Jefferson Davis

Name	Jefferson F. Davis
Imagesize	245px
Order	President of the Confederate States of America
Term start	February 18, 1861
Term end	May 5, 1865
Vicepresident	Alexander Stephens
Predecessor	Office instituted Howell Cobb (Provisional head of state as the Congress President)
Successor	Office abolished End of the Confederate States, Reconstruction
Order2	23rd United States Secretary of War
Term start2	March 7, 1853
Term end2	March 3, 1857
President2	Franklin Pierce
Predecessor2	Charles Magill Conrad
Successor2	John Buchanan Floyd
Order3	United States Senator from Mississippi
Term start3	August 10, 1847
Term end3	September 23, 1851
Predecessor3	Jesse Speight
Successor3	John J. McRae
Term start4	March 4, 1857
Term end4	January 21, 1861
Predecessor4	Stephen Adams
Successor4	Secession Adelbert Ames (1870)
Order5	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Mississippi's At-large congressional district
Term start5	March 4, 1845
Term end5	June 1846 Served with: Stephen Adams, Robert W. Roberts and Jacob Thompson
Predecessor5	William H. Hammett Robert W. Roberts Jacob Thompson Tilghman M. Tucker
Successor5	Henry T. Ellett
Order6	Chairman of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs
Term start6	1849
Term end6	1851
Preceded6	Thomas Hart Benton
Succeeded6	James Shields
Term start7	1857
Term end7	1861
Preceded7	John Weller
Succeeded7	James Wilson
Birth date	June 03, 1808
Birth place	Christian County, Kentucky
Death date	December 06, 1889
Death place	New Orleans, Louisiana
Party	Democratic
Spouse	Sarah Knox Taylor Varina Howell
Religion	Episcopal
Alma mater	Jefferson College Transylvania University United States Military Academy
Profession	Soldier, Politician
Signature	Jefferson Davis Signature.svg
Signature alt	Cursive signature in ink
Branch	United States Army Mississippi Rifles
Battles	Mexican-American War

Jefferson Finis Davis (June 3, 1808 December 6, 1889) was an American statesman and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War; serving as the President for its entire history. A West Point graduate, Davis fought in the Mexican-American War as a colonel of a volunteer regiment, and was the United States Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce. Both before and after his time in the Pierce administration, he served as a U.S. Senator representing the State of Mississippi. As a senator, he argued against secession, but did agree that each state was sovereign and had an unquestionable right to secede from the Union.

On February 18, 1861, after he resigned from the U.S. Senate, Davis was selected provisional President of the Confederate States of America; he was elected without opposition to a six-year term that November. During his presidency, Davis took charge of the Confederate war plans but was unable to find a strategy to stop the larger, more powerful and better organized Union. His diplomatic efforts failed to gain recognition from any foreign country, and he paid little attention to the collapsing Confederate economy, printing more and more paper money to cover the war's expenses. Historians have criticized Davis for being a much less effective war leader than his Union counterpart Abraham Lincoln, which they attribute to Davis being overbearing, over controlling, and overly meddlesome, as well as being out of touch with public opinion, and lacking support from a political party (the Confederacy had no political parties.) According to historian Bell I. Wiley, the flaws in his personality and temperament made him a failure as the highest political officer in the Confederacy. His preoccupation with detail, inability to delegate responsibility, lack of popular appeal, feuds with powerful state governors, inability to get along with people who disagreed with him, and his neglect of civil matters in favor of military were only a few of the shortcomings which worked against him.

After Davis was captured on May 10, 1865, he was charged with treason, though not tried, and stripped of his eligibility to run for public office. While not disgraced, he was displaced in Southern affection after the war by the leading Confederate general, Robert E. Lee. However, many Southerners empathized with his defiance, refusal to accept defeat, and resistance to Reconstruction. Over time, admiration for his pride and ideals made him a Civil War hero to many Southerners, and his legacy became part of the foundation of the postwar New South.

Early life and military career

Davis was the youngest of the 10 children of Samuel Emory Davis (Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, 1756 – July 4, 1824) and wife (married 1783) Jane Cook (Christian County, (later Todd County), Kentucky, 1759 – October 3, 1845), daughter of William Cook and wife Sarah Simpson, daughter of Samuel Simpson (1706 – 1791) and wife Hannah (b. 1710). The younger Davis's grandfather, Evan Davis (Cardiff, County Glamorgan, 1729 – 1758), emigrated from Wales and had once lived in Virginia and Maryland, marrying Lydia Emory. His father, along with his uncles, had served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War; three of his older brothers served during the War of 1812.

During Davis's youth, his family moved twice; in 1811 to St. Mary Parish, Louisiana and in 1812 to Wilkinson County, Mississippi. In 1813 Davis began his education at the Wilkinson Academy, near the family plantation in the small town of Woodville. Two years later, Davis entered the Catholic school of Saint Thomas at St. Rose Priory, a school operated by the Dominican Order in Washington County, Kentucky. At the time, he was the only Protestant student. Davis went on to Jefferson College at Washington, Mississippi, in 1818, and to Transylvania University at Lexington, Kentucky, in 1821. In 1824 Davis entered the United States Military Academy (West Point). While at West Point, Davis was placed under house arrest for his role in the Eggnog Riot in Christmas 1826. In June 1828, he graduated 23rd in a class of 33. Following graduation Second Lieutenant Davis was assigned to the 1st Infantry Regiment and was stationed at Fort Crawford, Wisconsin. Lt. Davis was home in Mississippi for the entire Black Hawk War of 1832, but was assigned by his colonel, Zachary Taylor, to escort Black Hawk himself to prison—it is said that the chief liked Davis because of the kind treatment he had shown.

Marriage, plantation life, and early political career

Davis fell in love with Zachary Taylor's daughter, Sarah Knox Taylor. Her father did not approve of the match, so Davis resigned his commission and married Miss Taylor on June 17, 1835, at the house of her aunt near Louisville, Kentucky. The marriage proved to be short. While visiting Davis's oldest sister near Saint Francisville, Louisiana, both newlyweds contracted malaria, and Davis's wife died three months after the wedding on September 15, 1835. In 1836 he moved to Brierfield Plantation in Warren County, Mississippi. For the next eight years, Davis was a recluse, studying government and history, and engaging in private political discussions with his brother Joseph.

On July 21, 1846, they sailed from New Orleans for the Texas coast. Davis armed the regiment with the M1841 Mississippi Rifle percussion rifle and trained the regiment in its use, making it particularly effective in combat.

On February 22, 1847, Davis fought bravely at the Battle of Buena Vista and was shot in the foot, being carried to safety by Robert H. Chilton. In recognition of Davis's bravery and initiative, commanding general Zachary Taylor is reputed to have said: "My daughter, sir, was a better judge of men than I was." Davis a Federal commission as a brigadier general and command of a brigade of militia. He declined the appointment arguing that the United States Constitution gives the power of appointing militia officers to the states, and not to the Federal government of the United States.

Return to politics

Senator

Because of his war service, the governor of Mississippi appointed Davis to fill out the senate term of the late Jesse Speight. He took his seat December 5, 1847, and was elected to serve the remainder of his term in January 1848. In addition, the Smithsonian Institution appointed him a regent at the end of December 1847.

Davis introduced an amendment to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo to annex most of northeastern Mexico. It failed 44-11.

The senate made Davis chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs. When his term expired he was elected to the same seat (by the Mississippi legislature, as the constitution mandated at the time). He had not served a year when he resigned (in September 1851) to run for the governorship of Mississippi on the issue of the Compromise of 1850, which Davis opposed. This election bid was unsuccessful, as he was defeated by fellow Senator Henry Stuart Foote by 999 votes.

Left without political office, Davis continued his political activity. He took part in a convention on states' rights, held at Jackson, Mississippi, in January 1852. In the weeks leading up to the presidential election of 1852, he campaigned in numerous Southern states for Democratic candidates Franklin Pierce and William R. King.

Secretary of war

Pierce won the election and in 1853 made Davis his Secretary of War. In this capacity, Davis gave Congress four annual reports (in December of each year), as well as an elaborate one (submitted on February 22, 1855) on various routes for the proposed Transcontinental Railroad, and promoted the Gadsden Purchase of today's southern Arizona from Mexico. The Pierce Administration ended in 1857. The President lost the Democratic nomination, which went instead to James Buchanan. Davis's term was to end with Pierce's, so he ran successfully for the Senate, and re-entered it on March 4, 1857.

Return to Senate

His renewed service in the senate was interrupted by an illness that threatened him with the loss of his left eye. Still nominally serving in the senate, Davis spent the summer of 1858 in Portland, Maine. On the Fourth of July, he delivered an anti-secessionist speech on board a ship near Boston. He again urged the preservation of the Union on October 11 in Faneuil Hall, Boston, and returned to the senate soon after.

As Davis explained in his memoir The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, he believed that each state was sovereign and had an unquestionable right to secede from the Union. He counseled delay among his fellow Southerners, because he did not think that the North would permit the peaceable exercise of the right to secession. Having served as secretary of war under Pres. Franklin Pierce, he also knew that the South lacked the military and naval resources necessary to defend itself if war were to break out. Following the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, however, events accelerated. South Carolina adopted an ordinance of secession on December 20, 1860, and Mississippi did so on January 9, 1861. As soon as Davis received official notification of that fact, he delivered a farewell address to the United States Senate, resigned and returned to Mississippi.

President of the Confederate States of America

(1862 & 1863)]] on February 18, 1861, on the steps of the Alabama State Capitol.]] Four days after his resignation, Davis was commissioned a major general of Mississippi troops.

Strategic failures

Most historians sharply criticize Davis for his flawed military strategy, his selection of friends for military commands, and his neglect of the homefront crises. Until late in the war he resisted efforts to appoint a general-in-chief, essentially handling those duties himself; on January 31, 1865, Lee assumed this role, but it was far too late. Davis insisted on a strategy of trying to defend all Southern territory with ostensibly equal effort, which diluted the limited resources of the South and made it vulnerable to coordinated strategic thrusts by the Union into the vital Western Theater, such as the capture of New Orleans in early 1862. He made other controversial strategic choices, such as allowing Lee to invade the North in 1862 and 1863 while the Western armies were under very heavy pressure; not only did Lee lose at Gettysburg but simultaneously Vicksburg fell and the Union took control of the Mississippi River, splitting the Confederacy. At Vicksburg, the failure to coordinate multiple forces on both sides of the Mississippi River rested primarily on the inability of Davis to create a harmonious departmental arrangement or to force such commanders as generals Edmund Kirby Smith, Earl Van Dorn, and Theophilus Holmes to work together.

Davis has been faulted for poor coordination and management of his generals. This includes his reluctance to relieve his personal friend, Braxton Bragg, defeated in important battles and distrusted by his subordinates; he relieved the cautious but capable Joseph E. Johnston and replaced him with the reckless John Bell Hood, resulting in the loss of Atlanta and the eventual loss of an army.

Davis gave speeches to soldiers and politicians but largely ignored the common people and thereby failed to harness Confederate nationalism by directing the energies of the people into winning the war; more and more the plain folk resented the favoritism shown the rich and powerful. Davis did not use his presidential pulpit to rally the people with stirring rhetoric—he called instead for people to be fatalistic and to die for their new country. Apart from two month-long trips across the country where he met a few hundred people, Davis stayed in Richmond where few people saw him; newspapers had limited circulation and most Confederates had little favorable information about him. In April 1863, food shortages led to rioting in Richmond, as poor people robbed and looted numerous stores for food until Davis cracked down and restored order. Davis bitterly feuded with his vice president and even more seriously, Davis feuded with powerful state governors, who used states rights arguments to withhold their militia units from national service, and otherwise blocked mobilization plans.

Final days

Mansion, Danville, Virginia, temporary residence of Jefferson Davis and dubbed Last Capitol of the Confederacy]] On April 3, 1865, with Union troops under Ulysses S. Grant poised to capture Richmond, Davis escaped for Danville, Virginia, together with the Confederate Cabinet, leaving on the Richmond and Danville Railroad. He issued his last official proclamation as president of the Confederacy, and then went south to Greensboro, North Carolina. Circa April 12, he received Robert E. Lee's letter announcing surrender.

After Lee's surrender, there was a public meeting in Shreveport, Louisiana, at which many speakers urged that the war still continue. Historian John D. Winters in The Civil War in Louisiana (1963) writes that plans were developed for the Davis government to flee to Havana, Cuba. There, the leaders would regroup and head to the still Confederate-controlled Trans-Mississippi area by way of the Rio Grande. None of these plans developed.

President Jefferson Davis met with his Confederate Cabinet for the last time on May 5, 1865, in Washington, Georgia, and the Confederate government was officially dissolved. The meeting took place at the Heard house, the Georgia Branch Bank Building, with 14 officials present. He was captured on May 10, 1865, at Irwinville in Irwin County, Georgia. In the confusion, Davis put his wife's overcoat over his shoulders and attempted to flee the Union soldiers, leading to caricatures of him being captured disguised as a woman. After being captured he was held as a prisoner for two years in Fort Monroe, Virginia.

Administration and Cabinet

{| class="infobox" style="font-size:88%; width:auto; text-align:left; white-space:nowrap; float:left; clear:left; " ! style="background:#DCDCDC; text-align:center;" colspan="3" | The Davis Cabinet |- ! Office ! Name ! Term |- ! style="background:#000;" colspan="3" | |- |President ! Jefferson Davis||1861–1865 |- |Vice President ! Alexander Stephens||1861–1865 |- ! style="background:#000;" colspan="3" | |- | rowspan="3"|Secretary of State ! Robert Toombs||1861 |- ! Robert M. T. Hunter||1861–1862 |- ! Judah P. Benjamin||1862–1865 |- ! style="background:#D1D1D1;" colspan="3" | |- | rowspan="3"|Secretary of the Treasury !Christopher Memminger||1861–1864 |- !George Trenholm||1864–1865 |- !John H. Reagan||1865 |- ! style="background:#D1D1D1;" colspan="3" | |- | rowspan="5"|Secretary of War !Leroy P. Walker||1861 |- !Judah P. Benjamin||1861–1862 |- !George W. Randolph||1862 |- !James Seddon||1862–1865 |- !John C. Breckinridge||1865 |- ! style="background:#D1D1D1;" colspan="3" | |- |Secretary of the Navy !Stephen Mallory||1861–1865 |- ! style="background:#D1D1D1;" colspan="3" | |- |Postmaster General !John H. Reagan||1861–1865 |- ! style="background:#D1D1D1;" colspan="3" | |- | rowspan="4"|Attorney General !Judah P. Benjamin||1861 |- !Thomas Bragg||1861–1862 |- !Thomas H. Watts||1862–1863 |- !George Davis||1864–1865 |} , Stephen Mallory, Christopher Memminger, Alexander Stephens, LeRoy Pope Walker, Jefferson Davis, John H. Reagan and Robert Toombs.]] featuring President Jefferson Davis.]]

Imprisonment and later years

On May 19, 1865, Davis was imprisoned in a casemate at Fortress Monroe, on the coast of Virginia. He was placed in irons for three days. Davis was indicted for treason a year later. While in prison, Davis arranged to sell his Mississippi estate to one of his former slaves, Ben Montgomery. After two years of imprisonment, he was released on bail of $100,000 which was posted by prominent citizens of both Northern and Southern states, including Horace Greeley, Cornelius Vanderbilt and Gerrit Smith (Smith, a former member of the Secret Six, had supported John Brown). Davis visited Canada, Cuba and Europe. In December 1868 the court rejected a motion to nullify the indictment, but the prosecution dropped the case in February 1869. That same year, Davis became president of the Carolina Life Insurance Company in Memphis, Tennessee. He turned down the opportunity to become the first president of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (now Texas A&M; University). In 1876, he promoted a society for the stimulation of U.S. trade with South America. Davis visited England the next year, returning in 1878 to Beauvoir. Over the next three years there, Davis wrote The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. An often cited (though now proven to be false) story is that while in prison Pope Pius IX sent Davis a portrait of himself (with the words "Venite ad me omnes qui laboratis, et ego reficiam vos, dicit Dominus" (Come to me all ye who labor and are heavy burdened and I will give you rest, sayeth the Lord-Matthew 11:28) along with a crown of thorns woven by the pope himself. Pius did indeed send Davis his portrait. It has now been proven by several sources that the crown of thorns was woven by his wife Varina.

Davis' reputation in the South was restored by the book and by his warm reception on his tour of the region in 1886 and 1887. In numerous stops he attended "Lost Cause" ceremonies, where large crowds showered him with affection and local leaders presented emotional speeches honoring his sacrifices to the would-be nation. He completed A Short History of the Confederate States of America in October 1889. Two months later, on December 6, Davis died in New Orleans of unestablished cause at the age of 81. Davis died in the home of Charles Erasmus Fenner, an Associate Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court. His funeral was one of the largest in the South, and included a continuous cortège, day and night, from New Orleans to Richmond. Davis was first entombed at the Army of Northern Virginia tomb at Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans. In 1893, Mrs. Davis decided to transport his remains for burial at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond. After the remains were exhumed in New Orleans, they lay for a day at Memorial Hall of the newly-organized Louisiana Historical Association, with many mourners passing by the casket, including Governor Murphy J. Foster, Sr. The body was then placed on a Louisville and Nashville Railroad car and transported to Richmond. .]]

In popular culture

High schools in Houston, Texas and Montgomery, Alabama are named after him.

See also

List of Memorials to Jefferson Davis

Notes

References

Secondary sources

Allen, Felicity. Jefferson Davis: Unconquerable Heart (1999) online edition

Ballard, Michael. Long Shadow: Jefferson Davis and the Final Days of the Confederacy (1986) online edition

Cooper, William J. Jefferson Davis, American (2000), 848pp; a standard biography

Cooper, William J. Jefferson Davis and the Civil War Era (2008) excerpt and text search; 128 pages; 9 short essays

Current, Richard, ed. The Confederacy (1998), useful 1-vol encyclopedia short version of Current, ed. Encyclopaedia of the Confederacy (4 vol. 1994)

Davis, William C. Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour (1991) a standard biography excerpt and text search

Dawson, Joseph G. III. "Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy’s ‘Offensive-Defensive’ Strategy in the U.S. Civil War," Journal of Military History, 73 (April 2009), 591–607.

Dodd, William E. Jefferson Davis (1907), 396pp; outdated scholarly biography online edition

Eaton, Clement. Jefferson Davis (1977), a standard biography

Escott, Paul. After Secession: Jefferson Davis and the Failure of Confederate Nationalism (1978).

Hattaway, Herman, and Richard E. Beringer. Jefferson Davis, Confederate President. (2001), scholarly study of war years

Rable; George C. The Confederate Republic: A Revolution against Politics. (1994). online edition

Neely Jr., Mark E. Confederate Bastille: Jefferson Davis and Civil Liberties (1993) online edition

Stoker, Donald, “There Was No Offensive-Defensive Confederate Strategy,” Journal of Military History, 73 (April 2009), 571–90.

Strode, Hudson. Jefferson Davis (3 vols., 1955–1964), old popular biography

Thomas, Emory M. The Confederate Nation, 1861-1865 (1979), scholarly history of CSA

Cooper, William. Jefferson Davis, American. (2000) Knopf. 1st. Edition.

Primary sources

Davis, Jefferson. Jefferson Davis: The Essential Writings, ed. by William J. Cooper, Jr. (2003), 496pp

Dunbar Rowland, ed., Jefferson Davis: Constitutionalist; His Letters, Papers, and Speeches (10 vols., 1923).

The Papers of Jefferson Davis (1971- ), edited by Haskell M. Monroe, Jr., James T. McIntosh, and Lynda L. Crist; latest is vol. 12 (2008) to December 1870 published by Louisiana State University Press

Jefferson Davis. The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (1881; numerous reprints)

External links

Jefferson Davis in Encyclopedia Virginia

Inaugural address of President Davis (1861)

Jefferson Davis's Imprisonment in Encyclopedia Virginia

The Papers of Jefferson Davis at Rice University

Capture of Jefferson Davis

Jefferson Davis's final resting place

Category:1808 births Category:1889 deaths Category:People from Christian County, Kentucky Category:19th-century American Episcopalians Category:American people of Welsh descent Category:American people of Scotch-Irish descent Category:Confederate States political leaders Category:Confederate States Army generals Category:American pro-slavery activists Category:Historians of the American Civil War Category:People of Mississippi in the American Civil War Category:People of the Black Hawk War Category:American military personnel of the Mexican–American War Category:Transylvania University alumni Category:United States Army officers Category:United States Military Academy alumni Category:United States Secretaries of War Category:United States Senators from Mississippi Category:Members of the United States House of Representatives from Mississippi Category:Mississippi Democrats Category:Burials at Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond Category:Zachary Taylor family Category:Heads of state of the United States Category:Metairie Cemetery interments Category:Democratic Party United States Senators