He was considered a disciple of the South Carolinian firebrand John C. Calhoun. Like his friend and mentor, Davis rejected any notion of restricting slavery in the territories, after all a man had a right to carry his property with him wherever he went. Davis was frequently in opposition to Henry Clay, particularly his Compromise of 1850, because, he said, "it surrenders the whole claim of the South" (Strode 223). Thus he opposed the Wilmot Proviso and felt that the Fugitive Slave Acts were unenforceable in the Northern climate because of the overt activities of the radical abolitionists. With Calhoun's death in 1850, Davis, according to biographer Margaret Coit, took up the burden of "trying to save the South, to save the Union, to save the principals of the Union..." (Strode, 222). Certainly Davis was aware the Union was on a downhill slide to disunion or worse. He was, however, relentless in demanding protection of the South's rights under the Constitution. As for secession, he made it quite clear in an 1850 edition of the Mississippi Free Trader that he had never supported secession or a dissolution of the Union but felt that the South should be prepared "to go out of the Union, with the Constitution, rather than abandon the Constitution, to remain in an Union" (Strode, 232). Where Clay saw his compromise as a pacification that bought time, Davis, in his own words again, refused "to transfer to posterity a question which is ours, when it is evident that sectional inequality, which will be greater then than now, will render hopeless any justice." (Strode, 225) Despite his efforts, Clay's final compromise was passed.

"He belongs to a higher grade of public men in whom formerly
the slave-holding democracy was prolific" Horace Greeley

Perhaps disillusioned, Davis left Washington in 1851 and ran, unsuccessfully, for the Mississippi governorship against Whig Henry Foote. In 1853 newly elected President Franklin Pierce, a New Hampshire Democratic and Bowdoin graduate, brought him back from his plantation retirement to Washington as Secretary of War. In this position Davis did much to build up the strength and efficiency of the army the Confederacy would soon oppose. One of his special projects was the appropriation of $30,000 for camels and Arab drivers for freight work in the West. He also supported the acquisition of Cuba and the Gadsden Purchase with a southern route for the Transcontinental Railroad.

After the Pierce administration, Jefferson Davis returned to the Senate where he was considered the best Southern speaker/spokesman of the time. Horace Greeley antislavery editor of the New York Tribune described Jefferson Davis at this time as "unquestionably the foremost man of the South today. Every Northern Senator will admit that from the Southern side of the floor the most formidable to meet in debate is the thin, polished, intellectual -looking Mississippian with the impassioned demeanor, the habitual courtesy and the occasional unintentional arrogance, which reveals his consciousness of the great commanding power. ... He belongs to a higher grade of public men in whom formerly the slave-holding democracy was prolific" (Strode, 301). As a dignified and methodical spokesman for the South, Jefferson Davis was in demand to speak almost constantly on the floor of the Senate and at political and social events. Certainly, he must have recognized the increasingly frantic pace as futile.

"I do not see why this eye has not burst" Dr. Hayes

During winter of 1858, Jefferson Davis, who had suffered serious health problems (including malaria) in the past, became very sick. Stress and the heavy speaking load all brought on by the country's sectional difficulties were attributed to bringing on this almost fatal illness. In fact, his speaking load in Senate was so intense that he suffered a facial paralysis. By the end of February, Davis was so seriously run down that he caught cold which went into laryngitis then neuralgia of the left side of his face and badly inflamed his left eye. He lay for weeks in a darkened room unable to speak or see with the pupil of his left eye actually so painfully swollen that his own doctor thought it would burst. (Strode, 301-303)

Varina Davis nursed her husband relentlessly; Davis later attributed her care with saving his vision and probably his life. This was a difficult time; she had two young children of her own. At the same time Varina's very young brother and her husband's namesake, "Jeffy" Davis Howell (born while Davis was fighting in Mexico) was living with the Davis' family and became seriously ill with scarlet fever. She nursed little Jeffy up stairs in the same house where she also desperately tended her husband downstairs. For the family it was a desperate time. It is a tribute to Jefferson Davis that many and various men sat at his sick bed including not only all manner of southerners but also Lord Napier, a British diplomat, and William Seward and Edwin Sumner from the northern opposition. These men not only kept him company but also read aloud to him and wrote for him.

Ordered by his doctor "to a higher latitude for a month or two,
after the adjournment of Congress." Theberge

Later in the spring Davis began to return to the Senate, much emaciated, for at least an hour each day. His physician prescribed a sea voyage or a trip to a northerly cooler climate to improve his appetite and speed his slow recovery. When Congress adjourned, the Davis family thought to visit friends, particularly Franklin Pierce, in Europe but this seemed too much for a man in Davis' weakened condition. Instead the family chose ... Maine? But, why would this consummate Southerner choose to visit the bastion of his opposition, New England, at a time when sectional strife had risen to such a state of distress?

Historians have hypothesized that Davis, in his trip through the North, wished to scout out the true feelings and opinions of the opposition. Perhaps he was even planning to run for the presidency in the next election and needed to scope out support. This seems a bit calculating for a man so recently pulled back from the grave, but as a bonus this information gathering would not be out of the question during a recuperative vacation. In a letter to Franklin Pierce, Davis made it clear that he could not risk a return to his Mississippi home that summer for fear of exposure to malaria (Strode, 305). Perhaps Davis was just following orders from his physicians to seek recuperation in a cooler climate.

Davis planned to spend time with a wide range of friends during his vacation trip. Today, the decade before the Civil War is viewed as markedly black and white, North and South, but this is far from the truth. Despite the fact that the North and the South were on divergent paths, Davis had many friends in the North including Democrats and others who were sympathetic to his views regarding state's rights. Many of his northern countrymen remembered him for his military adventures, and Jefferson Davis continued to hold their respect with his courtly demeanor and impassioned defense of the South. One particular friend, Alexander Dallas Bache, may have led the Davis family to finalize the location of their vacation to Maine. Bache, the great grandson of Benjamin Franklin, was engaged in scientific experiments for the US Coastal Survey in downeast Maine that summer. In fact, it was their fast friendship from West Point days that first got Jefferson Davis up out of his sick bed earlier that spring. Davis returned to the Senate above the objections of his wife and doctor to address the Senate on an appropriation for the Survey saying, "I must go if it kills me. It is good for the country and good for the friend of my youth" (Strode, 304).

"... the medium through which Maine tenders an expression of regard to her sister Mississippi."
Jefferson Davis to his serenaders (Strode, 307)

The Davises decided to travel by sea for his health. ( I can't find a reference to any Davis slaves in the travel party except on The Milbridge Historical Society page. Certainly Davis would have said it was his right to travel with his property, but he was also astute enough to want to avoid trouble.) They left Baltimore on the Joseph Whitney at the end of June with their daughter Maggie and baby son Jeff Jr. (but apparently not the little brother-in-law Jeffy), put in at Boston and then traveled by packet to Portland. The voyage, much as the doctor predicted, did much to improve the Southern statesman's health. Davis was soon able to leave the eye uncovered except in bright sunlight, his spirits lifted, and he began to socialize with his fellow passengers. The sea air and a little vacation with the family were having the desired effects.

Socially, the Davis family found travel in the North quite agreeable as well. Jefferson Davis was a famous man, and he was treated with politeness and respect for his position and his opinion as well as his person. On the 4th of July, while on board the Joseph Whitney he was prevailed upon by Capt. S. Howes to make a little speech (he was after all a distinguished Senator). In this first speech, however informal, made during his vacation trip to Maine, Davis called for peace, Union and the Constitution. He said,"Trifling politicians in the South, or in the North, or in the West, may continue to talk otherwise, but it will be to no avail... the good sense and the good feeling of the people had thus far averted any catastrophe destructive of our Constitution and the Union. It was fraternity and an elevation of principle which rose superior to sectional or individual aggrandizement that the foundations of our Union were laid". (Speeches) This rousing but fraternal speech set a pattern for others during his travels around Maine during the remainder of the summer.

The Davis family was quite taken with Portland and its beautiful harbor. As a military man, Davis must have been pleased to see construction was beginning on Fort Gorges, authorized the year before by Congress to guard the inner harbor. The northern climate, the sea breezes, continued to work a cure on Davis' health. The family stayed at Mrs. Blanchard's boarding house where on July 9th, four nights after their arrival, they were serenaded by the locals. The southerners were charmed. Afterwards Davis stood on the front steps and grave an impromptu speech. Perhaps he was surprised not to be vilified as a slaveowner. He was, he said, pleased to be "the medium through which Maine tenders an expression of regard to her sister Mississippi" (Strode, 307). He plugged one of his pet projects, the Transcontinental Railroad as a unifying endeavor. Again Davis condemned sectionalism and commended a national spirit that would keep the country whole. As a Senator, he said, he was under obligation to the whole country (see Speeches for full text of the speech) and, indeed he must have felt the good will and possibility of his own words in this northern city. Portlanders were likewise charmed with the Southern gentleman and his family. For the next month they threw clambakes in his honor and sailed him out to the islands for "basket parties" or picnics. Little Maggie, the Davis' daughter, a precocious and attractive child, was a favorite with the locals.

During the first week of August, Davis ventured along the midcoast to Brunswick where he was invited to Bowdoin's week long graduation celebration. There, on August 5th, mere yards from the house in which Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote that seminal cause of the Civil War, Uncle Tom's Cabin, the college conferred upon Davis an honorary doctor of laws degree. A second honorary LL.D was awarded to Maine's Senator William Pitt Fessenden. An interesting set of comparisons can be made: both were US Senators, tall, thin, intellectual; one was from Maine and one from the South, one Republican and the other a Democrat, and, of course, one was an abolitionist and the other a slaveowner. Reportedly, the two got along famously. In general, the press loved it, but the Portland Advertiser, a Republican newspaper, took the opportunity to complain about the honors awarded Davis. The paper called it a "prostitution of the honors". How could the state's most presitigious college confer it's degree on "an enemy to the Union"? (Vose) The Advertiser would have prefered that Bowdoin honor a more appropriate personage; they even had a bi-partisan candidate in mind - Maine's own Judge Nathan Clifford, a Democrat. There was a small flurry in the Maine media as the Argus, a Democratic paper, took up the defense. Bowdoin seems to have ignored the matter, but two years later in 1860, when enough time had passed, Clifford was honored at the Bowdoin graduation with his own degree.

"This blessed visit... was the last respite of perfect peace Jefferson Davis was to know until his twilight years at Beauvoir on the Gulf shore."
biographer Hudson Strode (308)

The high point of the Davis family's Maine vacation was their visit to Dallas Bache's summer survey camps in Hancock and Washington counties. This was the second time they had made such a summer pilgrimage with Bache; the first time was a few years previous in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The work of the US Coast Survey was highly exacting and would result in very accurate measurements of the countryside and distances as well as positioning of places on the map. This kind of work was becoming critically important in the modern world of the 19th century economically, militarily and scientifically. Thus scientists and engineers, like Bache, were willing to exert tremendous brain power and effort to inventing mapping solutions while businessmen, leaders and politicians, like Davis, were willing to pay for these solutions.

The US Coast Survey began early in the century under the leadership of Swiss born Ferdinand Hassler. His theory was based on a string of six large triangles stretching between Alabama and Downeast Maine. Mathematically, if the measurements of two of the angles and one of the sides (the baseline) of a triangle are known, then the third angle and the lengths of the remaining two sides can be easily determined. Each of the six primary triangles was itself made up of smaller triangles thus the survey method is known as triangulation. The system of smaller and smaller triangles made measurement and positioning increasingly easier and more accurate. The end result would plot every location in the country within a network of triangles. Bache took over operation of the US Coast Survey in 1845 and organized the surveys into nine east and Gulf coast units and eventually added two more survey units on the West Coast. This was a huge undertaking. His teams did meteorological and magnetic observations as well as triangulation, topography, and hydrography. Bache was methodical, systematic and exacting in his scientific methods; he also promoted the political and social responsibilities and roles of science.(Theberge)

In August the Davis family set out to join Bache at his survey camp far eastern Maine. They traveled by rail to Bangor and, in what was a two day trip, proceeded east by stagecoach and spent a night at an inn on Shoppe Hill in Aurora. Throughout this portion of their Maine vacation, Varina Davis was charmed by the natural landscape and wonders from Maine's glacial past. She wrote of the trip across a glacial esker,"We drove nine miles over a most wonderful natural road, called by the country people 'horseback,' elevated over sixty feet and sloping steeply down on each side to the valley which it intersected, like a levee built by Titans. Interspersed throughout the rich valley on either side, in the lush green grass, were the most enormous bowlders of granite, many of which looked like Egyptians tombs. As there was no stone of the kind underlying the soil, Professor Bache thought they had been left there by some great flood." (Davis, Theberge) The Davis party then journeyed by ox drawn sled up a substantial supply road built by survey engineers to the summit of Humpback Mountain.

An invitation to join Bache on his summer survey was hardly an invitation to live rough in the wild kingdom. It was, rather, an invitation to join a civilized and quite gentrified safari and to engage in highly technical and scientific experimentation. As Professor Fairman Rogers, then the Treasurer of the National Academy of Sciences, later described, "Bright reminiscences are those of these mountain camps, with the morning's writing, the midday dinner, the genial face of the hostess, the pleasant chat over the bottle of Rhine wine, and, if there was no observing in the afternoon, the long rambles down the hill, with the climb back again, the camp being of necessity near to the summit, finishing up with an evening of conversation or reading, unless the stars were good enough to allow themselves to be observed." (Theberge) Varina Davis, in her memoir, described the camp on Humpback Mountain as follows, " white tents pitched one for each of us, an excellent cook, tenderloin steaks from Bangor, vegetables from the neighboring farms, and to all this comfort was added the newest books, and an exquisite and very large musical box which played 'Ah, cher la morte," and many other gems of the then new operas of Verdi. Professor Bache, who could not sing a tune, kept up a pleased murmur of musical accompaniment as an expression of his delight." (Davis, Theberge)

Mt. Pleasant, Mt. Blue, Mt. Harris, Humpback, Agamenticus, Mt. Independence, Ragged Mountain, and Cadillac were all used for primary triangulation in Maine although the heliotropes raised on their summits sometimes required extension towers to reach a visible height. As Mrs. Davis later recalled, "As the sun went down and shone upon the heliotropes, one fixed star after another gleamed out on the distant hill-tops, and our heliotrope answered back again to the dumb messages sent by scientists on every hill." (Davis, Theberge)

Down on the Epping Plains, the baseline was chosen and surveyed in the summer of 1857 by Bache and constructed as an actual road by local farmers across the barrens in an absolutely straight line between Columbia and Deblois. It was 5.4 miles long and 25 feet wide, graded and leveled as much as possible. In some areas the earth needed to be cut away and in others it was built up by use of stone cribs, but a relief of 140' and rocky soil precluded building an absolutely level baseline. Despite problems with the terrain, the survey crew made remarkable progress during the following summer, 1858, measuring and marking the line with granite posts. The surveyors used 6' iron bars encased in a long, tin tube and supported by trestles to make their measurements. This apparatus inched along the baseline by setting the trestles in advance, placing the tube over a mark and aligning it for the measurement, and then transferring the tube forward to the next trestles for the next measurements. Photographs of the Epping Plains baseline operations were the first ever made to record Survey field operations. The actual photos have since been lost; however, drawings were made from the plates and can be seen online at the NOAA Photo Library (#992, 993, and 994 at http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/historic/c&gs/thind20.htm ).

It was not unusual for Bache and other male visitors to take their wives and families along. Nor was it unusual for women visitors to receive scientific instruction from Bache along with their men or engage in taking readings and measurements. In a hitherto unheard of act, Bache employed the 19th century astronomer Maria Mitchell to conduct field observations with his survey party at Mt. Independence, Maine in the summer of 1845. By the mid 1850's he employed a number of women in the US Coast Survey. During the summer of 1858 Varina Davis would have the opportunity to experience an equality of learning that few women of her century would have. She wrote, "He read aloud at night, and a part of the day we watched him taking observations and enjoyed his clear explanations of his method." (Davis, Theberge) There was ample opportunity for the edification of guests; Bache was not an idle host. Theberge records that, during this summer, Bache "measured angles between 6 primary points, 8 secondary points, and an azimuth marker. In the course of this work over 1,200 horizontal angles and 500 vertical angles were measured and recorded, astronomical observations for latitude, azimuth, and time were made, as were magnetic and meteorological observations." No calculators, no computers.

The summer work observed by the Davis family in 1858 was just the beginning; it would take two more years of work to tie the Epping baseline to the primary triangulation. Subsequent work would require the construction of two 40' tripods, scaffolding and wind screens at opposite ends of the baseline. The winds were a problem, and the canvas screens prevented equipment on the 9' wide platforms at the top from swaying. The end result of the arc of primary triangulation from the Providence Base Line to the Epping Plains Base Line was highly accurate - within three tenths of an inch of closure or an accuracy better than 1 part in a million. Epping Plains established Bache's reputation as a scientist extrordinaire. (Theberge, Milbridge)

According to Davis biographer Hudson Strode, "This blessed visit... was the last respite of perfect peace Jefferson Davis was to know until his twilight years at Beauvoir on the Gulf shore." (308) Davis was able to effect a full recovery from his illness of the previous spring in the peace and solitude of the Maine woods. Remarkably even the bugs cut him a break. Varina Davis commented on the lack of the insect noise to which Southerners were accustomed saying, "The fall of a leaf could be plainly heard, and it seemed to afford relief to Mr. Davis's exacerbated nerves, after the noise and bustle of Washington, to stay in this secluded place where he could be a lotus eater for a while." As a woman who very nearly lost her husband to a devastating disease only months before, Varina Davis must have been overcome by relief. Now she wrote that they spent their time almost frivolously looking "for numerous signs of the glacial period, reasoned and wondered over them, picked up 'ghost flowers' and found exquisite mosses, sometimes a foot deep, of velvety green. Mr. Davis took our little girl with us on his shoulder, and did all the things so joyful to towns-people on an outing in the country. So health came back to his wasted form...." (Davis, Strode, or Theberge)

Folk history has it that Davis traveled about Washington County with the survey crew and by himself. Reportedly, he stayed in Cherryfield and even Deblois as well as in Aurora. Maybe all these places have a claim to a sign saying "Jeff Davis Slept Here". There's even a story that the Southerner left a trunk at the inn at Schoppe Hill and told the people there to turn it over only to someone who knew his secret password. Why the subterfuge? Who knows? ...but it makes a good story! Among his side trips, Davis made several trips into Bangor to speak and hired a local carriage and driver to take him there.

The Davis family returned to Portland late in the month where Davis spoke yet again, this time at the Democratic Convention on August 24th. where he assured Maine Democrats that "there still lives a National Party, struggling and resolved bravely to struggle for the maintenance of the Constitution, the abatement of sectional hostility, and the preservation of the fraternal compact made by the Fathers of the Republic." (Speeches) Then he was off again on a trip downeast. As a distinguished war hero, he was invited to review the militia troops at the Belfast Encampment where he made two speeches- one on the muster field and one at a banquet that evening - both driving home his now usual message but this time with a martial theme.

A Visit with the "Plug Ugly Straight Whig Hunker Junto" in Waldoboro
- epitaph in Thomaston Journal

Late in August on perhaps on his Belfast trip, Davis visited Waldoborough, a town held firmly in hand by Isaac Reed and his political machine. For many years, Reed was the leading Whig in the town and the state until he left the all but dead party in 1856 to support Democrat James Buchanan's successful bid for the presidency over Republican John Fremont. Isaac Reed, a man quite capable of flattery, persuasion and virulent partisanship, could not abide the Republican Party and promised the voters in his district would vote Democratic because, he said quite flatly, "I own them." (Stahl, 315, 319) There was political bounty to be reaped and favors to be garnered; his crony John H. Kennedy became the Collector of Customs in Waldoborough, a plum job in the time of the town's heyday of ship building and shipping. With this election Reed began to wield his considerable power for the Democratic Party, a move that led to the Waldoboro area becoming a center for copperhead sentiment during the coming war. For political reasons and not just because Reed was an old friend from Congress, it was not surprising that Jefferson Davis would visit the town during his Maine vacation.

During this visit to Reed's stronghold, Davis was wined and dined by the local citizenry. He spent time out on the Friendship Road at Custom Collector Kennedy's big brick house and was conveyed about town in the man's new chaise. Kennedy's various political offices, his law practice and investments (largely in southern cotton) were all quite lucrative! The highlight of the Davis visit to Waldoborough was a dinner given in his behalf at Isaac Reed's house on the site of what is now the Waldo Theater. Late that evening a disaster almost changed the course of the Civil War and the Confederacy. After the meal and after the ladies retired, the gentlemen settled in with their cigars and their drinks for a little friendly conversation. Talk was almost certainly dominated by politics, and an agreeable time was had largely because their politics were also quite agreeable. Much wine was consumed, and the hour became quite late. Finally, Davis arose to make his exit in what can be best imagined as comic opera fashion. He bowed his way backwards to the door of the dining room. There were, however, two doors side by side in the south wall of the Reed dining room: one leading to the front hall and the other to the cellar. Davis was a guest who not only did not know his host's house but also was quite impaired by his host's liquor. He grabbed the wrong door knob and bowing backed into the cellarway. Reed, a good host, snatched his tipsy guest to safety just as Davis lost his balance. Thus (according to local tradition handed down by Mary Clark to Jasper Stahl) Isaac Reed saved Jefferson Davis from an untimely death so that he could go on to become the Confederacy's only president. (Stahl, 316)

"A most winning ambassador of good will from the South"
Biographer Hudson Strode (309)

Back in Portland, he spoke once again before fellow Democrats garnering "cheer upon cheer from a vast audience" (Speeches). This speech seems somewhat harsher and acknowledged some attacks in the press by "men who made a trade of politics, and whose capitol consists in the denunciation of the institutions of other States, had erroneously judged him by themselves, and had regarded his coming as a political mission" which led them to "the publication of falsehoods, both in relation to himself and his political friends at the South" and in particular falsely charging Davis and friends as "Disunionists and Nullifiers". Apparently the "constant acts of generous hospitality" by "the polite, the manly, elevated men" who welcomed him in to Maine and this hall empowered him to speak more frankly than in his other Maine speeches. He spoke from a Southern viewpoint specifically about wide ranging issues regarding slavery in the states and its expansion into the territories, Congressional compromises, economics, immigration, and the various agitations and hostilities the disagreements brought on in both northern and southern states and in the territories. Falling back as always on his states' rights position, he turned the argument around to make his point anew by proclaiming:

"in all its length and breadth the right of the people of the state of Maine to decide the question for themselves; and held that it would be indecent interference, on the part of a citizen of another State, if he could arraign the propriety of the judgement they had rendered, and that there was no rightful power in the federal government or in all the States combined, to set aside the decision which a community had made in relation to their domestic institutions. Should any attempt be made thus to disturb their sovereign right, he would pledge himself in advance, as a State-rights man, with his head, his heart, and his hand, if need be, to aid them in their defense of this right of community independence, which the Union was formed to protect, and which it was the duty of every American citizen to preserve and to guard as the peculiar and prominent feature of our government. (Speeches, from a paraphrased account of the speech)

By proclaiming community decision as Maine's right to this audience, it was also any other state's right. Clearly and bluntly put, this, to him, was the real issue and not the enslavement of other human beings. He softened his rhetoric in his conclusion by returning to his unexpectedly favorable treatment by Mainers which brought hope of " a brighter sky above him", "a firmer foundation beneath his feet", and the flowery allusion "we have passed the breakers-- our ship may henceforth float freely on". (Speeches) But, there remains that threat of pledging his hand to the cause of states rights. Perhaps in this speech of all Davis' Maine speeches, he was at his most candid.

One must remember that these were the days before radio and TV when public men were expected to speak often and well. Our most famous men, our most adept politicians, were great orators who wrote their own speeches or could speak off the cuff at a gathering, and were very capable spin doctors. Davis was a recognized master and good entertainment. Perhaps the capstone speech of his summer vacation was in Augusta on September 29, 1858.

Davis summed up his Maine vacation experience with a knowledgeable and laudatory speech at the Augusta State Fair. He began with "I have everywhere met courtesy and considerate attention from the hour I landed on your coast to the present time" (full text can be found in Speeches, excerpt in Strode,308). For a man who had come to Maine fully expecting to experience prejudice brought on by sectionalism, Davis truly appreciated the Maine people and was profoundly grateful for the way Mainers treated him and his family. He seemed to fully believe and expect that Mainers treated everyone with a "sentiment which would cause you to recognize every American citizen as a brother" (Speeches, Strode, 308). Davis had been toured, wined and dined for the better part of the summer by all manner of Mainers around the state who wanted to strut their stuff before the famous man. He was obviously impressed with what he had seen during his travels about the state, and he spoke knowledgeably about Maine's timber, industries, agriculture, weather and schools. Davis spoke warmly of a very pleasant, hospitable and recuperative vacation, and, in general, Maine was quite charmed by the well-spoken and cultivated Southerner.

Over and over throughout the summer and again at Augusta, Davis hammered his message home. He spoke knowledgably of American history, domestic and foreign affairs. He spoke with great admiration of the Constitution and the American political process. Despite a national foreboding, Davis said optimistically at Augusta, "If shadows float over our disc and threaten eclipse; if there be those who would not avert, but desire to precipitate catastrophe to the Union, these are not the sentiments of the American heart; they are rather the exceptions and should not disturb our confidence in the deep-seated sentiment of nationality..." (Speeches) Carefully, always, Davis painted himself the honorable patriot rising above partisan sectionalism: "The whole confederacy is my country, and to the innermost fibres of my heart I love it all, and every part. I could not if I would, and would not if I could dwarf myself to mere sectionality." (Speeches) Mainers heard this message and recognized in Jefferson Davis "a most winning ambassador of good will from the South" (Strode,309). Too bad nobody could bank on the coinage of this goodwill trip in the coming bad years.

A 'propagandist for disunion' gets caught 'praising the Yankees'
- Republican and Southern editors respectively

Well rested, the Davis family returned south through Boston but were delayed at the Tremont Hotel when baby Jeff was stricken with an attack of the croup. As the child recovered, local Democrats proposed that Davis speak at Faneuil Hall. By now, Davis was well practiced in speaking before northern audiences and found himself again to be the good will ambassador for the South. Caleb Cushing introduced Davis as "a citizen of the Southern States, eloquent among the eloquent in debate, wise among the wise in council, and brave among the bravest in the battlefield" (Strodhe,310). There was a standing ovation when the southerner took the podium. He must have been eloquent for he totally charmed his Boston audience even when he defended the peculiar institution of slavery at length on Biblical and Constitutional grounds. Davis waved the flag of state's rights but did not go so far as to remind Bostonians of their own threats of disunion during the Embargo and War of 1812. (Full text can be found in Speeches) By all accounts Boston loved him anyway.

During the next leg of his homeward journey, Davis spoke at the Palace Garden in New York City under similar conditions and with similar results. Although he expected to be castigated by Abolitionists over slavery he was quite surprised instead to be taken to task for promulgating disunion, an action he claimed not to condone except as the very last resort. In November when he returned to his home in Mississippi, he found himself facing equally disconcerting accusations of pandering to the North during his summer travels. In defense he explained, "Was it expected that to public and private manifestations of kindness by the people of Maine, I should repel their generous approaches with epithets of abuse?" (Speeches, excerpt in Strodhe, 312) And so, Jefferson Davis's Maine vacation was over, and he was thrown back into the thick of the battle for the Union.

 

We know what happened to Jefferson Davis but what happened to the others in our little story?

By the end of his life, Dallas Bache achieved notoriety in a number fields including education, science and engineering. He was one of the original founders of the Smithsonian and served on its Board of Managers until his death. Bache was President of the American Philosophical Society, the American Philosophical Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Sciences and published numerous scientific papers. Certainly he was one of the top scientists of his day. Bache also served the Union during the war as vice-president of the United Sanitary Commission. Although many friendships and families were divided by our Civil War, one cannot help but speculate on the effects placed on Bache and Davis' friendship. Bache died in February 1867, not too long after the war, which did not leave the two men much opportunity to renew their friendship.

Dallas Bache's Coastal Survey, became a quite important source of information and data during the Civil War. Surveys of the coast, completed as far south as the Carolinas, were undoubtedly used for military and naval blockade strategy. In 1863 as Chief Engineer in charge of the defense of Philadelphia, Bache himself used survey data for planning city defenses. The work of the survey went on during the second half of the nineteenth century mapping both the coastal regions and the interior of the United States. The US Coast Survey is still with us today under the title National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Humpback Mountain where the Davises visited Bache is now known as Lead Mountain and sports a fire tower. The road the Davis family climbed in an ox drawn sled is known locally as the Jeff Davis Road, or as the NOAA historian Capt. Albert Theberge dubs it "the Jefferson Davis Highway". It must be the only road named for the Confederate president outside the South. The Horseback is part of the same esker system as the Whaleback and remains just as Varina Davis described. Travelers today can find a similar and easily accessible experience by driving the road across the top of the better known Whaleback and on down to Calais on the renowned "Airline". The baseline up on Epping Plains also remains visible today. In fact, it is the last of the baselines on the east coast to remain visible although it is somewhat overgrown in spots. Some of the granite intermediary markers are still visible as are the marble markers at each end of the road. The west end marker has reportedly been vandalized. "The truly amazing thing about Bache's measurement" according to the Milbridge Historical Society website, "was that when it was checked in 1991 by a team of professional surveyors using GPS (Global Positioning Survey), it was found to be accurate to within one centimeter--less than one half inch." Amazing what careful scientific observation can accomplish even without modern highly technological geegaws!

Isaac Reed's associations with Davis in the summer of 1858 spurred him on to a closer association with conservative Southern Democrats. His political machine became its strongest, most partisan and ruthless in the remaining years before the Civil War. (In Reed's defense it should be stated that between 1830 and 1860 politics across the state were particularly vicious and partisan; Reed was just highly adept in using these methods.) In the state elections in September 1860 the Waldoboro district voted 7 to 2 in favor of Democratic candidates. In the November presidential election Abraham Lincoln received only 227 votes while 347 votes were cast for the Democratic candidates (Stephen Douglas 171, John Breckinridge 95 and John Bell 81) Breckinridge was the candidate of the deep South! Such a turn out was unheard of in the rest of Maine and shows the strength of the copperheads in Waldoboro. Reed's power and ambition declined with the passage of the Civil War though he lived on until 1882. He was more benign in his later years, and instead of political scheming, he spent his evenings more humbly with "his pitcher of cider, his pan of popcorn and his dish of apples" (Stahl, 320)
Reed's crony, Customs Collector John Kennedy, found his prestige and wealth were severely impacted by the war. With the South under blockade, Kennedy's cotton investments went sour, and he lost heavily. When wartime difficulties arose between the town's copperhead aristocracy and the more patriotic locals, Kennedy again paid the piper. The very same chaise Kennedy used in the summer of 1858 was pulled out of his barn in 1862 and publicly burned by Company A of the the 21st Maine who certainly remembered the special guest Kennedy so proudly drove about town a few years earlier. A few short months later, in March 1863, John Kennedy was having trouble sleeping and took a powder from which he never awoke. (Stahl, 316, 350)

Bowdoin graciously did not retract the honorary degree it awarded to Davis. In 1889 the college received a thank you note from Jefferson Davis to that effect. While he was at it, Davis also wrote to his hired stage coach driver, George Spratt of Washington County, thanking him for services rendered during that happy vacation respite. Jefferson Davis was nothing if not the gracious Southern gentleman.

And Maine? Well, we still have wonderful summers that continue to attract tourists from all over.

Sources:

Davis, The Hon. Jefferson. The Project Gutenberg EBook of Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis, 1858. <http:www2.cddc.vt.edu/gutenberg/etext04/sphjd10h.htm>.

Davis, Varina H. Jefferson Davis: A memoir by his wife. Belford Co. Publishers, 1890.

Milbridge Historical Society. The Base Line Across The Blueberry Barrens And Its Most Important Visitor. <http://www.milbridgehistoricalsociety.org>.

Stahl, Jasper Jacob. The History of Old Broad Bay and Waldoboro: Volume Two The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Portland, Maine: Bond Wheelwight Company, 1956.

Strode, Hudson. Jefferson Davis: American Patriot 1808-1861. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1955.

Theberge, Captain Albert E. NOAA Corps (Ret.) The Coast Survey, 1807-1867: Volume I of the History of the Commissioned Corps of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. < http://www.lib.noaa.gov/edocs/BACHE5.htm>.

Voss, Caroline E. "When Bowdoin College conferred the LL.D Degree on Jeferson Davis." A Distant War Comes Home. Camden, ME: Downeast, 1996.

c2002 Pat Higgins