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.
... ser2, v8, 570–71; V. Davis, Memoir, 2:649; Craven, Prison Life, 333–34; ClayClopton, Belle of the Fifties, 263–67). ... *Derived from a sixteenth-century French proverb and spoken by Maria in Laurence Sterne's 1768 A Sentimental ...
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 ...
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.
Allen, Felicity. jefferson Davis: Unconquerable Heart. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1999. American Annual Cyclopaedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1865. New York: D. Appleton, 1870. American State Papers.
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.
Mary Seaton Dix, Associate Editor The 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 ...
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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. ...
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... mentioning “Genl Cooper's habits, as an objection”; Robinson avows Cooper has been sober for fifteen months; Robert M. Jones, former delegate to Congress, agrees that Cooper, a true personal and political friend of Davis', ...