to avert national ruin, when she saw the Constitution disregarded and the purpose to compel free States by military force to submit to arbitrary power, passed an Ordinance of Secession, and joined the Confederate States.

Shortly after this, as authorized by the Provisional Congress, I removed the Confederate capital from Montgomery to Richmond.

Among the many indications of good-will shown when on my way to and after my arrival at Richmond was the purchase of a very fine residence in Richmond, by leading citizens. It was offered as a present; but, following a rule that had governed my action in all such cases, I declined to accept it. I continued to live in Richmond until the Confederate forces were compelled to withdraw from the defences of the capital.

That event was not quite unexpected, but it occurred before the conditions were fulfilled under which General Lee contemplated retreat. After General Lee was forced to surrender, and General Johnston consented to do so, I started, with a very few of the men who volunteered to accompany me, for the transMississippi; but, hearing on the road that marauders were pursuing my family, whom I had not seen since they left Richmond, but knew to be en route to the Florida coast, I changed my direction, and, after a long and hard ride, found them encamped and threatened by a robbing party. To give them the needed protection I travelled with them for several days, until in the neighborhood of Irwinville, Ga., when I supposed I could safely leave them. But, hearing, about nightfall, that a party of marauders were to attack the camp that night, and supposing them to be pillaging deserters from both armies, and that the Confederates would listen to me, I awaited their coming, lay down in my travelling clothes, and fell asleep. Late in the night my colored coachman aroused me with the intelligence that the camp was attacked; and I stepped out of the tent where my wife and children were sleeping, and saw at once that the assailants were troops deploying around the encampment. I so informed my wife, who urged me to escape. After some hesitation, I consented, and a servant-woman started with me carrying a bucket as if going to the spring for water. One of the surrounding troops ordered me to halt, and demanded my surrender. I advanced toward the trooper, throwing off a shawl which my wife had put over my shoulders. The trooper aimed his carbine, when my wife, who witnessed the act, rushed forward and threw her arms around me, thus defeating my intention, which was, if the trooper missed his aim, to try to unhorse him and escape

with his horse. Then, with every species of petty pillage and offensive exhibition, I was taken from point to point until incarcerated in Fortress Monroe. There I was imprisoned for two years before being allowed the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus.1

At length, when the writ was to be issued, the condition was imposed by the Federal Executive that there should be bondsmen influential in the "Republican" party of the North, Mr. Greeley being specially named. Entirely as a matter of justice and legal right, not from motives of personal regard, Mr. Greeley, Mr. Gerrit Smith, and other eminent Northern citizens went on my bond.

In May, 1867, after being released from Fortress Monroe, I went to Canada, where my older children were, with their grandmother; my wife, as soon as permitted, having shared my imprisonment, and brought our infant daughter with her. From time to time I obeyed summonses to go before the Federal Court at Richmond, until, finally, the case was heard by Chief Justice Chase and District Judge Underwood, who were divided in opinion, which sent the case to the Supreme Court of the United States, and the proceedings were quashed, leaving me without the opportunity to vindicate myself before the highest Federal Court.

After about a year's residence in Canada I went to England with my family under an arrangement that I was to have sixty days' notice whenever the United States Court required my presence. After being abroad in England and on the Continent about a year, I received an offer of an appointment as President of a Life Insurance Company. Thereupon I returned to this country, and went to Memphis and took charge of the company. Subsequently I came to the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, as a quiet place where I could prepare my work on "The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government." A friend from her infancy, Mrs. Dorsey shared her home with me, and subsequently sold to me her property of Beauvoir, an estate of five or six hundred acres, about midway between Mobile and New Orleans. Before I had fully paid for this estate Mrs. Dorsey died, leaving me her sole legatee. From the spring of 1876 to the autumn of 1879 I devoted myself to the production of the historical work just

For a fuller account of my arrest see statements of United States Senator Reagan; W. R. Johnston, President Tulane University; F. R. Lubbock, Treasurer of Texas; B. N. Harrison, Esq., of New York City, all eyewitnesses. Also The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, page 700, vol. II; and for my life at Fortress Monroe, "The Prison Life of Jefferson Davis," by Dr. L. J. J. Craven; New York: Carleton, 1866.

mentioned. It is an octavo book, in two volumes of about seven hundred pages each. I have also from time to time contributed essays to the North American Review and Belford's Magazine, and have just completed the manuscript of "A Short History of the Confederate States of America," which is expected to appear early in 1890.

Since settling at Beauvoir, I have persistently refused to take any active part in politics, not merely because of my disfranchisement, but from a belief that such labors could not be made to conduce to the public good, owing to the sectional hostilities manifested against me since the war. For the same reason I have also refused to be a candidate for public office, although it is well known that I could at any time have been re-elected a Senator of the United States.

I have been twice married, the second time being in 1845, to a daughter of William B. Howell, of Natchez, a son of Governor Howell, of New Jersey. She has borne me six children-four sons and two daughters. My sons are all dead; my daughters survive. The elder is Mrs. Hayes, of Colorado Springs, Col., and the mother of four children. My youngest daughter lives. with us at Beauvoir, Miss. Born in the last year of the war, she became familiarly known as "the daughter of the Confederacy." JEFFERSON DAVIS.

Beauvoir, Miss., November, 1889.

VOL. I