where they stormed a
battery and distinguished
themselves in house-to-
house fighting. The volun-
teers were one of the few
units that remained with
Taylor when his regulars
marched to Vera Cruz to
join Gen. Winfield Scott.
In February 1847, a large
Mexican army under
General Antonio López
de Santa Annamarched
north to engage the
weakened Taylor and
found him waiting at
Buena Vista. During the
bloody battle of February
22, the Mississippi Rifles
again distinguished them-
selves by repulsing sev-
eral infantry and cavalry
attacks. At one point,
Davis received a musketball through his foot
but remained in the saddle to lead a charge,
which saved the artillery of Capt. Braxton
Braggand Capt. George H. Thomas from cap-
ture. He returned home a war hero, and in
1848 the state legislature appointed Davis to
fill an unexpired term in the U.S. Senate.
At this juncture, regional acrimony over
the issue of slavery began tearing at the very
fabric of the nation. Through it all, Davis was
deeply divided between his identity as a
Southerner and his pride in being an Ameri-
can. Then U.S. President Franklin Pierce, in
an attempt to curry Southern political favor,
appointed Davis secretary of war in 1853, and
he proved himself both competent and inno-
vative. Drawing on his own frontier experi-
ence, Davis tried introducing camels as a
mode of army transportation in the desert. He
also oversaw introduction of mass-produced
rifles, which replaced the smooth-bore mus-
kets of an earlier age. Furthermore, infantry
tactics were updated, wooden gun carriages
were replaced by iron ones, and the ordnance
of coastal fortifications was modernized. By
the time he left the War
Department in 1857,
Davis was considered
one of the most success-
ful secretaries of the
nineteenth century.
In the spring of 1857,
Davis easily won reelec-
tion to the Senate and
served as an eloquent
champion of slavery and
states’ rights. However, in
contrast to other South-
ern firebrands, Davis
urged moderation and re-
straint to preserve the
Union. When reconcilia-
tion became impossible
following the election of
Abraham Lincoln and the
secession process began,
he delivered a sad and
eloquent parting address
to the Senate on January 21, 1861. Davis then
returned to Mississippi and offered his ser-
vices to the newly formed Confederate States
of America.
Once home, Davis received appointment as
major general of state forces and fully ex-
pected to be employed in a military fashion.
To his surprise, on February 9, 1861, he was
elected president of the Confederacy and in-
augurated nine days later in Montgomery, Al-
abama. To keep a wavering Virginia firmly in
the Southern camp, he subsequently moved
the capital to Richmond and took the oath a
second time. Initial Union blunders in the
Civil War, culminating in the rout at First Bull
Run that July, gave the Confederacy an ap-
pearance of strength that belied its weak-
nesses. In fact, Davis had inherited a collec-
tion of disunified states that were unprepared
for war and confronted an enemy enjoying
distinct advantages in manpower and indus-
try. The Confederate war effort was further
hindered by Davis’s own shortcomings as
commander in chief. He displayed a marked
tendency to visit armies in the field and med-DAVIS, JEFFERSON
Jefferson Davis
Library of Congress