Confederate President Captured Wearing Dress

At work the other day, I was proofing the closed captioning on an episode of The Unfinished Nation (yes, I get paid to sit around and watch TV). As the narrator wraps up the history of the Civil War, he mentions the capture of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, and the video pans across the rendering below. I had to stop the video to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing…

It sounds like quite an exciting story! Consider the scene in 1865… Knowing that the Union Army has invaded Georgia and his armies are broken, the President of the Confederacy, along with his family and a few trusted guards, slips into the night to escape. They will take their war into the shadows! They will regroup in the west, assess the situation, and fight on another day.


The rendering of the scene reveals an added part of the plan, perhaps not so glamorous (or rather it's a little TOO glamorous). You can’t not notice that the person in the picture is wearing a dress. With lace. And pettycoats. And a mustache.

My company’s program does not mention this little factoid. Nor do any of the online sites regarding Jefferson Davis. I could find no mention of him to be a cross dresser, nor a drag queen. And yet some very deep studying reveals it's likely true. Jefferson Davis was arrested by US troops who found him wearing a garment of his wife's, though his wife claims it was her cloak.

My guess is that most Southerners don’t know that the capture of the Confederate President resembled something of a Monty Python sketch. But I can't help but wonder how such a plan was concocted? Who was it with the lightbulb over their head and the “Heeey, I know what we'll do” statement?