On the morning of April 15, the Confederate administration was completing its preparation to move southwestward out of Greensboro to establish another temporary capital at Charlotte, North Carolina. During the flight from Richmond, Jefferson Davis and his Cabinet, along with their personal aides and staffs had used the railroads to moved from Richmond to Danville, Virginia and then onto Greensboro where the government and Army of Tennessee was unofficially headquartered from April 11 until the morning of April 15, 1865. 

Jefferson Davis and the Confederate cabinet had received a cold reception in Greensboro. The presence of such officials as Judah P. Benjamin, Secretary of State, General Samuel Cooper, Adjutant General of the Confederate Armies, John C. Breckinridge, Secretary of War, Stephen Mallory, Secretary of the Navy, George Davis, Attorney-General, did nothing to impress the local residents. Burton Harrison, the personal secretary to President Davis remembered: 

In fact, was it not for Colonel John Taylor Wood, of Davis' staff who owned a home in Greensboro, President Davis would have been forced to remain in the boxcars they had used on their trip from Danville, along with the staff, Colonels Johnston and Lubbock were forced to sleep on the floor of the box car. Even then, Wood only managed to find a small room for the President.² The boarders chastised Wood for the decision to take in the President, and even insisted that Davis must leave, due to their fear of Stoneman's cavalry taking vengeance upon them.³  The only other official given residence in the city was the Secretary of the treasury, Mr. Trenholm. An observer noted that the fact the host was the alarmed holder of many Confederate war bonds was possibly an underlying motive for such hospitality.⁴ 

Despite the many difficulties they faced, the President and his Cabinet carried out the business of administration during their stay in Greensboro, meeting in the boxcars, and holding a formal council of war in the boarding house of Colonel John Taylor Wood. Two days earlier, Davis sent word to North Carolina Governor Zebulon Vance to join this council; however, with the negotiations going forward regarding the capitulation of Raleigh, Vance was unable to meet with the President.⁵   Wood took note of the proceedings in his diary, noting the depression on the 13th was, “universal and disorganization is setting in."⁶  Indeed, in Greensboro, the situation was appearing to disintegrate, not only were the residents suspicious of the Confederate government, but looting of government stores had broken out. Not even the Presidential party was immune, and took methods to secure its horses.⁷

The urgency of the situation was not lost on several Mississippi veterans who were en route to the Army of Northern Virginia before learning of its surrender. One of the men volunteered the party to act as Davis' personal bodyguards. After days of waiting on the President, the Mississippians "pressed" some horses into service from local farmers and rode off, retracting their offer to protect the President in favor of leaving town. 

With the situation already in deteriorating, the administration decided to move toward Charlotte via an overland route. The night of Good Friday, April 14th was the last the Confederate government spent in Greensboro. As the administration slept in Greensboro, their counterparts were under attack in Washington, D.C. John Wilkes Booth's conspiracy to "decapitate" the Northern executive leadership, and plunge the national government into chaos was afoot, culminating with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in Ford's theatre at roughly 10:12 p.m. The confusion and furor in the Union capital, was a distant cry from Colonel Wood's home, where, for now, the Confederate President was resting safely as Good Friday expired and gave way to Saturday, April 15th.⁸

Burton Harrison was charged with arranging for the Confederate administration's departure from Greensboro. While Harrison and other members of the staff busied themselves organizing for the journey, President Jefferson Davis sent his last message from Greensboro on the morning of Saturday, April 15th to Major W. T. Sutherlin, posted at Danville, regarding the orders from General P. G. T. Beauregard.⁹  Secretaries of War, State, Treasury, and Navy, the Postmaster General and Adjutant General Samuel Cooper began a journey across the Piedmont of North Carolina. At the order of Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin, who refused to mount a horse until he was forced to do so, the personal secretary to the President searched through the southern part of Greensboro to find vehicles for the party's use.¹⁰  Not only did the wagons have to transport the various personnel, but with it records, light furniture and the remnants of the official equipment of the Confederate administration. Harrison was successful in his search and obtained ambulances, wagons and carriages for Judah Benjamin, George Davis, and Secretary Trenholm who was unwell for most of the flight.¹¹

With vehicles, mules and horses secured, the administration began moved toward Charlotte late in morning of Saturday, April 15th. Accompanying Jefferson Davis and his advisors were five hundred cavalry under the command of General Dibrell. The trip outside of the city was very rough going for the party. Harrison reported that "heavy rains had recently fallen, the earth was saturated with water, the soil was sticky red clay, the mud was awful.¹²   As the trip wore on, the wagons and ambulances used by George Davis, Trenholm and the others became mired in the mud and Harrison was forced to ride ahead and secure the assistance of an artillery unit to help extract the stranded wagon. After many failed attempts, the wagon was finally freed by levering the wheels out with nearby fence rails. The initial miles out of Greensboro were doubtlessly difficult for the Davis party. 

Just ten miles away from Greensboro, the party decided to stop for the night outside of the village of Jamestown. Davis and his cabinet found quarters in the home of a local planter, Mr. John A. Hiatt.¹³ Hiatt provided the President and his cabinet with the warmest reception since leaving Virginia, giving them a warm meal and furnishing sleeping quarters.¹⁴  According to a contemporary historian, the spare bedroom was supposed to be given to Jefferson Davis; however, the Hiatt's slave made a mistake and decided that General Cooper looked more like a president than Davis and gave the room to him. Another bed was found for Davis.¹⁵ When the President awoke on Easter Sunday, April 16th, the party made its preparations to continue southward. Without any communication since leaving the county seat, the party decided to push onward in the direction of Charlotte. About the same time that Davis departed Greensboro, Governor Vance set out on horseback with three aides toward Greensboro in order to keep his promise to confer with Davis and the Cabinet.¹⁶  Despite traveling with a smaller number, Vance encountered the same rains as he and his party neared the Haw River. 

At the same time Vance left Greensboro, President Davis and his escort pushed on out of Jamestown and arrived at High Point around noon. Since arriving in North Carolina, the party had been subject to reports, whether true or not, of the presence of General George Stoneman's raiders. As they moved toward High Point they passed the bridges on Buffalo Creek and the Deep River, both destroyed by Union raiders, and viewed the destruction of several factories and the depot at High Point before the party continued on the road southeast taking them, into Davidson County and to the north of the depot town of Thomasville. 

The major avenue of travel took the party by Brummell's Inn in northeastern Davidson County. With better roads and weather, Davis and his party continued on until evening. Colonel Wood noted in his journal, "26 miles to camp 4 miles E. of Lexington. People along the road afraid to take the President in. Benjamin, Davis, & others camping out for the first time."¹⁷  Indeed, Davis had received the same reception in Davidson County as he did in Greensboro. The caravan stopped four miles outside of Lexington where the group camped for the night. The men decided that the pine groves along Abbott's Creek offered a comfortable camp situation and soon, some of the light furniture was unpacked and made available to the President and his Cabinet. The pine groves were situated along Abbott's Creek outside of Lexington on the land of Lindsay Lemuel Conrad. Conrad worked as a miller and a farmer before being conscripted into Confederate service. He served as a private in Company D, 15th North Carolina Troops and was captured at the battle of South Mountain, Maryland on September 14, 1862. Conrad was imprisoned briefly before being exchanged at Aiken's Landing on October 2, 1862. He was furloughed home to await the official exchange when he was maimed in an accident on the Raleigh and Gaston Railroad, losing his foot. Though administratively transferred to the 49th North Carolina Troops, Conrad would never again return to service due to his injury.¹⁸  

Secretary of War Breckenridge rode further into Lexington where several urgent messages awaited him, including one from General Johnston who requested his "immediate presence."¹⁹  With this news, Breckenridge returned to the camp to report to Davis, and was met there by an official courier from the Army of Tennessee, sent to brief the President on the ongoing negotiations between General Johnston and General Sherman. Governor Vance, determined to have an interview, had arrived at the Pine Grove encampment along Abbott's Creek. An interview was held immediately, at around l0 pm, and for around about an hour, a small pine grove on Private Conrad's property became, practically speaking, not only the capital of the Confederacy, but of the State of North Carolina as well.²⁰   Vance, in later years recalled the meeting in an official lecture:

Vance mounted his horse yet again and set out to return to Greensboro and resume whatever duties he had left. Sometime later, perhaps after 10:00 pm, President Davis, concerned about Johnston's eagerness to seek terms with General Sherman, dispatched Secretary of War Breckenridge and Postmaster General Reagan to supervise and participate as the representative of the Confederate government in any talks of surrender. President Davis seemed to bear all of the events in stride, instead of victimizing himself. From the difficult trek out of Greensboro, and all along the journey thus far, Harrison noted that Davis was in good spirits. 

Physically, President Davis was safe from any of Stoneman's Cavalry. Without knowing that the one group of Union raiders were miles away causing damage along lower Catawba river and the other, intimidating the citizens of occupied Taylorsville,²²  Davis was protected by not only the escort of Dibrell's cavalry, but also by Ferguson's Cavalry Brigade and General Pettus' Brigade toward Salisbury, along with other scattered Confederate forces of General Bradley Johnston. However, Davis was implicated in the Lincoln assassination, and now Davis became a wanted man, with a bounty of $100,000 placed on his capture. 

As Davis slept on the night of Easter Sunday, Private Henry Miller was busy ferrying troops from General Bradley Johnston en route to Salisbury across the Yadkin River at Brown's Ferry. Apparently, the former operator of the ferry had abandoned and hid the boats, upon the approach of the Stoneman's cavalry days before. Miller and his comrades discovered the boats and were immediately put to work. 

A determined resistance, and superior position on the part of Confederate troops had saved the long rail road bridge over the Yadkin from Stoneman's forces on April 12; however, with or without planking, it made for a treacherous crossing, and likewise only the bravest veteran cavalry attempted to cross on the bridge. The uncovered trestle would be difficult to negotiate with the wagons and ambulances, therefore the services of Private Miller and Brown's Ferry would be vital to President Davis' safe crossing of the Yadkin. Miller waited along the Davidson side of the Yadkin, expecting the President the next day at 10:00 am.²³  The party passed the night of April 16th and early hours of Monday, April 17th in their Pine Grove camp, before pressing on toward the Yadkin River. According to Harrison, Davis was not feeling well and started the day riding in the lead ambulance; he was followed in the next ambulance by Secretary Trenholm, and in the third rode Benjamin and George Davis. Those aides not driving wagons rode out on horseback hoping to make the river in good time.²⁴ From Lexington's telegraph office, Davis sent a message and received a reply from Breckinridge regarding the possibility of surrender to Sherman two hours later:  

Despite very agreeable weather on Sunday, the party began to run into some of the same difficulties it had experienced along the road between Greensboro and Jamestown. The heavy wagons and ambulances slowed the old horses, who were already over burdened as their flesh was riddled with multiple bleeding mosquito bites.²⁶  George Davis and an aide tried to wedge fence rails underneath the wheels but had no success.²⁷  The party bogged down in the mud once again, and no matter how much the driver used the whip, the wagons could only be extricated with help. Again, Burton Harrison rode out along the road and convinced a bivouac artillery unit to help liberate the wagons. With all the wagons freed with the help of the artillerymen. Jefferson Davis appears to have chosen to ride horseback after the fiasco, and the group trudged their way toward the Yadkin River. Ten O'clock would come and go for Private Miller. The sixteen-mile journey from the pine grove to the Ferry would end up delaying the caravan only about an hour. The entourage bearing the Jefferson Davis and his remaining cabinet members finally halted along the Yadkin with their escort. Miller took note of the party, and remarked; "Jeff Davis was traveling on horse back....with one thousand mounted men."²⁸  Indeed the site of Dibrell and all the mounted clerks and aides along with some of Ferguson's remaining cavalry looked remarkable to the forty-two year old who also recalled seeing an ambulance. Miller set about the ferrying the actual party across the Yadkin to the secure banks of Rowan County: “Jeff Davis paid me one silver dollar which I have yet.”²⁹ 

Artist Frank Vizettelly later went on to immortalizing the crossing of the Yadkin in one of his famous works. Jefferson Davis and the Cabinet were some of the first to cross on the afternoon of 17th, and immediately rode onto Salisbury. Miller; however, continued to ferry across the members of the cavalry escort who decided that despite some planking, the bridge was not safe to cross on horseback well into the evening. According to Miller, the cavalry under Dibrell camped on the Rowan county bank of the Yadkin before continuing on their way. Jefferson Davis and the remaining members of the cabinet arrived in Salisbury, taking a much-needed rest at the rectory of St. Luke's Episcopal Church, as guests of the Rev. Thomas G. Haughton.³⁰  

With Jefferson Davis safely asleep inside the rectory, Burton Harrison laid down upon the porch to help guard the Confederate President. The party had left Greensboro on the afternoon of Saturday April 15 and was now secure in Salisbury with plans to move onward to Charlotte. Davidson County played an apathetic host to the Confederate President and his administration beginning on the afternoon of Easter Sunday, April 16 and ending during the late on the afternoon of Monday, April 17.

Copyright Christopher M. Watford, 2007
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