Dixie Betrayed Read Online Free

successful Mississippi politician who, despite
     his strong advocation of state rights, fancied himself a staunch Unionist.
    Prior to the election the two men already had a checkered relationship. In 1847, on a festive holiday night at Gadsby’s bar
     in Washington, they came to blows after a heated argument over slavery and the territories, a subject that would come to be
     called “squatter sovereignty.” Davis violently disagreed that territories should have the right to decide if they wanted slavery
     to exist within their boundaries, and the argument turned fiery. Foote said Davis was fueled by “arrogance,” and Davis’s comment
     that Foote had uttered “offensive language” is hardly surprising, given the latter’s record. Dragging his wounded foot, Davis
     lunged at Foote and began to “pummel him with repeated blows until others pulled him off.” 2
    Davis later wrote that Foote, shocked, had started to leave the room and then turned and emphasized that Davis had struck
     the first blow, which would mean that in a duel, Foote would choose the weapons. In a complete meltdown Davis shrieked, “Liar!”
     broke free from those who were holding him, and shook his fist toward Foote. Another senator jumped on Davis and began fighting,
     and someone shouted that Foote and Davis should be put into a room where they could square off. Foote asked, “Do you have
     coffee and pistols for two?” Davis replied, “Yes,” and Foote hesitated, balking at Davis’s military experience. Others in
     the room finally convinced the two to drop the matter and to write it off as a “Christmas frolic.” But the two men would hate
     each other forever. In the 1851 gubernatorial election, Foote won, further enraging Davis. The two men’s paths would cross
     repeatedly in the coming drama.
    Davis rose to his height in 1853, when Franklin Pierce made him U.S. secretary of war, in which role he excelled at army organization
     and developed a keen sense of military protocol and personalities. In 1857 he again returned to Washington as senator from
     Mississippi, a position from which he directed a fusillade of Southern spirit at the increasingly Northern-controlled government.
    Four years of Yankee-bashing from his post on Capitol Hill had raised Davis to preeminence among Southern politicians. Now,
     in a new capital city in the making, Davis prepared to take on the leadership of the South. On the morning of his inauguration,
     Davis left the Exchange Hotel in an open barouche led by six white horses for the journey to the Alabama State House. Bands
     played for the thousands strewn along Commerce Street, and thunderous cheers, smiles, and screams of joy rang throughout the
     city, following Alabama politician William L. Yancey’s shouted declaration that “the man and the hour have met. . . . Prosperity,
     honor, and victory await his administration.” 3
    “All Montgomery had flocked to Capitol Hill in holiday attire,” wrote Thomas Cooper DeLeon, a Southern journalist, of the
     festive day. “Bells rang and cannon boomed, and the throng—including all members of the government—stood bareheaded as the
     fair Virginian [Letitia Tyler, granddaughter of John Tyler] threw that flag to the breeze. . . . A shout went up from every
     throat that told they meant to honor and strive for it; if need be, to die for it.” 4
    As the carriage approached the State House, a band struck up the anthem “La Marseillaise,” and applause greeted the president-elect.
     On a platform constructed at the State House, Davis sat beside the vice president-elect, Alexander Hamilton Stephens of Georgia.
     The band also played a northern minstrel song, “Dixie,” which was liked by the crowd and, in time, would become the unofficial
     song of the Confederacy. Davis and Stephens sat beside Howell Cobb II of Georgia, who had served as president of the Provisional
     Congress that had commenced its meetings two weeks before.
    As Davis looked out