Davis and Lee at War

Posted on 21 March 2018 by Steven E. Woodworth

Steven Woodworth s previous book, the critically acclaimed Jefferson Davis and His Generals, won the prestigious Fletcher Pratt Award and was a main selection of the History Book Club In that book he showed how the failures of Davis and his military leaders in the west paved the way for Confederate defeat In Davis and Lee at War, he concludes his study of Davis as rebel commander in chief and shows how the lack of a unified purpose and strategy in the east sealed the Confederacy s fate.Woodworth argues that Davis and Robert E Lee, the South s greatest military leader, had sharply conflicting views over the proper conduct of the war Davis was convinced that the South should fight a defensive war, to simply outlast the North s political and popular support for the war By contrast, Lee and the other eastern generals notably P.G.T Beauregard, Gustavus Smith, and Stonewall Jackson were eager for the offensive They were convinced that only quick and decisive battlefield victories would prevent the North from eventually defeating them with its overwhelming advantage in men and materials.Davis and Lee, Woodworth shows, shared a mutual respect for each other for most of the war But it was respect mixed with a stubborn resistance to the other s influence The result of this tense tug of war was Davis s misguided pursuit of a middle ground that gave neither strategy its best chance for success The war finally ground to a bloody conclusion with Davis as indecisive as ever and virtually blind to how little confidence his generals had in his leadership.Drawing extensively upon the papers of Jefferson Davis and the works of leading Civil War historians, Woodworth places the eastern military campaigns in an entirely new light and expands our understanding of Davis as leader of the Confederacy. New Download Books Davis and Lee at War Author Steven E. Woodworth – kino-fada.fr Assemble a group of would be Civil War experts around a water cooler or game table and you hear how bad a president ol Jeff Davis was, always interfering in operations and supporting his friends no matter how bad they were Jeff doesn t come off too badly in this book He had his faults and author Woodworth covers them, but still he formulated as good a strategy as he could given his opponents superiority, and found an excellent subordinate in Robert E Lee, although Lee could get a little t Assemble ...This is vintage Woodworth, right down to his penchant for finding nothing right with those he dislikes, in this case Johnston deservedly in most regards , Beauregard unfairly , and Longstreet because he hated Saint Bragg of the Woodworth order of historians In spite of this and the book s overwrought concentration upon detailed correspondence and...I found this book to be one of the best books about command decisions and relationships between Politicians and generals during the Civil War I have ever read It covers the battles and the leaders of the Confederacy, both great and flawed I found it hard to believe that some Southern leaders generals fought harder against their own side in stupid little infights and disputes The book goes a long way ...I don t often call a book intellectually dishonest, but this books deserves it.

English
21 March 2018

Steven E. Woodworth