The Beauvoir estate, built in Biloxi, Mississippi, along the Gulf of Mexico, was the post-war home (1876–1889) of the former President of the Confederate States of America Jefferson Davis.

Dorsey invited Davis to visit the plantation, offering him a cottage near the main house where he could live and work on his memoirs.

[5] Ill with cancer in 1878, Dorsey remade her will, bequeathing Beauvoir to Jefferson Davis and making Winnie the residuary legatee, inheriting after her father died.

The main house and library were badly damaged, and other outbuildings were destroyed during Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005.

Oyster Bayou, a freshwater impediment and bay-head swamp once connected directly to the Mississippi Sound, runs across the property behind the main house from West to East.

[8] The northeast portion of the estate is the site of a primitive, pre-urban hardwood forest with an environment similar to what existed in the area during the 1800s.

envision restoring Oyster Bayou to its original environmental state, although this area suffered extensive damage from Hurricane Katrina.

Sarah Dorsey was a novelist and historian who wrote a biography of the Louisiana wartime governor, Henry Watkins Allen.

After her husband, who was older, died in 1875, the widow Dorsey lived in the main house with her half-brother Mortimer Dahlgren.

She made a cottage available to him and assisted him in writing his memoir, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (1881), by organizing, taking dictation, and encouraging him.

[6] In 1998 the Mississippi Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans opened the Jefferson Davis Presidential Library.

[12] On August 29, 2005, the main building was severely damaged, losing its newly refurbished galleries (porches) and a section of its roof, but not destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, which hit the Biloxi-Gulfport area head-on.

The storm destroyed the Hayes Cottage, the Library Pavilion, a barracks replica, the Confederate Museum, and the director's home.

On the back, west wing of Beauvoir, behind a front-yard tree, the green storm shutters survived the floating debris that battered the entrance.

Whole sections of the Beauvoir home have remained intact to preserve many of the original construction details and windows (as seen in the photograph excerpts, at right).

Since thousands of homes in Mississippi were damaged or destroyed during Hurricane Katrina, construction work was diverted to all state disaster areas.

[13] With various federal, state, and private organizations' financial assistance and individual contributions, restoring Beauvoir Mansion started in early 2006.

On June 3, 2008, Jefferson Davis' 200th Birthday, Beauvoir Mansion was fully restored and reopened for public tours.

Smithsonian magazine reported in 2018 that the museum communicates the Lost Cause perspective, including characterizing slavery as a positive institution and minor factor in the Civil War.

[16] Before the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina, annual events included the Spring Pilgrimage in March, Confederate Memorial Day in April, the Fall Muster in October, and Candlelight Christmas in December.