Jefferson Davis, American
by Jr. William J. Cooper
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jr. William J. CooperEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-11-13
ISBN: 0375725423
Number of pages: 848
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of Jefferson Davis, American
Book Review: A Big Life Covered in a Big Book
Summary: 4 Stars
Cooper has put together a lot of information and made it readable. He did not produce a page turner, but he does not put you to sleep either. The book is not interpretive, but Davis is presented more as a hero than a traitor.
While I am not qualified to judge the completeness of the biography, it seemed complete until it ended abruptly with Davis's death. I did an internet search to learn more about the death and aftermath of Davis. The funeral was significant and should have had more than a mention in the book. While there is some information on Varina as a widow, given her outstanding role in this book (and JD's life), more detail on the widowhood should have been included in the biography. I don't know if there are other gaps.
There is a lot here. Davis led an outsized life, and a totally amazing one given the confines of his health and times. Just the amount of travel, in the 19th century mode, sometimes through war zones, is staggering. He was where the action was, be it as a child just happening to visit Andrew Jackson's Hermitage on the way to school or fighting a pivotal battle in the Mexican War or being at Zachary Taylor's side in death or fleeing Richmond just before it fell. He served as US Secretary of War and later as the Commander in Chief of the country's only domestic enemy. After the war he met leaders and luminaries at home and abroad.
He managed his plantation (earning him $40,000/yr making him one of the richest men in Mississippi) from remote, but in government, he was a fanatical micro-manager. Later in life as the COO of an insurance company, he was obviously not micro-managing the receipts and expenditures. Despite his fame, he could not make ends meet in the "Gilded Age". He turned down college presidencies because they did not pay well enough. He made a point of not accepting charity, but accepted free residence and board from admirer, and later inherited the woman's full estate.
Cooper seems to take Davis at his word on his lack of responsibility for the southern secession; I do not. I read the quotes in this book as showing how Davis sowed regional paranoia. Davis framed issues that had little practical effect on Mississippi voters such as to the location of the western border of Texas or the ability of slave owners (what % of the population?) to take "their property" to Washington DC as major affronts to the Southern pride. His pre-war "we're not there yet" attitude towards secession certainly doesn't reflect a commitment to the Union. If he wasn't a "disunionist"/"secessionist" as he claimed, he completely converted to a fanatical one in less than 2 months after secession occurred. While Cooper does not fawn over or flatter Davis, he puts him, as the title suggests, in better light than I think is deserved.
As I read his words, I hear Davis making an elaborate defense for self interested actions. I hear him idealizing slavery because he needed it to run his plantation. I hear him inflating the impact of any new "free soil" state on the South to win elections. From this rhetoric, a war was created. From here, the "lost cause" had begun.
It's hard to believe that the Confederate leaders, who well knew the population and industrial balance of the north and south, could actually tell the citizens of their "new country" that they could build an army from scratch and win a war. It's also hard to believe that these leaders could print money with no backing, but Davis did just this. He cheerlead the cause even after Lee's surrender. He was obviously delusional at the end, but was he throughout? Did he, with his military background, once he realized there would be no foreign help, really believe the south could win this war? With Cooper's book as background, I hope to find and read interpretive work on Davis, and his also intriguing wife, Varina.
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