author
Jefferson Davis
1808–1889
A soldier, senator, and cabinet official before the Civil War, he became the first and only president of the Confederacy and later wrote a detailed defense of the Southern cause. His life sits at the center of some of the darkest and most contested chapters in American history.
3 Audiobooks
Speeches of the Hon. Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi; delivered during the summer of 1858.
by Jefferson Davis
The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume 1
by Jefferson Davis
The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume 2
by Jefferson Davis
About the author
Born in Kentucky in 1808 and raised largely in Mississippi, Jefferson Davis studied at West Point, served in the U.S. Army, and later fought in the Mexican-American War. He went on to a long political career as a congressman, U.S. senator, and secretary of war before becoming one of the best-known Southern political leaders of his era.
In 1861, after Mississippi seceded from the Union, he was chosen as the president of the Confederate States of America. He led the Confederacy throughout the Civil War, a government founded to protect slavery and break from the United States. After the Confederacy collapsed in 1865, he was captured, imprisoned for a time, and never brought to trial for treason.
In his later years, Davis remained a powerful symbol for former Confederates and wrote The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, a lengthy account defending his views and decisions. Today he is remembered less as a traditional statesman than as a central figure in the Confederacy and in the history of slavery, secession, and the Civil War.