Davis, Jefferson

Davis, Jefferson (1808–1889), soldier, senator, U.S. secretary of war, and the only president of the Confederate States of America.Jefferson Davis was born in Kentucky on 3 June 1808, and the family moved to Mississippi when he was an infant. In 1828, he graduated from West Point with a modest record and an infantry commission. He served in a variety of posts in Missouri, Oklahoma, and the Old Northwest, resigning in 1835 as a first lieutenant of dragoons.

Receiving a Mississippi cotton plantation from an older brother, Davis married the daughter of Gen. Zachary Taylor, but she died three months later. In 1845, he married Varina Howell and began a political career with election to the House of Representatives.

During the Mexican War, Davis commanded a Mississippi regiment with distinction at the Battle of Monterrey (1846) and the Battle of Buena Vista (1847), where he was wounded. Returning a hero, he was appointed U.S. senator in 1847, resigning to run unsuccessfully for governor in 1851. Under fellow Democrat Franklin Pierce, he served effectively as secretary of war, 1853–57, adopting improved rifled muskets; increasing pay; and obtaining four new regiments from Congress, which doubled the size of the regular army to protect western expansion.

A staunch states' rights Democrat as well as the owner of many slaves, Davis justified black slavery and championed Southern economic and territorial expansion to counter growing Northern influence. Returning to the Senate in 1857, Davis became a leader of the Southern bloc as well as head of the Military Affairs Committee. In the crisis following Lincoln's election, Davis was not a secession leader, but he resigned the Senate when Mississippi seceded in January 1861, and was immediately given command of his state's militia as a major general.

Chosen as president by the Confederate provisional government established at Montgomery, Alabama, Davis was inaugurated in February 1861. Subsequently, he was elected to a six‐year term as president of the Confederate States of America and inaugurated at Richmond, Virginia, in February 1862.

As president of the Confederacy and commander in chief of its armed forces, Davis led the South's military effort in the Civil War and also tried to deal with wartime economic and political matters. Despite his dedication to the task, Davis did not prove as politically able or publicly inspiring a war leader as U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. Both presidents realized increased centralization was necessary for the war effort, but the South was much more resistant to such reduction of states' rights. As the war dragged on with diminishing hope and increasing deprivation, domestic political opposition mounted against Davis, who seemed politically and temperamentally hard put to deal with the rising dissent in the Confederate Congress and the Southern statehouses.

As a commander in chief who was also a West Pointer, war hero, and former secretary of war, Davis had considerable confidence in his own military judgment. He was closely involved with the army, particularly its organization and strategy, and became engaged in arguments with many of his generals. In his assignments, Davis made some excellent choices, such as Robert E. Lee, and some poor ones, such as Braxton Bragg. For a long time, Davis failed to have a general in chief at Richmond to administer the army, and the burdens of personally performing that task contributed to his debilitation.

Strategically, Davis believed that the Southern forces must protect all of the Confederacy, east and west, and preserve territory rather than overthrow enemy armies. He sought to divide the South's outnumbered military resources to block logical avenues of approach, and to concentrate two or more large commands—particularly via railroads—to confront any major Union advance. It was a strategy that was ultimately overwhelmed by simultaneous advances from numerous numerically superior Union armies. Despite the claims of his contemporary critics, most experts consider Davis to have been a sound strategist and a competent commander in chief under extremely adverse circumstances.

With the Confederacy collapsing, Generals Lee and Joseph E. Johnston surrendered their armies in April 1865 against the wishes of Davis, who wanted to continue the war. Fleeing south, the Confederate president was captured at Irwinville, Georgia, in May, and imprisoned in Fortress Monroe on charges of treason. He was released on bail in May 1867 after his physical and emotional health had deteriorated. Davis refused to take the oath of allegiance, and in 1881 published a history of the Confederacy. He died in 1889.
[See also Civil War, Military and Diplomatic Course; Confederacy, the Military in the; Confederate Army.]

Bibliography

Lynda L. Crist, et al., eds., The Papers of Jefferson Davis, 9 vols., 1971–.
Clement Eaton , Jefferson Davis, 1977.
Paul D. Escott , After Secession: Jefferson Davis and the Failure of Confederate Nationalism, 1978.
William C. Davis , Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour, 1991.

William J. Cooper