Correspondence, articles, speeches, photocopies of land grants, newspaper clippings, notes of historian Nathaniel W. Stephenson summarizing letters and writings by Davis which were printed in The War of the Rebellion : A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (1880-1902), and drafts of military reports concerning the Battle of Monterrey (1846) in the Mexican War. Subjects include admission of California as a state, Mississippi state politics, a southern transcontinental railroad, and other prewar national issues. Correspondents include Amos B. Corwine, Hamlet J. Harris, William Maynadier, Philip A. Roach, and Crafts J. Wright.

Includes Varina Davis's correspondence, 1889-1906, relating primarily to her husband's capture on May 10, 1865; to family and personal matters; and to the conversion of Beauvoir, Davis's home in Biloxi, Miss., to a home for Confederate veterans.