began and the adjutant general of the Confederate Army when the crisis ended. This month, I will discuss the career of another officer who played a role in the first scene of the first act of the drama—the other Jefferson Davis.
Lieutenant Jefferson Columbus Davis was one of seven officers serving under Maj. Robert Anderson at Fort Sumter. Like many other junior officers in the small, pre-war army, Davis rapidly rose to high rank during the Civil War. By war’s end, he commanded a corps and held the rank of brevet major general.
n the last issue, I wrote about Robert Anderson, the commander at Fort Sumter, and Samuel Cooper, the U.S. Army’s adjutant general when the crisis at Sumter
Davis is not among the best-known Federal commanders, but his name is certainly familiar to most students of the war. He is best known for two stains on his reputation. In 1862, he shot and killed another Union general in a Louisville hotel. In 1864, he further marred his record during Sherman’s Savannah Campaign when he caused the death and capture of many of the escaped slaves who were following his corps. I will first summarize these two episodes, then review other aspects of Davis’s interesting career. First, the homicide.
Davis, then a brigadier general of volunteers, was on sick leave in September 1862 when the Confederates marched through Tennessee into Kentucky. Davis rushed
