Hattaway and Beringer reprise their 1986 collaboration in Why the South Lost the Civil War
by focusing on Jefferson Davis's role as leader of the Confederacy, interpreting Davis (1808–1889) as a national politician rather than a regional one, and going so far as to describe him as a possible candidate for the national presidency in 1860. His accession to that office in the Confederacy reflected, however, less the iron determination of an Abraham Lincoln than a sense of civic responsibility that Davis proved unable to translate into long-term effectiveness as head of state and commander-in-chief. The authors demonstrate that Davis failed from the beginning to establish control of the Confederate government, leaving crucial issues like taxation, conscription and resource mobilization to ineffective subordinates and locally focused state authorities. He was easily influenced by immediate events, which led him to an excessive concentration on the eastern theater of operations at the expense of the west, where the war was ultimately decided. Davis began with broad public support and a wide circle of personal friends—the latter important in a system improvising institutions as it went along. But he allowed personal likes and dislikes to influence too many high-level appointments, military appointments in particular. Since the Confederacy could be established only by war, Hathaway and Beringer show, that flaw was decisive. (May 28)
Forecast:In June, Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes Jr. and Gordon D. Whitney's
Jefferson Davis in Blue: The Life of Sherman's Relentless Warrior (LSU, $49.95 468p ISBN 0-8071-2777-9) will be published, covering the life of journeyman soldier Jefferson Columbus Davis (1828–1879). Both titles will be of interest to academics and Civil War buffs, and Hattaway and Beringer's book may break into the trade market in the South.
