Books in Brief: Jefferson Davis Gets His Citizenship Back

Jefferson Davis Gets His Citizenship Back, by Robert Penn Warren (University Press of Kentucky, 114 pp., $8.95). Here, preserved for those who would like it in more permanent form, is an essay that originally appeared in The New Yorker last year. No more than a meditation, it is nevertheless a graceful, nostalgic piece of work. Blended with the poet’s childhood memories of the South at the turn of the century are a few biographical details of the first and only president of the Confederacy, as well as a few words on the 1979 restoration of his citizenship. Warren concludes that Davis would probably not have accepted it, as he did not accept the suggestion that he ask President Andrew Johnson for a pardon: he felt he had done no wrong. Davis, the “Sphinx of the South,” remains one of the enigmatic figures of the Civil War, although Clement Eaton’s 1977 biography did much to present the man’s outer life. Jefferson Finis Davis, so named because he was the last of ten children, was aristocratic in bearing, and no politician. Yet he believed in that most democratic ideal, the sovereign state. The former fact, as much as the latter, contributed to the dissolution of the Confederacy. By way of cracking the stern visage he later wore,

Warren provides a few anecdotes of the young Davis an accomplished dancer as well as a hothead who did not think twice about challenging a man to a duel. Davis distinguished himself as a soldier in the Mexican War. He was President Buchanan’s Secretary of War, and was responsible for the experimental camel corps. Imprisoned and harshly treated at the conclusion of the Civil War, he longed for a trial where he could mount a rousing defense, a trial which he was not to have the satisfaction of getting. Northern vindictiveness quickly gave way to sympathy and even respect, with many former abolitionists, most notably Horace Greeley, signing his bail bond. Ultimately, his only punishment was being disfranchised. He retired to a plantation and wrote his history of the C.S.A., which was archivistic and widely unread. In his later years he was triumphant, hailed throughout the South as a heroic relic, perhaps the last Jeffersonian democrat in America. Robert Penn Warren does him justice in this little book, written with keen understanding and a precisely felicitous tone.

JM

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Joe Mysak

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Jefferson Davis Gets His Citizenship Back, by Robert Penn Warren (University Press of Kentucky, 114 pp., $8.95). Here, preserved for those who would like it in more permanent form, is an essay that originally appeared in The New Yorker last year. No more than a meditation, it is nevertheless a graceful, nostalgic piece of work. Blended with the poet’s childhood memories of the South at the turn of the century are a few biographical details of the first and only president of the Confederacy, as well as a few words on the 1979 restoration of his citizenship. Warren concludes that Davis would probably not have accepted it, as he did not accept the suggestion that he ask President Andrew Johnson for a pardon: he felt he had done no wrong. Davis, the “Sphinx of the South,” remains one of the enigmatic figures of the Civil War, although Clement Eaton’s 1977 biography did much to present the man’s outer life. Jefferson Finis Davis, so named because he was the last of ten children, was aristocratic in bearing, and no politician. Yet he believed in that most democratic ideal, the sovereign state. The former fact, as much as the latter, contributed to the dissolution of the Confederacy. By way of cracking the stern visage he later wore,

Warren provides a few anecdotes of the young Davis an accomplished dancer as well as a hothead who did not think twice about challenging a man to a duel. Davis distinguished himself as a soldier in the Mexican War. He was President Buchanan’s Secretary of War, and was responsible for the experimental camel corps. Imprisoned and harshly treated at the conclusion of the Civil War, he longed for a trial where he could mount a rousing defense, a trial which he was not to have the satisfaction of getting. Northern vindictiveness quickly gave way to sympathy and even respect, with many former abolitionists, most notably Horace Greeley, signing his bail bond. Ultimately, his only punishment was being disfranchised. He retired to a plantation and wrote his history of the C.S.A., which was archivistic and widely unread. In his later years he was triumphant, hailed throughout the South as a heroic relic, perhaps the last Jeffersonian democrat in America. Robert Penn Warren does him justice in this little book, written with keen understanding and a precisely felicitous tone.