Varina Banks Howell Davis
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Varina Howell Davis was born at her family plantation, the Briers, near Natchez, Mississippi in 1826. As a plantation owner’s daughter, Davis received her education from a private tutor and later attended finishing school.
She was seventeen when she met Jefferson Davis while visiting the Hurricane, the plantation of his older brother, Joseph Emory Davis, an old family friend, but it was the first time she met any of his extended family.
Davis was taken with her beauty and intelligence, and by the time her visit ended two months later she and Davis were unofficially engaged.
She wrote her mother soon after their meeting:
"I do not know whether this Mr. Jefferson Davis is young or old. He looks both at times; but I believe he is old, for from what I hear he is only two years younger than you are. He impresses me as a remarkable kind of man, but of uncertain temper, and has a way of taking for granted that everybody agrees with him when he expresses an opinion, which offends me; yet he is most agreeable and has a peculiarly sweet voice and a winning manner of asserting himself. The fact is, he is the kind of person I should expect to rescue one from a mad dog at any risk, but to insist upon a stoical indifference to the fright afterward."
Margaret Howell, her mother, objected to the engagement. She was not convinced that Davis, widowed and eighteen years older than her daughter, was a good match for Varina. She thought he was too brooding, and feared that Varina would be second fiddle to his former wife. Eventually, however, she gave in and they were married on February 26, 1845.
Jefferson Davis had intended to live the life of a planter, but within just a few months of the wedding, he was nominated for a seat in the US House of Representatives.
Long interested in politics, Varina was ideally suited for the life of a politician’s wife. Varina had grown up believing strongly in the Whig party. She gave up her Whig beliefs, however, for the Democratic views of her husband. As her husband rose in political ranks, she rose in the ranks of Washington society. When Jefferson Davis resigned his seat in the Senate at the outbreak of the Civil War, Varina was depressed and sad to the leave the city that had become her home, having lived there for most of her adult life.
They returned to their Mississippi plantation, the Brierfield, but their days there were short.
Jefferson Davis was elected the President of the Confederate States of America and the Davises moved first to Montgomery, Alabama, the temporary capital, and then to Richmond, Virginia, the permanent capital. There she was pleased to find many of her Southern friends from Washington DC, including Mary Chesnut.
Varina settled comfortably into her new role as First Lady, and enjoyed much public support and adulation for the first year of the Confederacy. During the second year, however, as living conditions deteriorated and commodities became scarce, people began to speak out and criticize.
Despite the criticism, Varina continued in her support of the troops. She knitted countless articles of clothing for soldiers, donated rugs for blankets and made shoes of the scraps. She spent hours visiting soldiers in the hospitals, although she did not serve as a volunteer nurse at the request of her husband.
As the Civil War drew to a close, Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America, fled Richmond with his cabinet in early April 1865 and began a trek southward with federal troops in pursuit.
While still weighing the merits of forming a government in exile, Davis was captured by Union soldiers near Irwinville, Georgia, in early May 1865 and was indicted for treason against the United States government on 24 May.
Whether by accident or design, Davis was wearing his wife's dark gray raglan (a short-sleeved cloak) and black shawl when he was captured. Although one of Davis's own aides was persuaded his chief had indeed disguised himself as a woman to abet his escape, First Lady Varina Howell Davis was incensed at accusations of her husband's cowardice in the Northern press. Her letter to the powerful Montgomery Blair, a friend of earlier years and postmaster general under President Abraham Lincoln, provides a firsthand, detailed account of her husband's capture.
Following Jefferson Davis’s arrest, Varina Davis and the children were sent to Savannah, where she complained of being a virtual prisoner as she was forbidden to leave the city. While she rarely ventured out, the children did.
The soldiers, carpetbaggers and Union supporters treated the children cruelly and Varina constantly worried for their safely. After a former slave leveled a gun at one of them, she arranged for them to go to Canada along with her mother.
After his capture, Davis was imprisoned in Fort Monroe, Virginia, until May 1867 when he was released on bail. He was never brought to trial and refused to request a pardon or the restoration of his citizenship. Varina Davis, captured with her husband, was detained as a regional prisoner in Savannah until she was permitted to join Jefferson at Fort Monroe, where she worked to secure his freedom.
Following Jefferson Davis's release, the couple lived apart for long intervals, with Varina spending time in Europe and Memphis, Tennessee. After several unsuccessful business ventures, Jefferson Davis retired to Beauvoir, his home near Biloxi, Mississippi, and began writing his two-volume memoir The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, which Varina later helped edit.
After Jefferson died, Varina stayed at Beauvoir for a few years. She then donated it to be used as a Confederate veterans home and moved to New York, where she supported herself as a writer until her death in 1905.
When this began to afflict the women, their powers of endurance were at once demonstrated to the world. The harbors were closed by the blockade. No supplies of clothing could be imported. The time came when the stock of cloth, shoes, medicine, machinery, indeed everything necessary to civilized people was nearly exhausted.
The people found themselves confronted with problems which they must learn to solve. All these needs must be supplied by the women. The stores each family possessed of quinine and such other drugs as were needed for the diseases of a warm climate, was gradually relinquished for the use of the soldiers. Replenishment was impossible. Quinine had been proclaimed by the blockaders “Contrabands of War.” The women turned undaunted to the indigenous Materia Medica. Decoctions of willow bark, of dewberry root, orange flowers and leaves, red pepper teas and other tisanes took the place of drugs. One heart-broken woman wrote to her husband, “twenty grains of quinine would have saved our two children, they could not drink the bitter willow tea, but now they are at rest, and I have no one to work for but you.”
The sheep were sheared, the wool cleansed, carded and spun in the home. Small looms were set up and the warp adjusted under the eye of the practical weaver. All the clothes for the plantation, as well as some cloth to exchange for other commodities, was woven for winter use. In the winter the cotton cloth was made for summer. Pretty home spun checks, brown, black, blue or red and white were manufactured for the ladies and children's frocks.
The ladies spun the wool and knitted stockings and socks for their families, also many for the soldiers. An officer's wife called to see the wife of the President and brought her, as the most acceptable present, a paper pattern of a glove, like those she herself wore, beautifully embroidered, and fitted to her hand. This paper pattern is still extant and very precious to the recipient. It is very useful in providing the President's family with presentable gloves made from sleeves of old Confederate uniforms and cast off garments.
When new companies or battalions organized, for which flags were needed, the wives, sisters, and sweethearts of the men, sacrificed their best silk frocks to make the flags. They emblazoned them is such royal style, they are beautiful even to this day. The snippings left by the army tailors, pieces of gray and black, five or six inches across, were pieced together and then cut into jackets for the soldiers' children. Very acceptable were these Joseph's Coats proved to those who could boast no better covering.
Lamp wicks were plaited by hand and the oil was tried out of refuse pork. Sometimes wild myrtle berries were stewed until they yielded a pale wax which was used. I once saw five soldiers' wives making clothes by this light, and while they sewed they talked over the chances of their men coming home alive. Night schools were established in the basements of churches where poor ragged children were taught by ladies. Great barrels of soap were made of the refuse of hogs killed for family and plantation use. When toilet soap was required, this need was met by a home cured ham boiled for family use, and the old-fashioned sweet flowers and herbs of the garden furnished the perfume. Hundreds of gallons of black berry brandy was made and sent to the hospitals for the soldiers.
In order that the wounded might have tea and coffee, substitutes were made for home use. [For tea,] … sassafras leaves, balsam, sage, and orange leaves were steeped in hot water and sweetened with sorghum molasses. For coffee, parched sweet potato shavings, parched corn and wheat, and parched carrots were used. All the coffee, tea, white or brown sugar was sent to the soldiers.
The strong tension upon the nerves of the women was not relieved by books and magazines. The newspapers were annals of ardent endeavor, triumphs and sorrows, wounds and death. All work and no play began to tell upon our nervous women. Some of them turned for relief, when their soldiers came home, to … starvation parties.
The placid gray haired women of today have covered with pride the scars of that dread struggle, but they are no less veteran conquerors in a mortal conflict in which every noble aspiration and human effort was called forth and answered with cheer.
Flight and capture
... he did not intend to camp with us that night, but to ride forward and meet the marauders if possible before they reached us. He therefore left his pistols in their holsters on the saddle, in the possession of his servants. As night drew on he seemed so exhausted that he decided to stay all night with us.
Before I left Richmond, in order to pay all the outstanding debts and to procure money enough to go away from there, I sent my silver, china glass, and little ornaments, not excluding the little gifts received from dear friends, years ago - also as much of my clothing and of Mr Davis as was not absolutely in use - to be exposed for public sale - some at auction, some at different stores.
I also sold the debris of our magnificent library, several hundred volumes, which had been sent us after the Federals robbed us of all they considered it worth their while to steal or sell. As these things were sold in Confederate money, I left it in Richmond to be converted into gold and sent to me by some convenient opportunity. Judge Reagan brought it to me in a pair of saddle bags upon a pack mule and told me it amounted to a little over $8,000 in gold; this was left in the ambulance in which we travelled. This money, and a pair of fine carriage horses, which poverty had compelled me to sell, and which the citizens of Richmond bought and returned to me, constituted all my worldly wealth.
Just before day the enemy charged our camp yelling like demons. Mr Davis received timely warning of their approach but believing them to be our own people, deliberately made his toilette and was only disabused of the delusion when he saw them deploying a few yards off. He started down to the little stream hoping to meet his servant with his horse and arms.
But knowing he would be recognised, I plead with him to let me throw over him, a large waterproof which had often served him in sickness during the summer season for a dressing gown, and which I hoped might so cover his person, that in the grey of the morning he would not be recognised. As he strode off I threw over his head a little black shawl which was round my own shoulders, seeing that he could not find his hat and after he started sent my colored woman after him with a bucket for water, hoping that he would pass unobserved.
He attempted no disguise, consented to no subterfuge, but if he had, in failure is found the only matter of cavil. Had he assumed an elaborate female attire as a sacrifice to save a country, the heart of which trusted in him, it had been well. When he had proceeded a few yards, the guards around our tents with a shocking oath called out to know who that was.
I said it was my mother and he halted Mr Davis, who threw off the cloak with a defiance and when called upon to surrender did not do so - and but for the interposition of my person between his and the guns would have been shot.
I told the man to shoot me if he pleased to which he answered he "would not mind it a bit," which I really believed.
While this was transpiring a scene of robbery was going on in camp, which beggars description - trunks were broken open, letters and clothing scattered on the ground, all the gold taken, even our prayer books and bibles, taken from the ambulances. These latter articles were easily recovered, as being of no use to the robbers. My baby’s little wardrobe was stolen almost entirely, the other children shared the same fate.
When we reached Savannah, the city contributed a part of their children’s clothes to clothe them until I could have more made. The negroes were robbed of their wardrobe and the Federal soldiers wore their clothing before them, though reminded of the fact by the negroes.
Our faithful slave Robert owned his horse, which was taken from him and turned over to one of the officers, as were my horses. Capt. Hudson received my gold, took the lion’s share and the rest for the soldiers, consequently Col. Pritchard’s search for it among the valuables of the men was unsuccessful.
Col. Pritchard did what he could to protect us from insults, but against robbery he was powerless to give us protection, though I feel sure he tried to prevent it. We were robbed not once nor twice, but every time the wagons stopped. When we had progressed about ten miles on our dreary return from the scene of our capture, a man met us having a paper, containing the first copy the cavalry had seen, of Mr Johnson’s infamous accusation against Mr Davis, and the reward offered for his apprehension. It gave him no uneasiness and was incidentally not believed by the men to be founded in truth. In conversation with some of the officers, Mr Davis’ staff were told that it was fortunate that no resistance was made for they were ordered, if any was offered, to fire into the tents, there being only two, and those two containing women and children, and "make a general massacre."
Another said "bloody work" would have been made of the whole party...
A letter from Jefferson Davis to Varina Davis
Dear Wife,
. . . I send you the little pistol in its box. It is capped and loaded, you can get out in the woods and each of the family take a shot, then you can have all the chambers reloaded and when you go out again see how much your previous practice has improved you. Mrs. Greenhow when she came brought me three oranges and a box of Jelly. One orange I sent to Custis Lee one to Genl. Johnston, Becca asked for one, the box of Jelly was left on the mantel piece when I came back it was still there but had been broken open, it goes in its altered state with the pistol. I directed a bundle of assorted candy for the Children to be put in the bundle, the inventory of which is completed by the addition of Joes cap and of Helen's shawl for the use of which I return my thanks. The vision of my angel baby in pain and exhaustion haunts me ever. God grant to him a speedy recovery. Kiss my dear children whose sweet faces I last saw in sleep, and from whose door I turned reluctantly in the morning upon your announcing "all sound" with a manner that warned me against waking them.
I left a soft pencil for you on your mantel piece, having noticed you had none. I hope you found it as they are rare with us now. The postage stamps were given to Col. Johnston and I thought they had been sent to you but found that he had them and when we were parting on the cars he gave them to me. I left them with you. Nothing important here, except movements not understood by the public and of which you will hear in due time. Lee is working systematically co-operating cordially and the army is said to feel the beneficial effect of it. . . .
Farewell dear Wife ever affectionately
your Husband
Around the time of Davis's inauguration, the confederate capital was moved to Richmond, Virginia in part to defend the strategically important Tredegar Ironworks.
A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Davis was a celebrated veteran of the Mexican War. He served as Secretary of War under Franklin Pierce and as a longtime U.S. senator from Mississippi. His first wife, Sarah Knox, was the daughter of president Zachary Taylor. Although a strong advocate of states' rights, Davis tried to temper the antagonism between North and South in the tense days leading up to the war, opposing secession even after South Carolina left the Union in December 1860. However, when Mississippi seceded in January 1861, the slave-holding planter cast his lot with the Confederacy.
Immediately after his February 18, 1861 inauguration as provisional president, Davis
had sent a peace commission to Washington. Committed to preserving the union at any cost
Abraham Lincoln, refused to see the emissaries of the Confederacy. In early April, Lincoln
dispatched armed ships to resupply the federal garrison at Ft. Sumter under the command of
Major Robert Anderson. In response, Davis ordered the April 12 bombardment of the fort.
The attack marked the beginning of the Civil War.
1865
May 22 - Imprisoned at Fortress Monroe
May 23 - Manacled, irons removed less than a week later because of public outcry and Davis' ill health
June - First indictment for treason handed down in U.S. Circuit Court, District of Virginia; another indictment brought later in the year in the District of Columbia
August 21 - Writes first letter to Varina Davis since his imprisonment
December 9 - Charles F. E. Minnigerode, rector of St. Paul's in Richmond, allowed to make the first of what become twice-a-month visits to Davis
1866
March-April: Varina Davis and family in Canada, along with Varina's mother, Margaret K. Howell, who keeps the children when Varina returns to Virginia
April 26 - Andrew Johnson grants Varina Davis permission to visit her husband
May 3 - Varina Davis sees her husband for the first time in almost a year; makes regular visits for three months; Davis' former secretary Burton Harrison also allowed to visit
May 8 - Indicted for treason by grand jury for the U.S. Circuit Court, District of Virginia June 5, 6 Court convenes in Richmond; decides that trial cannot be held that summer
June 7 - Salmon P. Chase declines to issue writ of habeas corpus, claiming that it would be invalid since Virginia is under martial law
June 11 - U.S. Circuit Court Judge John C. Underwood refuses to set bail since Davis technically a military prisoner
August -December: Varina Davis in Montreal
December 23 - Varina Davis arrives at Fortress Monroe
1867
January-February: Varina Davis stays nearby and visits regularly
April 10 - Varina Davis returns to Fortress Monroe after traveling to Charleston and Baltimore
May 1 - Writ of habeas corpus granted
May 8 - Franklin Pierce visits
May 10 - Burton Harrison arrives at Fortress Monroe with the writ of habeas corpus
May 11 - Taken to Richmond; housed under guard at the Spotswood Hotel in the same room he had when he reached Richmond in May 1861
May 13 - Appears in court before Judge Underwood; bail set at $100,000; bond posted by Horace Greeley, abolitionist Gerrit Smith, a representative of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and ten Richmond businessmen; to "deafening applause," freed after two years of confinement; meets Greeley for the first time