Better Confederate presidents than Jefferson Davis

IMHO having Davis as Secretary of War would actually be worse than as President. His interference on the basis of his "military expertise" did more damage than good. However as president he had other items on his plate so could only devote so much time to interfering with the military. As Secretary of War he could devote full time to micromanaging things, which could only make things worse for the CSA, although perhaps with him not as president things might run more smoothly overall but given the politics and government of the CSA not likely.
 
You could always go for the extremely unlikely and long shot of Sam Houston. But you would have to change a lot to get him to be the President, given that he was an ardent and devoted Unionist.
 

Japhy

Banned
The problem with the Confederate Elections as a tool of replacement is the same one Lincoln faced in 1864: that an election in the midst of Civil War was unprecedented. That did a lot to ensure that for all the developing opposition to Davis no one wanted to rock the boat so early. Had one elected Toombs or someone even less suitable the door opens for the election being a way to boot someone out at which point you can theoretically pick anyone, Robert M. T. Hunter being a good pick because he had often been talked about in the pre war period as a man to lead a Southern Republic in the event that Virginia led from the start.

Another option I'm a fan of is John A. Quitman, who was about the only Fire Eating radical with a brain on his shoulders. Avoid him catching National Hotel Disease in 1856 and his death two years later is easy enough to remove at which point he's a cunning Southern former Governor and legislator with Military and Filibuster experience.
 
I understand why Benjamin was out but why is Reagan? I remembered he was a Texan and ran the Post Office very competently but what keeps him from being elected (I am missing something)

Reagan is out because he's a Texan, which was a political backwater with hardly any population. Any Provisional Confederate President is coming from the 7 states that had seceded at that point, but Texas and Florida were too unimportant. That leaves men from Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. There's probably less chance of a South Carolinian, they were seen as more extremist and there was no real need to appeal to their people to get them fully committed to the Confederacy. Robert Barnwell might be an exception.
 
Reagan is out because he's a Texan, which was a political backwater with hardly any population. Any Provisional Confederate President is coming from the 7 states that had seceded at that point, but Texas and Florida were too unimportant. That leaves men from Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. There's probably less chance of a South Carolinian, they were seen as more extremist and there was no real need to appeal to their people to get them fully committed to the Confederacy. Robert Barnwell might be an exception.

I was thinking that was the likely answer but wanted other opinions
 
One potential issue with Stephens is that there is a good chance that Davis would wind up co-ordinating military operations anyway.

Stephens, as you note, did not have military experience himself, so presumably would have tried to find a military supremo, either a strong Secretary of War or an army chief of staff or commander in chief.

This is probably still a net improvement for the Confederacy. Davis' micromanagement, inflexibility, and abrasiveness will be confined to the War Department, plus he can be fired when he makes enough mistakes.
 
You could always go for the extremely unlikely and long shot of Sam Houston. But you would have to change a lot to get him to be the President, given that he was an ardent and devoted Unionist.

Houston was a strong supporter of Andrew Jackson, including Jackson's view during the Nullification Crisis - "if a single drop of blood shall be shed there in opposition to the laws of the United States, I will hang the first man I can lay my hands on engaged on such treasonable conduct". Any changes big enough to insure Houston is not an ardent Unionist probably mean that Texas never joined the Union, so Houston wouldn't be eligible to be Confederate President. Plus the butterflies are likely to delay a Civil Wart past Houston's death in 1863, or even eliminate it
 
Another option I'm a fan of is John A. Quitman, who was about the only Fire Eating radical with a brain on his shoulders. Avoid him catching National Hotel Disease in 1856 and his death two years later is easy enough to remove at which point he's a cunning Southern former Governor and legislator with Military and Filibuster experience.

That name just doesn't sound presidential. Otoh, it does sound secessionist.
 
Davis may have been right to put Johnston behind A. S. Johnston and Lee. And Johnston's letter of protest was over the top in its length and rhetoric.

But If Davis had been the leader Lincoln was, he would have recognized that Johnston was just blowing off steam and ignored it. Instead he responded with a brutal dismissal. He had to know this would forever poison his relationship with Johnston, but his pride required it.

Not only did Davis dismiss Johnston's letter and the feeling behind it in a brutal and unfeeling manner but he took Johnston's letter before his cabinet and railed against it's content and it's author and informed the members of his cabinet just what he was going to say in reply, thereby ensuring that he not only did he fail to address any of Johnston's concerns or sooth his wounded pride but he also made this dispute hot topic amungst Richmond society because the wives of his cabinet members gossipped about it.

Johnston was not at fault for writing the letter because he had been legitimately hurt by the rankings and, as no explanation for the change in seniority was forthcoming, he felt it had been a public rebuke and display of a lack of faith in his generalship to that point by the President and the Confederate Government, and it was a way of him getting it out of his system and blowing off steam, but he should have filed it away in his private papers and never sent it.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Not only did Davis dismiss Johnston's letter and the feeling behind it in a brutal and unfeeling manner but he took Johnston's letter before his cabinet and railed against it's content and it's author and informed the members of his cabinet just what he was going to say in reply, thereby ensuring that he not only did he fail to address any of Johnston's concerns or sooth his wounded pride but he also made this dispute hot topic amungst Richmond society because the wives of his cabinet members gossipped about it.

Lincoln was far, far more adroit at handling matters like this than Davis could ever dream of being.
 
I think pretty much anyone would have done a better job than Jefferson Davis. That sounds glib, but Jefferson Davis wasn't incompetent, he was just competent enough to make people rally around him while still making a bad job of it, so it was the worst of all worlds. You have an armchair general who micromanaged armies and put people in charge of armies based on rumors, innuendo and whether he was personally comfortable with them, but he wasn't such a crackpot as to make power brokers neutralize him with enough justification. He ran the gamut of middle of the road to mediocre.

As to those who would compare him favorably to Lincoln... I disagree, but even if you think Lincoln was a meddler, given the industrial capacity and manpower advantage enjoyed by the Union, the North could afford to have a meddler be its President, the South had a much smaller margin for error. Anyone who could look up to Braxton Bragg and think him fit to command large bodies of men had no business handing out army assignments.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Anyone who could look up to Braxton Bragg and think him fit to command large bodies of men had no business handing out army assignments.

Bragg wasn't even the worst command choice by Davis. Polk and Northrop each did far more damage to the Confederacy than did Bragg.
 
Bragg wasn't even the worst command choice by Davis. Polk and Northrop each did far more damage to the Confederacy than did Bragg.
Point. But I mean, Bragg was such a total moody prick that could not get along with his subordinates and peers that you'd have to be willfully blind to it to go, "yes, I shall make him a full general and give him an army."
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Point. But I mean, Bragg was such a total moody prick that could not get along with his subordinates and peers that you'd have to be willfully blind to it to go, "yes, I shall make him a full general and give him an army."

Appointing Bragg wasn't the mistake. When the appointment was made, Bragg's record was pretty good. The mistake was in keeping Bragg in place long after it had become clear that he lacked the confidence of his subordinates and the personal qualities necessary to command an army.
 
My only quibble with your post--ASJ being unfit. We'll never really know, but he certainly knocked Grant on his ass during the first part of Shiloh. His plan, had it been carried out by Beauregard, was simple and most likely would have been more effective than what actually happened. Seems to me that he showed potential

AS Johnston failed at Ft Donnellson where he didn't send enough troops to get the job done . He abandoned Nashville without a fight. He failed at Shiloh where he was killed because he was doing the job of a brigadier general instead of an army commander. He has zero victories on his resume. This isn't the record of a winner.
 
McClellan was not ordered off until after he had been repulsed by Lee. There are several differences between 1862 and 1864 that you are ignoring. In 1864, Robert E Lee said ""We must destroy this Army of Grant's before he gets to the James River. If he gets there it will become a siege and then it will be a mere question of time."

Yep, Lee knew Grant wasn't McClellan. He wasn't going to back off and just keep coming. Longstreet told him that Grant would fight him every day and every hour until the end of the war. That wasn't a fight Lee could win. Grant knew that but McClellan didn't.
 
Robert Toombs was the man most likely to come out of the Montgomery Convention as President. In some ways, he would have been a better President than Davis. His tenure in the Senate revealed him to be an expert on fiscal policy, which would have been of vast benefit to the Confederacy (poor fiscal policy on the part of the Confederate government did more damage to them than any number of battlefield defeats). He also was generally a man of intelligence and would have shared with Davis the great advantage Davis brought to the office: unwavering devotion to the cause.

However, Toombs had three gigantic strikes against him. First, he was cantankerous and argumentative - not bad for a legislator but bad for an executive. Second, he had a passionate hatred of West Pointers, always being suspicious of a standing army and sharing the old Jeffersonian belief in a citizen militia. This would not have helped his relations with generals. Third, he was half drunk most of the time. Indeed, this is why he failed to gain the presidency in 1861; the night before the vote, he got utterly smashed in the bar room of the Exchange Hotel and made an absolute fool of himself in front of several delegates, who quickly spread the word about what had happened.

The first problem he shared with Davis so no change their, the second is a big minus and the third may or may not matter depending on how functional he was as an alcoholic. Churchill was an alcoholic but it didn't stop him from being a good wartime PM.
 
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