Biographical Register of the Confederate Congress

Bibliography

BIBLIOGRAPHY THOUGH THE WORK of the Confederate Congress occupies an important place in many volumes of Confederate history and biography, the literature on the Congress itself is surprisingly scanty. Both Edward Pollard and John Goode published articles entitled "The Confederate Congress," but they wrote from a participant's viewpoint and their judgments are self-serving. The first analysis of the Congress by a trained historian was Enock Walter Sikes's twenty-nine-page pamphlet Confederate States Congress,and it was not until more than a decade later that Robert Cleland published his study of the Congress in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly. Both men suffered from adulation ofJefferson Davis, but they were acutely aware of the difficult position of a legislative body in wartime. The first monograph on the subject was W. B. Yearns's The Confederate Congress (1960), which emphasized chiefly the formulation of the legislation of Congress. Four years later John Brawner Robbins added a thorough analysis of congressional politics and elections. Richard E. Beringer's "Political Factionalism in the Confederate Congress" is an early study by roll-call analysis. Beringer and Thomas B. Alexander later published The Anatomy of the Confederate Congress,an exhaustive roll-call analysis of the congressmen's votes correlated with their politics, wealth, district locations, and other variables. Mention should also be made of the splendid collection "Proceedings of the ... Confederate Congress," taken mainly from the Richmond Examiner. The authors of this volume, however, advise against total dependence on these "Proceedings" for congressional debate. Other Richmond newspapers reported the debates almost as extensively and often included different material. In addition, newspapers from other states often kept observers in Congress for long stretches, and they naturally paid the greatest attention to their own delegations. The files of the Wilmington (N.C.) Daily 307 Journal and the Charleston (S.C.) Mercury are particularly replete with debate nowhere else recorded. The criterion for who was properly a member of one of the three Confederate congresses rests in the Executive and Congressional Directory of the Confederate States,compiled from the Official Records and publishedunder the imprimaturof the Record and Pension Office of the War Department in 1899. The compilation was probably made by Brigadier General Marcus J. Wright, late C.S.A., who had been for years the department's agent for the collection of Confederate records. However, this work, a sixteen-page pamphlet , contains several misspellings, does not contain the names of all persons elsewhere listed as members, and does not in every case agree with Wright's own privately printed General Officers of the Confederate Army, which as an afterthought also contains a list of the executive and legislative branches of the Confederate government. However, the present volume does include every man who, according to our research in the Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, 1861-1865, actually took his seat in that body during its brief existence. There is a gray area, admittedly—the Confederate government was not only insurrectionary but extemporized; elections were not infrequently travesties; and records are disappointingly sparse. Nevertheless, these reservations aside, the authors are confident that all persons with a legitimate (even though in some cases involuntary) claim to membership are sketched. MANUSCRIPTS Clay, Clement C. Papers, Duke University, Durham, N. C. Clingman-Puryear Papers, Southern Historical Collection,University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill. Graham, William A. Papers, North Carolina Department of Archives and History, Raleigh. Harrison, James T. Papers, Southern Historical Collection,University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill. Hilton, Robert B. Diary, University of Florida Library, Gainesville. Mallory, Stephen R. Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Pickett, John T. Papers, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Stephens, Alexander H. Papers, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Turner, Josiah. Papers, Duke University Library, Durham, N. C. Vance, Zebulon B. Papers, North Carolina Department of Archives and History, Raleigh. Walser, Zebulon V. Papers, Southern Historical Collection,University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill. 308 Yancey, William L. Papers, Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery. NEWSPAPERS Arizona Citizen (Tucson) Arizona Republican (Phoenix) Arizona Sentinel (Yuma) Arizona Weekly Enterprise (Florence) Arizonian (Tucson) Arkansas State Gazette (Little Rock) Atlanta Southern Confederacy Augusta (Ga.) Tri-weekly Constitutionalist Austin Gazette Baltimore Sun Baton Rouge Gazette and Comet Brunswick (Ga.) Advertiser Charleston (Mo.) Enterprise Charleston (S.C.) Mercury Chattanooga Times Clarksville (Tex.) Standard (later Northern Standard) Cleveland (Tenn.) Banner Cleveland...