Jefferson Davis

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

Jefferson Davis
Photograph by Mathew Brady, c. 1859
President of the Confederate States
In office
February 22, 1862 – May 5, 1865
Provisional: February 18, 1861 – February 22, 1862
Vice PresidentAlexander H. Stephens
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byOffice abolished
United States Senator
from Mississippi
In office
March 4, 1857 – January 21, 1861
Preceded byStephen Adams
Succeeded byAdelbert Ames (1870)
In office
August 10, 1847 – September 23, 1851
Preceded byJesse Speight
Succeeded byJohn J. McRae
23rd United States Secretary of War
In office
March 7, 1853 – March 4, 1857
PresidentFranklin Pierce
Preceded byCharles Conrad
Succeeded byJohn B. Floyd
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Mississippi's at-large district
In office
December 8, 1845 – October 28, 1846
Seat D
Preceded byTilghman Tucker
Succeeded byHenry T. Ellett
Personal details
Born
Jefferson Finis Davis

(1808-06-03)June 3, 1808
Fairview, Kentucky, U.S.
DiedDecember 6, 1889(1889-12-06) (aged 81)
New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.
Resting placeHollywood Cemetery,
Richmond, Virginia, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
Other political
affiliations		Southern Rights
Spouses
  • Sarah Knox Taylor
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1835; died 1835)​
  • Varina Howell
    ​
    (m. 1845)​
Children6, including Varina
EducationUnited States Military Academy (BS)
Signature
WebsitePresidential Library
Military service
AllegianceUnited States
Branch/service
Years of service
  • 1825–1835
  • 1846–1847
Rank
  • First lieutenant
  • Colonel
Unit1st U.S. Dragoons
Commands1st Mississippi Rifles
Battles/wars

Davis, the youngest of ten children, was born in Fairview, Kentucky to a moderately prosperous farmer. He grew up in Wilkinson County, Mississippi, and also lived in Louisiana. His eldest brother Joseph Emory Davis secured the younger Davis's appointment to the United States Military Academy. After graduating, Jefferson Davis served six years as a lieutenant in the United States Army. He fought in the Mexican–American War (1846–1848), as the colonel of a volunteer regiment. Before the American Civil War, he operated a large cotton plantation in Mississippi, which his brother Joseph gave him, and owned as many as 113 slaves. Although Davis argued against secession in 1858, he believed states had an unquestionable right to leave the Union.

Davis married Sarah Knox Taylor, daughter of general and future President Zachary Taylor, in 1835, when he was 27 years old. They were both stricken with malaria soon thereafter, and Sarah died after three months of marriage. Davis recovered slowly and suffered from recurring bouts of the disease throughout his life. At the age of 36, Davis married again, to 18-year-old Varina Howell, a native of Natchez, Mississippi, who had been educated in Philadelphia and had some family ties in the North. They had six children. Only two survived him, and only one married and had children.

Many historians attribute some of the Confederacy's weaknesses to Davis's poor leadership. His preoccupation with detail, reluctance to delegate responsibility, lack of popular appeal, feuds with powerful state governors and generals, favoritism toward old friends, inability to get along with people who disagreed with him, neglect of civil matters in favor of military ones, and resistance to public opinion all worked against him. Historians agree he was a much less effective war leader than his Union counterpart, President Abraham Lincoln. After Davis was captured in 1865, he was accused of treason and imprisoned at Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia. He was never tried and was released after two years. While not disgraced, Davis had been displaced in ex-Confederate affection after the war by his leading general, Robert E. Lee. Davis wrote a memoir entitled The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, which he completed in 1881. By the late 1880s, he began to encourage reconciliation, telling Southerners to be loyal to the Union. Ex-Confederates came to appreciate his role in the war, seeing him as a Southern patriot. He became a hero of the pseudohistorical Lost Cause of the Confederacy in the post-Reconstruction South.

Early life

Birth and family background

Jefferson F.[lower-alpha 1] Davis was born at the family homestead in Fairview, Kentucky on June 3, 1808.[2][lower-alpha 2] Davis, who was named after then-incumbent President Thomas Jefferson,[5] was the youngest of ten children born to Jane (née Cook) and Samuel Emory Davis.[6] Samuel Davis's father, Evan, who had a Welsh background, came to the colony of Georgia from Philadelphia.[7][lower-alpha 3] Samuel served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, and for his service received a land-grant near what would become Washington, Georgia.[8] He married Jane Cook in 1783,[9] a woman of Scots-Irish descent whom he had met in South Carolina during his military service.[10] Around 1793, Samuel and Jane moved to Kentucky.[11] When Jefferson was born, the family was living in Davisburg, a village Samuel had established that later became Fairview.[12]

Early education

In 1810, the Davis family moved to Bayou Teche. Less than a year later, they moved to a farm near Woodville, Mississippi, where Samuel began cultivating cotton and gradually increased the number of slaves he owned from six in 1810 to twelve.[13] He worked in the fields with his slaves, and eventually built a fine house, which Jane called Rosemont.[14] During the War of 1812, three of Davis's brothers went off to serve in the military.[15] When Davis was around five, he received a rudimentary education at a small schoolhouse near Woodville.[16] When he was about eight, his father sent him away with relatives to attend Saint Thomas College, a Catholic preparatory school run by Dominicans near Springfield, Kentucky.[17] Davis returned to Mississippi in 1818. He briefly studied at Jefferson College in Washington. He then attended the Wilkinson County Academy near Woodville for five years.[18] In 1823, Davis attended Transylvania University in Lexington.[19] While Davis was still in college in 1824, he learned that his father Samuel had died. Before his death, Samuel had been in debt and had sold Rosemont and his slaves to his eldest son Joseph Emory Davis, who already owned a large plantation along the Mississippi River in Davis Bend, Mississippi.[20]

West Point and early military career

Davis's oldest brother Joseph, who was 23 years older than him,[21] took on the role of being his surrogate father.[17] Joseph got Davis appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1824. He became friends with his classmates, Albert Sidney Johnson and Leonidas Polk.[22] During his time there, he frequently challenged the academy's discipline.[23] In his first year, he was court-martialed for drinking at a nearby tavern; he was found guilty but was pardoned.[24] In the following year, Davis was placed under house arrest for his role in the Eggnog Riot during Christmas 1826, in which students defied the discipline of superintendent Sylvanus Thayer by getting drunk and disorderly, but was not dismissed.[25] He graduated 23rd in a class of 33.[26]

Following his graduation, Second Lieutenant Davis was assigned to the 1st Infantry Regiment. In spring 1829, he was stationed at Forts Crawford and Winnebago in Michigan Territory under the command of Colonel Zachary Taylor,[27] who would later become president of the United States. While serving in the military, Davis brought James Pemberton, an enslaved African-American that he an inherited from his father, with him as his personal servant.[28] The northern winters were unkind to Davis's health, and one winter he developed a bad case of pneumonia. After his bout with this lung infection, he was vulnerable to catching colds and bronchitis.[29] Davis went to Mississippi on furlough in March 1832, missing the outbreak of the Black Hawk War. Davis returned after the capture of Black Hawk and escorted him for detention in St. Louis.[30] In his autobiography, Black Hawk stated that Jefferson treated him with kindness.[31]

After his return to Fort Crawford in January 1833, he and Taylor's daughter, Sarah, had become romantically involved. Davis asked Taylor if he could marry Sarah, but Taylor refused.[32] In spring, Taylor had him assigned to the United States Regiment of Dragoons under Colonel Henry Dodge. Davis was promoted to first lieutenant and deployed at Fort Gibson, Arkansas Territory.[33] In February 1835, he was court-martialed for insubordination.[34] Davis was acquitted, but he had requested a furlough, and tendered his resignation, which was effective on 30 June. He was twenty-six years old.[35]

Planting career and first marriage

When Davis returned to Mississippi he decided to become a planter.[36] His brother Joseph was successfully converting his large holdings at Davis Bend, about 15 miles (24 km) south of Vicksburg, Mississippi, into Hurricane Plantation, which would eventually have 1,700 acres (690 ha) of cultivated fields and over 300 slaves.[37] He gave Davis 800 acres (320 ha) of his land to start a plantation at Davis Bend and begin his career as a planter, though Joseph retained the title to the property. He also loaned Davis the money to buy ten slaves to clear and cultivate the land, which Jefferson would name Brierfield Plantation.[38]

Davis had continued his correspondence with Sarah,[39] and they agreed to marry; Taylor had given his implicit assent. Sarah went to Louisville where she had relatives, and Davis traveled on his own to meet here. They married at Beechland on June 17, 1835.[40] In August, Davis and Sarah traveled south to his sister Anna at Locust Grove Plantation in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana. Within days, both became severely ill with malaria. Sarah died at the age of 21 on September 15, 1835. They had been married only three months.[41] Davis gradually improved, and briefly traveled to Havana, Cuba to restore his health and returned home via New York and Washington, D.C., where he visited his old schoolmate from Transylvania College, George Wallace Jones.[42]

For several years following Sarah's death, Davis spent much of his time clearing Brierfield and developing his plantation. By 1836, he possessed 23 slaves;[43] by 1840, he possessed 40;[44] and by 1860, 113.[45] He made his first slave, James Pemberton, its overseer,[46] a position he held until his death around 1850.[45] Davis also developed intellectually. Joseph maintained a large library on Hurricane Plantation, allowing Davis to read up on politics, the law, and economics.[47] Joseph, who became particularly concerned with national attempts to limit slavery in new territories during this time, often served as Davis's advisor and helper as they increasingly became involved in politics,[48] and Jefferson was the beneficiary of his brother's political influence.[24]

Early political career and second marriage
Wedding photograph (a daguerrotype) of Jefferson Davis and Varina Howell, 1845

Davis first became directly involved in politics in 1840 when he attended a Democratic Party meeting in Vicksburg and served as a delegate to the party's state convention in Jackson; he served again in 1842.[49] In November 1843, he was chosen to be the Democratic candidate for the state House of Representatives for Warren County less than one week before the election after the original candidate withdrew his nomination; Davis lost the election.[50]

In early 1844, Davis was chosen to serve as a delegate to the state convention again. On his way to Jackson, Davis met Varina Banks Howell, then 18 years old, when he delivered an invitation from Joseph for her to stay at the Hurricane Plantation for the Christmas season.[51] She was a granddaughter of New Jersey Governor Richard Howell; her mother's family was from the South.[52] At the convention, Davis was selected as one of Mississippi's six presidential electors for the 1844 presidential election.[53]

Within a month of their meeting, the 35-year-old Davis asked Varina to marry him, and they became engaged despite her parents' initial concerns about his age and politics.[54] For the remainder of the year, Davis campaigned for the Democratic party, advocating for the nomination of John C. Calhoun over Martin Van Buren who was the party's original choice. Davis preferred Calhoun because he advocated for southern interests including the annexation of Texas, reduction of tariffs, and building naval defenses in southern ports,[55] but he actively campaigned for James K. Polk when the party chose him as their presidential candidate.[56]

A few months after the campaign ended,[57] Davis and Varina got married on February 26, 1845.[58] During their marriage, they had six children: Samuel Emory, born in 1852, who died of an undiagnosed disease two years later;[59] Margaret Howell, born in 1855, who married, raised a family and lived to be 54 years old;[60] Jefferson Davis, Jr., born in 1857, who died of yellow fever at age 21;[61] Joseph Evan, born 1859, who died from an accidental fall at age five;[62] William Howell, born 1864, who died of diphtheria at age 10;[63] and Varina Anne, born 1872, who remained single and lived to be 34.[64]

In July 1845, Davis became a candidate for the United States House of Representatives and began canvassing for the election.[65] He ran on a platform that emphasized a strict constructionist view of the constitution, states' rights, a reduction of tariffs, and opposition to the creation of a national bank. He won the election and entered the 29th Congress.[66] He argued for the American right to annex Oregon but to do so by peaceful compromise with Great Britain.[67] Davis spoke against the use of federal monies for internal improvements that he believed would undermine the autonomy of the states,[68] and on 11 May 1846, he voted for war with Mexico.[69]

Mexican–American War

At the beginning of the Mexican-American War, Mississippi raised a volunteer unit, the First Mississippi Regiment, for the U.S. Army.[69] Davis expressed his interest in joining the regiment if elected its colonel, and in the second round of elections he was chosen.[70] Though Davis accepted the colonelcy when offered, he did not resign his position as U.S. Representative, but left it with his brother Joseph to submit when he thought it was appropriate.[71]

Davis was able to get his entire regiment armed with percussion rifles instead of the conventional smoothbore muskets used by other regiments. President Polk had allowed Davis to arm his regiment with a new percussion rifle as a political favor in return for Davis marshalling enough votes to pass the Walker tariff Polk had wanted.[72] Davis was able to arm his entire regiment with the rifles despite the objections of the commanding general of the U.S. Forces, Winfield Scott, who felt that the guns had not been sufficiently tested and deplored the fact that they could not be armed with a bayonet.[73] Because of its association with the regiment, the rifle became known as the "Mississippi rifle",[74] and Davis's regiment became known as the "Mississippi Rifles".[75]

Davis's regiment was assigned to the army of his former father-in-law, Zachary Taylor in northeastern Mexico. Davis distinguished himself at the Battle of Monterrey in September by leading a charge that took the fort of La Teneria.[76] He then took a two month leave and returnedto Mississippi; when he arrived he learned that Joseph had submitted his resignation from the House of Representatives in October.[77] Davis returned to Mexico and fought in the Battle of Buena Vista on February 22, 1847. His tactics stopped a flanking attack by the Mexican forces that threatened to collapse the American line,[78] although he was wounded in the heel during the fighting.[79] In May, President Polk offered Davis a federal commission as a brigadier general. Davis declined the appointment, arguing he could not directly command militia units because the U.S. Constitution gives the power of appointing militia officers to the states, not the federal government.[80] Instead, Davis accepted an appointment by Mississippi governor Albert G. Brown to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate,[81] which had been vacated by the death of Senator Jesse Speight.[82]

Senator and Secretary of War

Senator
Jefferson Davis in 1847

Davis took his seat in December and was appointed as a regent of the Smithsonian Institution.[83] The Mississippi legislature confirmed his appointment in January 1848.[84] He quickly established himself as an advocate of the South and its expansion into the territories of the West. He was against the Wilmot Proviso, which was intended to assure that any territory acquired by Mexico would be free of slavery. He asserted that only states had sovereignty, and that territories did not.[85] According to Davis, territories were the common property of the United States and Americans who owned slaves had as much right to move into the new territories with their slaves as other Americans.[86] Davis unsuccessfully attempted to amend the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War by requiring Mexico to cede additional land to the United States[87] and the Oregon Bill, which established Oregon as a territory, so that it too could not prohibit slavery.[88]

During the 1848 presidential election, Davis did very little campaigning because he did not want to campaign against his former father-in-law and commanding officer, Zachary Taylor, who was the Whig candidate. The Senate session following Tyler's inauguration in 1849 was a brief one that only lasted until March 1849. Davis was able to return to Brierfield for seven months.[89] He was reelected by the state legislature for another six-year term in the Senate, and during this time, he was approached by the Venezuelan adventurer Narciso López to lead a filibuster expedition to liberate Cuba from Spain. Davis turned down the offer, saying it was inconsistent with his duty as a senator.[90]

After the death of Calhoun in the spring of 1850, Davis became the senatorial spokesperson for the South.[91] During 1850, Congress debated the resolutions of Henry Clay. These resolutions aimed to address the sectional and territorial problems of the nation[92] and would form the basis for the Compromise of 1850.[93] Davis was against the resolutions, as he felt they would put the South at a political disadvantage.[94] For example, one of the first issues for discussion in early 1850 was the admission of California as a free state without its first becoming a territory. Davis countered that Congress should establish a territorial government for California, which would give Southerners the right to colonize the territory with their slaves as well. He suggested that extending the Missouri Compromise Line, which defined which territories were open to slavery, to the Pacific was acceptable,[95] arguing that the region south of the line was favorable for the expansion of slavery.[96] He stated that not allowing slavery into the new territories would deny the political equality of Southerners,[97] and that it would destroy the balance of power between Northern and Southern states in the Senate.[98]

Davis continued to oppose the Compromise of 1850 after it passed.[99] In the autumn of 1851, he was nominated to run for governor of Mississippi on a states' rights platform against Henry Stuart Foote, who had favored the compromise. Davis accepted the nomination and resigned from the Senate. Foote won the election by a slim margin. Davis, who no longer had a political office, turned down reappointment to his seat by outgoing Governor James Whitfield.[100] He would spend much of the next fifteen months at Brierfield.[101] He remained politically active, attending the Democratic convention in January 1852 and campaigning for Democratic candidates Franklin Pierce and William R. King during the presidential election of 1852.[102]

Secretary of War
Jefferson Davis in 1853

In March 1853, Davis became the Secretary of War when President Franklin Pierce formed his cabinet.[103] Davis championed a transcontinental railroad to the Pacific, arguing it was needed for national defense,[104] and was entrusted with overseeing the Pacific Railroad Surveys to determine which of four possible routes was the best.[105] He promoted the Gadsden Purchase of today's southern Arizona from Mexico, partly because he preferred a southern route for the new railroad; the Pierce administration agreed and the land was purchased in December 1853.[106] When Davis presented the survey's findings in 1855, they failed to clarify which route was best, and sectional problems made choosing a route impossible at the time.[107] Davis also advocated for the acquisition of Cuba from Spain, seeing it as a strategic military location and an opportunity to add another slave state to the Union.[108] He felt the size of the regular army as insufficient to fulfill its mission and that salaries would have to be increased, something which had not occurred for 25 years. Congress agreed, adding four regiments, which increased the army's size from about 11,000 to about 15,000, and increasing the army's pay scale.[109] He ended the manufacture of smoothbore muskets for the military and shifted production to rifles, and worked to develop the tactics that would go with them.[110] He oversaw the building of public works in Washington D.C., including federal buildings and the initial construction of the Washington Aqueduct.[111]

Davis also helped get the Kansas-Nebraska Act passed in 1854 by allowing President Pierce to endorse it before it came up for a vote.[112] This bill, which created Kansas and Nebraska territories, explicitly repealed the Missouri Compromise's limits on slavery and left the decision about a territory's slaveholding status to popular sovereignty, which allowed the territory's residents to decide.[113] The passage of this bill led to the demise of the Whig party, the rise of the Republican Party and civil violence in the Kansas Territory.[114] The Democratic nomination for the 1856 presidential election went to James Buchanan. [115]. Knowing his term was over when the Pierce administration ended in 1857, Davis ran for Senate once more, was elected, and re-entered it on March 4, 1857.[116] In the same month, the United States Supreme Court decided the Dred Scott case, which ruled that slavery could not be barred from any territory.[117]

Return to Senate
Davis in 1859

Senate recessed in March and didn't reconvene until November 1857.[118] The session opened with the Senate debating the Lecompton Constitution submitted by a convention in Kansas territory that would allow it to be admitted as a slave state. The issue divided the Democratic Party. Davis supported it, but it was not passed, in part because the leading Democrat in the North, Stephen Douglas refused to support because he felt it did not represent the true will of the settlers in Kansas.[119] The controversy had further undermined the alliance between northern and southern Democrats.[120]

Davis's participation in Senate was interrupted by a severe illness in early 1858. Davis, who regularly suffered from ill health,[121] had a recurring case of iritis, which threatened the loss of his left eye[122] and left him bedridden for seven weeks.[123] He spent the summer of 1858 in Portland, Maine. While recovering, he gave speeches in Maine, Boston, and New York, emphasizing the common heritage of all Americans and the importance of the constitution for defining the nation.[124] Because his speeches had angered some states' rights supporters in the South, Davis was required to clarify his comments when he returned to Mississippi. He stated that he felt positively about the benefits of Union, but acknowledged that the Union could be dissolved if states' rights were violated and one section of the country imposed its will on another.[125]. Speaking to the Mississippi Legislature on 16 November 1858, Davis stated "if an Abolitionist be chosen President of the United States ... I should deem it your duty to provide for your safety outside of a Union with those who have already shown the will ...to deprive you of your birthright and reduce you to worse than the colonial dependence of your fathers".[126]

In February 1860, Davis presented a series of resolutions defining the relationship between the states under the constitution, including the assertion that Americans had a constitutional right to bring slaves into territories.[127] These resolutions were seen as setting the agenda for the Democratic Party nomination,[128] ensuring that Douglas's idea of popular sovereignty, known as the Freeport Doctrine, would be excluded from the party platform and Douglas would not be nominated as the presidential candidate.[129] At the Democratic convention, the party split: Douglas was nominated by the Northern half and Vice President John C. Breckinridge was nominated by the Southern half.[130] During the 1860 election, the Republican Party nominee Abraham Lincoln gained 40% of the popular vote and the majority of the electoral vote.[131]

Davis counselled moderation,[132] but South Carolina adopted an ordinance of secession on December 20, 1860, and Mississippi did so on January 9, 1861. Davis had expected this but waited until he received official notification.[133] On January 21, the day Davis called "the saddest day of my life",[5] he delivered a farewell address to the United States Senate,[134] resigned, and returned to Mississippi.[135]

President of the Confederate States
Davis was sworn in as provisional president on February 18, 1861, at the entrance to the Alabama State Capitol.

Inauguration

Before his resignation, Davis had sent a telegraph message to Mississippi Governor John J. Pettus letting him know that he was available to serve the state. On 27 January 1961, Pettus made him a major general of the Army of Mississippi.[136] On February 10, Davis learned that he had been unanimously elected provisional presidency of the Confederacy by a constitutional convention in Montgomery, Alabama,[137] which consisted of delegates from the six states that had seceded: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Alabama.[138]. Davis was chosen because of his political prominence,[139] his military reputation,[140] and his moderate approach to succession,[139] which could bring Unionists and undecided voters over to his side.[141]. Davis had been hoping for a military command,[142] but he accepted and committed himself fully to his new role.[143] Davis and Vice President Alexander H. Stephens were inaugurated on 18 February.[144]

The beginning of the Civil War

As the Southern states succeeded, state authorities had been able to take over most federal facilities without bloodshed. But four forts—Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, Fort Pickens near Pensacola, Florida, and two in the Florida Keys—had not surrendered. Davis preferred to avoid a crisis as he realized the Confederacy was still weak and needed time to organize its resources.[145] In February, The Confederate Congress advised Davis to send a commission to Washington to negotiate the settlement of all disagreements with the United States, including the evacuation of the Federal forts. Davis did so and was willing to consider compensation,[146] but Lincoln refused to meet with the commissioners. They informally negotiated with Secretary of State William Seward through an intermediary, Supreme Court Justice John A. Campbell.[147] Seward hinted that Fort Sumter would be evacuated, but gave no assurance.[148]

In the meantime, Davis appointed General P. G. T. Beauregard to command all Confederate troops in the vicinity of Charleston, South Carolina to ensure that no assault was launched without his direct orders.[149] After being informed by Lincoln that he intended to resupply Fort Sumter with provisions, Davis convened with the Confederate Congress on April 8 and then gave orders to Beauregard to demand the immediate surrender of the fort or to reduce it. The commander of the fort, Major Robert Anderson, refused to surrender, and Beauregard began the the bombardment of Fort Sumter in the early dawn of 12 April.[150] The fort surrendered on 14 April. Nobody had been killed during the artillery duel.[151] When Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to suppress a rebellion, four more states–Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas—joined the Confederacy. The American Civil War had begun.[152]

National policy
The original Confederate Cabinet. From left: Judah P. Benjamin, Stephen Mallory, Christopher Memminger, Alexander H. Stephens, LeRoy Pope Walker, Jefferson Davis, John H. Reagan and Robert Toombs.

Davis's central concern during the war was to achieve Confederate independence.[153] When [[Virginia seceded, the state convention offered Richmond as the Confederacy's capital and the provisional Confederate Congress accepted it. Davis favored the move.[154] Richmond was a larger city and had better transportation links than Montgomery and it was home to the Tredegar Iron Works, one of the largest foundries in the world. It ensured Virginia's support for the war,[155] and it was associated with the revolutionary generation, such as George Washington,[156], Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison.[154] Davis arrived in Richmond at the end of May 1861,[157] moving into the White House of the Confederacy in August.[158] In November, Davis was officially elected to a full six-year term, and was inaugurated on February 22, 1862.[159] As soon as he arrived in Richmond, Davis had attempted to create public support for the war by describing it as a battle for liberty,[160] claiming the original U.S. Constitution as the sacred document of the Confederacy.[161]. He deemphasized the role slavery played in the secession,[160] but asserted white citizens' right to have slaves without outside interference.[162]

Davis had to create a government structure out of almost nothing.[163] At the beginning of the war, the Confederacy had no army, treasury, diplomatic missions, or bureaucracy.[164] Davis quickly built a strong central government to address these problems. For instance, he created a Bureau of Ordnance and convinced Josiah Gorgas to be its head.[165] Gorgas successfully built an arms industry from the ground up,[166] building a network of government-supervised factories for war materials[167] and using innovative measures to produce a stable supply of gunpowder.[168]

Though he supported states' rights, Davis believed the constitution gave him the right to centralize authority to prosecute the war. Learning that the Confederacy's military facilities were controlled by the individual states, he worked with the Congress to bring them under national authority.[169] He received authorization from Congress to suspend the writ of habeas corpus when needed.[170] Contrary to the desires of state governors who wanted their troops available for local defense, he intended to deploy military forces based on national need and was authorized to create a centralized army that could enlist volunteers directly.[171] When the soldiers in the volunteer army seemed unwilling to re-enlist in 1862, Davis instituted the first conscription in American history.[172] He also challenged property rights. In 1864, he recommended a direct 5% tax on all property, both land and slaves,[173] and implemented the impressment of supplies and slave labor for the military effort.[174] These policies made him unpopular with states' rights advocates and state governors, who was him as creating the same kind of government they had seceded from.[175] In 1865, Davis's commitment to independence led him to compromise on slavery; he convinced Congress to pass a law that allowed African-Americans to earn their freedom by serving in the military, though it came too late to have an effect on the war.[176]

Early military policy

In June 1862, Davis was forced to assign General Robert E. Lee to replace the wounded Joseph E. Johnston to command of the Army of Northern Virginia, the main Confederate army in the Eastern Theater. That December Davis made a tour of Confederate armies in the west of the country. He had a very small circle of military advisers. He largely made the main strategic decisions on his own, though he had special respect for Lee's views. Given the Confederacy's limited resources compared with the Union, Davis decided the Confederacy would have to fight mostly on the strategic defensive. He maintained this outlook throughout the war, paying special attention to the defense of his national capital at Richmond. He approved Lee's strategic offensives when he felt that military success would both shake Northern self-confidence and strengthen the peace movements there. However, the several campaigns invading the North were met with defeat. A bloody battle at Antietam in Maryland as well as the ride into Kentucky, the Confederate Heartland Offensive (both in 1862)[177] drained irreplaceable men and talented officers. A final offense led to the three-day bloodletting at Gettysburg in Pennsylvania (1863),[178] crippling the South still further. The status of techniques and munitions made the defensive side much more likely to endure: an expensive lesson vindicating Davis's initial belief.

Foreign policy
Colorized political cartoon by Stimson & Co, showing England as John Bull kneeling on an enslaved African-American before King Cotton (1861)

Cotton was the South's primary export and the basis of its economy and the system of production the South used was dependent upon slave labor. At the outset of the Civil War, Davis realized that intervention from European powers would be vital if the Confederacy was to stand against the Union. The administration sent repeated delegations to European nations, but several factors prevented Southern success in terms of foreign diplomacy. The Union blockade of the Confederacy led European powers to remain neutral, contrary to the Southern belief that a blockade would cut off the supply of cotton to Britain and other European nations and prompt them to intervene on behalf of the South. Many European countries objected to slavery. Britain had abolished it in the 1830s, and Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 made support for the South even less appealing in Europe. Finally, as the war progressed and the South's military prospects dwindled, foreign powers were not convinced that the Confederacy had the strength to become independent. In the end, not a single foreign nation recognized the Confederate States of America.[179]

Strategic policies
Davis in 1862

Most historians sharply criticize Davis for his flawed military strategy, his selection of friends for military commands, and his neglect of homefront crises.[180][181] Until late in the war, he resisted efforts to appoint a general-in-chief, essentially handling those duties himself. "Davis was loathed by much of his military, Congress and the public – even before the Confederacy died on his watch," and General Beauregard wrote in a letter: "If he were to die today, the whole country would rejoice at it."[182]

On January 31, 1865, Lee assumed this role as general-in-chief of all Confederate armies, but it was far too late. Davis insisted on a strategy of trying to defend all Southern territory with ostensibly equal effort. This diluted the limited resources of the South and made it vulnerable to coordinated strategic thrusts by the Union into the vital Western Theater (e.g., the capture of New Orleans in early 1862). He made other controversial strategic choices, such as allowing Lee to invade the North in 1862 and 1863 while the Western armies were under very heavy pressure. When Lee lost at Gettysburg in July 1863, Vicksburg simultaneously fell, and the Union took control of the Mississippi River, splitting the Confederacy. At Vicksburg, the failure to coordinate multiple forces on both sides of the Mississippi River rested primarily on Davis's inability to create a harmonious departmental arrangement or to force such generals as Edmund Kirby Smith, Earl Van Dorn, and Theophilus H. Holmes to work together.[183] In fact, during the late stages of the Franklin–Nashville Campaign, Davis warned Beauregard that Kirby Smith would prove uncooperative to whatever proposal the Creole general had in mind for him.[184]

Davis has been faulted for poor coordination and management of his generals. This includes his reluctance to resolve a dispute between Leonidas Polk, a personal friend, and Braxton Bragg, who was defeated in important battles and distrusted by his subordinates.[185] He was similarly reluctant to relieve the capable but overcautious Joseph E. Johnston until, after numerous frustrations which he detailed in a March 1, 1865 letter to Col. James Phelan of Mississippi, he replaced him with John Bell Hood,[186][187] a fellow Kentuckian who had shared the Confederate President's views on aggressive military policies.[188]

Davis gave speeches to soldiers and politicians but largely ignored the common people, who came to resent the favoritism shown to the rich and powerful; Davis thus failed to harness Confederate nationalism.[189] One historian speaks of "the heavy-handed intervention of the Confederate government." Economic intervention, regulation, and state control of manpower, production and transport were much greater in the Confederacy than in the Union.[190] Davis did not use his presidential pulpit to rally the people with stirring rhetoric; he called instead for people to be fatalistic and to die for their new country.[191] Apart from two month-long trips across the country where he met a few hundred people, Davis stayed in Richmond where few people saw him; newspapers had limited circulation, and most Confederates had little favorable information about him.[192]

To finance the war, the Confederate government initially issued bonds, but investment from the public never met the demands. Taxes were lower than in the Union and collected with less efficiency; European investment was also insufficient. As the war proceeded, both the Confederate government and the individual states printed more and more paper money. Inflation increased from 60% in 1861 to 300% in 1863 and 600% in 1864. Davis did not seem to grasp the enormity of the problem.[193][194]

In April 1863, food shortages led to rioting in Richmond, as poor people robbed and looted numerous stores for food until Davis cracked down and restored order.[195] Davis feuded bitterly with his vice president. Perhaps even more seriously, he clashed with powerful state governors who used states' rights arguments to withhold their militia units from national service and otherwise blocked mobilization plans.[196]

Davis is widely evaluated as a less effective war leader than Lincoln, even though Davis had extensive military experience and Lincoln had little. Davis would have preferred to be an army general and tended to manage military matters himself. Lincoln and Davis led in very different ways. According to one historian,

Lincoln was flexible; Davis was rigid. Lincoln wanted to win; Davis wanted to be right. Lincoln had a broad strategic vision of Union goals; Davis could never enlarge his narrow view. Lincoln searched for the right general, then let him fight the war; Davis continuously played favorites and interfered unduly with his generals, even with Robert E. Lee. Lincoln led his nation; Davis failed to rally the South.

— William J. Cooper, Jr.

There were many factors that led to Union victory, and Davis recognized from the start that the South was at a distinct disadvantage; but in the end, Lincoln helped to achieve victory, whereas Davis contributed to defeat.[197]

Final days of the Confederacy
William T. Sutherlin Mansion, Danville, Virginia, temporary residence of Jefferson Davis and dubbed Last Capitol of the Confederacy

On April 3, with Union troops under Ulysses S. Grant poised to capture Richmond, Davis escaped to Danville, Virginia, together with the Confederate Cabinet, leaving on the Richmond and Danville Railroad. Lincoln was in Davis's Richmond office just forty hours later. William T. Sutherlin turned over his mansion, which served as Davis's temporary residence April 3–10, 1865.[198] On about April 12, Davis received Robert E. Lee's letter announcing surrender.[199] He issued his last official proclamation as president of the Confederacy, and then went south to Greensboro, North Carolina.[200]

After Lee's surrender, a public meeting was held in Shreveport, Louisiana, at which many speakers supported continuation of the war. Plans were developed for the Davis government to flee to Havana, Cuba. There, the leaders would regroup and head to the Confederate-controlled Trans-Mississippi area by way of the Rio Grande.[201] None of these plans were put into practice.

On April 14, Lincoln was shot, dying the next day. Davis expressed regret at his death. He later said he believed Lincoln would have been less harsh with the South than his successor, Andrew Johnson.[202] In the aftermath, Johnson issued a $100,000 reward for the capture of Davis and accused him of helping to plan the assassination. As the Confederate military structure fell into disarray, the search for Davis by Union forces intensified.[203]

President Davis met with his Confederate Cabinet for the last time on May 5, 1865, in Washington, Georgia, and officially dissolved the Confederate government.[204] The meeting took place at the Heard house, the Georgia Branch Bank Building, with 14 officials present. Along with their hand-picked escort led by Given Campbell, Davis and his wife Varina Davis were captured by Union forces on May 10 at Irwinville in Irwin County, Georgia.[205]

Capture of Jefferson Davis – Illustration in New York Daily News, May 15, 1865

Davis's wife recounted her husband's capture:

Just before day the enemy charged our camp yelling like demons. ... I pleaded with him to let me throw over him a large waterproof wrap which had often served him in sickness during the summer season for a dressing gown and which I hoped might so cover his person that in the grey of the morning he would not be recognized. As he strode off I threw over his head a little black shawl which was around my own shoulders, saying that he could not find his hat and after he started sent my colored woman after him with a bucket for water hoping that he would pass unobserved.[206]

It was reported in the media that Davis had put his wife's overcoat over his shoulders while fleeing. This led to the persistent rumor that he attempted to flee in women's clothes, inspiring caricatures that portrayed him so dressed.[207] Over forty years later, an article in the Washington Herald claimed that his wife's heavy shawl had been placed on Davis who was "always extremely sensitive to cold air", to protect him from the "chilly atmosphere of the early hour of the morning" by the slave James Henry Jones, Davis's valet who served Davis and his family during and after the Civil War.[208] Meanwhile, Davis's belongings continued on the train bound for Cedar Key, Florida. They were first hidden at Senator David Levy Yulee's plantation in Florida, then placed in the care of a railroad agent in Waldo. On June 15, 1865, Union soldiers seized Davis's personal baggage from the agent, together with some of the Confederate government's records.

A historical marker was later erected at this site.[209][210][211] In 1939, the Jefferson Davis Memorial Historic Site was created to mark the place in Irwin County, Georgia, where Davis was captured.

Imprisonment
House of Representatives vote for a trial of Jefferson Davis, June 11, 1866
Illustration of Jefferson Davis in prison

On May 19, 1865, Davis was imprisoned in a casemate at Fortress Monroe, on the coast of Virginia. Irons were riveted to his ankles at the order of General Nelson A. Miles, who was in charge of the fort. Davis was allowed no visitors, and no books except the Bible. He became sicker, and the attending physician warned that his life was in danger, but this treatment continued for some months until late autumn when he was finally given better quarters. General Miles was transferred in mid-1866, and Davis's treatment continued to improve.[212]

Pope Pius IX, after learning that Davis was a prisoner, sent him a portrait inscribed with the Latin words "Venite ad me omnes qui laboratis, et ego reficiam vos, dicit Dominus", which correspond to the Biblical passage of Matthew 11:28,[213][214] "Come to me, all you that labor, and are burdened, and I will refresh you, sayeth the Lord".[215] A hand-woven crown of thorns associated with the portrait is often said to have been made by the Pope[216] but may have been woven by Davis's wife Varina.[217]

The petit jury impaneled for Davis's trial for treason. Contemporary composite image from two glass plate negatives.

Varina and their young daughter Winnie were allowed to join Davis, and the family was eventually given an apartment in the officers' quarters. Davis was indicted for treason while imprisoned; one of his attorneys was ex-Governor Thomas Pratt of Maryland.[218] There was a great deal of discussion in 1865 about bringing treason trials, especially against Jefferson Davis. While there was no consensus in President Johnson's cabinet to do so, on June 11, 1866, the House of Representatives voted 105–19 to support such a trial against Davis. Although Davis wanted such a trial for himself, there were no treason trials against anyone, as it was felt they would probably not succeed and would impede reconciliation. There was also a concern at the time that such action could result in a judicial decision that would validate the constitutionality of secession (the Supreme Court would ultimately do the opposite, ruling in Texas v. White (1869) that secession was unconstitutional).[219][220][221][222] A jury of 12 black and 12 white men was recruited by United States Circuit Court judge John Curtiss Underwood in preparation for the trial.[223]

Jefferson Davis's family in Lennoxville, Québec, Canada, 1865. From Bishop's College Yearbook.

After two years of imprisonment, Davis was released on bail of $100,000, which was posted by prominent citizens including Horace Greeley, Cornelius Vanderbilt and Gerrit Smith.[224] (Smith was a member of the Secret Six who financially supported abolitionist John Brown.) Davis went to Montreal, Quebec, to join his family which had fled there earlier, and lived in Lennoxville, Quebec, until 1868, while his son Jefferson Jr. and William attended Bishop's College School.[225][226] He also visited Cuba and Europe in search of work.[227] At one stage he stayed as a guest of James Smith, a foundry owner in Glasgow, who had struck up a friendship with Davis when he toured the Southern States promoting his foundry business.[228] Davis remained under indictment until Andrew Johnson issued on Christmas Day of 1868 a presidential "pardon and amnesty" for the offense of treason to "every person who directly or indirectly participated in the late insurrection or rebellion" and after a federal circuit court on February 15, 1869, dismissed the case against Davis after the government's attorney informed the court that he would no longer continue to prosecute Davis.[219][220][221]

Later years
Jefferson Davis at his home c. 1885

After his release from prison and pardon, Davis faced continued financial pressures, as well as an unsettled family life. His elder brother Joseph died in 1870, his son William Howell Davis in 1872 and Jefferson Davis Jr. in 1878. His wife Varina was often ill or abroad, and for a time refused to live with him in Memphis, Tennessee. Davis resented having to resort to charity, and would accept only jobs befitting his former positions as U.S. Senator and Confederate President; several that he accepted proved financial failures.[229]

Davis sought a mercantile position in Liverpool, England. However, British companies were wary, both because Britons were not interested in Canadian mines, and because Mississippi had defaulted on debts in the 1840s, and Judah Benjamin cautioned him against countering former wartime propaganda by Robert J. Walker.[230] Davis also refused positions as head of Randolph-Macon Academy in Virginia and the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, for financial reasons.[231]

In 1869, Davis became president of the Carolina Life Insurance Company in Memphis, Tennessee, at an annual salary of $12,000 (equivalent to $213,094 in 2020), plus travel expenses, and resided at the Peabody Hotel. He recruited former Confederate officers as agents, and the board ratified his position in 1870.[232] By 1873, he suggested that the company have boards of trustees at its various branches, and that qualification for such be that the trustee either take out a policy of at least $5,000 or own at least $1,000 in the company's stock.[233] By midyear the Panic of 1873 affected the company, and Davis resigned when it merged with another firm over his objections.[234] He also planned a "Davis Land Company" in which investors would pay $10 per share for 5,700 acres Davis owned in Arkansas. He drafted a prospectus that stated he owed more than $40,000 and his income did not amount to $200.[235]

Upon General Lee's death, Davis agreed to preside over the Presbyterian memorial in Richmond on November 3, 1870. That speech prompted further invitations, although he declined them until July 1871, when he was commencement speaker at the University of the South. Two years later Davis addressed the Virginia Historical Society at White Sulpher Springs, where Davis proclaimed southerners were "cheated not conquered" and would never have surrendered if they had foreseen Congressional Reconstruction.[236] In the summer of 1875, Davis agreed to speak at 17 agricultural fairs in the Midwest. He received criticism from the Chicago Tribune and threats to his life in Indiana, but crowds in Kansas City, Missouri, and Fairview, Kentucky, received him well. During the next two years Davis began writing his books about the Confederacy, but addressed only fellow former soldiers: first veterans of the Mexican War (before which he attacked Congressional Reconstruction), then Confederate veterans (where he promoted reconciliation).[236]

Early in Reconstruction, Davis publicly remained silent on his opinions, but privately condemned federal military rule and believed Republican authority over former Confederate states unjustified. Mississippi had elected Hiram Rhodes Revels, an African-American, as a U.S. Senator in 1870 to finish the term of Albert G. Brown. Furthermore, during the war, after Joseph Davis's departure from his plantations at Davis Bend and the Union capture of Vicksburg and the surrounding area, General Grant had continued Joseph Davis's utopian experiment and ordered that the land be leased to the freedman and black refugees allowed to settle in the area. Although Joseph Davis ultimately received the land back, many black leaders came from the plantation, which had its own political system, including elected black judges and sheriffs. After the 1867 floods changed the course of the Mississippi River, Joseph Davis sold the plantation to the former slave who had operated a store and handled the white brothers' cotton transaction, Ben Montgomery. Ben's son Isaiah Thornton Montgomery became the first black person to hold office in Mississippi when General E.O.C. Ord appointed him Davis Bend's postmaster in 1867. Ben himself was elected justice of the peace. Other black leaders during Mississippi Reconstruction with Davis Bend ties included Israel Shadd, who became speaker of the state's House of Representatives, and legislator Albert Johnson (who also served in the state's constitutional convention).[237]

Jefferson Davis considered "Yankee and Negroe" rule in the South oppressive, and said so in 1871 and especially after 1873.[238] Like many of his contemporaries, Davis believed blacks were inferior to whites. One recent biographer believes Davis favored a Southern social order that included a "democratic white polity based firmly on dominance of a controlled and excluded black caste".[239]

While seeking to reclaim Davis Bend ("Hurricane" and "Brierfield" plantations) in 1865, Joseph Davis had filed documents with the Freedmans Bureau insisting that he had intentionally never given Jefferson Davis title to the latter. After receiving first a pardon, and then the lands back, he sold both plantations to former slave Ben Montgomery and his sons, taking back a mortgage for $300,000 at six percent interest, with payments due each January 1 beginning in 1867.[240] While Joseph Davis recognized he could not farm successfully without his 375 slaves, he expected the Montgomerys could better manage the labor situation, since in 1865 they had raised nearly 2000 bales of cotton and earned $160,000 in profits.[241] However, when the Mississippi River flooded in spring 1867, it also changed course, ruining many acres and creating "Davis Island". After Joseph Davis died two years later, his 1869 will left property to his two orphaned grandchildren, as well as to his brother's children, and named Jefferson Davis one of three executors (with Dr. J. H. D. Bowmar and nephew Joseph Smith). After the Montgomery men entertained the three executors in May 1870, and he suffered losses in the Panic of 1873, Jefferson Davis decided the black men could never fulfill the land purchase contract, and filed suit against the other trustees on June 15, 1874.[242] Jefferson Davis argued his late brother had an oral agreement with Ben Montgomery that allowed Jefferson Davis to rescind the deal and that an unassigned $70,000 from the land sale represented Brierfield's value (the orphaned Hamer grandchildren said it represented declining land values). The local Chancery Court (which then had a Republican judge, and two of the three Hamer lawyers were former Confederates) dismissed Davis's lawsuit in January 1876, citing estoppel, because Davis had been acting as executor for four years despite this claim based on alleged actions in the 1840s.[243] In April 1878 (months after Ben Montgomery had died), the Mississippi Supreme Court overruled the Warren County chancery court, deciding that Jefferson Davis properly claimed the Brierfield land by adverse possession, since he had cleared and farmed it from the 1840s until the outbreak of the Civil War (more than the ten years the statute required). By that time, two of the Republicans on that appellate court had been replaced by Democrats, both former Confederate officers.[244] To actually gain possession of Brierfield, Davis needed to convince the Warren County chancery court to foreclose the mortgage, which happened on June 1, 1880, and all appeals were rejected by December 1, 1881, allowing Jefferson Davis (for the first time in his life), to gain legal title.[245]

While pursuing the Brierfield litigation, Davis took another business trip to Liverpool. This time he sought employment from the Royal Insurance Company (a fire and marine insurer) which refused him, citing Northern animosity toward the former Confederate President. Other insurers also rejected him both directly and through intermediaries. He then visited former Confederate ambassador John Slidell in Paris, but was unable to associate with a land company, either to aid the southern people or encourage emigration to the South.[246] Davis returned to the United States and blamed race as the heart of what he called "the night of despotism" enveloping the South, citing Republicans who gave political rights to blacks that made them "more idle and ungovernable than before."[247] Davis also investigated mine properties in Arkansas and backed an ice-making machine venture, which failed.[248] He was invited to Texas, but turned down the opportunity to become the first president of the Agriculture and Mechanical College of Texas (now Texas A&M University) in 1876, citing the financial sacrifice. (The offered annual salary was only $4,000.)[249] The Mississippi Valley Society, based in England, sought to spur European immigration and English investment, but Davis declined to accept that presidency until salary details had been settled, though he took a speaking tour of the area to drum up public support.[250]

Author

Joseph Davis had encouraged his brother to write his memoirs just after his release from prison, but Davis had responded that he was not capable of doing so, neither physically nor emotionally. His wartime assistant Preston Johnston had also encouraged Davis three years later. As Davis began to seriously consider the memoir endeavor in 1869, his early working title became "Our Cause," for he believed he could convert others to the rightness of the Confederacy's actions.[251] In 1875, unable to come to terms with Preston Johnston, Davis authorized William T. Walthall, a former Confederate officer and Carolina Life agent in Mobile, Alabama, to look for a publisher for the proposed book. Walthall contacted D. Appleton & Company in New York City, and editor Joseph C. Derby agreed to pay Walthall $250/month as an advance until the manuscript's completion, with the final product not to exceed two volumes of 800 pages each. Davis made minor changes and Appleton agreed.[252]

In 1877, Sarah Anne Ellis Dorsey, a wealthy widow and writer whom he and Varina had known from childhood and who supported the Lost Cause, invited Davis to stay at her estate and plantation house, "Beauvoir", which faced the Gulf of Mexico in Biloxi, Mississippi. Her husband, Maryland-born Samuel Dorsey had bought Beauvoir in 1873, and died there two years later.[253] Mrs. Dorsey wanted to provide Davis with a refuge in which he could write his memoirs per the Appleton contract. She provided him a cabin for his own use as well as helped him with his writing through organization, dictation, editing and encouragement. Davis refused to accept overt charity, but agreed to purchase the property at a modest price ($5,500, payable in installments over three years).[254] In January 1878 Dorsey, knowing she too was ill (with breast cancer), made over her will with Walthall's assistance in order to leave her remaining three small Louisiana plantations and financial assets of $50,000 (equivalent to $1,270,000 in 2017) to Davis and (acknowledging his still-precarious health) if he predeceased her, to his beloved daughter, Winnie Davis.[236][255][256] Dorsey died in 1879, by which time both the Davises and Winnie were living at Beauvoir. Her relatives came to contest that last will, which excluded them and gave everything to Davis in fee simple. They argued Davis exerted undue influence over the widow. The court dismissed their lawsuit without comment in March 1880, and they filed no appeal.[257]

Upon receiving the Appleton contract, Davis had sent letters to his former associates, seeking supporting documentation. When Walthall sent two proposed chapters to New York in 1878, Appleton returned them, cautioning that it did not want a long rehash of constitutional history, but rather an account of Davis's actions as the Confederacy's president. The publisher then sent William J. Tenney, a states-rights Democrat and staff member, to visit Beauvoir to get the problematic manuscript into publishable shape. When it still failed to arrive, Derby personally traveled to Mississippi in February 1880. By this time, Derby had advanced $8,000, but Davis confessed that he had seen few pages, asserting that Walthall had the rest. Since Davis did not want to give up on the book nor return the funds (and had already mortgaged the properties he received from Dorsey), he agreed that Tenney would take up residence in a cottage at Beauvoir. On May 1, 1880, Davis severed all connections with Walthall, who had made little progress in the preceding two years.[258] Davis and Tenney then completed The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (1881), in two volumes of 700 and 800 pages respectively.[259][260]

External video
Booknotes interview with William J. Cooper on Jefferson Davis, American, April 8, 2001, C-SPAN

Although the first volume still mainly highlighted secession as constitutionally legitimate and contained Davis's speeches among the lengthy appendices, the books restored Davis's reputation among ex-Confederates. Davis downplayed slavery as secession's cause, instead blaming the North for prosecuting a destructive and uncivilized war.[261]

The Southern Historical Society had been formed in 1876 by Rev. J. William Jones (a Baptist minister and former Confederate chaplain) and Gen. Jubal A. Early. Jones became the Society's paid secretary and editor of the Southern Historical Review; Early became president and head of its executive committee. They made Davis a life member and helped him gather material for his book. They had tried to enlist him for a speaking tour in 1882, but Davis declined, citing his health and a yellow fever epidemic near Beauvoir, and made only one address in New Orleans on its behalf before 1882. Early also began visiting Davis when the Virginian visited New Orleans as supervisor in the Louisiana State Lottery Company.[262] Like Judah Benjamin, Early repeatedly advised Davis not to participate publicly in personal vendettas and old battles, despite critical books and articles by former Confederate Generals Pierre Beauregard and Joseph E. Johnston. Nonetheless, when asked to speak at dedication of the Lee mausoleum in Lexington, Virginia, Davis declined when he learned Johnston would preside, and also vented in his personal correspondence. Davis also took issue with Gen. William T. Sherman in an address in St. Louis in 1884 and in a lengthy letter to the editor, and also criticized young New York politician Theodore Roosevelt for comparing him to Benedict Arnold.[263]

When touring the South in 1886 and 1887, Davis attended many Lost Cause ceremonies, and large crowds showered him with affection as local leaders presented emotional speeches honoring his sacrifices to the would-be nation. According to the Meriden Daily Journal, at a reception held in New Orleans in May 1887, Davis urged southerners to be loyal to the nation – "United you are now, and if the Union is ever to be broken, let the other side break it." He continued by lauding Confederate men who successfully fought for their own rights despite inferior numbers during the Civil War, and argued that northern historians ignored this view.[264] Davis firmly believed Confederate secession was constitutional, and he was optimistic concerning American prosperity and the next generation.[265]

In the summer of 1888, James Redpath, editor of the North American Review and a former political enemy who became an admirer upon meeting Davis, convinced him to write a series of articles at $250 per article, as well as a book.[266] Davis then completed his final book A Short History of the Confederate States of America in October 1889.

Death and burials
Funeral procession of Jefferson Davis in New Orleans

On November 6, 1889, Davis left Beauvoir to visit his Brierfield plantation. He embarked a steamboat in New Orleans during sleety rain and fell ill during the trip, so that he initially felt too sick to disembark at his stop, and spent the night upriver in Vicksburg before making his way to the plantation the next day. He refused to send for a doctor for four days before embarking on his return trip. Meanwhile, servants sent Varina a telegram, and she took a train to New Orleans, and then a steamboat upriver, finally reaching the vessel on which her husband was returning. Davis finally received medical care as two doctors came aboard further south and diagnosed acute bronchitis complicated by malaria.[267][268] Upon arriving in New Orleans three days later, Davis was taken to Garden District home of Charles Erasmus Fenner, a former Confederate officer who became an Associate Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court. Fenner was the son-in-law of Davis's old friend J. M. Payne. Davis's doctor Stanford E. Chaille pronounced him too ill to travel to Beauvoir; a Catholic nun, and four medical students who were sons of Confederate veterans, attended Davis in the Charity Hospital ambulance which took him to the Fenner home. Davis remained bedridden but stable for the next two weeks. He took a turn for the worse in early December. According to Fenner, just when Davis again appeared to be improving, he lost consciousness on the evening of December 5 and died at 12:45 a.m. on Friday, December 6, 1889, holding Varina's hand and in the presence of several friends.[269][270]

Jefferson Davis burial site at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia

Jefferson Davis's funeral was one of the largest in the South, and New Orleans draped itself in mourning as his body lay in state in the City Hall for several days. An Executive Committee decided to emphasize his ties to the United States, so an American national flag was placed over the Confederate flag during the viewing, with many crossed American and Confederate flags nearby. Davis wore a new suit of Confederate grey fabric Jubal Early had given him, and Varina placed a sword Davis had carried during the Black Hawk War on the bier. A common decoration during the initial funeral was a small American flag in mourning, with a portrait of Davis in the center. The Grand Army of the Republic had a prominent role, even though the Grand Marshall was John G. Glynn, head of the Louisiana National Guard, and Georgia Governor John Gordon (head of the newly organized United Confederate Veterans) was honorary Grand Marshall.[236] While the federal government officially ignored Davis's death, many church bells rang in the South, Confederate veterans held many processions, and Senators and congressmen crossed the Potomac River to join former Confederate officials and generals in eulogizing Davis in Alexandria, Virginia.[271]

Although initially laid to rest in New Orleans in the Army of Northern Virginia tomb at Metairie Cemetery, in 1893 Davis was reinterred in Richmond, Virginia, at Hollywood Cemetery, per his widow's request.[272] Before his death, Davis left the location of his burial up to Varina, but within a day of his death The New York Times proclaimed Richmond wanted his body.[273] Varina Davis had refused to accept direct charity, but let it be known that she would accept financial help through the Davis Land Company.[274] Soon, many tourists in New Orleans visited the mausoleum. Several other locations in the South wanted Davis's remains. Louisville, Kentucky offered a site in Cave Hill cemetery, noting that two years earlier Davis had dedicated a church built on the site of his birthplace and claiming that he several times said he wanted to be buried in his native state. Memphis, Tennessee, Montgomery, Alabama, Macon and Atlanta, Georgia, and both Jackson and Vicksburg, Mississippi, also petitioned for his remains.[275] Richmond mayor and Confederate veteran J. Taylor Ellyson established the Jefferson Davis Monument Association, and on July 12, 1891, Varina revealed in a letter to Confederate Veterans and people of the Southern States that her first choice would be Davis's plantation in Mississippi, but because she feared flooding she had decided to urge Richmond as the proper place for his tomb.[276]

After Davis's remains were exhumed in New Orleans, they lay in state for a day at Memorial Hall of the newly organized Louisiana Historical Association.[277] Those paying final respects included Louisiana Governor Murphy J. Foster, Sr. A continuous cortège, day and night, then accompanied Davis's remains from New Orleans to Richmond.[278] The Louisville and Nashville Railroad car traveled past Beauvoir, then proceeded northeastward toward Richmond, with ceremonies at stops in Mobile and Montgomery, Alabama, Atlanta, Georgia, then Charlotte and Greensboro, North Carolina. The train also detoured to Raleigh, North Carolina, for Davis's coffin to lie in state in that capital city, having been driven by James J. Jones, a free black man who had served Davis during the war and become a local businessman and politician. After a stop in Danville, Virginia, the Confederacy's last capital, and another ceremony at the Virginia State Capitol, Davis was then interred at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond. Per the association's agreement with Varina, their children's remains were exhumed from Washington, D.C., Memphis and another plot at the Hollywood cemetery, to rest in the new family plot.[279]

A life-sized statue of Davis was eventually erected as promised by the Jefferson Davis Monument Association, in cooperation with the Southern Press Davis Monument Association, the United Confederate Veterans and ultimately the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The monument's cornerstone was laid in an 1896 ceremony, and it was dedicated with great pomp and 125,000 spectators on June 3, 1907, the last day of a Confederate reunion.[280] It continues to mark his tomb.[281]

Legacy
Postwar portrait of Jefferson Davis by Daniel Huntington

Jefferson Davis served in many roles. As a soldier, he was brave and resourceful.[282] As a politician, he served as a United States senator and a Mississippi congressman and was active and accomplished, although he never completed a full term in any elected position. As a plantation owner, he employed slave labor as did most of his peers in the South, and supported slavery.[283] As president of the Confederate States of America, he is widely viewed as an ineffective wartime leader; although the task of defending the Confederacy against the much stronger Union would have been a great challenge for any leader, Davis's performance in this role is considered poor.[197] After the war, he contributed to reconciliation of the South with the North, but remained a symbol for Southern pride.[284] Davis's U.S. citizenship was posthumously restored with the passing of Senate Joint Resolution 16 on October 17, 1978. In signing the law, President Jimmy Carter referred to this as "the last act of reconciliation" in the Civil War.[285]

See also
  • List of memorials to Jefferson Davis
  • List of people from Kentucky
  • List of people pardoned or granted clemency by the president of the United States
  • List of slave owners
  • List of United States Military Academy alumni
  • List of United States senators from Mississippi

Writings by Jefferson Davis
  • Davis, Jefferson (1881). The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government.
  • Rowland, Dunbar, ed. (1923). Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers, and Speeches. Jackson: Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
  • Monroe, Haskell M. Jr.; McIntosh, James T.; Crist, Lynda L., eds. (1971–2012). The Papers of Jefferson Davis. Louisiana State University Press.

References

Notes
  1. Davis used the initial F., but there is no direct evidence what his middle name was. Some historians argue that the claim that it was "Finis" originated in Davis's biography by Hudson Strode, who provides no citation.[1] (Also see Rice University 2018.)
  2. William Davis and William Cooper both acknowledge that Davis's birth year is uncertain; he may have been born in 1807. Davis argues that 1807 is more likely correct based on Davis's own writings, his West Point muster rolls, and an 1850 biography by Collin S. Tarpley written in collaboration with Davis;[3] Cooper argues that 1808 is more likely correct because Davis stated in two letter written in 1858 and 1878 that this was the year his mother told him.[4]
  3. Clement Eaton, William Davis, and William Cooper agree that evidence about Evan Davis's origins is unclear (cf., Davis 1927, pp. 16–19, which is cited by Eaton.)

Citations
  1. Cooper 2000, p. 711 fn 1; Hattaway 1992, pp. 1178–1179; Williams, Cooper & Roland 2003, p. 429 fn 53.
  2. Cooper 2000, p. 662 fn1; Davis 1991, p. 6.
  3. Davis 1991, p. 709 fn 8.
  4. Cooper 2000, p. 662 fn1.
  5. Cooper 2000, p. 3.
  6. Davis 1991, p. 6.
  7. Cooper 2000, p. 9; Davis 1991, p. 4; Eaton 1977, p. 2.
  8. Davis 1991, pp. 4–5.
  9. Cooper 2000, p. 11.
  10. Cooper 2000, p. 11; Eaton 1977, pp. 2–3.
  11. Eaton 1977, p. 3.
  12. Rennick 1984, p. 97.
  13. Cooper 2000, p. 12–14.
  14. Eaton 1977, p. 4.
  15. Davis 1991, p. 7.
  16. Cooper 2000, p. 15.
  17. Cooper 2000, p. 17.
  18. Davis 1991, p. 15.
  19. Cooper 2000, pp. 23–24.
  20. Davis 1991, p. 23–24.
  21. Davis 1991, p. 8.
  22. Cooper 2000, p. 39; Fleming 1920.
  23. Cooper 2000, p. 33; Davis 1991, pp. 28–29.
  24. Woodworth 1990, p. 4.
  25. Crackel 2002, p. 88.
  26. Davis 1991, p. 57.
  27. Scanlan 1940, p. 175.
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  29. Woodworth 1990, p. 6.
  30. Scanlan 1940, p. 178–179.
  31. Black Hawk 1882, p. 112.
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