CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE
1808, June 3—Born in Fairview, Kentucky; moved to Woodville, Mississippi when a small child.
1813-1823—First 10 years of his education: home town log-cabin school; St. Thomas’ Catholic College near Springfield, Kentucky, when only 7 and 8 years old; Jefferson College near Natchez, Mississippi; back home to Wilkinson County Academy; and 3 years at Transylvania College, Lexington, Kentucky.
1824-1828—Attended West Point Military Academy 4 years, graduated at the age of 20; commissioned Second Lieutenant, 1st Infantry, July 1, 1828.
1828-1835—Promoted to 1st Lieutenant during his outstanding service on the Western Frontier.
1835, June 17—Resigned from the U.S. Army effective June 30; married Colonel Zachary Taylor’s daughter, Sarah Knox Taylor, who died September 15.
1835-1844—Virtually a recluse for 7 years—time spent, for most part, in study of philosophy and Constitutional Law, then followed a period of travel with an enlivening interest in people and public affairs.
1845, February 26—Married Varina Howell of Natchez, Miss.
1845—Elected a member of the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress.
1846, July 21—Resigned from the House of Representatives for volunteer service with the Mississippi troops in the Mexican War; appointed Colonel of the First Mississippi Regiment which, under his heroic leadership, won great renown at Monterey and Buena Vista.
1847—Received a rousing welcome on his return from Mexico; appointed to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate, then elected to the Senate for the following full term.
1853-1857—Recognition given him for the outstanding worth of his services to the nation, while Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce.
1857—Again elected to the United States Senate.
1861, January 21—Resigned from the Senate when Mississippi seceded from the Union.
1861, January 25—Commissioned Major General of the State’s Military Forces by J. J. Pettus, Governor of Mississippi.
1861, February 9—Elected President of the Confederate States of America by the legally appointed delegates to the Convention of the Seceding States in session at Montgomery, Alabama.
1861, February 18—Inaugurated as President of the Confederate States of America at Montgomery, Alabama, the first capital of the new nation.
1862, May 6—Baptized at the Executive Mansion and later confirmed in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church by Bishop John Johns.
1861-1865—Gave 4 years of dedicated service as Chief Executive of the Confederate States of America and Commander-in-Chief of the Nation’s Military Forces.
1865, May 10—Captured with some of the members of his cabinet at Irwinville, Georgia, while in flight from Richmond, Virginia to set up a temporary capital elsewhere.
1865, May 22—Imprisoned at Fortress Monroe on two charges—treason and taking part in a conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln.
1867, May 13—Released from Fortress Monroe, Virginia on a bail bond signed by Cornelius Vanderbilt, Horace Greeley, Augustus Schell and others.
1867-1876—Visited relatives, friends and noted acquaintances in Canada, Cuba, England, Scotland, and Europe before returning to the United States, where he accepted the presidency of a new Life Insurance Company at Memphis, Tennessee.
1877—With the failure of this Life Insurance Company, he gladly accepted Mrs. Sarah Anne Dorsey’s solicitous offer of her home, Beauvoir, as the quiet, restful place needed for concentration on the books he was writing.
1879-1889—Significant were these last 10 years of Davis’ life—because of the completion of his great contribution to the history of the South, “The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government”; his satisfaction and deep-seated emotions over being the owner of loved Beauvoir; and his sweet contentment and reserved happiness in being again with his family and seeing, from time to time, his close friends as well as interested and admiring associates.
1889, December 6—With his wife at his bedside, died in New Orleans, Louisiana at the home of his dear friend, J. U. Payne—(was on his way back to Beauvoir from his Brierfield Plantation near Vicksburg, Mississippi).
1889, December 12—Body moved to City Hall, where it lay in state for over four days before temporary burial in Metairie Cemetery in the semi-underground vault of the Army of Northern Virginia, surmounted by the statue of Stonewall Jackson. Reporting on the funeral, the New Orleans Times Democrat said editorially: “This generation will never again look upon the like of this day’s funeral pageant—”.
1893, May 27—The remains of Jefferson Davis in a heavy brass trimmed oak casket removed from the temporary vault to Confederate Memorial Hall. On the following day, in a touching speech, Governor Murphy J. Foster of Louisiana, delivered the casket to the committee of Veterans from Virginia sent to receive it.
1893, May 28 to May 30—“The Great Chieftain’s Last Ride”—funeral train made a brief stop at Beauvoir before making three full stops for the body to lie in state in the capitols of Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina.
1893, May 31—After lying in state in the Capitol at Richmond, Virginia during the morning, the funeral procession, with Mrs. Davis and her daughters, Margaret and Winnie, in a carriage directly back of the caisson drawn by six white horses, slowly made its way to Hollywood Cemetery, where there and along the streets leading to the cemetery were gathered at least 75,000 people. A 21-gun salute and taps were the final acts in the burial of the First and Only President of the Confederate States of America.
THE FAMILY OF JEFFERSON DAVIS
The following data were obtained from the Department of Archives and History, Jackson, Mississippi, and “Jefferson Davis’—Private Papers, 1823-1889” selected and edited by Hudson Strode—1966.
Morgan Davis, ancestor of Jefferson Davis, came to Pennsylvania in 1684 from Wales—the line of descent follows: Morgan Davis, father of John Davis; John Davis, father of Evan Davis; Evan Davis, father of Samuel Emory Davis; Samuel Emory Davis, father of Jefferson Davis.
The children of Jefferson Davis and wife, Varina Howell Davis, follow:
1. Samuel Emory: born July 30, 1852; died June 30, 1854.
2. Margaret Howell: born February 25, 1855; married J. A. Hayes January 1, 1876; died July 19, 1909.
3. Jefferson Davis, Jr.: born January 16, 1857; died October 10, 1878, unmarried.
4. Joseph Evan: born April 18, 1859; died April 30, 1864.
5. William Howell: born December 16, 1861; died October 16, 1872.
6. Varina Anne (Winnie), “The Daughter of the Confederacy”: born June 27, 1864; died September 18, 1898, unmarried.