"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.

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.

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, naysayers 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 -- until his capture by Union forces on May 10, 1865.

The eleventh volume of The Papers of Jefferson Davis follows the last tumultuous 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 for 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.

Is God missing from our worship? Obstacles to true worship are not about contemporary or traditional music, electronic gadgetry or seeker sensitivity. Rather it is the habits of mind and heart, conditioned by our surrounding culture, that hinder our faith in the real presence of the transcendent God among his people. Sensing a real need for renewal, John Jefferson Davis offers a theology of worship that uncovers the most fundamental barriers to our vital involvement in the worship of our holy God. His profound theological analysis leads to fresh and bracing recommendations that will be especially helpful to all those who lead worship or want to more fully and deeply encounter the glory and majesty of God.

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. In the first, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (1881), Davis sought to recast the Confederacy as a just and moral nation that was constitutionally correct in standing up for its rights. Himself the subject of heated debates about why the Confederacy lost, Davis also used the book to castigate Confederate government and military officials who he believed had failed the cause. Later, A Short History of the Confederate States (1890) attempted to burnish the image of the former Confederacy and to refute accusations of intentional mistreatment of Union prisoners. While completing these books, Davis attended and spoke at numerous Confederate memorial services and monument dedications, all the while waging a bitter feud with two of his former top generals-Joseph E. Johnston and P. G. T. Beauregard-over the reasons for the fall of the Confederacy. In late 1889, having returned to New Orleans from a trip to his plantation, Brierfield, Davis succumbed to pneumonia. His funeral procession attracted an estimated 150,000 mourners, a testament to the lasting popularity of the Confederacy's only president. In volume 14 of The Papers of Jefferson Davis, the editors have drawn from over one hundred manuscript repositories and private collections, in addition to numerous published sources, to offer a compelling portrait of Davis over the last decade of his life.

As culture has become at once more secular and more religiously pluralistic, a renaissance of interest in the spiritual disciplines has been sparked in evangelical Protestant circles. Mounting levels of stress, burnout and spiritual dryness among those in ministry has only stoked this desire for spiritual nourishment and renewal. John Jefferson Davis helps us recover the practice of meditation on Scripture as he explores the biblical and theological foundations rooted in the arrival of "the age to come" in Jesus Christ. Indeed by virtue of our union with Christ, the Triune God of the Bible draws near to his people so that they may also draw near to him. Meditation on God's revelation has always been central to enjoying communion with the Father through the Son and in the Spirit. Davis gives us fresh and practical guidance on removing the obstacles that block our fellowship with God and listening to Scripture in ways that can enrich our worship, faith, hope and love.

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.

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.

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 confi'ict with the North had given way to the harsh realities of a prolonged war, increasingly confi ned 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 fi rsthand 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 fi ghting to maintain morale and military cohesion during one of the Confederacy's most diffi cult periods.