Secretary of War of the Confederate States | |
---|---|
Confederate States War Department | |
Style | Mr. Secretary |
Status | Abolished |
Member of | The Cabinet |
Reports to | The President |
Seat | Richmond, Virginia |
Appointer | The President with Senate advice and consent |
Term length | No fixed term |
Formation | February 25, 1861 |
First holder | LeRoy Pope Walker |
Final holder | John C. Breckinridge |
Abolished | May 10, 1865 |
The Confederate States secretary of war was a member of President Jefferson Davis's cabinet during the American Civil War. The Secretary of War was head of the Confederate States Department of War. The position ended in May 1865 when the Confederacy collapsed during John C. Breckinridge's tenure of the office.
Answerable to the president, the secretary of war controlled all matters regarding the army and Indian tribes, [1] and had the right to appoint as many clerks as it found necessary. This designation allowed the secretary of war to create what eventually became the biggest department [2] in the Confederacy. [3] Related to the war effort, the secretary of war managed important aspects of the war effort like medical distribution, engineering devices (pontoon bridges), prisoners of war, and fort cessions. [4] During the war, the Confederate secretary of war’s report on the war effort became important information for the Confederate Congress and President Davis. [5] The president had the power to appoint and fire the secretary of war for unnecessary, dishonest, and inefficient work performance. The secretary of war was also subject to impeachment proceedings from the Confederate Congress. [6]
Confederate President Jefferson Davis was the twenty-third secretary of war of the United States, serving under U.S. President Franklin Pierce from March 7, 1853, until March 4, 1857. However, he never served in this capacity in the Confederate States.
Davis appointed LeRoy Pope Walker as the first Confederate secretary of war in February 1861. Walker’s first major role involved the situation at Fort Sumter. Communicating often with P. G. T. Beauregard, he advocated for no direct clash with the Union. He also focused on the Border States, and was instrumental in ordering the muster, organization, and supply of the upper states when they seceded. His stint as secretary of war was marked by inefficiency and clashes with Davis. His lack of experience in the military field hampered his ability to manage the war effort, and he received the blame for the early supply and organizational issues of the Confederacy. In the wake of the "failure" of the Confederate Army to pursue fleeing troops after the First Battle of Bull Run, the Davis administration received much criticism, and Walker began to be criticized more. Walker resigned in September 1861 after a dispute with Davis and mounting Congressional criticism. [7]
Davis named Judah P. Benjamin acting secretary of war the same month, and he was confirmed in November 1861. Benjamin’s addition responded to the organizational shortcomings that the War Department office was criticized for most. However, Benjamin clashed repeatedly with Confederate generals, and the downturn and increasing casualties of the war opened Benjamin up to extensive criticism. Antisemitism [8] angled against him, a prominent and known still-practicing Jew, became a strong part of this criticism, and intensified as the war effort further diminished in the eyes of the Confederate public. Davis responded to the criticism of his trusted adviser by naming him acting secretary of state in March 1862.
Next, Davis tapped Brigadier General George W. Randolph to succeed Benjamin. Randolph placed more emphasis on organization in the Western theater of the war, and his meticulous organization and strong work ethic [9] increased the efficiency of the War Department. However, health problems and conflict with Davis resulted in the early resignation of Randolph in November 1862. By 1862, Davis had to replace three secretaries of war.
Davis appointed James Seddon to the position of secretary of war next, and Seddon would be the Confederate official to hold the position for the longest. Seddon’s reportedly "malleable" nature [10] as secretary of war meshed perfectly with the micromanaging nature of Davis’s interactions with the war effort. Seddon clashed repeatedly with Confederate governors, but Seddon's concurrence with Davis on the demotion of General Joseph E. Johnston caused the strongest backlash from Congress. Seddon resigned in January 1865. [11]
With the war effort disintegrating, Davis appointed John C. Breckinridge in February 1865, three months before the surrender of the Confederate Army. Breckenridge’s strong leadership led to improvements in supply and strategy, [12] but the dire situation made most of his contributions minimal. His most important contribution was his opposition to pursuing a “guerrilla war” to prolong the Confederacy. With the surrender of the Confederacy, Breckinridge fled the country, abdicating his post, and was the last Confederate secretary of war.
No. | Portrait | Name (birth–death) | Term of office | Political party | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Took office | Left office | Reason | Time in office | ||||
1 | LeRoy Pope Walker (1817–1884) | February 25, 1861 | September 16, 1861 | Health | 203 days | Democrat | |
2 | Judah P. Benjamin (1811–1884) | September 17, 1861 | March 24, 1862 | Promotion to Secretary of State | 188 days | Democrat | |
3 | George W. Randolph (1818–1867) | March 24, 1862 | November 15, 1862 | Health, Tuberculosis | 236 days | Democrat | |
4 | James Seddon (1815–1880) | November 21, 1862 | February 5, 1865 | Resigned into retirement | 2 years, 76 days | Democrat | |
5 | Major-General John C. Breckinridge (1821–1875) | February 6, 1865 | May 10, 1865 | Collapse of the Confederacy | 93 days | Democrat |
The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States (C.S.), the Confederacy, or the South, was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. The Confederacy was composed of eleven U.S. states that declared secession and warred against the United States during the American Civil War. The states were South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina.
Jefferson F. Davis was an American politician who served as the first and only president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives as a member of the Democratic Party before the American Civil War. He was the United States Secretary of War from 1853 to 1857.
John Cabell Breckinridge was an American lawyer, politician, and soldier. He represented Kentucky in both houses of Congress and became the 14th and youngest-ever vice president of the United States. Serving from 1857 to 1861, he took office at the age of 36. He was a member of the Democratic Party, and ran for president in 1860 as a Southern Democrat. He served in the U.S. Senate during the outbreak of the American Civil War, but was expelled after joining the Confederate Army. He was appointed Confederate Secretary of War in 1865.
Judah Philip Benjamin was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Louisiana, a Cabinet officer of the Confederate States and, after his escape to Britain at the end of the American Civil War, an English barrister. Benjamin was the first Jew to hold a Cabinet position in North America and the first to be elected to the United States Senate who had not renounced his faith.
The Confederate States Navy (CSN) was the naval branch of the Confederate States Armed Forces, established by an act of the Confederate States Congress on February 21, 1861. It was responsible for Confederate naval operations during the American Civil War against the United States's Union Navy.
James Alexander Seddon was an American lawyer and politician who served two terms as a Representative in the United States Congress, as a member of the Democratic Party. Seddon was appointed Confederate States Secretary of War by Jefferson Davis during the American Civil War.
George Wythe Randolph was a Virginia lawyer, planter, politician and Confederate general. After representing the City of Richmond during the Virginia Secession Convention in 1861, during eight months in 1862 he was the Confederate States Secretary of War during the American Civil War, then served in the Virginia Senate representing the City of Richmond until the war's end.
Arizona Territory, colloquially referred to as Confederate Arizona, was an organized incorporated territory of the Confederate States of America that existed from August 1, 1861, to May 26, 1865, when the Confederate States Army Trans-Mississippi Department, commanded by General Edmund Kirby Smith, surrendered at Shreveport, Louisiana. However, after the Battle of Glorieta Pass, the Confederates had to retreat from the territory, and by July 1862, effective Confederate control of the territory had ended. Delegates to the secession convention had voted in March 1861 to secede from the New Mexico Territory and the Union, and seek to join the Confederacy. It consisted of the portion of the New Mexico Territory south of the 34th parallel, including parts of the modern states of New Mexico and Arizona. The capital was Mesilla, along the southern border. The breakaway region overlapped Arizona Territory, established by the Union government in February 1863.
The president of the Confederate States was the head of state and head of government of the Confederate States. The president was the chief executive of the federal government and commander-in-chief of the Confederate Army and Navy.
The Confederate States Congress was both the provisional and permanent legislative assembly of the Confederate States of America that existed from 1861 to 1865. Its actions were, for the most part, concerned with measures to establish a new national government for the Southern proto-state, and to prosecute a war that had to be sustained throughout the existence of the Confederacy. At first, it met as a provisional congress both in Montgomery, Alabama, and Richmond, Virginia. As was the case for the provisional Congress after it moved to Richmond, the permanent Congress met in the existing Virginia State Capitol, a building which it shared with the secessionist Virginia General Assembly.
LeRoy Pope Walker was the first Confederate States Secretary of War.
Joseph Holt was an American lawyer, soldier, and politician. As a leading member of the Buchanan administration, he succeeded in convincing Buchanan to oppose the secession of the South. He returned to Kentucky and successfully battled the secessionist element thereby helping to keep Kentucky in the Union. President Abraham Lincoln appointed him the Judge Advocate General of the United States Army. He served as Lincoln's chief arbiter and enforcer of military law, and supporter of emancipation. His most famous roles came in the Lincoln assassination trials.
The Orphan Brigade was the nickname of the First Kentucky Brigade, a group of military units recruited from Kentucky to fight for the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. The brigade was the largest Confederate unit to be recruited from Kentucky during the war. Its original commander was John C. Breckinridge, former United States vice president, and Kentucky's former senator, who was enormously popular with Kentuckians.
William Montague Browne was a prominent Confederate politician and American newsman. During the American Civil War, he served as Acting Secretary of State for the Confederacy in 1862 and as a temporary brigadier general in the Confederate States Army. When he was not confirmed to that rank by the Confederate Senate, he reverted to his permanent grade of colonel.
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George Washington Johnson was the first Confederate governor of Kentucky. A lawyer-turned-farmer from Scott County, Kentucky, Johnson, a supporter of slavery who owned 26 slaves, favored secession as a means of preventing the Civil War, believing the Union and Confederacy would be forces of equal strength, each too wary to attack the other. As political sentiment in the Commonwealth took a decidedly Union turn following the elections of 1861, Johnson was instrumental in organizing a sovereignty convention in Russellville, Kentucky, with the intent of "severing forever our connection with the Federal Government." The convention created a Confederate shadow government for the Commonwealth, and Johnson was elected its governor. This government never controlled the entire state though it controlled about half the state early in the war, Kentucky remained in the Union after 1862 throughout the rest of the war.
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