ISBN10: 0807133418, ISBN13: 9780807133415, [publisher: LSU Press 2008-11-30, Baton Rouge] Hardcover Language: ENG
[London, United Kingdom] [Publication Year: 2008]

ISBN10: 0807133418, ISBN13: 9780807133415, [publisher: Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge] Hardcover Hardcover. 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. ...
Show/Hide image