The best books on the politics of the Confederacy: the inner world of the 'Lost Cause'
By William C. Davis
Who am I?
I find the early days of the Confederacy to be fascinating, a chance to look at Americans in the act of nation-making while surrounded by fear and crisis. Far more than in the convention of 1776, this episode offers sources that allow us to look inside their motives, and to evaluate them both as impractical rebels, and social and political idealists [albeit their idealism was always encased within the confines of a slave society]. Having written biographies of Jefferson Davis, Alexander H Stephens, Robert Toombs, and other Confederate politicians, this subject is a natural object of my interest. While I do not at all agree with or endorse the political measures they took in the secession crisis, I can feel some empathy for them and their people who felt themselves caught in a no-win position, facing [in their view] the possible destruction of their economy, society, and culture.
I wrote...
An Honorable Defeat: The Last Days of the Confederate Government
By
William C. Davis
What is my book about?
In February 1865, the end was clearly in sight for the Confederate government. An Honorable Defeat is the story of the four months that saw the surrender of the South and the assassination of Lincoln by Southern partisans. It is also the story of two men, antagonists yet political partners, who struggled during this time to achieve their own differing visions for the South: Jefferson Davis, the autocratic president of the Confederate States, who vowed never to surrender whatever the cost; and the practical and warm General John C. Breckinridge, Secretary of War, who hoped pragmatism would save the shattered remnants of the land he loved so dearly.
William C. Davis traces the astounding flight of these men, and the entire Confederate cabinet, as they flee south from Richmond by train, then by mule, then on foot.
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The Books I Picked & Why
The Confederate Republic: A Revolution against Politics
By
George C. Rable
Why this book?
This is the first, and still really the only, thorough study of the political life of the seceded states when they formed their new Confederacy. It is an eye-opener as to what those founders envisioned for their new republic, revealing them as more than just reactionary rebels. While never downplaying the central role of slavery and its concomitant issues in bringing about secession, Rable also shows the flashes of political idealism in the minds of some who thought they would be perfecting what was begun in 1776.
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A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States
By
Alexander H. Stephens
Why this book?
Vice President of the Confederacy Alexander "Little Alec" Stephens was the real "Little Giant" of mid-century politics. His 2-volume apologia for secession is not an easy read, but it is a fountainhead for the thinking that would inform "Lost Cause" mythology for more than a century. The very title gave future "Lost Cause" adherents their mantra of it being a "war between the states," and not a civil war. Stephens is argumentative, at times fustian and slow going, but what he has to say is essential to getting into the mind of the men who made secession happen, and how they sought to justify it after 1865.
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A Government of Our Own: The Making of the Confederacy
By
William C. Davis
Why this book?
At the risk of being immodest in selecting one of my own books, this is the only scholarly investigation into the creation of the Confederacy and its infant days in Montgomery, Alabama, prior to the move to Richmond, VA. The story is peopled with dynamic characters, high ideals, low motives, and a host of surprises from what the Confederate founding fathers created and how they went about it. Secession was bound to be tried at some time in our history, and the way these men went about it, and how they sought to remedy what they saw as the shortcomings in our original Constitution, are highly revealing of how Americans of all times can react in times of crisis.
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Rebels in the Making: The Secession Crisis and the Birth of the Confederacy
By
William L. Barney
Why this book?
This new 2020 book is a fresh synthesis of the scholarly work that has been done on secession and the young Confederacy in the past 30 years and has much that is new to offer Its treatment of the weeks in Montgomery is rather brief, but insightful, and overall it makes a fine introduction to the political life of the CSA.
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Four Years in Rebel Capitals: An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy From Birth to Death: From Original Notes, Collated in the Years 1861 to 1865
By
Thomas C. DeLeon
Why this book?
It is one of the best first-person accounts we have of the adolescent days of the Confederacy in Montgomery, AL. De Leon is a fine writer who provides great pen portraits of the people involved, endless anecdotal detail on political and social life among the founders and their Montgomery hosts, and some penetrating insights into the jealousies and rivalries that helped to cripple their efforts from the outset.
