Varina Banks Howell ²⁰⁷⁰

  General Notes:

BIOGRAPHY

Varina Howell Davis (May 7, 1826 \endash October 16, 1905) was an American author best known as the second wife of Confederate President Jefferson Davis during the American Civil War.

She was born to William B. Howell and Margaret Kempe. In the 1880 U.S. Federal Census for Biloxi, Mississippi, Varina Howell's place of birth was listed as Louisiana; her father's place of birth was listed as New Jersey, and her mother's as Virginia. Her grandfather, Richard Howell, was Governor of New Jersey for numerous terms.

Varina attended Madame Greenland's school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1844, when she was 17 years old, Varina met 36-year-old Jefferson Davis. In 1845, the two married at the Briars, her parents' home in Natchez. Jefferson Davis served in both houses of the U.S. Congress as a Representative and a Senator and was the United States Secretary of War in the cabinet of President Franklin Pierce.

She became the First Lady of the Confederate States of America, when Jefferson Davis became the President of the Confederate States. In May 1861, they moved to Richmond, Virginia, and lived in the White House of the Confederacy, during the American Civil War (1861-1865).

After the war, her husband was imprisoned at Fort Monroe in Phoebus, Virginia for two years. Although 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. She then moved to New York City in 1891 to pursue a literary career, and gave Beauvoir to the state of Mississippi as a Confederate veterans' home.

Varina Howell Davis died in New York City on October 16, 1905, aged 79, survived by only one of her six children.

The former "First Lady of the Confederacy" is interred at Hollywood Cemetery in 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 1897-8, which the artist donated in 1918 to the Confederate Museum in Richmond, Virginia.

On August 23, 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. ²⁰⁹⁷

Varina married Jefferson Finis Davis Sr., son of Samuel Emory Davis and Jane Cook, on 26 Feb 1845 in Natchez, Adams, Mississippi, USA.²⁰⁷⁰ (Jefferson Finis Davis Sr. was born on 3 Jun 1808 in Christian County, Kentucky, USA,²⁰⁷⁰ died on 6 Dec 1889 in New Orleans, Orleans, Louisiana, USA ²⁰⁷⁰ and was buried in Hollywood Cemetery (Richmond, Richmond City, Virginia, USA) ²⁰⁷⁰.)