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Historical person

Jefferson Davis

1808–1889

Jefferson Davis was an American soldier and politician who became president of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. A West Point graduate and veteran of the Mexican-American War, he represented Mississippi in Congress and served as United States secretary of war before secession. A slaveholder and defender of slavery, Davis accepted the Confederate presidency in 1861 and led a government founded by seceding slave states seeking to preserve their political order and human property against perceived threats.

As Confederate president Davis struggled to coordinate military strategy, finance a prolonged war and balance demands for states’ rights against the central powers required for conscription, taxation and supply. He backed major commanders including Robert E. Lee but quarrelled with political and military critics. Captured in May 1865, Davis spent two years imprisoned at Fort Monroe before being released on bail; the federal treason prosecution was ultimately dropped. In later writings he defended the Confederate cause and contributed to post-war memory that minimised slavery’s central role.

Davis appears in Civil War fiction including John Jakes’s North and South, Love and War and The Titans, Bernard Cornwell’s Rebel and Charles Frazier’s Varina, the latter focusing on his wife and the collapse of the Confederate household. The linked non-fiction American Civil War, Jefferson Davis and Erik Larson’s The Demon of Unrest place his presidency within secession, Fort Sumter and the wider Confederate war effort.

Periods

Periods linked to Jefferson Davis

American Civil War1861–1865 CE Confederate Government in Richmond1861–2 April 1865

Series

Historical novels and book series featuring Jefferson Davis (6 series)

Morland Dynasty in Order

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles 36 books 4.4(27,265)

The Morland Dynasty is a thirty-six-book family saga tracing the fictional Morlands of Yorkshire from 1434 to the approach of the Second World War. Beginning with the marriage of Robert Morland and Eleanor, a ward of the Beaufort family, the sequence follows successive generations as Morland Place grows…

All books in this series

Lucky Jack’s Civil War in Order

by Griff Hosker 3 books 4.2(3,880)

Lucky Jack’s Civil War follows cavalry and raiding in the American Civil War from the Confederate side. The books use irregular operations, scouting, raids and the road to Gettysburg to show a mobile war of risk, divided loyalties and battlefield escalation.

All books in this series

The Kent Family Chronicles in Order

by John Jakes 8 books 4.2(89,573)

The Kent Family Chronicles trace successive generations of one family from the eve of the American Revolution to the early 1890s. The saga begins with Phillipe Charboneau, the unrecognised son of an English duke, who becomes Philip Kent in America, and follows his descendants as they build, lose…

All books in this series

The North and South Trilogy in Order

by John Jakes 3 books 4.2(99,587)

The North and South Trilogy follows the Mains of South Carolina and the Hazards of Pennsylvania, two families joined when Orry Main and George Hazard become friends at West Point. Their bond survives the Mexican–American War and years of sectional conflict, but slavery, secession and family pressure place…

All books in this series

Starbuck Chronicles in Order

by Bernard Cornwell 4 books 4.4(10,027)

The Starbuck Chronicles follow Nathaniel Starbuck, the son of a prominent Boston abolitionist preacher, after chance and personal loyalty draw him into Confederate service at the outbreak of the American Civil War. Serving first in the Faulconer Legion, Starbuck must prove himself among soldiers who distrust his Northern…

All books in this series

Benjamin January Mysteries in Order

by Barbara Hambly 21 books 4.2(19,232)

Benjamin January is a free man of colour, a trained surgeon and a professional musician living in New Orleans during the decades before the American Civil War. His investigations move through Creole drawing rooms, music halls, hospitals, plantations, riverboats and slave quarters, where formal law is shaped by…

All books in this series

Standalone books

Standalone books featuring Jefferson Davis (3 books)

Non Fiction

Non Fiction featuring Jefferson Davis (3 books)

Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.