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It was a meeting like no other. Following the Seven Days Campaign
in the summer of 1862, Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson
left the field to confer with Confederate President Jefferson
Davis at Richmond’s Confederate White House. Meeting in
the President’s upstairs office, they planned strategy to
protect the Confederate capital and save the South. (At times,
the President’s rambunctious five-year old son, Jefferson
Davis, Jr. – dubbed “the General” by White House
staff – would slip into official meetings.)
Ahead lay glittering victories for Lee and Jackson, and high
hopes for President Davis. Within a year, however, Jackson would
be mortally wounded at Chancellorsville, Lee would be defeated
at Gettysburg and Davis would be left to defend an ever-dwindling
Confederacy. This unique Confederate council would prove to be
the only meeting of the South’s three principal commanders
at the Confederate White House. |