The Politics of Command: Factions and Ideas in Confederate Strategy

by Connelly, Thomas Lawrence; Jones, Archer

• ISBN13: 9780807123492
• ISBN10: 0807123498
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-11-01
• Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr

Summary

The Politics of Command reevaluates the continual controversy over strategy that occurred between Jefferson Davis and his high command, and within the command itself. Thomas Lawrence Connelly and Archer Jones illustrate how Davis' decisions were affected by officers in the field, politicians, the considerable clout of the western bloc and its network of informal associations, the input of Robert E. Lee, the pressure brought to bear by P. G. T. Beauregard, and Davis' own changing concept of the departmental command system. Connelly and Jones were the first to realize that any significant assessment of Davis' strategy must examine those who influenced him, for his key decisions were products of the politics of command.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii	(2)
Introduction	ix
I The European Inheritance	3	(28)
II Robert E. Lee and Confederate Strategy	31	(18)
III The Western Concentration Bloc	49	(38)
IV Davis as Generalissimo: The Confederate Departmental System	87	(50)
V The Ghost of Beauregard	137	(33)
VI The Politics of Command	170	(31)
Appendix: Some Potential Prewar Associations Among Confederate Leaders	201	(4)
Illustrative Diagrams	205	(20)
Essay on Selected Sources	225	(6)
Index	231