The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 43, July 1939 - April, 1940 Page: 263

Book Reviews

officials, Dr. Hill has given us the first careful, scholarly and
adequate analysis of his activities. It is a study that has long
been needed.
Beginning with an account of Brown's sudden elevation to the
governorship in 1857, she describes his business-like administra-
tion of state affairs during the pre-war years, his participation in
the secession movement, his energetic efforts to place the state
on a war footing, and then follows with the main theme of her
book-his controversies with the Confederate authorities. Narrow,
opinionated, and jealous of his authority, Brown began very early
to put difficulties in the way of centralized Confederate control
of military resources. Although active and efficient in organizing
the resources of his state, he really hoped to control the soldiers
and supplies of Georgia himself. Basing his position upon extreme
state rights principles, he violently opposed conscription as uncon-
stitutional; he criticized and hampered the financial measures of
the government; he threatened at times to withdraw Georgia
troops from the main armies to man his local defenses; he
denounced the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas
corpus as an effort to make Davis a military dictator; he quarreled
personally with the secretary of war, the president and General
Howell Cobb; and he finally engaged in a peace propaganda which
brought him and his closest supporters to the very edge of treason
to the Confederacy. In all these questionable activities he was
aided and abetted by Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President of
the Confederate States, and his brother, Linton Stephens.
Dr. Hill thinks that Brown's obstructive attitude and his noisy
attacks against Davis seriously weakened the Confederate cause.
This is unquestionably true, for the opposition of the Georgia
governor was known all over the Confederacy and gave encourage-
ment to the disaffected everywhere. Generally, however, it had
less influence upon popular morale than the privations which
the mass of the people had to endure almost from the beginning
of the war. For instance, soldiers deserted from the army less
because Joe Brown denounced conscription than because their
families at home were suffering. But the people of Georgia, the
legislature and the state courts displayed more friendship for the
Confederate administration than did their governor, and Brown
was careful, when campaigning for re-election in 1861 and 1863,
to stop his tirades and pretend friendship for the Davis adminis-

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