Who would have made an even worse CSA president than Davis?

What about Louis T Wigfall of Texas? (Someone was playing him in a CSA political roleplay). Didn't he advocate Lee being made commander in chief of all CS armies very soon after Lee's initial victories leading the ANV? He was also an early advocate of Bragg being replaced by anyone but preferably Joe Johnson. Might he have made a better job of president than Davis?
 
There have been several famous/successful politicans that drank a lot: Peter the Great, Churchill, Sam Houston, ...

Among military men prussian general Blücher is a good example of an functioning alcoholic: He was both a strong drunk and a gambler but still very successful because he picked the right subordinates to do all the planing.

And there's also Grant, though Grant never drank when he actually needed to do his job.
 
And there's also Grant, though Grant never drank when he actually needed to do his job.

Near as I can tell, neither did Toombs. Or if he did, he was still a lot clearer thinking than Davis.

Toombs realized that foreign powers would only recognize the CSA if it was in their own interests. Toombs wanted diplomats with the ability to offer trade concessions with foreign powers. Davis gave those diplomats nothing to negotiate with.

Toombs was the only member of the CSA Cabinet to oppose firing on Ft. Sumter.

Robert Toombs said:
Mr. President, at this time it is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North. You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountain to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal.
 
Near as I can tell, neither did Toombs. Or if he did, he was still a lot clearer thinking than Davis.

Toombs realized that foreign powers would only recognize the CSA if it was in their own interests. Toombs wanted diplomats with the ability to offer trade concessions with foreign powers. Davis gave those diplomats nothing to negotiate with.

Toombs was the only member of the CSA Cabinet to oppose firing on Ft. Sumter.

Davis understood where Toombs and Rhett did not that the CSA had nothing to offer due to the very success of Southern cotton in 1859 and that the CSA must be the clear battlefield victor first. If someone like Toombs or Rhett is in charge their very ideological blindness makes the war look less like the US Civil War and more like Barbarossa with the USA being the one to benefit mightily from explicit avowal of slavery. Rhett might even keep Arkansas and Tennessee out of the CSA altogether.
 
Davis understood where Toombs and Rhett did not that the CSA had nothing to offer due to the very success of Southern cotton in 1859 and that the CSA must be the clear battlefield victor first. If someone like Toombs or Rhett is in charge their very ideological blindness makes the war look less like the US Civil War and more like Barbarossa with the USA being the one to benefit mightily from explicit avowal of slavery. Rhett might even keep Arkansas and Tennessee out of the CSA altogether.

Its rather scary that Jefferson Davis is a moderate. Been said before, but it has to be emphasized in this discussion - as Confederate leaders go, his blinders are mostly on trifles.
 
Its rather scary that Jefferson Davis is a moderate. Been said before, but it has to be emphasized in this discussion - as Confederate leaders go, his blinders are mostly on trifles.

And he was also the most emotionally mature man among the CS civilian leaders, and virtually the only one with a straight face that can be called a statesman. It might be noted that while he was a Cronyist, that his big crony, Bragg, won both his major offensive battles (Perryville and Chickamauga) and in his second victory won the most complete victory of any CS general. Joe Johnston perpetually retreats after claiming desire to fight decisive battles and wins the alternate history war and in the process ensures Sherman captures the last major industrial center in the Confederacy. :rolleyes: Davis also had a willingess to back generals who did fight, which is one reason he preferred Bragg to say, Johnston, he had real reasons to distrust Beauregard and Joe Johnston both, and the two were willing to overstep the boundaries of military-civilian lines. To add to this, Davis gave Joe Johnston every possible chance in 1864. His opposition would have refused conscription in 1862 and the war would have ended with the fall of Richmond. That is assuming they even build a proper army, which is another question. The anti-Davis crowd were all far more pathetic than he was, and President Rhett would have been a disaster on par with a Leon Trotsky USSR.
 
And he was also the most emotionally mature man among the CS civilian leaders, and virtually the only one with a straight face that can be called a statesman. It might be noted that while he was a Cronyist, that his big crony, Bragg, won both his major offensive battles (Perryville and Chickamauga) and in his second victory won the most complete victory of any CS general. Joe Johnston perpetually retreats after claiming desire to fight decisive battles and wins the alternate history war and in the process ensures Sherman captures the last major industrial center in the Confederacy. :rolleyes: Davis also had a willingess to back generals who did fight, which is one reason he preferred Bragg to say, Johnston, he had real reasons to distrust Beauregard and Joe Johnston both, and the two were willing to overstep the boundaries of military-civilian lines. To add to this, Davis gave Joe Johnston every possible chance in 1864. His opposition would have refused conscription in 1862 and the war would have ended with the fall of Richmond. That is assuming they even build a proper army, which is another question. The anti-Davis crowd were all far more pathetic than he was, and President Rhett would have been a disaster on par with a Leon Trotsky USSR.


So basicly Southern politicians are amongst the biggest losers you can imagine. I am not being sarcastic here. If it is hard to figure out who would be a better president than JEFF DAVIS then they were really pathetic!
 
So basicly Southern politicians are amongst the biggest losers you can imagine. I am not being sarcastic here. If it is hard to figure out who would be a better president than JEFF DAVIS then they were really pathetic!

Yes, they were.

Even speaking from the "Jefferson Davis was not a complete idiot" camp.
 
So basicly Southern politicians are amongst the biggest losers you can imagine. I am not being sarcastic here. If it is hard to figure out who would be a better president than JEFF DAVIS then they were really pathetic!

They were, yes. That one of the most efficiently run parts of the Confederacy was Kirby Smith's military dictatorship speaks volumes as to what passed for civilian leadership in the Confederacy.
 
They were, yes. That one of the most efficiently run parts of the Confederacy was Kirby Smith's military dictatorship speaks volumes as to what passed for civilian leadership in the Confederacy.

The rest of the Confederacy was so bad it makes Kirby-Smithdom look good, if I am reading you correctly.
 
The rest of the Confederacy was so bad it makes Kirby-Smithdom look good, if I am reading you correctly.

More that the only way the CSA functioned at all was if the Army took over as civilian leadership was too incompetent to run the coast-defense batteries of Omaha, Nebraska.
 
More that the only way the CSA functioned at all was if the Army took over as civilian leadership was too incompetent to run the coast-defense batteries of Omaha, Nebraska.

Virginia and ironically at least very early in Tennessee seem exceptions to this, but only to a point.
 
Well this topic has been quite enlightening. After reading this I am now firmly convinced that Confederate victory during the ACW is now ASB.
 
So basicly Southern politicians are amongst the biggest losers you can imagine. I am not being sarcastic here. If it is hard to figure out who would be a better president than JEFF DAVIS then they were really pathetic!

Not all of them. John H. Reagan and John C. Breckinridge were the best of the lot and probably would have done better than Davis.
 
Well this topic has been quite enlightening. After reading this I am now firmly convinced that Confederate victory during the ACW is now ASB.


It's not that implausible, but it's implausible enough that it needs to be done very, very carefully and the CSA turning into the Turtlewank state is near impossible.
 
Not all of them. John H. Reagan and John C. Breckinridge were the best of the lot and probably would have done better than Davis.

I think Reagan would have been a better bet. He was able to get the post office up and running in a remarkable amount of time. Perhaps his organizational skills would have extended to the rest of his duties?

Then again, from the short time that Breckinridge was SoW, he seemed to know what he was doing, but couldn't accomplish much because of how late it was in the war when he took office.
 
I think Reagan would have been a better bet. He was able to get the post office up and running in a remarkable amount of time. Perhaps his organizational skills would have extended to the rest of his duties?

Then again, from the short time that Breckinridge was SoW, he seemed to know what he was doing, but couldn't accomplish much because of how late it was in the war when he took office.

He was also from a state still in the Union at the time that the war broke out and working to try to prevent the outbreak of war in 1861. He only went south during the Kentucky neutrality phase. To have him be CS President requires a tremendous change in the crisis creating the war itself, meaning the whole scenario is different from OTL. Also meaning President Breckenridge gets targeted by Rhett.
 
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