Author: Jefferson Davis
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807158828
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 753

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Book Description
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Author: Jefferson Davis
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 9780807109434
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 594

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Book Description
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.

Author: Jefferson Davis
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 9780807129098
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 770

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Book Description
During the last nine months of the Civil War, virtually all of the news reports and President Jefferson Davis’s correspondence confirmed the imminent demise of the Confederate States, the nation Davis had striven to uphold since 1861. But despite defeat after defeat on the battlefield, a recalcitrant Congress, nay-sayers in the press, disastrous financial conditions, failures in foreign policy and peace efforts, and plummeting national morale, Davis remained in office and tried to maintain the government—even after the fall of Richmond on April 2—until his capture by Union forces on May 10, 1865. The eleventh volume of The Papers of Jefferson Davis follows these tumultuous last months of the Confederacy and illuminates Davis’s policies, feelings, ideas, and relationships, as well as the viewpoints of hundreds of southerners—critics and supporters—who asked favors, pointed out abuses, and offered advice on myriad topics. Printed here for the first time are many speeches and a number of new letters and telegrams. In the course of the volume, Robert E. Lee officially becomes general in chief, Joseph E. Johnston is given a final command, legislation is enacted to place slaves in the army as soldiers, and peace negotiations are opened at the highest levels. The closing pages chronicle Davis’s dramatic flight from Richmond, including emotional correspondence with his wife as the two endeavor to find each other en route and make plans for the future in the wreckage of their lives. The holdings of seventy different manuscript repositories and private collections in addition to numerous published sources contribute to Volume 11, the fifth in the Civil War period.

Author: Jefferson Davis
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Confederate States of America
Languages : en
Pages :

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Author: Jefferson Davis
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807158798
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 595

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Book Description
Lynda Lasswell Crist, Editor Mary Seaton Dix, Coeditor Introduction by Frank E. Vandiver Volume 7 of The Papers of Jefferson Davis offers a unique view of 1861, the first year of the Confederacy, Davis' presidency, and the Civil War. On January 21 Davis made his affecting farewell speech before a hushed Senate, then left for Mississippi. His uncertainty over a military or political course vanished when he received news of his unanimous election as president of the Confederate States of America. Inaugurated at Montgomery, Alabama, on February 18, Davis quickly set to work to forge a government, in a race with events to select a cabinet, establish departments, and plan for the common defense. Hopes for a peaceful separation from the North ended with the firing on Fort Sumter; subsequent documents reveal a president absorbed by the problems of waging a war that soon stretched from the Atlantic Coast to the Gulf of Mexico. Victory at Manassas produced euphoria among southerners but plunged the president into the first of several unfortunate controversies with his generals, this one over the failure to pursue the enemy and capitalize on success. Throughout 1861 the Confederate commissioners in Europe reported to Davis on their expectations of recognition, convinced that the demand for cotton would induce Great Britain and France to break the North's blockade of southern ports and help supply arms for the defense of the fledgling nation. Volume 7 provides a rare opportunity to assess anew Davis' strengths and weaknesses as executive, to reexamine his relationship with generals, governors, congressmen, cabinet officers, the press, and the public. Davis ended the year as he begun, aware of the difficulties of the course the South had adopted and confident that its cause would ultimately triumph. Containing illustrations, maps, and more than 2,500 documents drawn from numerous printed sources and more than seventy repositories and private collections, Volume 7 covers a year of paramount importance in our country's history.

Author: Jefferson Davis
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807158895
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 808

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Book Description
Kenneth H. Williams, Associate Editor Peggy L. Dillard, Editorial Associate The autumn of 1863 was a trying time for Jefferson Davis. Even as he expressed unwavering confidence about the eventual success of the Confederate movement, he had to realize that mounting economic problems, low morale, and rotating army leadership were threatening the welfare of the new nation. Less than a year after the October 1863 Confederate victory at Chickamauga, the South relinquished Atlanta to Sherman. During the tumultuous eleven months chronicled in Volume 10, Davis retained his fervor for southern nationalism as he struggled furiously to command a war and maintain a government. As the letters contained here illustrate, he soldiered bravely on.

Author: Jefferson Davis
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 080715895X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 708

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Book Description
"Being powerless to direct the current, I can only wait to see whither it runs," wrote Jefferson Davis to his wife, Varina, on October 11, 1865, five months after the victorious United States Army took him prisoner. Indeed, 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. Stateless, homeless, and without means to support himself and his young family, Davis lived in Canada and then Europe, searching for a new career in a congenial atmosphere. Finally, in November 1869, he settled in Memphis as president of a life insurance company and, for the first time in four years, had the means to build a new life.Throughout this difficult period, Varina Howell Davis demonstrated strength and courage, especially when her husband was in prison. She fought tirelessly for his release and to ensure their children's education and safety. Their letters clearly demonstrate the Davises' love and their dependence on each other. They both worried over the fate of the South and of family members and friends who had suffered during the war. Though disfranchised, Davis remained careful but not totally silent on the subject of politics. Even while in prison, he wrote without regret of his decision to follow Mississippi out of the Union and of his unswerving belief in the constitutionality of state rights and secession. Likewise, he praised all who supported the Confederacy with their blood and who, like himself, had lost everything.

Author: Jefferson Davis
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 9780807109434
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 692

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Book Description
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.

Author: Jefferson Davis
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 9780807120873
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 550

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Book Description
“The New Year . . . comes in auspiciously for us,” Jefferson Davis proclaimed in January, 1863, and indeed there were grounds for optimism within the Confederacy. By September, however, various hopes for ending the conflict with the North had given way to the harsh realities of a prolonged war, increasingly confined to southern soil. Although Davis suffered poor health during much of the nine-month period, he remained an active and vital leader. Volume 9 of The Papers of Jefferson Davis gives a vivid picture of the tasks he faced. Military matters consumed most of Davis’ time. Already strained relations with Joseph E. Johnston worsened in the spring, and he was eventually relieved of his overall command of the western armies. Surrenders at Vicksburg and Port Hudson ended Confederate access to the Mississippi River, and in the East, Robert E. Lee’s stunning victory at Chancellorsville was blotted out by bloody repulse south of Gettysburg. Correspondence from Europe reveals what Davis knew of the Erlanger loan and the diminishing chances of French and British intervention. As problems for the Confederacy mounted, discontent grew. Davis received complaints from across the young country, the conscription system being of particular concern. In April he saw firsthand the unhappiness over limited resources as he took to the streets to help calm the Richmond bread riot. Over 2,000 documents, many never before published, are included in Volume 9. Eighty-one are printed with annotation, 242 more in full text, and about 1,750 others are calendared in summary form. They show Davis fighting to maintain morale and military cohesion during one of the Confederacy’s most difficult periods.

Author: Jefferson Davis
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807139084
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 767

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Book Description
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. Although his position with the insurance company provided temporary financial stability, Davis resigned after the Panic of 1873 forced the sale of the company and its new owners canceled payments to Carolina policyholders. He left for England the following year in search of employment and to recuperate from ongoing illnesses. In 1876, Davis became president of the London-based Mississippi Valley Society and relocated to New Orleans to run the company. Throughout the 1870s, Davis waged an expensive and seemingly endless legal battle to regain his prewar Mississippi plantation, Brierfield. He also began working on his memoirs at Beauvoir, the Gulf Coast estate of a family friend. Though disfranchised, Davis addressed the subject of politics with more frequency during this decade, criticizing the Reconstruction policies of the federal government while defending the South and the former Confederacy. The volume ends with Davis's inheritance of Beauvoir, which was his last home. The editors have drawn from over one hundred manuscript repositories and private collections in addition to numerous published sources in compiling Volume 13.