Page 508 : DAVIS — DAVITT
Individual articles:
- Davis, John Chandler Bancroft
- Davis, Rebecca Harding
- Davis, Richard Harding
- Davis Strait
- Davitt, Michael
part in the Mexican War. As colonel of the First Mississippi Volunteers, he fought under General Taylor at Monterey and at Buena Vista, where he was wounded.
Mr. Davis was elected to the United States senate in 1847, resigning his seat in 1851. In 1853 he became secretary of war under President Pierce. In 1857 he again entered the senate, where he became a leader of the Democratic party and a champion of slavery and of state-sovereignty. He resigned his seat when Mississippi seceded from the Union, and was elected president of the Confederate States when that government was organized, Feb. 18, 1861. In 1862 he was re-elected to this office for a term of six years. By reason of his official position, as well as by his ability and force of character, his was the guiding hand in the long struggle. He was unwilling to give up when the cause had become hopeless. In his last message, dated March 13, 1865, he declared that, in spite of reverses, success might yet be secured. Lee surrendered at Appomattox in less than 30 days after this. On the approach of the Federal army Mr. Davis left Richmond, and, after a conference with Generals Johnston and Beauregard at Greensboro, N. C., he set out with an escort westward through Georgia. He was captured at Irwinville in that state, May 10, by a detachment of Federal soldiers under Lieutenant-Colonel Pritchard. He was confined at Fortress Monroe for two years, was indicted for treason in 1866, was admitted to bail May 13, 1867, but was never brought to trial. He lived in retirement until his death, at New Orleans, La., Dec. 6, 1889. In 1881 he published The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government.
Davis, John Chandler Bancroft, American jurist and diplomat, was born at Worcester, Mass., Dec. 29, 1822. After graduating at Harvard, he studied law and began to practice in New York. Early in his career he was secretary of the United States legation at London, and acted as American correspondent of the London Times. In 1869 he became a member of the New York legislature. In the same year he was appointed assistant-secretary of state, and acted as agent of the government at the Geneva court of arbitration in the settlement of the Alabama claims. From 1874 to 1877 he was United States minister to Germany, and from 1878 to 1882 was judge in the United States court of claims. Latterly he has held the post of reporter for the United States supreme court. He has published The Massachusetts Justice, Treaties of the United States and numerous volumes of reports.
Davis, Rebecca Harding, American magazinist and novelist, was born at Washington, Pa., June 24, 1831. Her early life was spent in (West) Virginia, and her first notable story, which appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, in 1861, dealt with Life in the Iron-Mills. On her marriage to L. Clark Davis, editor of the Philadelphia Public Ledger, she removed to the east and for a time was on the editorial staff of the New York Tribune. Her chief publications include A Law Unto Herself; Kent Hampden; and Dr. Warwick’s Daughter. She died Sept 29 1910.
Davis, Richard Harding, American novelist and journalist, son of the preceding, was born at Philadelphia, April 18, 1864, and educated at Lehigh and [[../Johns Hopkins University|Johns Hopkins]] Universities. He began life as a reporter and correspondent for New York newspapers, and in 1888 became connected with the New York Sun, to which he contributed his early stories. He has traveled considerably, and has been managing editor for a number of years of Harper’s Weekly. He possesses excellent descriptive power, as his Three Gringoes in Central America and The West from a Car-Window manifest. His chief publications include Gallagher and Other Stories; Our English Cousins; Cuba in War-Time; The Rulers of the Mediterranean; and a book on the Boer War.
Davis Strait washes the western coast of Greenland, and joins [[../Baffin's Bay|Baffin’s Bay]] to the Atlantic Ocean. At its narrowest point, just north of the [[../Arctic Circle|Arctic circle]], the Strait measures about 200 miles across. Ginnunga Gap, spoken of in the old Norse sagas, is now known to be Davis Strait.
Davitt, Michael, Irish journalist and, with Mr. Parnell, founder of the Irish Land-League, was born in 1846, in Mayo County, Ireland, of poor parents, who were evicted from their little homestead when Davitt was a youth. This seems to have given a sinister coloring to his entire life, for we find him connected with the Fenian brotherhood in 1865, and five years later he was tried for treason-felony and sentenced to penal servitude. Released in 1882, he was in the following year arrested for seditious speech and imprisoned, and when a prisoner in Portland convict-prison he was elected to Parliament, but disqualified by vote of the House of Commons. Subsequently, when released from imprisonment, he was again elected to Parliament, but was unseated on petition, and resigned in consequence of bankruptcy proceedings against him. Mr. Davitt traveled widely, and made a tour of the United States in behalf of the Irish Land-League, of which he has written a Defense. He also published Life and Progress in Australia and Leaves from a Prison-Diary. He died on May 31, 1906. He was the stormy petrel of Anglo-Irish politics,, but a devoted patriot.
