Former President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, offers his account of the Confederacy's swift ascendance and downfall.
This historical book has no small measure of autobiography present, since the author Jefferson Davis was at the forefront of many of the events described on the pages. This text is thus the history of a chaotic period as presented by a political insider, published some sixteen years after the close of the Civil War hostilities - and the end of the Confederate government - in 1865.
The principle text is split into four parts:
Part One discusses the processes which led to the founding of the Confederate States of America. The justifications for its founding, chiefly surrounding the concerns that slavery was soon to be abolished, are detailed, as is the process by which the Southern states established their grievances with the United States of America.
Part Two details the official establishment of the Confederacy, and the meetings in which its founding documents were adopted and agreed upon. The power of the individual states, and the agreements and concessions representatives of each came to, form the bulk of this part. A succession of conferences and seminars would slowly establish the nature of what was to be the Confederate state and government.
Part Three discusses the individual secession movements which arose in the various states that would break away from the United States. The chaos present as the various southern states delivered their announcements and subsequently declared allegiance to the newfound Confederate States of America is detailed. At the conclusion of this section, the Confederacy is its own country which has declared itself officially uncoupled from the USA and its laws.
Part Four concerns the U.S. Civil War, and is by far the lengthiest installment of the entire book. Davis takes us through the entire conflict from the moment war was declared, through the major battles and turning points, and through to the eventual defeat of the Confederate armies. The reaction to pivotal events such as the surrender of General Robert E. Lee in Montgomery, the capital of the Confederacy, is detailed with the final chapters telling of how the defeated states were reconciled with the USA.
An excellent retrospective of the 19th century from the point of view of leader who conceded defeat in the U.S. Civil War, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government remains a worthwhile read for enthusiasts of the era's history. This edition includes the original notes and appendices appended by Davis in the original, 1881 publication.
