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The five-year period from 1841 to 1846 saw the beginning of Jefferson Davis' political career. In this, the second volume of The Papers of Jefferson Davis, the documents cover Davis' unsuccessful race for the state legislature, his selection as a Democratic state elector, his marriage to Varina Howell, his election to the U.S. House of Representatives, and his departure therefrom to assume command of the First Mississippi Regiment in the Mexican War. In the congressional documents Davis emerges as a hardworking freshman representative who quickly won for himself the respect and esteem of his fellow congressmen. There were, however, notable exceptions. One such exception was Andrew Johnson, a tailor by trade, who strongly resented Davis' remark on the floor of the House that a "blacksmith or tailor" could not be expected to achieve the same results in battle as a trained military man. In the somewhat bitter exchange that followed, some have professed to see the beginnings of the long-standing animosity between Johnson and Davis. The 255 documents in this volume (two appendixes contain undated and late-arriving items) provide a clear picture of Jefferson Davis, the man and the politician, and give an intimate view of Mississippi in the 1840s. Throughout the volume are rumblings of the then distant storm that was to break so disastrously over the nation in the 1860s.

At the end of Volume 2 Jefferson Davis had left Congress to become a colonel in the First Mississippi Regiment. The first item in this volume is a speech as he prepares to leave on a riverboat to serve in the Mexican War. The years 1846 through 1848 see Davis play a conspicuous role in the war and in the subsequent political clashes and controversies over slavery.Volume 3 details Davis' first experience in battle as an officer of a regiment as well as his initial term as a U.S. senator. He received both praise and criticism for his leadership in Mexico. In 1847 he returned to Mississippi a wounded hero of national fame, refused a brigadier generalship, and took his place in the U.S. Senate.There are several items of correspondence with Zachary Taylor that shed light on Taylor's attitude toward the proposed nomination that would lead to his election as president in 1848. Davis' first wife was Taylor's daughter; and in spite of political and family differences the two men maintained a close friendship. In a major speech in July, 1848, Davis protested the formal prohibition of slavery from the Oregon Territory; he then voted for the Senate's compromise bill on Oregon.Volume 3 of The Papers of Jefferson Davis includes letters to and from Davis, his speeches in chronological order, and other documents, further illuminating Davis' character, opinions, philosophy, and personal relationships as well as continuing the development of his military career.

Much of Jefferson Davis' life and career has been obscured in controversy and misinterpretation. This full, carefully annotated edition will make it possible for scholars to reassess the man who served as President of the Confederacy and who in the aftermath of war became the symbolic leader of the South. For almost a decade a dedicated team of scholars has been collecting and documenting Davis' papers and correspondence for this multi-volume work. The first volume includes not only Davis' private and public correspondence but also the important letters and documents addressed to and concerning him. Two autobiographical accounts, a detailed genealogy of the Davis family, and a complete bibliography are also included. This volume covers Davis' early years in Mississippi and Kentucky, his career at West Point, his first military assignments, and his tragic marriage to Sarah Knox Taylor. Together, the letters and documents unfold a human story of the first thirty-two years of a long life that later became filled with turbulence and controversy.

In Volume 4 of The Papers Of Jefferson Davis, which covers the years 1849 to 1852, Davis had clearly chosen politics as his life's work. He relished his role as Mississippi's senior senator and willingly assumed the responsibility of being a national spokesman for the South.

Mary Seaton Dix, Associate EditorThe fifth volume of The Papers of Jefferson Davis presents 9,000 of the approximately 21,000 known Davis letters, papers, and speeches from the years 1853 through 1855, when Davis served as secretary of war under President Franklin Pierce. Most of the documents are included in summary form in an extensive calendar; 93 are published in full with annotation.Well prepared for the War Department position by his military education and experience, Davis was already known as a champion of the army and West Point from his years in Congress. As secretary, Davis administered a department of eight bureaus and a military establishment spread thinly from coast to coast. An increase and reorganization of the army along with the establishment of new posts became top priorities as a tide of settlers encroached in Indian lands in the Mexican cession and Far West. Davis also supervised army engineering projects as varied as the Capitol extension, military roads, and river and harbor improvements. The curriculum of the Military Academy, new weapons and armaments development, the activities of the Crimea commission, the Pacific railroad surveys, and the camel expedition -- all commanded his minute attention.Despite the burdens of office, Davis maintained a lively interest in the issues of the day, among them Latin American filibustering, the purchase of Cuba, states' rights, slavery, and the conflict in Kansas. The wide attention accorded his travels and speeches brought national prominence to him and speculation about his future candidacy for governor, a return to the Senate, the vice-presidency, and even the presidency. Personal correspondence includes letters that touch on Davis' long estrangement from his brother, the death of his first child, persistent health problems, and relationships with friends and family. Much of hiss official correspondence, especially several angry exchanges with army officers, reveals even more about Davis' personality. In addition to the documents published in full and calendared, an appendix includes over one hundred recently discovered personal and political items dates from 1838 through 1852, before Davis' selection as secretary of war.

Over 2000 documents are included in this volume which show Davis fighting to maintain morale and military cohesion during one of the Confederacy's most difficult periods in the Civil War.

This volume of Jefferson's papers chronicles the autumn of 1863, a time of mounting economic problems, low morale, and rotating army leadership which was threatening the welfare of the new nation.

Volume 6 of The Papers of Jefferson Davis, spanning the five crucial years before 1861, chronicles Davis' last year as secretary of war and his return to the Senate, capstone of his long career of public service to the United States. Volume 6 includes 116 letters printed in full with annotation, a calendar of over 6,000 items, and summaries of 53 recently discovered documents dating from 1845 through 1855, as well as illustrations and maps prepared especially for the volume. Davis' correspondence and his final report to Franklin Pierce mirror the concerns of his last months as head of the War Department--turmoil in Kansas, protection of western settlements, construction of the Washington Aqueduct, the Capitol extension and new dome, surveys for the Pacific Railroad, Indian relations, the camel experiment, army reorganization, and advances in weaponry. All these issues followed Davis to the Senate in March, 1857, but other questions soon claimed equal attention. As debates on abolition, state rights, fugitive slaves, and slavery in the territories became more frequent and more divisive, Davis found himself a major spokesman for his region. He was caught up in the momentous events testing the nation during James Buchanan's administration: "bleeding Kansas," Preston Brook's attack on Charles Sumner, John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, the 1860 Democratic conventions, the election of a Republican president, and the secession of South Carolina. He debated at length with Stephen A. Douglas and others over "squatter sovereignty" and offered his own resolutions on the relations of states as the basis for the Democratic platform in 1860. Personal correspondence gives revealing word pictures of Varina Davis and the children, the family's sojourn in New England during the Summer of 1858, disastrous flooding at Brierfield in 1859, and Davis' persistent, debilitating illnesses. Volume 6 covers fateful years for the nation and for Jefferson Davis, a man moving toward a destiny that he is both creating and hoping to avoid.

The 11th volume of "The Papers of Jefferson Davis" follows the last tumultuous months of the Confederacy and illuminates Davis' policies, feelings, ideas and relationships, as well as the viewpoints of hundreds of southerners. Previously unpublished letters and telegrams appear here.

Volume 8 of The Papers of Jefferson Davis brings the Confederate president to the second year of the War Between the States and shows that during 1862 Davis was almost completely overwhelmed by military matters. Indeed, early that year, in an address to the Confederate Congress, he admitted that in trying to defend every part of its far-flung territory, the "Government had attempted more than it had power successfully to achieve." During 1862, Judah P. Benjamin was replaced as secretary of war by George W. Randolph, who was then succeeded by James A. Seddon. As the year advanced, Davis' relationships with certain key generals continued to sour. Chief among them were P.G.T. Beauregard, who was finally removed from his last significant command, and Joseph E. Johnston, whose fall from grace precipitated Robert E. Lee's rise to influence as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee proved to be as adept in communicating and coordinating plans with the president as Johnston had been inept. At the inconclusive Battle of Shiloh, Davis lost Albert Sidney Johnston, a trusted friend and the general he had most admired. Like Shiloh, many other campaigns of 1862 ended in stalemate and withdrawal, including Henry H. Sibley's New Mexico campaign, Braxton Bragg's Kentucky campaign, Earl Van Dorn's battle at Elkhorn Tavern, and the Confederacy's greatest gamble--Lee's Invasion of Maryland. Correspondence with Davis' brother, Joseph E. Davis, reveals the ever-worsening situation in Mississippi. The Federal occupation of New Orleans, the fall of new Madrid and Island No. 10, and Grants repeated attempts to capture Vicksburg heightened anxiety about the area and persuaded the president to tour the western theater in December. Because the Union's springtime invasion of Richmond prompted Davis to send his wife and children away, Volume 8 contains an unusually rich collection of letters exchanged during their separation. This correspondence offers a rare glimpse into the minds and hearts of Davis and his wife. Altogether, more than 2,000 documents, many never before published, are included in Volume 8; 133 are printed in full. Culled from fifty-nine repositories, twenty-one private collections, and numerous printed sources, they reveal that despite the many setbacks he suffered in 1862, Davis maintained a deep devotion to duty and an unbending will to win.

Volume 13 of The Papers of Jefferson Davis follows the former president of the Confederacy as he becomes head of the Carolina Life Insurance Company of Memphis and attempts to gain a financial foothold for his newly reunited family. Having lost everything in the Civil War and spent two years immediately afterwards in federal prison, Davis faced a mounting array of financial woes, health problems, and family illnesses and tragedies in the 1870s. Despite setbacks during this decade, Davis also began a quest to rehabilitate his image and protect his historical legacy.

In the tumultuous years immediately after the Civil War, Davis found himself more acted upon than active, a dramatic change from his previous twenty years of public service to the United States as a major political figure and then to the Confederacy as its president and commander in chief. Volume 12 of The Papers of Jefferson Davis follows the former president of the Confederacy as he and his family fight to find their place in the world after the Civil War. A federal prisoner, incarcerated in a "living tomb" at Fort Monroe while the government decided whether, where, and by whom he should be tried for treason, Davis was initially allowed to correspond only with his wife and counsel. Released from prison after two hard years, he was not free from legal proceedings until 1869.

The final volume of The Papers of Jefferson Davis follows the former president of the Confederacy through the completion of his two monumental works on the history of the Confederate States of America.