Jefferson Davis was the president of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. He had a military and political career prior to the war, graduating from West Point and fighting in the Mexican-American War. As a senator from Mississippi, he did not believe states should secede from the Union but felt they had a right to do so. He was elected president of the Confederacy in 1860 and led the South during the Civil War alongside General Robert E. Lee. After the war, he was imprisoned on charges of treason but was later released.