ABSTRACT
Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, was born on June 3, 1808, or possibly 1807, in Christian County, Kentucky. The tenth and last child of Samuel Emory Davis and Jane Cook Davis, he allegedly was given the middle name Finis (meaning last), but he never used it. The family briefly moved to Louisiana and then settled in Mississippi. In 1816, eight-year-old Jefferson was sent to a Catholic school in Kentucky for several years. After further education in Mississippi, Davis attended Transylvania University in Kentucky and then went to West Point. He graduated in 1828 and, because of his relatively low ranking (twenty-third of thirtythree), became a second lieutenant in the infantry.
