The Papers of Jefferson Davis series is published by Louisiana State University Press . Information for ordering the volumes can be found below. The first four contain full text or summarized notation of all known Davis documents through 1852. Due to the extensive correspondence beginning with the secretary of war period and continuing though the Civil War years, Volume 5 and subsequent volumes are selective, with routine bureaucratic communication omitted. Documents discovered too late to be included in the proper chronological sequence are published in appendices.
All volumes contain illustrations and detailed endpaper maps.
The first volume, which presents 537 documents, covers Davis' early years in Kentucky and Mississippi, his education at West Point, his first military assignments, and his brief marriage to Sarah Knox Taylor . Two autobiographical pieces, written weeks before Davis' death, are also included, as is a Davis Family Genealogy . This volume won the first Founders Award given by the Confederate Memorial Literary Society. The 255 documents cover his unsuccessful race for the state legislature, his selection as a presidential elector, his marriage to Varina Banks Howell , his election to the House of Representatives , and his departure to assume command of the 1st Mississippi Regiment. Colonel Davis takes command of the 1st Mississippi Regiment at the beginning of the third volume.