President Davis doesn't have his near insatiable lust for power

What if Davis didn't value his personal power more than everything else? For one thing I don't think he would have sabotaged his own generals just because they didn't kowtow to his every whim.
 
Hey, that's a great-great-great-uncle you're talking about... ;)

Honestly, Uncle Jeff's lust for power was considerable but no more than most of his contemporary politicians... especially Abraham Lincoln. Abe was at least even with Davis (if not more-so) when it came to power hungry blood-thirstiness.

Frankly, if Davis had been less determined he might not have been elected.
 
It appears that Davis was psychologically damaged such that he could not admit an error.

Earlier in life he ignored warnings from friends and family and took himself and his new wife, whom loved dearly, right into an epidemic which cost her life.

From that point on any situation that left him choosing between admitting error or taking any other action, no matter how obviously mistaken, caused him to pull away from any possible admission of error lest one such admission lead to the personal recognition that this personally agonizing event was his own fault.
 
Hey, that's a great-great-great-uncle you're talking about... ;)

Honestly, Uncle Jeff's lust for power was considerable but no more than most of his contemporary politicians... especially Abraham Lincoln. Abe was at least even with Davis (if not more-so) when it came to power hungry blood-thirstiness.

Frankly, if Davis had been less determined he might not have been elected.

No, he just instituted price controls, wage controls, internal passports, ordered Confederate troops to shoot war protesters while Lincoln just jailed them, threatened to have women shot during a bread riot in Richmond , appointed nothing but yes men to his cabinet, made sure that incompetent generals were given important posts merely because they were loyal to him and had a larger beuracracy than Washington DC despite governing a country with a third of the Noth's population. Of course he wasn't a dictator on the make. My guess is that he would have refused to step down in 1866 and declared himself president for life.
 
If that's true, you're right

If half of what you said is true, you may be right about 1866. But there is NO WAY that the states' rights, right-wing, "freedom"-obsessed states and southern aristocracy would have put up with that. If Davis tried to do that, he would have been quickly removed from power, possibly even a bloodless coup. I agree about the general(noun, not adjective) problem, though. He relegated Pierre Beauregard to a minor role because he "could not get along with" the man(The Civil War Question and Answer Book, I don't have time to look up the page right now).
 
Doesn't change the fact that the Union outnumbers the Confederacy 2:1 in manpower, with an even worse disparity in all areas except cotton production. The Union will still win, it just might take a little longer.
 
If half of what you said is true, you may be right about 1866. But there is NO WAY that the states' rights, right-wing, "freedom"-obsessed states and southern aristocracy would have put up with that. If Davis tried to do that, he would have been quickly removed from power, possibly even a bloodless coup. I agree about the general(noun, not adjective) problem, though. He relegated Pierre Beauregard to a minor role because he "could not get along with" the man(The Civil War Question and Answer Book, I don't have time to look up the page right now).

Davis was way too unpopular to go the "President-For-Life" route. Even if he announced it, who would follow him? The Army would be the ultimate decider, meaning Lee. And as loyal to Davis as he was, he wasn't THAT loyal.
 
The Confederacy dissolves even faster. Seriously, if Davis hadn't done what he did it's an open question of what would undo the Confederacy quicker, Northern armies or Confederate draft resistance.
 
Doesn't change the fact that the Union outnumbers the Confederacy 2:1 in manpower, with an even worse disparity in all areas except cotton production. The Union will still win, it just might take a little longer.

If anything it makes East Tennessee and other Unionist pockets rather bolder, leading to the Confederacy having Yankees in the Front, Yankees in the rear, and in the middle there's shooting. And if Davis had not centralized say, Confederate railroads strictly for military use the Confederate military's numerical problems will be even worse.

The Union would win quicker, certainly the war won't be too much longer given the problem the Wigfall/Stephens crowd created IOTL did quite a bit to handicap the late-war Confederacy as it was.
 
If anything it makes East Tennessee and other Unionist pockets rather bolder, leading to the Confederacy having Yankees in the Front, Yankees in the rear, and in the middle there's shooting. And if Davis had not centralized say, Confederate railroads strictly for military use the Confederate military's numerical problems will be even worse.

The Union would win quicker, certainly the war won't be too much longer given the problem the Wigfall/Stephens crowd created IOTL did quite a bit to handicap the late-war Confederacy as it was.

On the other hand a less dictatorial Davis is less likely to stick with losers such as Bragg.
 
On the other hand a less dictatorial Davis is less likely to stick with losers such as Bragg.

Only if Congress decides to ditch them, too. The Confederate Congress wanted John Bell Hood in charge as much as Davis did at Atlanta. And if Lincoln's able to direct the Union war effort half as effectively as per OTL while Davis is incapable of even making an effort to corral *his* herd of cats the CSA will really have died of a theory.
 
Uncle Jeff not playing favorites with his buddy Braxton would help the South out a lot. So would getting over his grudge with Uncle Joe.
 
Only if Congress decides to ditch them, too. The Confederate Congress wanted John Bell Hood in charge as much as Davis did at Atlanta. And if Lincoln's able to direct the Union war effort half as effectively as per OTL while Davis is incapable of even making an effort to corral *his* herd of cats the CSA will really have died of a theory.

Congress was divided and Lee told Davis that Hood was incapable of leading an army. Davis decided to ignore him and Lee was proved correct. You can be fairly centralized without dictating prices and wages, filling your cabinet with nothing but yes men who will tell you only what you want to hear, instituting internal passports and protecting incompetent generals. The South needed some centralization but it didn't need a would be tin pot dictator.
 
Well, if he left Johnston in charge of the West, they'd never have to worry about Hood commanding anything bigger than a Corps anyways.


True, and Joe was frustrating the hell out of Sherman. He was elated when he heard Hood took over and for good reason. Hood wrecked his army in record time!
 
Congress was divided and Lee told Davis that Hood was incapable of leading an army. Davis decided to ignore him and Lee was proved correct. You can be fairly centralized without dictating prices and wages, filling your cabinet with nothing but yes men who will tell you only what you want to hear, instituting internal passports and protecting incompetent generals. The South needed some centralization but it didn't need a would be tin pot dictator.

Except that the South resisted said centralization as little different than what Abe Lincoln Oop North was doing. Even when it helped rationalize the CS war effort and prevented Confederate troops from having to deal with an enemy in front of them and behind them at the same time.

Well, if he left Johnston in charge of the West, they'd never have to worry about Hood commanding anything bigger than a Corps anyways.

Problem is Davis and Johnston got along as well as Lincoln and McClellan.
 
Problem is Davis and Johnston got along as well as Lincoln and McClellan.

No doubt. Davis would get angry when people even talked about him in his presence. Difference between Uncle Joe and Little Mac is Johnston is competent even if he's mainly a defensive counterpuncher. Bragg was a disaster in every concievable way.
 
Except that the South resisted said centralization as little different than what Abe Lincoln Oop North was doing. Even when it helped rationalize the CS war effort and prevented Confederate troops from having to deal with an enemy in front of them and behind them at the same time.

On the contrary Lincoln didn't appoint nothing but yes men, did not engage in price/wage controls, did not insititue internal passports, did not shoot war protesters and picked his generals on merit instead of personal likes/dislikes.
 
No doubt. Davis would get angry when people even talked about him in his presence. Difference between Uncle Joe and Little Mac is Johnston is competent even if he's mainly a defensive counterpuncher. Bragg was a disaster in every concievable way.

Problem is that the Confederate army relied a lot more on individuals than the Union army did......

On the contrary Lincoln didn't appoint nothing but yes men, did not engage in price/wage controls, did not insititue internal passports, did not shoot war protesters and picked his generals on merit instead of personal likes/dislikes.

Yes, this is obvious to everyone except the Wigfall/Stephens crowd who made the comparison in the first place.
 
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