On February 18, 1861, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated President of the Confederate States of America.
"Davis will be pilloried in Northern histories as an ''arch-rebel,'' and traitorous to the core. So much for the truth of partisan history! While on the contrary his whole history will show that he was a calm, clear-headed, and large-hearted man, chosen in the hour of need for his known merits, and on the strength of his history, which was not obscure nor ignoble. That he failed was not extraordinary; that he held out so long, was the marvel. I write from knowledge of the man. If you would understand him and the history of his times, read his book, "The Rise and Fall of the Southern Confederacy," unanswered and unanswerable, as we of the South think.'' - Richard A. Wilmer, Bishop of Alabama, in The Past from a Southern Standpoint. Reminiscences of a Grandfather, 1887
