Joseph R. Davis

Brigadier-General Joseph R. Davis (January 12, 1825 – September 15, 1896) was a senior officer of the Confederate States Army who commanded infantry in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War.

Joseph Robert Davis was born in Woodville, Mississippi on January 12, 1825, and was educated in Nashville and Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Trained in the law, he practiced his profession in Madison County, Mississippi, and was elected to the Mississippi State Senate in 1860.

Entering the Confederate service as Captain of Militia from Madison County, Mississippi, Davis had no military training. He was soon made Lieutenant-Colonel of the Tenth Regiment, Mississippi Volunteers, after which he served on the military staff of his uncle, President Jefferson Davis, in Richmond as an aide de camp with the rank of Colonel of Cavalry. Commissioned a brigadier-general to rank from September 15, 1862, and confirmed by the Senate only after charges of nepotism were freely aired and his nomination once rejected, Davis was assigned a brigade in Heth's Division, Army of Northern Virginia, which he led through some of the most bitter battles of the war. He fought at Gettysburg (his brigade suffered heavily in the railroad cut in the first day of the battle. and his command formed a support to Pickett in the celebrated third day), in the Wilderness Campaign, and at the siege of Petersburg.

Paroled at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, Davis returned to Mississippi. He died September 15, 1896 and is buried at Biloxi Cemetery.