Brief summary of Jefferson Davis" life and achievements.
Jefferson Davis was born on June 3, 1808 in Kentucky. He attended school at a Roman Catholic boarding school although he was a Protestant. For college Davis went to Transylvania University and then West Point in 1824. Four years later Davis graduated but he resigned in 1835 because of ill health. He married that year, but his new wife got malaria and she died only three months later. After the grieving loss, Davis went back to his plantation and lived there for ten years, until he married Virginia Howell, a 19 year old, 18 years less than he. He got elected as a senator from Mississippi but resigned to fight in the Mexican war. He resumed his position in 1847 after he was wounded. He spoke pro-slavery and for states rights. .
When the confederacy broke free from the Union, Davis wanted to take control of the confederate army, but was elected president instead. Davis was inaugurated in Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy, on February 22, 1862. Davis couldn't raise enough money to fight the Civil War. Davis was responsible for the raising of the formidable Confederate armies such as the appointment of General Robert E. Lee as commander of the Army of Virginia. Even in 1865 after the many defeats and the approaching Union army, Davis still hoped the South would be able to achieve its independence. He eventually decided to flee south, but on May 10, 1865, federal troops captured him at Irwinville, Georgia. He was then imprisoned and was indicted for treason but the next year he was released on a bond. In 1868, the federal government dropped the case against him. For the rest of his life he tried some unsuccessful businesses and he wrote a book, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government in 1881. Jefferson Davis died in New Orleans, on December 6, 1889.