Jefferson Davis: US Secretary of War/ Confederate President

[cw1865]

Originally Posted by Beowulf

Had the true Confederate South been in any way involved in Lincoln's murder, the guest list would have looked very different from those who actually were on it, and Lincoln would have been second on that list. SECOND.

First... would have been Stephens.

Beowulf

that is a good one, gave me a good chuckle.

[Beowulf]

Originally Posted by unionblue

Beowulf,

One can only read history and see the results of such.

Davis lost.

Lincoln won.

Unionblue

Did Lincoln win?

He lost his original party. He lost his chance to rejoin the Cotton Whigs with the Conscience Whigs. He lost his chance to send all the Blacks back to Africa. He lost his best friend as the first victim at First Manassas. He lost
the chance to see the end of OUR AMERICAN COUSIN.

Did Davis lose?

Davis won his freedom. Davis won his life. Davis won the chance to tell his side of things, in his own good time.
Davis was able to live to see his people revere him and
his funeral procession was apparently much longer than Lincoln's was...

And Davis was a real hero before, during, and after the war... Davis did not have to wait until well after his death
for a generalized positive feeling to develop...

And no one has ever used the term MR. DAVIS' WAR, to my knowledge...

WINNING is relative. To you, it means bragging rights. To the North, it meant the grace to cover for a massive embarrassment; Southern Secession.

But Lincoln a 'winner'?

Beowulf

[Beowulf]

Originally Posted by whitworth

By actual conduct, Jefferson Davis was the worst American president there ever was. (I'm including the U.S. Presidents and include J. Davis as an American)

If you look at his military and political experience, did anyone have a greater background, other than George Washington.
Jefferson Davis graduated from West Point; officered in the Mexican War; was a U.S. Senator; was the U.S. Secretary of War.

Was there anyone, who was so clueless about the Civil War and its necessities, than Jefferson Davis. He was so adequately prepared for the past with its more limited manpower and logistics, but never made the trip to the future, even if it was only a year away.

[1/1/08]

Jefferson Davis was truly living in the past; his past in charge of U.S. war making ability. He had no clue how it would change. He little understood how industry would make the defeat of Confederacy possible. He seemed not to understand the use of steamboats and railroads would defeat the Confederacy. That the U.S. would go into debt to defeat the Confederacy. It was probably Davis' experience as U.S. Senator and U.S. Secretary of War, that made him so unfit to accurately judge the future.
The Confederacy seemed not to understand that secession meant war, and that the Confederacy was capable of winning only a short war. Capable of extending a war into years, but not winning a war past the first year. By mid-1862 and mid-1863, the Confederacy would be incapable of holding certain Confederate territory. And Jefferson Davis's experience left him unprepared for such a happening.

I sense a biting admiration on your part for Davis. I rather enjoy reading it, because I think thee doth protest too much!

If you, or any of these other stalwarts of 'Union', would read Davis, you would know exactly where you are so very wrong about him and by how much, in each case...

But I look at your post as the confirmation of the Tao.

If it were not for the laughter, the Tao would not be what it is...

Beowulf

[ole]

If you, or any of these other stalwarts of 'Union', would read Davis, you would know exactly where you are so very wrong about him and by how much, in each case...

What you don't seem to accept is that Davis' post-war "recollections" are just that: recollections. There is no history in there. You will note that no one takes Grant's or Sherman's memoires as gospel. They are memoires, as is Jeff's. They are not history. Fess up. Have you ever seen anyone on this board who claimed something to be a historical fact because Grant or Sherman said it in their respective memoires? Nope.

None of those are primary sources -- read "memoires." Most certainly they tried to be accurate, but there is nothing in any of them that can be relied on as historical fact. Grant and Sherman produced works that qualify as literature; Davis failed at even that. I do sometimes wonder at your dedication that you could wade through those musty volumes and your perseverance in getting through them. It must have taken some extraordinary resolve. It remains, however, that no memoire is quotable historical fact. Very much like Wikipedia.

ole

[Beowulf]

Originally Posted by ole

What you don't seem to accept is that Davis' post-war "recollections" are just that: recollections. There is no history in there. You will note that no one takes Grant's or Sherman's memoires as gospel. They are memoires, as is Jeff's. They are not history. Fess up. Have you ever seen anyone on this board who claimed something to be a historical fact because Grant or Sherman said it in their respective memoires? Nope.

None of those are primary sources -- read "memoires." Most certainly they tried to be accurate, but there is nothing in any of them that can be relied on as historical fact. Grant and Sherman produced works that qualify as literature; Davis failed at even that. I do sometimes wonder at your dedication that you could wade through those musty volumes and your perseverance in getting through them. It must have taken some extraordinary resolve. It remains, however, that no memoire is quotable historical fact. Very much like Wikipedia.

ole

You are right. I agree with you.

But I was raised to believe as you do, and did believe as you do... until I caught REAL HISTORY in so many LIES that
I began to question it...

And then I realized that those charged with the Truth were actually charged with maintaining an illusion.

And then I began to study the Other Side...

Originally, I wished to write an apologia for our people.
To understand why they had 'erred', and for what reasons...

And then I saw where they might not have been wrong, at all...

At some point, I was convinced that they are owed every bit as much consideration for their cause as the North was being afforded.

The only trouble with that is this; the North falls to an unacceptable level of acceptance when that happens....

So it never has happened. Not yet. The South will not be recognized as being justifiable because it somehow makes the North look less noble and grand.

A memoir is an historical account or biography.

You don't trust it because Davis wrote it.

If you would read it, you would understand what the thinking of the South was at that time.

The trouble with the North today is they want to tell us what the South was thinking...

Their 'victory' does not give them that right. That is an unbelievable arrogance. The victors do not write history; they write propaganda.

I see Davis as the most primary of sources for telling the account. The one thing any prosecutor wants to see is the
fool in the defendant's chair 'on the witness stand'...

He can then be cross-examined, and he has to answer, and all his formers and priors can be brought to light...

William C. Davis is a joke, when you have Jefferson Davis explaining Jefferson Davis, in person.

Why does not your village pitchforks-and-torches crowd take his book literally apart, and slam him with his own words? Make a fool of him? Deride him, and destroy him with your overpowering primary sources??????

You have never read him, I can tell. He speaks with a power that at times rivals his namesake.

So, how much of historical fact is not hearsay?

How much has to be taken on faith? Even the word of God has to be taken on faith, sir...

YOU were not there. YOU do not know.

YOU were told things from sources you find credible.

YOU BELIEVE in them.

It is still, really, a FAITH thing.

But if you took Davis apart, as a study, and condemned him convincingly from his own words....

Beowulf might would become a yankee!

And there is nothing worse than a reformed anything!

After all, I was reformed once, already. I have admitted as much, in writing.

Go ahead. Make my day!

Beowulf

[OpnDownfall]

Ole, quit pressing his buttons. It is no fun when he makes it so easy.

[ole]

You're right. My apologies. The odor is not intolerable, so I will no longer stir it. (NOT)

ole