The Lost Museum Archive

Jefferson Davis, a former military commander, Secretary of War, and Senator from Mississippi, became President of the Confederate States of America in 1861. This portrait was taken by photographer Mathew Brady during the 1850s, when Davis was serving his second term in the U.S. Senate. On May 10, 1865, Davis was captured at Irwinville, Georgia, by Federal troops and imprisoned at Fortress Monroe. He spent two years in jail, accused of treason, but was released in without a trial in 1867, and settled on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. He died in 1889, having never requested the official pardon that would have restored his U.S. citizenship.