CABINET MEETING IB 
 
 CHARLOTTE. 
 
 by 
 
 
 
 Mrs.jas.A.Fore. 
 
 
 in 
 
 
 
 So. Hist. Soc. Papers, 
 
 Sept, 
 
 1916. 
 
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Cabinet Meeting in Charlotte 6i 
 
 CABINET MEETING IN CHARLOTTE. 
 
 Mrs. JAMES A. FORE, Historian Stonewall Chapter, U. D. C, 
 Charlotte, N. C. 
 
 Fifty years ago in an office which is now that of The Char- 
 lotte Daily Observer, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confed- 
 erate States of America, called together the members of his Cab- 
 inet in the last full meeting of that body. At that meeting it 
 was finally decided to abandon the Southern cause and instruc- 
 tions were issued to General Johnston to surrender, and the 
 terms were specified though these were not accepted. The sur- 
 render occurred 50 years ago to-day. 
 
 In conclusive proof of this fact, of which many are in igno- 
 rance, The Observer is presenting herewith a paper by Mrs. J. A. 
 Fore, historian of Stonewall Jackson Chapter, United Daughters 
 of the Confederacy, and read at the State Convention in Tarboro. 
 In reply to a letter from her calling attention to an error in the 
 advance proofs of Appleton's Cyclopedia relative to this point, 
 Prof. William E. Dodd admits that Mrs. Fore's contention is 
 right. A letter of similar purport is from Junius Davis, son of a 
 member of the Cabinet who resigned in Charlotte, spent some 
 time here and later went to Florida. Mrs. Fore's article follows : 
 
 Miss Rutherford, the historian general of the United Daugh- 
 ters of the Confederacy, stated that three States were claiming 
 the last official meeting of the Confederate Cabinet, viz: North 
 Carolina at Abbeville and Georgia at Washington. 
 
 The historian of Stonewall Jackson Chapter determined to 
 turn the light on the question and if possible substantiate Char- 
 lotte's claim. 
 
 There are many prominent citizens in Charlotte who know 
 
 ?! * 
 
 no 
 *) 
 
62 Southern Historical Society Papers 
 
 the truth of the matter, but their testimony seemed of no more 
 force than that of the citizens of Abbeville or Washington. 
 
 After working for days over old newspaper files, histories and 
 making inquiries, the chapter historian decided to see what Presi- 
 dent Jefferson Davis had to say in his book — "The Rise and Fall 
 of the Confederacy." He settles the matter absolutely for Char- 
 lotte. 
 
 it was the good fortune of the writer to find corroborative 
 evidence in an article by Burton H. Harrison, private secretary 
 to Mr. Davis, published in The Century Magazine of the date 
 of November, 1883, and in the papers or diary left by Secretary 
 of the Navy, Stephen R. Mallory of Confederate Cabinet, that 
 was published in McClure's Magazine of January, 1901, which 
 evidence will be introduced first. 
 
 As to President Davis' and the Cabinet's stay in Charlotte, 
 Colonel Harrison writes : "Not far from Charlotte I sent forward 
 a letter to Major Echols, the quartermaster of that post, asking 
 him to inform Mrs. Davis of our approach and to provide quar- 
 ters for as many of us as possible. The Major rode out to the 
 outskirts of the town and there met us with the information 
 that Mrs. Davis had hastily proceeded toward South Carolina 
 several days before. He said quarters had been found for all 
 the party and that Mr. Davis would be entertained at the house 
 of a Mr. Bates who was a man of Northern birth and the local 
 express agent. Just before we entered the house Mr. Davis re- 
 ceived intelligence that President Lincoln had been assassinated 
 and when he communicated it to us everybody's remark was that 
 in Lincoln the Southern States had lost the only refuge in their 
 emergency. There was no expression other than that of sur- 
 prise and regret and yet we knew none of the particulars of the 
 crime." 
 
 Mr. Davis has been accused of giving voice to exultation at 
 the death of Lincoln and it is thought that the man Bates was 
 the falsifier. "Presently," continued Colonel Harrison, "the 
 street was filled by a column of cavalry commanded by Gen. 
 Basil Duke, of Kentucky, just entering the town and to whom 
 Mr. Davis made a brief reply to calls for a speech." 
 
Cabinet Meeting in Charlotte 63 
 
 Col. John Taylor Wood, Col. William Preston Johnston, and 
 Col. Frank Lubbock, staff officers, remained in Bates' house with 
 the President. I was carried off by my Hebrew friend, Weill, 
 and most kindly entertained with Mr. Benjamin and St. Martin 
 at his residence. 
 
 On Sunday a number of us attended service at the Episcopal 
 Church. 
 
 Mr. George Davis, the Attorney General, was entertained 
 by Mr. William Myers, father of Mr. Jack Myers, at the old 
 Myer's home on East avenue, and Mr. Trenholm, who was ill, 
 at the home of Mr. William Phifer on .North Tryon street. 
 
 In the material collected from different sources, there will 
 necessarily be some repetition of the data. The historian wished 
 to have the testimony of as many as possible of those who took 
 part in that memorable drama of April, 1865. 
 
 McClure's Magazine of January, 1901, published the diary 
 or papers left by the Secretary of Confederate Navy, Mr. Ste- 
 phen R. Mallory, written while in prison in 1865 in Fort Lafay- 
 ette, New York Harbor. Mr. Mallory writes: "On the 16th of 
 April the President, his staff and the Cabinet left Greensboro to 
 proceed still further. In leaving Greensboro, Mr. Reagen, Mr. 
 Breckenridge and Mr. Mallory rode with Mr. Davis and his three 
 aides on horse back, and Mr. Trenholm, Mr. George Davis and 
 Mr. Benjamin, the three other members of the Cabinet, were in 
 an ambulance with General Cooper and other military officers." 
 Mr. Mallory states they stopped one night in Lexington and one 
 in Concord and that they were guests in Concord of Mrs. Victor 
 Barringer, who was exceedingly kind to them. Mrs. Rufus Bar- 
 ringer, widow of General Barringer, says that while there each 
 one of the Cabinet signed his name on the fly leaf of a copy of 
 "Rasselas," and that Dr. Paul Barringer of Virginia has that 
 copy in his possession now. 
 
 Mr. Mallory continues : "On the following day we rode into 
 Charlotte. Here the Confederate Government had several public 
 establishments, many local officers and arrangements had been 
 made for the accommodation of Mr. Davis and his Cabinet at 
 private houses. They were received and treated with the ut- 
 
64 Southern Historical Society Papers 
 
 most courtesy. The party remained in Charlotte about a week." 
 He then gives the same account that Mr. Davis does in the "Rise 
 and Fall," continuing that after Johnston accepted Sherman's 
 terms in the time agreed upon, "No other course seemed open 
 to Mr. Davis but to leave the country and his immediate advisers 
 urged him to do so." 
 
 I shall give the extracts from Mr. Davis' "Rise and Fall of 
 the Confederacy," from which authority there is no appeal. All 
 writers on the War Between the States since its publication use 
 it as the basis of their material. As he was the person most con- 
 cerned in the retreat from Richmond, his word in the very nature 
 of the case is absolutely correct. 
 
 On pages 682 and 683 — second volume, he says: "After it 
 had been decided that General Johnston should attempt negotia- 
 tions with General Sherman, he left for his army headquarters 
 and I proceeded with my Cabinet and staff toward Charlotte, 
 N. C." 
 
 "We arrived at Charlotte on April 18 and I there received 
 on dismouting a telegram announcing that President Lincoln had 
 been assassinated. An influential citizen of the town (Col. Wil- 
 liam Johnston), who had come to welcome me, was standing near 
 me and after remarking to him in a low voice that I had received 
 sad intelligence, I handed him the telegram. The man who in- 
 vented the story of my having received the news with exultation 
 had free scope for his imagination as he was not present." This 
 man, evidently was Bates who betrayed the guest whom he had 
 invited to his home. 
 
 Page 688 — "I therefore, with the concurrence of my Con- 
 stitutional advisers, addressed General Johnston as follows." This 
 letter is dated April 24, 1865, authorizing General Johnston to 
 enter into negotiations with General Sherman as to terms of sur- 
 render. 
 
 Page 689 — "General Johnston communicated to me the rejec- 
 tion of basis of agreement on the part of United States and a not- 
 ice from General Sherman of termination of the armistice in 48 
 hours after noon of April 24, 1865. General Johnston asked for 
 
Cabinet Meeting at Charlotte 65 
 
 instructions." He (President Davis) herewith sent instructions 
 to General Johnston which he says were disobeyed. 
 
 On the same page President Davis continues : "After the ex- 
 piration of the armistice, I rode out of Charlotte attended by the 
 members of my Cabinet (except Attorney General Davis, who 
 had gone to see his family residing in that section, and the Secre- 
 tary of the Treasury, Mr. Trenholm, who was too ill to accom- 
 pany me), my personal staff and the cavalry, representing six 
 brigades, numbering about 2,000." 
 
 Page 694 — "I crossed (the Savannah River) early on the 
 morning of the 4th of May. When I reached Washington, Ga., 
 the Secretary of State, Mr. Benjamin, parted from me to take 
 another route. At Washington, Ga., the Secretary of the Navy, 
 Mr. Mallory, left me to attend to the needs of his family. 
 
 "The Secretary of War, Mr. Breckenridge, had remained 
 with the cavalry at the crossing of the Savannah River." Mr. 
 Reagen, the Postmaster General, was the only one of the Cabinet 
 who was in Washington with Mr. Davis and was captured with 
 him soon afterward. 
 
 It is established beyond a doubt that Mr. Davis and his 
 Cabinet were here in Charlotte for eight days from the 18th of 
 April to the 26th and that when he left here Attorney General 
 Davis and Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Trenholm, did not 
 accompany him, therefore, a full Cabinet could not have been 
 held afterward anywhere. That while here the last deliberations 
 of the Confederacy took place and that the surrender of John- 
 ston's army, consisting of 89,272 men (see "Rise and Fall"), was 
 decided on at Charlotte and that with this surrender the Con- 
 federate Government ceased to exist. The expiration of the 
 armistice on the 26th of April meant the surrender and when 
 President Davis reached Abbeville, S. C, there were only four 
 Cabinet members of the defacto Government with him. There 
 was no more State business transacted after leaving Charlotte. 
 
 If there had been a meeting of any importance to the Con- 
 federacy in Abbeville, S. C, Mr. Davis or Secretary Mallory 
 would have mentioned it. The only allusion to a meeting of any 
 kind is mentioned by Pollard in his "Life of Jefferson Davis." 
 
66 Southern Historical Society Papers 
 
 He says it was composed of the five brigade generals who com- 
 manded Mr. Davis' escort, and General Bragg. At this council 
 the disbandment of the troops was decided upon because the 
 men were deserting at every cross-roads to go to their homes, 
 contending that the war had ended anyway. Mr. Mallory con- 
 firms Pollard by saying, "In i\bbeville the officers of the escort 
 candidly apprised Mr. Davis that they could not depend upon the 
 men, that they regarded the struggle as over." Colonel Harrison 
 also states that when they left Abbeville the party only consisted 
 of some wagons, several ambulances and only 150 cavalry, in 
 contrast with Mr. Davis' assertion that the escort consisted of 
 2,000 cavalry under five brigade generals, when they left Char- 
 lotte. 
 
 While the Cabinet was in Charlotte the official meeting place 
 was in The Observer building in the editorial room used by Mr. 
 J. P. Caldwell. It was at that time the directors' room of the 
 bank, of which Mr. Dewey was president and who lived upstairs 
 ever the bank. 
 
 Mrs. John Wilkes, who was a resident of Charlotte at that 
 time, writes in The Charlotte News of June 1, 1910: "For a few 
 days this was the Capital of the Confederate States. The last de- 
 liberations and Cabinet consultations were held in the building 
 now occupied by the Charlotte Observer, then the bank." 
 
 The fact remains, however, that the last full meeting was 
 held at the home of Mr. William Phifer in the sick room of Mr. 
 Trenholm, who was ill on his arrival in Charlotte and was taken 
 directly to Mr. Phifer's house and tenderly nursed by the family 
 during the stay there. 
 
 Mr. William Phifer, in Dr. J. B. Alexander's History of 
 Mechlenburg County, says, "The last full meeting of the Con- 
 federate Cabinet (and in the recollection of the writer all were 
 present) was held in the west room upstairs in the house now 
 owned by Mr. William Holt. The cause of its meeting there was 
 the fact that Mr. Trenholm, the Secretary of the Treasury, was 
 ill and confined to bed." He remained in the Phifer home sev- 
 eral days after President Davis and the other members of the 
 Cabinet left Charlotte. 
 
Cabinet Meeting at Charlotte 67 
 
 The older members of this family remember well the dif- 
 ferent Cabinet officers who came singly and in twos to visit the 
 sick Secretary. 
 
 They also have vivid recollections of the flutter of excitement 
 created in the household when word came that there was to be a 
 meeting of the Cabinet in Mr. Trenholm's room, just a short 
 while before their departure for the Southwest. They remember 
 seeing these distinguished men, bowed in sorrow come in a body 
 and pass into the sick room to confer together on the last mo- 
 mentous concerns of the "Lost Cause." 
 
 Both of these places are interesting for the reason that the 
 terms of the surrender of Johnston's army was decided on in 
 The Observer building and the meeting in the Phifer house was 
 where the notice of the expiration of the armistice was made 
 known to the Cabinet, and the final instructions sent to General 
 Johnston, where the further flight of the President was decided 
 upon, and where the final good-byes were said to the two Cabinet 
 officers who remained in Charlotte. 
 
 It is a matter of satisfaction to the people of Charlotte that 
 President Davis, Secretary Mallory and Col. Burton Harrison 
 have confirmed the well-known local fact that the last full Cabi- 
 net meetings were held here and that Charlotte was indeed the 
 Capital of the Confederate States for a period of eight days. 
 
 Mrs. James A. Fore, 
 Historian Stonezvall Jackson Chapter, U. D. C. 
 
 Life of Vance — Dowd. Page 469. — Speech in the United 
 States Senate "Before its return Raleigh was uncovered and I 
 had left to join Mr. Davis at Charlotte, where the surrender of 
 General Johnston was authorized and the finality of things 
 brought about." Addenda. 
 
68 Southern Historical Society Papers 
 
 THE HON. THEODORE S. GARNETT. 
 
 Address before Virginia Historical Society 
 by Capt. W. GORDON McCABE. 
 
 It is only becoming that in the "Minutes" of the Society 
 there should be some record, however halting, of those who were 
 not only knit to us by ties of long and intimate friendship, but 
 whose loyalty to this association never wavered when our skies 
 were not so bright as they are to-day. 
 
 Foremost among these is Judge Theodore S. Garnett of 
 Norfolk, the only name, indeed, stricken from the roll of Life 
 Membership, yet a loss of such grievous import to the community 
 and Commonwealth, to the profession and to the ancient com- 
 munion to which he belonged, as well as to a large circle of 
 kinsmen, comrades, and friends, that it is difficult to speak of 
 this daring soldier, learned jurist and humble-minded Christian, 
 this most lovable and most loyal of friends, save in terms which 
 to those who did not enjoy the privilege of his intimate friend- 
 ship must savor of rhetorical extravagance. 
 
 But in this presence, at least, where so many of you knew 
 him as he was, one need not fear that imputation. The mis- 
 giving is, rather, that you will deem the outline blurred by excess 
 of caution and repression. 
 
 Living slightly beyond the Psalmist's limit of three score 
 years and ten, his career was a busy and beneficent one to the 
 end, and though, speaking with rigorous exactness, it was in 
 the main uneventful, yet not a few honors came to him as the 
 years went by, and, as he himself loved most to remember, in 
 "the May of youth and bloom of lustihood" he had known many 
 a "crowded hour of glorious life," and had, on field of battle, 
 won the plaudits of grizzled veterans ere the down was on his 
 cheek. So strenuous indeed was his life from early boyhood, 
 
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