On this day in 1861, Jefferson Davis (1808-1889) was elected President of the Confederate States of America.
Like his Union counterpart, Abraham Lincoln, Davis was a native of Kentucky. After graduating from West Point in 1828, he went on to serve in the Black Hawk War of 1832 as well as the Mexican War.
Davis married twice in his life. His first wife, Sarah Knox Taylor, who contracted malaria and died a few months after the wedding, was the daughter of general and future U.S. President Zachary Taylor.
He later served as senator of Mississippi and as secretary of war under President Franklin Pierce.
Davis ran unopposed for president of the Confederacy and expressed great fear in what lay ahead once he was elected. Those fears weren't unfounded: He and Lincoln presided over the bloodiest conflict in American history. The Civil War left over 600,000 Union and Condederate soldiers dead.
Davis was imprisoned in 1865 and would remain there for two years. In his later years, Davis became president of the Carolina Life Insurance Company in Memphis and even wrote a memoir titled "A Short History of the Confederate States of America." He died on December 6, 1889.
Like his Union counterpart, Abraham Lincoln, Davis was a native of Kentucky. After graduating from West Point in 1828, he went on to serve in the Black Hawk War of 1832 as well as the Mexican War.
Davis married twice in his life. His first wife, Sarah Knox Taylor, who contracted malaria and died a few months after the wedding, was the daughter of general and future U.S. President Zachary Taylor.
He later served as senator of Mississippi and as secretary of war under President Franklin Pierce.
Davis ran unopposed for president of the Confederacy and expressed great fear in what lay ahead once he was elected. Those fears weren't unfounded: He and Lincoln presided over the bloodiest conflict in American history. The Civil War left over 600,000 Union and Condederate soldiers dead.
Davis was imprisoned in 1865 and would remain there for two years. In his later years, Davis became president of the Carolina Life Insurance Company in Memphis and even wrote a memoir titled "A Short History of the Confederate States of America." He died on December 6, 1889.
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