Jefferson Davis was an American politician, advocate for states' rights and slavery before the Civil War, and sole President of the Confederate States of America from 1861 to 1865. Great figures in history are often pitted against an antagonist – sometimes as famous as they are, and sometimes doomed to relative obscurity. That of Abraham Lincoln was the southerner Jefferson Davis . When they were born, the two future major leaders of the Civil War could have had similar destinies. And yet, their lives would be diametrically opposed.
The Turbulent Youth of Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Finis Davis was born on June 3, 1808 in Christian County, Kentucky – less than a year before Lincoln, about 100 miles as the crow flies and in the same state. But unlike his future opponent, Davis came from a relatively wealthy family, cotton planters and slave owners. The Davis quickly left Kentucky to settle in Louisiana, then in Mississippi , where the outlook for plantations is promising. Where Lincoln will be largely self-educated, the young Jefferson Davis will be sent at an early age to various boarding schools, notably in his native state, where he will receive a varied education. Eventually, Davis secured a place at the prestigious National Officers School at West Point. He is not particularly well noted there, and even finds himself briefly arrested for his participation in the Christmas 1826 "Eggnog Riot" - the illicit introduction of a barrel of whiskey into the academy having transformed the vigil into a tumultuous and alcoholic altercation.
Davis finally comes out, ranked 23 th out of 33 graduates, in 1828, then became second lieutenant in the 1 st infantry regiment. Like Lincoln, who will serve a few weeks in the local militia, he takes part without fighting in the war against Black Hawk in 1832, in Illinois, serving as guardian to the Indian chief after his surrender. It was during this period that he began courting Sarah Knox Taylor, the daughter of the colonel of his regiment, Zachary Taylor . The latter has little esteem for this junior officer who left poorly ranked West Point, and wishes above all to spare his daughter the bleak existence of the garrisons of a "Frontier" still half wild. Davis eventually resigned in 1835. A few weeks later, Sarah Taylor married him, against her father's advice.
The newlyweds settled on a vast estate of more than 700 hectares that Joseph Davis, brother of Jefferson , detached from his plantation to offer him. The site, named Brierfield, is located on the banks of the Mississippi, southwest of Vicksburg. Swamps and stagnant water abound here and, with them, mosquitoes. Both spouses soon contract malaria. Jefferson will recover, but not Sarah, who will die less than three months after their marriage. The young widower will take refuge in work and reading, transforming Brierfield into a flourishing plantation and acquiring in a few years several dozen slaves – a considerable heritage.
It was also during his years of mourning that Davis developed his interest in politics . He moved closer to the Democratic Party from 1840. His erudition and his enlightened opinions ensured him a rapid rise and in 1844, he was elected representative of Mississippi in Congress. His role in the presidential campaign also earned him the esteem of the new president, James Polk, whose ideas Davis shares in many points.
Before taking office in Washington, Davis remarried in 1845 to a young woman eighteen years his junior, Varina Howell. The elected official will only sit in the House of Representatives for six months. In June 1846, while the war against Mexico just broke, Davis resigns to form a regiment of Mississippi volunteers. For many politicians, conflict is seen as an opportunity to gain glory, prestige and influence on the battlefield, and Davis is no exception. He is also motivated by his political ideas:like Polk, Davis is a fervent supporter of this war, in particular because it would offer, in the event of victory, vast territories on which to extend slavery - on which Davis built his fortune, and which represents for him the indispensable pillar of the economy of the South.
From Buena Vista to secession
Contributing a large part to its funding, Davis was naturally elected Colonel of his regiment – as was then customary – and the unit quickly became the darling of the army. Not only because of his flamboyant uniform (red shirt, white pants and soft hat) but also because of his atypical weaponry. Davis insisted that his men be provided with the very modern Harper's Ferry Model 1841 rifle, a rifled percussion weapon much more efficient than the smooth-bore Springfield Model 1842 musket, which was then the standard equipment of the American infantry. . The commanding general of the army, the very conservative Winfield Scott, opposed it, but Davis appealed to Polk, who agreed with him, much to Scott's chagrin. Davis' men thus became the Mississippi Rifles , the "Mississippi Riflemen", the word rifle specifically designating, in English, a rifled rifle, as opposed to musket .
Sent to Texas, Davis takes part in the conquest of northern Mexico – ironically, under the orders of his former father-in-law, Zachary Taylor. For both men, the decisive moment came on February 23, 1847:Mexican President and Generalissimo Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna launched a counter-offensive that surprised the Americans at Buena Vista , near Saltillo. 16,000 Mexicans fell on less than 5,000 Americans, whose lines wavered. The intervention of Davis, whose regiment broke the momentum of the Mexicans with a timely counterattack, then resisted their renewed assaults, proved decisive, and the Americans won the battle. Although wounded in the foot, Davis becomes a war hero. He also won – belatedly – the esteem of Taylor, whose friendship he maintained until the latter's death in 1850 – and this, despite diametrically opposed political opinions, since Taylor was elected president under the Whig etiquette, in 1848.
After returning home, Davis was not idle for long. Mississippi Democratic Governor Nominates Him To Succeed Senator late Jesse Speight, so he quickly finds the Capitol. He quickly asserted himself as a politician of national stature, among the main defenders of state rights vis-à-vis the federal government, as well as the extension of the slave system.
At the time of the ratification of the peace treaty with Mexico, he supported President Polk when the latter unsuccessfully demanded larger territories than those obtained by the American plenipotentiary, Nicholas Trist. Davis also calls for the acquisition of Cuba from Spain, whether or not by force, and supports the businesses of buccaneers who repeatedly try to seize it – even if he refuses to embark on his own. -even in their risky and ultimately fruitless expeditions. Davis also opposed the Compromise of 1850, believing that it did not sufficiently promote slavery in the territories taken from Mexico.
Although reappointed in 1850, Davis resigned from the Senate the following year to run for governor of the Mississippi, but it's beaten. However, he will not remain unemployed for very long. His fervent support for Franklin Pierce during the presidential election of 1852 earned him appointment to the presidential cabinet once Pierce was elected, as Secretary of War . He left in this post the memory of a tireless and effective reformer, increasing the strength of the army, which rose from fifteen to nineteen regiments.
Always fond of technical novelties, Davis introduced modern weaponry, including rifled rifles, the cause of which he had advocated so many years earlier. The equipment, the uniforms, but also the tactics, are modernized accordingly, whether under his direction or at his instigation. Davis also played an important role in early transcontinental railroad projects, of which he was an enthusiastic supporter, by having military engineers study the various possible routes.
Pierce having failed to receive the Democratic nomination in 1856, Davis returned to Mississippi where he was elected a new senator. Four years later, the election of Abraham Lincoln triggers an unprecedented political crisis, about which Davis is divided. On the one hand, his opinions in favor of the right of states and slavery led him to consider secession as legal and legitimate. But on the other, he considers it risky and premature.
Davis rightly fears that it will lead to a civil war, for which he knows well that the South is insufficiently prepared – he was able to see this during his visit to the War Department. Thus, when Mississippi called a convention to decide whether to secede, Davis opposed it. Despite everything, the delegates voted for secession on January 9, 1861; a few days later, Davis bends to the will of his state and resigns from the Federal Senate. The following month, delegates from the seven exiting states met in Montgomery, Alabama, to create the Confederate States of America.
The Rise and Fall of the Confederacy
When the question of providing the new nation with an interim president arises, Davis proves to be a natural candidate, embodying the values upon which the Confederacy is based while passing for a moderate in comparison to the "fire eaters" who have made secession their sole political goal. On February 18, he was elected president , a position he accepted without having applied for it. In the weeks that followed, Davis was confronted, like his adversary Lincoln, with the thorny problem posed by the presence of a federal garrison in Fort Sumter, in the heart of the port of Charleston - the cradle of the secession and the main southern port on the Atlantic coast. In early April, the Federals lacked food, but a northern naval expedition was on its way to bring them food and reinforcements. Attacking the fort to force it to surrender before its arrival would make the South look like the aggressor, but leaving it to be resupplied without doing anything would inflict a serious snub on Confederate desires for independence. Faced with this impossible choice, Davis finally opts for the attack. The bombing of Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861 marked the beginning of the Civil War.
The first months of the conflict seem to give the advantage to the Southerners. In the aftermath of the fall of Fort Sumter, four new slave states secede in turn when Lincoln asks them for volunteers to fight the South, and join the Confederacy. The latter is quicker to mobilize its forces, and thus proves to be better prepared for a war in which the Union engages only slowly and gradually. Transferred from Montgomery to Richmond, the Southern capital was threatened by a Northern offensive during the summer, but the Battle of Bull Run, or Manassas for Southerners, ended in a resounding Confederate victory. At this stage, the independence of the Confederation seems on the right track . In November, Davis was elected president by the Confederate Congress, this time in good standing, for a six-year term.
However, things will go downhill very quickly for the South. In that same year of 1861, the Confederacy failed to rally the four remaining slave states, and only a minority of their population chose to espouse the Southern cause. In the early months of 1862, a series of errors would jeopardize the Confederate strategic situation – errors in which Davis would bear his share of responsibility . Its choice of a defense at the borders of the Confederacy, with more political than military motivations, proves disastrous in the West.
Within a few months, the Confederacy lost immense territories and found itself threatened with being cut in two, with the Union controlling almost all of the Mississippi Valley apart from a narrow strip between Vicksburg and Port Hudson. Further, Davis' attention to detail had served well during his time in the War Department, but as Confederate president it proved counterproductive. Davis' interference alienated several high-ranking generals, whom he replaced with trusted friends. If this choice was happy as far as Robert Lee was concerned, it was otherwise in the West, where the prolonged command of Braxton Bragg contributed to further degrade the situation.
The difficult character de Davis further exacerbated these problems. Of an authoritarian nature and not very patient with his opponents, the southern president also suffered from precarious health, in particular from facial neuralgia affecting the trigeminal nerve – an extremely painful disease. His relations with his generals and ministers were only the more strained. In addition, Davis was faced with the necessities of a modern, industrial and all-out war, of a kind hitherto almost unheard of.
A cantor of state law, the Southern president suddenly found himself forced to make decisions that instead favored the authority of the Confederate government. This exposed him to protests from state governors, but also from members of his cabinet (starting with his vice president, Alexander Stephens), whose action to the contrary hampered the Confederate war effort. This situation resulted in considerable ministerial instability.
Davis' motto – "All we ask is to be left alone – steered the South towards a defensive war which it had little chance of winning. The southern president did not have only harmful influences , especially through the rare men to adapt to his character. His taste for technical innovation was particularly evident in the field of the navy, where he left his minister, Stephen Mallory, the reins on the neck to develop revolutionary ships - battleships and even submarines - in order to compensate the overwhelming naval superiority of the Union.
A considerable industrialization effort was made, given the limited resources available to the South in this regard. Finally, the attempts of the Confederation to obtain the diplomatic recognition of the great European powers, if they failed, did not make it possible any less to obtain unofficial support, thus bringing in the southern ports of the war supplies essential so that the army Confederate continues the struggle.
Despite everything, slowly suffocated by the northern naval blockade, crushed by the industrial power of the Union, the Confederacy lost the war . In 1863, Port Hudson and Vicksburg fell to the Federals, which cut the South in two. Davis lost his Brierfield plantation on this occasion, set on fire by northern soldiers – destroying the properties of opposing political leaders was a common practice during the Civil War, in one camp as in the other. In the East, the victories won by Generals Jackson and Lee for a time eclipsed the reverses suffered in the West, but the latter's attempts to win a decisive battle on northern soil were thwarted at Antietam and Gettysburg. By the end of 1864, the Confederacy's only hope was to drag out the war as long as possible in the hope of preventing Lincoln's re-election. When the latter occurred anyway, the fate of the South as an independent nation was sealed.
Jefferson davis:'Lost Cause' icon
By April 3, 1865, Richmond had become untenable, forcing the Confederate government to fall back on Danville. Six days later, General Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House meant that there was no longer an army to protect Davis and his cabinet. The latter made their way slowly south, hoping to escape the northern soldiers to take a boat bound for Europe. Several Confederate leaders suggested continuing the struggle through guerrilla warfare, or forming a Southern redoubt in Texas, but Davis opposed this. It ends up dissolving formally the Confederate Institutions on May 5. Five days later, Davis and his retinue were captured by a Union patrol in Georgia.
Imprisoned at Fortress Monroe, Virginia, Davis was charged with treason, in line with the retaliatory measures following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln on April 15. There were two years left. The emotion subsided, his treatment seemed excessively harsh to the majority of the political class, including among the most radical Republicans. Thaddeus Stevens, cantor of a firm policy vis-à-vis the South, even offered to ensure his defense at his trial, believing that since the southern states had of themselves left the Union to form an independent nation, Davis was the national of a conquered country and did not have to be tried for treason against a country which was not his. This reasoning was not gratuitous:at the same time, it allowed Stevens to legitimize the application to Southern states of laws whose constitutionality was questionable. Davis was finally released in 1867, after the payment of an exorbitant bail that politicians from both the North and the South paid. He will never be tried, and the charges against him will be dropped.
Although adamantly opposed to the northern policy of "Rebuilding" the South, Davis maintained a low profile for several years. Although his character was variously appreciated by Southerners, the death of Robert Lee in 1870 made him an iconic figure of the Confederate "Lost Cause", notably through his autobiography (Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government , 1881). He also played an important role among the first generation of Civil War historians, those who played a direct role in the unfolding of events. This “history by those who made it” materialized, in his case, in A Brief History of the Confederate States of America , published in 1889. In 1874, he attempted a return to politics and was elected again as a senator from Mississippi, but the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution made persons who had held office in the Confederate government ineligible. so that his election was invalidated.
Having lost most of his income with the destruction of his plantation, Davis subsisted mainly on his literary and the generosity of his fellow citizens. During the last years of his life, he became more popular than he had ever been as president of the Confederacy, having never paid serious attention to the daily difficulties of the southern population - starvation, in particular - during the war. He even saw himself bequeath a plantation near Biloxi, on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, where he ended his life comfortably. The latter was not exempt from personal dramas:of the six children he had by Varina Howell, Davis buried four – a situation curiously echoing that of Lincoln, of whom only one of the four sons reached adulthood. Jefferson Davis died in 1889 , and was offered a grand funeral in New Orleans. A few years later, he was buried again with great pomp, this time in Richmond.
It is not easy to assess the importance of Davis' role in the history of the United States. His restless and adventurous existence was, in many ways, a world apart from that of his chief adversary in the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln. Differences, accompanied by some similarities, which could give rise to an essay in comparative biographical history that a Plutarch would not deny in his Parallel Lives , had he lived in contemporary times. More than a symbol of the Confederation, Davis alone synthesized the values that the South defended and for which he fought until the last extremity. A slave and clientelist system, deeply attached to its culture, and of which Davis, caught between his loyalty to the rights of States and his desire to bring to it – on occasion – pragmatism and moderation, also symbolized the contradictions. A symbol now carved in stone, alongside Robert Lee and Stonewall Jackson, at the Stone Mountain monument, the southern equivalent of Mount Rushmore.
The Stone Mountain monument. Davis stands at left, Lee at center and Jackson at right.
Sources
No biography of Jefferson Davis seems to exist in French. The English version of Wikipedia was therefore put to use again. The Encyclopedia Virginia article about him is also excellent, with a varied iconography. In his general work The Civil War, James McPherson devotes several detailed passages to Davis' role during the conflict. Finally, his own writings can be found for free online, notably on the Project Gutenberg website.