Last meeting of Confederate cabinet still disputed

FORT MILL, SOUTH CAROLINA - Some meetings just seem to go on forever. That includes the controversy about the last official meeting of Confederate president Jefferson Davis and his Cabinet. <br> <br> Though it&#39;s been 136 years since that meeting, there&#39;s seems to be disagreement about exactly where it happened. <br> <br> At least four sites along the route Davis and his Cabinet fled after the fall of Richmond, Va., in the spring of 1865 claim to have hosted the Last Meeting of the Confederate Cabinet. <br> <br> The controversy makes many just scratch their heads and ask: Why argue about it now? <br> <br> One of the strongest claimants for the honor is the William Elliot White Homestead, off state Highway 160 in Fort Mill. <br> <br> The historic marker in front of the house doesn&#39;t hedge: ``In the yard of the home on the morning of April 27, 1865, Davis held the last meeting of his Cabinet, at which the resignation of George Trenholm, secretary of the treasury, was accepted and Postmaster John Reagan was chosen to succeed him.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> ``We think our claim is pretty strong,&#39;&#39; said Ann Evans, curator and archivist of the White Homestead. ``We know that they met earlier in Charlotte, but we don&#39;t know of any formal business they did. ... We feel we have a valid claim because they carried out an official government function here.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Besides Charlotte, N.C., and Fort Mill, there are two other contenders: Abbeville and Washington, Ga. <br> <br> Deciding what defines an official meeting has all but removed Abbeville from contention. The May 2 meeting of Davis with his advisers has been termed a ``council of war&#39;&#39; instead of a cabinet meeting because Davis met with military advisers and decided not to continue the war. <br> <br> In recent years, many local historians in Abbeville have favored making Davis&#39; meeting with his military advisers in the Burt-Starke home there unique in its own right. <br> <br> On May 4, 1865, Davis and what remained of his Cabinet officially dissolved the Confederate government and disbursed the Confederate treasury before breaking up to continue their flight. <br> <br> Davis and his aides were captured by Union cavalry May 10 near Irwinville, Ga. <br> <br> ``The accepted story here in Washington is that Davis held the last official meeting of his Cabinet here in the old Heard Building that stood on the square,&#39;&#39; said Dana Danner, of the Washington-Wilkes Historical Society. ``That&#39;s the way it&#39;s always been.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> But, Evans said, ``The meeting here (the White Homestead) was an official function of the government while it was still a working government,&#39;&#39; she said. ``How many working governments have ever dissolved themselves?&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Professional historians have been wary of shading distinctions and coming down on one side or another. One of the few who has is Burke Davis, author of ``The Long Surrender,&#39;&#39; an account of Davis&#39; flight and the Confederacy&#39;s last days. <br> <br> Burke Davis is also the biographer of Fort Mill&#39;s World War I fighter ace and textile magnate Elliot White Springs, who lived at the White Homestead. <br> <br> He ventured that the earlier meeting in Charlotte, at the home of a relative of the White family, was the last meeting of the complete Cabinet because Attorney General George Davis took his leave of the government-on-the-run before the party reached Fort Mill. <br> <br> ``You&#39;ll never straighten it out to everybody&#39;s satisfaction,&#39;&#39; said Shelby Foote, Mississippi-born novelist, Civil War historian and star of the Ken Burns PBS documentary ``The Civil War.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Everybody wants the distinction of having a historic location in their midst. But why should anyone care in 2002 about esoteric events of 1865? <br> <br> ``It gives people with roots in the area something to hold on to,&#39;&#39; Foote said. ``It&#39;s part of their past. ... Newcomers may sometimes find that hard to understand, but it&#39;s just a part of living somewhere that they have to deal with.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Evans agrees. ``It&#39;s not really a global-changing sort of information, and it doesn&#39;t affect anything we know about the outcome of the war,&#39;&#39; he said. ``But it&#39;s part of the whole picture-puzzle of the war ... without it you don&#39;t have the whole picture. ...Besides, it is important because discussion is what helps keep history alive.&#39;&#39;