Jefferson Davis letter to Sidney Webster

Collection — Box: 1

Identifier: ACCN 3056

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The Jefferson Davis letter of 3 March 1859 to Sidney Webster informs the latter that Colonel Steptoe's nomination as governor of Utah received the U.S. Senate's confirmation on 21 December 1854.

Dates

1859

Creator

Davis, Jefferson, 1808-1889 (Person)

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Biographical / Historical

Jefferson Davis was born on 3 June 1808 in Fairview, Kentucky. A graduate of the United States Military Academy in 1828, Second Lieutenant Davis participated in the Black Hawk War. Davis joined the Democratic Party in 1840 and was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives. During the Mexican-American War, Davis commanded a volunteer regiment and after the war was rewarded for his service when he was appointed to the vacant position of U.S. Senator. In 1853 President Franklin Pierce asked him to become his Secretary of War. Under his leadership the morale and membership of the U.S. Army was improved and increased. Following the expiration of Pierce's term in office, Davis was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1856. As a former participant in a Mississippi states' rights convention, he contended that state sovereignty superseded that of the federal government and hence averred that each state possessed the right to disassociate itself from that government. Subsequent to Mississippi's declaration of secession in early 1861, Davis resigned from the Senate and agreed to serve as a major general in the Mississippi army. A seven state consitutional convention in Alabama elected him as the provisional president of the Confederate States of America in February. Davis was formally installed as president of the Confederacy a year later. The consensus among historians is that he was an ineffectual leader. Upon the termination of the Civil War in the spring of 1865, Davis was arrested, imprisoned for two years, and indicted for treason. President Johnson pardoned him in 1868. While vilifying federal authority and conduct during the Reconstruction Era, he advocated a pledge of loyalty to the United States of America. With the assistance of a co-author Davis wrote his account of the Civil War in a two volume work entitled, "The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government" which was published in 1881. In this treatise Davis produced a revisionist version of the Civil War's causes justifying the South's secessionist rebellion, denying the centrality of enslavement as the dominant factor in Southern motivation, and blaming the North for the savagery of wartime activities. On 6 December 1889 Jefferson Davis died.

Extent

0.25 Linear Feet (1 Box)

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

The Jefferson Davis letter to Sidney Webster (1859) informs the latter that Colonel Steptoe's nomination as governor of Utah received the U.S. Senate's confirmation on 21 December 1854.