Customer Reviews

Look Away! A History of the Confederate States of America

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4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

In my opinion, this book deserves much praise for presenting an important, but almost completely ignored perspective on the Civil War. The military history is used only as a backdrop in this book. The focus instead is on the political history of the Confederacy. The book opens with the whirlwind in which the southern states seceded from the union and tells the story of the Confederate constitutional convention and of how Jefferson Davis became the Confederate President. The remainder focuses on the politics of the Confederate government. Among the many ironies is how a government that started focusing on "states rights" after suffering through much paralysis, saw the states cede more and more power to the Confederate government as the war went on. The title of this book may lead some to believe that this is some sort of apology for the South. In reality, it is quite critical of the Confederate cause. Those who hold the view that the Civil War was not about slavery but rather about states rights, will have that view challenged. The book is well written and is a must read for anyone interested in the Civil War.

When one has read several books by the same writer there is a tendency to judge one book against another. That was a problem I had while reading this book. This book is not as well written or as well documented as Davis' other works although it is still much better than many books I have read.

The book begins with the secession of the States and their meeting in Montgomery to form a nation. The delegates met with the mind set that in this new country there would be none of the political fights that had been such a problem in the old Union. They would all, "be of one mind." From the beginning however the factions started to grow. What would become the anti-Davis faction started as a bunch of former fire-eaters who were left out of the new government and grew to include even the Vice President. These men, Rhett, Cobb, Toombs, Stephens, Foote, and Wigfall with egos the size of Texas did vast damage to the Confederacy all through the war. Again and again Davis brings these men up as he looks at different issues Jefferson Davis and the State governments had to face.

These issues were many but most involved how far could the Confederate or State governments go while taking more and more control in order to win the war. The army had to come first and the government began to simply take the things they needed and draft southern men to keep the ranks filled. The States themselves became directly involved in the economy not only telling farmers and industry who they could sell to but what they could produce, and the price they could sell it for. The Confederate and State governments actually began to run industry of their own. As strange as it sounds the southern nation for the most part became an experiment in socialism and a welfare state.

There is little attention to great battles and generals. This is a history of the Confederate people, not their army. The people who suffered and starved and who in the end gave up nearly all hope. Davis has indeed caught the mood of the south for in the end Robert E. Lee becomes a major figure in this book. By then neither Jefferson Davis and his government or the Rhetts and Wigfalls mattered. Robert E. Lee was the Confederacy to its people and what little hope they had, rested in him.

This is an important history of the Confederacy looking at areas that are seldom explored. To really understand the civil war this is a side of the south that has to considered. Thanks to Mr. Davis it will be.

This is more than a history of the Confederat States of America. It is broader. The book is a history of the polity known as the CSA.

The first few chapters give a strong recap of the different philosophical strains that led the delegates to Montgomery to craft the CSA's constitution. These chapters are well done. The reader has a good idea of the tensions that framed early issues of governance.

In other chapters, Davis writes about federal-state relations, the administration of justice in the Confederacy, the socialization of key industries (in an abortive republic founded on the sanctity of property rights!) and other interesting aspects of the slave nation.

Davis provides many interesting descriptions and some new information -- even for serious Civil War buffs. However, this is somewhat of an uneven book. In several chapters, Davis uses a few or even one anecdote to draw conclusions at a broad level -- the reader is unsure if these descriptions are generally true or extrapolations.

He spends a lot of time with the governors and on dissidents. This is not a drawback, but the book is weighted toward the mindset of the Confederacy as opposed to a description of how it worked and how the machinery of government functioned (or didn't). There are good sections on the frustrations and lives of regular folk. Military aspects are treated with seperate and short sections giving brief descriptions of broad aspects of the war. This is a positive, as it would have been easy to pad a book on the CSA with military recaps that are properly the subject of military histories.

Not bad, overall.

Folks like to say that this book is "good" but it's "not Davis's best." I would say that it IS his best, and certainly deserving of some attention from the various prize committees. The author's treatment of the creation of the Provisional Government and drafting of the Permanent Constitution are a real joy, if you like political history. That's an important point: This book is essentially a political history, with some special treatment of critical social issues such as slavery and commerce. It is not a military history of the Civil War. Those readers expecting that will be disappointed. What Philadelphia was to the United States, Montgomery (Alabama) was to the Confederate States and Davis handles this episode with authority. The chapters about the various forms of apology and propaganda in support of slavery are mind bending. As grave as many of these topics are, Davis animates them with beautiful narrative prose and scholarly rigor. His topics are terribly unfashionable which, unfortunately, hinders his chances for a (well deserved) major prize. Books like this should be read by a general audience, as they illuminate much about pre-Civil War American politics as much as they do about Southern history.

Those of us with Southern ancestral links to the Civil War tend to think of the war in romanticized terms of the virtue of States rights and property rights, the battlefield genius of Lee and Jackson, the heroism of the hard-fighting and under-equipped CSA troops, political oppression by the North and their tariffs, the viciousness of Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, et al. The Lost Cause frame of mind will not survive Look Away! intact. Professor Davis provides a meticulously documented account of the launching and failured nurturing of the Confederacy. His books shows that those men needed time that they didn't have to get through the pettiness and incompetency before going to war. The saddest parts of the book deal with how the CSA Founding Fathers mismanaged and mistreated the civilian population (the women, children, the aged, and the slaves) left behind by the men who went to fight for the Southern cause.

This book is a rebuke to all those who erroneously believe that the Civil War occurred only the battlefield. Davis goes into the history of the government of the Confederate States; a daring plot for an historian best known for moving accounts of battlefield valor. He does a commendable job in the arena of political history, which is never as clear-cut as out and out military history. Other reviewers have criticized his dwelling on the issue of slavery. I wonder what on earth they think he should have dwelt on while writing a history of the Confederate States? I don't believe his aim was to badmouth the Southern states (as has been accused), but to give insight on how the Confederates (and ruling elite Southerners in general) imagined the "perfect government". This is not meant to be just some rabble-rousing, flag-waving tribute to the Confederacy. Rather, it's an intriguing look at Victorian Era political science.

Countless books, articles, and scholarly papers have been written on Civil War military history; however, comparatively little has been published on the political history of the
Confederacy. This work helps correct this deficiency.

In the Preface, the author, William Davis, states "And most of all, the conflict was a political and social battle from beginning to end, at first to establish the Confederacy, but then for the next four years to define what sort of democracy that Confederacy was or ought to be." The text gives an interesting account of secession and the struggle to form a Confederate Democracy. Beginning in 1862, some deserters became a problem as they joined local ruffians to loot and defy authority. Also, "Confederates went from protesting love and paternal affection for their slaves to finding themselves almost hysterically terrified of them." In many areas law and order vanished as local government often were unable to enforce order as police and civil servants were taken into the army. The author notes "....the legal system of the Confederacy is one marked by an inability to protect its citizens from lawlessness." Davis writes "As in so many areas, in theory the Confederacy seemed to be working, but in practice its collapse commenced almost from the day of its birth."

Military campaign demands produced severe food shortages while speculators hoarded food and goods for profit. The government's cotton policy was a miserable failure as a world surplus of cotton did not force foreign governments to recognize the Confederacy. In limited circumstances the government allowed some cotton to be sold through the lines to Federal forces. In addition, the planters were under pressure to plant corn for food instead of cotton which depended on blockade runners for sale overseas. The question of individual state's sovereignty in the Confederacy is excellently covered in Chapter 11. For "....the Confederacy was destined from the outset to fight an internal contest between the principles it presented to the world and the imperatives of self-preservation." Davis's notes "....as a result of turmoil and upheaval, political reforms were accomplished of necessity if not for their own merit alone." Some measurers ran from the oppressive to the socialistic.

The text gives an interesting narrative of the opposition to the Davis government. Some Confederate generals (Joseph Johnston for one) surreptitiously supported the opposition. As defeat became inevitable, several politicians and citizens worked to secure an honorable defeat. Davis gives an excellent account of Secretary of War's, General John Breckinridge,efforts to secure a honorable peace. In President Davis's mind the Confederacy did not end with Lee's surrender. Breckinridge accompanied Davis and his party as they fled south from Richmond until President Davis was captured in Georgia. There is a good/ brief account of the Confederacy's final hours. For a more detailed account, William Davis's book AN HONORABLE DEFEAT should be consulted.

Those who have limited their Civil War reading to battles and campaigns will view deserters differently. "How can a poor man stand it?" moaned a North Carolina soldiers who had not had a furlough in three years, on hearing his family's deplorable conditions. However, Davis gives many examples of how some deserters contributed to deplorable conditions on the home front. The book is not an "easy read!" My main criticism of the book is an index that is limited and not especially helpful. Every serious Civil War student and/or Buff should have this book in their library.

Some have already criticized this book as being biased and narrow focused. To some extent it is guilty. But this is one of the good books that looks at the Confederate States of America independently of the North. Davis makes clear his central thesis very early in the book - that slavery was the root of succession. But at the same time, he does a good job using primary sources from the South to demonstrate the conflicts and feelings of the people at the time. Davis illustrates the central problem with the CSA (and I think this colors his choice to focus on slavery so much) was the inherent conflict of control and interests between the States, and the states-rights proclaiming central government. He shows how the CSA constitution could explicitly only allow slave states into the Confederacy, while at the same time ostensibly leave that decision to the states. Davis takes a gloomy view of the succession undertaking; he pretty much considers it doomed from the start.

There were as many differing opinions as there were states and delegates to the CSA congress, and Davis finds the quotes and writings to illustrate the division. This division can be seen even today where the source of the Civil War is still argued. But this noble experiment could not stand. Ironically, had their greatest enemy Abraham Lincoln lived, the southern states might have been able to return to the union virtually scott-free. But with Lincoln's assassination and Johnson's rise to power, this was not to be.

One plus in this book is that the chapters where Davis gives a quick rendering of the military aspect of the civil war are some of the best summaries of the activities that I have read. So many books on the Civil War seem to either take the northern view as the focus, or romanticize the southern cause in all it's "the south will rise again!" nobility. Davis finds the third path, and though imperfect, shows things from the southern view, warts and all.

"Never was there a land so white and pure and fell so free of sin" That's the standard line found on more than a few Confederate memorials. For a long time (and for many today) the Confederacy is the only "nation without sin." A nation fighting for it's "rights" against wanton and unprovoked northern agression. Not Defeated, but overwhelmed by vastly superior numbers of men and materiel. Shackled by it's commitment to state rights (the Frank Owsley theory). That's the myth.

Davis's unpardonable sin is not that he's anti-southern or too obsessed with slavery. It's that he won't kow-tow to "Lost Cause"
mythology. Worse still he let's the actors speak for themselves, concentrating on contemporary newpaper accounts and personal correspondence *NOT* self serving memoirs written *decades* after the facts. (N.B. Davis faithfully transcribes these sources, as he finds them; hence "the grammatical errors.")

This book is in a sense a continuation of A GOVERNMENT OF OUR OWN which dealt with the origins of the Confederate constitution and expansion of THE UNION THAT FORMED THE CONFEDERACY, his account of Alexander Stephens and Robert Toombs. It concentrates on the give and take of the political process. While the military aspect is subordinate in this account, there are all too many books that concentrate on the military history of Civil War to the exclusion of everything else. As always Davis brings his narrative gifts to the text. In short, it's a good read--as are all of Davis's books.

Also recommended, though more "academic," is SOUTHERN RIGHTS: THE MYTH OF CONFEDERATE CONSTITUTIONALISM.

Fantastic. Not perfect, but fantastic. Almost every history of the Confederacy is military-heavy, but not Davis's work here. The book goes through several important cross-sections of what life was like- women, poor whites, slaves, governors, manufacturers, courts, town mayors, and more. It starts by telling a rather riveting tale of the CSA's beginnings in Montgomery, detailing the first discussions of an interim government and constitution along with the related internal battles; the only thing that the book lacks is follow-up to the political story and how it played out over time.