It's March, 1865 and the Confederate capitol Richmond was in turmoil. The civilian population and soldiers were deserting is staggering numbers. Inflation had priced most goods, when available, out of the reach of most people. Even the most optimistic realized that Richmond would fall, though many could not imagine that the Confederacy itself was doomed. President Jefferson Davis was one of the hopeful. Despite the urging of his cabinet members and advisors to evacuate, he clung to the belief that a telegram would come from General Lee informing him that General Grant's forces had been defeated and were retreating in disarray toward Washington. It was probably with shock and disbelief that Davis read the telegram from Lee telling him that the line of defense could no longer be held and that Richmond should be evacuated immediately.
Davis kept his cabinet members and other officials waiting on a train for several hours while he waited in a telegraph office, expecting to hear that the military situation had changed and that Lee had prevailed. This was the first of many times that Davis would experience denial, refusing to accept that his army had been beaten; that the Confederacy was tottering. Davis expressed to his personal secretary Burton Harrison that, "I cannot feel myself a beaten man!" During the days of his exodus from Richmond in March to his capture May 10 in Irwinville, Georgia he continued to cling to the hope of eventual victory, but showed frustration as his entourage encouraged him to accept the inevitable, and then one by one abandoned him. He became what could only be described as irrational, insisting that the thousands of southern soldiers who had deserted would again rally to the flag. In one of the last letters to his wife before being captured he wrote that, "....it may be that a devoted band of cavalry will cling to me, and that I may force my way across the Mississippi and if nothing can be done there I can go to Mexico." He probably hoped to build an invasion army from the many confederate soldiers and officers who had escaped to Mexico. For him the Confederate cause had become personal. He could not concede defeat and in fact never did.
After his release from prison he moved his family to Canada, which he found distasteful, and after awhile eventually moved to Louisiana, where he wrote "The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government." It is a two-volume largely self-serving work justifying the Confederate cause and his actions in it. It is not an easy read.
I can see so many correlations between Davis's personality and behavior and that of Donald Trump...the denial and inability to accept defeat, the focus on self, the not listening to and in fact turning on advisors who did not tell him what he wanted to hear, and grasping at every straw until there were no more straws to grasp. And like Jeff Davis I would bet that there will be a Trump memoir forthcoming, detailing how victory was stolen from him. But maybe he'll surprise me.
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