Davis is caricatured as a crowned skeletal personification of death, holding a pirate flag in one hand and a torch labeled "DESOLATION" in the other, with a slave seated between his feet. He is seated on a throne of cotton bales atop a huge whiskey barrel. Around him drunken men toast him, with signs reading "Hurrah for Jeff Davis", "Hurrah for Our New President". Beside is a gaunt mother with holding a baby, both looking like they suffering from starvation. In the background are ship masts falling to ruin, houses burning, and a great gallows.

Original Caption:

THE INAUGURATION AT RICHMOND

"Fellow Citizens! On this the Birthday of the Man most identified with the establishment of American Independence, and beneath the Monument erected, &c. &c. &c., we have assembled to usher into existence the permanent Government of the Confederate States." -- (JEFF DAVIS'S Inaugural Address at Richmond)