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87 JEFFERSON DAVIS AND STEPHEN D. LEE Herman Hattaway J efferson Davis and Stephen Dill Lee were a generation apart in age. Davis was a native Mississippian, and Lee was from South Carolina. But the Civil War brought them together, and events resulted in Lee’s move to Mississippi, where he met and married a pretty lass, and he made that state his home turf forever after. After the war Lee served in the Mississippi State legislature and thereafter was the first president of Mississippi State University. Davis and Lee surely had something of a mutual admiration society. Davis’s death in 1889 was the catalyst for the forming of the United Confederate Veterans, in which Lee played an important role from the beginning, becoming the second national commander-in-chief, a post he retained until his death in 1908. Davis became nationally famous as a result of his exploits in the Mexican War. Lee doubtless knew of them at the time. Their first official interaction came in 1854 when Lee graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point and Davis, by then the U.S. secretary of war, signed Lee’s commission as a second lieutenant. Then in 1857 Davis co-signed, with President Franklin Pierce, the commission promoting Lee to a first lieutenant of artillery. Two months after South Carolina left the Union, Lee resigned from the U.S. army. Upon returning home Lee at once reported to Gov. Francis Pickens, who made him a captain in the state’s Regular Artillery Service. In Charleston, Lee and other professional soldiers assumed various duties, relieving cadets of the Citadel and numerous other volunteers. When P. G. T. Beauregard took command of the forces at Charleston, Lee became one of the Creole’s personal aides. Following the Fort Sumter episode, Lee went to Virginia to assume command of an active artillery battalion of the recently formed Confederate army. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 88 herman hattaway The next twelve months constituted a critical period in Stephen D. Lee’s military career. In that year, Lee grew enormously as a commander. The period was the high point of his on-the-job military education. Distinguished from the mass of other junior officers, Lee became the “can-do” commander: his guns were always operative, his men moved well, frequently under great difficulty, and he infused professionalism into his subordinates. Lee often had to work with new men—some of his units were green—but he never had raw troops because he never let them remain raw even for a single day. As Jefferson Davis said, “Stephen D. Lee was one of the best all-round soldiers which the war produced.” Lee developed the talent of being able to win admiration, confidence, and cooperation. His men always liked him and served well under his leadership. With Lee as a commander, any organization turned into a better outfit. Going about his job methodically and quietly, often unobtrusively, Lee made a remarkable contribution to the Confederate war effort—and Jefferson Davis was keenly aware of this almost from the start. As a military trainer S. D. Lee was different from other trainers. He was better , more thorough, and always active. Some officers did little or nothing when they should have been training. Lee showed initiative, even in the absence of orders. But he never displayed much dashing élan. Much of what he did was low key though always in tune. His men secured ammunition. They located on high advantageous ground. As a unit they never became incapacitated. As a result Lee’s record of achievements, and those of his men, showed quite impressively throughout the summer and early fall of 1861 in Virginia. And Lee got promoted, from captain through every rank to full colonel. XXXXX General Ulysses S. Grant began his assault down the Mississippi River in 1861, and by mid-1862 the situation in and around Vicksburg was growing hazardous. President Davis knew that it was very important, if at all possible, to defend Vicksburg and the Confederacy’s control of at least a segment of the Mississippi River. So in October 1862 Davis began to push Robert E. Lee to name some colonel in the Army of Northern Virginia to be promoted to brigadier general and sent to Vicksburg for on-the-spot supervision of the city’s defense. Stephen D. Lee was the man selected. In a speech Davis both warmly identified with and praised “his...

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