State paper of twenty pages or more at a single sitting in a clear, neat chirography, and with hardly a single word interlined or erased.
His style was a model of ease and perspicuity.
Mr. Davis set the highest value upon his services and his friendship.
A
Secretary of State is bound to consult his chief on every important matter lying within his province.
Mr. Davis's room and
Mr. Benjamin's were barely a hundred feet apart upon the same floor, and there was hardly a day in which
Mr. Benjamin did not visit the
President in his office, not so much on affairs of his own department as to learn the army news of which
Mr. Davis was sure to be informed, if anybody was. With such relations, therefore, between these two gentlemen, and much more of which I do not propose to speak, it is a moral impossibility that
Mr. Davis would dream of transacting diplomatic business outside of the regular channels.
If
Mr. Davis had not fully trusted his secretary he would have dropped him and appointed some one whom he could trust.
Mr. Davis practically left the State Department to its secretaries.
He has said that he left finance to
Hunter and
Memminger, and this was quite true.
The grand objective point of Confederate diplomacy for four years was to secure recognition as an independent government for the
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Confederacy.
This was the policy embodied in
Mr. Hunter's letter of instructions to
Mr. Slidell already mentioned, and it was the policy constantly kept in view by his successor in office,
Mr. Benjamin.
An offer to cede territory in exchange for intervention and help would have been fatal to the arguments on which the demand for recognition was based.
I must not conclude my personal notice of
Mr. Benjamin without stating that such was his appetite and facility for work that the
President devolved much upon him not strictly pertaining to his own department.
The facility with which after the collapse of the
Confederacy he attained the highest distinctions of the
English bar and made a large fortune, was one of the marvels of a great career.
When I met him in
London in 1875 he hardly referred to the great struggle with which he had been so conspicuously identified.
Nor can I recall that at any time in
Richmond or elsewhere he ever indulged in retrospect.
I reserve for notice hereafter one of the so-called ‘lost chapters,’ having some basis of truth, but perverted by elaborate fiction out of all proportion.
Washington, D. C.
