Jefferson Davis - Later Years

Later Years

After two years of imprisonment, Davis was released on bail of $100,000, which was posted by prominent citizens of both Northern and Southern states, including Horace Greeley, Cornelius Vanderbilt and Gerrit Smith. (Smith was a former member of the Secret Six who had supported John Brown). Davis visited Canada, Cuba and Europe in search of work.

In December 1868 the court rejected a motion to nullify the indictment, but the prosecution dropped the case in February 1869. That same year, Davis was hired as president of the Carolina Life Insurance Company in Memphis, Tennessee. He turned down the opportunity to become the first president of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (now Texas A&M University). For a time, he began to regain his income, but the insurance company went bankrupt in the Panic of 1873 and Davis had difficulty finding new work.

During Reconstruction, Davis publicly remained silent on his opinions; however, he privately expressed opinions that federal military rule and Republican authority over former Confederate states was unjustified. He considered "Yankee and Negroe" rule in the south oppressive. Davis held contemporary beliefs that Blacks were inferior to the White race. The historian William J. Cooper has stated that Davis believed in southern social order that included "a democratic white polity based firmly on dominance of a controlled and excluded black caste."

In 1876, Davis promoted a society for the stimulation of US trade with South America. He visited England the next year. In 1877, Sarah Anne Ellis Dorsey, a wealthy widow who had heard of his difficulties, invited him to stay at her plantation of Beauvoir near Biloxi, Mississippi. She provided him with a cabin for his own use and helped him with his writing - through organization, dictation, editing, and encouragement. Knowing she was severely ill, in 1878 Dorsey made over her will, leaving Beauvoir and her financial assets to Jefferson Davis and, in the case of his death, to his only surviving child, Winnie Davis. Dorsey died in 1879, by when, both the Davises and Winnie were living at Beauvoir. Over the next two years, Davis completed The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (1881).

Davis' reputation in the South was restored by the book and by his warm reception on his tour of the region in 1886 and 1887. In numerous stops, he attended "Lost Cause" ceremonies, where large crowds showered him with affection and local leaders presented emotional speeches honoring his sacrifices to the would-be nation. The Meriden Daily Journal stated that Davis, at a reception held in New Orleans in May 1887, urged southerners to be loyal to the nation. He said, "United you are now, and if the Union is ever to be broken, let the other side break it." Davis stated that men in the Confederacy had successfully fought for their own rights with inferior numbers during the Civil War and that the northern historians ignored this view. Davis firmly believed that Confederate secession was constitutional. The former Confederate president was optimistic concerning American prosperity and the next generation.

Davis completed A Short History of the Confederate States of America in October 1889. On November 6 he left Beauvoir to visit his plantation at Brierfield. On the steamboat trip upriver, he became ill; on the 13th he left Brierfield to return to New Orleans. Varina Davis, who had taken another boat to Brierfield, met him on the river, and he finally received some medical care. They arrived in New Orleans on the 16th, and he was taken to the home of Charles Erasmus Fenner, an Associate Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court. Davis remained in bed but was stable for the next two weeks; however, he took a turn for the worse in early December. Just when he appeared to be improving, he lost consciousness on the evening of the 5th and died at age 81 at 12:45 a.m. on Friday, December 6, 1889, in the presence of several friends and with his hand in Varina's.

His funeral was one of the largest in the South. Davis was first entombed at the Army of Northern Virginia tomb at Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans. In 1893, Mrs. Davis decided to have his remains reinterred at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond. After the remains were exhumed in New Orleans, they lay for a day at Memorial Hall of the newly organized Louisiana Historical Association, with many mourners passing by the casket, including Governor Murphy J. Foster, Sr. The body was placed on a Louisville and Nashville Railroad car and transported to Richmond. A continuous cortège, day and night, accompanied his body from New Orleans to Richmond.