Davis, Jefferson | At work on his "Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government"

Davis, Jefferson

Autograph letter signed ("Jefferson Davis"), 3 ½ pages (206 x 126 mm) on lined stationery embossed with a female head in upper left, Beauvoir, Harrison County, Mississippi, 4 September 1878, to J. C. Derby, on the obstructions he encounters gaining access to Confederate papers in the National Archives; formerly folded, a few edge stains.

The former president of the Confederate States of America was engaged at this time in writing his Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, his apologia for the Southern rebellion. His correspondent, James Cephas Derby (1818–1892), was founder of the publishing firm Derby & Miller in New York, and after a hiatus (1862–1870) became active again in the publishing business: from 1872 he was associated with the New York house of D. Appleton & Co., publishers of Davis's history. Others mentioned in the letter are Marcus J. Wright, a brigadier-general from Tennessee, and Major W.T. Walthall who was helping Davis find essential primary sources but was meeting with bureaucratic obstruction and delay at the National Archives.

Davis writes: "The announcement that the Confederate archives were accessible, exceeded, I fear, the extent of the order in that connection. Maj. Walthall has corresponded with General M. J. Wright and it appears that the officer in charge of the archives, gives to Genl. W. such copies of papers as it may be deemed proper to allow him to have. This is an advantage of which we have been glad to avail ourselves."

He reports that General Walthall had contemplated a trip to New York but was called to Memphis because of the outbreak of fever there. (Davis' son died of this epidemic in Memphis 16 October.) He goes on to offer several corrections to an article on "important documents on exhibition at Toledo" whose statements he finds "generally so unreliable that one cannot form a conclusion from them. For example, in this recital, articles are mentioned as taken by Michigan soldiers at the time of my capture, it may be true that they were 'taken' by Col. Pritchard of Mich[igan] or his staff officers when they pillaged my wife's trunks, after I was imprisoned in Fortress Monroe, or they may have been found in a trunk belonging to me which a party going from V[irgini]a to Florida had carried to Fl[orid]a and left there; but they were not 'taken" as reported.'"

Davis also remarks that the capital of the C.S.A. was never transferred to Greensboro, N.C. "I stopped there after the surrender of Lee, for a conference with J. E. Johnston & Beauregard, but never designed to establish the gov[ernmen]t there." Davis expresses thanks to Derby for his offer to help him obtain other important documents but states cautiously "This however is an inquiry which it would probably not do for me to make directly."