Sold – Jefferson Davis Asks For a Report on the Activities of the Yankees and His Own Partisans

With Union troops operating in many southern locations, and the Confederate armies unable to combat them everythere at once, a demand arose within the Confederacy for locally-based partisans to oppose them. Partisans are irregular military units formed to oppose a foreign power or army of occupation.  The concept of partisan warfare is to use troops raised from the local population in a war zone that operate behind enemy lines to disrupt communications, seize posts or towns, ambush supply trains, raid logistical stockpiles, and compel enemy forces to disperse and protect their base of operations. In response, on April 21, 1862, the Confederate Congress passed the Partisan Ranger Act, which gave President Davis the authority to appoint officers to recruit companies of irregular soldiers, and prompted local leaders. The Virginia Assembly soon enacted legislation calling for the enlistment of 10,000 partisans.

However, not everyone in the Confederacy approved of the establishment of forces that operated independent of the Confederate military structure. Units outside the realm of that command acted completely on their own, following orders from their leaders and no one else. The problems they begat for the Confederacy ranged from encouraging desertions and acting contrary to high command game plans, to vigilanteism and outright criminal acts against civilians. Anti-Partisan sentiments were common throughout the Confederate military hierarchy. Davis himself had been hesitant to sign the Partisan Ranger Act, and his soon-to-be Secretary of War, James Seddon, was a vocal opponent of partisans, and would write in 1863 that “from their independent organization and the facilities and temptations thereby afforded to license and depredations grave mischiefs have resulted. They have, indeed, when under inefficient officers and operating within our own limits, come to be regarded as a more formidable and destructive to our own people than to the enemy.” Cavalry Gen. Thomas Rosser would write to Robert E. Lee that these rangers were “a nuisance and an evil to the service and ought to be disbanded, and the men placed in the regular ranks. Without discipline, order, or organization, they room broadcast over the country, a band of thieves, stealing, pillaging, plundering, and doing every manner of mischief and crime. They are a terror to the citizens and an injury to the cause…Most have engaged in this business for the sake of gain.”

After the retreat of McClellan’s forces from the Virginia Peninsula in July 1862, Union units were assigned to southeastern Virginia. They came and went throughout the summer and early fall, fighting partisans, and sending out raiding parties, scouts and pickets. In September 1862, General John Dix tool command at Fort Monroe on the North Carolina coast, and his men were active in southern Virginia as well. On September 21, Dix sent Gen. John Peck to Suffolk in southeastern Virginia with instructions to suppress pro-Confederate sentiment there, which clearly indicated that an increase in the number and activity of Union forces was in the offing. Davis was aware of the Dix and Peck appointments and their implications for both North Carolina and Virginia, and was concerned that these might constitute a threat to Petersburg (and thus Richmond).

Gen. Samuel French commanded Confederate forces in the region. However, Davis clearly felt that he needed a trusted first-hand account on both the activities of the Yankees and his own partisans there and sent Col. Joseph R. Davis to the site.

Letter Signed, Executive Office, Richmond, Va., September 29, 1862, to Davis, asking for a full, on-site report. “You will proceed to Petersburg, Va. and confer with General French respecting the general condition of his command, and especially as to the numbers, organization, and efficiency of the Partisan troops serving, or being proposed, for service in that district; also as to the number, position and movement of the enemy in the country on the south side of the James River and eastern coast of North Carolina. Should it be requisite, you will visit the camp of the partisans, and the camp of instruction near to Raleigh, but it is desired that you should return by or before Thursday next.” This letter is included in series one, volume 18 of The Official Records of the War of the Rebellion.

J.R. Davis was soon promoted to general and would go on to lead a brigade. As for the partisan question that so concerned President Davis, by 1863, opposition to them had increased to the point that a measure was enacted to limit their activities. In 1864, it was declared that henceforth all partisan units were to be considered regular army and subject to army discipline. Davis’ interest in learning more about the Yankees’ intentions was justified, as their activities did in fact increase, though it was 1864 before Petersburg would be seriously threatened.