Embattled Rebel

"History has not been kind to Jefferson Davis," writes James M. McPherson to begin his Embattled Rebel: Jefferson Davis as Commander in Chief. Indeed, Davis was nearly hung as a traitor, and despite a multitude of monuments to him in the former Confederacy, his reputation isn't as nearly a speck compared to his counterpart, Abraham Lincoln.

McPherson, in this slim volume, does not write a biography of Davis, but instead an evaluation of him as a wartime commander. McPherson is fair but facts are pesky things, and Davis, despite his best intentions, was undone by what seems to plague many a leader during war--he wrangled with his generals, who were obstinate and egotistical. Almost from the outset Davis was pilloried on all sides, though he did manage to be president through the entire history of the Confederacy.

"Most critical appraisals of Davis as commander in chief have focused more on his choices of generals and his relations with them than on his choice of strategies." Two names of many that pop up frequently are Joseph E. Johnston and Braxton Bragg. He seemed to be in a perpetual quarrel with the former, though he did try to replace Bragg with Johnston in Tennessee. Critics later claimed he should have stuck with Johnston and should have dispensed with Bragg, whom he did fire but later pulled close to him as a military adviser. McPherson has a reality check about Johnston: "Davis showed heroic patience with that general's constant complaints, frequent flouting of presidential orders, and failure to keep Davis informed of his operational plans. The president gave Johnston more slack than he deserved. Davis's most controversial act, the removal of Johnston from command in July 1864, was fully warranted. The military historian Richard McMurry was not being entirely facetious when he said, in a casual conversation, that if Johnston had been left in command he would have fought the battle of Atlanta campaign in Key West."

A lot of this sounds familiar, as Lincoln had a famous struggle with finding generals of competence, from McClellan until Grant. This book was the first I've read that takes the viewpoint from the Southern side. Of course Davis had Robert E. Lee, but could not find competent leadership for the Army of Tennessee, which was unable to stop Sherman from taking Atlanta and then marching to the sea (oddly enough, it was Johnston who was sent to try to stop him, badly outnumbered, in North Carolina). Davis may have had Lee, but the Union had much more men and materiel, and Davis was hamstrung by the carping of politicians from states who wanted to arms in their states. There was a big ruckus when Davis removed troops from Arkansas, which prompted the governor of that state to howl that he was undefended. Davis, from Mississippi, was also accused of favoritism by sending too many troops to that state.

The entire book reads like a description of a job nobody would want. Davis was in frail health, but did ride with troops often. But he was also described as very difficult to get along with. In the last analysis, and with the hindsight of history, all of these men were fighting for a cause so odious that it's impossible to engender any sympathy for them.

McPherson, who wrote the best one-volume history of the Civil War (Battle Cry of Freedom) has given just focus for a man on the wrong side of history but who played an important role in it. At least we can all be glad he was a failure.