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History and Government—Congressional Biographies—MississippiDAVIS, Jefferson
(1808—1889)
Senate Years of Service:
1847-1851; 1857-1861
Party:
Democrat; Democrat
DAVIS, Jefferson, (son-in-law of President Zachary Taylor), a Representative and a Senator from Mississippi; born in what is now Fairview, Todd County, Ky., June 3, 1808; moved with his parents to a plantation near Woodville, Wilkinson County, Miss.; attended the country schools, St. Thomas College, Washington County, Ky., Jefferson College, Adams County, Miss., Wilkinson County Academy, and Transylvania University, Lexington, Ky.; graduated from the United States Military Academy, West Point, N.Y., in 1828; served in the Black Hawk War in 1832; promoted to the rank of first lieutenant in the First Dragoons in 1833, and served until 1835, when he resigned; moved to his plantation, ‘Brierfield,’ in Warren County, Miss., and engaged in cotton planting; elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-ninth Congress and served from March 4, 1845, until June 1846, when he resigned to command the First Regiment of Mississippi Riflemen in the war with Mexico; appointed to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Jesse Speight; subsequently elected and served from August 10, 1847, until September 23, 1851, when he resigned; chairman, Committee on Military Affairs (Thirtieth through Thirty-second Congresses); unsuccessful candidate for Governor in 1851; appointed Secretary of War by President Franklin Pierce 1853-1857; again elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1857, until January 21, 1861, when he withdrew with other secessionist Senators; chairman, Committee on Military Affairs and the Militia (Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth Congresses); commissioned major general of the State militia in January 1861; chosen President of the Confederacy by the Provisional Congress and inaugurated in Montgomery, Ala., February 18, 1861; elected President of the Confederacy for a term of six years and inaugurated in Richmond, Va., February 22, 1862; captured by Union troops in Irwinsville, Ga., May 10, 1865; imprisoned in Fortress Monroe, indicted for treason, and was paroled in the custody of the court in 1867; returned to Mississippi and spent the remaining years of his life writing; died in New Orleans, La., on December 6, 1889; interment in Metairie Cemetery, New Orleans, La.; reinterment on May 31, 1893, in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Va.; the legal disabilities placed upon him were removed, and he was posthumously restored to the full rights of citizenship, effective December 25, 1868, pursuant to a Joint Resolution of Congress (Public Law 95-466), approved October 17, 1978.
Bibliography
American National Biography
; Dictionary of American Biography
; Davis, Jefferson. The Papers of Jefferson Davis
. Edited by Haskell Monroe, James McIntosh, Lynda Lasswell Crist, and Mary Seaton Dix. 10 vols. to date. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1971-; Cooper, William J., Jr. Jefferson Davis, American
. New York: Knopf, 2000.
Allen, Felicity. Jefferson Davis: Unconquerable Heart
. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1999.
Allen, William C. “Senators Poindexter, Davis, and Stennis: Three Mississippians in the History of the United States Capitol.” Journal of Mississippi History
65 (2003): 191-214.
Bancroft, A.C. The Life and Death of Jefferson Davis, Ex-President of the Southern Confederacy
. New York: J.S. Ogilvie, 1889.
Beringer, Richard E. “Jefferson Davis’s Pursuit of Ambition: The Attractive Features of Alternative Decisions.” Civil War History
38 (March 1992): 5-38.
Canfield, Cass. The Iron Will of Jefferson Davis
. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978.
Cooper, William J., Jr. Jefferson Davis, American
. New York: Knopf, 2000.
Crist, Lynda Lasswell. “A ‘Duty Man’: Jefferson Davis as Senator.” Journal of Mississippi History
51 (November 1989): 281-95.
Cutting, Elisabeth Brown. Jefferson Davis, Political Soldier. New York: Dodd, Mead Co., 1930.
Daniel, John Warwick, ed. Life and Reminiscences of Jefferson Davis
. Baltimore: R.H. Woodward Co., 1890.
Davis, Jefferson. The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government
. 2 vols. 1881. Reprint, with new foreword by James M. McPherson. New York: Da Capo Press, 1990.
Davis, Varina. Jefferson Davis: Ex-President of the Confederate States of America, a Memoir by His Wife
. 2 vols. 1890. Reprint. Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1971.
Davis, William C. Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour
. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1991.
Dodd, William Edward. “Jefferson Davis.” In Statesmen of the Old South: or, From Radicalism to Conservative Revolt
, pp. 171-235. New York: Macmillan Co., 1911.
___. Jefferson Davis
. 1907. Reprint. New York: Russell Russell, 1966.
Eaton, Clement. Jefferson Davis
. New York: Free Press, 1977.
Eckenrode, Hamilton J. Jefferson Davis, President of the South
. 1923. Reprint. Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1971.
Escott, Paul D. “Jefferson Davis and Slavery in the Territories.” Journal of Mississippi History
39 (May 1977): 97-116.
Ezell, John. “Jefferson Davis Seeks Political Vindication, 1851-1857.” Journal of Mississippi History
26 (November 1964): 307-21.
Foote, Shelby. “Jefferson Davis: Prologue and Epilogue.” In Mississippi Heroes
, edited by Dean Faulkner Wells and Hunter Cole, pp. 67-104. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1980.
Gordon, Armistead Churchill. Jefferson Davis
. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1918.
Hansen, Vagn K. “Jefferson Davis and the Repudiation of Mississippi Bonds: The Development of a Political Myth.” Journal of Mississippi History
33 (May 1971): 105-32.
Jones, John J. “A Historiographical Study of Jefferson Davis.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Missouri, 1970.
McElroy, Robert McNutt. Jefferson Davis: The Unreal and Real
. 2 vols. New York: Harper Brothers, 1937.
Monroe, Haskell M., James T. McIntosh, Lynda Lasswell Crist, and Mary Seaton Dix, eds. The Papers of Jefferson Davis
. 11 vols. to date (of 15 planned volumes). Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1971-. Vol. 1 was reprinted, with extensive revisions, in 1991; Vol. 2 reprinted in 1987.
Ramage, James A. “Jefferson Davis: Family Influences in the Making of a Great Statesman.” Journal of Mississippi History
51 (November 1989): 341-56.
Rowland, Dunbar, ed. Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers, and Speeches
. 10 vols. 1923. Reprint. New York: AMS Press, 1973.
Sanders, Charles W., Jr. “Jefferson Davis and the Hampton Roads Peace Conference: ‘To Secure Peace to the Two Countries.’” The Journal of Southern History
63 (November 1997): 803-26.
Sanders, Phyllis Moore. “Jefferson Davis: Reactionary Rebel, 1808-1861.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1976.
Schaff, Morris. Jefferson Davis, His Life and Personality
. Boston: J.W. Luce Co., 1922.
Shelton, William Allen. “The Young Jefferson Davis, 1808-1846.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Kentucky, 1977.
Strode, Hudson. Jefferson Davis
. 3 vols. New York: Harcourt, Brace Co., 1955-1964.
___, ed. Jefferson Davis, Private Letters, 1823-1889.
New York: Harcourt, Brace World, 1966.
Tate, Allen. Jefferson Davis: His Rise and Fall, a Biographical Narrative
. New York: Minton, Balch Co., 1929.
Winston, Robert Watson. High Stakes and Hair Trigger: The Life of Jefferson Davis
. New York: Henry Holt Co., 1930.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
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