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Varina Howell Davis

Varina Howell Davis (May 7, 1826 – October 16, 1906) was an American author who was best-known as the First Lady of the Confederate States of America, second wife of CSA President Jefferson Davis (1808–1889), during the Confederate War.

She was born at Natchez, Mississippi, the daughter of William B. Howell and Margaret L. Kempe. Her father was a clerk in the Bank of the United States; and her paternal grandfather, Richard Howell, was the Governor of New Jersey for numerous terms.

Varina attended Madame Greenland's School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1844, at age 17, while home for the Christmas holidays, she met Jefferson Davis. He was then a widower, 36 years of age, and just at the beginning of his political career. They were married on February 26, 1845, at the Briars, home of her parents, at Natchez.

Jeff served in both houses of the U.S. Congress, as a Representative and a Senator, and he was the United States Secretary of War in the cabinet of President Franklin Pierce.

Wedding photograph of Jefferson Davis and Varina Howell

Varina became the First Lady of the Confederate States of America, when her husband became the 1st, and only, President of the states that chose to form the Confederate States.

In May 1861, she and her husband moved to Richmond, Virginia, the new capital of the CSA, and lived in the Presidential Mansion there, during the Confederate War (1861-1865).

When the war ended with the defeat of the CSA, her husband was imprisoned at Fort Monroe in Phoebus, Virginia, for two years. Although he was eventually released on bail, and never tried, Jefferson Davis lost his home in Mississippi and his U.S. citizenship as well (his U.S. citizenship was posthumously restored in the 20th century). In the early 1870s, with the help and aide of a friend, Sarah Doherty, Jefferson and Varina purchased Beauvoir, the beachfront Mississippi estate to which they had retired.

Following her husband's death in 1889, Varina published Jefferson Davis, A Memoir (ISBN 1-877853-06-2) in 1890. In 1891, she moved to New York City to pursue a literary career, and sold Beauvoir to the Mississippi Sons of the Confederacy for $10,000 as a Confederate veterans' home.

Varina Howell Davis died at age 80 of double pneumonia in her room at the Hotel Majestic in New York, on October 16, 1906, survived by only one of her six children. The former "First Lady of the Confederacy" is interred at Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia, adjacent to the tomb of her famous husband.

There is a portrait of Mrs. Davis (known as the "Widow of the Confederacy") by the Swiss-born American artist Adolfo Müller-Ury (1862-1947) painted in 1895 at the museum at Beauvoir, and a profile portrait by Müller-Ury of her daughter, Winnie Davis, painted in 1897-'98, which the artist donated in 1918 to the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia.

On August 29, 2005, Beauvoir, which housed the Jefferson Davis Presidential Library, was nearly destroyed when it took the full brunt of wind and water damage from Hurricane Katrina. As recently as the fall of 2006, the house remained largely in disrepair.

• In modern times, it is commonly thought in the Richmond area, where Mrs. Davis was the only First Lady of the CSA, that the community of Varina, Virginia, was named for her. However, the name originated hundreds of years earlier, as John Rolfe and Pocahontas lived at his Varina Farms tobacco plantation on the James River in 1614.

• 1850 Warren Co., MS, U.S. Federal Census, Sep. 6, sht. 425, p. 213 A, line 12, Mrs. [sic] Davis b. MS.
• 1860 Warren Co., MS, U.S. Federal Census, Post Office: Vicksburg, Sep. 4, sht. 175, line 20, Varena [sic] Davis b. MS.
• 1880 Harrison Co., MS, U.S. Federal Census, Biloxi, June 24, E.D. 24, sht. 29, p. 349 A, line 26, Varina Davis b. LA [sic], fa. b. NJ, mo. b. VA.
• New York Times, Oct. 17, 1906, "MRS. JEFFERSON DAVIS DEAD AT THE MAJESTIC; Pneumonia Fatal to Widow of Confederate President. HAD BEEN ILL FOR A WEEK Had Seven Attacks of Pneumonia In the Last Few Months and Was Eighty Years Old," p. 1.
• New York Times, Oct. 18, 1906, "ALL THE SOUTH CALLED TO HONOR MRS. DAVIS; Every Living General of the Confederacy Summoned. FUNERAL TO BE MILITARY. Elaborate Preparations for the Exercises at Richmond—Services to be Held Here Today," p. 9.