Jefferson Davis as a Confederate Secretary of war or general

Yes Jefferson Davis wasn't a good manager as he wasted a lot or resources deffending everywhere at once however it would be difficult purposly abondening stratgic or tactical insignificant areas as the populace didnt prefer this. Every inch of land was money and areas of recruitment when it held people. I hope to revive this discussion about Jefferson Davis.

Davis provided the offensive defensive strategy which has been contested by military historians both favorably and negatively. miletus12, isnt pillow marked as one of they worst civil war generals,or do you purpose he would have done better behind a desk leading? miletus12,

Davis could have been better without question however Davis was correct in switching from a bullet a minute rifle to repeating rifles.Deffening everywhere at once isnt a great idea ,but before the fighting has erupted it could be melomated to send every force to a potential war theater and to increase fort constructed had the rest of the south held of from succession for a little bit. In his time during mexico davis used his famous V formation where some incompetent political general would be flloish enough to fall for the trap such Ambrose e burnside, but not someone like gerge h Thomas and probably not even someone like general hooker.

Davis kept incompatent genrals too long,but beaguard,albert Sydney johnston,josehph e Johnstons and to a much lesser extent brag tallents had to be used in very specific instances

What I get from this is that you think Jefferson Davis should be adjudged by some tactical military metric. BUT, he was a tactical amateur, an operational incompetent, and a poor strategist. And that is not exactly how I analyze him, though those are parts of what I think made him an idiot. 

At the level of a national executive in a multipolar power center government, the chief executive has to be a people manager and a team creator and a consensus builder.  At each level in those political skills, Jefferson Davis failed. He could not get the state executives to cooperate. He angered his congress, who resisted his attempts to accrue decree power unto himself  Davis was too Mississippi centric. He made things and people issues "personal". He could not compromise. He lost his temper easily. He would not adapt or take good advice. He could not make do and he most certainly made enemies so virulent that his opponents were more out to get him than "to save the Confederacy from that fool, Davis." 

Worst civil war generals is such an open ended and bottomless pit of stupidity that I really do not want to look inside. You can easily lose Gideon Johnson Pillow among the bigger noises of Confederate imbeciles; like Braxton Bragg, Robert E. Lee, John Bell Hood, Leonidas Polk, Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard, James Ewell Brown "Jeb" Stuart, Ambrose Powell Hill Jr., John C. Pemberton, George Pickett et al. Old "GD"^1 as his troops called him, was a coward and a poltroon who deserted his command at Donelson and should have been shot for it by the rules of the day, but he was a "friend of Jeff Davis" and skated out to show a similar cowardly deserter performance at the Battle of Murfreesboro after the Fort Donelson disaster. Pillow was a weak reed, but Jeff Davis picked him and stuck with him, so you get two idiots for one composite answer and for the same exact reasons. Slavocrats were at their ideological hearts, nonadaptive totalitarian cowards.    

%1 "Old GD Pillow" was not "Godfrey Daniels"... 

M.          
   
Postscript. The Vee formation only works as long as the enemy does not meet it with an inverted VEE like the Mexicans did at Buena Vista when they shot the Mississippi Rifles to bits. Jeff Davis never could read ground for a flip, or understand converging fires. Did I mention that he was a lousy engineer? 

McClellan and Pope and Hooker. McClellan was a moral coward who could not close the deal at Antietam, John Pope was an incompetent braggart loudmouth, who could not read a map and thus blundered into an otherwise witless surprised but happy Lee, who accidentally sat on high ground, who promptly shot Pope's army up at Second Bull Run. while Hooker's excuse was that he was hit by a cannonball. Hooker survived it to screw Chancellorsville completely up when the incompetent Lee handed the Army of North Virginia split three ways to Sunday to him on a silver platter. If only Hooker had just tried a little harder or just simply sat in place: the Confederates would have slaughtered themselves in front of his guns. But Hooker retreated and we had two more years of war and a half million more dead.

Expletive delete Hooker. He should have turned the army over to "the snapping Turtle". Meade would have stood his ground.

One word; Incompetence. 

If you want elaboration; it comes down to bias and bigotry which blinkered Davis and his fellow slavocrats. When you cannot be objective, then you cannot make correct estimates of a situation.

It demonstrates itself. You do not commit treason without a reasonable chance of success. We just had a lesson about this in Russia.


  
 

I don’t understand how this directly links to Sherman or the rest of the people of the south. It’s fine to pull some of his words and use him however it becomes monopoly tonget a source from 1 individual. Davis understood he didn’t want to fire the first shots be he ultimately decided to attack. Back to Davis he displayed Great personal Courage during the Confederate Bread riot, and his service in the Mexican war. Davis was pigheaded no doubt but he didn’t lack courage and as a slave owner he was more humane.

Davis rode his horse gracefully unlike Abraham Lincoln