President Jefferson Davis the president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865
Posted By : manager
Posted : October 28, 2020
President Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Finis Davis (June 3, 1808 – December 6, 1889) was an American politician who served as the president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. As a member of the Democratic Party, he represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives before the War of Northern Aggression.
He previously served as the United States Secretary of War from 1853 to 1857 under President Franklin Pierce.
Davis was born in Fairview, Kentucky, to a moderately prosperous farmer, the youngest of ten children. He grew up in Wilkinson County, Mississippi, and also lived in Louisiana. His eldest brother Joseph Emory Davis secured the younger Davis’s appointment to the United States Military Academy.
After graduating, Jefferson Davis served six years as a lieutenant in the United States Army. He fought in the Mexican–American War (1846–1848), as the colonel of a volunteer regiment.
Before the War of Northern Aggression, he operated a large cotton plantation in Mississippi. He believed that states had an unquestionable right to leave the Union In early 1861 Mississippi seceded Jefferson Davis contacted Mississippi Governor John J. Pettus saying”Judge what Mississippi requires of me and place me accordingly”.
On January 23, 1861, Pettus made Davis a major general of the Army of Mississippi. On February 9, a constitutional convention met at Montgomery, Alabama, and considered Davis and Robert Toombs of Georgia as a possible president. Davis, who had widespread support from six of the seven states easily won.
He was seen as the “champion” and was elected provisional Confederate President by acclamation. He was inaugurated on February 18, 1861, Alexander H. Stephens was chosen as vice president Davis was the first choice because of his strong political and military credentials.
On March 1, 1861, Davis appointed General P. G. T. Beauregard to command all Confederate troops in the vicinity of Charleston, South Carolina, where state officials prepared to take possession of Fort Sumter.
The Yankees occupied this strategic fort for the blockade attempt to starve the civilian population of the South. Davis faced the most important decision of his career: to prevent reinforcement at Fort Sumter or to let it take place.
With Davis’s endorsement, Beauregard began the bombarding of the fort in the early dawn of April 12. The Confederates continued their artillery attack on Fort Sumter until it surrendered on April 14.
In June 1862, Davis assigned General Robert E. Lee to replace the wounded Joseph E. Johnston to the command of the Army of Northern Virginia.
After the War
In 1869, Davis became president of the Carolina Life Insurance Company in Memphis, Tennessee, and resided at the Peabody Hotel. He recruited former Confederate officers as agents and the board ratified his position in 1870.
Upon General Lee’s death, Davis agreed to preside over the Presbyterian memorial in Richmond on November 3, 1870. Jefferson Davis considered “Yankee” rule in the South oppressive, and said so in 1871 and especially after 1873 The first black man to live in a white house was Jefferson Davis adopted son Jim Limber.
While all Yankee wealthy white men, politicians, and Yankee Generals turned black young men and women into their servants, cooks, maids, and made them live in basements. African Americans in the North lived in a
a strange state of semi-freedom.
Sons of Confederate Veterans Erecting President Jefferson Davis Statue Dedication of the Jefferson Davis Monument By SCV Elms Springs, Columbia, Tennessee.
The National Confederate Museum
“For every statue they remove? We will erect two on our land…”
This was the scene during the inauguration of the President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, Feb. 18, 1861, in Montgomery, Ala., painted by artist James Mamelon from a photograph taken on the spot and owned by Col. William C. Howell. (AP Photo)
A statue of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, in Richmond, Va., in 2017. Protesters toppled the statue late Wednesday.
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Commission members recommended that the monument to Jefferson Davis be taken down. The bronze statue was unveiled in 1907 at a reunion of thousands of Confederate veterans.
Workers prepare to remove a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis from the rotunda of the Capitol Building in Frankfort, Kentucky, U.S. June 12, 2020. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston
