Jefferson Davis won lasting fame as President of the Confederate States of America. He was a graduate of West Point Military Academy and a veteran of the Mexican War where he earned the rank of Colonel. Davis then served terms as a United States Senator and was Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce.

When Mississippi seceded from the Union, Davis returned to his plantation a few miles south of Vicksburg. While at his plantation he received news that he was elected President of the Confederacy. After the war, he returned to Mississippi and lived the rest of his life at Beauvior on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.