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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: DAH-DEM |
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DAVIS, JEFFERSON (18081889) , American soldier and states-man, president of the Confederate states in the American Civil War, was born on the 3rd of June 1808 at what is now the village of Fairview, in that part of Christian county, Kentucky, which was later organized as Todd county. His father, Samuel Davis (17561824), who served in the War of Independence, was of 'Welsh, and his mother, Jane Cook, of Scotch-Irish descent; during his infancy the family moved to Wilkinson county, Mississippi. Jefferson Davis was educated at Transylvania University (Lexington, Kentucky) and at the United States Military Academy at West Point. From the latter he graduated in July 1828, and became by brevet a second lieutenant of infantry. He was assigned for duty to Jefferson Barracks at St Louis, and on reaching this post was ordered to Fort Crawford, near Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. In 1833 he took part in the closing scenes of the Black Hawk War, was present at the capture of Black Hawk, and was sent to Dixon, Illinois, to muster into service some volunteers from that state. Their captain was Abraham Lincoln, and Lieutenant Davis is said to have administered to him his first oath of allegiance. In June 1835 he resigned from the army, married Miss Knox Taylor, daughter of Colonel (later General) Zachary Taylor, and became a cotton
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Upon his return to his home late in 1847 he was appointed to fill a vacancy in the United States Senate, and in 185o he was elected for a full term of six years. He resigned in 185 r, but was again elected in 1857, and continued as a member from that year until the secession of his State in 1861. As a senator he stood in the front rank in a body distinguished for ability; his purityof character and courteous manner, together with his intellectual gifts, won him the esteem of all parties; and he became more and more the leader of the Southern Democrats. He was, however, possessed of a logical rather than an intuitive mind. In his famous speech in the Senate on the 12th of July 1848, on the question of establishing a government for Oregon Territory, he held that a slave should be treated by the Federal government on the same basis as any other property, and therefore that it was the duty of Congress to protect the owner's right to his slave in whatever state or territory of the Union that slave might be. In the debates on the Compromise Measures of 185o he took an active part, strongly opposing these measures, while Henry Stuart Foote (1800r88o), the other Mississippi senator, was one of their leading advocates. But although still holding to the theory expounded in his July speech of 1848, he was now ready with the proposal that slavery might be prohibited north of latitude 36 30' N. provided it should not be interfered with in any territory south of that line. He resigned from the Senate in 1851 to become a candidate of the Democratic States-Rights party for the governorship of his state against Foote, the candidate of the Union Democrats. In the campaign he held, in opposition to the wishes of the more radical members of his party, that although secession might be resorted to as a last alternative the circumstances were not yet such as to justify it. A temporary loss of eyesight interfered with his canvass, and he was defeated by a small majority (1009), the campaign having been watched with the greatest interest
On the 25th of January 1861 Davis was commissioned major-general of the forces Mississippi was raising in view of the threatened conflict. On the 9th of February he received the unanimous vote of the Provisional Congress of the seceded states as president of the " Confederate States of America." He was inaugurated on the 18th of February, was subsequently, after the adoption of the permanent constitution, regularly elected by popular vote, for a term of six years, and on the 22nd of February 1862 was again inaugurated. He had not sought the office, preferring service in the field. His brilliant career, both as a civilian and as a soldier, drew all eyes to him as best fitted to guide the fortunes of the new Confederacy, and with a deep sense of the responsibility he obeyed the call. He heartily approved of the peace conference, which attempted to draw up a plan of reconciliation between the two sections, but whose failure made war inevitable. Montgomery, in Alabama, was the first Confederate capital , but after Virginia joined her sister states, the seat of government was removed to Richmond, on the 29th of May 1861. How Davisof whom W. E. Gladstone, in the early days of English sympathy with the South, said that he had " made a nation "bore himself in his most responsible position during the gigantic conflict which ensued, cannot here be related in detail. (See CONFEDERATE STATES; and AMERICAN CIVIL WAR.) In the shortest time he organized and put into the field one of the finest bodies of soldiers of which history has record. Factories sprang up in the South in a few months, supplying the army with arms and munitions of war, and the energy of the president was everywhere apparent. That he committed serious errors, his warmest admirers will hardly deny. Unfortunately his firmness developed into obstinacy, and exhibited itself in continued confidence in officers who had proved to be failures, and in dislike of some of his ablest generals. He committed the great mistake, too, of directing the movements of distant armies from the seat of government, though those armies were under able generals. This naturally caused great dissatisfaction, and more than once resulted in irreparable disaster. Moreover, he was not, like Lincoln, a great manager of men; he often acted without tact; he was charged with being domineering and autocratic, and at various times he was seriously hampered by the meddling of the Confederate Congress and the opposition of such men as the vice-president, A. H. Stephens, Governor Joseph E. Brown of Georgia, and Governor Zebulon Vance of North Carolina.During the winter of 18641865 the resources of the government showed such exhaustion that it was apparent that the end would come with the opening of the spring campaign. This was clearly stated in the reports of the heads of departments and of General Lee. President Davis, however, acted as if he was assured of ultimate success. He sent Duncan F. Kenner as special commissioner to the courts of England. and France to obtain recognition of the Confederacy on condition of the abolition of slavery. When a conference was held in Hampton Roads on the 3rd of February 1865 between President. Lincoln and Secretary Seward on the one side, and A. H. Stephens, R. M. T. Hunter, and Judge James A. Campbell, representing President Davis, on the other, he instructed his representatives to insist on the recognition of the Confederacy as a condition to any arrangement for the termination of the war. This defeated the object of the conference, and deprived the South of terms which would have been more beneficial than those imposed by the conqueror when the end came a few weeks later. The last days of the Confederate Congress were spent in recriminations between that body and President Davis, and the popularity with which he commenced his administration had almost entirely vanished. In January 1865 the Congress proposed to supersede the president and make General Lee dictator, a suggestion, however, to which the Confederate commander
After the surrender of the armies of Lee and Johnston in April 1865, President Davis attempted to make his way, through Georgia, across the Mississippi, in the vain hope of continuing the war with the forces of Generals Smith and Magruder. He was taken prisoner on the loth of May by Federal troops near Irwinville, Irwin county, Georgia, and was brought back to Old Point, Virginia, in order to be confined in prison at Fortress Monroe. In prison he was chained and treated with great severity. He was indicted for treason by a Virginia grand jury, persistent efforts were made to connect him with the assassination of President Lincoln, he was unjustly charged with having deliberately and wilfully caused the sufferings and deaths of Union prisoners at Andersonville and for two years he was denied trial or bail. Such treatment aroused the sympathy of the Southern people, who regarded him as a martyr
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AuTH0RITIES.Several biographies and memoirs of Davis have been published, of which the best are: Jefferson Davis, Ex-President of the Confederate States (2 vols., New York, 189o), by his widow; F. H. Alfriend's Life of Jefferson Davis (Cincinnati, 1868), which defended him from the charges of incompetence and despotism brought against him; E. A. Pollard's Life of Jefferson Davis, with a Secret History of the Southern Confederacy (Philadelphia, 1869), a somewhat partisan arraignment by a prominent Southern journalist; and W. E. Dodd's Jefferson Davis (Philadelphia, 1907), which embodies the results of recent historical research. The Prison Life of Jefferson Davis (New York, 1866) by John J. Craven (d. 1893), a Federal army surgeon who was Davis's physician at Fortress Monroe, was long popular; it gives a vivid and sympathetic picture of Mr Davis as a prisoner, but its authenticity and accuracy have been questioned. (W. W. H.*; N. D. M.) End of Article: DAVIS, JEFFERSON (18081889) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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