With Benjamin safe in the Department of State, with the majority in the Confederate Congress still fairly manageable, with the Conscription Act in force, Davis seemed to be strong enough in the spring of 1862 to ignore the gathering opposition. And yet there was another measure, second only in the President's eyes to the Conscription Act, that was to breed trouble. This was the first of the series of acts empowering him to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. Under this act he was permitted to set up martial law in any district threatened with invasion. The cause of this drastic measure was the confusion and the general demoralization that existed wherever the close approach of the enemy created a situation too complex for the ordinary civil authorities. Davis made use of the power thus given to him and proclaimed martial law in Richmond, in Norfolk, in parts of South Carolina, and elsewhere. It was on Richmond that the hand of the Administration fell heaviest. The capital was the center of a great camp; its sudden and vast increase in population bad been the signal for all the criminal class near and far to hurry thither in the hope of a new field of spoliation; to deal with this immense human congestion, the local police were powerless; every variety of abominable contrivance to entrap and debauch men for a price was in brazen operation. The first care of the Government under the new law was the cleansing of the capital. General John H. Winder, appointed military governor, did the job with thoroughness. He closed the barrooms, disarmed the populace, and for the time at least swept the city clean of criminals. The Administration also made certain political arrests, and even imprisoned some extreme opponents of the Government for "offenses not enumerated and not cognizable under the regular process of law." Such arrests gave the enemies of the Administration another handle against it. As we shall see later, the use that Davis made of martial law was distorted by a thousand fault-finders and was made the basis of the charge that the President was aiming at absolute power.
At the moment, however, Davis was master of the situation. The six months following April 1, 1862, were doubtless, from his own point of view, the most satisfactory part of his career as Confederate President. These months were indeed filled with peril. There was a time when McClellan's advance up the Peninsula appeared so threatening that the archives of the Government were packed on railway cars prepared for immediate removal should evacuation be necessary. There were the other great disasters during that year, including the loss of New Orleans. The President himself experienced a profound personal sorrow in the death of his friend, Albert Sidney Johnston, in the bloody fight at Shiloh. It was in the midst of this time that tried men's souls that the Richmond Examiner achieved an unenvied immortality for one of its articles on the Administration. At a moment when nothing should have been said to discredit in any way the struggling Government, it described Davis as weak with fear telling his beads in a corner of St. Paul's Church. This paper, along with the Charleston Mercury, led the Opposition. Throughout Confederate history these two, which were very ably edited, did the thinking for the enemies of Davis. We shall meet them time and again.
A true picture of Davis would have shown the President resolute and resourceful, at perhaps the height of his powers. He recruited and supplied the armies; he fortified Richmond; he sustained the great captain whom he had placed in command while McClellan was at the gates. When the tide had turned and the Army of the Potomac sullenly withdrew, baffled, there occurred the one brief space in Confederate history that was pure sunshine. In this period took place the splendid victory of Second Manassas.
The strong military policy of the Administration had given the Confederacy powerful armies. Lee had inspired them with victory.
This period of buoyant hope culminated in the great offensive design which followed Second Manassas. It was known that the Northern people, or a large part of them, had suffered a reaction; the tide was setting strong against the Lincoln Government; in the autumn, the Northern elections would be held.
To influence those elections and at the same time to drive the Northern armies back into their own section; to draw Maryland and Kentucky into the Confederate States; to fall upon the invaders in the Southwest and recover the lower Mississippi--to accomplish all these results was the confident expectation of the President and his advisers as they planned their great triple offensive in August, 1862. Lee was to invade Maryland; Bragg was to invade Kentucky; Van Dorn was to break the hold of the Federals in the Southwest. If there is one moment that is to be considered the climax of Davis's career, the high-water mark of Confederate hope, it was the moment of joyous expectation when the triple offensive was launched, when Lee's army, on a brilliant autumn day, crossed the Potomac, singing "Maryland, my Maryland".