50. JEFFERSON DAVIS (1808-1889) President of the Confederacy who led his armies beyond the surrender at Appomattox. Scarce war date and fine content L.S. "Jefferson Davis" as President of the Confederate States of America, 4pp. folio, Richmond, Nov. 26, 1862, excellent content circular letter addressed to the Governor of Georgia requesting new measures to help prosecute the war. Citing the Union's use of captured slaves to fight against the Confederacy, he writes in part: "...The repeated defeats inflicted on the Federal forces in their attempt to conquer our country have not yet sufficed to satisfy them of the impossibility of success in their nefarious design to subjugate these States. A renewed attempt on a still larger scale is now in progress; but with manifest distrust of success in a warfare conducted according to the usages of civilized nations, the United States propose to add to the enormous land and naval forces accumulated by them, bands of such of the African Slaves of the South as they may be able to wrest from their owners, and thus to inflict in the new combination [against the] population of the Confederate States, all the horrors of a servile war, superadded to such atrocities as have already been committed on numerous occasions by their invading forces. To repel attacks conducted on so vast a scale, the most energetic action of every department of the government is directed; but appreciating the great value of the cordial co-operation of the different State governments, and with unfaltering reliance on their patriotism and devotion to our cause, I earnestly appeal to them for all their aid...1. In the enrollment of the conscripts and the forwarding of them to the proper points of rendezvous. 2. In restoring to the army all officers and men...absent with out leave...3. In securing for the use of the army all such necessary supplies as exist with in the States in excess of the quantity indispensable for the support of the people at home...In addition to the above urgent matters, I beg...to ask the aid of the Executives of the several States...to command slave labor to the extent which may be required in the prosecution of works conducive to the public defense, also the adoption of some means to suppress the shameful extortions now practiced upon the people by men who can be reached by no moral influence and who are worse enemies of the Confederacy than if found in arms among the invading forces..." Light soiling along folds, otherwise fine condition. $3,000-5,000