On Monday, December 8, 1862, President Jefferson Davis wrote Lee at Fredericksburg, “In Tennessee and Mississippi the disparity between our armies and those of the enemy is so great as to fill me with apprehension.” Davis explained to Lee that he must leave Richmond and visit the western states, if for no other reason than to bolster the flagging confidence of the Confederate people of that region.
Davis immediately began to pack for a twenty-five day, 2500 mile journey to the west where he would meet with both Confederate military and civilian authorities, make twenty-five public addresses, including to the state legislature of his home state of Mississippi, and help coordinate the defense of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River. An exhausted Jefferson Davis would return to Richmond in early January 1863.