Question of the Week: What advice would you give Jeff Davis?
If you could go back in time and give Jefferson Davis one piece of advice or factual information, what would it be and when would you want to tell him?
If you could go back in time and give Jefferson Davis one piece of advice or factual information, what would it be and when would you want to tell him?
Remove Braxton Bragg from command earlier, please!!
That GBR and France will never come into the war on the Confederacy’s side.
Don’t be pressured into firing the first shot at Sumter. Play to those in the North who are willing to let the South go without bloodshed and try to force Lincoln into starting the war, including an invasion of the CSA, to divide the Northern populace, just as happened during the War of 1812. You know that there is a strong anti-war faction in the North. Restraint also may help with foreign recognition. This will require you to “sit on” the South Carolina hotheads. (Easier said than done, but try it.)
Don’t talk to newspaper reporters!
Don’t secede. You have a Supreme Court decision validating slavery.
The US Constitution was written in a way to preserve slavery.
Don’t blow it.
Do you mean the constitution that banned slavery in January 1865?
No!
1. In the legislative branch….. The Three-Fifths Compromise was an agreement made in 1787 that counted enslaved people as three-fifths of a free person for the purpose of taxation and representation in Congress. So some Southern States received increased representation than states in the North
2. The Executive Branch. The President is elected by the Electoral College. The States with slaved receivedincreased importance in electing a President.
3. Judiciary branch. The President nominates t he Justices to the Supreme Court.
Basically the South eft the Union on the issue of slavery since they realizes that the increased population in the North meant the South no longer had the votes to protect slavery.
What Kevin Donovan said…do not fire on Sumter or any other Union facility or fort. Let Lincoln be perceived as the aggressor.
Decline the presidency and be the general you really wanted to be.
Never borrow your wife’s shawl for warmth.
You lose
Dismiss, not reassign, Braxton Bragg as soon as he learned of his incompetence.
Having seen the variety of response to this question, I highly recommend EMBATTLED REBEL by McPherson. It is very illuminating and gives a very different picture of Davis than is commonly seen.
Send Beauregard to the Mississippi/Tennessee valley after Ft. Sumter to command over Pillow and Polk (better don’t make Polk a general but a recruiter). Send Lee to Manassas. Send J.E. Johnston to Tennessee to take responsibility of East and Middle Tennessee (subordinate Beauregard to him). When A.S. Johnston gets to Richmond make him General In Chief and give him more of the burden. Make John C. Breckinridge your Secretary of War.
Think about making Atlanta the administrative capital while having the Confederate Congress meet in Richmond and various other cities.
Specific to the war… listen to Bragg and J.E. Johnston and don’t move Stevenson’s division to Vicksburg. Peremptory order Holmes to send a comparable amount of troops from the Trans-Mississippi. Trade a lot more of Arkansas for Mississippi.
1. Before you accept the role of president of the confederacy- understand you are going to preside over the destruction of the very society & economy you think you are trying to save. Yes – the election of Lincoln and a Republican controlled congress threatens the survival of slavery by limiting the further expansion of slavery to the west but for the near term (20 years or so) you are secure, guaranteed by the Constitution until eventually amended by the necessary number of free states. Give yourself time to transition to the inevitable.
2. Do not expect help from the British or French. The United Kingdom outlawed slavery in 1833. While currently dependent on your cotton exports in employing tens of thousands textile workers in Britain, they are going to find alternative sources. Despite the ruling class’s support of the Confederacy, they are not going to go to war with the federal government over this or recognize you. The French will do whatever the British do.
3. If you accept the presidency – make Lincoln the aggressor. Do not fire on Sumter or seize any additional federal property. Without the attack on Sumter, Lincoln will have difficulty raising that initial call for troops from northern states that are not yet enthusiastic about going to war. Yes Virginia will succeed when Lincoln calls for suppressing the rebellion but it is not worth it.
4. You personally are better off being the general you think you are in the Confederate army than a politician. You don’t have the skills to preside over a confrontational congress who will fight you every step of the way. Your ‘nation’ will die from to much ‘States Rights’.
5. Most of your generals will suck. You will have some good ones but they will be vastly outnumbered by the crappy ones (to include Bragg). The confederacy is not in a position to afford inadequate generals.
Lincoln
Don’t do it.
If you’re going to dress up in women’s clothes to try to avoid arrest, shave the goatee!
I know, I know, he wasn’t wearing women’s garments when he was apprehended. But nonetheless, I do think it’s good advice!
On a more serious note, I would suggest that foreign assistance be in place before the cannons were fired. Establish ‘benchmarks’ and the like as far as what the seceding states would have to accomplish militarily and otherwise to facilitate and perhaps ‘enhance’ such assistance.
But still, lose the goatee!
Transgender people were written about at that time.
Invite slaves to join the military in return for their freedom. If their owners resist, conscript them.
Don’t do it.
He should have put down the administrative pen and picked up the sword. Honestly, he could not have done any worse than some of the other generals he appointed.
Occupy Cairo.
Don’t withdraw Southern senators from the U.S. Senate.
If my recollection is correct, he was the last one to leave. He attempted to preserve the Union, in his way, in the Senate through the end of 1860 and early 1861. He effectively had no choice after his constituents in Mississippi voted to secede.
Davis left the Senate on January 22, 1861, almost three months before Lincoln was sworn in. If the Southern senators had not left they could have blocked Lincoln’s cabinet appointments and held back funding for the Army.
Just decline the presidency of the confederacy. Your reaction when you were informed that you would be the president should have alerted you to refuse.
I would not tell him anything … unless it was R.E. Lee talking, Jeff was not a good listener.