notes to pages 56‒60 377
suff ered losses in excess of 20 percent at Gettysburg) against an en-
trenched foe. As Hattaway points out, “Lincoln understood the power
of the defense and the futility of trying to destroy an enemy army in the
open fi eld.” Hattaway, “Lincoln’s Presidential Example in Dealing with
the Military,” 24. But the president seems to have forgotten this lesson
every time a Confederate force advanced onto northern soil. McPherson,
Tried by War , 268.
- I consider here only Davis as a military commander in chief. Were the
discussion to extend to other aspects of his role as a wartime political
leader, such as laying a fi nancial basis for the war or wartime international
diplomacy, he would fare even worse. For example, on Davis’s failure
to understand the fi nancial side of the war, see Cooper, Jeff erson Davis ,
377–78.
- Historically, the British regarded a blockade to be in eff ect so long as a
navy patrolled outside a port and intercepted most ships seeking to enter
or leave. Although private blockade runners continued to penetrate the
U.S. Navy’s cordon around southern ports, these examples did not suffi ce
to show that the blockade was ineff ective. See Cooper, Jeff erson Davis,
American , 394.
- Smith, Utility of Force , 158–61.
- Cooper, Jeff erson Davis, American , 480–81.
- Cooper, Jeff erson Davis, American , 485–86.
- Cooper, Jeff erson Davis, American , 478–79.
- Cooper, Jeff erson Davis, American , 404.
- Cooper, Jeff erson Davis, American , 444, 448–49.
- Cooper, Jeff erson Davis, American , 429, 471, 474, 520.
- Cooper, Jeff erson Davis, American , 428.
- Cooper, Jeff erson Davis, American , 454–55, 472, 502.
- Cooper, Jeff erson Davis, American , 385, 440.
- Cooper, Jeff erson Davis, American , 382, 389–92, 467.
- McPherson, Tried by War , 163–64. Although the incident has been widely
repeated in historical accounts, some question whether Hooker actually
did express support for a dictatorship. See Mark E. Neely Jr., “Wilderness
and the Cult of Manliness: Hooker, Lincoln, and Defeat,” in Lincoln’s
Generals , ed. Boritt, 56. Lincoln’s tolerance for the human frailties of his
generals is noted by Cohen, Supreme Command , 20–21.
- Cooper, Jeff erson Davis, American , 491–93.
- Cooper, Jeff erson Davis, American , 518. It is not clear whether Davis
appreciated the need in 1864 to play for time with the northern elections
pending. Although Davis’s best recent biographer contends that John-
ston barely impeded Sherman, the fullest study of the campaign suggests
otherwise, crediting the Confederate general with deft maneuvering
that greatly hampered the northern advance. Compare Cooper, Jeff erson
Davis, American , 521, with Albert E. Castel, Decision in the West: Th e
