Jefferson Finis Davis was born on June 3, 1808, in the town of Fairview in rural Kentucky to his parents, Jane and Samuel Emory Davis. He was the last of ten children; his oldest sibling, Joseph Emory Davis, was more like an uncle or second father to Jefferson growing up.

When Jefferson was still a toddler, Jane and Samuel moved the family to the state of Louisiana before moving on to Mississippi, where they established what would be one of many cotton plantations.

Schooling for Davis would begin with his attendance at the Wilkinson Academy in Woodville in 1813.

After a few years at the Wilkinson Academy, Davis was sent to Kentucky, where he was enrolled at the Catholic school at St. Rose Priory. He was the only Protestant at the school.

Next, Davis took courses at Jefferson College in Mississippi in 1818.

Davis stayed on at Jefferson College until 1821 when he ventured back to Kentucky to take courses at Transylvania University.

After his father died in June of 1824, Davis enrolled at the U.S. Military Academy of West Point. He spent a total of four years at West Point—years that were marked by mediocre grades and several demerits.

At West Point, Davis was arrested for his participation in the so-called Eggnog Riot of 1826. One-third of the student body took part in this riot, which resulted in the court-martial of twenty cadets. Davis was eventually released from house arrest and allowed to return to his studies.

On July 1, 1828, Davis was given the rank of brevet second lieutenant in the infantry. He graduated from West Point 23rd in a class of 33 students.

In 1829, Davis was ordered to join the First Infantry Regiment stationed at Fort Crawford in what was then part of Michigan Territory. Davis then moved on to Fort Winnebago, located around 180 miles to the north.

In 1831, Davis was sent to watch over some mines in Dubuque, Iowa. Here miners, eager to get their hands on the riches that lay just past the frontiers, were getting into trouble with the Native Americans who lived in the area.

When the Black Hawk War broke out in the spring of 1832, Davis was on leave in Mississippi. After the war was over, he was assigned to escort the Sauk leader, Black Hawk, to prison. Black Hawk would never forget Davis’s kindness and consideration in his dealings with him, and he later wrote that Davis was “a good and brave young chief, with whose conduct I was much pleased.”

In early 1835, Davis was charged with insubordination and was awaiting his trial to convene. On February 12, he was found guilty of conduct subversive of good order and military discipline, but the court found “no criminality to those actions.”

In June 1835, Davis married Sarah Knox Taylor, the daughter of his commanding officer. Shortly after the wedding, Davis resigned from the army and joined his older brother Joseph in Mississippi. Joseph offered him a portion of his property as well as a number of slaves so that he could start a plantation of his own, which eventually became known as Brierfield Plantation.

Sarah died from malaria only a few months after the wedding at the age of 21. Davis, who had contracted the same illness, almost joined his wife in death but ultimately pulled through.

Davis entered politics in 1840 when the Democratic Party held a conference in Vicksburg. Here, he was selected as a delegate for Mississippi’s upcoming Democratic convention.

The year of 1844 was an election year, and Davis was deeply entrenched in James K. Polk’s campaign from the very beginning. Meanwhile, he was courting an 18-year-old woman by the name of Varina Banks Howell.

Despite the significant age difference, Varina and Jefferson were wed on February 26, 1845. Later that year, Davis was elected to Congress for the United States House of Representatives.

After the outbreak of the Mexican-American War, Davis resigned his seat in the House of Representatives and raised a volunteer regiment known as the Mississippi Rifles. Under the command of General Zachary Taylor, Davis successfully took the Mexican fort of La Teneria in the fall.

In February 1847, Davis fought in the Battle of Buena Vista, where he was shot in the foot. After his honorable service in the war, Davis was sworn in as a U.S. senator.

After vigorous campaigning, Franklin Pierce became president in 1853. He duly selected one of his biggest supporters, Jefferson Davis, as his secretary of war. In this new position, Davis among other things succeeded in getting a pay raise for the U.S. troops for the first time in 25 years.

When Pierce left the presidential office after one term, Davis was also forced to leave his post as secretary of war. He immediately re-entered the Senate.

After abolitionist Abraham Lincoln was elected as president in 1860, the political climate in the U.S. unraveled quickly. South Carolina took the lead and left the Union on December 20.

When Davis’s home state of Mississippi left the Union in early 1861, Davis tendered his resignation from the Senate and left Washington.

In February, Davis was promptly elected as the provisional president of the newly established Confederate States of America.

The American Civil War began in earnest on April 12, when the Confederates began bombarding Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Because the federal troops therein had refused to surrender the fort peacefully, Davis authorized the use of force.

Davis was officially elected as the first (and only) president of the Confederacy in November of 1861. He was then inaugurated on February 22 the following year.

After suffering defeat in the American Civil War, Jefferson Davis renounced the Confederacy and his role as president on May 5, 1865. A few days later, he was captured by Union troops and placed under guard at Fortress Monroe in Virginia.

Although Davis faced serious charges, the deliberations dragged on and his case remained in legal limbo. Finally, after two years of imprisonment, he was released on bail.

On Christmas Day 1868, U.S. President Andrew Johnson offered a pardon to those that took part in the civil war. Davis’s case was then officially dismissed in February the following year. Davis was yet again a free man.

Since Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation to free the American slaves, life on the plantation had been irrevocably changed. Instead, in 1869, Davis became the president of the Carolina Life Insurance Company in Tennessee.

Davis stayed on with the insurance company until 1873 when he left in favor of a semi-retirement in which he wrote books and gave occasional speeches.

Jefferson Davis died in December 1889, at age 81. At the time of his death, Davis was still a revered figure in the south, and the large crowd that came to his funeral stood as a testament to this fact.

Age of death: 81

Place of death: New Orleans

Cause of death: Acute bronchitis