Jefferson Davis Was Born
Jefferson DAVIS, born 203 years ago today in Kentucky, was the President of the Confederacy, the group of southern states that broke off from the US during the Civil War. Although the Civil War has become historically significant as the battle to end the practice of slavery in the South, this is not the whole story.
There were many reasons the South wanted to leave the Union, and the war was fought to stop them from doing so. Jefferson Davis was a passionate supporter of the southern cause who believed that, under the Constitution, the states had the right to leave the union should that be their desire. However, although he ultimately ordered the Confederate army to fire the first shots at Fort Sumter which officially began the Civil War, Jefferson had tried to find a peaceful path to independence.
Jefferson attended the US Military Academy at West Point. He became a successful plantation owner in Mississippi and married the daughter of Zachary Taylor, his military commander and a future US President.
However, his young wife died shortly after their marriage, and Davis spent years in seclusion and mourning, building his plantation and reading books that would prepare him for public service. He entered politics, serving in the House of Representatives. He resigned from the House to return to the military, serving as a colonel in the Mexican American War. He returned as a severely wounded war hero, was elected to the Senate, and served President Franklin Pierce as Secretary of Defense.
As tensions between the north and south grew, Jefferson Davis used his position as a statesman, politician and war hero to call for peace. When South Carolina seceded from the Union, Davis opposed the move, but he also strongly opposed President Abraham Lincolns policies regarding the South, and believed Lincoln was going to illegally force the South to comply.
When Mississippi seceded from the Union, Davis resigned from the Senate, pleading for peace in his farewell speech. Davis was appointed to command Mississippis militia, but soon after was elected president of the Confederate States of America.
His first official action as President was to dispatch representatives to meet with President Lincoln, but he would not see them. Instead, Lincoln sent reinforcements to an under-supplied military post, Fort Sumter, in South Carolina. Lincoln then called up 75,000 volunteer troops. Davis felt he had no choice but to order the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter. The Civil War had begun.
Jefferson Davis leadership of the South is considered remarkable, given what he managed to accomplish despite extreme disadvantages. Davis was essentially the President of a brand new nation, one without an army or a government, now engaged in a war. The North had more troops, more guns, a military and a government. The South lacked the transportation and manufacturing capabilities of the North.
Davis appointed General Robert E. Lee to command the Army of Northern Virginia. The South fought for four years. During the war, Davis government was besieged with political strife and internal conflict, but he hung on.
On April 9, 1865, Gen. Lee, surrendered to the North without Davis approval. Davis was captured, indicted for treason and imprisoned for two years, but was never put on trial and eventually freed, the case against him dropped.
Davis spent the rest of his life as a businessman and traveling to restore his health. He declined repeated appeals for him to once again run for the Senate, refusing to apologize for his defense of the states rights, for which he believed the war was fought.
He died in New Orleans in 1889, and was given one of the grandest funerals ever held in the South.
