One of the most far reaching failures of Radical reconstruction in the South was the inability of the southern Republican parties to evolve into stable political organizations in the accepted American tradition. The standard interpretation of this problem emphasizes the role of unyielding white opposition in undermining the southern Republican regimes. This thesis approaches the subject from a different angle. Focusing upon Louisiana during the administration of that state's first reconstruction Governor, Henry Clay Warmoth, party factionalism is examined as a source of Republican weakness.

Many books have been written on the battles of the Civil War. Most of these deal only with engagements between the armies; little has been written concerning the Confederate Navy. Yet the struggles of the Confederate Navy cannot be overlooked in determining why, after so many victorious battles in the field, the Confederacy still failed to defeat the Union.