Partly on this ground, and partly
apparently as a result of general "incompatibility of temper," Davis
managed to quarrel at different times during the War with some of the
generals who had shown themselves the most capable and the most
serviceable. He would probably have quarrelled with Lee, if it had been
possible for any one to make quarrel relations with that fine-natured
gentleman, and if Lee had not been too strongly entrenched in the hearts
of his countrymen to make any interference with him unwise, even for the
President. Davis had, however, managed to interfere very seriously with
the operations of men like Beauregard, Sidney Johnson, Joseph Johnston,
and other commanders whose continued leadership was most important for
the Confederacy. It was the obstinacy of Davis that had protracted the
War through the winter and spring of 1865, long after it was evident
from the reports of Lee and of the other commanders that the resources
of the Confederacy were exhausted and that any further struggle simply
meant an inexcusable loss of life on both sides. As a Northern soldier
who has had experience in Southern prisons, I may be excused also from
bearing in mind the fearful responsibility that rests upon Davis for the
mismanagement of those prisons, a mismanagement which caused the death
of thousands of brave men on the frozen slopes of Belle Isle, on the
foul floors of Libby and Danville, and on the rotten ground used for
three years as a living place and as a dying place within the stockade
at Andersonville.
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