Book Review: Lincoln vs Davis
A thoughtful review by Christopher Ankner:
Lincoln vs. Davis: The War of the Presidents by Nigel Hamilton
When I first saw the 2024 release Of Lincoln vs. Davis, I questioned whether Scholarship needed another 800-page book on Abraham Lincoln. According to Wikipedia there have been over 16,000 books and articles written about Lincoln. While I can’t say I’ve read them all (over 43 years, if I read a book a day), I have read my fair share. Could new research really provide fresh insight? Spoiler alert: it sure does.
An important caveat is that a reader needs to know quite a bit about the US Civil War to get everything out of this book. The first Battle of Bull Run gets a couple pages of commentary, Cedar Creek only a sentence and Shiloh, not even that much. Hamilton doesn’t care about the battles or troop movements. Really, not even the war itself, only in how Lincoln or Davis responds.
This book is about the characters of Lincoln and Davis. Hamilton’s Lincoln is indecisive. He comes to Washington by only winning a plurality. He delays resupplying Fort Sumter. He wavers on whether he even wants to. He wants to keep the Union together but is afraid that any action he takes will worsen the problem. He won’t tackle slavery as he’s afraid of alienating the border slaveholding states. He doesn’t have the confidence to replace McClellen even after numerous failings and outright disobedience. He is pushed around by Secretary of State William Seward. This cabinet is no team of rivals; this is a group that fails Lincoln.
Jefferson Davis comes off much more favorably in Hamilton’s telling, at least early on. Davis is a career soldier and politician. Mexican War hero, Senator from Mississippi for six years and then Secretary of War until Succession. Widely respected in the South, he is made President of the original Confederacy by acclimation. He has a plan for the defense of the original six Confederate states and starts it right away. The capture or destruction of Fort Sumter in Charleston and Fort Pickens near Pensacola would limit the ability of the Union to attack from the sea and the then-neutral slaveholding border states Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas wouldn’t allow Union troops to cross their states.
After Bull Run Lincoln appoints George McClellan as Major General and Commander of the newly formed Army of the Potomac. McClellan never comes off well in history books. McClellan is vain, arrogant and unwilling to bring combat to his enemies. His Peninsula Campaign is slow and timid. The Army of the Potomac is stranded on the Virginia Peninsula unable to reinforce Pope at the Second Battle of Bull Run or even defend Washington, but Lincoln allows this to happen. Lincoln fails to live up to the responsibilities of Commander-in-Chief.
In Hamilton’s view the war pivots during and after Antietam. Needless to say, if you want to learn anything about Antietam itself, you need to pick up another book. Davis and Lee’s decision to stop fighting a defensive war and invade the North was a failure both in military terms and in the Confederacy’s engagement with the European powers. Lincoln’s backbone stiffens and he fires McClellan after, arguably, Little Mac’s greatest contribution of the war. And, most importantly, Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation changing the terms of the war from an argument over State’s Rights, to the moral cause of abolition. Davis had no response.
The book ends there. Hamiton doesn’t think the story needs anything else. The war’s conclusion becomes inevitable.
Lincoln remains among the most respected Presidents ever. The Lincoln Memorial in Washington was visited by 8 million people in 2023, his visage graces Mount Rushmore and his face is on the penny and the five-dollar bill. What would have happened if he was even more deferential in 1861? Would he have perhaps left Irvin McDowell as Commander of the Army of the Potomac? McDowell would have left his Army between Washington and the Confederate troops. It was inevitable that the North would win a grinding war of attrition. They had more men, more equipment and more money than the South did. In this sort of war would Lee and Jackson have the mobility they needed? Probably not. If Lincoln won early on the issue of slavery, it might be kicked down the road for future generations. Would Lincoln have been the Great Enslaver instead of the Great Emancipator?