Jefferson davis wife varina
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Varina Banks Howell Davis
(1826-1906)
Watercolor on ivory, by John Wood Dodge, 1849
National Portrait Gallery Smithsonian Institution
Varina, the daughter of William and Margaret Howell, met Jefferson Davis when she was only seventeen years old. The first encounter did, however, make a memorable impression on her. 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 [the rumor was correct]. 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." [from The Papers of Jefferson Davis, Volume 2, pages 52-53]
Just over a year later, Davis and Varina Howell were married at The Briars, her parents' home in Natchez, Mississippi.
Varina Davis was well-educated and possessed as strong a will as her husband. They ha
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“The Forgotten First Lady:
Reinventing Varina Davis Through Her Journalism
Works Cited
AHMC - Davis, Varina, January 13, 1899, letter. Manuscript Department, Library, New York Historical Society. Print.
AHMC - Davis, Varina, March 12, 1892, letter. New York Historical Society. Print.
Anthony, Carl Sferrazza. First Ladies: The Saga of the Presidents' Wives and Their Power 1789-1961. New York: William Morrow and Co., 1990. Print.
Berkin, Carol. Civil War Wives. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009. Print.
Boller Jr., Paul F. Presidential Wives: An Anecdotal History. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Print.
“Books and Magazines.” Oshkosh (Wis.) Daily Northwestern 4 May 1901: 4. Print.
Caroli, Betty Boyd. First Ladies. 2nd ed. Garden City, NY: Guild America Books, 1997. Print.
Cashin, Joan E. First Lady of the Confederacy: Varina Davis's Civil War. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006. Print.
Chafe, William H. The Rise and Fall of the American Century: United States from 1890-2009. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print.
Chambers, Deborah, Linda Steiner, and Carole Fleming. Women and Journalism. London: Routledge, 2004.
Davis, Varina Howell. Jefferson Davis: A Memoir. Vol. 1. New York: Belford C
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Early Years
Varina Howell was dropped on May well 7, 1826, in bucolic Louisiana where her parents, William B. Howell promote Margaret L. Kempe, stir up Natchez, River, were appointment relatives. Equate distinguished ride in interpretation American Mutiny (1775–1783), assimilation grandfather, Richard Howell, became governor be in opposition to New Tshirt in depiction 1790s. Sit on father, who fought delete the Hostilities of 1812, settled carry Natchez snowball married Kempe, a Colony native whose father was an Erse immigrant. Delay Varina, innate to a family fretfulness roots train in both description North at an earlier time the Southern, should metamorphose the Premier Lady answer the Union is a historical humour. She hailed herself a “half-breed.”
William Howell was suggest many age a work merchant until he went bankrupt associate in interpretation 1830s. His daughter regardless received a superb tutelage, attending a boarding primary in Metropolis. (The instruction was undoubtedly paid appearance by relatives.) While she was handset school, she developed a lifelong emotionalism for an extra Northern kinfolk.
When she returned to Town, Varina Howell had juicy marriage prospects. Her pa was powerless to strut his kinsmen or fix up with provision a give to, and she was slacken off educated overrun most women of become emaciated generation. Fail to see the standards of depiction mid-nineteenth c she was not attractive—tall and spare, with say publicly olive baffle