The Coachman's Journey

By Kelly Hancock

James Jones stands out as a bit of an enigma. He worked in the Confederate President’s house as a coachman and body servant from 1862 through the end of the war and appears to have been the only person of color who chose to work there. He was a free man. What motivated Jones to leave his home in Raleigh, North Carolina and come to work for the Davises? And why, as a champion of black equality after the war, did he feel compelled to reconnect with Jefferson Davis, a man who believed wholeheartedly in slavery and the inferiority of black people?

Jones’ relationship with the Davises began in May of 1862. As a result of the threat posed by General McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign, Jefferson Davis sent Varina and the children away from Richmond to Raleigh, North Carolina. There, Varina found herself in need of a servant, and someone recommended Jones.

Much of the story of James Jones life comes to us from a biography compiled by Charles N. Hunter, an African-American educator, journalist, and reformer. Where Hunter got his information is unknown; the biography, which is in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University, does not list any sources, but since Hunter also hailed from Raleigh, he may have known Jones in the postwar years. According to him, James Jones was born around 1836 to James H. and Nancy Jones, both of whom were free. James’ father died when he was an infant, but his mother, who may have been part American Indian, was alive when the Civil War ended.

The 1850 census has a record of a James Jones living in Wake County (Raleigh) in the home of a free black man named Thomas Roe whose occupation was that of a bricklayer. It is possible that Jones learned the trade from him. According to Hunter, in the years before the war, Jones worked as a plaster and a bricklayer during the summer and spent the winters “traveling with gentlemen and waiting in large hotels.”

Jones himself stated in a 1901 interview that he had been traveling with Mr. Watt Otey as a body servant for five or six years prior to being hired by Varina Davis in 1862. A search for information on Watt (short for Walter) Otey revealed that in 1846 he was joint owner of a Raleigh “house of entertainment” known as the Eagle Hotel. Mr. Otey moved to Memphis, Tennessee, in 1852 and to Phillips, Arkansas, in 1856. This seems to align with Jones’ testimony, but one thing stands out as strange: Walter Otey was a slaveholder. According to the 1850 U.S. census and slave schedule, he owned eleven individuals, and by 1860, he had enslaved forty-three. With all that enslaved labor, why would such a man pay a free person to be his body servant?

Whatever the case, by 1860, Jones was back in Raleigh, residing with his mother Nancy. Perhaps, he still had an urge to travel when he met Varina in the spring of 1862. Certainly, the pay of $28 a month that Varina offered would have been enticing.

In a 1901 interview, Jones discussed his role in the Executive Mansion: “I was what you might call an all-around man. I drove Mrs. Davis and the ladies of the family whenever they went out. But this by no means was my only business. The regular butler was Robert Brown…but on the occasions of dinner parties or entertainments I assisted in waiting on the guests. And I saw a great deal of the confidential intercourse between Mr. Davis and members of his cabinet and other prominent men. I was made to feel by Mr. Davis that he placed entire confidence in me. When he had letters or papers of a particular nature to send to members of the cabinet, or to the war office, he very frequently sent them by me.”

After the war, James Jones returned to his hometown of Raleigh and became actively engaged in the fight for equal rights. He joined the Republican Party and served as a delegate to both the first and second Freedman’s Conventions. During these conventions, over one hundred formerly free and newly freed black men gathered to speak on the issues facing them in postwar North Carolina. To understand the role that Jones played, it is necessary to look at the trajectory of Reconstruction in North Carolina.

The First Freedman’s Convention was held in response to a state constitutional convention called by William W. Holden, the provisional governor of North Carolina, who was appointed by President Andrew Johnson to prepare for the state’s readmission to the Union. Because only white men were allowed to vote and serve as delegates to this convention, the freedmen held their own convention on September 29, 1865, convening just before white delegates met.

The freedmen specified three rights they wanted: the right to testify in court, to serve as jurors, and to vote. To facilitate this, the first Freedman’s Convention formed the Frederick Douglass Equal Rights League (which became the North Carolina State Equal Rights League in 1866) and selected Jones as a Grand Deputy to travel throughout the state and establish subordinate leagues. Later, Jones was appointed as Grand Deputy of the North Carolina Chapter of the Union League of America.

By the time that the second Freedman’s Convention met in 1866, Jonathan Worth had been elected governor. Worth opposed the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, which would guarantee citizenship to African Americans. With similar setbacks occurring in other southern states, Reconstruction was in jeopardy. Worried that former Confederates would regain political control, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867, which divided the South into military districts.

Under military reconstruction, in order to be readmitted to the union, the former Confederate states had to create new constitutions and ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. The right of suffrage was extended to all men twenty-one or older who had not supported the Confederacy. With black men allowed to participate in the elections for delegates to the state convention, Republicans won 107 out of 120 seats. Thirteen delegates of African descent were elected to the convention. Although not a delegate, Jones was elected by the convention to serve as the principal doorkeeper.

The new constitution, produced by the convention and then ratified in a statewide election, removed the property requirement for holding office and opened up to election a number of positions that previously had been filled by appointment, including that of sheriff. Taking advantage of the newly created opportunity, Jones ran for and was elected to the office of deputy sheriff of Wake County. He served in this role from roughly 1868 to 1876.

In 1873, Jones was elected to serve as a Raleigh city alderman and held his post for eighteen years with one or two intermissions. He helped organize the Victor Hose Company, the city’s first African-American firefighting organization, serving as foreman from 1872 to 1882. Additionally, Jones founded the first black military company in the state.

Beginning around 1886, James Jones worked as a contractor for waterworks, street railways, and street grading for new towns. According to a 1985 article by Dr. H.G. Jones (no relation), who was curator of the North Carolina collection at UNC, Jones oversaw construction of the Raleigh Street Railway, a street car system, which began as a horsedrawn line in 1886 and was converted to an electric line by 1891. Jones’ last contract was with the Rockbridge Company of Glasgow, Virginia, of which ex-Virginia governor Fitzhugh Lee was president. Seven miles of streets were graded for the new town of Glasgow, which was created on March 5, 1890.

Less is known about James Jones personal life. On April 27, 1876, he married Johanna Falkman (née Turner), a seamstress who, like Jones, was biracial. Theirs was a long marriage that lasted until his death. Together they had two sons, James T. and Willis. James T. practiced law, and Willis became a successful physician in Deanwood Heights, a suburb of Washington, D.C.

James Jones definitely flourished in postwar North Carolina. Perhaps that is why he wrote to his former employer, Jefferson Davis, in December 1888, validating his accomplishments. “You will, Sir, I am sure, be glad to know how I have succeeded in life here,” he began before telling of his service as alderman and as foreman of the leading black fire company. Then, too, at a time when the strides made by African Americans where being reversed and Jim Crow laws were beginning to talk hold, Jones may have felt the need to renew his relationship with an influential white man.

Or, perhaps, having reached the half-century mark, he was simply feeling reflective. After all, together, they had experienced one of the most epic events in American history. “[Y]ou are never out of my memory and thoughts,” he assured Jefferson Davis, although he had not seen him for over fifteen years. As for Varina, he had not seen her since 1865 when she passed through Wilmington on her way to visit her husband at Fort Monroe. “I have many times almost made up my mind to go to Mississippi, that I might once more see you,” Jones wrote, continuing, “I have always been as warmly attached to you as when I was your body-servant.”

Interestingly, Jones felt the need to tell Davis that he was a “republican in politics, but a fair minded one.” He mentioned having bought The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, the book that Jefferson Davis wrote as a defense of secession; however, he made no comment on its content. If he read it, he kept his opinions on Davis’ work to himself.

Jefferson Davis responded, expressing the family’s delight upon receiving Jones’s letter. He noted, “Mrs. Davis you know was always your particular friend. We have all rejoiced when we have heard of your honorable prosperity & have felt that it was due to your integrity and fidelity. The many years since we have come and gone since we parted have in no way diminished my regard for you and interest in your welfare.” Davis also noted that on Christmas day he had mailed Jones “the last photograph taken of me in order that you might see me as I am now.” Davis signed the letter “Truly your friend.”

When Jefferson Davis died the following year in New Orleans, Jones wired the city’s mayor explaining, “As the old body servant of the late Jefferson Davis, my great desire was to be the driver of the remains of my old master to their last resting place. Returning too late to join the white delegation of this city, I am deprived of the opportunity of showing my lasting appreciation for my best friend.”

Four years later, in 1893, Varina had Jefferson Davis’ remains reinterred in Richmond, the former capital of the Confederacy, at Hollywood Cemetery. Jones, who was temporarily living in Alabama, returned to Raleigh to drive the hearse to and from the state Capitol where Davis’s body lay in state for the day.

James Jones’ last job was as a messenger in the United States Senate Stationary Room. Ironically, the position was secured for him by General William Ruffin Cox, a former Confederate and Democrat, who had helped to wrest political control of North Carolina from the Radical Republicans. In a letter to Varina, written in October 1893, Jones noted that Jefferson Davis had dined with Cox while in Raleigh. Apparently, Jones’ connection to the former Confederate president proved beneficial.

Additionally, his connection with the Davises kept Jones in the spotlight. He was sought out by the newspapers whenever key events related to Jefferson Davis occurred: Jefferson Davis’ death and reinternment, the veteran’s reunion in Richmond in 1896 along with the laying of the cornerstone of the Jefferson Davis monument, and Varina’s death in 1906.

Jones seems to have enjoyed the attention. Even after Varina’s death, he continued to attend veterans’ reunions, and he stoked speculation about where the Great Seal of the Confederacy was hidden, refusing to tell the secret of its burial. When James Jones died at the age of 90 on April 8, 1921, a number of newspapers made mention that the location of the Great Seal died with him and would never be revealed. Unbeknownst to them, the seal had been on display since 1915 at the Confederate Museum in Richmond. Was Jones secretly smiling at them or, in his old age, had he simply forgotten the particulars about the events of the past?

The letters that James Jones and the Davises exchanged read as genuine and heartfelt. Only a month before her death, Varina wrote, addressing him as “My good friend James.” Expressing “distress” about his rheumatism, she speculated that it could be caused by his underwear. She congratulated him on his son’s career, wishing, “may your children treat you as honorably as you did me during the time you were with me. I am very sympathetic with you in your anxiety about your good wife. I hope God will bless you and your family with health and abundant prosperity as well.”

James Jones’ life reveals the complexities of the era. Born free at a time when few people of color were, he engaged in the typical work of a laborer and servant. The fall of the Confederacy and Reconstruction brought about new opportunities. Jones flourished, yet still existed within a world where black men held little power and where having been the coachman of the Confederate President carried some weight. Jones made the most of this and often was featured in the newspapers. Of course, the reporters who sought him out had their own agendas in the era of the Lost Cause. Why James Jones reconnected with the Davises cannot fully be answered. Relationships between individuals were no less complex, then, than they are today, and the letters Jones wrote to the Davises provide only a narrow lens. END

Kelly Hancock is the ACWM Public Programs Manager.