Jefferson Davis, American general and politician, President of the Confederate States of America (born 1808)

Jefferson F. Davis was an American politician who served as the only president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives as a member of the Democratic Party before the American Civil War. He was the United States Secretary of War from 1853 to 1857.

The president of the Confederate States was the head of state and head of government of the unrecognized breakaway Confederate States. The president was the chief executive of the federal government and commander-in-chief of the Confederate Army and Navy.