William C. Davis is an American historian, best known for Duel Between the First Ironclads. He was a professor of history at Virginia Tech between 2000 and 2013. His research has focused on the American South most of his life. His forty-eight books are focused on southern U.S. History during the Civil War.
Davis was born 1946. He received a Master of Arts in History from Sonoma State University, California in 1969. His most prominent titles are centered around his American Civil War studies. This is due to his historical background. Davis edited the Civil War Times Illustrated (1999), a journal that was heavily focused on nineteenth-century issues. The Civil War Times Illustrated has been sold to Weider History Group. Weider History Group owns ten other popular military histories magazines in both printed and online formats. Davis has been interviewed for a variety of topics, including on television and in local newspapers. William C. Davis, a professional academic aside, has tried his hand at the public side. As a consultant, he was tasked with creating a United States stamp that would pay tribute to Jefferson Davis, a disgraced Confederate president. This stamp was created in commemoration of the 130th anniversary the Civil War ended. He played an important role in the establishment of the Museum of the Civil War at Petersburg, Virginia. He currently resides in Montgomery County Virginia. He spends most of his time away from academia as a source information for television documentaries. Everyone has their own opinions on history. Davis does a great job of limiting bias despite the fact that his main topic is one of America’s most controversial conflicts.
Davis addressed the “myths” of the south in 1996’s critically acclaimed book The Cause Lost. Myths and Realities of the Confederacy. Davis flatly destroyed all notions that the south would rise again, and that the war was fought for states’ rights subjectivism. He is an individual who has dedicated his whole life to southern history. Davis stated that it was impossible to point out any other local issue than slavery and claim that Southerners would not have seceded or fought over them. He also highlighted the differences in the motivations and goals of the Confederacy’s government and the individuals who would become statistics during the war.
Duel Between the First Ironclads features a distinctive style from Davis. William C. Davis seems able to write in a way that is both interesting and useful, even though historians often focus too heavily on the insignificant. You could summarize his style of writing by saying it is ‘quick and straight to the point’ but not making the details too distracting from what’s important. This book’s history has been written so that it isn’t a highly academically-researched report. Instead, it can be read as a simple narrative that anyone can comprehend. His sentences are average length, with a few paragraphs explaining details like the dimensions of ships. Davis’ chapters have an easy-to understand and read format that covers both sides of the Battle of Hampton Roads. Chapters switch between one that focuses on Confederate construction of C. S. S. Virginia and another that focuses on Union construction of U. S. S. Monitor. The same pattern is repeated until the ships meet. Even then the ironclads are given equal attention. I found that this style of setting up the history made it more accessible than if he had dedicated six consecutive chapters to the South and six more consecutive chapters to the Union, as it allowed for a more chronologically-based timeline that showcased both sides at the same time. Davis’s structural writing begins with a discussion of both sides. Davis presents a brief, subtle narrative instead of bombarding readers with text from one viewpoint and then diverging quickly to the other.
