Existing comment:
Jefferson Davis, 1808-1889:
"The man and the hour have met," announced the Alabama secessionist William L. Yancey when Jefferson Davis was elected president of the Confederate States of America in February 1861. Davis, a former US senator and secretary of war, was a reluctant secessionist, hoping that the South would remain loyal to the Union. But when the secession movement gained momentum in early 1861, he dedicated himself to the cause of independence. As president of the South's hastily formed government, he faced the twin difficulties of repelling invading northern armies and appeasing southern states'-rights advocates who challenged his efforts to build a unified Confederate nation. After an interview with Davis in late 1864, a northern writer for the Atlantic Monthly attributed the South's ability to endure to the "sagacity, energy and indomitable will of Jefferson Davis." |