Another Ohioan who loomed large in the history of the time was John Sherman, a lawyer like all the rest, a member of Congress since 1855, not at first a great opponent of slavery, but drawn into the battle by his allegiance to the Republican party, forming an alliance with Thaddeus Stevens, and collaborating with him in the production of the reconstruction act. He was appointed secretary of the treasury by President Hayes, in 1876, and his great work for the country was done in that office, in re-establishing the credit which the Civil War had shaken. He, also, was bitten by the presidential bacillus, and was a candidate for the nomination at three conventions, but each time fell short of the goal--once when he had it seemingly within his grasp. A stern, forceful, capable man, he left his impress upon the times. * * * * * Of the men who guided the fortunes of the Confederacy, only two need be mentioned here--Jefferson Davis and Alexander H. Stephens; for, rich as the Confederacy was in generals, it was undeniably poor in statesmen. The golden age of the South had departed; with John C. Calhoun passed away the last really commanding figure among Dixie's statesmen, and from him to Jefferson Davis is a long step downward. Davis's early life was romantic enough. Born in 1808 in Kentucky, of a father who had served in the Revolution, appointed to the National Military Academy by President Monroe; graduating there in 1828 and serving through the Black Hawk war; then abruptly resigning from the army to elope with the daughter of Colonel Zachary Taylor, and settling near Vicksburg, Mississippi, to embark in cotton planting; drawn irresistibly into politics and sent to Congress, but resigning to accept command of the First Mississippi Rifles and serving with great distinction through the war with Mexico; and, finally, in 1847, sent to the Senate--such was Davis's history up to the time he became involved in the maelstrom of the slavery question. From the first, he was an ardent advocate of the state-rights theory of government, and the right of secession, and for thirteen years he defended these theories in the Senate, gradually emerging as the most capable advocate the South possessed. That fiery and impulsive people, looking always for a hero to worship, found one in Jefferson Davis, and he soon gained an immense prestige among them. On January 9, 1861, his state seceded from the Union, and he withdrew from the Senate. Before he reached home, he was elected commander-in-chief of the Army of the Mississippi, and a few days later, he was chosen President of the Confederate States.