Background
Reuben Davis was born on January 18, 1813, in Winchester, Tennessee, United States. He was the youngest of the twelve children of the Reverend John Davis, a Baptist minister who had gone to Tennessee, settling near Winchester.
Reuben Davis was born on January 18, 1813, in Winchester, Tennessee, United States. He was the youngest of the twelve children of the Reverend John Davis, a Baptist minister who had gone to Tennessee, settling near Winchester.
About five years after the birth of Reuben the family removed to northern Alabama. There Reuben spent much time with the Indians, though he attended the public school about three months each year. Later, he studied medicine, but practiced only a few years, when he abandoned the profession. He then studied law.
In 1832 Reuben Davis opened a law office in Athens, Monroe County, but later moved to Aberdeen. At the age of twenty-two, he was elected district attorney of the 6th Mississippi judicial district. At twenty-six, he had saved $20, 000 from his earnings.
Defeated for Congress on the Whig ticket in 1838, he was, in 1842, appointed a judge of the Mississippi high court of appeals, but resigned after four months on the bench.
When the Mexican War broke out, he was elected a colonel of the 2nd Mississippi Volunteers. This organization reached the mouth of the Rio Grande the day of the battle of Buena Vista; but Davis, whose health was poor, saw no actual fighting, returning home in June of the same year.
After serving a term as a member of the state legislature from 1855 to 1857, he was elected to Congress, as a Democrat, and served two terms from 1857 to 1861. After his resignation from the Federal Congress in 1861, he became major-general of Mississippi troops, commanding a brigade for a short time; but was soon elected to the Confederate Congress, and was present at the Richmond inauguration of President Davis. He served in the Confederate legislative body till 1864, when he resigned because of his inability to work harmoniously with President Davis, to whom, incidentally, he was not related. His criticism of the Confederate war policy probably caused his defeat by General Charles Clark for the governorship of Mississippi in 1863.
He was defeated for Congress in 1878 as a candidate of the Greenback Party. During most of the last quarter-century of his life he devoted his energies to the practice of criminal law. He defended more than two hundred clients accused of murder, not one of whom went to the gallows.
His principal literary work is his book "Recollections of Mississippi and Mississippians," published in 1889.
Reuben was a member of the Baptist Church.
Davis was elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth Congresses. Reuben was an outspoken critic of President Jefferson Davis.
Davis believed that war between the North and the South was inevitable, and so strongly defended the Southern position that his opponents called him a fire-eater.
During the Reconstruction period, Davis belonged to the group who believed in controlling the negro by threats of force.
Reuben was married twice. In 1831, he married Mary Theodosia Halbert. His second wife was Sarah Virginia Garber.