# CSA6 offer - 1862 5c Confederate States - Jefferson Davis - lt blue, hard paper (De La Rue & Co)
Birth Of Jefferson Davis
Davis entered West Point in 1824. Two years later, he was placed under house arrest for his involvement in the “Eggnog Riot.” Following graduation, he served under Zachary Taylor and became smitten with Taylor’s daughter, Sarah. Taylor was against the courtship and didn’t attend their wedding. His animosity grew three months later when the young couple contracted malaria while visiting Davis’s sister in Louisiana. Jefferson survived; Sarah did not.
Stricken with grief, Davis retreated to a 900-acre plot his brother Joseph gave him, where he built Brierfield Plantation in 1847. Ten years later, he owned 74 slaves.
Davis raised a volunteer regiment at the outbreak of the Mexican-American War and served as its colonel under commanding General Zachary Taylor. His troops participated in the siege of Monterrey and the Battle of Buena Vista, where he was shot in the leg. Learning of Davis’s bravery, Taylor is alleged to have said, “My daughter, sir, was a better judge of men than I was.”
Davis was appointed to temporarily fill a vacant Mississippi Senate seat in 1847, and was later elected to it. The Smithsonian Institution also appointed him a regent during this time. Each of these honors stemmed largely from Davis’s distinguished military service.
Left without a political office, Davis took part in a pro-slavery convention and campaigned throughout the South for Democratic presidential candidate Franklin Pierce. He was rewarded with an appointment to serve as U.S. secretary of war following Pierce’s election. Davis pushed for the Gadsden Purchase of today’s southern Arizona from Mexico, increased the Army from 11,000 to 15,000 troops, and modernized its weaponry. He also oversaw the building of the Capitol Dome. When Pierce lost his bid for re-election in 1857, Davis resumed his own career in the Senate.
Davis told the governor of Mississippi he would do whatever the state required of him. On January 23, he was made major general of the Army of Mississippi. Then in early February, the Confederacy held a constitutional convention, which selected Davis as its new president. Davis received the news via telegraph and according to his wife, “looked so grieved that I feared something had befallen our family. He told me (of his appointment) as a man might speak a sentence of death.” Davis was inaugurated on February 18 in front of 5,000 people cheering with patriotic zeal. Looking out over them, Davis recalled, “I saw smiling faces, but beyond them I saw troubles and thorns innumerable.”
Captured on May 10, 1865, Davis spent two years in prison before being released on a bond of $100,000, which was raised by a group of prominent citizens including Horace Greeley, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and abolitionist Gerrit Smith. While he became a symbol of the Confederate “Lost Cause,” Davis urged loyalty to the nation during Reconstruction. Following his death on December 6, 1889, Davis’s funeral, which was one of the largest in the South, included a continuous procession from New Orleans to Richmond.
Davis had outlived the Confederacy, buried all four of his sons, and witnessed his daughter’s engagement to a Yankee from New York. Yet he remained unapologetic to the end. “Were the thing to be done over again, I would do as I then did. Disappointments have not changed my conviction.”
Birth Of Jefferson Davis
Davis entered West Point in 1824. Two years later, he was placed under house arrest for his involvement in the “Eggnog Riot.” Following graduation, he served under Zachary Taylor and became smitten with Taylor’s daughter, Sarah. Taylor was against the courtship and didn’t attend their wedding. His animosity grew three months later when the young couple contracted malaria while visiting Davis’s sister in Louisiana. Jefferson survived; Sarah did not.
Stricken with grief, Davis retreated to a 900-acre plot his brother Joseph gave him, where he built Brierfield Plantation in 1847. Ten years later, he owned 74 slaves.
Davis raised a volunteer regiment at the outbreak of the Mexican-American War and served as its colonel under commanding General Zachary Taylor. His troops participated in the siege of Monterrey and the Battle of Buena Vista, where he was shot in the leg. Learning of Davis’s bravery, Taylor is alleged to have said, “My daughter, sir, was a better judge of men than I was.”
Davis was appointed to temporarily fill a vacant Mississippi Senate seat in 1847, and was later elected to it. The Smithsonian Institution also appointed him a regent during this time. Each of these honors stemmed largely from Davis’s distinguished military service.
Left without a political office, Davis took part in a pro-slavery convention and campaigned throughout the South for Democratic presidential candidate Franklin Pierce. He was rewarded with an appointment to serve as U.S. secretary of war following Pierce’s election. Davis pushed for the Gadsden Purchase of today’s southern Arizona from Mexico, increased the Army from 11,000 to 15,000 troops, and modernized its weaponry. He also oversaw the building of the Capitol Dome. When Pierce lost his bid for re-election in 1857, Davis resumed his own career in the Senate.
Davis told the governor of Mississippi he would do whatever the state required of him. On January 23, he was made major general of the Army of Mississippi. Then in early February, the Confederacy held a constitutional convention, which selected Davis as its new president. Davis received the news via telegraph and according to his wife, “looked so grieved that I feared something had befallen our family. He told me (of his appointment) as a man might speak a sentence of death.” Davis was inaugurated on February 18 in front of 5,000 people cheering with patriotic zeal. Looking out over them, Davis recalled, “I saw smiling faces, but beyond them I saw troubles and thorns innumerable.”
Captured on May 10, 1865, Davis spent two years in prison before being released on a bond of $100,000, which was raised by a group of prominent citizens including Horace Greeley, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and abolitionist Gerrit Smith. While he became a symbol of the Confederate “Lost Cause,” Davis urged loyalty to the nation during Reconstruction. Following his death on December 6, 1889, Davis’s funeral, which was one of the largest in the South, included a continuous procession from New Orleans to Richmond.
Davis had outlived the Confederacy, buried all four of his sons, and witnessed his daughter’s engagement to a Yankee from New York. Yet he remained unapologetic to the end. “Were the thing to be done over again, I would do as I then did. Disappointments have not changed my conviction.”