Reviewed by: Jefferson Davis's Final Campaign: Confederate Nationalism and the Fight to Arm Slaves by Philip D. Dillard Colin Woodward (bio) Jefferson Davis's Final Campaign: Confederate Nationalism and the Fight to Arm Slaves. By Philip D. Dillard. (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2017. Pp. 285. $35.00 cloth) Philip Dillard examines the Confederate debate to arm the slaves in three states: Virginia, Georgia, and Texas. His book builds upon the work of Bruce Levine, Chandra Manning, Robert Durden and others who have examined the Confederacy's late-war effort to alter the relationship between master and slave. For most of the book, Dillard undertakes a state-by-state examination of the emancipation debate, which did not begin in earnest until late 1864 and concluded with Congress passing a bill to arm African Americans, though the original bill did not emancipate any slaves. Dillard sees Jefferson Davis's role as critical in promoting debate and facilitating emancipation and black recruitment (what little of it took place). Dillard argues that the Confederacy ultimately chose independence over the racial status quo. Writers on the Confederate black enlistment debate usually fall into two camps. On the one hand, there are those who think the debate was a half-hearted, last-ditch effort by a Confederacy that had [End Page 123] run out of options. On the other hand, there are those who see it as evidence of a revolution within a revolution, whereby Davis and his supporters wanted emancipation on the South's terms. Dillard's book will appeal to the latter camp, though his book mostly focuses on newspaper's role in shaping public opinion—not the inner workings of Davis, his cabinet, or the Confederate armies. Dillard's examination of Davis's role in the enlistment debate will contain little new information for scholars, and his exploration of how nationalism factored into the debate does not go far enough. What I found most interesting and original in the book was its attention to events in Texas. Unlike most Confederate states, Texas did not suffer serious wartime destruction. Dillard's analysis of public opinion there provides an interesting contrast to Virginia and Georgia, where battles where large and bloody and the war's effect on the civilian population dramatic. Texas, he shows, was resistant to emancipation because most of the state had not seen a Yankee. With the cotton trade and slavery thriving in Texas, why mess with success? Dillard's attention to changes in public opinion in Texas, Georgia, and Virginia are good, but the book, surprisingly, cites no manuscript sources. Thus, we get little sense of what those outside the newspaper world or high-ranking political circles thought. Had Dillard mined the vast archival sources available to him, he might have cut down on the book's repetitiveness. I lost track of how many times he reminds us of the Confederacy's late 1864 losses at Savannah and Nashville. He also quotes Howell Cobb as saying "if slaves will make good soldiers our whole idea of slavery is wrong" not once but twice (pp. 106–107, 132). Strictures aside, Dillard has written a good book. I am afraid it does not surpass Bruce Levine's Confederate Emancipation—still the best monograph on the subject. Even so, Dillard's work is focused, relevant, and timely. He has done the profession a valuable service. His book further undermines the absurd notion of there being armies of black Confederates troops at any point in wartime. After all, if there were tens of thousands of black Confederate troops in [End Page 124] existence before March 1865, why would Confederates have engaged in such a widespread debate on the subject? Sadly, many individuals will continue to believe whatever they want to believe. Nevertheless, with the help of Dillard and other historians writing on the topic of black Confederates, wrong-minded people will have even less reason for ignorance. Colin Woodward COLIN WOODWARD received his PhD in history from Louisiana State University–Baton Rouge. He is the author of Marching Masters: Slavery, Race, and the Confederate Army during the Civil War (2014) and is working on a book titled Country Boy: The Roots of Johnny...
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May 29, 2023
Robert Dienesch 
Open Access
