1. Each particular army ought to have operated as a part of the whole force of the confederacy, and that whole force ought to have been wielded as one machine. Instead of trying to effect this end, the president decided that all exposed points must be defended. The result was that these were taken one after another by superior armies. A military man will understand me when I say his strategy was below mediocrity. True strategy dictated the abandonment of many places in order to assemble by using our shorter interior lines a resistless power on a really decisive occasion. McClellan, in Virginia, and Grant, in Mississippi, ought each to have been captured as Burgoyne and Cornwallis were.
2. He selected his generals and important officers according to his likes and dislikes, and not according to their true qualifications.
3. He was without practical administrative talent in any high degree. Such a man as Joseph E. Brown, of Georgia, would have shown far superior to him.
It will doubtless be the decision of future history that he was neither statesman nor military man of sufficient ability for the presidency. He did not want it. Compare him as secession was dawning, with Toombs, who was the man of all to be president. The latter scenting battle in the air, was really eager for the inevitable fighting to begin; Davis was cast down and dejected. He loved the union, and it was inexpressibly bitter to him to part with it. And then he was sure that there would be a long and bloody brothers’ war. What he wanted was to fight for the south so dear to him. The news of his election as president was perhaps the greatest surprise of his life. Says Mrs. Davis: “When reading the telegram he looked so grieved that I feared some evil had befallen our family. After a few minutes’ painful silence he told me, as a man might speak of a sentence of death.”[133]
Writing of his inauguration at Montgomery, he says to his wife: “The audience was large and brilliant. Upon my weary heart were showered smiles, plaudits, and flowers; but, beyond them, I saw troubles and thorns innumerable.”[134]
And she tells this of his inauguration as president of the permanent government:
“Mr. Davis came in from an early visit to his office and went into his room, where I found him an hour afterwards on his knees in earnest prayer ‘for the divine support I need so sorely’ [as he said].... ‘The inauguration took place at twelve o’clock.’ [The anterior proceedings having been described, the contemporary account she quotes goes on thus:]
“The president-elect then delivered his inaugural address. It was characterized by great dignity, united with much feeling and grace, especially the closing sentence. Throwing up his eyes and hands to heaven he said, ‘With humble gratitude and adoration, acknowledging the providence which has so visibly protected the confederacy during its brief but eventful career, to Thee, O God, I trustingly commit myself, and prayerfully invoke Thy blessing on my country and its cause.’”
Then she adds:
“Thus Mr. Davis entered on his martyrdom. As he stood pale and emaciated, dedicating himself to the service of the confederacy, evidently forgetful of everything but his sacred oath, he seemed to me a willing victim going to his funeral pyre; and the idea so affected me that, making some excuse, I regained my carriage and went home.”[135]