Full Name:
- Jefferson Finis Davis
Birth Date:
- June 3, 1808
Birth Location:
- Christian County, Kentucky ( now part of Todd County)
Parents:
- Samuel Emory and Jane (Cook) Davis
Education:
- Jefferson College (Mississippi)
- Transylvania University (Kentucky)
- United States Military Academy (1828)
Occupation:
- Military officer
- politician
Career Summary:
- U.S. Congressman, U.S. Senator
- U.S. Secretary of War
- President of the Confederate States of America
Spouse(s):
- Sarah Knox Taylor (1835)
- Varina Howell (1845)
Place of Death:
- New Orleans
Date of Death:
- December 6, 1889
Place of Burial:
- Metairie Cemetery, New Orleans, Louisiana
Significance:
- Jefferson Davis was born less than 100 miles from where Abraham Lincoln was born.
- Jefferson Davis was the tenth and last child of Samuel Emory Davis and Jane Cook.
- Jefferson Davis’s father was a Revolutionary War veteran.
- In 1811, Jefferson Davis’s family moved to St. Mary Parish, Louisiana.
- In 1812, Jefferson Davis’s family moved to a small plantation named Rosemont in Wilkinson County, Mississippi.
- Jefferson Davis attended private schools in Mississippi and, Kentucky.
- Between 1818 and 1821, Jefferson Davis attended Jefferson College in Mississippi and Transylvania University in Kentucky.
- Jefferson Davis entered the United States Military Academy in 1824, and graduated in 1828, 23rd in his class.
- After graduating from West Point, Jefferson Davis was brevetted as a second lieutenant assigned to the 1st Infantry Regiment at Fort Crawford, Wisconsin.
- On June 17, 1835, Jefferson Davis married Sarah Knox Taylor, the daughter of his commanding officer, and future President of the United States, Zachary Taylor.
- Jefferson Davis resigned his commission in the United States Army in 1835.
- Jefferson Davis’s wife, Sarah Knox Taylor, died from malaria on September 15, 1835, only a few months after their marriage.
- In 1836 Jefferson Davis moved to Brierfield Plantation in Warren County, Mississippi, where he grew cotton and studied history and politics.
- Jefferson Davis was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1844 and took office on March 4, 1845.
- Jefferson Davis married Varina Howell on February 26, 1845.
- When the Mexican-American War began, Davis resigned his seat in Congress on June 18, 1846, and raised the 1st Mississippi Regiment, also known as the Mississippi Rifles, becoming its commanding officer.
- Jefferson Davis served under his former father-in-law, Zachary Taylor, at the battles of Monterrey (1846) and Buena Vista (1847) during the Mexican-American War.
- On February 22, 1847, Jefferson Davis was wounded at the Battle of Buena Vista during the Mexican-American War.
- After the Mexican-American War, the governor of Mississippi selected Davis to fill a vacant seat in the U.S. Senate on December 5, 1847.
- In the U.S. Senate, Jefferson Davis was a leading supporter of slavery and states’ rights.
- Jefferson Davis was an unsuccessful candidate for the governor of Mississippi in 1851.
- S. President Franklin Pierce appointed Jefferson Davis as secretary of war on March 7, 1853.
- Jefferson Davis was re-elected to the U.S. Senate in 1856.
- On March 4, 1857, Jefferson Davis returned to the U.S. Senate.
- As a U.S. Senator, Jefferson Davis was generally opposed to secession.
- Jefferson Davis resigned his seat in the U.S. Senate in 1861, when Mississippi seceded from the Union.
- On February 9, 1861, delegates to a constitutional convention at Montgomery, Alabama elected Jefferson Davis as provisional president of the Confederate States of America.
- Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as provisional president of the Confederate States of America on February 18, 1861.
- In May 1861, Jefferson Davis moved the seat of the Confederate government to Richmond after Virginia seceded from the Union.
- On November 6, 1861, Jefferson Davis was elected to a six-year term as President of the Confederate States of America.
- On February 22, 1862, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as president of the Confederate States of America.
- Jefferson Davis evacuated Richmond on April 3, 1865.
- On May 5, 1865, in Washington, Georgia, Jefferson Davis met with his cabinet for the last time and dissolved the Confederate government.
- Union forces captured Jefferson Davis on May 10, 1865 near Irwinsville, Georgia.
- Jefferson Davis was imprisoned at Fort Monroe, Virginia from May 22, 1865 through May 13, 1867.
- Jefferson Davis was released on bail, part of which was posted by shipping magnate, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and abolitionist and New York newspaper publisher, Horace Greeley.
- After being released from prison, Jefferson Davis traveled to Canada, Cuba and Europe.
- In February 1869, Federal prosecutors dropped all charges against Jefferson Davis, but his citizenship was not restored.
- In 1869, Davis became president of the Carolina Life Insurance Company in Memphis, Tennessee.
- In 1877, novelist Sarah Anne Ellis Dorsey invited Jefferson Davis to live at her estate, Beauvoir, near Biloxi, Mississippi, while Davis wrote The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government.
- In 1879, Jefferson Davis inherited Beauvoir in the will of Sarah Anne Ellis Dorsey.
- From 1877 to 1881, Jefferson Davis authored The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, which was published in 1881.
- In 1889, Jefferson Davis completed writing A Short History of the Confederate States of America.
- Jefferson Davis died in New Orleans on December 6, 1889 from unknown causes.
- Jefferson Davis was buried in Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans on December 11, 1889.
- Jefferson Davis’s body was exhumed and reburied in Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery between May 27 and May 31, 1893.
- On October 17, 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed a Joint Resolution of Congress reinstating Jefferson Davis’s citizenship.