Jefferson Davis Research Paper

Jefferson Davis was responsible for many of the confederate weaknesses that led them to lose the war. One of the weaknesses of Davis was that he did not know how to delegate work, and spent most of the war micromanaging the confederate government. Davis did not rely on his cabinet, which he kept shuffling and re shuffling througthout the war.

Jefferson Davis was born in Kentucky on June 8, 1803. He was raised in Mississippi, along with his 9 older brothers and sisters. He was strongly influenced by his oldest brother Joseph who was a very educated man. Jefferson Davis attended school in Kentucky at Transylvania College right before he entered West Point Military Academy in 1824 (council).

Davis was not an extraordinary cadet at West Point, he graduated 23rd out of 24 graduates in the class of 1828 (council). Four years after he graduated, he went on to serve in the Black Hawk War in1832 stationed under colonel Zachary Taylor. He spent much of the Black Hawk War on leave, but was charged with delivering Black Hawk and White Cloud to St. Louis in September 1832 (Black Hawk).

A year after he participated in the war, he met Colonel Taylor’s daughter Sara, and married her in 1835. However three months into the marriage they suffered a case of Malaria, and Sara eventually died as a result of the disease. Jefferson was vulnerable for the next eight years after this tragedy, and he worked on his cotton plantation in Mississippi where he used slaves for labor (Black Hawk).

In 1845 Jefferson Davis married a 18 year old named Varina Howell with whom he had six children, four boys and two girls. Tragically for Davis, only his daughters lived through adulthood. The same year he married Varina, Davis was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, yet he resigned a year later to serve as a colonel in the Mexican War, where he commanded the First Mississippi volunteers and became a national hero after he won the Battle of Buena Vista in 1847.

When Davis came back from his military service in the Mexican War, he entered the senate and became chairman of the Military Affairs Committee. Then in 1853, President Franklin Pierce appointed Davis Secretary of War. During his time as Secretary of War he enlarged the army, and strengthen he coastal defense (Jefferson).

Davis returned to the Senate in 1857 as a vocal proponent of states rights. He eventually withdrew when the State of Mississippi seceded from the union in 1861. One month later, the Confederate congress appointed Jefferson Davis as their president for a six-year term, starting February 1861.

At the beginning of his term, Davis was well respected and honored mainly because of his previous accomplishments earlier as Secretary of War. Southerners liked him and his dedication to the Confederate cause. When he became president, the first thing he did was send a peace commission to Washington D.C., but Lincoln did not accept to meet with Davis’ emissaries and decided to send armed ships to Charleston, South Carolina, Davis ordered the bombardment of Fort Sumter, which started the war (Facts).

Davis was facing a complicated moment, fighting a war with almost no resources, while trying to put together a brand new country. He faced a lot of problems that he was not able to solve, and he didn’t always make the wisest decisions. The South needed their-own currency. Davis knew he could not

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