First lady of the Confederacy : Varina Davis's civil war
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
First lady of the Confederacy : Varina Davis's civil war
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008, c2006
- : pbk
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Note
"First Harvard University Press paperback edition, 2008" -- T.p. verso
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
When Jefferson Davis became president of the Confederacy, his wife, Varina Howell Davis, reluctantly became the First Lady. For this highly intelligent, acutely observant woman, loyalty did not come easily: she spent long years struggling to reconcile her societal duties to her personal beliefs. Raised in Mississippi but educated in Philadelphia, and a long-time resident of Washington, D.C., Mrs. Davis never felt at ease in Richmond. During the war she nursed Union prisoners and secretly corresponded with friends in the North. Though she publicly supported the South, her term as First Lady was plagued by rumors of her disaffection.
After the war, Varina Davis endured financial woes and the loss of several children, but following her husband's death in 1889, she moved to New York and began a career in journalism. Here she advocated reconciliation between the North and South and became friends with Julia Grant, the widow of Ulysses S. Grant. She shocked many by declaring in a newspaper that it was God's will that the North won the war.
A century after Varina Davis's death in 1906, Joan E. Cashin has written a masterly work, the first definitive biography of this truly modern, but deeply conflicted, woman. Pro-slavery but also pro-Union, Varina Davis was inhibited by her role as Confederate First Lady and unable to reveal her true convictions. In this pathbreaking book, Cashin offers a splendid portrait of a fascinating woman who struggled with the constraints of her time and place.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations Introduction 1. Half Breed 2. This Mr. Davis 3. Flattered and Courted 4. First Lady 5. No Matter What Danger There Was 6. Holocausts of Herself 7. Run with the Rest 8. Threadbare Great Folks 9. Topic of the Day 10. Crowd of Sorrows 11. Fascinating Failures 12. The Girdled Tree 13. Delectable City 14. Like Martha 15. At Peace Notes A Note on Sources Acknowledgments Index Illustrations Varina Howell, 1840s Mr. and Mrs. Davis, 1845 Joseph E. Davis Zachary Taylor Franklin Pierce Jefferson Davis, 1850s Minna Blair Harriet Lane Johnston Winfield Scott Varina Howell Davis, circa 1860 Confederate White House, 1865 The Davis children, 1860s Ellen Barnes and the infant Winnie Davis Varina Davis and her daughter Winnie John W. Garrett Margaret Howell Jefferson and Varina Davis, 1867 Virginia Clay Court Street, the Davis home in Memphis Sarah Dorsey Beauvoir Oscar Wilde Jefferson Davis in old age Joseph Pulitzer Julia Grant Winnie Davis Four generations of Davis women, 1905 Varina Davis, the pensive widow
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