Southern Rights: Political Prisoners and the Myth of Confederate Constitutionalism (review)

I58CIVIL WAR HISTORY Confederate army. It was a rush order—to fill an acute shortage of Ueutenants early in the war. Although most of them began as lieutenants in one army or the other, several of them were generals before they were twenty-four. There has never been such a spectacular rocketing of youth to high command before or since in American military history. From this class came George Armstrong Custer, Thomas L. Rosser, Judson Kilpatrick, Emory Upton, Adelbert Ames, John Herbert Kelly—and Edmund Kirby, promoted from Ueutenant to general on his deathbed by Abraham Lincoln . From the class came other heroes who also might have become generals had they not died so young in the crucible ofwar—John Pelham, Alonzo Cushing, Patrick O'Rorke, Charles Edward Hazlett, Justin Dimick. There were few in this class who weren't cut from heroic cloth. Kirshner explains that this in part was because they were so young when they were, as OUver Wendell Holmes put it, "touched with fire." Their very youth gave them courage. It was said of one of them, O'Rorke, who died at Gettysburg, that he "fell a victim to his courage." The first halfofthe book is a quote-studded study ofwhat happened to O'Rorke and many others of this talented class after they graduated and went to the Civil War. A handful of the most famous of them are then followed in the second half of the book through their postwar lives. It is not told as a cohesive story. It is rather a collection of excerpts of accounts, descriptions, opinions, and observations about and by the men themselves. It tends therefore to be episodic and somewhat disjointed and disconnected. A newcomer to Civil War study may find it a bit bewildering. But perhaps the nature ofit—its array ofnames, events, and coincidences—defies order. The book is meticulously endnoted and has an impressive bibliography and a rich appendix, which includes brief biographies of every member of the class, with individual pictures of each in two photo sections. It is a valuable, reliable addition to the West Point canon. John C. Waugh Arlington, Texas Southern Rights: Political Prisoners and the Myth ofConfederate Constitutionalism . By Mark E. Neely Jr. (Charlottesville: University Press ofVirginia, 1999. Pp. 240. $35.00.) One of the shibboleths that keeps creeping into Civil War discussions is the claim that "Northern" historians have written their own version of the war, to the detriment of the South and Jefferson Davis. According to this school, Yankee historians have softened Abraham Lincoln's abuse of civil liberties while ignoring Davis's unwavering support of such liberties even in the face ofdefeat. Neo-Confederates point out that Lincoln would subvert the constitution rather than lose the war, while Davis would lose the war rather than trample on the BOOK REVIEWSI59 civil Uberties ofhis fellow citizens. Afterreading southern-bomhistorian Mark E. Neely's latest book, these neo-Confederates may want to stick withYankee historians for their history. In Southern Rights, Professor Neely does away with much of the soft history that surrounds Jefferson Davis in his treatment of civil liberties. According to Neely, Davis was not nearly the champion of civil liberties that many students of the war have come to believe. Like Lincoln, Davis faced unique problems brought about by civil war, and like Lincoln, dealt with them in ways unheard of in peacetime. In 1991 , Neely explored Lincoln's constitutional poUcies in his PulitzerPrizewinning book, 77ie· Fate ofLiberty. In Southern Rights, he closes the ring on his study of civil liberties by turning his attention to Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy . Neely approaches his study with a broad brush, examining the problems of administering the law at several levels. These include the individual approach to justice under Gen. Thomas C. Hindman in Arkansas, and North CaroUna's supreme courtjustice, Richmond M. Pearson—the first a "rogue tyrant ," the second, a strict constitutionalist; the law as practiced in remote areas beyond the reach of Richmond, such as the trans-montane of Virginia (West Virginia); and Jefferson Davis's handUng of arbitrary arrests and the writ of habeas corpus. Davis faced serious problems with dissent and lawless behavior...