An Honorable Defeat : The Last Days of the Confederate Government

Orlando, Florida: Harcourt, Inc. 2001. Hard Cover. Fine/Fine. First Edition. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. "By February 1865, the end was clearly in sight for the Confederate government. Lee's defeat at Gettysburg had dashed the hopes of its army, and Grant's victory at Vicksburg had cut the South in two. An Honorable Defeat is the story of the four months that saw the surrender of the South and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by Southern partisans. It is also the story of two men, antagonists yet political partners, who struggled to achieve their own differing visions: Jefferson Davis, autocratic president of the Confederate States, who vowed never to surrender whatever the cost, and his secretary of war, General John C. Breckinridge, who hoped pragmatism would save the shattered remnants of the land he so loved." "William C. Davis traces the astounding journey of these men, and the entire Confederate cabinet, as they fled Richmond by train, then by mule, then on foot. Using original research, he narrates, with dramatic style and clear historical accuracy, the futile quarrels of the two men as they continued their flight from their eventual fate." Davis (history, Virginia Tech) explores the final days of the American Civil War, when it was obvious to most the days of the Confederacy were numbered. Noting that the nature of peace is conditioned by the nature of the end of wars, he explores the debates within the highest levels of the Confederate government on how to end the war even as they fled northern troops in attempts to avoid capture. For the author, the debate centered around two men Jefferson Davis, characterized as irrationally clinging to an ideal of no surrender, and General John C. Breckenridge, who attempted to convince Davis that some concessions might be wrung from a war-weary North, if the Confederacy were to surrender..