CONFEDERATE ATTORNEYS GENERAL
Following secession from the Union, the Southern states immediately began the process of
establishing a separate government to guide their course. One of the first acts of the provisional congress of the Confederate States of America was to preserve the force and framework of existing law in the South by adopting the Constitution of the Confederate States, which closely mirrored the CONSTITUTION OF
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
Though the Confederate constitution made
provisions for the existence of a supreme judicial
court, with powers like those of the
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, the
provisional congress refused to enact the legislation
necessary to actually establish the national
court. Therefore, the attorneys general of the
Confederacy were often called on to act in place
of a national tribunal and to render opinions
interpreting the laws enacted by the Confederate
congress. Accordingly their opinions were varied,
covering both commonplace issues and constitutional
questions.
From 1861 to 1865, the Confederacy was
served by four full time attorneys general—
Judah Philip Benjamin, Thomas Bragg, Thomas
Hill Watts, and George Davis—and by Wade
Keyes, who functioned at various times as assistant,
acting, and ad interim (temporary) attorney
general. As a group, they authored 218
opinions for Confederate president Jefferson
Davis and members of his cabinet; most of the
opinions were requested by the Departments of
War, Treasury, and the Navy, and most were
related to the fighting of, or financing of, the U.S.
CIVIL WAR.
Judah Philip Benjamin
Judah Philip Benjamin (1811–84) was the
Confederacy’s first attorney general. Appointed
by President Davis, Benjamin was confirmed on
March 5, 1861, and served until November 21,
1861, when he was named secretary of war. As
attorney general, he wrote 13 opinions on such
matters as agricultural products tariffs, mail
route contracts, and defense appropriations.
Wade Keyes Jr.
Wade Keyes Jr. (1821–79) was named assistant attorney general by Benjamin on May 6, 1861. He became a central figure in the Confederate Department of Justice, and he often assumed the responsibilities of the attorney general
when the current appointee was absent or in
times of transition.
Before taking the position of assistant attorney
general under Benjamin, Keyes was a prominent
Alabama lawyer who specialized in
property cases. Born to wealth and privilege, he
was educated at La Grange College and the University
of Virginia. His parents financed an
extended tour of Europe and, on his return to
the United States, arranged for him to study law
with several noted Southern attorneys.
Though Keyes directed his efforts to the
PRACTICE OF LAW and generally avoided politics,
he did hold public office for six years as
chancellor of the Southern Division of Alabama.
It was during his years in this office that Keyes
was first noticed by Benjamin. Benjamin,
impressed with Chancellor Keyes’s administrative
abilities, legal intellect, and writing skills,
was instrumental in bringing Keyes into the
newly formed Confederate Department of Justice.
In the course of Keyes’s service to the Confederate
president and cabinet, he authored 24
opinions—both for himself and for other attorneys
general—on such diverse subjects as the
duties of the attorney general; the treatment of
prisoners of war; and, drawing on his former
area of expertise, the appropriation of PERSONAL
PROPERTY for the war effort. Following
Watts’s election as governor of Alabama and resignation
as attorney general, Keyes stepped in
and served as attorney general ad interim from
October 2, 1863, to January 1, 1864, when
George Davis was able to take the office.
Thomas Bragg
Thomas Bragg (1810–72) was named attorney
general on November 21, 1861, when Benjamin
became secretary of war. Bragg had been
attorney general for only four months and had
authored just seven opinions, when the escalating
military conflict threatened his family and
his personal interests. He resigned on March 18,
1862.
Bragg was born on November 9, 1810, in
Warrenton, North Carolina, the son of Thomas
Bragg and Margaret Crossland Bragg. He
attended local schools in Warrenton and a military
academy in Middletown, Connecticut,
before studying law in Warrenton with John
Hall, a North Carolina Supreme Court judge.
Bragg was admitted to the bar and began the
practice of law in 1833 at the age of 23. On
October 4, 1837, he married Isabella Cuthbert,
the daughter of a locally prominent and politically
active family.
Bragg continued to practice law for the next
several years, and he began to take an interest in
local politics. He was elected to the North Carolina
legislature in 1844, and by 1854 he was
governor of the state. After two highly successful
terms as governor, he was sent to the U.S. Senate,
where he served until the secession of North
Carolina.
In spite of Bragg’s brief service as attorney
general, he remained a friend of, and adviser to,
the Davis administration throughout the war.
After the war, Bragg returned to practice in
North Carolina and tried, without success, to
restore the personal property and fortune he
had lost during the war years. Bragg died on
January 21, 1872, in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Thomas Hill Watts
On March 19, 1862, Thomas Hill Watts
(1819–92) was named to succeed Bragg as attorney
general. He served more than a year, and he
wrote 99 opinions on MARTIAL LAW, reorganization
of the military under CONSCRIPTION, pay
allowances, rights of prisoners of war, treasonable
offenses, and many other issues related to
military service and the war.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Watts had
organized the Seventeenth Alabama Infantry
Regiment and served as its colonel.He was commanding
the regiment in Tennessee when he
received the appointment as attorney general.
Perhaps because of this background, he had a
special affinity for the men on the front lines of
the conflict and for men from his home state.
He spent many hours visiting wounded
Alabama soldiers at nearby field hospitals and
camps.
Watts was born January 3, 1819, in Alabama
Territory near the town of Greenville in presentday
Butler County, Alabama. He was a middle
son in a family of modest means. His parents,
John Hughes Watts and Prudence Hill Watts,
agreed to pay for his education at the University
of Virginia if he agreed to forfeit any future
claim to the family estate. He thought the bargain
was a good one, and he graduated in 1839.
He studied law locally and was admitted to the
bar in 1840.
On January 10, 1842, he married Eliza
Brown Allen. The Wattses had ten children.
While practicing law and providing for his
growing family,Watts served several terms in the
Alabama legislature in the 1840s. In 1850, he
made an unsuccessful bid for a congressional
seat.
As war approached,Watts was an outspoken
opponent of ABRAHAM LINCOLN and a firm
believer in the right of an individual state to
determine its future. While serving as attorney
general, Watts left the office in the hands of
Keyes on several occasions in order to return
home and tend to state business. During the
course of those visits, he decided to make a bid
for the Alabama governorship in 1863. He was
successful. Following his election, he resigned
his position as attorney general effective October
1, 1863.
Watts’s term as governor of Alabama ended
with the fall of the Confederacy. For his part in
the rebellion, Watts lost his personal fortune in
land and slaves, and, in 1865, he was sent to a
Northern prison camp.
Three years later, he was pardoned by President
ANDREW JOHNSON and permitted to return
to Alabama to care for his ailing wife. She died in
1873. Following her death, Watts moved to
Montgomery, Alabama, and resumed the practice
of law. He remarried in September 1875.
Watts died in Montgomery on September 16,
1892.
George Davis
George Davis (1820–96) took office as attorney
general on January 2, 1864, and he served
until the collapse of the Confederacy. He
authored 75 opinions on issues such as the constitutionality
of the conscription act, the legality
of contracts for imports and exports, and the
liability of the government for seized property
and stored goods.
Davis was born March 1, 1820, at Porter’s
Neck, New Hanover (now Pender) County,
North Carolina. His parents were Thomas Frederick
Davis and Sarah Isabella Eagles Davis. He
graduated first in the University of North Carolina
class of 1838, and he was admitted to the
bar in 1839.
He became a prominent and respected
member of the local legal community, as well as
a man of wealth and taste. He was married, on
November 17, 1842, to Mary A. Polk, and they
had a large family.
Davis had an early interest in politics, but as
a WHIG PARTY member living in a DEMOCRATIC
PARTY stronghold, he had little opportunity to
serve. Finally, when North Carolina withdrew
from the Union, Davis was sent to the provisional
congress as a delegate from his state. The
following year, he entered the Confederate Senate,
where he generally supported the administration
of the Confederate president. It was from
his position in the Confederate Senate that
Davis was tapped by the president and asked to
take the office of attorney general after Watts
resigned. Davis was unable to accept the office
immediately, owing to the illness and subsequent
death of his wife, so the position was temporarily
filled by Keyes.
Davis’s last act as attorney general was to
advise the president and the cabinet to accept
the terms of a presurrender agreement. The
agreement was not accepted by the Union. After
receiving word of General Robert E. Lee’s surrender
at Appomattox Courthouse, in Virginia,
the attorney general resigned and became a fugitive.
Fleeing southward, Davis first sought to
locate his children, who were staying with
friends near Wilmington, North Carolina. He
managed to elude federal forces for a while but
was eventually captured at Key West, Florida.
He was imprisoned and held until January 1,
1866.
After his release, Davis returned to Wilmington,
North Carolina. Just six months after leaving
prison, he married Monimia Fairfax, on May
9, 1866.He resumed his legal practice and found
himself in demand as a regional speaker. In the
mid-1870s, he was offered, and declined, the
chief justiceship of the North Carolina Supreme
Court. His last public appearance was to deliver
the eulogy at the 1889 funeral of Jefferson Davis.
George Davis died in Wilmington, North Carolina,
on February 23, 1896.
FURTHER READINGS
Canfield, Cass. 1981. The Iron Will of Jefferson Davis. New
York: Fairfax.
Catton, Bruce, and William Catton. 1971. Two Roads to
Sumter. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Eaton, Clement. 1965. A History of the Confederacy. New
York: Free Press.
The Opinions of the Confederate Attorneys General, 1861–
1865. Buffalo: Dennis.
Sandburg, Carl. 1974. Abraham Lincoln: The War Years. New
York: Dell.
CROSS-REFERENCES
U.S. Civil War.
