Almost four decades have passed since the surrender at Greensboro of Johnston to Sherman finally terminated the most stupendous and sanguinary civil war of history. Few of the great actors in that mighty drama still linger on the world’s stage. But of the living and of the dead, irrespective of whether they wore the blue or the gray, history has, with one exception, delivered her award, which, while it is not free from the blemish of imperfection, is nevertheless, in the main, the verdict by which posterity will abide. The one exception is Jefferson Davis. Why this is so may be explained in a few words.Occupying, as he did, the most exalted station in the government of the seceding states, he became from the day of his accession to the presidency, the embodiment of two diametrically opposite ideas. The loyal people of the North, disregarding the fact that the Confederacy was a representative government of limited powers, that a regularly elected congress made the laws, often against the judgment of the chief executive, that many of the policies most bitterly condemned by them were inaugurated against his advice, transformed the agent into the principal and visited upon him all of the odium attaching to the government that he represented. Nay, more than this. The bitter passions engendered in the popular mind by the conflict clothed him with responsibility, not only for every obnoxious act of his government, but, forgetful of the history of the fifty years preceding the Civil War, saddled upon him the chief sins of the very genesis of the doctrine of secession itself. Thus confounded with the principles of his government and the policies by which it sought to establish them, the acts for which he may be held justly responsible have been magnified and distorted while the valuable services previously rendered to his country, were forgotten or minimized, and Jefferson Davis as he was disappeared, absorbed, amalgamated, into the selfish arch traitor intent upon the destruction of the Union to gratify his unrighteous ambition.

The masses of the Southern people, on the other hand, holding in proud remembrance the gallant soldier of the Mexican War and deeply appreciative of his able advocacy of principles which they firmly believed to be sacredly just, regarded their chief magistrate as the sublimation of all the virtues inherent in the cause for which they fought. When the Confederacy collapsed, the indignities heaped upon its chief, his long imprisonment and the fact that he alone was selected for perpetual disfranchisement added the martyr’s crown to the halo of the hero, thus creating in the South an almost universal mental attitude of affection and sympathy, which was as fatal to the ascertainment of the exact and unbiased truth of history as were the rancor and bitterness that prevailed at the North. That this prejudice and predilection still exist cannot be doubted. But time has plucked the sting of malice from the one and has dulled the romantic glamor of the other sufficiently to enable us to examine the events that gave birth to both with that calm and dispassionate criticism which subrogates every other consideration to the discovery of truth. I do not underestimate the difficulties that beset the self-imposed task, but to the best of my humble ability and free from every motive except that of portraying the impartial truth, I shall endeavor to delineate the life of the real Jefferson Davis.

Jefferson Davis’ Birthplace, at Fairview, Ky.

Contrary to the belief still somewhat prevalent, Jefferson Davis was not descended from a line of aristocratic progenitors, but sprang from the ranks of that middle class which has produced most of the great men of the world. About the year 1715 three brothers came to this country from Wales, and located in Philadelphia. The younger, Evan Davis, eventually went to the colony of Georgia and there married a widow by the name of Williams. The only child of that union, Samuel Davis, enlisted at the age of seventeen as a private soldier in the War of the Revolution. Later he organized a company of mounted men and at its head participated in most of the battles of the campaign that forced Lord Cornwallis out of the Carolinas. At the close of the war he married Jane Cook, a girl of Scotch-Irish descent, of humble station, but noted for strength of character and great personal beauty, and they settled on a farm near Augusta, Ga. In 1804 Samuel Davis removed with his family to southwestern Kentucky to engage in stock raising and tobacco planting, and there, in a modest farmhouse, which was then in Christian County and not many miles from the cabin where a few months later Abraham Lincoln opened his eyes upon the light of the world, Jefferson Davis was born, June 3, 1808. The spot is now in Todd County, and upon it stands the Baptist church of Fairview. While he was still an infant, the hope of there better providing for a numerous family caused his father to seek a new home on Bayou Teche in Louisiana. The country, however, proved unhealthful, and he remained but a few months. He finally bought a farm near Woodville in Wilkinson County, Miss., where he spent the remainder of his long life, poor, but respected and esteemed as a man of fine sense and sterling character.

Where Jefferson Davis Boarded While in Lexington

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.