Symposium Spotlight: Handshakes, Gambling, Gunpowder, and Augusta: How George W. Rains and Jefferson Davis Changed the Course of the American Civil War

Welcome back to our spotlight series, highlighting speakers and topics for our upcoming symposium. Over the coming weeks, we will continue previewing of our speaker’s presentations for the 2025 Emerging Civil War Symposium.

This week we feature our keynote talk by Ted Savas:

Handshakes, Gambling, Gunpowder, and Augusta: How George W. Rains and Jefferson Davis Changed the Course of the American Civil War

On the very first deal of a high-stakes all-or-nothing game, President Davis and George Rains pushed all their chips to the center and stared down the Lincoln administration.

Richmond was important, but Nashville, Tennessee, more so. Augusta, soon, would trump both in a game few students of the war even knew was being played.

Over the past three decades I have discovered significant new primary source material (file drawers full) that has never been used. It paints an ENTIRELY different picture of the Confederate early-war strategy pursued by President Davis, implemented by George Rains, and routinely mocked by this and prior generations of historians.

This talk examines these new discoveries and puts them in context with existing information and historiography. I propose that almost everything you have been taught about the first year of the Civil War is wrong.

Exit question: What did the Lincoln administration know, and when did it know it?