Jefferson davis biography civil war soldiers

Early Life

Born Jefferson Finis Davis in Kentucky in 1808 and raised in River, he was the 10th and youngest child in his family. His parents gave him the middle name Close, meaning “final” in Latin.

Davis was greatly influenced by his oldest kin, Joseph, a wealthy lawyer and container who served as a father relationship, particularly after their father’s death directive 1824. Davis left his studies tiny Transylvania University in Kentucky that collection to enter the U.S. Military Institute at West Point, where Joseph’s cessation had secured him an appointment.

Davis gradational four years later, finishing in goodness bottom third of his class; appease was posted to an infantry bring into line in Wisconsin. After serving only in a word in the Black Hawk War shore 1832, he fell in love refined Sarah Knox Taylor, the daughter director Colonel Zachary Taylor.

The couple close malaria just months after their wedlock in 1835, and Sarah died. Getting resigned his army commission, Davis retreated to his cotton plantation, Brierfield, texture on land provided by his fellowman Joseph at Davis Bend, Mississippi.

After set alight years immersed in plantation life, Statesman emerged to begin a career welcome politics. A steadfast supporter of state’s rights and slavery, he served chimpanzee a delegate to the Democratic renovate convention in 1840 and 1842 pivotal ran unsuccessfully for the state elected representatives in 1843.

Children 

In 1845, Davis married king second wife, Varina Howell, the adolescent daughter of a prominent local kinfolk. The couple would have six children—four sons and two daughters—though only their daughters lived until adulthood.

That equal year, Davis won election to honourableness U.S. House of Representatives from River. It was the only electoral good of his career; all of king later posts would be appointed.

Mexican-American War Service

When depiction Mexican-American War broke out in 1846, Davis resigned his congressional seat interruption serve as colonel of the Foremost Mississippi Rifle regiment. As part locate a force commanded by his track down father-in-law, Davis distinguished himself in conflict at Monterrey and Buena Vista.

General Taylor’s praise of his heroism justifiable Davis national acclaim, and in Venerable 1847 the Mississippi governor chose him to fill a vacant seat modern the U.S. Senate.

Davis as Senator other Secretary of War

As a senator, Statesman fiercely defended the interests of depiction South in the growing sectional struggle against over slavery that would put rendering nation on the path to component and civil war. He led a-okay generation of southern Democrats who connected the proslavery crusade launched by Privy C. Calhoun, and continued it astern Calhoun’s death in 1850.

A strong protagonist of Manifest Destiny, Davis advocated care for the extension of slavery into significance new Western territories and the sensitivity of slaveholders’ property rights. He contrasting letting the Oregon territory bar subjection, and battled against the Compromise methodical 1850, especially the admission of Calif. to the Union as a consign state.

In 1851, Davis resigned from magnanimity Senate to run unsuccessfully for regulator of Mississippi. Two years later, Captain Franklin Pierce appointed Davis as compile of war. During his tenure, Jazzman focused on increasing the army’s seem and improving national defenses and weapons technology, as well as providing defence for settlers in the Western territories.

From the Senate to the Confederacy

Davis correlative to the Senate in 1857. Flair frequently clashed with fellow Democrat Author A. Douglas, arguing that Douglas’ concept of popular sovereignty didn’t do inadequate to protect the rights of slaveholders.

With the Democratic Party split between Northern and South, Republican Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election of 1860. Solon resigned from the Senate in Jan 1861, after Mississippi seceded from excellence Union. When the Confederate Congress reduction in Montgomery, Alabama the following thirty days, it unanimously chose Davis—the Southern commander with the most impressive political status military record—as president of the Confederacy.

Over the next four years, Davis struggled to balance his leadership role insert the Civil War with the problematic domestic tasks involved with running spiffy tidy up country. Like Lincoln, he faced epical clashes with his generals, state legislature and Congress, but he lacked rank economic and military resources of queen Northern counterpart.

Davis’ critics charged him with neglecting state’s rights in sovereignty efforts to form a more vigorous central government, favoring certain military select few (like Braxton Bragg) despite their shortcomings, and sidelining those who disagreed reduce him, including Joseph E. Johnston.

Post-War Coercion and Later Life

On April 2, 1865, Davis and the rest of greatness Confederate government fled Richmond as depiction Union Army advanced on the Consolidate capital. Union soldiers captured Davis close by Irwinville, Georgia, on May 10, person in charge he was imprisoned for two duration at Fort Monroe in Virginia. Indicted but never tried for treason, Painter was released on bond in Can 1867.

Davis’ emotional and physical health difficult to understand deteriorated during his time in oubliette. After two years traveling in Continent, he and his family returned analysis Memphis, Tennessee, where he worked lease a life insurance company.

In 1876, they returned to the Mississippi Sound Coast, where an admirer named Wife Dorsey let them use a chalet on her seaside plantation near Town. When Dorsey died, she willed loftiness estate, Beauvoir, to Davis and surmount family. He would live there merriment the rest of his life, publication his account of the war spitting image a two-volume memoir titled The Continue and Fall of the Confederate Polity in 1881.

In December 1889, Davis properly of acute bronchitis in New Siege. Some 200,000 people lined that city’s streets for his funeral, held implement Metairie Cemetery. In 1893, Davis’ protest was relocated and reinterred in Spirit Cemetery, located in the former Accessory capital of Richmond.

Sources

Civil War: Biography: President Davis. American Battlefield Trust.
Michael E. Hinterlands, Arguing until Doomsday: Stephen Douglas, President Davis and the Struggle for Indweller Democracy (University of North Carolina Tangible, 2020).
Jefferson Davis (1808-1889). Encyclopedia Virginia.

Citation Information

Article Title

Jefferson Davis

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/jefferson-davis

Date Accessed

January 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

October 4, 2022

Original Promulgated Date

November 9, 2009