Jefferson Davis BicentennialThis year is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Jefferson Davis, who was born in Fairview, Ky., on June 3, 1808, and at the age of 2 moved with his parents to Rosemont Plantation near Woodville, Miss. In 1835, Davis moved to Warren County where he spent the most productive years of his life. This is the sixth of a series of 11 articles about Davis as a local citizen.In the U.S. Senate, Jefferson Davis became known not only as the most notable Southern leader, but was also respected nationally. For example, he was given an honorary doctorate by Bowdoin University in Maine. He left the Senate to run for governor of Mississippi and was defeated by 999 votes after a campaign of only six weeks. He returned to Washington as secretary of war under President Franklin Pierce, where he made a much-admired record. After Pierce’s term ended, he was then sent back to the Senate, where he was serving when the state of Mississippi seceded from the Union. Once again, he came home to Warren County and was at Brierfield when a courier arrived with the news he was to be president of the new Confederate States of America.

Smartly dressed lieutenants escorted the tall, handsome man from the deck of the steamboat Natchez as an immense concourse of people crowded the landing and all local militia units stood at attention as the honored guest was officially welcomed by Vicksburg’s Mayor Crump.

There had been little time for planning a ceremony, and the outpouring of the public had been spontaneous. It did not go unnoticed by the guest of honor, and he noted in an impromptu address that nothing gave him more pleasure than the vote of confidence “accorded by those who have known me best and longest — my old friends and neighbors.”

Jefferson DavisThe date was Monday, Feb. 11, 1861, and the occasion was the first public appearance of Jefferson Davis as president-elect of the Confederacy. He had arrived in Vicksburg from his Brierfield Plantation in the southern section of the county at 2:30. No doubt Davis had heard the cheers and shouts as the boat came into sight. The booming of cannons and the rattle of musketry announced his arrival.

The Evening Citizen newspaper had reported that he was expected and that plans had been hurriedly made to “give him a reception commensurate with the occasion.” In the opinion of Editor James M. Swords (who was a Northerner), Davis was “the greatest and noblest man of the age.”

News of Davis’ election by the Provisional Congress had first reached the city on Saturday, Feb. 9, even before Davis learned of it, and the news had been greeted with the booming of cannons at the Jackson Street landing. The thundering sound could be heard “over the Walnut hills of Mississippi and reverberating through the bottoms of Louisiana announcing the new era in the history of nations,” the Evening Citizen stated.

Davis had been a reluctant rebel, and he briefly recounted his attachment to the old Union, noting that he had worked to maintain “the constitutional equality of all the states …. We have failed. You and I have resolved that our safety and honor required us to dissolve our connection with the United States.”

He hoped for a peaceful separation, he said, but if that were not to be, “I am ready, as I always have been, to redeem my pledges to you and the South by shedding every drop of my blood in your cause.”

Again he thanked his audience and, as he made his way to the carriage, bells rang and the throng cheered. All along the way to the railroad station people crowded the streets, often halting the procession. The train delayed its departure until Davis reached the station, and the Evening Citizen reported that “as soon as he was on board, the train moved off slowly, bearing our distinguished and honored friend toward the scene of his coming labors at Montgomery. …. All expressed their gratification at the handsome demonstration made to the first President of the new Republic.”

Swords took the occasion to pen an editorial lauding the new president, calling him “a statesman, a scholar and a soldier … . He is eminently fitted by the grasp and character of his mind, his studies, his temperament and his unsullied integrity to be the organizer of a new administration.”

Davis was not a fire-eater as some thought, the editor said. “A zealous and, if you please, an ultra supporter of the Constitution rights of the South, his course has been calm, reasoning and dignified, and up to the moment when secession came, in his judgment, to be the last and necessary resource for self-protection, he was for fighting the battles of the Constitution under the Constitution, and in the Union. He clung to the Union hopefully when many others, not more firm in their devotion to Southern rights, desponded. He maintained the right of secession, but he made it, except as the extreme remedy for the incurable disease, subordinate to the Union with the Constitution. Such men illustrate the dignity of the Cause.”

In a separate article, the Evening Citizen also noted that the president had appeared “in a full suit of home spun. We think this a mark of good taste and judgment which should be imitated by every true son of the new Republic. The example is worthy of being followed.”

There were other qualities — intangible ones — about Jefferson Davis worth emulation. The pledge he made to his fellow citizens here proved not to be idle talk or a mere political promise. He proved himself a man of principle and of courage, never regretting the course he took.

Vicksburg had good reason to be proud, and a spontaneous outpouring of the people was the finest tribute that could have been made.

Next: A witness to Davis’ return

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Gordon Cotton is an author and historian who lives in Vicksburg.