This is the first volume of an eight-volume edition of Washington's papers in the Confederation period. Unlike the series devoted to Washington's Revolutionary War and presidential papers, the Confederation Series is composed almost entirely of personal letters and includes very few official documemts.

Documents printed in volume 1 reflect Washington's main concerns during the first months of peace. Many letters relate directly to his resumption of the management not only of his house and farms at Mount Vernon, as well as of his tenanted land in Frederick and Berkeley counties in Pennsylvania, but also of his vast holdings on the banks of the Great Kanawha and Ohio. Other letters deal with such things as the settlement of his military accounts, his activities as both president and determined reformer of the Society of the Cincinnati, and his preliminary notions about making the Potomac the connecting link between the East and the transmontane West.