Jefferson Davis was a West Point graduate, a Mexican War hero, a respected U.S. senator, and the president of the Confederate States of America. He led a rebellion to preserve slavery, managed the Confederate war effort with a rigidity that alienated his own generals, and spent the rest of his life refusing to acknowledge that the cause had been wrong — never requesting the pardon that might have restored his citizenship, which was not granted until 1978.

This episode traces Davis from his Kentucky childhood through the Mexican War, the Senate career, the Confederate presidency, the imprisonment after the war, and the defiant final decades that made him the unreconstructed symbol of the Lost Cause.

• Davis's military career, his Senate leadership, and the decision to join the Confederacy
• The Confederate presidency — the str ...