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.Boritt, ed., Lincoln’s Generals (New York, 1994), connects the concept of courage, as part of the expected behavior of mid-nineteenth century males, to Lincoln’s behavior as commander in chief.Neely perceptively quotes Lincoln’s April 28, 1864 comment, recorded by John Hay, “Often I who am not a specially brave man have had to sustain the sinking courage of these professional fighters in critical times.” Less persuasive is Neely’s argument that Lincoln’s interest in presenting a courageous front was the unlikely result of a “freak accident” (the 1861 Scotch cap incident) rather than a lifelong concern.For the tactical problem of defeating entrenched troops, which Lincoln would have faced had he taken the field, see Grady McWhiney and Perry D.Jamieson, Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage (University, Ala., 1982, and Edward Hagerman, The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare: Ideas, Organization, and Field Command (Bloomington, 1988).How successful Lincoln was as a military leader has been a matter of debate since 1861.G.F.R.Henderson, Life of Stonewall Jackson, 2 vols.(London, 1898), expresses the views of early critics of Lincoln’s military record.Favorable revision of that record began with Arthur L.Conger, “President Lincoln as War Statesman,” Wisconsin Historical Society Proceedings (1917), 106–40; followed by Colin R.Ballard, The Military Genius of Abraham Lincoln (London, 1926); and Sir Frederick Maurice, Statesmen and Soldiers of the Civil War: A Study of the Conduct of War (Boston, 1926).T.Harry Williams, Lincoln and His Generals (New York, 1952), takes the “Lincoln as military genius” argument to its height, in both style and content.Merrill D.Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory (New York, 1994), discusses the historiography of Lincoln’s military reputation.Richard N.Current, “The Military Genius,” chapter 6 in The Lincoln Nobody Knows (New York, 1958), summarizes the points made by both sides and accurately observes: “Since the points at issue are matters of judgment rather than of fact, it [the debate] will probably go on forever.”Five: Abraham Lincoln andJefferson Davis as Commanders in ChiefThe best source for the literature on this subject is Mark E.Neely, Jr., “Abraham Lincoln vs.Jefferson Davis: Comparing Presidential Leadership in the Civil War” in James M.McPherson and William J.Cooper, eds., Writing the Civil War: The Quest to Un-F o r F u r t h e r R e a d i n g311derstand (Columbia, S.C., 1998), 96–111.Neely notes “the gross imbalance between the amounts of scholarship on the two figures” (p.97).Since the Lincoln literature is covered in the bibliographical notes of the other chapters, here only work on Davis or work that compares the two presidents needs to be noted.The definitive collection of Davis’s writing is a work in progress and has reached the middle of the presidential years: Lynda Lasswell Crist, ed., The Papers of Jefferson Davis (10 vols, Baton Rouge, 1999).Until this set is complete, earlier collections that cover the entire span of Davis’s life remain useful: Dunbar Rowland, ed., Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist, His Letters, Papers, Speeches (10 vols, Jackson, MS, 1923).Davis tells his own version of history in The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (2 vols, New York, 1881).See also Varina H.Davis, Jefferson Davis: Ex-President of the Confederate States of America: A Memoir By His Wife (2 vols, New York, 1890).Jefferson Davis, American (New York, 2000) by William J.Cooper, Jr., is the definitive biography, which replaces the severely dated earlier studies.There are, however, valuable insights in Frank E.Vandiver’s Harmsworth Inaugural Lecture, Jefferson Davis and the Confederate State (1964), in Clement Eaton, Jefferson Davis (New York, 1977), and William C.Davis, Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour (New York, 1991), all of which emphasize the Confederate leader’s growth and see him as a mod-ernizer.A contrasting view can be found in Paul D.Escott, After Secession: Jefferson Davis and the Failure of Confederate Nationalism (Baton Rouge, 1978).Important work that sheds light on Davis includes George C.Rable, The Confederate Republic: A Revolution Against Politics (Chapel Hill, 1994) and Mark E.Neely, Jr., Southern Rights (Charlottesville, 1999).The temptation to compare the presidents of the USA and CSA has been overpow-ering, if not always enlightening, and has attracted some notable scholars.Ignoring partisan ventures, the following works might be noted in chronological order: Russell Hoover Quynn, The Constitutions of Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, A Historical and Biographical Study in Contrasts (New York, 1959); Irving Werstein, Abraham Lincoln versus Jefferson Davis (New York, 1959); David Potter, “Jefferson Davis and the Political Factors in Confederate Defeat,” in David Donald, ed., Why The North Won the Civil War (Baton Rouge, 1960); David Lindsey, A.Lincoln/Jefferson Davis: The House Divided (Cleveland, 1960); William and Bruce Catton, Two Roads to Sumter (New York, 1963); Edward M.Coffman, Lincoln and Davis, A Question of Education (Wisconsin, 1968); T.Harry Williams, Two War Leaders: Lincoln and Davis (Springfield, 1972); Holman Hamilton, The Three Kentucky Presidents (Lexington, KY, 1978); Ludwell H.Johnson, “Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln: Nothing Succeeds Like Success,” Civil War History, 27 (March 1981), 49–63; James Jansinski, “Oaths Registered in Heaven: Rhetorical and Historical Legitimacy in the Inaugural Addresses of Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln” in Kathleen J.Turner, ed., Doing Rhetorical History: Concepts and Cases (Tuscaloosa, AL, 1998); Bruce Chadwick, The Two American Presidents: A Dual Biography of Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis (Secaucus, 1999)
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