Historiographical Analysis of Jefferson Davis

¶ … Historiographical Analysis of Jefferson Davis

Although the commanders-in-chief of the Union and Confederacy received their full measures of criticisms during and following the end of the Civil War, the martyrdom of the Union's Abraham Lincoln seems to have absolved him of many of the harsher attacks that his counterpart in the South Jefferson Davis has been forced to endure over the years. Indeed, everyone loves a winner, the adage advises, and this has certainly been the case with Lincoln. Conversely, and especially in Davis's case, many observers hate a loser and this sentiment is reflected in the primary sources from the era as well as in the historical record in subsequent years as well. Although another adage suggests that "time heals all wounds," the wounds inflicted on the South were no quick to heal and it was more than a full century before the role played by Davis during the Civil War began to receive a more balanced appraisal from most historians. To trace this shift in opinion concerning Davis and his actions during and following the Civil War, this paper provides a review of the primary and secondary literature followed by a summary of the research and salient findings in the conclusion.

Review and Discussion

Just over half a century had passed when Eckenrode (1923) wrote his biography of Jefferson Davis, who he notes was born in Kentucky in 1808 near the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln who was born in 1809. Although Davis and Lincoln were contemporaries to this extent, Eckenrode suggests that is where the parallels leave off: "Davis, in later life, was something of an aristocrat, in obedience to the social law of his section, just as Lincoln, also in obedience to social law, remained a plain man of the people" (1923, p. 29). Moreover, Eckenrode reports that Davis was named after the presiding president of the United States when he was born (just as children in the Confederacy would be named after him), and his original name was indisputably "Thomas Jefferson Davis"; however, like Woodrow Wilson, Davis dropped the "Thomas" in order to provide himself with a more stately sounding name. According to this historian, "It had something to do with his success in life: men with ill-sounding names seldom rise high in politics" (Eckenrode, 1923, p. 29). According to Eckenrode, Davis enjoyed a quality education for the era at a private academy in Kentucky and at Transylvania University until his appointment to the United States Military Academy. As Eckenrode emphasizes, this experience had a transformational effect on the future Confederate president: "He was at the military academy with such other notables as Robert E. Lee and Joseph E. Johnston. Jefferson Davis was not a model student like Lee, hating mathematics and slighting his courses for desultory reading, but he graduated in 1828 with a fair class standing and carried away with him an almost pathetic faith in education" (p. 30). In fact, as president of the Confederacy, Davis was reluctant to promote officers to the higher ranks unless they had been educated at West Point like himself (Eckenrode, 1923). All in all, Eckenrode's biography of Davis points out some of his strong points but generally characterizes him as an aloof and pretentious individual who affected airs of greatness that he did not necessarily deserve. For instance, although she would not live long after they were married, Davis fell in love and courted the daughter of Zachary Taylor. In this regard, Eckenrode points out that, "Davis had become engaged to the daughter of his commanding officer, Zachary Taylor. The latter had taken a strong dislike to the lieutenant, not improbably on account of his preciousness, for Taylor was a rough, uneducated Indian fighter and must have been galled by his would-be son-in-law's probably too obvious attitude of superiority" (p. 31).

In addition, like another president, Richard Nixon, Jefferson Davis was also elected to a term that he would not be able to complete. According to McPherson, "Jefferson Davis was inaugurated to his full six-year term as president on February 22, 1861 (until then he had been provisional president). He conceded in his inaugural address that 'after a series of successes and victories, we have recently met with serious disasters'" (quoted at p. 21). The characterization of the setbacks which the Confederacy had experience as "serious disasters" can be viewed in retrospect as understatements, but Davis was fighting a war that as the war progressed, he increasingly recognized he could not win but he felt that it was his duty to prosecute the war to its ultimate conclusion in hopes of securing terms from the North and alleviating the suffering that was its unfortunate concomitant. For example, the wounds of the Civil War will still apparent when in 1937, McElroy wrote that, "Davis' view was that 'violence, on the one side, and extreme measures on the other, now, will dissolve the Union; but if they will give me time, all is not lost' -- a sufficient answer to the later propaganda which made him an arch-conspirator, seeking with mad ambition to tear down the structure which he had sworn to defend" (p. 259). From Davis's perspective, though, the Confederacy held the high moral ground and these points are made time and again in his book, the Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government.

In an essay by Dirck (2002), the point is made that Davis remained unrepentant for his role in the South's defeat. In this regard, Dirck notes that, "In 1881 Jefferson Davis published the Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, his contribution to the growing literature of the Lost Cause. As the Confederacy's ex-president, he was in a unique position to write an insider's account of the short-lived Southern nation" (p. 237). Although the book by Davis had a number of literary and moralistic flaws from Dirck's perspective, the overriding issue that emerged from this book was its self-serving purpose. According to Dirck, "Dry and colorless in its narrative, legalistic and utterly without humor in its style, Rise and Fall was most of all self-righteous. Never once in nearly thirteen hundred pages of text did Davis admit a mistake, either by himself personally or by the Confederacy" (p. 238). Although the Union's track record was certainly not spotless when it came to, for example, the defense of civil liberties during the Civil War, Dirck emphasizes that Davis engaged in many of the same violations but that the former president simply overlooked these transgressions in his book. In this regard, Dirck writes that, "Davis largely passed over in silence the more thorny policy initiatives of his own administration -- the military draft, impressment of civilian goods, declarations of martial law, and suspensions of the writ of habeas corpus -- saying in effect to the reader that his record in these matters was so above reproach as to require no defense" (p. 238). Clearly, though, some defense is in order because even modern historians continue to cite these actions in a negative light. For instance, Brick-Turin (2004) notes that, "The Confederacy was far less democratic than it set out to be. The necessity of raising funds resulted in an income tax, contrary to its constitution and in advance of its Northern adversary. And like its rival, the Confederacy was quick to suspend habeas corpus and draft men for the army -- again contrary to constitutional prohibitions" (p. 585). From Davis's viewpoint, though, the Confederacy was justified in taking these steps while the Union was not, a bit of military hypocrisy that was not overlooked by his contemporaries or by historians ever since.

For instance, according to Sutherland (2002), "Davis cites instances where Union troops had behaved far more barbarously than the worst Rebel bushwhackers and irregulars. As the Federals dealt ever more harshly with both guerrillas and the citizens who harbored or assisted them, Davis found himself in the awkward position of defending the guerrilla war he had always deplored" (p. 260). Desperate times call for desperate measures, and the historical record makes it clear that Davis was a desperate commander-in-chief. In this regard, in July 1862, Davis lamented to Robert E. Lee that, "We find ourselves driven by our enemies by steady progress towards a practice which we abhor and which we are vainly struggling to avoid" (quoted in Sutherland at p. 260). The actions taken by Davis during the Civil War can be viewed as being reprehensible, and many contemporary observers and historians adopted this position to be sure, there was more to the man that his brief tenure as the president of the Confederate States.

Nevertheless, as the leader of the losing side, Davis was the natural target for the animosity that remained after the war drew to its bloody conclusion. For example, according to Cooper (2003), "In four years of bloody warfare that claimed 600,000 American lives, the United States smashed the Confederate states. Even though Davis and his cause failed, the vastness of the war and the profound consequences resulting from it ensure its primacy and his prominence" (p. 1). While modern observers may relate the role played in the history of the United States only on his presidency of the Confederate states, in reality, a more balanced view of the man would also include the fact that Davis had a significant role in the development of the early nation and his contributions were responsible for increasing both the size and the character of the country. In this regard, Cooper emphasizes that, "Davis's notability does not come solely from his crucial role in the Civil War. Born on the Kentucky frontier in the first decade of the 19th century, he witnessed and participated in epochal transformation of the United States from a fledgling country to a strong nation spanning the continent" (2003, p. 1).

As noted above, as a graduate of West Point, Davis served as a junior officer in the U.S. Army in the southwestern United States and later, as a colonel, fought in the Mexican War in 1848 which resulted in the Mexican Cession, a massive addition to the United States of some 500,000 square miles including California and the modern southwest (Cooper, 2003). Cooper also notes that, "As secretary of war and U.S. senator in the 1850s, he advocated government support for the building of a transcontinental railroad that he believed essential to bind the nation from ocean to ocean" (p. 2).

Notwithstanding these accomplishments and contributions, Brick-Turin (2004) suggests that Davis was not exactly the best man for the job: "The ill-fated nation chose the wrong man to lead the cause. Although Davis was a respected political leader before the war, he was a weak administrator, ineffective in working with his compatriots, and more desirous of a military role than that of chief executive" (p. 586). In his foreword to Davis's book, the Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Miers (1971) paints Davis in a bit more favorable terms: "At the time of Davis's apprehension, the North still grieved for Abraham Lincoln struck down by an assassin's bullet a month before; but as time went on, that suffering could not excuse the North's shameful behavior toward its old foe" (p. 11).

While Davis's critics were of a virtual consensus that he should be executed for his role in the Civil War, Miers maintains that the punishment meted out to Davis was too severe but that the former president accepted his fate stoically: "Even the Confederate leader's confinement in a dank casemate of Fortress Monroe might have been justified as an act of military expediency; but when Davis manacled and made to endure the humiliations of a common felon of the Dark Ages, a wave of revulsion swept the civilized world" (1971, pp. 11-12). To his credit, Davis accepted his fate with dignity and maintained a stiff upper lip in the face of his degradation while lamenting the impact that the war had on the innocents involved. In this regard, Miers advises, "With splendid dignity, Jefferson Davis withstood the abuses heaped upon him and in the memoirs that follows he dismisses the months of degradation briefly, paying tribute to the 'bitter tears . . . shed by the gentle" (1971, p. 12).