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262

Jefferson Davis

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:2,500.00 - 3,000.00 USD
Jefferson Davis

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Auction Date:2011 Apr 13 @ 19:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
ALS, one page, lightly-lined both sides, 5 x 8, October 11, 1884. Jefferson writes to Colonel Robert Scott concerning a text of his Civil War recollections, intended for publication. In full: “Yours of the 8th inst. has been this day received, and the enclosure compared. It is in the main correct, the alterations you will find restored by pencil erasure and interlineation. You were correct in the supposition that it was a telegram; and that together with the fact that it was addressed to one fully informed of my views, will account for its brevity. The telegram to which mine was a response, was, I believe, the one which announced a change of the plan of campaign; which Genl. Beauregard accepted at Augusta, and thence, was to procede to execute. The last sentence of my telegram conveyed to Genl. Beauregard my dissatisfaction at the change and doubt as to the expected result. If the subject is of sufficient interest to you, to induce you to read further of it, allow me to refer to a work entitled ‘Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government’ Vol. 2 pp. 567 et seq. and to Genl. [John Bell] Hood’s book ‘Advance and Retreat’ pp. 270. et seq. Hood writing after his disastrous campaign into Tennessee, and the but little interrupted march of Sherman through Georgia in absence of Hood’s army, was too truthful and manly to attempt to avoid responsibility by transferring it to me, or by showing how far he would have to start behind Sherman, after he had allowed Sherman to move southward and eastward, while he (Hood) was marching to the northward and westward.” Uniform toning, a bit of scattered light foxing, and a vertical fold through a single letter of signature, otherwise fine condition.

Davis, bitter and almost being blamed for the defeat of the Confederacy, here continues to show his “dissatisfaction” with Beauregard’s actions during the war—a sticking point that created a great rivalry between the two men. Throughout the conflict, Davis considered many of Beauregard's plans to be impractical for an inexperienced Confederate army and lacking a grasp of logistics, intelligence, relative military strengths, and politics. In writing Colonel Scott, Davis referenced the famed “little interrupted march of Sherman through Georgia”—a Northern success, Davis proclaims, because of the “absence of Hood’s army.” Davis criticizes the aforementioned book by his former commanders, noting how Hood tried to avoid responsibility “by transferring it to me.”

When General P.G.T. Beauregard received word that Sherman was marching on Georgia, he took command of the defenses, but did not see that his planned defense of Macon was unnecessary given Sherman’s ‘March to the Sea.’ Hood had no men to send to engage Sherman, and Beauregard found the situation to be a disaster. It was a fact Davis here claims he told Beauregard: “The last sentence of my telegram conveyed to Genl. Beauregard my dissatisfaction at the change and doubt as to the expected result.” A firsthand defense from the only president of the Confederacy, still engaged in finger-pointing almost 20 years after the end of the war.
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