Jefferson Davis's Generals is one of the most complete examinations of the Confederate president's relationship with his top military officers. A collection of essays edited by Gettysburg College professor Gabor S. Boritt, it benefits from a variety of viewpoints and concise interpretations. Davis's reputation as a wartime leader inevitably suffers in comparison to Abraham Lincoln, as James M. McPherson (author of Battle Cry of Freedom) points out: "Davis was thin-skinned and lacked Lincoln's ability to work with critics for a common cause." His relationship with General Joseph E. Johnston is deemed "dysfunctional" on these pages, and another writer says his dealings with General P.G.T. Beauregard "reeked of mutual loathing." After the war, both Johnston and Beauregard blamed Davis for the South's defeat. Emory M. Thomas offers a revisionist view of Davis and his most famous commander, Robert E. Lee: "Historians have believed, as the Confederate president believed, that Lee and Davis were in strategic accord when, in fact, they were not." This is a provocative idea, but it is argued persuasively here. Davis, says Thomas, wanted to fight an essentially defensive war of attrition; Lee believed all along that only a speedy war would secure Southern independence. Another essay, by Lesley J. Gordon, focuses on the neglected subject of how Davis and his generals' wives influenced their husbands. Many readers will no doubt want to delve deeper into the issues raised in Jefferson Davis's Generals, and the book's final pages offer a very helpful narrative bibliography for further reading. --John J. Miller
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