Statesmen of the Lost Cause: Jefferson Davis And His Cabinet

by Burton J. Hendrick

STATESMEN OF THE LOST CAUSE JEFFERSON DAVIS And His Cabinet By BURTON J. HENDRICK Author of The Lees of Virginia and Bulwark of the Republic WITH ILLUSTRATIONS The Literary Guild of America, Inc. NEW YORK THE STARTING POINT OF THE GREAT WAR BETWEEN THE STATES INAUGURATION OF JEFFERSON DAVIS CONTENTS PROLOGUE 3 I JEFFERSON DAVIS, SOUTHERN NATIONALIST 1. A MISCELLANEOUS EDUCATION .... 12 2. THE EARLY TRAGEDY 19 3. SCHOLASTIC RECLUSE 24 4. VARINA HOWELL 34 5. STATE RIGHTS 40 6. LEADER OF SECESSION ...... 44 7. SECRETARY OF WAR ...... 51 II THE GREAT GEORGIA TRIUMVIRATE 1. ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS 57 2. THE MAN WITHIN 65 3. THE TOOMBS-STEPHENS COALITION ... 69 4. ROBERT TOOMBS, UNIONIST 71 5. HOWELL COBB 75 III THE COTTON BELT SETS UP A CONFED ERACY 1. THE MONTGOMERY CONVENTION ... 85 2. DAVIS ELECTED PRESIDENT ACCIDENTALLY . . 95 3. THE CONSTITUTION FOR SECESSION . . . 100 4. THE FIRST CABINET 104 IV DIPLOMACY ON THE MEXICAN FRONT 1. RECOGNITION BY EUROPE 107 2. COLONEL JOHN PICKETT 117 3. SENOR CORWIN 125 4. FARCE IN MEXICO CITY 129 V A DIPLOMATIC DEBUT IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE 1. THE QUEST FOR RECOGNITION . . . ,139 2. LORD RUSSELLS COMPLIMENTS , 150 VI THE BRAINS OF THE CONFEDERACY 1. JUDAH P, BENJAMIN 153 2. CREOLE MARRIAGE 164 3 SMILING As USUAL 169 4. BENJAMIN IN THE WAR OFFICE . . . .181 vi CONTENTS VII CONFEDERATE FINANCE L CHRISTOPHER MEMMINGER . . . .188 2. WHITE GOLD 194 3. WHITE GOLD, CONTINUED 201 4. THE COTTON FAMINE 208 VIII FRENCH BANKERS FLEECE THE CONFED ERACY 1. THE ERLANGER LOAN 216 2. SLIDELL AND BENJAMIN 222 3. INTERNATIONAL FINANCE 227 IX JAMES MURRAY MASON 1. A VIRGINIAN IN THE MAKING .... 233 2. THE VIRGINIA CLAIM TO SUPERIORITY . . . 240 3. ENGLAND AND THE UNITED STATES . . . 247 X QUEEN VICTORIAS TWO BAD BOYS 1. LORD PALMERSTON 258 2. LORD JOHN RUSSELL 262 3. LONDON SOCIETY 267 4. THE BLOCKADE 270 5. THE MOVEMENT FOR RECOGNITION . . . 277 XI FRIENDS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 1. JOHN SLIDELL 283 2. EXILE IN NEW ORLEANS 289 3. INTRIGUE IN PARIS 294 XII NAPOLEON III AND THE CONFEDERACY 1. A CAUTIOUS FRIEND 302 2. A LARGE BRIBE OFFERED FRANCE . . . 309 3. THE COLD SHOULDER 314 XIII THE DISCORD OF THE GOVERNORS 1. SECRETARY SEDDON 324 2. PRO-UNIONISM IN THE SOUTH .... 330 3. JOSEPH EMERSON BROWN 336 4. ZEBULON B. VANCE 342 XIV SECESSION WITHIN THE CONFEDERACY 1. AN ARMY FOR GEORGIA ..... 350 2. JOE BROWN NULLIFIES CONSCRIPTION . . . 352 3. JOE BROWNS TEN THOUSAND . . . . 358 CONTENTS vii XV MALLORYS FIGHT ON THE BLOCKADE 1. STEPHEN R. MALLORY 363 2. MEN BUT No SHIPS 369 3. THE IRONCLADS 375 XVI COMIC RELIEF L THE POST OFFICE 387 2. THE PROPAGANDA OF THE CONFEDERACY . . 389 3. THE MISSION TO THE VATICAN .... 399 XVII END OF THE DESPOT DAVIS L THE INEVITABLE SCHISM 409 2. HOSTILITY WITHIN THE CABINET . . . 414 3. A UNION MAN AT HEART . 422 4. THE FAILURE OF STATE SOVEREIGNTY . . . 429 BIBLIOGRAPHY 433 INDEX 441 ILLUSTRATIONS THE STARTING POINT OF THE GREAT WAR BETWEEN THE STATES ........ Frontispiece Inauguration of Jefferson Davis as Provisional President of the Confederate States, February 18, 1861, at the state capitol, Montgomery, Alabama JEFFERSON DAVIS OF MISSISSIPPI 1808-1889 . ... 14 Provisional and Peimanent President of the Confederate States of America BIRTHPLACE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS IN KENTUCKY . . .15 The log cabin in Christian now Todd County, Kentucky, in which Jefferson Davis was born June 3, 1808 THE WHITE HOUSE OF THE CONFEDERACY, RICHMOND, VIRGINIA .......... 15 Official residence of Mr. and Mrs. Davis during the Civil War ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS OF GEORGIA 1812-1883 . . . 76 President of the Confederate States of America ROBERT TOOMBS OF GEORGIA 1810-1885 .... 76 First Secretary of State of the Confederacy HOWELL COBB 1815-1868 ....... 77 United States Senator, Secretary of the Treasury under Presi dent Buchanan and afterward a leading Secessionist in Georgia ROBERT M. T. HUNTER OF VIRGINIA 1809-1887 ... 77 Secretary of State of the Confederacy from July, 1861, to February, 1862 BENITO JUAREZ 1806-1872 ..

Genres: History

488 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1939

About the author

Associate editor of World's Work 1913-27. Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner: in American History for the co-written A Victory at Sea (1920) and in American Biography for the first volume of The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page (1922) and The Training of an American (1928).

Reviews

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

If the results weren’t so tragic, this book would be funny. Statesmen of the Lost Cause chronicles the utter dysfunction of the Confederate government due to petty politics, personal vendettas, and blind devotion to ideology. In its two most important functions – supplying the armies and gaining European recognition and support – the Confederate government was an abject failure.

That’s largely because of things like the vice president hardly being present most of the war, as well as the governor of Georgia acting like the president of his own country, withholding troops and supplies to defend his own state. And those are just two of the oddities.

Ultimately, the book argues that the South was done in by superior Northern organization and focus, but also by the South’s own states right credo. Their inability to function as a unified country with a single wartime strategy largely contributed to their (well deserved) defeat and the end of slavery.

This is an engrossing study of the people and politics of the South. I've read a lot of Civil War books, and this is one of the very best. Sadly, I found many parallels to the politics today: the book brilliantly shows ideologically driven politicians who would rather see the nation fail than alter their beliefs (even temporarily) or compromise with others. Let’s hope things turn out differently in 2011.

[Gregory Koster · Rating 4 out of 5]

Burton Hendrick had the notion of writing history by writing a collection of biographies of participants This approach worked well for him in writing the biography of the US Constitution, BULWARK OF THE REPUBLIC. STATESMEN OF THE LOST CAUSE, a biography of the Confederacy’s government from 1861-1865 is another example of this method producing a winner. The one drawback is that the book was published in 1939. Many new sources have come to light since then. But Hendrick did a fine job with what he has.
The book is a study of governance, not a military history. Hendrick shows that the failure of the Confederacy was less a story of military defeat than a failure of governance. One good example is Hendrick’s account of ‘King Cotton’ diplomacy. For the first year of the war, 1861, the Confederacy’s policy was to prohibit all exports of cotton, to the point of burning warehouses of already harvested cotton. The theory was that withholding exports of cotton would force recognition
of the Confederacy by Great Britain when the textile industries shut down. During this year the Federal blockade was far more on paper than effective. Had the Confederacy shipped cotton abroad at full speed in 1861, they would have had an asset to back a foreign loan. By the time the Confederacy realized that ‘King Cotton’ was a pretender, the Federal blockade had gotten much more effective, and only a trickle of cotton could be gotten through.
Another good example of Hendrick’s method is his examination of the relation to the Confederacy to its component states. There’s an old saw that the best general the Allies had in World War II was Adolf Hitler. That saw, multiplied ten times, applies to Georgia’s governor, Joseph Brown, during the Civil War. Brown’s belief in ‘state rights’ i.e. his rights as Georgia’s Governor, hampered Jefferson Davis’s attempts to raise and maintain Confederate armies. Even when Sherman marched through Georgia, burning and wrecking, Brown did not give way. Honest imbecility was never purer than in Brown’s case, nor more effective in the Federal cause.
The core of Hendrick’s book is Davis himself. For all his paper qualifications, he was a hideously ineffective President. Unlike Winston Churchill in World War II, his stubbornness and refusal to give way, popped up at the wrong times, the refusal to allow cotton exports in 1861, the sidelining of his Secretaries of War and even his own generals, the persistent reinforcing of failure, above all the inability to see that slavery in the end was the flaw in the Confederacy that would bring it down. He’s a tragic figure, capable, lots of energy and determination, utterly loyal to what he believed in---all counting for nothing because what he believed in was wrong.
This book is unjustly forgotten. Hendrick attempted to do for the Confederacy what James McPherson did, in a much more sophisticated way, for the Union in BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM. I think Hendrick succeeded. In its time, no one wrote a better history of this big, neglected facet of the American Civil War.

[Glenn Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first thought of this book was weighted by the title and that the book would be a romantic view of the leaders and the reasons for the rebellion. Fairly wrong on both counts. The book goes into the political structure of the South, the Southern States, the various political leaders, the government and diplomacy. Very little is mention of the military or battles except as reference points to the ebbs and flows of the morale of the South and the politics in the South.

Fairly interesting is the coverage of the diplomatic effort of the Confederacy and the Union in trying to get France and Great Britain to side. France has eyes on Mexico, it was worried about what was going on with a new Italy and a new Germany and had more worries. Of the 2, France was more open to considering recognition, but in the end, France needed a strong US to counter Great Britain.

The author discussed some interesting ideas-that many of the Governors were absolutely opposed to the 1862 Conscription Law as they were States Rights and the Confederacy, ironically, was not set up to honor States Rights. Also, President Davis stated that all able bodied men had to serve unless they owned 20 or more slaves, which then caused the morale of the army to drop and also gave governors of key states to pass laws exempting teachers, pharmacists, deputies and more from service. Schools and Pharmacies popped up all over.

The biggest praise the writer had was for the Post Master General of the Confederacy. "This outfit made a profit, something the US has never been able to do before, during or since."

[Nicholas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hendrick systematically deconstructs the romanticism of Confederate sympathy, showing the Confederate attempt at play-government for what it really was: immoral in objective, inconsistent in principle, and inept in execution.

[Wayne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of information on political and diplomatic life of the Confederacy.
Somewhat northern biased, but not enough to ruin the book.