Jefferson Davis’ first tuition was at a log schoolhouse, near his home, but the educational advantages of that time and place were so meager that when seven years old he was sent to a Catholic institution known as St. Thomas’ College, and there, under the guidance of that truly good man and priest, Father Wallace, afterward Bishop of Nashville, his education really began. After some years in this school, he entered Transylvania University, at Lexington, Ky., then the principal collegiate institution west of the Alleghanies and famous many years thereafter as the alma mater of a distinguished array of soldiers and statesmen. In November, 1823, when in his senior year at Transylvania, through the efforts of his brother, Joseph Davis, he was appointed by President Monroe a cadet at West Point. The following year he entered that institution and after pursuing the customary course of four years, was graduated in July, 1828, with a very low class standing.
Transylvania College at Lexington
He was then in his twenty-first year. The period in which the principal foundations of character are laid had passed. What this important period of life had developed is, therefore, both interesting and instructive. Fortunately, this information is obtainable through evidence which is conclusive. More than a half score of his classmates at Transylvania and at West Point, who subsequently played important parts in the history of the country, have left us their impressions of Jefferson Davis during that period of his life. This information is supplemented by his instructors at both institutions. All of this testimony was recorded previous to the occurrence of any of the later events in his life which might have biased the judgment, and all of the witnesses corroborate each other. Without entering into any extended discussion of this evidence, we may safely conclude from it that in his youth he was one of those peculiarly normal characters whose well-ordered existence leaves but little material for the biographer. Few inequalities and no excesses are discoverable. He seems to have possessed one of those refined natures that abhor vice and immorality of every kind. While he made no pretensions to piety, and, apparently selected no associations with this view of avoiding contamination, his moral character was without a blemish. Nor was he, as has been represented, haughty, impulsive and domineering, but, on the contrary, his nature seems to have been remarkably gentle and his bearing free from pretensions of every kind. He had opinions, and his convictions were strong, but he neither reached them hastily nor maintained them with arrogance. He was serious, somewhat reserved, always cheerful, sometimes gay. In his manner he was thoroughly democratic, but free from any suggestion of demagoguery. He was slow to anger, easily mollified, without malice and possessed in a remarkable degree that ingenuous and credulous nature which a long and eventful life never impaired and which was responsible, in no small degree, for many of the fatal mistakes of later years. If at this time he possessed any of those mental powers which later in life won the admiration even of his enemies, he gave no indication of the fact. He was an indifferent student, always somewhat deficient in mathematics, and never particularly proficient in any other branch, impressing those who knew him best as an ordinary youth of fair capacity and of about the attainments requisite to pass the examinations.
II. Service in the Army
Thus equipped by nature and education, Jefferson Davis was commissioned, upon leaving West Point, a second lieutenant, and was assigned to duty with the First Regiment of Infantry at Fort Crawford. The life of a second lieutenant on a frontier post in time of peace, unless under exceptional circumstances, is not likely to provide many incidents of a nature to illuminate his character, test his higher capacity or to greatly interest posterity. The circumstances in this case were not exceptional, and during the next seven years there was nothing in the career of Lieutenant Davis worthy of preservation that cannot be recorded in few words. It was the most barren period of his life. At Fort Crawford, at the Galena lead mines and at Winnebago he was employed in the police duty that our army at that time performed on the frontier which consisted chiefly of building forts and trying to preserve the peace between the Indians and encroaching settlers. In the performance of all of the duties to which he was assigned, he acquitted himself creditably and earned the reputation of being a conscientious, intelligent and efficient officer. At one time during this service an opportunity to win distinction seemed imminent. Black Hawk, driven to desperation by the continuous encroachment of the pioneers upon the hunting grounds of his people, formed what was then believed to be a powerful coalition of all of the Indian tribes of the Northwest. But the coalition soon fell to pieces, and the war, with its few slight skirmishes, turned out to be nothing more serious than an Indian raid, which was speedily terminated. An incident happened at the beginning of these troubles which, in the light of subsequent events, is perhaps, worthy of preservation. The governor of Illinois called out the state forces and mobilized them at Dixon. General Scott sent there from Fort Snelling two lieutenants of the regular army to muster them into service. One of them was Lieutenant Davis and the other was the future major who so gallantly sustained the fire of Beauregard’s heavy guns against the old walls of Fort Sumter. Among the captains of the companies to be mustered in was one who was hardly the ideal of a soldierly figure. He was tall, awkward and homely, and was arrayed in a badly fitting suit of blue jeans, garnished with large and resplendent brass buttons. He presented himself and was sworn in and thus probably the first time in his life that Abraham Lincoln ever took the oath of allegiance to the United States it was administered to him by Jefferson Davis.
Soon after the engagement at Stillman Run, Black Hawk and several of his more troublesome warriors surrendered to the United States forces and were sent as prisoners in charge of Lieutenant Davis to Jefferson Barracks. In his autobiography the old chief describes this journey in a way that leaves nothing to be guessed of the bitterness he felt, but he does not fail to express his appreciation of “the young white chief who alone treated me with the courtesy and consideration due to an honorable, vanquished enemy.” About a year after Lieutenant Davis’ return from this mission to Fort Crawford, an incident occurred, which, while unimportant in itself, was destined to produce far-reaching consequences. Col. Zachary Taylor was assigned to the command of the First Regiment, and with him came his family to Fort Crawford. His daughter, Miss Sarah Taylor, and Lieutenant Davis soon conceived an ardent affection for each other, and their marriage would have followed within the year had it not been prevented by Colonel Taylor. The cause of his opposition to the marriage has been the source of much speculation and of many absurd stories. The bare fact of the case is that Taylor’s opposition to Davis as a son-in-law was based solely upon the privations that confronted the wife of a soldier,—a not altogether unreasonable objection when we consider army life on the frontier at that time. Convinced of the fact, however, that his own family considered the reasons of his opposition unsound, he determined to find what, at least to him, would prove weightier ones, and proceeded to seek a quarrel with his daughter’s suitor. He found a pretext in a court martial, where, upon some trivial point, Davis voted against Taylor with a certain Major Smith. Taylor and Smith were not upon friendly terms, and thereupon the former flew into a violent rage, and in language which needed no additional strength to convince one that he fully deserved his sobriquet of Old Rough and Ready, he swore that Davis should never marry his daughter, and forbade him to enter his house as a visitor. In striking contrast to his intended father-in-law, Davis comported himself throughout this affair as a gentleman, and during the next two years sought in a manly way to reverse the irate old warrior’s decision. However, all of his efforts were unavailing, and finally convinced that the task was a hopeless one, but resolved to remove the only substantial objection, he in the summer of 1835, resigned his commission in the army. A few weeks later he and Miss Taylor were married at the home of one of her aunts in Kentucky. But his new-found happiness was destined to a sad and untimely end, for in September of the same year, while visiting his sister near Bayou Sara, in Louisiana, both he and his bride were simultaneously stricken down with malarial fever and in a few days she succumbed to the disease. He was passionately devoted to his wife, and her death inflicted a blow from which he did not finally recover for many years. The winter following the death of his wife was spent in Havana and at Washington, and in the spring of 1836 he returned to Mississippi to take up with his brother, Joseph, the threads of a new life, the influence of which upon his future destiny has never been properly estimated.