Jefferson Davis
After Davis was captured on May 10, 1865, he was charged with treason. Although he was not tried, he was stripped of his eligibility to run for public office; Congress later lifted this restriction in 1978, 89 years after his death. Many Southerners felt bad with his arrest, refusal to accept defeat, and resistance to Reconstruction. Over time, admiration for his pride and ideals made him a Civil War hero to many Southerners, and his legacy became part of the foundation of the postwar New South. By the late 1880s, Davis began to encourage reconciliation, telling Southerners to be loyal to the Union. He was helped in the last decade of his life by the generosity of Sarah Anne Ellis Dorsey, a rich widow. First she invited him to her plantation in 1877 near Biloxi, Mississippi, at a time when he was sick, and gave him a cottage to use for working on his memoir. She gave Davis her plantation before her death in 1878, and she also gave him a fund for his support. This made him to live in some comfort with his wife until his death on December 6, 1889 in New Orleans, Louisiana from bronchitis. He was 81 years old.