Jefferson Davis: Unconquerable Heart.

Jefferson Davis: Unconquerable Heart. By Felicity Allen. Shades of Blue and Gray Series. (Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, c. 1999. Pp. xxii, 809. $34.95, ISBN 0-8262-1219-0.)

Only an intrepid biographer would undertake a life of Jefferson Davis--it is so long, full, and controversial. There is his public career--Army officer and hero of the Mexican War, congressman, secretary of war, and senator of the United States, and president of the Confederate States--and then there are the twenty-four years he lived after the Civil War. Moreover, his acquaintances numbered almost every prominent person of his time, and he maintained close relationships with his numerous family and that of his wife. Finally, Davis's personality defies easy characterization. Given these daunting obstacles, Felicity Allen has managed to master both the details and the larger issues in order to produce a well-researched and thoughtful biography.

One of a number of biographers attracted to the challenge of late, Allen has found what she considers to be the essence of Davis in his devotion to religious principles and southern chivalric ideals. Although the Davises attended church in Washington and had as a close friend the chaplain of the Congress, Davis only formally joined a church in 1862, when he became a member of St, Paul's Episcopal Church in Richmond. The evidence is not convincing that religion played a dominant role in his earlier life. The author also strenuously defends Davis's positions on slavery and state rights. Allen reports his public and private statements accurately, but she will win few converts to Davis's legalistic stance on either subject. That he was a stalwart defender of southern chivalry is undeniable.

The author does not gloss over the sometimes troubled state of Davis's second marriage (his first bride Sarah, daughter of Zachary Taylor, died soon after their wedding in 1835). Carol Bleser's 1998 presidential address to the Southern Historical Association and subsequent article [Journal of Southern History, LXV (February 1999), 3-40] have invited historians to assess Davis as husband. Bleser places the blame for marital strife that occurred squarely on Davis, whom she describes as a domineering patriarch. In contrast, Allen views Jefferson and Varina Davis as two strong-willed individuals devoted to each other but not always compatible. Her biography does not overlook the discord, but it also records the good years they shared and the love that sustained them during the war and Davis's two years in prison. Their relationship was greatly strained by the poverty and rootlessness that bedeviled the Davis family in the postwar period. It was tested too by close friendships that Davis enjoyed with several women. Clearly Allen grew impatient with what she considered Varina Davis's excessive jealousy, especially of Sarah Ellis Dorsey, who was actually a savior. Allen may be too protective of Davis, as when she remarks that he "was fond of kissing pretty women, but that was just Southern gallantry; he also kissed the ugly ones" (p. 501). Any analysis of the relationship between Jefferson and Varina Davis needs to consider the stresses imposed by their families, particularly by Joseph Davis, Jefferson's imperious elder brother, and Varina's improvident father. Although this biography provides information on these matters, Allen does not choose to explore them deeply.

Davis wrote a book on the Civil War, as did a number of his colleagues. Some accounts were contentious, blaming Davis for defeats in various battles or campaigns. Particularly vitriolic was the pen of James Longstreet, whom Allen quotes: "Mr. Davis, as a failure, is the marked success of the nineteenth century" (p. 545). Allen, of course, does not agree. This is a good biography of Jefferson Davis, but it is partisan. Strange then that an admirer would call Jefferson Davis "Jeff" throughout the book; his innate dignity would seem to preclude such familiarity.

MARY SEATON DIX The Papers of Jefferson Davis