Appletons' cyclopædia of American biography . ent,in his resignation. In his last message to congress, dated 13 March,1805, Mr. Davis, while acknowledging the peril ofthe Confederacy, asserted that it had ample meansof meeting the emergency. On Sunday, 2 April,1805, while seated in his pew in St. Pauls church,Richmond, he was handed a telegram from , announcing the latters speedy withdrawalfrom Petersburg, and the consequent necessity forthe evacuation of the capital. That evening, ac-companied by his personal staff, members of thecabinet, and others, he left by train for hi
Appletons' cyclopædia of American biography . ent,in his resignation. In his last message to congress, dated 13 March,1805, Mr. Davis, while acknowledging the peril ofthe Confederacy, asserted that it had ample meansof meeting the emergency. On Sunday, 2 April,1805, while seated in his pew in St. Pauls church,Richmond, he was handed a telegram from , announcing the latters speedy withdrawalfrom Petersburg, and the consequent necessity forthe evacuation of the capital. That evening, ac-companied by his personal staff, members of thecabinet, and others, he left by train for his arrival there he issued, on 5 April, a proc-lamation of which he afterward admitted that, viewed by the light of subsequent events, it mayJ^rrly be said it was over-sanguine. In it he said :ip* Relieved from the necessity of guarding particu-lar points, our army will be free to move from pointto point, to strike the enemy in detail far from hisbase. Danville was abandoned in less than a week,and after a conference at Greensboro, N. C, with. Gens. Johnston and Beauregard, in which his hopesof continuing the war met with little encourage-ment, he went to Charlotte, where he heard of theassassination of Mr. Lincoln. His wife had pre-ceded him with a small escort, and it was just afterhe had overtaken her, while encamped near Irwins-ville, Ga., that the whole party were captured, on10 May, by a body of cavalry under He was taken to Fort Monroe, andkept in confinement for two vears. On 21 Sept., 1805, the U. S. senate called on thepresident for information on the subject of his trial,and in response reports were submitted from thesecretary of war and the attorney-general, theirsubstance being that Virginia was the proper placefor the trial, and that it was not vet possible peace-fully to hold a U. S. court in that state. On 12Oct., in reply to a letter from President Chase said that he was unwilling tohold court in a district still unde
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