Jefferson Davis grew up.
Jefferson Finis Davis ( June 3 , 1808 -- December 6 , 1889 ) was an American politician who was a Democratic U.S. Representative and Senator from Mississippi , the 23rd U.S. Secretary of War , and the President of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War . Davis was born in Kentucky to a moderately prosperous farmer , and grew up on his older brother Joseph 's large cotton plantations in Mississippi and Louisiana .