Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederacy, was
born in Christian, now Todd, county, Kentucky, June 3, 1808. During his
infancy his family removed first to Louisiana and afterwards to
Mississippi, locating near the village of Woodville. When but seven
years old he was mounted on a pony and, with a company of travelers,
rode back to Kentucky. He entered St. Thomas College, a Roman Catholic
institution, near Springfield, Kentucky. This tiny, obscure "college"
was presided over by Dominicans, and Davis was the only Protestant boy
in it. He spent two years at St. Thomas, when he returned home to be
fitted for college. In October, 1821, when in his fourteenth year,
Jefferson Davis arrived in Lexington, Kentucky, and matriculated in the
academic department of Transylvania University. Horace Holley,
surrounded with his famous faculty, was in charge of the University
during Davis's student days. His favorite professor was Robert H.
Bishop, afterwards president of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio; and his
fellow students included David Rice Atchison, George Wallace Jones,
Gustavus A. Henry, and Belvard J. Peters, all subsequently in Congress
or on the bench. When Davis was in the United States Senate he found
five other Transylvania men in the same body. He made his home with old
Joseph Ficklin, the Lexington postmaster, and three of the happiest
years of his life were spent in the "Athens of the West." He left
Transylvania at the end of his junior year in order to enter West Point,
from which he was graduated in 1828. As Lieutenant Davis he was in
Kentucky during the cholera-year of 1833, and he did all in his power to
bury the dead and watch the dying. Near Louisville, on June 17, 1835,
Davis was married to Miss Sarah Knox Taylor, second daughter of
President Taylor, but within the year the fair young girl died. Davis
was in the lower House of Congress, in 1845, as a Democrat; but in the
following year he enlisted for service in the Mexican War, through which
he served with great credit to himself and to his country. From 1847 to
1851 he was United States Senator from Mississippi; and from 1853 to
1857 he was Secretary of War in President Pierce's cabinet. Davis was
immediately returned to the Senate, where he continued until January 21,
1861, when he bade the Senators farewell in a speech that has made him
famous as an orator. Four weeks later he was inaugurated as provisional
president of the Confederate States. On February 22, 1862, he was
elected permanent president, and settled himself in the capitol at
Richmond, Virginia. President Davis was arrested near Irwinville,
Georgia, May 10, 1865, and for the next two years he was a prisoner in
Fortress Monroe. He died at New Orleans, December 6, 1889, but in 1893
his body was removed to Richmond. As an author Davis's fame must rest on
his _The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government_ (New York, 1881,
two vols.).
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Jefferson Davis: A Memoir by his wife_, Mrs. V.
Jefferson Davis (New York 1890, two vols.); _Belford's Magazine_
(Jan., 1890); _Southern Statesmen of the Old Regime_, by W. P.
Trent (New York, 1897); _Jefferson Davis_, by W. E. Dodd
(Philadelphia, 1907); _Statesmen of the Old South_, by W. E. Dodd
(New York, 1911). Prof. W. L. Fleming, of Louisiana State
University is now preparing what will be the most comprehensive
and, perhaps, the definitive biography of Davis.