Jefferson Davis was a graduate of West Point Military Academy (class of 1828) and a veteran of the US Army. He would serve in the US House of Representatives, resign to fight in the Mexican-American War, and then return to Washington as a Senator. He was Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce. When his home state of Mississippi seceded from the Union in January of 1861, Davis resigned only to be appointed and then elected the first president of the Confederate States of America.