Z 2084.000 Davis (Jefferson) Collection

Z 2084.000
DAVIS (JEFFERSON) COLLECTION

Jefferson Finis Davis was born on June 3, 1808. He was the tenth and last child of Samuel and Jane Cook Davis of Christian County (now Todd County), Kentucky. The family moved to Wilkinson County, Mississippi Territory, in 1812. Davis entered the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, in 1824, and he graduated in 1828. From West Point, Davis went on to serve as a second lieutenant in the United States Army at Fort Crawford, Wisconsin; Fort Winnebago, Wisconsin; and Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, during which time he participated in the Black Hawk War.

Davis married Sarah Knox Taylor, daughter of Colonel Zachary Taylor, in June of 1835, and later that month, Davis resigned from the army. The couple traveled to Hurricane, the Warren County, Mississippi, plantation of Joseph Davis, the elder brother of Jefferson Davis, who gave the couple Brierfield, an eight-hundred-acre plantation adjacent to Hurricane. Shortly after their arrival in Mississippi, both Davis and his wife contracted malaria, and on September 15, 1835, she succumbed to the disease. Davis recovered and became a cotton planter in Warren County.

In February of 1845, Jefferson Davis married Varina Howell at The Briars in Natchez, Mississippi. The couple had six children: Samuel Emory (1852-1854), Margaret Howell (1855-1909), Jefferson, Jr. (1857-1878), Joseph Evan (1859-1864), William Howell (d. 1872), and Varina Anne (1864-1898).

Davis was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1845, a position from which he resigned after less than a year, to command the Mississippi Rifles in the Mexican War. He was wounded at Buena Vista, Mexico, in February of 1847. Later that year, Davis was appointed to fill a vacant seat in the United States Senate. In 1851, Davis resigned from the senate to run as governor of Mississippi, but he was defeated by Senator Henry Stuart Foote. The following year, he campaigned for presidential candidate Franklin Pierce, and Davis was eventually appointed secretary of war under President Pierce. In 1857, Mississippi reelected Davis to the United States Senate. Four years later, in a farewell speech to the senate, Davis announced the secession of Mississippi and resigned his seat. In February of 1861, Davis was elected provisional president of the newly formed Confederate States of America, and in October of that year, he was elected president of the Confederacy.

When Lee's surrender at Appomattox ended the Confederacy in April of 1865, Davis fled with his family and advisors. He was captured one month later at Irwinville, Georgia, and imprisoned at Fort Monroe, Virginia. Davis was released from prison on bail in 1867, and in 1869, the United States government dropped all charges against him. In that same year, Davis became president of the Carolina Insurance Company in Memphis, Tennessee. The company failed four years later, forcing Davis to attempt to regain legal control of his plantation, Brierfield. Davis eventually succeeded, but was unable to make very much money from the plantation. In 1877, Davis moved to a small cottage at Beauvoir, the estate of Sarah Anne Dorsey, an admirer of Davis. Dorsey eventually sold Beauvoir to Davis and later willed her entire estate to him. While he lived at Beauvoir, Davis completed two books, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government in 1881 and A Short History of the Confederate States in 1889. Davis contracted bronchitis on a trip to Brierfield in 1889. He returned to New Orleans where he died on December 9, 1889. Davis was buried in Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans, but his remains were reinterred in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, four years later.

Scope and Content:

This collection contains correspondence, photographs, illustrations, a political cartoon, and newspapers and newsclippings pertaining to Jefferson or Varina Howell Davis. There is a Varina Howell Davis letter that is mounted between photographs of Jefferson and Varina Howell Davis. There is also an antislavery political cartoon lampooning Jefferson Davis. The newspapers contain speeches of Jefferson Davis and articles or obituaries about him.

Series Identification:

1. Photographs. 1885; 1902; n.d. 1 folder.

This series contains photographs of Jefferson and Varina Howell Davis or items relating to them. There are photographic copy prints of a letter, dated June 23, 1885, from Jefferson Davis, Beauvoir, Mississippi, to Ben King, enclosing a "motto." There is also letter, dated August 20, 1902, from Varina Howell Davis, Port Colborne, Ontario, Canada, to "Gentlemen." Photographs of Jefferson and Varina Howell Davis are mounted on either side of this letter. Another item is a photocopy of an undated photograph of Jefferson Davis, Mr. and Mrs. James Smith, and others in Scotland.

Box 1

2. Illustrations. 1886; n.d. 2 items.

This series contains one sheet from Frank Leslies Illustrated Newspaper (May 8, 1886), with a print of Jefferson Davis at Montgomery, Alabama, on April 28, 1886. On the verso is a fragment of an article entitled "Jefferson Davis at Montgomery." There is also an undated print of Jefferson Davis.

Box 1
Box 2 (restricted)

3. Political Cartoon. 1863. 1 item.

This series consists of a printed antislavery political cartoon (1863) entitled "The House That Jeff Built," by D. C. Johnston of Massachusetts.

Box 1

4. Newspapers. 1858; 1863; 1886; 1889; n.d. 1 folder.

This series contains newspapers and newsclippings that pertain to Jefferson Davis or the Confederacy. The Truth-Teller and Democratic Champion (Boston, Massachusetts), dated October 21, 1858, contains a speech that Jefferson Davis delivered to the Grand Democratic Ratification meeting at Faneuil Hall in Boston on October 11, 1858. The Comanche Chief (Comanche, Texas), dated May 8, 1886, includes an article about visits of Jefferson Davis to Montgomery, Alabama, and Atlanta, Georgia, as well as articles on the Confederacy. A partial issue of the World (New York City), dated December 11, 1889, contains an account of the death of Jefferson Davis. An undated supplement to the Times (city unknown) provides a brief description of Beauvoir while Jefferson and Varina Howell Davis were in residence. A fragment of an undated Virginia newspaper carries a letter, dated September 17, 1863, from Jefferson Davis to the Confederate Society of Enterprise, Mississippi.

Box 1 (reference photocopies)
Box 2 (restricted)