The past several columns have been about "Heroes of the Confederacy" -- men and women who persevered during good times and bad, who believed that their cause was just, and whose primary concern was building a new and better nation. They witnessed the deaths of far too many of their best and brightest, but for four long years, they kept the faith.

My heroes: Josiah Gorgas; Stephen Mallory; Mary Boykin Chesnut; Johnny Reb; the Women of the South; the Army of Northern Virginia; the Army of Tennessee; and I included author Burke Davis for championing this critical period in Southern and American history.

All of them performed above and beyond the call of duty; their course was true and deserves to be remembered for all time.

I am going to close this listing of Heroes of the Confederacy with Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States, and his wife, Varina. They were a team joined by love and devotion and duty.

Jefferson Davis is the more complex of the two. He was named president by acclamation, and with the ringing endorsement that "the man and the moment have met." Expectations were high that he could rally the new nation to its place among the nations of the world and eventually, to greatness.

His own preference was that he be named the leader of the military forces of the new nation. He had fought with some distinction in the Mexican War. In 1847, he returned to the Senate, and in 1853, President Franklin Pierce named Davis his secretary of war. This gave Davis exposure to the inner workings of a large government. As a member of the Cabinet, he felt strongly that slavery had to be extended into the territories. When Lincoln was elected on a slavery platform of "this-far-and-no-farther," Davis knew he had gone as far as he could go, and he resigned from his Senate seat in January 1861.

By February, he was president of the new republic, apparently with all the qualifications to succeed. But he was doomed to fail. The Confederate Constitution was a rope around his neck. It never did decide whether the central government or the individual states held primacy. As a result, the states felt free to interpret the constitution as they saw fit, and compliance with the laws passed by Richmond was a sometime thing. Central to the needs of the new government in Richmond was the ability to raise revenues and raise an army -- and in both cases, state compliance was lacking.

Two decisions sealed the fate of the new Confederacy. The first was the selection of the Cabinet, and political considerations dictated his choices. His best appointment was the loyal and exceptionally talented Judah Benjamin, who served as attorney general and later as secretary of war. He also was named Confederate secretary of state. Davis called Benjamin "a master of law, and the most accomplished statesman I have ever known."

The second decision was to defend all areas of the new Confederacy, and that proved to be impossible when President Abraham Lincoln decided to follow the "Anaconda" strategic policy as set forth by brilliant but aged Gen. Winfield Scott. The first Union efforts set up a blockade of the Confederate states, which was increasingly effective as the war progressed. Militarily, the then-unknown Gen. Ulysses Grant led the Union Army in carving the Confederacy into three separate areas. The basic difficulty here was that once a geographic area was separated from the main body, it was no longer able to come to the aid of another area -- nor could it get aid from the areas from which it had been separated. So all were defeated in turn.

But it was in the area of personnel where Davis was least effective. He interfered so often with his secretary of war that he went through six of them. He supported his generals long after they had proved inadequate to the tasks assigned. It took almost a mutiny among his fellow generals before Davis replaced Braxton Bragg as commander of the Army of Tennessee; and then Davis softened the blow by naming Bragg his chief of staff.

But beset as the presidency was, unquestioned was Davis' devotion and dedication to the South. The Southern cause was Davis' cause, one and inseparable. He was defiant to the end.

In Varina, Davis chose the perfect wife and the perfect first lady of the Confederacy. For the entire four years of war, she was at his side, encouraging and supporting his efforts. She defended him against his critics, sharply deflecting gossip and maintaining as normal a household as possible during his trials as president. The Davises suffered a severe blow while in the Confederate White House, when one of their children tragically died. But through it all, she remained his rock and, at times, his nurse. He could not have functioned without her.

For all they did for the South, Jefferson and Varina Davis were true Heroes of the Confederacy.

If you think of anyone I should have included in this listing of Heroes of the Confederacy, by all means let me know. I'll be glad to write about him or her in a future column.

Ned Harrison is a Greensboro, N.C., writer who specializes in military history and writes a monthly Civil War column for The Roanoke Times. He wants to hear about your ancestors who were part of our Civil War. Write him at News & Record / RT, P.O. Box 20848, Greensboro, NC 27420 or e-mail him at: n-b-h@mindspring.com