Jefferson Davis
Confederate States leader
Jefferson Davis was the president of the Confederate States of America during the U.S.
Civil War (1861–1865).
A Mississippi senator and former U.S.
Secretary of War, Davis led the secessionist government that fought to preserve slavery.
After the Confederacy's defeat, he was imprisoned for two years but never tried for treason.
His name appears on monuments, schools, and highways across the American South, though many such honors have been removed or renamed.
Formal withdrawal from union
- slaveryOwnership of people
- states' rightsProvincial governmental autonomy
- Civil WarCountrymen fighting countrymen
- RichmondVirginia's seat of government
rebellion · Confederate States of America · Robert E. Lee · Stonewall Jackson · cotton · plantations · blockade · Appomattox
Southern state or major river
- West PointU.S. Army academy
- senatorUpper chamber member
- slaveholderOwner of enslaved persons
- plantationLarge-scale farming operation
Mexican-American War · Franklin Pierce · Beauvoir · imprisonment · indictment · memoir · Kentucky · transatlantic cable
Formal beginning ceremony
- executiveSenior organizational leader
- administrationOrganizational oversight and control
- cabinetEnclosed storage furniture
- commander-in-chiefHighest military authority holder
Montgomery · Richmond · Capitol · wartime leadership · conscription · diplomacy · governance · provisional government
Causing public dispute
- divisiveCausing sharp disagreement
- monumentsStructures commemorating notable achievements
- statuesThree-dimensional sculpted likenesses
- memorialsTributes to the departed
historical revisionism · Lost Cause · racism · treason · contentious · removed · renamed · heritage
secession
Formal withdrawal from union
- slaveryOwnership of people
- states' rightsProvincial governmental autonomy
- Civil WarCountrymen fighting countrymen
Richmond · rebellion · Confederate States of America · Robert E. Lee · Stonewall Jackson · cotton · plantations · blockade · Appomattox · Montgomery
Mississippi
Southern state or major river
- West PointU.S. Army academy
- senatorUpper chamber member
- slaveholderOwner of enslaved persons
plantation · Mexican-American War · Franklin Pierce · Beauvoir · imprisonment · indictment · memoir · Kentucky · transatlantic cable
inauguration
Formal beginning ceremony
- executiveSenior organizational leader
- administrationOrganizational oversight and control
- cabinetEnclosed storage furniture
commander-in-chief · Montgomery · Richmond · Capitol · wartime leadership · conscription · diplomacy · governance · provisional government
controversial
Causing public dispute
- divisiveCausing sharp disagreement
- monumentsStructures commemorating notable achievements
- statuesThree-dimensional sculpted likenesses
memorials · historical revisionism · Lost Cause · racism · treason · contentious · removed · renamed · heritage · commemoration
- Civil War Diplomacydiplomatic recognition, diplomatic missions, mediation efforts, King Cotton, diplomatic envoys
- 1800s FiguresDarwin, Marx, Dickens, Beethoven, Napoleon
- 1860sAbraham Lincoln, American Civil War, Appomattox, Confederacy, Confederate States
- Civil War FiguresRobert E. Lee, Ulysses Grant, Stonewall Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, William Sherman
- ConfederacyConfederate States, Confederate flag, Confederate Congress, Confederate Army, Confederate generals
- Secessionsecession, disunion, Confederate States, Confederacy, states' rights
Jefferson DavisAbraham Lincoln
Civil War era leader
Ulysses S. Grant · William Tecumseh Sherman · Union Army · Andrew Johnson
Jefferson DavisFrederick Douglass
Abraham Lincoln · Harriet Tubman · John Brown · Harriet Beecher Stowe · Sojourner Truth
Jefferson DavisAbraham Lincoln
Civil War era leader
George Washington · Ulysses S. Grant · Martin Luther King Jr. · Franklin D. Roosevelt · Frederick Douglass