dle in the affairs of subordinates, which hin-
dered operations. More serious, Davis was
blind to the incompetence of generals like
Bragg and Leonidas Polk, simply because
they were his friends. Worst of all, he publicly
feuded with such competent figures as Pierre
G.T. Beauregard and Joseph E. Johnston,
relieving them of command at inopportune
times.
As the tide of war swung against the South,
Davis lacked the authority to effectively mo-
bilize and shift manpower from one threat-
ened sector to another because the political
nature of the Confederacy—with its emphasis
on states’ rights—prevented him from doing
so. Regardless, Davis came to embody the as-
pirations of his people and, until the end, re-
mained their defiant spokesman. He was
among the last Confederate officials to aban-
don Richmond before it fell, at which point he
fled west for the trans-Mississippi region,
where he hoped to carry on the war. However,
on May 10, 1865, Davis was captured in Ir-
winville, Georgia, by Gen. James H. Wilson’s
cavalry. The dream of Southern independence
had come to an ignominious end.
After the war, Davis was transferred to
Fort Monroe in Virginia, where he was mana-
cled by the commander, Gen. Nelson A. Miles.
Public outcry necessitated better treatment,
and Davis, although indicted for treason, was
never brought to trial. Two years of imprison-
ment lapsed before he returned to Missis-
sippi, where he engaged in various commer-
cial pursuits while writing his memoirs. He
fully and vehemently blamed men like Beau-
regard and Johnston for Southern defeat, min-
imizing his own role in the debacle. Davis
died in Beauvoir, Mississippi, an embittered
symbol of the lost cause. To his dying day, he
never sought to have his citizenship restored,
but in 1978 President Jimmy Carter, himself a
Southerner, arranged its reinstatement.Bibliography
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Connelly, Thomas L., and Archer Jones. The Politics
of Command: Factions and Ideas in Confederate
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ing of the Confederacy.New York: Maxwell Macmil-
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