Reuben Davis
Representative
Member of theU.S. House of Representatives from 's Mississippi's 2nd Congressional District district
In office March 4, 1857 – January 12, 1861
Preceded by	Hendley S. Bennett
Succeeded by	Joseph L. Morphis
Personal details
Born	(1813-01-18)January 18, 1813 Winchester, Tennesse
Died	October 14, 1890(1890-10-14) (aged 77) Huntsville, Alabama

Reuben O. Davis (January 18, 1813 – October 14, 1890) was aUnited States representative fromMississippi.

Born inWinchester, Tennessee into a family ofWelsh origin, he moved with his parents toAlabama about 1818. His grandfather Joseph Davis was born inWales in 1763 and emigrated toVirginia. Reuben Davis attended the public schools. Later, he studied medicine,^[1] but practiced only a few years, when he abandoned the profession. He then studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1834, and commenced practice inAberdeen, Mississippi.

Davis "became one of the most successful criminal lawyers in the South",^[1] and was elected prosecuting attorney for the sixth judicial district 1835–1839. He was an unsuccessfulWhig candidate for theTwenty-sixth Congress in 1838. He was then appointed by GovernorTilghman Tucker as a judge of the high court of appeals in 1842,^[1] but after four months' service resigned.^[2]

Davis served as colonel of the Second Regiment ofMississippi Volunteers in theMexican–American War.^[1]

After the war, he was a member of theMississippi House of Representatives 1855–1857. He was elected as aDemocrat to the Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth Congresses and served from March 4, 1857, to January 12, 1861, when he withdrew.

According to the US Census, the Davis household kept 4 slaves in 1840, 18 in 1850, and 42 in 1860. During theAmerican Civil War, Davis served in theConfederate Army asbrigadier general of theArmy of 10,000. After the war, he resumed the practice of law. He was an unsuccessfulGreenback candidate for theForty-sixth Congress in 1878. During this period he purchased a Greek Revival style house inAberdeen, Mississippi, known asSunset Hill, and wrote hisRecollections of Mississippi and Mississippians.^[1] He died suddenly,^[1] while inHuntsville, Alabama in 1890 and was buried at the Odd Fellows Cemetery in Aberdeen.

• United States Congress."Reuben Davis (id: D000127)".Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved on 2008-10-18
• Davis, Reuben.Recollections of Mississippi and Mississippians. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1890. Rev. ed., with a new introd. by William D. McCain. Pref. and an expanded index by Laura D. S. Harrell. Hattiesburg: University and College Press of Mississippi, 1972.

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