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Jefferson Davis and Joseph Johnston had known one another for decades before the Civil War, though stories that their personal rivalry went back to their West Point days seem likely to be retrospective additions. The real source of their wartime feud lay in the passage of a law by the Confederate Congress, stating that the seniority of full generals in the Confederate Army would depend on what rank they had held in the prewar United States Army.

The law made no distinction between staff rank and line rank, but Davis choose to interpret it as specifying line rank. This meant that Joseph Johnston was ranked fourth behind three officers who had held line rank as full colonels (Johnston had held the line rank of a lieutenant colonel). As he had been Quartermaster General and had held the staff rank of a brigadier general in the U.S. Army, Joe Johnston felt that he should have been ranked first.

Johnston was furious at Davis for the perceived slight and wrote him a strongly worded letter of protest. Davis, being Davis, refused to consider the matter from Johnston's perspective and the two prideful men began a feud that greatly hampered the Confederate war effort and played a not insignificant role in the eventual Confederate defeat.

Suppose that the law specifically stating that seniority would depend on line rank, rather than simply "rank". Johnston might have been irritated with Congress, but would have had no real beef with Davis in such a situation. Conceivably, their feud would have been greatly diminished, if not eliminated altogether. Let's assume for the sake of argument that it does.

How does the lack of a strong Davis-Johnston feud impact the course of the Civil War?
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