The History of the Confederacy: 1832-1865

by Clifford Dowdey

The Civil War was fought for thirty years before the mounting antagonisms exploded in a clash of arms. The period from Nullification in 1932 until Fort Sumter in 1861 constituted a long period of cold war, even by today's standards. Men who opposed one another in 1832 had gone to their rewards when the shooting began, and the generation in the South which was to die had not been born when South Carolina first defied the Union. The quarrel was passed on, from generation to generation until the men who settled it in the bloodiest way possible had little notion of what had started it. In History of the Confederacy, Clifford Dowdey surveys the gathering-the disparity between North and South economically, South Carolina's defiance of the federal Tariff Act of 1832, the stark horror of Nat Turner's Rebellion and its subsequent harvest of fear, and the conflict between ways of life within the South itself. In this stirring and thoughtful work we see Davis, Calhoun, Tooms, Stephens, Jackson, Levy, all waiting to take their parts in the tragedy that was to be played out on their own beloved land. From Mr. Dowdey's story of the Civil War itself-from Fort Sumter to Appomattox-emerges the unforgettable picture of a young army that grew into the dedicated and valiant force that fought for Lee-and for the land of the South. This is history seen through the eyes of the men who lived it-and told in a masterly fashion by one of today's most eminent historians.

Genres: History, Civil War, Nonfiction, American History

435 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1992

About the author

Clifford Dowdey was born in Richmond, Virginia January 23, 1904 and died there May 30, 1979. The Richmond Newspapers, the Richmond Times Dispatch and the Richmond News Leader eulogized him as The Last Confederate. His father was descended from immigrants surnamed O'Dowda of County Galway, Ireland, and his mother from an English settler of Jamestown. His father worked for Western Union and his mother was a housewife. Four of his grandmother’s brothers were Confederate soldiers. His grandmother lived with his family until she died when Dowdey was age 19. Her reminiscences spurred his lifelong interest in the American Civil War and the history of Virginia.[1]

He attended Columbia University from 1921-1925. He worked for about a year as a newspaper reporter and book reviewer for the Richmond News Leader. He returned to New York City and worked as an editor for various pulp magazines (Munsey’s, Argosy and Dell) from 1926 to around 1935. About 1933 he started writing seriously on what eventually would become his first novel "Bugles Blow No More.” Leaving the magazines, he and his wife moved to Florida for a season and then to Richmond, Virginia where he finished the novel. For the rest of his life, he lived in Richmond and worked as a writer of historical fiction and history. He reviewed others' historical works in academic journals, such as "The Journal of Southern History" and " The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography." Even though he had no formal training as an historian several of his works received critical acclaim by noted historians. His historical novels were popular as evidenced by their being reviewed in "The New York Times."[2]

The circumstance of his first marriage is unknown. In an interview published in The New York Times July 13, 1941, he made reference to a wife as early as 1934 or 1935. On July 13, 1944, he married Frances Wilson, a clinical psychologist; she died July 1970.[3] He was the father of two daughters, Frances and Sarah.

Reviews

[Kristen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely told from the perspective of the south. I would have liked to have seen end notes for the numerous quotations. I think you have to take the author's psychoanalysis of the principal players with a large grain of salt.

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was kind of meh. Usual "Lost Cause" perspective--Jefferson Davis was a buffoon and Lee was a tortured genius that was in essence betrayed by Davis and the other politicians. You can tell the author sympathized with the South. You can read it to gain insight to this way of thinking, but an objective history it is not.

[Isidore · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting older (1955) popular history of the Civil War, told from the Southern perspective, and as such useful counterpoint to the customary Northern triumphalism. Here, the Northern heroes (Grant, Sherman, Sheridan) are poor generals but excellent killers; Davis is a bungler, Lee (inevitably) very nearly a paragon of virtue.

One curious aspect of the book is its faltering attempt at psychohistory. Dowdey often lunges at psychological explanations for events and behaviour. For instance, in describing the final breakdown of peace, he comments that no rational explanation for the event is possible, save that "the country was more like the schizoid in a violent cycle, where he is driven by the warring parts, with no guiding intelligence to direct the whole." It is implied that the actions of many of the principal players are rooted in mental aberrations: Bragg is a "psychotic warrior" suffering from neurotic migraines, whose "breakdown" prevents him from properly following up his victory at Perryville; Davis did what he did because he was "mentally ill" or suffering from "dementia" or "mania"; and so on. Throughout, Dowdey focusses on the irrational heart of historical events. All of this is interesting and may even be true, but he tosses off psychoanalytical clichés so recklessly that it's hard to take him seriously. There's no sense that painstaking study of the available evidence underlies these claims, or that Dowdey was sensitive to the dangers of posthumous psychoanalysis.

Nevertheless, the book is hugely informative and entertainingly written, reaching real eloquence in its closing pages.