Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as the provisional president of the Confederate States of America on February 18, 1861, in Montgomery, Alabama, after being unanimously selected by delegates from the seceded Southern states. The former U. S. senator from Mississippi had opposed secession as long as there was hope for compromise, and he later described the day he resigned from the Senate as the saddest day of his life.
Born on June 3, 1808, in Christian County, Kentucky, Davis was the tenth and last child of Samuel and Jane Davis. His family moved to Mississippi when he was young, and he was educated at Transylvania University before entering the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1824, where he graduated 23rd out of 33 in the class of 1828. Davis served as a U. S.
Army officer for six and a half years, including escorting the captured warrior Black Hawk. He left the military in 1835 and became a cotton planter in Mississippi. His first wife, Sarah Knox Taylor, daughter of future President Zachary Taylor, died of malaria just three months after their wedding in 1835. In 1845, Davis married Varina Howell, an 18-year-old from Natchez, Mississippi.
The couple eventually had several children, though only two survived to adulthood, and both sons died young. Davis’s first son Samuel died in 1854 at age two, and his son Joseph died in 1864 after a fall from the porch of the Confederate White House in Richmond. His son William died of diphtheria in 1872, and his last surviving son, Jefferson Jr. , died of yellow fever in 1878.
Before the Civil War, Davis served in Congress, fought in the Mexican War, and was wounded at the Battle of Buena Vista. He was elected to the U. S. Senate in 1847, where he defended slavery and states’ rights.
In 1853, President Franklin Pierce appointed him Secretary of War, a role in which he modernized the army, introduced new weapons, and expanded the military. Davis returned to the Senate in 1857, where he became increasingly concerned about the sectional crisis. When Abraham Lincoln won the presidency in 1860, Southern states began to secede. Mississippi left the Union on January 9, 1861, and Davis delivered his emotional farewell address to the Senate on January 21, 1861.
Davis hoped for a military command in the new Confederacy and was deeply reluctant when he learned he had been named its president. He wrote to his wife after his inauguration that despite the crowds and celebrations, he saw only troubles and thorns ahead. The Confederate capital was moved to Richmond, Virginia, in May 1861, and the Civil War began when Confederate forces opened fire on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. As Confederate president, Davis faced constant challenges: stubborn state governors, shortages of men and supplies, and conflict with his own generals.
He clashed throughout the war with General Joseph E. Johnston over rank and command, and he never fully trusted Johnston or General P. G. T.
Beauregard. He kept General Braxton Bragg in command of the Army of Tennessee despite serious dissent among Bragg’s subordinates, a decision Davis later admitted was a mistake. Davis approved General Robert E. Lee’s plans for offensive-defensive campaigns, and he supported Lee’s invasions of the North despite the risks.
After Confederate defeats at Gettysburg and Vicksburg in July 1863, criticism of Davis intensified, with some Southern editors calling his leadership disastrous. He pushed through unpopular measures including conscription and the suspension of habeas corpus. In 1864, with Union forces advancing on multiple fronts, Davis made his third trip west to rally support, but the Confederate military situation continued to deteriorate. By early 1865, Richmond was under threat, and Davis sent his family to North Carolina.
He fled the capital on April 2, 1865, as the city fell. Davis was captured near Irwinville, Georgia, on May 10, 1865, eight days after he left Abbeville, South Carolina. Union soldiers took him to Fort Monroe, Virginia, where he was imprisoned in a casemate. He was initially shackled, a decision that drew criticism even in the North, and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton eventually ordered the manacles removed.
Davis was indicted for treason, but the federal government never brought him to trial. He was released on bail on May 13, 1867, and President Andrew Johnson granted him amnesty on Christmas Day 1868. The treason charge was formally dropped in February 1869. After the war, Davis worked as president of an insurance company in Memphis, Tennessee.
In 1881, he published his two-volume memoir, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. He became a symbol of the Lost Cause movement in the South and made several trips to Europe before his health declined. Jefferson Davis died on December 6, 1889, in New Orleans, with his wife Varina at his bedside. He never asked for a pardon, and he never admitted wrongdoing.
In 1978, Congress restored his citizenship posthumously, and President Jimmy Carter signed the measure into law.