An Honorable Defeat: The Last Days of the Confederate Government | William C. Davis

An Honorable Defeat: The Last Days of the Confederate Government | William C. Davis | Excellent vignettes depicting last days of the confederacy.

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An Honorable Defea...

	An Honorable Defeat: The Last Days of the Confederate Government William C. Davis Harcourt, 2001 - 512 pages average customer review:based on 23 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

In February 1865, the end was clearly in sight for the Confederate government. Lee's defeat at Gettysburg had dashed the hopes of the Confederate army, and Grant's victory at Vicksburg had cut the South in two. 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.

Pulitzer Prize nominee 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. Using original research, he narrates, with dramatic style and clear historical accuracy, the futile quarrels of Davis and Breckinridge as they try to evade bands of Northern pursuers and describes their eventual--and separate--captures. The result is a rich canvas of a time of despair and defeat that is exciting and highly readable, a charged tale full of physical adventure and political battle that sweeps from the marble halls of Richmond to a dingy room in a Havana hotel.

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The Dramatic Final Days of the Confederate Government

Admirably told by William C. Davis in perhaps his best work outside of "Lincoln's Men".

Unlike "Look Away" or the two biographies penned by Davis on the two central subjects of this book - Jefferson Davis and former U.S. Vice President-turned Confederate General-turned Confederate Secretary of War John C. Breckenridge, this work concentrates on the last days of the Confederate government, fleeing from Richmond as Lee's final defenses crumble before Grant's all-out assault after the Five Forks debacle.

On one hand you have Jefferson Davis, devoid of all reality even as he flees the falling Confederate capital, exhorting the shattered, destroyed armies to fight on even as Lee's starving men are stumbling into Appomattox Court House, or as Johnston is all but cornered in North Carolina. Davis, Judah Benjamin, and a few other sycophantic souls seem to think the Confederate Armies in Texas and the Transmississippi will fight on till victory.

Then there is the realist and reluctant secessionist but gifted general Breckenridge. Even as he was appointed Confederate Secretary of War, Breckenridge knows the war is all but lost. He urges Lee to send him reports on the true status of the Confederate Armies - and subtlely but firmly urges Davis to come to grips. "Let us not end this with a farce" he tells Davis as the Confederate government leaves Richmond for the last time.

The true dramatic scenes are in the first half of the book when Davis, attending church the morning following Sheridan's crushing defeat of Pickett at Five Forks, is handed a note from Lee, saying Richmond can no longer be held. Davis quietly gets up from his pew, and walks out of the church, followed slowly by other members of the Confederate government. The congregants slowly realize what is happening and they too, shocked and in a daze walk out even though the minister is still trying to conduct his service! (Jay Winik also retells this tale in APRIL 1865). The government boards a special train bound for Danville on the Virginia border with North Carolina - hoping to meet up with General Johnston's Army of the Tennessee.

The Danville days - where Davis does act like an Adolf Hitler or Saddam Hussein - though not necessarily as evil as they were - exhorts the disspirited folks of southern Virginia and North Carolina to fight on, sends out orders to units that no longer exist, with all of the cabinet realizing they were in danger of being killed or captured by Union Cavalry operating nearby, is probably the most gripping part of the book. Also the flight of Breckenridge from Richmond, and his irregular contacts with Lee, up to two days before the surrender. In fact, Davis sends out scouts that reach a village 12 miles from Appomattox on the morning of Lee's meeting with Grant. Hoping to find the Army of Northern Virginia nearby, they find Breckenridge instead, who, along with Rosser's brigade of cavalry that barely escaped the Union pincers, tell these envoys from Davis the terrible truth that Lee, instead of fighting on, is on the verge of meeting with Grant. As Breckenridge proceeds south with the scouts from Davis, he tells them that he has heard no gunfire from Appomattox that morning of April 9th, even though they are scant miles away from Lee.

Those days in Danville must have been very surrealistic. Especially when Davis refuses to accept the fact that Lee would surrender. But the fog suddenly wears off - with the news that Johnston too, with Breckenridge's support, has entered into surrender negotiations with Sherman. How Davis could even think that Johnston, and his associate commander Pierre Gustave Tourant Beauregard, both of who detested him, would squander the lives of their men just to keep him in temporary power is mind boggling to say the least.

The book slows down its pace following Johnston's surrender, and the assasination of Lincoln, with only bits and spurts of it a pick up in the successful flight of Breckenridge and his immediate party to Cuba. The capture of Davis by Wilson's cavalry, a tale retold too many times, is just an anti-climatical read here.

And while Davis doesn't cover the final battles in the Transmississippi, or the surrenders of Forrest, Kirby-Smith, Taylor and others, what he does cover here he does so in an exciting, fast-paced narrative. A great Civil War work about the end of the Confederacy - overshadowed by the landscape of Winik's outstanding APRIL 1865.

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Excellent vignettes depicting last days of the confederacy.

This book will give you a detailed account of the happenings amongst significant characters of the confederacy during the last days of the Civil War. William C. Davis certainly has hit the mark with this work. The narrative is very interesting and a true page-turner. Many a vignette will give you a feeling of listening in to the events and thought processes of people like Jefferson Davis, Joseph Johnston, Robert E. Lee etc.

In this narrative John Breckinridge, the senator from Kentucky, is fleshed out as a man of vision, common sense, and decency. Of all the southern leaders who had a chance of influencing policy, perhaps only personalities like Breckinridge, Johnston, and Lee saw the inevitable during the closing days of the war. However, only Johnston and Breckinridge tried to get Ole Jeff Davis to see the light. A sad part of the book is when Breckinridge thinks Lee agreed to speak up and directly inform Jeff Davis that a peace settlement should be sought but when the moment came Lee decided there was still hope of victory.

This is a classic narrative of where one leader, Jefferson Davis, to fulfill personal "honor" needlessly squanders lives of young men. I am sorry to come to this conclusion but any military tactician worth his salt could have noted that the war was lost back in early '64. Herein lies my one cavil with this book. I wish Mr. William C. Davis had devoted more space to analyze the decision-making processes of the confederacy and the impact of personal character on historical events.

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An error

On page 394 William Davis discusses the termnination of the legal proceedings against Jefferson Davis. Davis did not go to trial but raised as a defense to the charges of treason Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. The provision provides that those who had been an elected official in the Confederacy could not hold public office except for those who had been pardoned by a 2/3 vote of each both houses of Congress to remove the disability. Davis' defense asserted that the imposition of this prohibitian from holding office was a penalty and any further penalty imposed against him would be a violation of his 5th Amendment rights which bar double jeopardy. William Davis incorrectly states that "any futher trial would be a violation of the ex post factro statute." Ex post facto would be punishment for a law that did not exist at the time of the act.

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Great work with good narrative

I certainly enjoyed this book because it chronicles the way the Confederate Goverment reacted when confronted with the inevitable defeat during the civil war.Mr Davis does a great job in narrating all the events that ocurred when Jefferson Davis and his staff where retreating from the advancing North Army.I specially enjoyed the description of all the people around Davis.The author describes the way they think, how they acted and the way the saw their situation as it got worse and worse.Good work and great narrative.

Not As Good As I Thought

This book wasn't as good as I had hoped it would be or as good as some of the reviews make it sound. I felt like this author tried to make a story of it but he didn't have enough factual evidence and background about what happened to truly make it interesting. I felt his writing style dragged on and he was repetitive. He rambled a lot at the end of the book and flipped around to the different players in the Confederacy without really getting anywhere. Just wasn't what I thought the book was going to be or should be.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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