Fiction Distorting Fact: The Prison Life, Annotated by Jefferson Davis (review)

BOOK REVIEWS363 number of violent crimes committed against blacks and Unionist politicians . Although there were more troops in Texas than in any other exConfederate state, most were stationed on the frontier, and there were never enough soldiers in the interior to impede the determined antiNegro measures of the Ku Klux Klan and groups like it. Nor was the army able to create political stability in the Lone Star State. Between 1867 and 1870 Generals Griffin and J. J. Reynolds were able to ensure Republican political dominanceby removinglargenumbers of Conservative politicians from office and by strictly controlling the election machinery . Nevertheless, they could not bring harmony to the state's Republican party, which split over such issues as ab initio, the possible division of Texas into two or more states, and cooperation with the Conservatives . Thanks to the intervention of the army on their behalf, E. J. Davis and his Radical cohorts were able to defeat the Moderate Republican faction (led by A. J. Hamilton) and assume power in 1870, but in the fractious battle that allowed this ascendancy lay the seeds for eventual defeat. This study of the army's rolein Texas' Reconstruction has been a long time in the making (it was originally written as a doctoral dissertation at Louisiana State University in 1970), but it is a worthy addition to the lengthening list of Reconstruction studies. The author, William L. Richter , has thoroughly mined the abundant archival material on his subject and, while not neglecting the most pertinent secondary works, has leaned most heavily upon these primary sources. One might quibble with the narrow focus of the book: there is little effort to compare the army's role in Texas with that in other Southern states, and, in spite of the comprehensive title, Richter does not deal with all of the army's activities in the Lone Star State: frontier campaigns are scarcely mentioned. These weaknesses aside, the author has done a good job, overall. The book is well balanced, well written, and impressively documented. Only its narrow focus and the omission of a bibliography mar an otherwise fine effort. Donald E. Reynolds East Texas State University Fiction Distorting Fact: The Prison Life, Annotated by Jefferson Davis. By Edward K. Eckert. (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1987. Pp. 368. $39.95.) In 1866, while the ex-president of the Confederacy was still incarcerated in Fort Monroe, his former prison doctor, John J. Craven, published a book titled Prison Life of Jefferson Davis. As many suspected at the time, and as William Hanchett showed a century later, the Life was created by the Irish-born writer Charles G. Halpine, best known under the pen name of the witty "Miles O'Reilly." Halpine madeuse of some of 364CIVIL WAR HISTORY Craven's materials, and much of his own fertile imagination, in the hope of making money and helping Andrew Johnson in his struggles over Reconstruction. The book chronicled Davis' prison days in marvelous detail. Among other things it set forthhis views on art, literature, history, and the current state of the country. Above all, Prison Life portrayed an upright man who had sacrificed all he possessed for his convictions. Humiliated, in failing health, unjustly accused of direct responsibility for Lincoln's murder, even put in chains, the book's hero stood before God and the American public as an honorable man who deserved his freedom. Davis received that freedom in less than ayear after the publication of Prison Life, in part because of the impact of the book. But he read the Life while still at Fort Monroe, and his numerous notations on the margins of his copy were mostly critical. These ranged from "not so" through "false" and "fiction distorting fact" to "bushel of fiction." Davis made longer comments, too. For example, where Craven-Halpine displayed in some detail Davis' supposed good opinion of Lincoln, the margin states: "Had no personal knowledge of Mr. L. Accepted statement as to his good heart. Could not approve his course." The text went on to note that after Lincoln's reelection the continued Confederate struggle could be justified only by the hope of obtaining more generous peace terms than could be had...