The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, in Two Volumes

xxi, 707; xvii, 808 pp. 4-page publisher ad follows text in each volume. 8vo. Complete in two volumes. Includes engraved portraits and fold-out maps of numerous battles. The President of the Confederacy, upon his release from prison in 1867, attempted to justify the position of the South. Jefferson Davis examines the question of states' rights and offers a detailed account of the movement toward secession and confederation. An entire volume is dedicated to the 'deplorable fact of war' - victories, defeats, and the final 'subjugation of the Confederate States' with all the attendant evils arising from the bitter hostility between victor and vanquished. An important contribution to an understanding of the political, social, and military forces at work during the Civil War years, and a unique appraisal of the American Civil War. Douglas Freeman thought it unique enough to comment in Lee's Lieutenants that it is "[not] nearly so accurate as President Davis thought it was." Regardless of one's perspective, thought, a historically significant book.