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The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume 1
A decade after his release from federal prison, the 67-year-old Jefferson Davis—ex-president of the Confederacy, the ”Southern Lincoln,” popularly regarded as a martyr to the Confederate cause—began work on his monumental Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government.
Motivated partially by his deep-rooted antagonism toward his enemies (both the Northern victors and his Southern detractors), partially by his continuing obsession with the “cause,” and partially by his desperate pecuniary and physical condition, Davis devoted three years and extensive research to the writing of what he termed ”an historical sketch of the events which preceded and attended the struggle of the Southern states to maintain their existence and their rights as sovereign communities.”
The result was a perceptive two-volume chronicle, covering the birth, life, and death of the Confederacy, from the Missouri Compromise in 1820, through the tumultuous events of the Civil War, to the readmission of the Southern states to the U.S. Congress in the late 1860s.
Supplemented with a new historical foreword by the Pulitzer Prize–winning James M. McPherson, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume I belongs in the library of anyone interested in the root causes, the personalities, and the events of America’s greatest war.
Motivated partially by his deep-rooted antagonism toward his enemies (both the Northern victors and his Southern detractors), partially by his continuing obsession with the “cause,” and partially by his desperate pecuniary and physical condition, Davis devoted three years and extensive research to the writing of what he termed ”an historical sketch of the events which preceded and attended the struggle of the Southern states to maintain their existence and their rights as sovereign communities.”
The result was a perceptive two-volume chronicle, covering the birth, life, and death of the Confederacy, from the Missouri Compromise in 1820, through the tumultuous events of the Civil War, to the readmission of the Southern states to the U.S. Congress in the late 1860s.
Supplemented with a new historical foreword by the Pulitzer Prize–winning James M. McPherson, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume I belongs in the library of anyone interested in the root causes, the personalities, and the events of America’s greatest war.
704 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1881
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About the author
Jefferson Davis
247 books19 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Jefferson Finis Davis (June 3, 1808 – December 6, 1889) was an American military officer, statesman, and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, serving as the President of the Confederate States of America for its entire history, 1861 to 1865.
A West Point graduate, Davis fought in the Mexican-American War as a colonel of a volunteer regiment, and was the United States Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce. Both before and after his time in the Pierce Administration, he served as a U.S. Senator representing the state of Mississippi. As a senator he argued against secession but believed each state was sovereign and had an unquestionable right to secede from the Union.
Davis resigned from the Senate in January 1861, after receiving word that Mississippi had seceded from the Union. The following month, he was provisionally appointed President of the Confederate States of America and was elected to a six-year term that November. During his presidency, Davis was not able to find a strategy to defeat the more industrially developed Union, even though the south only lost roughly one soldier for every two union soldiers on the battlefield.
After Davis was captured May 10, 1865, he was charged with treason, though not tried, and stripped of his eligibility to run for public office. This limitation was posthumously removed by order of Congress and President Jimmy Carter in 1978, 89 years after his death. While not disgraced, he was displaced in Southern affection after the war by its leading general, Robert E. Lee.
Jefferson Finis Davis (June 3, 1808 – December 6, 1889) was an American military officer, statesman, and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, serving as the President of the Confederate States of America for its entire history, 1861 to 1865.
A West Point graduate, Davis fought in the Mexican-American War as a colonel of a volunteer regiment, and was the United States Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce. Both before and after his time in the Pierce Administration, he served as a U.S. Senator representing the state of Mississippi. As a senator he argued against secession but believed each state was sovereign and had an unquestionable right to secede from the Union.
Davis resigned from the Senate in January 1861, after receiving word that Mississippi had seceded from the Union. The following month, he was provisionally appointed President of the Confederate States of America and was elected to a six-year term that November. During his presidency, Davis was not able to find a strategy to defeat the more industrially developed Union, even though the south only lost roughly one soldier for every two union soldiers on the battlefield.
After Davis was captured May 10, 1865, he was charged with treason, though not tried, and stripped of his eligibility to run for public office. This limitation was posthumously removed by order of Congress and President Jimmy Carter in 1978, 89 years after his death. While not disgraced, he was displaced in Southern affection after the war by its leading general, Robert E. Lee.
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December 25, 2013
Every now and again I come across a hidden gem, a book that is not on the major lists of classic works but that covers such a range of ideas and aspects of human existence that it winds up ranking on my list of top fifty reads in my life. This is one of those cases, and I owe Barnes and Noble a huge thank you for their publication of this work, the first half of Davis’ memoirs. I will warn that it is a tome, at 480 pages of text plus another 180 of appendices and at least ten of endnotes, but it is well worth the time and effort to sort through it.
The Civil War was about business interests, and any discussion of slavery only clouds the issue–let’s start with that. Jefferson Davis’ memoir provides a clear statement of the reasons behind the secession of the eleven “sovereign” states which formed the Confederate States of America in 1861 (in theory thirteen states had Confederate armies, but two were silenced by disarmament enforced by Union troops). I did not know many of the details about the Southern position before reading this book, as they have been ignored or “discredited” (a word that is difficult to use here but that some who do not know what it means use to state that they disagree with its premises and facts), but now I must say that not only am I far more knowledgeable and less prone to making assumptions, I believe I am a “Confederate sympathizer” to a certain degree.
Davis’ biggest concern is the abuse of the legislative and executive powers of the United States by sectional interests. As he states early on, the South was penalized multiple times by tariffs which a) protected Northern industry and b) were used to make improvements in the North that Southern congressmen would not ask to be made in their territories. This was the basis of corruption and dishonesty, and was coupled with a refusal to enforce fugitive slave laws and a failure to honor property rights in neutral territories prior to their having become States; and when an entirely sectional government was elected in 1860, Southerners were forced to deliberate upon whether the “general government” as an “agent” instituted for a purpose could still do what the South had entered into agreement for its establishment to do.
Their answer was, of course, that it could not do this, and they seceded. Davis justifies this by reference to the language of the Constitution, and shows how theories against the right of secession are based on misconstructions of that brilliant document; all of his logic is very plain, and adds up quite clearly. (Ultimately the debate really goes back to whether government fits Hobbes’ conception–where men give up their rights to the government in exchange for protection of their lives but something goes wrong and they cannot get those rights back and are forced to concede more and more–or Locke’s conception, where government is still the result of a social contract but the people reserve the right to alter or abolish it if it no longer works for them.) But the seceding states retained the hope for peace, and did not attempt to build their armies despite their unpreparedness for any sort of major conflict; instead they sent commissioners to the United States government in the hopes of amicably settling certain potential sources of disagreement, such as the removal of United States troops from Fort Sumter in South Carolina (where they were no longer wanted and needed as they were on the territory of a foreign nation), which the Union government kept waiting with delays before finally dismissing them ignominiously and sending reinforcements to the garrison at Fort Sumter. Davis exposes the hypocrisy of the political leaders of the Republican party of the time and their broad construction of the language of the Constitution to the point where they rendered the document nearly meaningless. The full implications of this early abuse of the document continue to be displayed at the present, mind you.
Davis describes the organization of the Confederate government, the initiation of the Civil War and its early battles, some military strategies pursued by his generals, the suppression of the border states by Union armies (which truly disgusts me), the finances of the Confederacy and its manufacture of arms after the war had already started in a game of catch-up; he discusses some of the conflicts that arose between himself and governors of the respective states, and some of the more reckless behavior of his generals in disobeying his orders that led to reverses in the fate of the Confederacy.
The book is ridiculously complete in its scope, covering all aspects of both the theoretical and the practical that bear relevance to its subject matter, and compares favorably with many of the memoirs I have read by participants in world affairs–notably Trotsky’s and Roosevelt’s. It should be considered by every student of U.S. History and I would urge that it be taught in schools but for the fact that there are hundreds of other books that need also to be read and only so much time in which to read them. I certainly have set out that time, but it is to some limited degree understandable that others have not.
The Civil War was about business interests, and any discussion of slavery only clouds the issue–let’s start with that. Jefferson Davis’ memoir provides a clear statement of the reasons behind the secession of the eleven “sovereign” states which formed the Confederate States of America in 1861 (in theory thirteen states had Confederate armies, but two were silenced by disarmament enforced by Union troops). I did not know many of the details about the Southern position before reading this book, as they have been ignored or “discredited” (a word that is difficult to use here but that some who do not know what it means use to state that they disagree with its premises and facts), but now I must say that not only am I far more knowledgeable and less prone to making assumptions, I believe I am a “Confederate sympathizer” to a certain degree.
Davis’ biggest concern is the abuse of the legislative and executive powers of the United States by sectional interests. As he states early on, the South was penalized multiple times by tariffs which a) protected Northern industry and b) were used to make improvements in the North that Southern congressmen would not ask to be made in their territories. This was the basis of corruption and dishonesty, and was coupled with a refusal to enforce fugitive slave laws and a failure to honor property rights in neutral territories prior to their having become States; and when an entirely sectional government was elected in 1860, Southerners were forced to deliberate upon whether the “general government” as an “agent” instituted for a purpose could still do what the South had entered into agreement for its establishment to do.
Their answer was, of course, that it could not do this, and they seceded. Davis justifies this by reference to the language of the Constitution, and shows how theories against the right of secession are based on misconstructions of that brilliant document; all of his logic is very plain, and adds up quite clearly. (Ultimately the debate really goes back to whether government fits Hobbes’ conception–where men give up their rights to the government in exchange for protection of their lives but something goes wrong and they cannot get those rights back and are forced to concede more and more–or Locke’s conception, where government is still the result of a social contract but the people reserve the right to alter or abolish it if it no longer works for them.) But the seceding states retained the hope for peace, and did not attempt to build their armies despite their unpreparedness for any sort of major conflict; instead they sent commissioners to the United States government in the hopes of amicably settling certain potential sources of disagreement, such as the removal of United States troops from Fort Sumter in South Carolina (where they were no longer wanted and needed as they were on the territory of a foreign nation), which the Union government kept waiting with delays before finally dismissing them ignominiously and sending reinforcements to the garrison at Fort Sumter. Davis exposes the hypocrisy of the political leaders of the Republican party of the time and their broad construction of the language of the Constitution to the point where they rendered the document nearly meaningless. The full implications of this early abuse of the document continue to be displayed at the present, mind you.
Davis describes the organization of the Confederate government, the initiation of the Civil War and its early battles, some military strategies pursued by his generals, the suppression of the border states by Union armies (which truly disgusts me), the finances of the Confederacy and its manufacture of arms after the war had already started in a game of catch-up; he discusses some of the conflicts that arose between himself and governors of the respective states, and some of the more reckless behavior of his generals in disobeying his orders that led to reverses in the fate of the Confederacy.
The book is ridiculously complete in its scope, covering all aspects of both the theoretical and the practical that bear relevance to its subject matter, and compares favorably with many of the memoirs I have read by participants in world affairs–notably Trotsky’s and Roosevelt’s. It should be considered by every student of U.S. History and I would urge that it be taught in schools but for the fact that there are hundreds of other books that need also to be read and only so much time in which to read them. I certainly have set out that time, but it is to some limited degree understandable that others have not.
October 6, 2015
I tried. I really did. But the book is such a blatant slavery-apologetic text that it made me sick.
January 31, 2015
I dislike this book so intensely that one star seems excessive. There are three reasons: the writing style is very difficult to maintain the slightest interest in, Davis is one of those history writers who tends to list fact after fact (though sometimes, as in his digression about the difficulties facing the Confederate ordnance service, this is in fact quite interesting), and Davis himself is, for a man who prided himself on being clear-sighted about the necessities of the war, absolutely, dunderheadedly wrong on so many levels.
One of the classic arguments about the war was that it was not a war over slavery; it was a war over states' rights. That this is absolutely, unequivocably false can be demonstrated quickly and easily. As part of the Compromise of 1850, the South demanded the passage of a rigorous fugitive slave law; further, they insisted on its enforcement even in places where slavery was considered abhorrent and unnatural, thereby enforcing the will of a few states on others by means of the Federal power. Was this states' rights in action? If the Federal power were formed by the voluntary joining of the States, why did the seceding states make no effort to reimburse the other parties of that joining upon their secession for the improvements to their waterways, their harbors, their defense? If the sovereignty of property was so important, why, then, did the Confederacy make no effort to reimburse the state governments of New York, Massachussetts, and so on for the Federal property seized at Harpers Ferry, at Sumter, at Wilmington and New Orleans and Mobile?
Further, Davis himself is painted as incapable of error - this, from the man whose personal vendettas were legendary in an honor-based culture. I do not mean to say the war would have been better if Beauregard had been left in any of his offices, but certainly the revolving-door policies of the Confederate cabinet did not provide any of the desperately needed stability a new government requires.
There are many excellent histories of the Civil War which have used Davis as a source, and his inclusion of hundreds of pages of appendices make the book useful as a primary source as well as a history, but the man was a second-rate author, a third-rate thinker, and, fittingly for a man whose sight was ruined by the war, totally blind to the logic of his cause.
One of the classic arguments about the war was that it was not a war over slavery; it was a war over states' rights. That this is absolutely, unequivocably false can be demonstrated quickly and easily. As part of the Compromise of 1850, the South demanded the passage of a rigorous fugitive slave law; further, they insisted on its enforcement even in places where slavery was considered abhorrent and unnatural, thereby enforcing the will of a few states on others by means of the Federal power. Was this states' rights in action? If the Federal power were formed by the voluntary joining of the States, why did the seceding states make no effort to reimburse the other parties of that joining upon their secession for the improvements to their waterways, their harbors, their defense? If the sovereignty of property was so important, why, then, did the Confederacy make no effort to reimburse the state governments of New York, Massachussetts, and so on for the Federal property seized at Harpers Ferry, at Sumter, at Wilmington and New Orleans and Mobile?
Further, Davis himself is painted as incapable of error - this, from the man whose personal vendettas were legendary in an honor-based culture. I do not mean to say the war would have been better if Beauregard had been left in any of his offices, but certainly the revolving-door policies of the Confederate cabinet did not provide any of the desperately needed stability a new government requires.
There are many excellent histories of the Civil War which have used Davis as a source, and his inclusion of hundreds of pages of appendices make the book useful as a primary source as well as a history, but the man was a second-rate author, a third-rate thinker, and, fittingly for a man whose sight was ruined by the war, totally blind to the logic of his cause.
May 6, 2010
A good read, and a must for anyone interested in US history & culture.
'The victor writes the history' and in the case of the US Civil war, the Union/North is the winner and writes the history books. This is natural, but unfortunately leads to our learning half truths about the reasons for the war. We all know the North's side, because we are taught it in school. This book, written just after the war, attempts to tell the tale from the side of the Confederate South.
You cannot know the truth of the American civil war, without reading both sides. You cannot. "The war was fought to end slavery" is a lie, a half truth. This is a must read if you care to know what happened and why.
'The victor writes the history' and in the case of the US Civil war, the Union/North is the winner and writes the history books. This is natural, but unfortunately leads to our learning half truths about the reasons for the war. We all know the North's side, because we are taught it in school. This book, written just after the war, attempts to tell the tale from the side of the Confederate South.
You cannot know the truth of the American civil war, without reading both sides. You cannot. "The war was fought to end slavery" is a lie, a half truth. This is a must read if you care to know what happened and why.
August 14, 2020
President Jefferson Davis of the Confederate States of America after a ten year prison sentence because of his role in the War of Northern Aggression as southerners deemed it was very determine to prove that the United States Federal Troops were acting in a war like nature to seize the economic revenue of the southern states through tariffs and other measures of legislation to give northern manufacturing over southern agriculture. He opens up with the first part discussing the Missouri Compromise, The Fugitive Slave Laws, the defeat of the states-rights party, the Kansas and Nebraska Bill, the John Brown raid and wrapped up the first part determined to point out that slavery was not the cause for the war that Southerners had already progressed through the appropriate avenues to end slavery, but their time table wasn’t as swift as Abolitionist wanted. Then he moved into Constitutional laws to justify the Confederate States justification for the right of succession. Part three was about the Succession and confederation, enacting the Confederate Congress and the actions of the Union forces at Fort Sumpter that started the war. The fourth part was about the war and all the things that the United States did to create war against any state that seceded from the Union and formed a new Nation with the hope of a peaceful separation. Then also about the aggression that they used against boarder states like Kentucky, Missouri, etc seizing land and invasion to try to coherence boarder states from joining the Confederacy. There is a lot of things to consider about what Davis speaks. I know that a confederate bias is part of every word of justification that he pushes, but after a ten year prison sentence the truth is that you know that there is conviction in his words that he hold to be the truth not the Union propaganda. There is a few articles that I read during reading this book that help me to understand that everything that Davis states regardless of his perspective are based on facts that haven’t been altered any only by the opinion of someone who lived though the War of Northern Aggression or The Civil War depended on the side you stood.
February 25, 2025
It’s fascinating to look at the Civil War era from the point of view of the Confederacy. Mr. Davis makes some very good and valid points, the most important of which is that withdrawal from the Union was without question a legitimate exercise of the powers reserved to and retained by the States. Whether or not secession was the wisest or even the essentially necessary course of action at the time is a different question.
Mr. Davis’ presentation of some of the historical controversies … disagreements with generals, apportionment of praise or blame for results or failures … is likewise interesting, and I don’t feel myself qualified to judge one way or another, but I have no doubt that JD’s version of events may be at least a little self-serving at times. No matter.
Cognizant as Mr. Davis was of the South’s relative economic and military inferiority, it’s hard to understand how he/they ran the risk of war, but hope springs eternal I suppose. There were certainly any number of possible alternative outcomes that would have avoided, or at least delayed, war. At the same time, playing “What if” is endlessly enjoyable, albeit pointless.
In any case, this is essential reading for any student of American history. I need to track down Volume 2.
Mr. Davis’ presentation of some of the historical controversies … disagreements with generals, apportionment of praise or blame for results or failures … is likewise interesting, and I don’t feel myself qualified to judge one way or another, but I have no doubt that JD’s version of events may be at least a little self-serving at times. No matter.
Cognizant as Mr. Davis was of the South’s relative economic and military inferiority, it’s hard to understand how he/they ran the risk of war, but hope springs eternal I suppose. There were certainly any number of possible alternative outcomes that would have avoided, or at least delayed, war. At the same time, playing “What if” is endlessly enjoyable, albeit pointless.
In any case, this is essential reading for any student of American history. I need to track down Volume 2.
September 14, 2018
This is the most informative book I have ever read on the CSA. The points and allegations are backed up by original letters and other documents from the time. The book is very long and there is a second volume. The writing by Mr. Davis is from an earlier time and at times a little confusing. I enjoyed the book and already have purchased the second volume.
March 8, 2019
Interesting.
January 29, 2021
Advice: If reading the whole book seems too much, read only 10 chapters of Part 2 (Out of 4 parts). This contains the "why" behind every "what" the rest of this book is about.
The longest book I've ever read (52 Chapters, approx. 900 pages in Kindle). This is the story, from the loser's perspective, of developments that lead to the American Civil War. And, obviously, this vastly differs from the popular American history available in most of the forums I've visited.
Mr. Davis, the President of the erstwhile Confederate States of America (1861-65) describes the situation that lead to the partition of USA and the justification towards it. He argues in favour State supremacy over the centre. His arguments, to an outsider like me, seem to be coming from the core values of the American Constitution. The narration of the story from 1776 to 1820, arguments and counter arguments on State supremacy are the most exciting sections of the book.
Negatives: the book is overly descriptive. The author has tried to put on the table every evidence to support his arguments. This includes too many original transcription of letters and speeches, which becomes boring at instances. Besides, no attempt seems to have been made to captivate the reader, or provide sufficient context. A major negative to this book is almost completely sidelining of the institution of slavery.
Overall, a very good read if you want to know about the American history. But demands a lot of Googling.
P.S.- Red Dead Redemption 2 brought me here
The longest book I've ever read (52 Chapters, approx. 900 pages in Kindle). This is the story, from the loser's perspective, of developments that lead to the American Civil War. And, obviously, this vastly differs from the popular American history available in most of the forums I've visited.
Mr. Davis, the President of the erstwhile Confederate States of America (1861-65) describes the situation that lead to the partition of USA and the justification towards it. He argues in favour State supremacy over the centre. His arguments, to an outsider like me, seem to be coming from the core values of the American Constitution. The narration of the story from 1776 to 1820, arguments and counter arguments on State supremacy are the most exciting sections of the book.
Negatives: the book is overly descriptive. The author has tried to put on the table every evidence to support his arguments. This includes too many original transcription of letters and speeches, which becomes boring at instances. Besides, no attempt seems to have been made to captivate the reader, or provide sufficient context. A major negative to this book is almost completely sidelining of the institution of slavery.
Overall, a very good read if you want to know about the American history. But demands a lot of Googling.
P.S.- Red Dead Redemption 2 brought me here
January 9, 2021
The most forceful section of this work is the pre-history of the Confederacy and Davis’s legal defense of secession. While some have faulted him for a revisionist analysis of the slavery question, this critique scarcely seems warranted; Davis openly defends the antebellum position on the extension of slavery in the territories, admits that the issue represented the ultimate crisis in sectional politics, and asserts that the problems surrounding it formed the “occasion” of southern secession. Of course, he questions the humanitarian motivations of the anti-slavery movement and contends that northern politicians were more interested in a quest for sectional dominance than preserving the Constitutional “compact” or improving the lot of southern blacks, but he is correct to observe that the Lincoln administration initiated war over the legality of secession, not because of its avowed purpose.
Davis notes the older fault-lines in sectional discourse, such as the tariff issue, but uses them in part to advance the dubious hypothetical that a sectional crisis would have occurred in a world without slavery. In addition, he notes his support in late 1864 for the enlistment of black soldiers without documenting his prior opposition to the proposal. Still, it is a reasonable assessment that Davis’s evolution on the issue of slavery occurred during the war, not as a consequence of defeat; southern independence, originally conceived as a defense of the status quo, eventually became an end unto itself, and Davis proved himself willing to sacrifice virtually every southern value and institution (including, ultimately, slavery) in order to achieve it.
Davis’s narratives of military campaigns are largely filtered through second-hand accounts and are primarily offered to answer his critics and rivals. They are generally not of enduring value. On the other hand, his discussion of southern preparations for war is intriguing, and generally holds up well. His evaluation of the 1861 Confederate peace initiative and the struggle for the border states is interesting, though his analysis of statecraft in the Confederacy is limited. The organization of the book is indifferent, and it is at times repetitive, but despite its faults, the work certainly is worth continued consideration by a contemporary audience.
Davis notes the older fault-lines in sectional discourse, such as the tariff issue, but uses them in part to advance the dubious hypothetical that a sectional crisis would have occurred in a world without slavery. In addition, he notes his support in late 1864 for the enlistment of black soldiers without documenting his prior opposition to the proposal. Still, it is a reasonable assessment that Davis’s evolution on the issue of slavery occurred during the war, not as a consequence of defeat; southern independence, originally conceived as a defense of the status quo, eventually became an end unto itself, and Davis proved himself willing to sacrifice virtually every southern value and institution (including, ultimately, slavery) in order to achieve it.
Davis’s narratives of military campaigns are largely filtered through second-hand accounts and are primarily offered to answer his critics and rivals. They are generally not of enduring value. On the other hand, his discussion of southern preparations for war is intriguing, and generally holds up well. His evaluation of the 1861 Confederate peace initiative and the struggle for the border states is interesting, though his analysis of statecraft in the Confederacy is limited. The organization of the book is indifferent, and it is at times repetitive, but despite its faults, the work certainly is worth continued consideration by a contemporary audience.
June 19, 2012
I expected this to be good, but it was far better than I expected. While I don't agree with Davis's view of government, he makes a compelling case by weaving Constitutional theory into his description of the antebellum period. It's true that history is written by the winners, and while in this case I agree with them, reading the losers' perspective is a fascinating and rewarding enterprise, and there is no greater guide than Jefferson Davis.
August 21, 2015
Jefferson Davis, the first and last President of the Confederate States of America, presents his defense of the Confederacy, secession, slavery, et al - and lays the foundation for the legend of the Lost Cause. This is literally the case for the defense in the court of history and as such makes no concessions what-so-ever on any single point of discussion.
September 11, 2016
This book was surprisingly easy to read. Davis really did believe in the supremacy of the state against all other forms of civilian government, including federal, local, territorial, or individual. There's a second part, which I plan on reading later, after which I will have more to say.
January 15, 2009
Have plenty of liquids/moisturizers around when you read this one; it is D-R-Y. If you are into overly legalistic, constructionist arguments defending secession, then you've come to the right place.
March 13, 2011
Reminded me that history depends on who's telling the story
October 4, 2012
Jefferson Davis writes his version of events that led to the American Civil War. He also writes about the events that led to the defeat of the Confederacy.
August 10, 2012
Ignore the preface.
Read
June 23, 2013Excellent book from a southern perspective
November 17, 2018
As much as I enjoy Jefferson Davis' intelligence and focus on truth and details, he repeated himself a little much through several chapters. "Rise and Fall" would be a shorter book if it were originally edited for repetition. That being said, I encourag
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews