It was a meeting like no other. Following the Seven Days Campaign in the summer of 1862, Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson left the field to confer with Confederate President Jefferson Davis at Richmond’s Confederate White House. Meeting in the President’s upstairs office, they planned strategy to protect the Confederate capital and save the South. (At times, the President’s rambunctious five-year old son, Jefferson Davis, Jr. – dubbed “the General” by White House staff – would slip into official meetings.)

Ahead lay glittering victories for Lee and Jackson, and high hopes for President Davis. Within a year, however, Jackson would be mortally wounded at Chancellorsville, Lee would be defeated at Gettysburg and Davis would be left to defend an ever-dwindling Confederacy. This unique Confederate council would prove to be the only meeting of the South’s three principal commanders at the Confederate White House.