Jefferson Davis

Jefferson Davis was born and grew up in the U.S. South. He graduated from West Point Academy and was a colonel of a volunteer regiment in the Mexican-American War. In the 1850s, Davis served as the U.S. Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce and as a Democratic senator from Mississippi. In 1861, Davis was elected as the provisional President of the Confederate States of America, which he served as until his capture and arrest for treason after the Civil War ended in 1865. Davis was released after two years, and by the late 1880s, Davis had changed his anti-Union stance, encouraging Southerners to be loyal to the Union.