USA > Mississippi > Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. III > Part 72
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zens of the State who experienced to the full the losses wrought by the great conflict which prostrated the energies of the fair South. He had the courage, however, to encounter the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" with a maximum of equanimity, as was true of the other valiant souls of the "lost cause," and he assumed the labors and responsibilities of the leadership for which he was so eminently fitted. Judge Orr had amply fortified himself for the prac- tice of law, in which he had engaged at Houston, Miss., in July, 1849, and in his twenty-second year he was elected secretary of the Missis- sippi State senate, retaining this incumbency for two years. In 1852, he was elected to the State legislature from Chickasaw county, and at that early day he made his first fight for the educational interests of Mississippi, with which he has since been for many years identified. The legislature of 1852 was beset by lobbyists, urging the immediate sale of the Chickasaw school lands, 170,000 acres, donated by the United States government to the then twelve north- ern counties, which had originally belonged to the Chickasaw Indians, and which, under the treaty, were sold for their benefit without the reservation of the sixteenth sections. These lands, donated to the northern counties in lieu of the sixteenth sections, were magnificently situated, very fertile, and covered with timber, and they were re- garded with longing eyes by the land grabbers. Through the instru- mentality of Judge Orr, as chairman of the committee on Chickasaw school lands, the scheme of the lobbyists to sacrifice them at that session of the legislature was defeated, but it prevailed at the very next session, of which Judge Orr was not a member; and the lands were brought into market and sold at prices greatly below their value. His experience with these lands enabled Judge Orr, many years afterward to save for the State university more than $100,000 in connection with the naval reserve lands. In 1854, as a further recognition of Judge Orr's ability, came his appointment as United States attorney for the Northern district of Mississippi, while in 1856, having been a delegate to the national convention at Cincinnati, which nominated Buchanan and Breckinridge, he canvassed his district as presidential elector, and voted that ticket. He was a delegate to the Mississippi convention of 1861, which decreed seces- sion. Ex-Chief Justice Thomas H. Woods, in his history -of the secession convention, makes the following observations: "It can be truthfully affirmed by the youngest and most inconspicuous member of our Secession convention, that in learning and ability, in patriot- ism, and in nobility of individual character, no such body had ever before, or has ever since, been assembled within our borders. In its membership, the convention may be said to have been truly representative of the highest and best of the old Whig and Demo- cratic parties. From the old Whig ranks-J. L. Alcorn, J. Shawl Yerger, Walker Brooke, T. A. Marshall, G. R. Clayton, F. M. Rogers, J. Winchester, H. W. Walter, Chas. D. Fontaine, with many others not then so widely known. From the Democratic host-Wm. S. Barry, L. Q. C. Lamar, Wiley P. Harris, H. T. Ellett, A. M. Clayton, D. C. Glenn, Samuel L. Gholson, J. Z. George, J. W. Clapp, J. A.
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Orr, with many others, afterward widely known. Under a resolution offered by D. C. Glenn it was determined to elect the Montgomery delegates by ballot, without nominations, no dele- gate to be chosen, unless receiving a majority of all the votes cast. Soon afterward, W. S. Wilson, resigned the place to which he had been elected and Judge J. A. Orr, who survives in a matured vigor of a rare and eminent career, was chosen a member of the provisional congress, and subsequently by the free choice of the people was elected to the Confederate congress, when a permanent government had been established. . . Of all the members of that illustrious body, which ordained the withdrawal of Mississippi from the Union, only five survive: Hon. H. S. Terral, LL. D., who is now one of the judges of the supreme court, and who has long adorned and honored the bench by his purity, his constancy, his independ- ence and moral courage; none the less by his scholarship and learn- ing; the Hon. J. A. Orr, LL. D., ex-congressman, former judge, now the Nestor of our bar, brilliant, vigorous, and in the full tide of a great and successful career as a lawyer; Col. M. D. L. Stephens and Hon. W. A. Sumner, both of whom enjoy an honored, green old age, at their respective homes in Water Valley, and Hope, Ark., and the writer of this sketch." Since Chief Justice Woods' history appeared, the distinguished ex-Chief Justice Terral, and W. A. Sumner have crossed the river, and but three remain. In April, 1864, as has been stated, Judge Orr resigned his commission as colonel to take his seat in the Second Confederate congress, to which he had been elected in October. In that congress, besides other services, he was promi- nent on the committee on foreign affairs; and on Jan. 28, 1865, made the majority report of that committee which led to the celebrated Hampton Roads conference between Vice-President Stephens, Sena- tor Hunter and Judge J. A. Campbell, and President Lincoln and Secretary of State Seward. In the many articles written on this important event in Confederate history, no mention has been made of the movement of the friends of diplomacy to end the war, in May, 1864, and of the action of the committee on foreign affairs, for the reason that these historical facts are to be found only in the journals of the secret session of the senate and house of the Confederate con- gress. Judge Orr's intimate connection with that event justifies a short history of the conference: As early as the spring of 1864. after the battles of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania Court House, it became apparent to many of the members of the senate and house of representatives of the Confederate States that the Confederacy could not stand another campaign, and that when the United States government recuperated the army of 1864 for the spring campaign of 1865, it would then be irresistible. After the repulse of General Grant in those two battles, it was deemed an auspicious time to resort to negotiations to close the war; and the conference upon the subject was held in the rooms of the Hon. John W C. Watson, one of the senators from Mississippi; ex-Governor Graham of North Carolina, ex-Governor Johnson of Georgia, James L. Orr, senator from South Carolina, W. W. Boyce of South Carolina, and several others
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being present. A resolution was agreed upon, stating that the time had arrived for the true friends of the Confederacy to take measures looking to the reconstruction of the Union. By agreement on the part of the gentlemen present at this conference, Senator Orr was designated to offer the resolution in the senate, and Representative Boyce in the house, on the next day in secret session. In pursuance of this agreement, Mr. Boyce accordingly offered the resolution, intending, of course, to address the house in support of it, as did others who were in favor of it. This intention was thwarted, how- ever, by Mr. Barksdale, of Mississippi, who secured the floor and moved to lay the resolution on the table. His refusal to withdraw his motion brought the matter to a vote, and the resolution was tabled, with only seven opposing votes. Such was its fate in the house. In the senate it met with a more favorable consideration. A very earnest discussion which lasted three days resulted, however, in its defeat by a small majority, the vote standing fifteen to seven against the resolution. As. above stated General Grant's campaign had resulted in failure, as had that of General Sherman in Georgia, as late as July, 1864, General Johnston having killed, captured and disabled more Federals than he had men in his whole army. It will be seen from the following statement of Gen. A. P. Stewart, corps commander, what was then the prospect for negotiations: "During the past four years I have come into possession of informa- tion from a perfectly reliable source, to the effect that when General Johnston was superseded by General Hood, the government at Washington was on the eve of opening negotiations with the authori- ties at Richmond for a cessation of hostilities, and that the Federal administration was prepared to offer terms, which we could have accepted. This information comes to me from a perfectly reliable source, in such a manner that I am not at liberty to name the source." The next meeting of the congress occurred the first Monday of No- vember. President Davis, in his message to congress at the opening of that session, discussed the question of reconstruction and negoti- ation, and also the general duty of congress and the people to think of nothing else but a vigorous prosecution of the war. Very soon, however, a large number of resolutions were offered in the house, giving expressions to various views on these subjects. There were resolutions which looked to the unconditional reconstruction of the Union, one being introduced by Mr. Leach of North Carolina. Other resolutions expressed different views, some maintaining the necessity of dying in the last ditch, rather than reconstruct on any terms. All these resolutions were referred to the committee on foreign affairs, of which the Hon. W. C. Rives of Virginia was chairman. Early in the session, Mr. Orr of Mississippi introduced into the committee a set of resolutions, embodying not only his views but those of the gentlemen who had taken part in the conference in the May preced- ing, when the ill-fated resolutions, above referred to, were intro- duced into the senate and house. When those resolutions were introduced by Mr. Orr, who pressed for their adoption, there were only three members of the committee who favored them-H. W.
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Bruce of Kentucky, Mr. Smith of Alabama, and Mr. Orr of Missis- sippi. The report of the committee was withheld until Jan. 25, 1865. By this time circumstances, rapidly occurring, had pro- duced their effect upon the minds of the committee on foreign affairs. It had become painfully apparent to its friends that the fortunes of the Confederacy were waning. There had been a startling num- ber of desertions from General Lee's army. There was but a single line of railway from Danville to the South, to bear commissary stores to the Confederate army. The embargo, cutting off our commerce with the outside world, had been completed by closing the two ports, Wilmington and Charleston, which up to the winter of 1864 had been kept open, and through which many army supplies had been imported from foreign countries. Often, during that winter of 1864-65 Lee's army had been for days without meat rations. Com- missary stores had become so scarce that flour was impressed from huckster establishments in and around Richmond, as well as from the regular supply stores. A very urgent letter from Gen. Lee had been read in congress, in secret session, in which it was announced that when the spring campaign opened, in 1865, it would be impos- sible for him to hold his lines around Richmond and Petersburg, unless he was furnished with 50,000 re-enforcements. It was well known in the war department at Richmond, and in congress, that it would be impossible for the Confederacy to furnish him with even 5,000 additional troops, the conscription acts having already gath- ered the seventeen-year-old boys into the military service of the Con- federacy. To meet the emergency, General Lee had recommended that 50,000 able-bodied negro men be mustered into service, under guarantee of freedom to themselves, their wives and children. This recommendation did not meet the approval of congress, some of its most ardent opponents being Virginians-Judge Gholson, of Peters- burg, among the number. By the unfortunate removal of General Johnston, Atlanta had fallen and Johnston's splendid army had been pretty well destroyed in the ill-advised Tennessee campaign. Such, in part, were the environments of the Confederate government when F. P. Blair, Sr., made his visit to Richmond, as a semi-official minister, with peace propositions to the Confederacy. Mr. Boyce of South Carolina and Mr. Orr of Mississippi, had frequent inter- views with Mr. Blair while in Richmond, and from him they learned of the non-official peace propositions he had made to the govern- ment of the Confederacy, and received from him his personal assur- ance that, if accepted by the Confederacy, they would be carried out of the United States at Washington. He called attention to the fact that President Lincoln had repeatedly announced to the world that the seats of senators and representatives from the South- ern States were vacant by the voluntary action of the Southern States-"erring sisters," as he termed them-and that they could resume their seats at pleasure. Another proposition was that the gradual emancipation of the slaves, covering a period of thirty-one years, be adopted. For reasons which were never given to the pub- lic, the president of the Confederacy did not submit these proposals
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to congress, but stated as reasons to Mr. Blair for not acting on them, that the mind of the Confederate people was in no condition to listen to such propositions; that it was not within the power of the execu- tive, or the Confederate congress, to accept them; and further, that there were many people in the South who had sworn never to live again under the flag of the Union. Undaunted by this ill-success, Mr. Blair made another trip to Richmond early in January, 1865, with this proposition: The government of the United States would adapt itself to the resolves of those who had sworn never again to be citizens of the Union. Maximilian had violated the Monroe Doc- trine and, in alliance with the French empire, had taken advantage of the war between the States, landed an army on our Southern bor- der, in Mexico, and erected a monarchy on the ruins of the Mexican republic; the government of the United States would allow the army of the Confederacy to retire gradually westward, thus enabling all citizens of the South, who desired to do so, to emigrate west of the Rio Grande, and, protected by the army of the Confederacy, set up a government in Mexico; the United States would immediately recognize it, thus giving it a place in the family of nations, and im- mediately thereafter enter into a treaty with it, offensive and de- fensive, and expel the French from Mexico, thus vindicating and re-establishing the Monroe Doctrine. None of Mr. Blair's proposi- sitions were communicated to congress by the president. The men in congress who would have been disposed to consider them favor- ably were not the enemies of the Confederacy. They had become convinced that the further prosecution of the war would be far worse for the people of the South than reconstruction, and would result only in greater loss of life, destruction of property, and other disas- trous consequences, the magnitude of which could not be measured. The vote referred to above, relative to the report of the committee on foreign affairs, indicates that three-fourths of the members of the house, who had been officers in the Confederate army, and who had been transferred from the army to congress, by the people, were in favor of the report, three-fifths of the Mississippi delegation voting to sustain the report of the committee. (That celebrated report and the action thereon may be found in the second volume of Mem- oirs of Mississippi, page 538, published by the Goodspeed Publish- ing Company, Chicago, Ill., 1891.) The friends of negotiations, however, were forestalled in their further efforts for the legislative adoption of the report by the action of a member of the Louisiana delegation in secret session of the house on the next day, who stated to the house that the movement for the conference met with the approval of the president, and that he himself would appoint three gentlemen to carry out the purposes which the report had in view. Such an announcement was unexpected, in view of the president's message at the opening of congress, in November; but the report of the committee was somewhat of a revolution within a revolution, and its friends welcomed heartily the possibility of favorable action on the part of the executive and from that time on did not try to guide the negotiations. The president named Vice-President Steph-
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ens, Senator Hunter of Virginia, and Assistant Secretary of War J. A. Campbell, as the gentlemen composing the commission; and all the necessary arrangements were immediately made for its depart- ure. Vice-President Stephens was requested to go to the residence of the president a few minutes before the departure of the boat, which was to carry the commissioners down the Potomac, and upon reaching the presidential mansion he was greatly surprised at the nature of the credentials, which were to accredit Messrs. Stephens, Campbell and Hunter to the authorities at Richmond, and which ran thus: "Richmond, Jan. 28, 1865. In conformity with a letter from Mr. Lincoln, of which the foregoing is a copy, you are to pro- ceed to Washington City for an informal conference with him upon the issues involved in the existing war, and for the purposes of secur- ing peace to the two countries. With great respect, your obedient servant, (signed) Jefferson Davis." Vice-President Stephens realized at once that this commission did not reflect the sentiment of the Con- federate congress, and that it sounded the death knell of the present undertaking; but all the arrangements had been made for the de- parture of the commissioners and it was too late to recede. Upon the arrival of the commissioners at Hampton Roads, President Lincoln asked Mr. Stephens if the wording of the credentials did not contemplate a peace which should perpetuate the Confederate gov- ernment. Mr. Stephens replied that such was his interpretation of the commission. President Lincoln then stated that the confer- ence on that subject was at an end. All these gentlemen had known each other personally in public life at Washington and it was agreed to spend a few hours before the return of the boat, which was to convey President Lincoln and Mr. Seward back to the capital, in social intercourse. A basket of champaign was brought in, all re- porters and witnesses discharged, and a free and social interchange of views followed, without further attempt at official negotiations. Such was the report of the interview made by Vice-President Steph- ens, to Judge Orr and several other congressmen, on his return to Richmond. Had the commission been left unhampered it cannot be said that its mission would have been successful. The final result might, or might not, have been different; but it is unquestionable that the immediate cause of failure was the commission which demanded-"peace to the two countries." The following letter, by H. W. Bruce of Louisville, a member of the committee on foreign affairs, was written to Judge Orr in response to inquiry as to whether or not the above version of the Hampton Roads conference was correct: "Hon. J. A. Orr, Columbus, Miss. My Dear Judge Orr: I have read with deep interest your history of the Hampton Roads conference, and I must say that I cannot remember any particular in which you are in error. After the lapse, however, of thirty-four years or more, which have been the busiest of my life, and without an examination of historical records and documents to refresh my memory, it is, necessarily, not perfectly reliable; but I think that you have given a faithful and accurate history of that conference, and your conclusion as to the cause of its failure may be correct.
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There is one thing, however, that you and I ought not forget, and that is the temper of the Southern people at that time. I doubt whether they would have tolerated, even at that late date, the idea of a compromise, or a settlement, on any basis which surrendered the independence of the Confederacy, although you and I both knew there was no real chance of achieving that independence at the time of the conference. Yours very faithfully, (signed) H. W. Bruce." There was another active participant in that celebrated conference, whose account of the miscarriage of the commission is of singular interest and authority. Judge John A. Campbell, one of the com- missioners, then the assistant secretary of war, and thus a member of President Davis' political family, says: "When the commissioners were appointed on Jan. 28, 1865, to confer with the president of the United States, concerning peace, it was distinctly restricted in its powers to a discussion of the issues of the war, with a view to securing peace to the two countries." After reciting various views expressed by the commission and President Lincoln and Mr. Seward, Judge Campbell proceeds: "There was then, in my opinion, full justi- fication for the opinion that peace on the precise terms offered by Mr. Lincoln at the Hampton Roads conference, if none better could be obtained, should be accepted. The treasury of the Confederacy was bankrupt. The bureau of conscription had exhausted the popu- lation between the ages of seventeen and fifty. The army of the West had been destroyed at Nashville. The trans-Mississippi army had refused to cross the river. General Johnston had at Charlotte less than 3,000 men. General Lee's army, though reduced in num- bers to a state of inefficiency, could neither be fed nor clothed. The ordnance department had but 25,000 rifles on hand. The purse, the arsenal, the magazine, and recruits were all wanting. General Lee had informed the president that except upon conditions which the war department had assured him were impossible, he could neither hold his lines nor remove his army safely from them. Gen- eral Preston reported that there were 100,000 deserters within the limits of the Confederacy. The situation was painfully, pitifully helpless. It was under such circumstances that a commission was appointed to confer with an enemy who held victory in his grasp, and told to accept from him no terms, except an absolute grant to the defeated section, of the independence for which they had battled." In politics, Judge Orr was trained in the Calhoun State's Rights school, always believing in the construction of the constitution of the United States, placed upon it by that school of statesmen. He did not co-operate with the Democratic party in Mississippi at the close of the war, until the nomination of Tilden and Hendricks, and the adop- tion of the national platform upon which they stood. In the sum- mer of 1865 he participated in a conference at the New York Hotel, in the city of New York, between Governor Andrews of Massachu- setts, Horace Greeley, Gov. Orr, and John W. Forney, in which the restoration of the Southern States to their former status was freely discussed. Governor Andrews and Horace Greeley were the leaders of the Lincoln conservative wing of the Republican party, as against
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the Thaddeus Stephens and Benjamin Butler wing, the latter seeking, literally, to crush the South by confiscation and otherwise. These Northern men of liberal views were anxious for the Southern States to adopt such action as would enable the conservative element of the Republican party to sustain itself before the people of the North- ern States. The question of the greatest magnitude was the elective franchise and the representation the South was to have in congress. The negro element in the slave-holding States, in 1787, was the bone of contention in the convention that framed the constitution of the United States, and at that time it came near dissolving the con- vention, which would have defeated the original Union of the States. The compromise finally agreed upon was, that in enumerating the population of the States, which was to be the basis of representation in the Federal congress, three-fifths of the negro population should. be counted; and this remained the basis of representation until the secession of the Southern States. After the fall of the Confederacy,
this grave question again confronted the statesmen of the United States. What was to be the basis of representation in congress, of the late slave-holding States? If the negro population was not to be counted, the South would thereby lose forty members of con- gress. To maintain that it should be counted would enable the extremist of the North to overwhelm the conservatives of the Re- publican party, unless the ballot were placed in the hands of the negro. Governor Andrews, to solve this problem, suggested that the Southern States should adopt the franchise laws of the State of Connecticut, and restrict the right of voting to the male citizens possessing a certain amount of education and paying a tax on $250 worth of property, without regard to race or color. Judge Orr, foreseeing the coming embarrassment of the South and the impossi- bility of maintaining her ancient views upon it, was impressed with the conviction that the partial enfranchisement of the negro might be the best way out of the existing dilemma; and in August, 1865, addressed a large crowd of his former constituents at Okolona, urg- ing that policy. So far from making any timely compromises with an irresistible new order of things the Mississippi legislature of 1865-6 not only refused the vote to the negro under any circumstances, but it disqualified him as a witness, or a juror, where the right of a white man was involved; disbarred him from purchasing fire arms or whiskey, and made it unlawful for more than four of the race to be quartered on any premises without the express consent of the owner. This legislation was followed to a greater or less extent in other Southern States. The result was the reconstruction meas- ures in congress. Under these enactments of the general govern- ment, a convention was called, to meet at Jackson, Miss., to frame a constitution for the State. A public meeting was called at Colum- bus, over which Dr. B. A. Vaughn presided, Col. R. E. Moore acting as secretary. Judge Orr addressed that meeting and urged the white people to go to the polls and control the election, notwithstanding the fact that all negro men were allowed to vote. These views were concurred in by Judge Watson, Judge Yerger, and many other con-
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