Volume 18
Number 007
A House Divided: (72) Confederate
Leaders – Jefferson Davis II
Lead:
One hundred and fifty
years ago the Republic was facing its
greatest crisis. This continuing series
examines the American Civil War. It
is A House Divided.
Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan
Roberts.
Content: Jefferson Finis Davis
began his years as Confederate
president with a daunting series of
tasks: he had to create a nation where
none existed, build an industrial
infrastructure, fight off a potentially
much
larger
Union
military
juggernaut, generate revenue to pay
for all this, and find allies. His rival,
Abraham Lincoln, faced tough
challenges as well. He had to ramp up
a seriously ill-prepared army and
navy and with it invade a land mass
as large as European Russia, all the
while dealing with a divided Northern
population, fickle and ultra sensitive
to Union defeats in the following two
years.
Davis led an intensely loyal white
population defending home and
hearth, presided over a huge nation of
some 750,000 square miles in which
enemies might get bogged down,
operated excellent interior lines of
communication and supply, and had
the best set of military leaders on
either side. While Lincoln had to
conquer the South and defeat its
armies, Davis’ believed his task, like
Washington in the Revolution, was to
not lose. Lincoln refused to allow him
that luxury.
Davis was making things up as he
went along. As it emerged, he seemed
to be following an “offensivedefensive” strategy, defending the
borders with small armies to prevent
Union advance and then taking
powerful strikes into the North to
create
an
inclination
toward
settlement and peace in the Northern
population, who would then force
Lincoln to come to terms. It failed for
a number of reasons, not the least of
which was that Davis lived under the
tragic illusion that he was a
consummate military strategist. He
was constantly at loggerheads with his
generals
and
made
significant
mistakes in the disposition of troops
and leaders. Davis acted as Generalin-Chief of the Confederate military
until,
in
January,
1865
he
surrendered that role to Robert E.
Lee, long after such a move might
have helped the situation.
Davis was captured after the fall of
Richmond, incarcerated for two
years, released back to his home in
Mississippi, and spent the rest of his
life attempting to justify the
Confederate experiment. Considered
a traitor, his U.S. citizenship was only
restored in 1978.
In Richmond, Virginia, this is Dan
Roberts.
Resources
Catton, Bruce. The American Heritage Picture History of
the Civil War. New York, NY: American Heritage
Publishing Company, 1960, 1988.
Cooper, William J. Jefferson Davis and the Civil War Era.
Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press,
2008.
Davis, William C. Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour.
Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press,
1996.
Escott, Paul D. After Secession: Jefferson Davis and the
Failure of Confederate Nationalism. Baton Rouge,
LA: Louisiana State University, 1978.
Foote, Shelby. Civil War: A Narrative. Three volumes. New
York, NY: Vintage Books, 1986.
McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil
War Era. New York, NY: Oxford University Press,
1988.
Moore, Albert Burton. Conscription and Conflict in the
Confederacy. New York, NY: Macmillan and
Company, 1924.
Rowland, Dunbar, ed. Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist:
His Letters, Papers, and Speeches, Ten Volumes.
Jackson, MS: Mississippi Department of Archives
and History, 1923.
Thomas, Emory M. The Confederate Nation 1861-1865.
New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1979.
Copyright by Dan Roberts Enterprises, Inc.