Jefferson Davis |
---|
Photograph by Mathew Brady, c. 1859 |
|
|
In office February 22, 1862 – May 5, 1865 Provisional: February 18, 1861 – February 22, 1862 |
Vice President | Alexander H. Stephens |
---|
Preceded by | Office established |
---|
Succeeded by | Office abolished |
---|
|
In office March 4, 1857 – January 21, 1861 |
Preceded by | Stephen Adams |
---|
Succeeded by | Adelbert Ames (1870) |
---|
In office August 10, 1847 – September 23, 1851 |
Preceded by | Jesse Speight |
---|
Succeeded by | John J. McRae |
---|
|
In office March 7, 1853 – March 4, 1857 |
President | Franklin Pierce |
---|
Preceded by | Charles Conrad |
---|
Succeeded by | John B. Floyd |
---|
|
In office December 8, 1845 – October 28, 1846 Seat D |
Preceded by | Tilghman Tucker |
---|
Succeeded by | Henry T. Ellett |
---|
|
Born | Jefferson F. Davis June 3, 1808 Fairview, Kentucky, U.S. |
---|
Died | December 6, 1889 (aged 81) New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S. |
---|
Resting place | Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia, U.S. |
---|
Political party | Democratic |
---|
Other political affiliations | Southern Rights |
---|
Spouses | Sarah Knox Taylor (m. 1835; died 1835)Varina Howell (m. 1845)
|
---|
Children | 6, including Varina |
---|
Education | United States Military Academy (BS) |
---|
Signature | |
---|
|
Allegiance | United States |
---|
Branch/service | - United States Army
- United States Volunteers
|
---|
Years of service | |
---|
Rank | |
---|
Unit | 1st U.S. Dragoons |
---|
Commands | 1st Mississippi Rifles |
---|
Battles/wars | - American Indian Wars
- Mexican-American War
- Battle of Monterrey
- Battle of Buena Vista (WIA)
|
---|
|
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 Pierce'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 19th and the 20th 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.[a] 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.[b] 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,[c] 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, acquired twelve 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. Joseph, who was 23 years older than Davis, informally became his surrogate father.
West Point and early military career
His older brother Joseph got Davis 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, who later became president of the United States.
Throughout his life, Davis regularly suffered from ill health. During the northern winters, he had pneumonia, colds, and bronchitis. He went to Mississippi on furlough in March 1832, missing the outbreak of the Black Hawk War, and 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, and immediately after it ended, he tendered his resignation, which was effective on June 30.
Planting career and first marriage
Davis decided to become a cotton planter. He returned to Mississippi where his brother Joseph had developed Davis Bend into Hurricane Plantation, which eventually had 1,700 acres (690 ha) of cultivated fields with over 300 slaves. Joseph loaned him funds to buy ten slaves and provided him with 800 acres (320 ha), though Joseph retained the title to the property. Davis named his section Brierfield Plantation.
Davis continued his correspondence with Sarah, and they agreed to marry with Taylor giving his reluctant assent. They married at Beechland on June 17, 1835. In August, he and Sarah traveled to Locust Grove Plantation, his sister Anna Smith's home in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana. Within days, both became severely ill with malaria. Sarah died at the age of 21 on September 15, 1835, after only three months of marriage.
For several years after Sarah's death, Davis spent much of his time developing Brierfield. In 1836, he possessed 23 slaves; by 1840, he possessed 40; and by 1860, 113. He made his first slave, James Pemberton, Brierfield's effective overseer, a position he held until his death around 1850. Davis continued his intellectual development by reading about politics, law and economics at the large library Joseph maintained at Hurricane Plantation. As he and Joseph became concerned about national attempts to limit slavery in new territories, Davis became increasingly engaged in politics, benefiting from his brother's mentorship and political influence.
Early political career and second marriage
Davis became publicly 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. One week before the state election in November 1843, He was chosen to be the Democratic candidate for the Mississippi House of Representatives for Warren County when the original candidate withdrew his nomination, though Davis lost the election.
In early 1844, Davis was chosen to serve as a delegate to the state convention again. On his way to Jackson, he met Varina Banks Howell, then 18 years old, when he delivered an invitation from Joseph for her to visit the Hurricane Plantation for the Christmas season. At the convention, Davis was selected as one of Mississippi's six presidential electors for the 1844 presidential election.
Within a month of their meeting, 35-year-old Davis and Varina became engaged despite her parents' initial concerns about his age and politics. During the remainder of the year, Davis campaigned for the Democratic party, advocating for the nomination of John C. Calhoun. He preferred Calhoun because he championed Southern interests including the annexation of Texas, reduction of tariffs, and building naval defenses in southern ports. When the party chose James K. Polk for their presidential candidate, Davis campaigned for him.
Davis and Varina married on February 26, 1845. They had six children: Samuel Emory, born in 1852, who died of an undiagnosed disease two years later; Margaret Howell, born in 1855, who married, raised a family and lived to be 54; Jefferson Davis Jr., born in 1857, who died of yellow fever at age 21; Joseph Evan, born 1859, who died from an accidental fall at age five; William Howell, born 1864, who died of diphtheria at age 10; and Varina Anne, born 1872, who remained single and lived to be 34.
In July 1845, Davis became a candidate for the United States House of Representatives. He ran on a platform emphasizing a strict constructionist view of the constitution, states' rights, tariff reductions, and opposition to a national bank. He won the election and entered the 29th Congress. Davis opposed using federal monies for internal improvements, which he believed would undermine the autonomy of the states. He supported the American annexation of Oregon, but through peaceful compromise with Britain. On May 11, 1846, he voted for war with Mexico.
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. Davis expressed his interest in joining the regiment if he was elected its colonel, and in the second round of elections in June 1846 he was chosen. He did not give up his position as a U.S. Representative, but left a letter of resignation with his brother Joseph to submit when he thought it was appropriate.
Davis was able to get his regiment armed with new percussion rifles instead of the smoothbore muskets used by other units. President Polk approved their purchase as a political favor in return for Davis marshalling enough votes to pass the Walker Tariff. Because of its association with the regiment, the weapon became known as the "Mississippi rifle", and the regiment became known as the "Mississippi Rifles".
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. He then went on a two-month leave and returned to Mississippi, where he learned that Joseph had submitted Davis's resignation from the House of Representatives in October. Davis returned to Mexico and fought in the Battle of Buena Vista on February 22, 1847. He was wounded in the heel during the fighting, but his actions stopped an attack by the Mexican forces that threatened to collapse the American line. In May, Polk offered him 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. Instead, he accepted an appointment by Mississippi governor Albert G. Brown to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate left when Jesse Speight died.
Senator and Secretary of War
Senator
Davis took his seat in December 1847 and was made a regent of the Smithsonian Institution. The Mississippi legislature confirmed his appointment as senator in January 1848. He quickly established himself as an advocate of expanding slavery into the Western territories. He argued that because the territories were the common property of all the United States and lacked state sovereignty to ban slavery, slave owners had the equal right to settle them as any other citizens. Davis tried to amend the Oregon Bill to allow settlers to bring their slaves into Oregon Territory. He opposed ratifying the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican–American War, claiming that Nicholas Trist, who negotiated the treaty, had done so as a private citizen and not a government representative. Instead, he advocated negotiating a new treaty ceding additional land to the United States, and opposed the application of the Wilmot Proviso to the treaty, which would have banned slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico.
During the 1848 presidential election, Davis chose not to campaign against Zachary Taylor, who was the Whig candidate. After the Senate session following Taylor's inauguration ended in March 1849, Davis returned to Brierfield. He was reelected by the state legislature for another six-year term in the Senate. Around this time, he was approached by the Venezuelan adventurer Narciso López to lead a filibuster expedition to liberate Cuba from Spain. He turned down the offer, saying it was inconsistent with his duty as a senator.
When Calhoun died in the spring of 1850, Davis became the senatorial spokesperson for the South. The Congress debated Henry Clay's resolutions, which sought to address the sectional and territorial problems of the nation and became the basis for the Compromise of 1850. Davis was against the resolutions because he felt they would put the South at a political disadvantage. He opposed the admission of California as a free state without its first becoming a territory, asserting that a territorial government would give slaveowners the opportunity to colonize the region. He also tried to extend the Missouri Compromise Line to allow slavery to expand to the Pacific Ocean. He stated that not allowing slavery into the new territories denied the political equality of Southerners, and threatened to undermine the balance of power between Northern and Southern states in the Senate.
In the autumn of 1851, Davis was nominated to run for governor of Mississippi against Henry Stuart Foote, who had favored the Compromise of 1850. He accepted the nomination and resigned from the Senate, but Foote won the election by a slim margin. Davis turned down a reappointment to his Senate seat by outgoing Governor James Whitfield, settling in Brierfield for the next fifteen months. 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.
Secretary of War
In March 1853, President Franklin Pierce named Davis his Secretary of War. He championed a transcontinental railroad to the Pacific, arguing it was needed for national defense, and was entrusted with overseeing the Pacific Railroad Surveys to determine which of four possible routes was the best. 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. He presented the surveys' findings in 1855, but they failed to clarify the best route and sectional problems prevented any choice being made. Davis also argued for the acquisition of Cuba from Spain, seeing it as an opportunity to add the island, a strategic military location and potential slave state. He suggested that the size of the regular army was too small and that its salaries were too meagre. Congress agreed and authorized four new regiments and increased its pay scale. He ended the manufacture of smoothbore muskets and shifted production to rifles, working to develop the tactics that accompany them. He oversaw the building of public works in Washington D.C., including the initial construction of the Washington Aqueduct.
Davis assisted in the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 by allowing President Pierce to endorse it before it came up for a vote. This bill, which created Kansas and Nebraska territories, 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. The passage of this bill led to the demise of the Whig party, which had tried to limit expansion of slavery in the territories. It also contributed to the rise of the Republican Party and the increase of civil violence in Kansas.
The Democratic nomination for the 1856 presidential election went to James Buchanan. Knowing his term was over when the Pierce administration ended in 1857, Davis ran for the Senate once more and re-entered it on March 4, 1857. 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.
Return to Senate
The Senate recessed in March and did not reconvene until November 1857. The session opened with a debate on the Lecompton Constitution submitted by a convention in Kansas Territory. If approved, it would have allowed Kansas to be admitted as a slave state. Davis supported it, but it was not accepted, in part because the leading Democrat in the North, Stephen Douglas, argued it did not represent the true will of the settlers in the territory. The controversy undermined the alliance between Northern and Southern Democrats.
Davis's participation in the Senate was interrupted in early 1858 by a recurring case of iritis, which threatened the loss of his left eye. It left him bedridden for seven weeks. He spent the summer of 1858 in Portland, Maine recovering, and 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. His speeches angered some states' rights supporters in the South, requiring him to clarify his comments when he returned to Mississippi. Davis said that he appreciated the benefits of Union, but acknowledged that it could be dissolved if states' rights were violated or one section of the country imposed its will on another. Speaking to the Mississippi Legislature on November 16, 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 to reduce you to worse than the colonial dependence of your fathers."
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. These resolutions were seen as setting the agenda for the Democratic Party nomination, ensuring that Douglas's idea of popular sovereignty, known as the Freeport Doctrine, would be excluded from the party platform. The Democratic party split—Douglas was nominated by the North and Vice President John C. Breckinridge was nominated by the South—and the Republican Party nominee Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election. Davis counselled moderation after the election, but South Carolina adopted an ordinance of secession on December 20, 1860. Mississippi seceded on January 9, 1861, though Davis stayed in Washington until he received official notification on January 21. Calling it "the saddest day of my life", he delivered a farewell address, resigned from the Senate, and returned to Mississippi.
President of the Confederate States
Inauguration
Before his resignation, Davis had sent a telegraph to Mississippi Governor John J. Pettus informing him that he was available to serve the state. On January 27, 1861, Pettus appointed him a major general of Mississippi's army. On February 9, Davis was unanimously elected to the provisional presidency of the Confederacy by a constitutional convention in Montgomery, Alabama including delegates from the six states that had seceded: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Alabama. He was chosen because of his political prominence, his military reputation, and his moderate approach to secession, which Confederate leaders thought might persuade undecided Southerners to support their cause. He learned about his election the next day. Davis had been hoping for a military command, but he committed himself fully to his new role. Davis were inaugurated on February 18.
Davis formed his cabinet by choosing a member from each of the states of the Confederacy, including Texas which had recently seceded: Robert Toombs of Georgia for Secretary of State, Christopher Memminger of South Carolina for Secretary of the Treasury, LeRoy Walker of Alabama for Secretary of War, John Reagan of Texas for Postmaster General, Judah P. Benjamin of Louisiana for Attorney General, and Stephen Mallory of Florida for Secretary of the Navy. Davis stood in for Mississippi. During his presidency, Davis's cabinet often changed; there were fourteen different appointees for the positions, including six secretaries of war. On November 6, 1861, Davis was elected president for a six-year term. He took office on February 22, 1862.
Civil War
Further information: American Civil War
As the Southern states seceded, state authorities took over most federal facilities without bloodshed. But four forts, including Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, had not surrendered. Davis preferred to avoid a crisis because the Confederacy needed time to organize its resources. To ensure that no attack on Fort Sumter was launched without his command, Davis had appointed Brigadier General P. G. T. Beauregard to command all Confederate troops in the vicinity of Charleston, South Carolina. Davis sent a commission to Washington to negotiate the evacuation of the forts, but President of the United States Lincoln refused to meet with it.
When Lincoln informed Davis that he intended to reprovision Fort Sumter, Davis convened with the Confederate Congress on April 8 and gave orders 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 attack on Fort Sumter early on April 12. After over thirty hours of bombardment, the fort surrendered. When Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to suppress the rebellion, four more states–Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas—joined the Confederacy. The American Civil War had begun.
1861
In addition to being the constitutional commander-in-chief of the Confederacy, Davis was operational military leader as the military departments reported directly to him. Many people, including Generals Joseph E. Johnston and Major General Leonidas Polk, thought he would direct the fighting, but he left that to his generals.
Major fighting in the East began when a Union army advanced into northern Virginia in July 1861. It was defeated at Manassas by two Confederate forces commanded by Beauregard and Joseph Johnston. After the battle, Davis had to manage disputes with the two generals, both of whom felt they did not get the recognition they deserved.
In the West, Davis had to address a problem caused by another general. Kentucky, which was leaning toward the Confederacy, had declared its neutrality. In September 1861, Polk violated the state's neutrality by occupying Columbus, Kentucky. Secretary of War Walker ordered him to withdraw. Davis initially agreed with Walker, but changed his mind and allowed Polk to remain. The violation led Kentucky to request aid from the Union, effectively losing the state for the Confederacy. Walker resigned as secretary of war and was replaced by Judah P. Benjamin. Davis appointed General Albert Sidney Johnston, as commander of the Western Military Department that included much of Tennessee, Kentucky, western Mississippi, and Arkansas.
1862
In February 1862, the Confederate defenses in the West collapsed when Union forces captured Forts Henry, Donelson, and nearly half the troops in A. S. Johnston's department. Within weeks, Kentucky, Nashville and Memphis were lost, as well as control of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. The commanders responsible for the defeat were Brigadier Generals Gideon Pillow and John B. Floyd, political generals that Davis had been required to appoint. Davis gathered troops defending the Gulf Coast and concentrated them with A. S. Johnston's remaining forces. Davis favored using this concentration in an offensive. Johnston attacked the Union forces at Shiloh in southwestern Tennessee on April 6. The attack failed, and Johnston was killed. General Beauregard took command, falling back to Corinth, Mississippi, and then to Tupelo, Mississippi. When Beauregard then put himself on leave, Davis replaced him with General Braxton Bragg.