The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-06-03
BIRTHDAY OF
 JEFFERSON DAVIS

In ten of the Southern States of the Union Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississip- pi, Louisiana, Arkansas, North Caro- lima and Texas-the birthday of Jeffer- son Davis will be generally celebrated to-day, while the United Confederate Veterans and Sons and Daughters of the Confectionery throughout the South will honor the memory of the chief statesman of the lost cause. The ob- serVance of the anniversary of Davis
 birth as a legal holiday has been grow ing more general with the passing of the years. Now that old animosities are almost dead, the character of Jeff ferson Davis is being presented in a new and truer light in the Northern states, where for years following the war any conceivable ca1umny about him found ready believers.
 By a strange coincidence, Kentucky was the birthplace of both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. Less than a. hundred miles in distance and @ little more than eight months in time separated the birthpIaces and dates of the baby boys who were destined to play so important a part in the great est tragedy of their native land. Sam uel Davis, Jefferson's father, had serv- ed during the revolution in the mount ed force of Georgia. Soon after the
 birth of the future president of the
 Confederacy the Davis family removed to Mississippi and settled near Wood vile, in Wilkinson county. While the Davis clan was establishing a new
 home in the southland, the Lincolns removed northward, settling first in
 Indiana and later in Illinois. These
 migrations, of interest at the time only to those immediately concerned, had a profound significance. If they had been reversed, and the Lincolns had gone south and the Davises to the north, history might have been very different.
 Young Jefferson Davis received a much better education than young Abraham Lincoln, for his father was
 8 well-to-do planter. Davis was sent to Pennsylvania College in his native state, but left at the age of sixteen to enter West Point Military Acad-
 emy. When Davis graduated and was appointed brevet second heuten- ant in 1923, Abe Lincoln was ma
 king his first considerable journey, go- ing down the Mississippi on fiat
 boat to New Orleans.
 The destinies of the two Kentucky youths touched again in 1892, when both took part in the Black Hawk war. Davis served infantry and staff officer in that conflict on the northwestern frontier, and with such | distinction that he was promoted to a first lieutenancy of dragoons. Young Abe was made a captain of volunteers,
 but his service was confined to march ing, no real fighting falling to his lot 1 After few years in the army, as an
 Indian fighter, Davis resigned his com
 mission and settled down a cotton l planter in Mississippi at about the
 time that Lincoln was beginning his le- gal career in Illinois. In 1844 Lin coin was a Whig candidate for presi- | dentia1 e1ector and Davis was a presi- l dentia1 elector in Mississippi, the for
 mer supporting Clay and latter voting l for Polk. In 1845 Davis was elected to Congress, and a year later Lincoln | was chosen a member of that body | Davis abandoned his seat to take par1 in the Mexican war, in which he wor
 distinction. In 1847 Davis entered the United States Senate, and soon after. l wards Lincoln was a candidate for . l senatorial toga, but was defeated. IT 1858 Davis became secretary of wal in Pierce's cabinet, and later returned to the Senate, resigning in 1861 to be come president of the Confederacy a | about the same time that Lincoln tool
 up his residence in the White House.