How Did Jefferson Davis Influence The Civil War

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Jefferson Davis in the Civil War
Jaelynn Love
Mountain View High School

Jaylynn Love
Jefferson Davis in the Civil War Born to Samuel Emory Davis and his wife, Jane Cook Davis, on June third, 1808, Jefferson Davis was to become a Mexican war hero and a president of confederacy (Civilwar). He attended Transylvania College at thirteen, then spent four years attending the United States Military Academy at West Point. Davis only met expectations in cadet school, placing 23rd in a class of 34 by graduation in 1828 (Civilwar). Serving as a lieutenant in the Wisconsin Territory and later on in the Black Hawk War under Colonel Zachary Taylor, he met his wife. He would wed Sarah Knox, Zachary Taylor’s daughter, in 1835. Sarah would die of malaria no more than three months after the wedding, causing Davis to go into an awful state of grief. Because of this, for
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In his presidency he focused on military strategy, but neglected politics. Unlike Lincoln before him, Davis was a poor judge of people, didn’t handle congressional opposition well, and he was not inspirational to the southern public as Lincoln was in the North. The Union armies surrounded Richmond in April 1865, and Davis fled with his family for the Deep South. They would be captured in May in Georgia (Britannica).
After the war, he would be charged with treason and was to spend 2 years in prison in Fort Monroe, Virginia. He was released in May 1867, but his health had deteriorated in prison. He traveled abroad with his family for two years. He never regained his citizenship due to his refusal to take the oath of allegiance. Upon returning to America, he struggled to make a living. He worked for a Memphis insurance company until they went bankrupt. He then published a history of the Confederacy, but few sold. He would live off the charity of relatives and friends until 1889 when he passed away