Embattled Rebel

Embattled Rebel: Jefferson Davis as Commander in Chief
James M. McPherson
Hardcover; 320 pages
Penguin Press (2014) 

Embattled Rebel is a brief accounting of Jefferson Davis’ role in managing the military strategy, actions, and policy of Confederate forces during the Civil War. Despite author James McPherson’s “disclosure” in the introduction that his own “sympathies lie with the Union side,” the book presents a fair appraisal of Davis’ actions. The narrative contains the clear, crisp writing one expects in a McPherson work and is a good read for those interested in the politics of the Civil War.