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Jefferson Finis Davis was born on June 3, 1808. He was the tenth and last child of Samuel and Jane Cook Davis of Christian County (now Todd County), Kentucky. The family moved to Wilkinson County, Mississippi Territory, in 1812. Davis entered the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, in 1824, and he graduated in 1828. From West Point, Davis went on to serve as a second lieutenant in the United States Army at Fort Crawford, Wisconsin; Fort Winnebago, Wisconsin; and Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, during which time he participated in the Black Hawk War.

Davis married Sarah Knox Taylor, daughter of Colonel Zachary Taylor, in June of 1835, and later that month, Davis resigned from the army. The couple traveled to Hurricane, the Warren County, Mississippi, plantation of Joseph Davis, the elder brother of Jefferson Davis, who gave the couple Brierfield, an eight-hundred-acre plantation adjacent to Hurricane. Shortly after their arrival in Mississippi, both Davis and his wife contracted malaria, and on September 15, 1835, she succumbed to the disease. Davis recovered and became a cotton planter in Warren County.

In February of 1845, Jefferson Davis married Varina Howell (1826-1906) at the Briars in Natchez, Mississippi. The couple had six children: Samuel Emory (1852-1854), Margaret Howell (1855-1909), Jefferson, Jr. (1857-1878), Joseph Evan (1859-1864), William Howell (1861-1872), and Varina Anne (1864-1898). Margaret Howell Davis married banker Joel Addison Hayes, Jr. (1848-1919) of Memphis. They would later relocate to Colorado Springs, Colorado, for health reasons. The couple had five children: Jefferson Davis Hayes (b. & d. 1877); Varina Howell Davis Hayes Webb (b. 1879); Lucy Hayes White (b. 1882); William Davis Hayes (b. 1889), and Jefferson Hayes-Davis.

Davis was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1845, a position from which he resigned after less than a year, to command the Mississippi Rifles in the Mexican War. He was wounded at Buena Vista, Mexico, in February of 1847. Later that year, Davis was appointed to fill a vacant seat in the United States Senate. In 1851, Davis resigned from the senate to run as governor of Mississippi, but he was defeated by Senator Henry Stuart Foote. The following year, he campaigned for presidential candidate Franklin Pierce, and Davis was eventually appointed secretary of war under President Pierce. In 1857, Mississippi reelected Davis to the United States Senate. Four years later, in a farewell speech to the senate, Davis announced the secession of Mississippi and resigned his seat. In February of 1861, Davis was elected provisional president of the newly formed Confederate States of America, and in October of that year, he was elected president of the Confederacy.

This collection consists of personal correspondence, legal records, and miscellaneous papers of Confederate president Jefferson Davis and members of his immediate family from 1851 to 1889. The papers provide rare glimpses into the private lives and thoughts of Jefferson Davis and his family. Included are letters to or from Jefferson Davis; Varina Howell Davis; Jefferson Davis, Jr.; Margaret Howell Davis Hayes; Joel Addison Hayes, Jr.; Joseph Emory Davis; and William Burr Howell. Jefferson Davis received additional letters from former Confederate general Stephen D. Lee of Columbus, Mississippi, and Bishop Ignatius Persie of Savannah, Georgia.