Jefferson F. Davis was an American politician who served as the first and only president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives as a member of the Democratic Party before the American Civil War. He was the United States Secretary of War from 1853 to 1857.
The Beauvoir estate, built in Biloxi, Mississippi, along the Gulf of Mexico, was the post-war home (1876–1889) of the former President of the Confederate States of America Jefferson Davis. The National Park Service designated the house and plantation as a National Historic Landmark.
Varina Anne Banks Davis was the only First Lady of the Confederate States of America, and the longtime second wife of President Jefferson Davis. She moved to the presidential mansion in Richmond, Virginia, in mid-1861, and lived there for the remainder of the Civil War. Born and raised in the Southern United States and educated in Philadelphia, she had family on both sides of the conflict and unconventional views for a woman in her public role. She did not support the Confederacy's position on slavery, and was ambivalent about the war.
Sarah Knox Davis was the daughter of the 12th U.S. president Zachary Taylor and part of the notable Lee family. She met future Confederate president Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) when living with her father and family at Fort Crawford during the Black Hawk War in 1832. They married in 1835 and she died three months later of malaria.
Richard "Dick" Taylor was an American planter, politician, military historian, and Confederate general. Following the outbreak of the American Civil War, Taylor joined the Confederate States Army, serving first as a brigade commander in Virginia and later as an army commander in the Trans-Mississippi Theater. Taylor commanded the District of West Louisiana and opposed United States troops advancing through upper northwest Louisiana during the Red River Campaign of 1864. He was the only son of Zachary Taylor, the 12th president of the United States. After the war and Reconstruction, Taylor published a memoir about his experiences.
The history of the state of Mississippi extends back to thousands of years of indigenous peoples. Evidence of their cultures has been found largely through archeological excavations, as well as existing remains of earthwork mounds built thousands of years ago. Native American traditions were kept through oral histories; with Europeans recording the accounts of historic peoples they encountered. Since the late 20th century, there have been increased studies of the Native American tribes and reliance on their oral histories to document their cultures. Their accounts have been correlated with evidence of natural events.
Benjamin Thornton Montgomery was an American inventor, landowner, and freedman in Mississippi. He was taught to read and write English, and became manager of supply and shipping for Joseph Emory Davis at Hurricane Plantation at Davis Bend.
Mississippi was the second southern state to declare its secession from the United States, doing so on January 9, 1861. It joined with six other southern states to form the Confederacy on February 4, 1861. Mississippi's location along the lengthy Mississippi River made it strategically important to both the Union and the Confederacy; dozens of battles were fought in the state as armies repeatedly clashed near key towns and transportation nodes.
Davis Bend, Mississippi, also known as Hurricane Island Bend, was a peninsula named after planter Joseph Emory Davis, who owned most of the property. There he established the 5,000-acre Hurricane Plantation as a model slave community. Davis Bend was about 15 miles south of Vicksburg, Mississippi, and was surrounded by the Mississippi River on three sides. Davis gave his much younger brother Jefferson Davis the adjoining Brierfield Plantation.
Anchuca, also known as the Victor Wilson House, is a historic Greek Revival house located in Vicksburg, Mississippi, United States. The name is purported to mean "happy home" in the Choctaw language.
Nottoway Plantation, also known as Nottoway Plantation House is located near White Castle, Louisiana, United States. The plantation house is a Greek Revival- and Italianate-styled mansion built by enslaved African people and artisans for John Hampden Randolph in 1859, and is the largest extant antebellum plantation house in the South with 53,000 square feet (4,900 m2) of floor space.
Davis Island is a large island located in the Mississippi River. It lies mostly in Warren County in the state of Mississippi but is also partly in Madison Parish, in the state of Louisiana. It is located about 20 miles southwest of Vicksburg, Mississippi, USA. The island is approximately 30,000 acres (120 km2) in size depending on the level of the Mississippi River. It was formerly a peninsula known as Davis Bend, with an 11,000 acres (45 km2) area of rich bottomlands, bounded on three sides by the Mississippi River.
Hurricane Plantation was a plantation house located near Vicksburg, Mississippi, was the home of Joseph Emory Davis (1784–1870), the oldest brother of Jefferson Davis. Located on a peninsula of the Mississippi River in Warren County, Mississippi, called Davis Bend after its owner, Hurricane Plantation at its peak in the antebellum era comprised more than 5,000 acres (20 km2) with approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) of river frontage. Joseph Davis enslaved 346 people to force work the plantation land. He had a personal worth of more than US$600,000 in the 1860 U.S. Census, making him one of the wealthiest men in the state of Mississippi during this time.
Joseph Emory Davis was an American lawyer who became one of the wealthiest planters in Mississippi in the antebellum era; he owned thousands of acres of land and was among the nine men in Mississippi who owned more than 300 slaves. He was the elder brother of Jefferson Davis and acted as his surrogate father for several years. The younger Davis became a politician, U.S. Senator, and later President of the Confederacy.
The Woodland Plantation is a historic Southern plantation near Church Hill, Jefferson County, Mississippi. It retains its original antebellum 230 acre size, and has the tradition of primarily supplying hay to the area cattle. It also has a pecan orchard.
Lansdowne is a historic estate that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Natchez, Adams County, Mississippi. The property began as a 727-acre, antebellum, hunting estate - like the estates of the landed gentry in England. After the Civil War cotton, corn, sheep and cattle were raised on Lansdowne until about 1960. The original owner's residence and 120 acres of the original estate are still owned and occupied by the descendants of the builder, who open it periodically for tours.
The Florence Plantation was a former cotton plantation and is a historic site, located in the community of Harwood in Chicot County, Arkansas.
William Thornton Montgomery was an American freedman, businessman, farmer, and community leader, best known for his contributions to agriculture and his advocacy for African American empowerment. Born into slavery on Joseph Davis' Hurricane plantation in Warren County, Mississippi, in February 1843, Montgomery was the eldest son of Benjamin Thornton Montgomery and Mary Montgomery. He grew up alongside his younger brother, Isaiah Montgomery, who later founded Mound Bayou, Mississippi, an all-black community.
Eliza Jane Van Benthuysen Davis was an American planter, letter writer, and the châtelaine of Hurricane Plantation. She was married to Joseph Emory Davis, the older brother of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
