Jefferson Davis wrote most of The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government at Beauvoir, a plantation in Biloxi, Mississippi. He lived there as a guest of Sarah Ellis Dorsey who provided shelter and intellectual support during his writing process.
Sarah Ellis Dorsey assisted Jefferson Davis with organization and editing before her death in 1879 while Varina Davis helped him draft the manuscript alongside Major W. T. Walthall. Correspondence also flowed constantly between Davis and surviving Confederate leaders like Judah Benjamin and Jubal Early for fact-checking purposes.
D. Appleton & Co. released The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government in 1881 as a two-volume edition exceeding 1,500 pages total. Engraved illustrations appeared throughout the text adding visual weight to what was already an enormous undertaking.
Davis defended slavery as morally justified claiming it brought peace and civilization to enslaved people while calling them contented in their servitude. Northern hypocrisy became a central theme since many Northern states once allowed slavery yet profited from trade goods produced by slaves.
Over 22,000 copies of The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government sold by 1890 but figures never matched bestsellers like Ulysses S. Grant's memoirs or Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Interest waned sixteen years post-war as new generations focused on pressing contemporary problems instead of past conflicts.