Jefferson Davis

**Jefferson F. Davis** (June 3, 1808 – December 6, 1889) was an American politician who served as the first and only president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives as a member of the Democratic Party before the American Civil War. He was the United States Secretary of War from 1853 to 1857.

Davis, the youngest of ten children, was born in Fairview, Kentucky, but spent most of his childhood in Wilkinson County, Mississippi. His eldest brother Joseph Emory Davis secured the younger Davis's appointment to the United States Military Academy. Upon graduating, he served six years as a lieutenant in the United States Army. After leaving the army in 1835, Davis married Sarah Knox Taylor, daughter of general and future President Zachary Taylor. Sarah died from malaria three months after the wedding. Davis became a cotton planter, building Brierfield Plantation in Mississippi on his brother Joseph's land and eventually owning as many as 113 slaves.

In 1845, Davis married Varina Howell. During the same year, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives, serving for one year. From 1846 to 1847, he fought in the Mexican–American War as the colonel of a volunteer regiment. He was appointed to the United States Senate in 1847, resigning to unsuccessfully run as governor of Mississippi. In 1853, President Franklin Pierce appointed him Secretary of War. After Franklin's administration ended in 1857, Davis returned to the Senate. He resigned in 1861 when Mississippi seceded from the United States.

During the Civil War, Davis guided the Confederacy's policies and served as its commander in chief. When the Confederacy was defeated in 1865, Davis was captured, accused of treason, and imprisoned at Fort Monroe. He was released without trial after two years. Immediately after the war, Davis was often blamed for the Confederacy's defeat but, after his release from prison, he became a hero of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. In the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, his legacy as Confederate leader was celebrated in the South. In the twenty-first century, he is frequently criticized as a supporter of slavery and racism, and many of the memorials dedicated to him throughout the United States have been removed.

## Early life

### Birth and family background

Jefferson F. Davis was the youngest of ten children of Jane and Samuel Emory Davis. Samuel Davis's father, Evan, who had a Welsh background, came to the colony of Georgia from Philadelphia. Samuel served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, and received a land grant for his service near present-day Washington, Georgia. He married Jane Cook, a woman of Scots-Irish descent whom he had met in South Carolina during his military service, in 1783. Around 1793, Samuel and Jane moved to Kentucky. Jefferson was born on June 3, 1808, at the family homestead in Davisburg, a village Samuel had established that later became Fairview, Kentucky. He was named after then-President Thomas Jefferson.

### Early education

In 1810, the Davis family moved to Bayou Teche, Louisiana. Less than a year later, they moved to a farm near Woodville, Mississippi, where Samuel cultivated cotton and gradually acquired twelve slaves. He worked in the fields with his slaves and built a house that Jane called Rosemont. During the War of 1812, three of Davis's brothers served in the military. When Davis was around five, he received a rudimentary education at a small schoolhouse near Woodville. When he was about eight, his father sent him with Major Thomas Hinds and his relatives to attend Saint Thomas College, a Catholic preparatory school run by Dominicans near Springfield, Kentucky. In 1818, Davis returned to Mississippi, where he briefly studied at Jefferson College in Washington. He then attended the Wilkinson County Academy near Woodville for five years. In 1823, Davis attended Transylvania University in Lexington. While he was still in college in 1824, he learned that his father Samuel had died. Before his death, Samuel had fallen into debt and sold Rosemont and most of his slaves to his eldest son Joseph Emory Davis, who already owned a large estate in Davis Bend, Mississippi, about 15 miles (24 km) south of Vicksburg, Mississippi.

### West Point and early military career

Joseph, who was 23 years older than Davis, informally became his surrogate father. Joseph got him appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1824, where he became friends with classmates Albert Sidney Johnston and Leonidas Polk. Davis frequently challenged the academy's discipline. In his first year, he was court-martialed for drinking at a nearby tavern; he was found guilty but was pardoned. The following year, he was placed under house arrest for his role in the Eggnog Riot during Christmas 1826 but was not dismissed. He graduated 23rd in a class of 33.

Second Lieutenant Davis was assigned to the 1st Infantry Regiment. He was accompanied by his personal servant James Pemberton, an enslaved African American who he inherited from his father. In early 1829, he was stationed at Forts Crawford and Winnebago in Michigan Territory under the command of Colonel Zachary Taylor, later president of the United States.

Throughout his life, Davis regularly suffered from ill health. During the northern winters, he suffered from pneumonia, colds, and bronchitis. He went to Mississippi on furlough in March 1832, missing the outbreak of the Black Hawk War. He returned to duty just before the Battle of Bad Axe, which ended the war. When Black Hawk was captured, Davis escorted him for detention in St. Louis. Black Hawk stated that Davis treated him with kindness.

After Davis's return to Fort Crawford in January 1833, he and Taylor's daughter, Sarah, became romantically involved. Davis asked Taylor if he could marry Sarah, but Taylor refused. In spring, Taylor had him assigned to the United States Regiment of Dragoons under Colonel Henry Dodge. He was promoted to first lieutenant and deployed at Fort Gibson in Arkansas Territory. In February 1835, Davis was court-martialed for insubordination. He was acquitted. He requested a furlough; immediately after it ended, he tendered his resignation, which was effective on June 30.