Robert Toombs

"Fiery Robert Toombs was spark for South"

Shortly after the Confederacy was organized, Secretary of State Robert Toombs dispatched commissioners to Washington to see Secretary of State William Seward. Their mission was to establish diplomatic relations with the United States.

A Seward aide quietly explained that the secretary could not see them because President Lincoln had already determined that there was no nation called the Confederate States of America. There were some states of the Union in temporary rebellion, but that was all.

After three days the commissioners returned to Montgomery, Ala., which served as the capital of the Confederacy at that time, and told Toombs that they could "smell war coming." Toombs passed this on to President Jefferson Davis but advised him to be patient while other attempts at recognition were made.

Davis and his advisors were restless. Finally, a vote was taken, and Gen. P.T.G. Beauregard was ordered to evict the Union soldiers from Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, S.C.--and the long bloody war began.

Records indicate that Toombs and the other influential Southerners had believed that the United States and the Confederacy could go their separate ways peacefully.

On May 21, 1861, the Confederate Congress adjourned to meet again on July 20, 1861, in the new capital at Richmond. Toombs was already fed up with Davis and his supporters who refused to agree that the Confederacy should ship every bale of cotton it could find to Europe for arms. He was outraged when Davis ordered an embargo on all shipments of cotton to England and France to pressure those governments into recognizing the Confederacy.

On July 21, Toombs resigned his Cabinet post and accepted commission in the Confederate army. He rushed to join Gen. Joseph Johnston at Manassas, where the first battle had left Rebel soldiers grumbling about not being allowed to capture Washington and end the war. Toombs told the men they were right.

The soldiers suggested that Toombs go back to Richmond and take over as secretary of war, an idea Toombs rejected by saying, "I would not be Mr. Davis' chief clerk." He told his wife, "His secretary of war can never be anything else."

Toombs continued to rattle governmental cages and was finally arrested for insubordination. Robert E. Lee intervened and sent Toombs to Maryland, where he was wounded at Sharpsburg. He was sent back to Virginia to recover and think about his future.

Apparently Toombs concluded that the Confederacy was doomed because of poor leadership. Therefore, he would return to Georgia and work to have the state secede from the Confederacy and go it alone as a separate nation.

In March 1863, he resigned his commission and went home to join Alexander Stephens as close advisers to Gov. Joseph Brown. It was an odd group. Stephens has been elected the Confederacy's vice president, become disgusted with the Richmond government and returned home. Toombs shared his disgust.

Brown was pure Georgian and fought Davis at every turn. But he built so many factories that the Union considered Georgia the "arsenal of the Confederacy," which had to be destroyed in order to end the war.

Sherman's march to the sea accomplished that, leaving much of the state in ruins. Fortunately for Toombs, Sherman's army bypassed his huge plantation and left the family fortune more or less intact.

In April 1865, Brown and Toombs were dining together when news came that Lee had surrendered. A few days later Lincoln was assassinated. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton sent Union troops to arrest Jefferson Davis, Alexander Stephens, Judah P. Benjamin, Robert Toombs, and several other prominent Confederates as conspirators in Lincoln's murder.

Davis and Stephens were captured, but Benjamin and Toombs outwitted their pursuers. Toombs retreated into the wilds of Georgia, where Yankee soldiers had no desire to go. He simply holed up with friends and waited.

Toombs then received word that Joseph Brown had "turned Republican." Toombs never forgave him. In the fall of 1865, Toombs headed for Alabama, where he took a boat to New Orleans. On Nov. 4 he was in Cuba on his way to Europe.

In July 1866, Toombs was living comfortably in Paris. One day Mrs. Toombs received letter from her husband that directed her to sell the plantation and join him in France. The couple enjoyed a year in Europe while they waited for things to settle down at home.

In 1867, the couple sailed for Cuba and New Orleans, then up the Mississippi and on to Canada for a long visit with friends. As tensions relaxed they went to Washington. There Toombs visited Sen. Oliver Morton, who expressed surprise that Toombs had not applied for parole as had thousands of others. Morton suggested that Toombs petition Congress for a pardon.

Toombs glowered and in a loud voice said, "Pardon for what? I have not pardoned you all yet!"

As time passed, paroles and pardons were forgotten and Mr. and Mrs. Toombs returned to Georgia. The state was in chaos, with the courts in the hands of hostile and unqualified outsiders. Outraged, Toombs waded in and struck fear into judges whom he lectured on the fine points of the law. He won case after case in the Georgia Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Toombs kept hammering away, and gradually the people reclaimed their state. By 1872 Toombs and Stephens were again the two most powerful men in Georgia.

In December 1877, as a new constitution was adopted, Toombs abundant energy began to wane. In March on 1883, he wept at the funeral of his dear friend Stephens, then later that year he lost his wife. On Dec. 15, 1885, Robert Toombs died and was buried in Washington, Ga.

His grave is marked only by a monument that bears only his name. Friends thought there should have been additional lettering such as "I still have not pardoned them."

Brent Hughes is a free-lance writer in Inman, S.C.