hide Matching Documents

Browsing named entities in Varina Davis, Jefferson Davis: Ex-President of the Confederate States of America, A Memoir by his Wife, Volume 1. You can also browse the collection for Mississippi (Mississippi, United States) or search for Mississippi (Mississippi, United States) in all documents.

Your search returned 70 results in 26 document sections:

1 2 3
e rest of the family removed, and studied law at Hopkinsville in the office of Judge Wallace. He subsequently came to Mississippi, where he practised his profession for many years, and then became a cotton-planter, in Warren County, Miss. He was sook.which is fat pine. The schools were kept in log-cabins, and it was many years before we had a County Academy. Mississippi was a part of the territory ceded by Georgia to the United States. Its early history was marked by conflicts with theflat-and keel-boats. The last-named only could be taken up the river. Commerce between the Western States and the Lower Mississippi was confined to water-routes. The usual mode of travel was on horseback or afoot. Many persons who had gone down The party with which I was sent to Kentucky consisted of Major Hinds (who had command of the famous battalion of Mississippi dragoons at the battle of New Orleans), his wife, his sister-in-law, a niece, a maid-servant, and his son Howell, who
ent so young to school, and far from home, without my mother's knowledge or consent, that she became very impatient for my return. Neither then, nor in the many years of my life, have I ceased to cherish a tender memory of the loving care of that mother, in whom there was so much for me to admire and nothing to remember save good. Charles B. Green, a young Mississippian, who was studying law in Kentucky, had acted as my guardian when I was at school there, and he returned with me to Mississippi. We left Bardstown to go home by steamer from Louisville; for, then, steam-boats had been put on the river, At that time, as well as I can remember, there were three steam-boats on the Mississippi — the Volcano, the Vesuvius, and the Aetna. We embarked on the Aetna. A steam-boat was then a matter of such great curiosity that many persons got on board to ride a few miles down the river, where they were to be landed, to return in carriages. The captain of the Aetna, Robinson De Ha
oat down to Natchez, to look at the country; he was then an officer on half-pay and on leave. Very soon after he reached there he became intimate with Mr. Joseph Emory Davis, who was practising law. They became so mutually attached that when, in 1818, Mr. Joseph E. Davis, attracted by the great fertility of the alluvial land on the Mississippi River, called by the settlers the bottoms, had taken up a section of the wild land, thirty-six miles below Vicksburg, in Warren County, in the State of Mississippi, he proposed to my father, who thought of leaving the United States Navy, to join him in the purchase and cultivation of the land; but, after riding over the tract, my father feared the malarial effect of the lowlands upon his health and declined. Scattered about through this land, and adjoining it, were some small holdings of twenty-five or thirty acres. These Mr. Joseph E. Davis bought, so that he became the owner of the splendid body of land now known as Davis bend. Mr. Davis
Lieutenant Davis thus: Jefferson Davis was the first lumberman in Wisconsin. In the year 1829, when a lieutenant in the First Regiment, he was detailed to ascend the Mississippi, with a company of men, in birch bark canoes, and stopping at the first pine forest, to cut, raft, and float a sufficient quantity of timber down the river to build a fort at what is now called Prairie du Chien. On the opening of the river in the spring of 1829, long before the day of steamboats on the Upper Mississippi was known, but while the country was in a savage state of nature, with the black bear, the elk, and the deer in the greatest abundance; while Indian wigwams were the only evidence of habitations that greeted the eye of civilized man; this little band of soldiers pursued their way up to the mouth of the Chippewa, one hundred and seventy-five miles from Prairie du Chien. Then Lieutenant Davis concluded to leave the Mississippi and descend the Chippewa, which he did until they came to th
ast bank, just above Mr. Jordon's residence, where they smelted the mineral brought to them by the Indians; but when the Indians left, their operations were confined to smelting the ashes. I remained on duty there until the spring of 1832, and, though I made frequent reconnaissances into the country, never saw an Indian or any indication of their presence in that neighborhood. In the spring of 1832 I was relieved by Lieutenant J. R. B. Gardenier, as private matters required me to go to Mississippi, my home. In a short time reports of Indian hostilities caused the withdrawal of Lieutenant Gardenier, and soon followed the crossing to the river by the little war party mentioned in the sketch. After the campaign of 1832 Lieutenant George Wilson, with a few soldiers, was sent to Dubuque for the same purpose as that for which I had been sent there in the previous year; but on reporting to the commanding officer at Prairie du Chien that trespassers were, despite his prohibition, cr
al forces combined to aid the early settlers to drive the Indians not only out of their possessions, but out of existence. Environed by superior numbers on all sides, but inured to hardship and danger, the pioneers pressed forward, their feet red with the blood of both whites and Indians, and acquired acre by acre the lovely country east of the Mississippi. The American Fur Company had their principal post at Mackinac, with outposts scattered at different points on and near the Upper Mississippi. This advance-guard of civilization became wealthy, but took their lives in their hands, and it was an even chance whether they came out with the peltries of animals with which to decorate the potentates and beauties of the old world, or left their scalps to accentuate the figures of a warrior's dance, and their bodies to feed the wild beasts. What these frontiersmen endured is, fortunately, not to be estimated by us from our vantage-ground of peace and security. The atrocities o
n as the Kentucky company was raised I returned to Jefferson Barracks, the rendezvous of the regiment. The first field officer who joined was Major Mason, he being the other officer who, with me, was selected from the First Infantry for promotion in the dragoons, and by him I was appointed adjutant of the squadron, composed of the first companies which reported. After other companies had joined, the colonel, Henry Dodge, came and assumed command. He had known me when I served on the Upper Mississippi, and by him I was appointed adjutant of the regiment. In 1834 Colonel Dodge, with a selected detachment, was sent by General Leavenworth in pursuit of Indians who had committed depredations on the Upper Red River, and I was one of that party. I was stationed opposite Dubuque, charged to keep watch on the semi-hostile Indians west of the river, and to prevent white men from crossing into the Indian country. My orders required me to go frequently through the mines, and thus I was
Varina Davis, Jefferson Davis: Ex-President of the Confederate States of America, A Memoir by his Wife, Volume 1, Chapter 15: resignation from the army.-marriage to Miss Taylor.-Cuban visit.-winter in Washington.-President van Buren.-return to Brierfield, 1837. (search)
ilies of the officers that, when he decided to marry, he also determined to resign his commission in the army. His resignation was dated June 30, 1835. After his marriage, Mr. Davis proceeded at once with his bride to visit his family in Mississippi. The first place at which they stopped was The Hurricane, which, by this time, had become a valuable plantation, with good quarters for the negroes and a comfortable dwelling for the owner. When Mr. Davis looked about him for an occupatio H. Benton from Missouri; his colleague, Dr. Lewis F. Linn; William Allen, Senator of Ohio; Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire, and forty or fifty others. I introduced Lieutenant Davis to my friends. He was then on his way to his home in Mississippi from Havana, whither he had gone for his health. He soon won the high esteem and respect of the foremost men in the national capital. He was my guest when I seconded Jonathan Cilley, of Maine, in the great duel with William J. Graves, of
there was no difference between us, although they might be involved in the canvass. Among these was one which had already been decided by the Legislature of Mississippi, and had thus become in some measure a historical question, but which was still the subject of political discussion, namely, that of repudiation. On this quest their financial agent in Europe during the war, although Mr. Walker was personally familiar with all the facts of the transaction, and was himself Senator from Mississippi at the time. In the summer of the same year (1844) Mr. Davis was a delegate to the Democratic State Convention which assembled at Jackson to organize the gubnciples in a speech of such force and eloquence that he was unanimously chosen an elector. As this was the only occasion on which I was ever a candidate for the legislature of Mississippi, it may be seen how unfounded was the allegation that attributed to me any part in the legislative enactment known as the Act of repudiation.
my mother to let me go to him for a visit. After much insistance the request was accorded; but as I was reading hard then to finish my course of English and Latin classics, it was not until the next year that the visit was made. In those days the only mode of communication was by boat, or by going to Vicksburg and driving thirty-six miles back down stream. Therefore, under the care of our life-long and intimate friend, Judge George Winchester, of Salem, Mass., a jurist of renown in Mississippi, we took the old Magnolia steamboat, the week before Christmas, 1843, and went up to the Diamond Place, the home of Mrs. David McCaleb, the eldest daughter of Mr. Joseph E. Davis, whose plantation is thirteen miles north of The Hurricane. The steam-boats at that time were literally floating palaces of ease and luxury. They were much larger then than now, and I have never seen any hotel where the food was so exquisitely prepared or the provision of dainties so great. Fresh fruits and
1 2 3