The Famed Jefferson Davis Statue

Jefferson Davis was the first (and only) President of the Confederate States of America. His statue sits on Monument Avenue behind a row of thirteen Doric columns, which represent the eleven seceding states and the two states who sent representatives to the Confederate Congress. He is perched in the middle on a pedestal.

Davis quite ardently and vehemently defended the rights of the south and the economic benefits of slavery during his reign as president of the confederacy. Although he did not endorse immediate secession following Lincoln’s election, Davis accepted his state’s decision to leave the Union. With the formation of the Confederacy, he hoped for a high military position, and when news arrived at Brierfield of his selection as provisional President, his wife described him as “so grieved that I feared some evil had befallen our family.” Davis begrudgingly accepted the position, and on February 18, 1861, he was inaugurated as the first and only Confederate President.

Davis was described by a contemporary as “a gentleman,” having a “slight, light figure, little exceeding middle height, and holds himself erect and straight.” He had high, noticeable cheek-bones in his later years, rail-thin lips, and deep, piercing eyes that shook many people to their core. He ended up going blind in one eye as a result of an unknown illness. To all but a few intimates, Davis was reserved and severe in manner. Both indecisive and stubborn at the same time, Davis’ refusal to compromise, moral rectitude, and bad sense of humor did not enhance his ability to deal with “frienemies” during the most heightened years of the Civil War.

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