Biography of General Joseph Robert Davis

A lawyer and politician, Mississippian Joseph Robert Davis was a nephew of the President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis.

Born in Woodville on January 12, 1825, Davis was educated in Nashville and at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He practiced law in Madison County, Mississippi. He was elected to the state senate in 1860. He entered service as the captain of a company from Madison. He was soon made lieutenant colonel of the 10th Mississippi Regiment. He then served on his uncle's staff at the rank of colonel in Richmond.

Davis was commissioned general to rank from September 15, 1862. His appointment was not without problems; charges of nepotism flew and his nomination was rejected once.

Davis was assigned to a field command  of a brigade of Mississippians in the reorganization of the Army of Northern Virginia, joining Heth's Division of the Third Corps. The brigade saw heavy fighting on the 1st and 3d days at Gettysburg. Davis was wounded during the great Charge on the 3d day.

Davis was plagued by poor health and typhoid fever after Gettysburg, but he returned to his brigade in October of 1863. He commanded the brigade through the Overland Campaign into the siege of Petersburg. Sickness again caused him to miss a period between August and September 1864, but he was back in command by September 30. He was with the Army of Northern Virginia when it surrendered at Appomattox in April 1865.

Davis resumed his Mississippi law practice after the War ended, spending the remainder of his life in Biloxi, where he died on September 15, 1896. He was buried in the Biloxi Cemetery.