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.
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 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.
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.
That is true enough. Listening to Lee's advice on Hood also would have helped.
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.
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.
Problem is Davis and Johnston got along as well as Lincoln and McClellan.
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.
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.
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.