Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | 921 DAVIS | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
He was one of the most embattled heads of state in American history. Charged with building a new nation while waging a war for its very independence, he accepted his responsibilities reluctantly but carried them out with a fierce dedication to his ideals. Those efforts ultimately foundered on the shoals of Confederate defeat, leaving Davis stranded in public memory as both valiant leader and desolate loser.
Now two renowned Civil War historians, Herman Hattaway and Richard Beringer, take a new and closer look at Davis's presidency. In the process, they provide a clearer image of his leadership and ability to handle domestic, diplomatic, and military matters under the most trying circumstances--without the considerable industrial and population resources of the North and without the formal recognition of other nations.
Hattaway and Beringer examine Davis's strengths and weaknesses as president in light of both traditional evidence and current theories of presidential leadership. They show us a man so respected that northern colleagues regretted his departure from the U.S. Senate, but so bent on Southern independence he was willing to impose unthinkable burdens on his citizens--an apologist for slavery who was committed to state rights, even while growing nationalism in his new country called for a stronger central government.
In assessing Davis's actual administration of the Confederate state, the authors analyze the Confederate government's constitution, institutions, infrastructure, and cabinet-level administrators. They also integrate events of Davis's presidency with the ongoing war as it encroached upon the South, offering a panoramic view of military strategy as seen from the president's office. They tell how Davis reacted to the outcomes of key battles and campaigns in order to assess his leadership abilities, his relations with civilian and military authorities, and--his own personal competency notwithstanding--his poor judgment in selecting generals.
Rich in detail and exhilaratingly told with generous selections from Davis's own letters and speeches, Hattaway and Beringer provide the most insightful account available of the first and only Confederate presidency--suggesting that perhaps it was the Confederate government, rather than Davis himself, that failed. More than that, it shows us Jefferson Davis as an American leader and offers a new appreciation of his place in our country's history.
Reviews (1)
Choice Review
This book delivers more than its title suggests. It is, in fact, a comprehensive history of the Confederacy, in which Jefferson Davis naturally figures as the chief character. Sympathetic but not fawning, the authors' admiration for Davis sometimes makes their work seem sympathetic, not to the Confederate cause, but to the Confederacy's conduct. However, their discussion of slavery as the true cause of the Confederacy is outstanding. Hattaway (Univ. of Missouri-Kansas City) and Beringer (emer., Univ. of North Dakota) make good use of a vast body of both secondary and primary sources, including the most recent scholarship on Davis and the Confederacy. Topics covered include matters political, administrative, economic, military, and social. The authors conclude that Davis was in many ways an excellent chief executive but was hampered by various personality flaws. By the end of the war, he had become completely delusional regarding the chances for continued resistance, and finally came to the point, in effect, of asking men to go on fighting and dying to spare him the personal humiliation of failure--though he would never have admitted as much. This is an excellent book on both Davis and the Confederate experience for all levels and collections. S. E. Woodworth Texas Christian University
