Jefferson Davis, American

by William J. Cooper

  During the next decade Davis occupied himself with the tasks of an aspiring, energetic farmer. He cleared land; he began planting crops. When he could, he purchased land, more land, and more slaves. He also commenced construction of a new home for his wife and children. At the onset, before any house existed, the Davises camped out, at least for a while. Probably Samuel began as a renter, but by 1813 he had purchased a small piece of property, and by 1820 he owned almost 400 acres, including cleared and uncleared land. His slave force also increased from six in 1810 to twelve in 1816, the maximum he would ever possess. In 1820 he had eleven slaves.6

  With the help of Davis’s sons and his slaves, the land began producing. Samuel Davis was never a wealthy man; he worked in his fields beside his slaves and sons, with cotton as the chief money crop, though he also raised the usual cereals, vegetables, forage, fodder, and animals. Family tradition remarks on the plentiful fruit trees and on Jane Davis’s omnipresent flowers, particularly the roses she loved. The place was called Poplar Grove, from the large poplar trees on it. The house, also named Poplar Grove, was completed before 1817.

  Samuel Davis’s house differed markedly from his cabin in Christian County. Using cypress, he constructed a modest story-and-a-half frame cottage, not a plantation mansion. Built on a center-hall plan, Poplar Grove has two rooms on either side of the first floor and is one room deep on the second. With a small sitting room or library in the gable between the upstairs bedrooms, the house has seven rooms, including a parlor and a dining room, and two chimneys that originally provided outlets for six fireplaces. The kitchen was a separate building in the rear. Large double doors, louvered shutters, and a gallery extending the full length of the front facade embellish the house. A Palladian window in the central gable, two marble mantels, and six-panel doors with painted graining add refined features to the simple but finely executed structure.7

  “There my memories begin,” Jefferson Davis, in the last year of his life, wrote of Woodville and Poplar Grove. Specifically, he remembered seeing the wound inflicted on his brother Samuel’s horse at the Battle of New Orleans, which occurred in January 1815. Young Jefferson spent his early boyhood on a farm touching the edge of the American wilderness. There, loving parents, older siblings, especially attentive sisters, and black slaves surrounded him.8

  In moving more than 1,000 miles and changing residence a half dozen times, Samuel Davis for more than two decades sought unremittingly to improve his station and provide more abundantly for his family. Yet the recollections of those who lived in his house, including Jefferson Davis, did not describe a driven man. They recalled “a silent, undemonstrative man,” to his children “rather suggestive than dictatorial,” and “strictly a religious governor of his family.” In addition, Samuel Davis impressed observers with his “wonderful physical activity.” Jefferson recollected one occasion when his then sixty-four-year-old father, trying to mount a difficult horse, vaulted from the ground into the saddle. Like most people of their status in their time and place, neither Samuel nor Jane Davis had any formal education but both were literate. Nothing suggests that any of their first nine children had any more contact with formal schooling than they did. By this time, however, Joseph, the eldest, who had started out in Kentucky as a storekeeper’s apprentice, had become an attorney after having read law in both Kentucky and Mississippi. For the youthful Jefferson, his father envisioned a different educational path.9

  Jefferson did not begin differently. At age five he had started school in “the usual log-cabin schoolhouse” that often provided the only semblance of formal education on the rural frontier, where schools of any kind were scarce. For two years he and his sister Mary, two years older, traveled a mile from their home with their lunch in a bucket to the local log cabin. When composing his “Autobiographical Sketch,” an elderly Jefferson Davis had few kind words for the teachers in these backwoods establishments. According to Davis, their attainments rarely exceeded “the three R’s” and “their patrons” demanded no more. Moreover, they believed that “the oil of the birch was the proper lubrication for any want of intelligence.” Floggings punctuated the school day.

  Only the copybook matched the birch as a pedagogical tool. The teacher would write at the top of every page in the copybook “the pothooks, letters, sentences” that their students would then copy on every line of the paper. This format also sufficed for arithmetic. After working through “the examples in the arithmetic,” the student would write them out in the copybook. This methodology rested on the assumption that completion of the book meant understanding the process. Not to Jefferson Davis: he maintained that “a bright boy” could repeat all the rules but could give no reason for any of them.10

  Samuel Davis had no intention of permitting this rudimentary drilling to form even the base of Jefferson’s education. To accomplish his purpose he looked back to Kentucky. In his former state a school run by the Dominican order of the Roman Catholic Church offered the kind of educational opportunity that Samuel obviously wanted for his youngest son. How Samuel found out about St. Thomas College is not clear. It opened about the time he left Kentucky; possibly Joseph, who did not migrate to Mississippi until 1811, knew about it; or possibly friends back in Kentucky told samuel about it. Whatever the case, Samuel Davis acted decisively. His Baptist faith did not deter him from sending his young boy to a Roman Catholic school. He made the arrangements for Jefferson to go, including finding a way for the child to make the overland journey of hundreds of miles. And he kept all these plans from his wife. Jane Davis did not know that her husband intended to send her seven-year-old son, her baby, away to a school so distant as to be practically in another universe. In fact, she was not at home when Jefferson departed.11

  Sometime in the late spring of 1816, before Jefferson’s eighth birthday on June 3, he set out on an almost incredible journey. Without saying good-bye to his mother, the lad joined a party consisting of Major Thomas Hinds and his relatives, including a son of Jefferson’s age. Each boy rode a pony. They struck out through what residents called “the Wilderness,” the Natchez Trace stretching for about 500 miles between Natchez, Mississippi, thirty-five miles from Woodville and on the great river, and Nashville, Tennessee. Before regular steamboat travel the Trace provided the main route north from the lower Mississippi Valley. Travelers of all types, including the river men who had brought the flatboats down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, traversed the Trace. Rough characters and bandits abounded. The Trace also ran through Choctaw Indian territory, but this fact caused little concern because amicable relations predominated between Choctaws and whites. There were a few taverns or “stands” along the way, but mostly the journeyers slept under the stars.

  After several weeks on the road and without incident, the Hinds party reached its first important stop, just outside Nashville. There Major Hinds visited his old commander from the Battle of New Orleans, General Andrew Jackson, at his home, the Hermitage. Jackson received all with such hospitality that they stayed for “several weeks.” Youthful Jefferson Davis came face-to-face with an authentic hero. The boy had certainly heard about the general, the victor at New Orleans and the vanquisher of the Indians, who had a larger-than-life image in the Southwest. Besides, his brother Samuel had been in Major Hinds’s unit at New Orleans. Toward the end of his life Davis characterized this meeting with a man of Jackson’s stature as “a stand-point of no small advantage” for a young boy. He did not find the fearsome, profane warrior he had been told about. Instead, he found Jackson “always very gentle and considerate.” The general’s “unaffected and well-bred courtesy” deeply impressed him. And the hero always said grace at the table. For Jefferson there was also plenty of time for boys’ activities with Major Hinds’s son and General Jackson’s adopted son. Davis remembered the pony races and that the old soldier would not let the boys wrestle, fearing that they might begin fighting. Everyone left the Hermitage “with great regret.” More than seven decades later, Davis wrote, “in me he ins
pired reverence and affection that has remained with me through my whole life.”12

  after this extended visit, Major Hinds took his charges on northward into Kentucky. By mid-july he delivered young Jefferson Davis to the officials at St. Thomas College. The college records stipulate that Davis arrived and paid fees of $65 on July 16, 1816. Now eight years old, Jefferson Davis stepped into a new world far removed from the familiar faces and precincts of Poplar Grove.13

  St. Thomas, Davis’s home for the next two years, was the first Roman Catholic educational institution west of the Allegheny Mountains. Located in Washington County in central Kentucky, it was part of a religious complex that included St. Rose Convent and Seminary. Father Samuel Wilson’s role exemplified the interrelationship among the units. As prior, he directed the entire enterprise; he was also president of the college and on the faculty of both college and seminary. In addition to the educational and religious mission, there was a working farm that produced food for students, staff, and the market.14

  By modern definitions St. Thomas College was no college at all, but rather a preparatory school, with both boarding and day students. St. Thomas obviously accepted and accommodated quite young students. The scarcity of records makes it impossible to date its opening precisely, but it had definitely begun operations by 1809. The college building, where Davis lived and went to class, was not completed until 1812. An imposing three-story brick structure, it stood by Cartwright Creek, two miles from the present town of Springfield. Davis attended during a flourishing period for St. Thomas. Later, the financial dislocation caused by the Panic of 1819 hurt the college. The opening of other Roman Catholic schools and the placing of a bishop in Cincinnati led to a reduction in staff. In 1828, the doors of St. Thomas were finally closed.

  In the mid-1810s, the school clearly enjoyed a positive reputation that stretched far beyond its immediate environment. Students came from Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, and Missouri, as well as Kentucky. As many as 200 boys made up the student body. Boarders paid for their education with cash and with their labor. From the beginning, St. Thomas accepted all applicants. The school calendar was quite flexible; students entered whenever they appeared. The calendar evidently did not provide for formal vacations because the boarding students remained in residence throughout the year.

  Sectarianism did not characterize St. Thomas. Admissions policy was not tied to religious affiliation. From the outset, both Catholics and non-Catholics were welcome, and a substantial number of non-Catholics were always enrolled. Although all students had to attend religious exercises, proselytism did not form a central part of the program. In fact, when Jefferson Davis told Father Wilson that he wanted to become a Catholic, the old priest kindly put him off. As Davis recollected, Father Wilson “handed me a biscuit and a bit of cheese, and told me that for the present I had better take some Catholic food.”15

  The year Jefferson Davis entered, St. Thomas had five full-time faculty members, four priests and a layman. They taught in a curriculum that concentrated on offerings emphasized by the academic institutions of that day. Latin and Greek were stressed. In his old age Davis recalled that the foundation he received in ancient languages at St. Thomas served him well when he got to college. The faculty also gave instruction in French, Italian, history, literature, science, and music.

  Davis thrived, even though he was among the youngest boys and claimed to be the smallest. He had fond memories of some of the priests who taught him. One of them, who was particularly solicitous, put a small bed in his own room for the little boy to use. Even though Davis had been sent far from Wilkinson County, he was not forgotten at home. His parents did write to him, but none of their letters survived.16

  Study and work did not take up all of young Jefferson’s two years at St. Thomas. With more than 100 boys in one place, play and antics were bound to occur. Davis recorded an episode in which he participated. Several boys decided to “revolt” against the old priest in whose room Davis slept. To initiate the prank, Jefferson agreed to blow out the candle that always burned in the room. On the appointed night, after all was quiet, he extinguished the flame. Then the other plotters hurled vegetables and “all kinds of missiles” into the priest’s quarters. As soon as light could be restored, a search for the culprits commenced. Davis reported that his confederates “were all sound asleep,” but not he. “I was the only wakeful one,” he wrote. Although the priests questioned him “severely,” he responded that he knew little and would not divulge that. Punishment was directed.

  The targeted priest, “who had especial care” of Davis, took him to a small room on the top floor. There, the old man strapped the boy down “to a kind of cot, which was arranged to facilitate the punishment of the boys.” This priest, who, according to Davis, “loved me dearly,” paused before striking the lad. He pleaded with Davis. “If you tell me what you know, no matter how little, I will let you off.” Davis replied, “I know one thing, I know who blew out the light.” After the priest reaffirmed the offer of clemency, Davis confessed, “I blew it out.” The priest honored his commitment, but he had “a long talk” with the juvenile malefactor, which, Davis remembered, “moved me to tears and prevented me from co-operating with the boys again in their schemes of mischief.”17

  After two years at St. Thomas, Jefferson, now ten, returned to Mississippi. His mother had grown impatient to have him back. In the late spring of 1818 he left with Charles Green, a Mississippian reading law in Kentucky, who had been his guardian during his time at St. Thomas. On this journey the youthful Davis would not repeat the lengthy march over the Natchez Trace. With Green he started for Louisville to catch one of the steamboats by then navigating the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Davis’s first steamboat trip greatly impressed him. He was struck by the numerous passengers who would get on board the new wonders and ride a few miles just for the experience. Then they would disembark and return by carriage to Louisville. Even seven decades later the names of the boat and its captain were still fresh in his mind: the Aetna with Captain Robinson DeHart.18

  He embarked on the Aetna in good spirits. He was going home, and he had just bested a mountebank who tried to take advantage of him with the old stratagem of the learned pig, a phenomenon that had originated in England in the 1780s. The owner of a pig trained the animal to perform any number of a variety of tasks, including spelling names and other words, solving arithmetical problems, telling time, and reading thoughts of members of the audience. Some pigs became quite adept, and the learned pig turned into a popular attraction. From fees and wagers the pig’s master could profit handsomely. A commentator, albeit unfriendly, observed that the learned pig “gave great satisfaction to all who saw him, and filled his tormentor’s pocket with money.” By 1797 this four-footed enticement had crossed the atlantic. An advertisement in a New York City newspaper touted a porker “who could read, spell, tell the time of day by any person’s watch in the audience, and distinguish ladies from gentlemen in the audience.”19

  The trickster encountered by Davis in Louisville claimed that he knew a pig who could outspell Jefferson. To prove it, he offered to bet the young scholar ninepence. Davis accepted the wager, and, as he later told the story, “spelt against the pig.” The youngster turned out to be more learned than his porcine opponent, for as he reported, “the pig spelled as well as his master could and no better.” “By beating a pig in spelling,” Davis began his homeward journey ninepence richer.20

  After a “slow and uneventful” river voyage brought him back to Mississippi, Jefferson headed for Poplar Grove accompanied by an older brother, Isaac, fifteen years his senior. When the pair reached Woodville, Isaac urged his young sibling to go on home alone—he wanted Jefferson to conceal his identity in order to discover whether his parents would recognize him. In his “Autobiographical Sketch,” Jefferson Davis recounted the moment: “I found my dear old mother sitting near the door, and, walking up with an assumed air to hide a throbbing heart, I asked her if there had be
en any stray horses round there. She said she had seen a stray boy, and clasped me in her arms.”

  That embrace underscored for the youthful Jefferson his mother’s love. He returned her affection. Late in life he remarked that he had never “ceased to cherish a tender memory of the loving care of that mother, in whom there was so much to admire and nothing to remember save good.” To him “her beauty and sprightliness of mind” singled her out. It was a “graceful poetic mind, which, with much of her personal beauty,” he lovingly remembered, “she retained to extreme old age.”21

  Following his happy reunion with his mother, Jefferson asked about his father. Told that his father was in the field, the impatient boy went immediately to see him. Jefferson recognized that his father, though possessing “deep feeling,” tried “to repress the expression of it whenever practicable.” But this time the feeling caused by the unexpected appearance of his youngest child moved Samuel Davis. “He took me in his arms with more emotion than I had ever seen him exhibit, and kissed me repeatedly,” Jefferson recorded. He added: “I remember wondering why my father should have kissed so big a boy.”22

  Home once more in the bosom of a loving family, Jefferson Davis quickly found himself in another schoolroom. Because the schools in Wilkinson County had not improved, Jefferson was sent off to Jefferson College in Washington, Mississippi, six miles east of Natchez. Founded in 1811, Jefferson College, in Davis’s student days, was, like St. Thomas, a preparatory school, not a college. When Davis matriculated in 1818, the school had four teachers. The enrollment did not match the numbers at St. Thomas, but the curriculum, which emphasized the classical languages, was quite similar. Jefferson was enrolled there for only a very short time.23