Embattled Rebel: Jefferson Davis as Commander in Chief

[SKO]

I got this one for Christmas from my mother in law. I'd recommend pretty much anything by James McPherson (Battle Cry of Freedom is easily the best one volume history of the Civil War, and his book Tried By War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief makes an excellent companion to this book), but books written from Jefferson Davis' perspective by a person who is not at all a southern sympathizer (eat me, Shelby Foote) are pretty rare.

Anyways, McPherson says right out in his introduction that his goal is not to compare Davis to Lincoln in any way because that happens so often and Lincoln obviously comes out looking better. This book is solely about Davis and how he probably handled being president of the Confederacy better than anyone else could have. It doesn't deny a lot of the things said about him (namely that he was a crotchety, arrogant, micro-managing dick) but mostly explains why he kind of had to be a crotchety, arrogant, micro-managing dick.

It's a quick read (only about 220 not very long pages), but I highly enjoyed it.