John Moncure Daniel

Background

John Moncure Daniel was born on October 24, 1825, in Stafford County, Virginia, United States. He was the son of John Moncure and Elizabeth Mitchell Daniel.

Education

Daniel's rearing, as well as his actual schooling, was conducted almost exclusively by his father, a country doctor.

At fifteen, he went to Richmond to live with his father's uncle, Judge Peter V. Daniel.

After several years he went to Fredericksburg to study law in the office of an attorney held in esteem by his family, but in 1845 the death of his father and his own indifference to law resulted in his coming back to Richmond.

Career

Penniless after the death of his father, Daniel moved to Richmond in 1845 and worked initially as librarian of the Patrick Henry Society, a gentleman's literary club. Late in 1846, he became co-editor of the monthly Southern Planter, and from December 1847 to June 1849 he was the sole editor.

In 1853, in recognition of certain political exertions, President Franklin Pierce made him representative of the United States at the Court of Sardinia.

With the magnificos of Turin, he was sufficiently discreet to refuse a request made of him by Garibaldi that he take over Nice as an American protectorate.

On learning of the secession of South Carolina, Daniel hurried home and reassumed the editorship of the Examiner. He served two brief terms in the army, once in 1861 and again in 1862. The military life was, he admitted, indeed horrible, but he softened his own excursions into it as best he could by taking with him two slaves and other elaborate provisions for his comfort, and he was anxious for an honorable scar to show. Wounded in his right arm in the summer of 1862, he usually thereafter thought of himself as incapacitated for further service at the front.

In 1864, John was wounded again, this time in a duel with the Confederate secretary of the treasury. For many months before the war ended he favored peace by negotiation.

Achievements

• John Moncure Daniel is best known for his role as the executive editor of the Richmond Examiner, one of the chief newspapers of the Confederate States of America. His quick, sharp intelligence and his slashing literary style were both dominated by a superb journalistic instinct, practical enough to earn him Wealth.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Life of Stonewall Jackson: From Official Papers, Contemporary Narratives
  • The Richmond Examiner during the war, or, The writings of John M. Daniel: with a memoir of his life. 1868

Politics

Daniel's political opinions were unmistakable. He thought that secession was the only course left open to the Southern states, and he fiercely urged in his editorials that that inescapable action be taken promptly. He advocated the adoption of military conscription, over the protest of Jefferson Davis, and, as the war advanced, he became almost frantic in his distrust of the Davis administration.

Views

As a young man, Daniel may have opposed slavery, but influenced by his granduncle the judge and by the writings of Louis Agassiz and Thomas Carlyle, he later adopted a strongly proslavery position. Early in the 1850s, Daniel's paper warned readers that northern opposition to slavery imperiled the Union, and he advised southerners to counter the threat by presenting a united front in national politics.

John's articles revealed an interest in the civil as well as military operations of the war. He was a newspaper genius who covered the war from the front, and his articles influenced military policy. For example, his criticism of Braxton Bragg permanently affected that general’s career, and he leveled withering attacks on other generals.

Quotations: "I shall teach these people what they never knew - how to live like a gentleman."

Personality

Daniel had quick, sharp intelligence and slashing literary style. His likes and dislikes among men were fast and furious.

He entertained frequently in his rooms, amusing his guests at times by provoking battle between his two dogs, by displaying his books, or, mounted on a kind of throne, by discoursing endlessly with recurrent gusts of dogmatism.

As for women, he was contemptuous of them: he had loved one only - her he, would not name - and he would love no other, for there were no others worthy.

Solitary, misanthropic, cloudy in his opinions as to the deity, he was none the less severe in his demand for the most punctilious niceties of social convention.

The dream he had for the future was to buy the family estate in Stafford County, retire thither, and, as soon as he could provide all the feudal equipment which he held necessary, set himself up as a pattern for Virginians.

Connections

Father:

John Moncure Daniel

Mother:

Elizabeth Mitchell Daniel

colleague:

Edgar Poe

Daniel also contributed articles to the Southern Literary Messenger, including one on Edgar Allan Poe - who once challenged him to a due - that helped establish the poet's reputation.

colleague:

Ambrose Hill

References

• Biographical Dictionary of the Confederacy
  1977
• Dictionary of Virginia Biography: Volume III, Caperton - Daniels
  2006