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Embattled Rebel: Jefferson Davis as Commander in Chief Audiobook
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From the dean of Civil War historians and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom, a powerful new reckoning with Jefferson Davis as military commander of the Confederacy
History has not been kind to Jefferson Davis. His cause went down in disastrous defeat and left the South impoverished for generations. If that cause had succeeded, it would have torn the United States in two and preserved the institution of slavery. Many Americans in Davis’s own time and in later generations considered him an incompetent leader, if not a traitor. Not so, argues James M. McPherson. In Embattled Rebel, McPherson shows us that Davis might have been on the wrong side of history, but it is too easy to diminish him because of his cause’s failure. In order to understand the Civil War and its outcome, it is essential to give Davis his due as a military leader and as the president of an aspiring Confederate nation.
Davis did not make it easy on himself. His subordinates and enemies alike considered him difficult, egotistical, and cold. He was gravely ill throughout much of the war, often working from home and even from his sickbed. Nonetheless, McPherson argues, Davis shaped and articulated the principal policy of the Confederacy with clarity and force: the quest for independent nationhood. Although he had not been a fire-breathing secessionist, once he committed himself to a Confederate nation he never deviated from this goal. In a sense, Davis was the last Confederate left standing in 1865.
As president of the Confederacy, Davis devoted most of his waking hours to military strategy and operations, along with Commander Robert E. Lee, and delegated the economic and diplomatic functions of strategy to his subordinates. Davis was present on several battlefields with Lee and even took part in some tactical planning; indeed, their close relationship stands as one of the great military-civilian partnerships in history.
Most critical appraisals of Davis emphasize his choices in and management of generals rather than his strategies, but no other chief executive in American history exercised such tenacious handson influence in the shaping of military strategy. And while he was imprisoned for two years after the Confederacy’s surrender awaiting a trial for treason that never came, and lived for another twenty-four years, he never once recanted the cause for which he had fought and lost. McPherson gives us Jefferson Davis as the commander in chief he really was, showing persuasively that while Davis did not win the war for the South, he was scarcely responsible for losing it.
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“Open minds are in short supply today, so it is refreshing that Civil War scholar and Pulitzer-winning author James M. McPherson has taken a fresh look at a subject with which is he eminently familiar: the life and times of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. With more than a dozen books about America’s greatest crucible to his credit, the seventy-eight-year-old author is still challenging past postulations.”
— Christian Science Monitor
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“[McPherson’s] defense of Davis is provocative; the book in which he argues it is quietly persuasive…Mr. McPherson covers a great deal of ground. And there is an economical grace to his prose that makes the book a lightning-quick but lingering read that will appeal not only to Civil War buffs but also to those curious about the Southern presidency and government.”
— Wall Street Journal -
“McPherson found himself ‘becoming less inimical toward Davis’ than he expected and clearly more engaged with the challenges that Davis himself had to face. The result is the best concise book we have on the subject.”.”
— New York Times Book Review -
“[A] fine study of Davis’s military leadership….To this day it is difficult for many Americans to view Davis with dispassion, but McPherson has made a noble attempt to do so….Davis himself does not make that easy.”
— Washington Post -
“Embattled Rebel presents Davis as a diligent, disciplined commander whose own Mexican War military experiences made him a knowledgeable judge of his own generals. A revisionist history by a preeminent Civil War historian.”
— Barnes&Noble.com, editorial review -
“Superb…McPherson succeeds admirably in recreating the world of 1861–1865 as seen through the eyes of a Southern nationalist and ardent defender of the established social order and provides readers with a more balanced view of Davis than that handed down by many of his contemporaries.”
— North South Magazine -
“The first work to discretely consider Davis as head of his armies and navy…Crisply written, thoughtfully considered, and ultimately persuasive, Embattled Rebel is McPherson and biography at their best.”
— History Book Club -
“A seasoned Civil War historian examines the beleaguered president of the Confederacy…[and] concludes that Davis, a disciplined, loyal commander, ‘was more sinned against than sinning.’ A fair-handed treatment from a towering historian and sterling writer.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review) -
“A thoroughly objective dissection of one of the most enigmatic figures of the Lost Cause…Highly recommended for Civil War and military historians, students of Southern biographies, lay readers, and all libraries.”
— Library Journal (starred review) -
“Explores the Confederate president’s accomplishments and undertakings. McPherson places Davis’s actions, which are delivered in chronological order and garnished with a dose of opinion, in the larger contexts of the war, his health and personal life, his politics, and his relationships with other major historical players.”
— Publishers Weekly -
“Narrator Robert Fass splendidly recounts Jefferson Davis’s role as commander in chief of the Confederate States of America. His Midwestern-sounding voice moves at a deliberate pace in portraying Davis as a three-dimensional figure…Fass’ calm, steady delivery and appropriate inflections are a good match to the material, making for an engaging performance.”
— AudioFile
Awards
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A New York Times Editor’s Choice
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A 2014 New York Times Notable Book
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About James M. McPherson
James M. McPherson is the George Henry Davis ‘86 Professor of History Emeritus at Princeton University. America’s leading historian of the Civil War, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Battle Cry of Freedom, which was a New York Times bestseller, and the Lincoln Prize for For Cause and Comrades.
About Robert Fass
Robert Fass is a veteran actor and twice winner of the prestigious Audie Award for best narration. He has earned multiple Earphones Awards and been named in AudioFile magazine’s list of the year’s best narrations for six years.