CIVIL WAR CAREER Designated commander of his own State's troops, Davis hoped for a military career in case of war. Instead, to his surprise and regret, he was unanimously chosen by Congress provisional presi dent of the Confederate States Feb. 9, 1861. He was inaugurated at Montgomery, Ala., on Feb. 18, 1861, was formally elected by the people on Oct. 16, 1861, was again inaugurated, this time at Richmond, Va., under the "permanent constitution" on Feb. 22, 1862, and was holding the office of president when the Con federacy collapsed.
Selecting a cabinet of moderate views and of no more than moderate ability, Davis sought to negotiate for a withdrawal of the Union troops from military posts in the South, and he did not order military operations to be opened at Charleston, S.C., in April 1861, until he was convinced that the Lincoln administra tion had sent an armed expedition to revictual and reinforce the garrison of Ft. Sumter.
The easy victory of the Confederates at Bull Run, on July 21, 1861, misled the South into believing that its independence would be won without great effort. Even Davis himself, who had warned the Confederacy of the magnitude of its task, seems to have been so deluded in the summer of 186 i by the hope of speedy foreign intervention that he did not capitalize the war ardour of the first months of the struggle. Events of the winter of 1861-62, how ever, spurred him to a vigorous policy. He procured the passage of a conscription law, and although the South had only one rolling mill of any consequence, he contrived to manufacture cannon in sufficient numbers. Side-arms, powder, uniforms and quarter masters stores were obtained in a country that had few facilities for making them. A navy was constructed in improvised yards and by secret, adroit purchase abroad. The war was financed on fiat money. The feeble, disjointed transport system of the South was welded together and was made to serve.
The results of hard effort, coupled with the fortunate choice of good commanders, showed during 1862 in a series of brilliant victories in Virginia. It was otherwise on the Mississippi. Friction among rival generals and a lack of co-ordination led from dis appointment to disaster. A visit of Davis to the threatened front in Dec. 1862 failed to change the situation. The next year he decided on an offensive in the East in preference to reinforce ment of the army on the Mississippi. It was his most momentous decision and perhaps his greatest blunder, because the Eastern offensive failed at Gettysburg and the very next day, by the fall of Vicksburg, the Confederacy was cut in half.
In 1864, Lee maintained a successful defensive in Virginia, but in Tennessee and Georgia conditions went from bad to worse. Davis had delayed too long in removing the unsuccessful Braxton Bragg and after he at last relieved Bragg of command of the Army of Tennessee, he offended public opinion by making him his chief military adviser. On July 17, 1864, when Sherman was close to Atlanta, Davis supplanted Joseph E. Johnston by John B. Hood. This most ruinous change led to the speedy break up of the only army that stood in the way of Sherman's march to join Grant, who by this time had pinned Lee to the Richmond defences. The reaction against Davis, who was blamed for all this, was immediate and severe. Congress no longer sustained him, the governors of North Carolina and of Georgia were openly antagonistic, the press denounced him, and Robert E. Lee would probably have been named dictator in Davis' place if Lee had been willing to countenarce a revolution within the Confederacy. The failure of the Hampton Roads conference, on Feb. 3, 1865, to find any basis of peace, filled out the measure of Davis' unpopularity.
Davis was perhaps too harshly judged by his contemporaries. He ,never had a general military policy. He was too prone to take the course of immediate safety. After the removal of the Confederate capital to Richmond, in May 1861, he laid too much emphasis on the defence of Virginia to the neglect of other parts of the Confederacy. He acted on occasion as his own chief of staff, and then, with no apparent reason for change, he left his field commanders entirely to their own discretion. He became so absorbed in operations that he neglected the commissary and trans port. Above all, he was not a good judge of men when his affection, his pride or his prejudice were involved, though it must be remembered to his credit that he kept his faith in Robert E. Lee at a time when the press and the country decreed Lee a failure because of his unsuccessful campaign in Western Virginia. Criticism sometimes aroused in Davis a dangerous obstinacy. He could not brook open opposition and he was singularly sensitive. This last-named bad quality, his coldness and his personal dignity kept him from making an effective appeal to the emotions of his people. He was unhappy in his dealings with a short-sighted, contentious congress, and he was maladroit in his foreign relations, particularly with France. His loyalty to his friends was so ex treme as to be a positive vice. But against all his failings is to be set the fact that the agricultural South, with resources vastly inferior to those of the North, kept up the struggle for four years. Perhaps the strongest single force in that defence, when all is said, was Jefferson Davis.
On the evacuation of Richmond, April 2-3, 1865, Davis re moved the executive offices to Danville, Va., and thence to Greensboro, N.C. Journeying southward in the hope of reach ing the Trans-Mississippi department, he was captured near Irwinville, Ga., on May 10, 1865, and was transported to Ft. Monroe, Va. He was confined there, under threat of a trial for treason, until May 4, 1867, when he was admitted to bail and was allowed to go to Canada. During the early part of his im prisonment he was manacled and subjected to severities that impaired his health. This maltreatment, and the effort of the North to make him a scapegoat, won for him the sympathy of the South and restored him to his former place in its affection. Although he was twice indicted for treason, the proceedings were dropped after the general amnesty proclamation of Dec. 2 5, 1868. He subsequently visited Europe, served for a time as president of an insurance company and then retired to Beauvoir, the home of an admiring friend in Mississippi, where he wrote his Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government in two volumes 0880. This is an excellent review of the constitutional questions under lying secession but is in many respects a singularly reticent ac count of his administration. He later composed A Short History of the Confederate States of America, issued posthumously in 189o. He declined to take any part in politics on his return to the United States, and he was cheerfully engaged in his corre spondence and in interviews with frequent visitors when a brief illness from a bronchial complaint terminated fatally on Dec. 6, 1889, in New Orleans, La. He was buried there, but in 1893 his body was taken to Richmond and on May 31 was reinterred in Hollywood cemetery.
In person, Jefferson Davis was imposing, over 6 ft. in height, erect, thin and graceful in his movements. His jaw was strong, his eyes were grey-blue, his nose was slightly aquiline and his features were sharply cut. He had much dignity of manner and a fine voice, combined with unfailing personal courtesy.
All four of Davis' sons predeceased him. Besides his widow by his second marriage, he left two daughters, Margaret Davis (1857-19o9), who married J. Addison Hayes, and Varina ("Win nie") Davis (1864-1898), known as the "daughter of the Con federacy," born in the confederate executive mansion. She wrote several books that enjoyed some popularity. Mrs. Jefferson Davis lived until 1907, chiefly in New York. Her biography of her husband in two volumes, Jefferson Davis . . . A Memoir (189o) is a detailed and persuasive picture of Davis.