Alexander Mathews Davis (January 17, 1833 – September 25, 1889) was a nineteenth-century politician and lawyer from Virginia. Davis served for two years in the Virginia Senate and briefly in the U.S. House of Representatives, before his opponent successfully contested the election result.
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Early and family life
Born in Old Mount Airy, Virginia, Davis attended the old field schools and was privately tutored as a child. He later attended and graduated from Emory and Henry College, then read law.
He married Mary Jane Dickenson Davis (1848–1896), daughter of Col. John Dickenson of Grayson County (and for whom Dickenson County was named upon its creation in 1880). They would have at least three sons: Albert Conley Davis (1869–1893), Joseph C Davis (1871–1888) and James Garnett Davis (1873–1931).
Career
Admitted to the bar in 1854, Davis began his private legal practice in Wytheville, Virginia, and later moved to Independence, Virginia.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Davis served in the Confederate Army as captain of Company C of the 45th Regiment, Virginia Infantry in 1861. He earned a promotion to major in 1862 and another to lieutenant colonel in 1864. Captured near the end of the war, he was held prisoner on Johnson's Island in Lake Erie.