President Jefferson Davis, CSA

Jefferson Davis was born on June 3, 1808 in what was then called Christian County, Kentucky; ironically, not far from the birthplace of President Abraham Lincoln. His father and his uncles were all veterans of the Revolutionary War, while his three older brothers fought in the War of 1812, two of them serving with Andrew Jackson.

After graduating from West Point in 1828, he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant and assigned to posts in the northwest from 1828 to 1833, where his regiment was engaged in several battles during the Blackhawk War. In 1833, he was transferred to a new regiment called the First Dragoons, and promoted to 1st Lieutenant.

On June 30, 1835, he resigned his military commission, married the daughter of Zachary Taylor, and entered private life as a planter in Mississippi.

After his wife became ill from malaria, and died three months after their marriage, Davis tended to his plantation, reading a lot, but rarely leaving his community for the next ten years.

In 1845, he married Varina Howell, the daughter of a Mississippi aristocrat, and entered politics, elected to the U.S. House of Representatives only to resign a year later in order to rejoin his former father-in-law in preparing for the Mexican War.

He was elected Colonel of the 1st Mississippi Regiment. His own bravery and the efficiency of his troops at the battles of Monterrey and Buena Vista won him acclaim as a military commander.

After the Mexican War, he served as Secretary of War under President Pierce. As discord grew between the North and the South, Pierce became uncomfortable with the Southern leanings of his Secretary of War, prompting his resignation from that position. Davis was twice elected to the U.S. Senate, neither time completing his term.

In the period leading up to the American Civil War, Davis became an outspoken proponent of Southern rights.

Although he was not initially in favor of secession, he accepted his state’s decision to leave the Union. He had hoped for a high military position in the Confederacy, and was not pleased when the provisional Congress of the Confederate States appointed him President. He accepted, however, and was elected by popular vote the same year for a six-year term.

As the only President of the Confederate States of America, in a time of war, Davis was an authoritarian Federalist, in constant conflict with state governors within the Confederacy, most particularly Governor Joseph Brown of Georgia.

Davis was unable to raise sufficient funds to fight the war, and failed in his attempts to get help from foreign governments. His conflicts with proponents of state’s rights prompted individual states to hold back men and resources at critical times.

He did nevertheless manage to raise formidable Confederate armies, greatly assisted by his appointment of Robert E. Lee as Commander of the Confederate Army of Virginia.

He encouraged industrial enterprise throughout the South, giving hope to the South. His zeal and his faith in the cause of the South seemed endless. In early 1865, he retained hope that the Confederacy would be able to retain its independence.

Finally, with the South in ruins and Grant’s army advancing on Richmond, Davis fled. He was captured in Georgia on May 10, 1865. Indicted for treason, he was held for two years without formal charges having been filed.

Released, he enjoyed an enthusiastic reception at Richmond, Virginia. From 1870 to 1878, he failed in a number of business enterprises. He wrote The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, published in 1881, and died in New Orleans on December 6, 1889.