If Civil Wars could be represented by a single person, the personification of the struggle in the United States between the North and the South would be a frightful individual to behold. Unfortunately, for Jefferson Davis, his life and temperament came close to embodying the gruesome inward fight of the American Civil War (or at least the Southern part). As men go, he was labeled an enigma. He was both a contradiction and a confirmation of himself, unpredictable yet foreseeable. His insecurities were major weaknesses. Without the special skills of a “people person”, he was thrust into a position of leadership over unorganized and untrained men. Despite these things, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, attempted to overcome all of it. In this way, he exemplified the Civil War and the further internal strains of the American South.
As a child, Davis received few opportunities to make his own decisions. His father, Samuel Davis, was decisive yet distant in his son’s life. Samuel reportedly withheld “such expression [of emotion] that his son later remembered as remarkable a single occasion when his father had hugged him” (Essay I, p.5, ll.34-36). Constantly searching for a father figure, Davis highly regarded the older men in his life. This included Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, Zachary Taylor (his first father-in-law), and his brother, Joseph Davis, among others. Joseph in particular began fathering Davis, even before their father’s death when Davis was seventeen. Since Davis never questioned the men above him, with all obedience and loyalty he followed the paths they advised or appointed to him (a trait that carried on throughout his career). The paths, beginning with military academy, were good of themselves, but ...
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...ough of a wizard” (Essay II, p.34, l.9) to make up for the missing attributes of his men, or even find ways to make up for his own downfalls. Because of this, Davis struggled to keep the confederacy above water.
In the spring of 1865, the inevitable victory of the North left the South to rebuild while unwillingly paying dues to, and following the orders of, the Union. Davis’ term was finished and the South thought they were finished off as well. Nevertheless, Davis and the South still gained many things despite how much they lost. They still had freedom. It was freedom with borders, and was not the kind they wished for, but it was a freedom that eventually strengthened many of their insecurities. In the end they had gained a rough kind of strength from the challenges they faced. In this respect Davis’ life once again reflected those of the states he had governed.
The American Civil war is considered to be one of the most defining moments in American history. It is the war that shaped the social, political and economic structure with a broader prospect of unifying the states and hence leading to this ideal nation of unified states as it is today. In the book “Confederates in the Attic”, the author Tony Horwitz gives an account of his year long exploration through the places where the U.S. Civil War was fought. He took his childhood interest in the Civil War to a new level by traveling around the South in search of Civil War relics, battle fields, and most importantly stories. The title “Confederates in the Attic”: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War carries two meanings in Tony Horwitz’s thoughtful and entertaining exploration of the role of the American Civil War in the modern world of the South. The first meaning alludes to Horwitz’s personal interest in the war. As the grandson of a Russian Jew, Horwitz was raised in the North but early in his childhood developed a fascination with the South’s myth and history. He tells readers that as a child he wrote about the war and even constructed a mural of significant battles in the attic of his own home. The second meaning refers to regional memory, the importance or lack thereof yet attached to this momentous national event. As Horwitz visits the sites throughout the South, he encounters unreconstructed rebels who still hold to outdated beliefs. He also meets groups of “re-enactors,” devotees who attempt to relive the experience of the soldier’s life and death. One of his most disheartening and yet unsurprising realizations is that attitudes towards the war divide along racial lines. Too many whites wrap the memory in nostalgia, refusing...
Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America, showed weaknesses within his leadership which may have contributed to the confederacy’s loss and the unions win . Davis failed in three vital ways. These ways were: his relations with other confederate authorities and with the people, as well as in his fundamental concept of his job as president and in his organization and specific handling of his role as commander in chief . Davis failed in maintaining communication with leaders and with his people, often unable to admit when he is wrong which led to lack organization in his role . In addition, Davis was a conservative leader, not a revolutionary one which meant that his strength was often in protocol and convention rather than in innovation . Studying each of these aspects that represented a weakness in Jefferson Davis’s leadership, Lincoln in comparison provided more admirable and outstanding qualities within his leadership which in many ways affected the outcome of the war
On the question as to whether states’ rights was the cause of the Civil War, Dew references a speech made by Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America, during his inaugural address as one that “remains a classic articulation of the Southern position that resistance to Northern tyranny and a defense of states’ rights were the sole reason for secession. Constitutional differences alone lay at the heart of the sectional controversy, he insisted. ‘Our present condition…illustrates the American idea that governments rest upon the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish governments whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established’”(13).
The Civil War era divided the United States of America to a point that many Americans did not foresee as plausible throughout the antebellum period. Generating clear divisions in even the closest of homes, the era successfully turned businessmen, farmers, fathers, sons, and even brothers into enemies. Many historians would concur that the Reconstruction Era ushered in a monumental turning point in the nation’s history. The common rhetoric of what the Reconstruction Era was like according to historians is that it was a euphoric era. Those same historians often write about the Reconstruction Era as a time of optimism and prosperity for African Americans. Attempting to illustrate the era in a favorable light, they often emphasize the fact that African Americans had gotten the emancipation that they were fighting for and they were free to create a future for themselves. Jim Downs, author of Sick From Freedom African-American Illness and Suffering during the Civil War and Reconstruction, is not like those historians at all. Downs takes a completely different approach in his book. He asserts that both the Civil War Era and
After the second Battle of Manassas, the Army of the Potomac was demoralized and President Lincoln needed someone that could reorganize it. President Lincoln liked General McClellan personally and admired his strengths as an administrator, organizer, and drillmaster. Lincoln was aware that the soldiers loved General McClellan and had nicknamed him “Little Mac.” Knowing this, President Lincoln ordered General McClellan to “assume command of Washington, its defenses and all forces in the immediate vicinity.”1 This was not a field command but intended for General McClellan to take the returning demoralized Army and the new soldiers coming into Washington and make them a fighting force, nothing more. Lincoln knew as well that although Ge...
Davis served at frontier military posts and in the Black Hawk War before resigning in... ... middle of paper ... ... In that harsh period of time. being in favor of the black equality race was dangerous yet courageous.
“Why did the North win the Civil War?” is only half of a question by itself, for the other half is “Why did the South lose the Civil War?” To this day historians have tried to put their finger on the exact reason for the South losing the war. Some historians blame the head of the confederacy Jefferson Davis; however others believe that it was the shear numbers of the Union (North). The advantages and disadvantages are abundant on either sides of the argument, but the most dominate arguments on why the South lost the war would be the fact that state’s rights prevented unification of the South, Jefferson Davis' poor leadership and his failure to work together with his generals, the South failed to gain the recognition of the European nations, North's superior resources made the outcome inevitable, and moral of the South towards the end of the war.
History of the United Sates. Davis does not merely recount the glorious deeds of histories '
The south was in economic and social chaos after its defeat in the war. 1865-1877 was a time period of reconstructing the south, however, it left an everlasting impression that kept the south behind for years to come. The political apprehension the south felt was due to the fact that there was no more authority and the new states had to deal with the northern states. The question was how the newly reelected Lincoln was going to bring these states back to the Union.
Andrew Jackson, Southerner, by Mark Cheathem, is an in-depth book on President Jackson’s life and ideologies. Cheatham is a professor at Cumberland University, which is located thirty minutes away from the Hermitage, Jackson’s mansion. His knowledge of the period, lifestyle, and specifically Andrew Jackson’s life while at the Hermitage is astounding. The bulk of his works and article dove into the Jacksonian period and America’s early republic. From the rise of the Democrats to the life of Andrew Jackson’s nephew, Cheathem is a historian who studies ninteenth century history. However, bias was present in the book, since he depicted the South in a positive light. Perhaps, it is because he is from the South. At any rate, slight bias is present within the book, and should be noted when taking into account Jackson’s background, and its effect on Jackson’s
In June 1835, Davis married Zachary Taylor’s daughter, Sarah Knox Taylor against, her father’s wishes. She died about 3 months after they were married of malaria. He was devastated after she passed away, so he continued the next te...
President Thomas Jefferson 1801 - 1809. Thomas Jefferson came into presidency with the intention of limiting the size and power of the central government. His success and failures in accomplishing this goal were many. Thomas Jefferson was America’s third president in reign from 1801 – 1809, once tying in the presidential race with Aaron Burr, where the decision was made by the House of Representatives to choose Jefferson, whom they thought was less dangerous than Burr. As president he was the first to be inaugurated in Washington, which was a city he had helped to plan. President Jefferson's inauguration was probably the start of the changes in government.
Although both Davis and his daughter asked Taylor to allow the marriage, Taylor refused to allow the two to marry due to Davis' status as a soldier. After many discussions with his brother, Davis resigned from the army and bought land next to his brothers plantation. The couple married June 17, 1835. The newly weds marriage didn't last long due to Sarah Taylor and Jefferson Davis contracting malaria, although Davis survived the disease, Sarah Taylor did not. For several years after his wife's death, Davis became reclusive and began to developing his plantation that he bought from his brother. Over time Davis began to study politics and governmental history, Davis also started to increase his slave ownership numbers. In 1840, Davis became involved in politics when he attended a Democratic Party meeting in Vicksburg and was chosen as a delegate to the party's state convention in
...house of representaives in 1874. Radical reconstruction in the south stalled. The promising progress reconstruction brought to the lives of the black man educationally, socially and politically were also about to be ground to a halt. “One reads the truer deeper facts of Reconstruction with a great despair. It is at once so simple and human, and yet so futile. There is no villain, no idiot, no saint. There are just men; men who crave ease and power, men who know want and hunger, men who have crawled. They all dream and strive with ecstasy of fear and strain of effort, balked of hope and hate. Yet the rich world is wide enough for all, wants all, needs all. So slight a gesture, a word, might set the strife in order, not with full content, but with growing dawn of fulfillment. Instead roars the crash of hell...” W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880
As the terrible dark cloud of the Civil War that had been mounting for over one hundred years now covered the face of 1862 America. All people of the United States of America’s; eyes turned, looking for someone to follow one man stood above, Thaddeus Stevens. His morals were undeniably absolute, creating a firm and reliable leader. Thaddeus Stevens was able to accomplish great feats during his tenure in Congress; he developed a mindset on abolition, protected and preserved the Union, and he attempted to create a better society for African Americans.