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.
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