Product Description

This fascinating new book, explores the great competition that ensued between Southern cities as each vied for the honor of Davis' final resting place. Recounting the story that transfixed the South and explores the ways in which these funerals illuminate the repercussions of the Civil War a generation after its end.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1232021 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03-25
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 200 pages

From Booklist
*Starred Review* This trenchant, even elegant, extended essay focuses on a specific series of events in the life of Confederate president Jefferson Davis: his death, his temporary burial in New Orleans (where he died), and his reburial--permanently, this time--three years later in Richmond, Virginia (the capital of the Confederacy, of course). The first chapter is a beautifully written precis of Davis' character and the political offices he held, which included an admirable tenure as President Franklin Pierce's secretary of war and as a distinguished senator from Mississippi. Using primary sources of the day, including newspaper accounts, Collins then reconstructs, in almost you-are-there fashion, the closing months of Davis' life and the "history" of his body until it was accorded a final resting place. The author's purpose is to chart the rise again in Davis' esteem in the hearts and minds of his contemporary fellow southerners after its immediate postwar low point. Imprisoned and enchained at war's end, Davis subsequently lived the life of a man with no country and suffered as a target of southern criticism. But his Richmond funeral parade and the press his reburial received clearly indicated a reestablishment of the South's affection. This slender but distinctive volume makes an important contribution to the entire story of the Confederate States of America. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved