Jefferson Davis

Jefferson Davis was born on June 3, 1808, in Christian (now Todd) County, Kentucky, and educated at Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky.

MILITARY HISTORY

U.S. Military Academy Graduated 1828.

Afterwards was in the frountier service.

Health forced him to resign from the army in 1835

Fought in the Mexican War at Monterrey and Buena Vista

Wounded at Buena Vista

POLITICAL HISTORY

US senator from Mississippi from 1835 to 1845.

US Congressman from 1845 to 1846.

US Congressman from 1857 to 1861.

Withdrew from the Senate in 1861 when Mississippi seceded.

On February 18, 1861, the provisional Congress of the Confederate States made him provisional president.

He was elected to the office by popular vote the same year for a 6-year term and was inauguratedin Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy, on February 22, 1862.

DURING THE WAR

Davis failed to raise sufficient money to fight the American Civil War and could not obtain recognition and help for the Confederacy from foreign governments. He was in constant conflict with extreme exponents of the doctrine of states' rights, and his attempts to have high military officers appointed by the president were opposed by the governors of the states. The judges of state courts constantly interfered in military matters through judicial decisions.

Davis was nevertheless responsible for the raising of the formidable Confederate armies, the notable appointment of General Robert E. Lee as commander of the Army of Virginia, and the encouragement of industrial enterprise throughout the South. His zeal, energy, and faith in the cause of the South were a source of much of the tenacity with which the Confederacy fought the Civil War. Even in 1865 Davis still hoped the South would be able to achieve its independence, but at last he realized defeat was imminent and fled from Richmond.

On May 10, 1865, federal troops captured him at Irwinville, Georgia. From 1865 to 1867 he was imprisoned at Fortress Monroe, Virginia. Davis was indicted for treason in 1866 but the next year was released on a bond of $100,000 signed by the American newspaper publisher Horace Greeley and other influential Northerners. In 1868 the federal government dropped the case against him.

From 1870 to 1878 he engaged in a number of unsuccessful business enterprises; and from 1878 until his death in New Orleans, on December 6, 1889, he lived near Biloxi, Mississippi. His grave is in Richmond, Virginia. He wrote The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (1881).

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