The Clays of Alabama by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780813194905
Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

9

Confederate Senator

WASHINGTON WAS all confusion as southern officialdom hastily departed. Impatient though they were to get away, the Clays remained while Clement tried to back up Alabama’s commissioner Judge in his efforts to negotiate for the Alabama forts. When this failed early in February, Clement and Virginia at last set out southward. Clement was suffering constantly from asthma, and he now became so ill that they were forced to remain in Petersburg, Virginia, with Clay’s cousin, Dr. Thomas Withers. As Clement grew worse daily, Dr. Withers urged him to go to Minnesota.

Clement and Virginia reached Huntsville on February 24, 1861, and a few days later, with Lawson Clay to help nurse his brother, they began the long journey to Minnesota. First reports from the invalid were discouraging. “Every one in church prayed for him as they do at every service,” wrote Mary Clay. The northern climate soon proved beneficial to Clement, so that at the end of March, Lawson was able to return home.1

The excitement of the times and Clement’s impatience to be active in the new Confederacy were not conducive to his recovery. The northern latitude was socially uncongenial. Rumors, alarms, and the call for troops hastened his departure, even though, as Clement wrote, “I was improving continuously & rapidly when Lincoln’s Proc. & that of the Govr. of Minn. reached me, & I think I shd have been entirely restored to health . . . had I remained there with an easy conscience & a quiet mind. But, after those infamous & insulting bulletins, the demonstrations against ‘the Rebels’ were so offensive as to become intolerable.” And so on April 22, 1861, Clement and Virginia took their departure “& came down the Miss. to Memphis, much to the regret of the few real friends we found or made in Minn.” They reached Huntsville on April 29, 1861.2

Meanwhile, Lawson had gone to Montgomery and obtained a commission. On the day of Alabama’s secession he had written to Clement, “Tell Jeff. Davis that I can’t bring volunteers, but only a right loyal heart & true hand to him & the South—If he wants me I am ready. I know he will be our leader.” And so now in May, Lawson was off to Virginia to fight for the Confederacy, and Celeste had gone to her parents’ home in Macon, Georgia. Both Lawson and Clement were much concerned about their financial affairs, especially the prospects of collecting money due them, as well as safe arrangements for their slaves and other property. Clement also felt the necessity “to consult & conclude what will be done, or ought to be, for the welfare of the Confederacy,” for he, like all Confederates, had no doubt of his own military genius, and so he and his fellow townsman, Edward Dorr Tracy, were concocting “a plan of campaign that Davis could not understand & yet so brilliant as to dazzle & bewilder him.”3

A few days later the Clays had a warm invitation from Varina Davis to visit Montgomery.

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