Dromo's Den

[Up] [Dromo's Den]

Jefferson Davis Biography

Jefferson Davis Image

DAVIS, Jefferson (1808–89). A soldier, statesman, and the President of the Confederate States of America. He was born in Christian, now Todd, Co., Ky., June 3, 1808, the chief strains in his blood being Welsh and Scottish-Irish. His family removed during his infancy to Mississippi, with which State his fame has always been connected. He received a gentle rearing, although his education was at first limited, owing to the conditions of the country. After a year or two at a Roman Catholic school in Kentucky, and a short period at a college in Mississippi, he entered Transylvania University at Lexington, Ky., an institution which seems to have done good work for those times. Here he received the elements of a classical education; but in 1824, before graduation, he was transferred to West Point. He graduated rather low in his class, but he had given evidence of soldierly qualities and had won the regard of his classmates. Entering the army at once, in 1828, with the usual brevet of second lieutenant, he served seven years on the northwestern frontier, manifesting capacity to command, to perform arduous duties, and to win confidence and affection. In 1835, falling ill, he resigned from the army, in which he had risen to the rank of first lieutenant, and in the same year married a daughter of Zachary Taylor. The young wife died, however, in a few months, and Davis sought restoration for his shattered health in Cuba. After a short stay in Washington, where he began his friendship with Franklin Pierce, he returned to Mississippi and devoted himself to planting and study. This period from 1837 to 1845 was spent in an almost hermit-like seclusion, and Davis, who as early as 1833, when the Nullification controversy was at its height, had made up his mind that it was unconstitutional to coerce a State, now gained fluency and logical consistency in advocating the States' rights doctrines held by Calhoun. In 1844 he was chosen as a presidential elector on the Polk and Dallas ticket. After some little participation in local politics he was elected to Congress in 1845, where he favored the annexation of Texas. He was a ready and dignified speaker and an ardent but by no means servile follower of Calhoun. The next year, on the outbreak of the Mexican War, he was elected colonel of the First Mississippi Volunteers and distinguished himself at Monterey and Buena Vista, his famous formation of the reëntering angle at the latter engagement being a gallant exploit. On his retirement from the war with a severe wound the Governor of Mississippi in 1847 appointed him to fill a vacancy in the United States Senate, and in 1848 the Legislature elected him for the remainder of the term; in 1850 he was reelected for a full term of six years. In the debates relative to the introduction of slavery into the Territories Davis was zealous for the institution and for a strict construction of the Constitution. He strongly opposed the Compromise Measure of 1850. In 1851 he resigned in order to make the contest for the governor-ship against the Unionist candidate. Davis made a vigorous canvass, but was defeated by a small majority. In March, 1853, he became Secretary of War under President Pierce and made an efficient official, improving the service in various ways. He sent out surveying parties to find and survey a practicable railroad route from the Mississippi to the Pacific, having previously advocated in the Senate the construction of a transcontinental railroad. In the matter of the Kansas-Nebraska legislation he proved a bad adviser to the President, but he was thoroughly conscientious. When he reentered the Senate in 1857, he was the acknowledged leader of the Southerners, becoming the most determined, though not the most radical, of the State’s rights men in the stormy days just before the war. In 1860 he offered in the Senate a series of resolutions which were adopted, to the effect that the States had formally accepted the Constitution as independent sovereigns, delegating to the general government a portion of their power for the sake of security; that the intermeddling on the part of any one of them with the domestic institutions of another was not only insulting, but dangerous to the domestic peace and tending to destroy the Union; that negro slavery was legal, and that neither Congress nor territorial legislation had the right to interfere with it. In a speech delivered in the Senate, Jan. 10, 1861, he maintained the constitutional right of secession and declared the South could no longer remain in the Union without being degraded. Yet Davis was devoted to the Union, and when on the secession of Mississippi in 1861 he left the Senate, it was with real sadness that he set forth his principles in a farewell speech to which a crowded audience listened with deep attention.

On Feb. 9, 1861, Davis was elected President of the provisional government of the Confederacy by the Congress assembled at Montgomery, Ala. He was chosen because his course throughout had been marked by consistency and moderation in comparison with the other secession leaders. The choice was made without intriguing and was eminently popular. The inauguration took place Feb. 18, 1861. At the expiration of the first year of the provisional government a new Congress was elected, and on Feb. 22, 1862, Davis was again inaugurated, entering upon a term which was set for six years by the Constitution. His career as President takes in nearly all of Confederate history, his side of the matter being given ably and fully in his Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (2 vols., 1881). The military training which he had had made him desire a close control over his generals, and he seems in consequence to have made not a few mistakes. The unanimity with which he and General Lee worked would have been impossible had not the latter been so void of selfish ambition. Davis's statesmanship was rather doctrinaire, and when he had actually to assume almost a dictatorship as the war progressed, he was not found well fitted for the eminently executive task of financing and controlling the Confederacy. He was not a great manager of men, and he often acted without tact. He strove earnestly to inspirit his people; he set his face against barbarity in the conduct of the war; he tried to alleviate the sufferings of prisoners; and, on the whole, he maintained his dignity and self-respect under ordeals that would have crushed a man less resolute or less sincere.

After the surrender of Lee and of Johnston, Davis, with a few friends who volunteered as an escort, started for Washington, Ga., for the purpose of making his way to the trans-Mississippi region. A report that his wife was in danger led him to change his course to join her, and on May 10, 1865, he was captured at Irwin-ville, Ga. The story of his assuming woman's dress as a disguise has been shown to be untrue. He was confined in Fortress Monroe and subjected to the useless degradation of manacles. He earnestly desired a public trial and feared that he would die before refuting the charge of complicity in the assassination of Lincoln. An indictment was found against him for treason, but he was admitted to bail in May, 1867, Horace Greeley, Gerrit Smith, and other prominent Northerners going on his bond. An attempt made by his counsel to quash the indictment on which he was brought to trial failed. He was released by an order of nolle prosequi in February, 1869. After his release he visited Canada and England and went into business at Memphis, Tenn. In 1879 he finally retired to Beauvoir, near Biloxi in Mississippi, resisting all inducements to reënter politics and devoting his time to writing and study. He retained the confidence of most of the Southern people, and his conduct during his retirement was dignified and consistent. He died of a congestive chill on Dec. 6, 1889, and was buried with imposing ceremonies at New Orleans. In 1893 the body was removed to Richmond. A full and valuable biography of Mr. Davis was written by his second wife, a Miss Howell, whom he married in 1845. She died in 1906.

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. VI (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 534-536.