audacious d’Iberville remains highly regarded
as Canada’s greatest colonial hero, a naval
commander of real ability.
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doin’s War: D’Iberville’s Campaigns in Acadia and
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of Geography, Memorial University of Newfound-
land, 1987.DAVIS, JEFFERSON
Davis, Jefferson
(June 3, 1808–December 6, 1889)
Confederate President
A
talented political leader, Jefferson
Davis could not overcome the inherent
military deficiencies of the Confeder-
ate States of America during the Civil War. He
remains an enduring, if controversial, symbol
of the Southern states’ lost cause.
Davis was born in Christian County, Ken-
tucky, on June 3, 1808, and raised in Missis-
sippi. From there he gained appointment to
West Point in 1824 and four years later gradu-
ated as a second lieutenant in the First U.S.
Infantry. Davis concluded several years of
routine assignments in the Old Northwest
and in 1832 fought in the Black Hawk War.
The aged Sauk Chief Black Hawk was en-
trusted to him as a prisoner, and Davis es-
corted him from Fort Crawford, Wisconsin,
to Jefferson Barracks in Missouri. Promotion
to first lieutenant followed in May 1834, when
he transferred to the First U.S. Dragoons.
While at Fort Crawford, Davis fell in love
with Sarah Knox Taylor, daughter of Col.
Zachary Taylor, and the two were married
over her father’s objections. He resigned
from the army in May 1835 and took his bride
to a family plantation in Mississippi, where
she died of malaria six months later. Much
saddened, Davis withdrew from society for
nearly a decade until 1844, when he entered
state politics. That year, he gained election to
Congress as a representative and served two
years before the Mexican-American War
prompted his resignation.
While in Congress, Davis had been elected
colonel of the First Mississippi Volunteers, a
battalion of marksmen armed with the latest
percussion-cap rifles. He caught up with his
men at New Orleans, and together they joined
the army of his former father-in-law, Taylor, at
the mouth of the Rio Grande. During Septem-
ber 20–24, Davis’s Mississippians bore a con-
spicuous role in the victory at Monterrey,