Images and More: Passed Presidents – CSA #1

Among the friends who know of my ‘Dead Presidents Quest’, there are some who say Jefferson Davis should not be included. They consider him a traitor and the leader of the rebel secessionist nation that caused so much havoc and destruction as the North fought to save the Union. My reply was not very persuasive. He was an American president. The states he presided over were and continue to be part of the United States.

Jefferson Davis was born in Kentucky in 1808 and died in New Orleans 124 years ago today in 1889. He was a prominent political figure before the Civil War. The West Point graduate fought in the Mexican War and served in the House and Senate. He was also Franklin Pierce’s Secretary of War. In 1861, when the South seceded, he left Washington and was elected the Confederacy’s first president.

His first wife was the daughter of his commanding officer, Zachary Taylor, who went on to become our 12th president. The marriage lasted three months before she died of malaria. His second wife moved his remains from New Orleans to Hollywood Cemetery in the former Confederate capitol of Richmond, Virginia. I have to be honest here. If he were buried in rural Kentucky instead of a showcase cemetery where two more actual American presidents are located, I would have ignored him. Let’s just consider him lagniappe in the Dead Presidents collection (an old New Orleans expression that identifies ‘something extra’...a bonus).

Jefferson Davis Grave, Richmond, VA (28 June 2005)

Unlike other presidents’ tombs, Davis’ family could not help

but make his grave an advertisement for the Lost Cause.

Jefferson Davis Memorial, Hollywood Cemetery,

Richmond, VA (28 June 2005)

In the space under the rotunda where the Kentucky capitol honors its most important citizens, there are statues of the presidents from both nations in our great Civil War. Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were born less than a year apart in the state.

Jefferson Davis Statue, Kentucky State Capitol,
Frankfort (9 June 2008)

I don’t care to say more about the guy. Historians seem to think he was not a great leader and he hampered the South’s war efforts. He was imprisoned for two years but not convicted of treason. He travelled, held a number of jobs, ran his Louisiana plantation and wrote about the Confederacy until he died twenty four years after the war ended.

On the grounds of the old Mississippi capitol in Jackson, there is a monument to the war dead.

Mississippi Confederate Monument, Jackson, MS (16 May 2102)

Inside the locked glass door is a statue of the President. With the glare of the light on the glass, I could only zoom in and capture a portion of the marble head. I like the creepy gaze of the old white supremacist.