by Angela L. MSSPI
Varina Howell Davis was born into privilege at the family plantation called the "Briers" located near Natchez, Mississippi to William B. and Margaret Lousia Howell on May 7, 1826
The Briars 
Natchez, Mississippi
The Briars is one of the best-known plantation homes in Natchez. Believed to have been built by John Perkins in the early 1820s, it was leased by William and Margaret Howell from 1827 to 1850. Their daughter Varina Banks Howell married Jefferson Davis in the parlor of The Briars on February 26, 1845.
Her education was mainly social consistent with that accorded to prominent family daughters in the old South. First home tutored, Varina then attended Madame Greenland's finishing school in Philadelphia.
She was but seventeen when she met Jefferson Davis, eighteen years her senior, while visiting the plantation of his brother adjacent to his own.
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."
Two months later they were engaged and after objections from her family were overcome, Varina married at eighteen.just over a year later. Davis and Varina Howell were married at The Briars, her parents' home in Natchez, Mississippi.
She became the second wife of Jefferson Davis. His first marraige to Sarah Taylor, daughter of General and Future President Zachary Taylor had lasted only 3 months as Sarah had become ill and died of malaria ten years prior to Jefferson Davis and Varina's meeting. Their marraige would endure and be lasting resulting in a family of six children.
The Children
Margaret Howell Davis Hayes
Margaret was the only one of the to marry, bear children, and outlive her parents. Born in Washington, she was the eldest of the surviving children (Samuel Emory Davis died in 1854) and was known as both Polly (or Pollie) and Maggie. She was a great favorite of her father's and carried on a charming correspondence with him while Varina and the children stayed in in 1862 (see , 8:192, 360).
Margaret began her studies with a tutor in the Confederate White House and was enrolled at schools in Montreal, London, Paris, and Baltimore as the family moved about after the war.
On New Year's Day of 1876 she married J. Addison Hayes in Memphis, where the young couple settled. Jeff Jr. was living with the Hayeses in 1878 when he contracted yellow fever, and Margaret risked her own life to care for her dying brother.
The first of the Hayes children died as an infant, but the subsequent four lived to adulthood. The family moved to Colorado Springs in 1885, and descendants still reside in the area. As her husband rose in city banking circles, Margaret became involved with many charitable causes and was a leading member of local society. After her death in 1909, Addison and the children took her ashes to Richmond to be interred with the Davis family at Hollywood Cemetery.
Samuel Emory Davis
(1852-1854)The Davises' first child, Samuel Emory Davis, was born at Brierfield on July 30, 1852, and named for Davis' father. Just short of his second birthday, however, Samuel contracted the measles and died in Washington on June 13. He may have been exposed to the disease by Varina's brother Becket, who had stayed with the Davises while his school was closed in late May due to a measles epidemic.
The only known likeness of Samuel is a bust, now at Beauvoir, that miraculously survived destruction when Union troops pillaged Davis' belongings in 1863. Joseph E. Davis had hidden the property in the attic of a home near Clinton, Mississippi, but a slave gave away the location, and the Federals ransacked the furniture, letters, and books they discovered. The man left to care for the home managed to save the bust of Samuel by claiming that the image was of one of his own children.
Joseph Evan Davis
(1859-1864)Joseph Evan Davis was born in Washington while his father was serving in the Senate. Davis proclaimed his new son "a very fine one" and named the boy for his eldest brother and his grandfather. Varina protested, for she deeply resented Joseph Emory Davis, but to no avail. She confided to her mother, however, that the boy did bear a resemblance to his namesake uncle, which she hoped he would outgrow.
Little Joe was described as exceptionally bright, and he was apparently the best behaved of all of the Davis children, but his life ended tragically with a fall from a White House porch on April 30, 1864. Rumors persist that he was pushed by older brother Jeff Jr., but there is no evidence to support this story.
According to contemporary accounts, the accident took place at some point between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. while neither of the parents were at home. A servant discovered Joe lying by the pavement onto which he had fallen from a height of about fifteen feet. Maggie Davis ran to the neighbors for help, and Jeff Jr. enlisted the aid of two people passing by on the street. One of these men, a Confederate officer, wrote that Joe's "head was contused, and I think his chest much injured internally."
The child apparently died about the time his parents reached the house. His father refused to see visitors and could be heard pacing all night.
Funeral services were held at St. Paul's Episcopal Church on May 1, and Joe was buried at Richmond's Hollywood Cemetery, where the rest of his immediate family would eventually be interred.
There are no known likenesses of Joseph Evan Davis, in large part due to the scarcity of photographic materials during the war.
| Varina Anne Davis Born in the Confederate White House and named for her mother, Varina Anne was the youngest of the Davis children. She was known for most of her life as "Winnie," a nickname her father had first bestowed on her mother. According to Varina Anne, she was told that "Winnie" was "an Indian name meaning bright, or sunny" |
Winnie received her early education from her mother during the family's postwar travels, and subsequently was enrolled in boarding schools in Karlsruhe, Germany, and in
"The Daughter of the Confederacy," as John B. Gordon anointed her in 1886, lived with her parents at Beauvoir in the 1880s and accompanied her father to numerous public appearances. Beloved by veterans' groups, she became an icon of the Lost Cause.
The adoration became a burden when Winnie fell in love with Alfred C. (Fred) Wilkinson, a Syracuse, New York, attorney whose grandfather had been a leading abolitionist. Public turmoil created by the five-year romance drove Winnie into periods of deep emotional distress. The couple finally received the blessings of both Jefferson and Varina Davis and were briefly engaged in 1890. Although their breakup has always been blamed on the public outcry, recent investigation seems to indicate that it was due more to questions about Wilkinson's financial situation.
Winnie moved to New York City with her mother in 1891 and continued her literary pursuits. She contracted "malarial gastritis" while visiting in Rhode Island and died at age thirty-four. In keeping with her status among ex-Confederates, she was buried with full military honors at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia.
William Howell Davis
Billy Davis, who was said to bear a strong resemblance to his father, was born in the Confederate White House and suffered from a number of illnesses during his short life. Reportedly hard of hearing by 1866, he attended schools in Canada and Maryland before dying of diphtheria at his parents' home in Memphis. Initially buried in that city, Billy was reinterred in the family plot at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, in 1893.
Jefferson Davis, Jr.
(1857-1878)
The namesake of his father, Jefferson Davis, Jr., was actually the second Davis son ( Samuel died three years before Jeff was born). A rambunctious child, Jeff enjoyed life in the Confederate White House, where staff and aides indulged him, often calling him "General." He attended schools in Canada, England, and Maryland as the family moved about after the war. Jeff Jr. enrolled at Virginia Military Institute, but his father withdrew him in 1875, apparently fearing that his son was about to be expelled.
Although by all accounts a charming young man, Jeff Jr. never showed much motivation. His parents were continually trying to help him, but his father conceded to his mother that "we do not understand the boy, and I fear never shall." He became his father's secretary at Beauvoir in 1877, supposedly studying French and medicine in his free time. In 1878 he moved to Memphis, where brother-in-law Addison Hayes found him a job as a bank clerk. Only a few months after his arrival, however, Jeff Jr. fell victim to a yellow fever epidemic that swept the city, dying on October 16. First buried in Memphis, he was reinterred near his father at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond in 1895.
For more information, see the published volumes of The Papers of Jefferson Davis, particularly the brief sketch of his life in 5:110-11.
The couple planned on a life at "Brierfield," however, Jeff Davis was nominated for a seat in the US House of Representatives and Varina became a politicians wife. Her husband rose in political stature becoming a Senator.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Davis resigned his seat and the couple returned to "Brierfield" only to be elected President of the Confederate States of America.
They moved first to Montgomery, Alabama the temporary capital and then to Richmond, Virginia, the permanent capital. Initially, her days as First Lady were pleasant. However, as the war continued, living condition in the south deteriorated and goods became scare. She became the vocal point of criticism mirroring the despair created by the mounting death toll and the faltering war effort. Varina did not waver in her duties as first lady and kept helping 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.
While first lady, she rescued a young mulatto boy named Jim Limber 
Jim Linder
Mulatto denotes a person with one White people parent and one Black people parent or a person who has black ancestry and white ancestry. It is perceived as pejorative and demeaning in some cultures....
Jim Limber, also known as Jim Limber Davis, was a mulatto boy who was briefly a ward of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America.... Read More About Jim Linder Click Here
With peace signed at Appomattox, Jefferson Davis rather then surrendering to Union forces, chose to flee. Varina was with him when arrested and sent to confinement at Fortress Monroe and locked in a artillery compartment located on a rampart, with her and the children placed in Savannah under house arrest. The children and her mother were constantly harassed and fearing for their safety, arranged passage for them to Canada. Now all her efforts were directed to getting her husband released. After two years, influential friends arranged and paid bail allowing for Davis to be released. Fearing constitutional problems, the charges were simply allowed to disappear.
Although free, the couple were now impoverish relegated to living in Mississippi at the Beauvoir estate in a small cottage at the behest of the owner. Davis wrote his two-volume memoir, "The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government" which lifted him from poverty. Their fortunes would improve further as the owner of the property willed the estate to them upon her death. This would be their home until the death of the Confederate president.
Varina Davis was well-educated and possessed as strong a will as her husband. They had their differences at times over the fifty-four years of their marriage, but they remained devoted to each other through several decades of remarkable hardship. After Jefferson Davis' death in 1889, Varina Davis published Jefferson Davis, A Memoir in 1890, then moved to New York City the following year to pursue a literary career.
She would never remarry. Her days were filled with trips to the opera, theaters and concerts . All would end after contracting pneumonia. With the last surviving member of the Davis family, a daughter at her bedside, she passed away 16 Oct. 1905.in her room at the Hotel Majestic In New York
. Years before, she had made arrangements for moving her husbands body from New Orleans to Richmond. The couple would now be reunited in death. Her remains were conveyed to Richmond and after a military funeral was interred near her husband.
The legacy of Varina Davis is obscure...Today she is virtually unknown to Americans. Even her burial place is some distance away from the tomb of her husband. In contrast, the South remembers her husband Jefferson Davis with an over abundance of memorials, statues, parks, schools, streets, avenues and highways located all across Dixie. After the death of President Davis, Varina wrote "Jefferson Davis, A Memoir" published in 1890 while still living at "Beauvoir," then promptly relocated to New York City while giving the property to the state of Mississippi which was used as a Confederate veterans home with the establishment of a large cemetery as the men passed away. Eventually "Beauvoir" was preserved, restored and became the Presidential Library of Jefferson Davis housing his papers and memorabilia.
Even the small community of Varina, Virgina long thought named in her honor in reality originated years earlier from the Varina Farms tobacco plantation. "Brierfield" the Jeff Davis plantation was located about twenty miles down the Mississippi River from Vicksburg, Warren County was confiscated after the civil war and then destroyed by fire in 1931. The land currently serves as a private hunting reserve. The "Briers" the plantation house where Varina Howell was born then married to Jefferson Davis is located a mile from Natchez. During the shelling of city by Union forces the structure was damaged but today it is a beautiful restore structure with heritage status. In 1973, the book "First Lady of the South: The Life of Mrs Jefferson Davis" by Ross Ishbel was published by the Greenwood Publishing Group. in 1826.
Beauvoir (Biloxi, Mississippi)
Beauvoir is the location of the historic post-war home and Presidential library of Confederate States of America President Jefferson Davis begun in 1848 at Biloxi, Mississippi....
, which housed the
The Jefferson Davis Presidential Library is a library and museum with the purpose of preserving, housing and making available, the papers, records, artifacts and other historical materials of Confederate States of America President of the Confederate States of America Jefferson Davis....
, was nearly destroyed when it took the full brunt of wind and water damage from hurricane Katrina.
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was the costliest Atlantic hurricane, as well as one of the five deadliest, in the history of the United States....
. However, the Home has been restored and reopened on Jun 3, 2008. The Presidential Library and Museum and other outbuildings are in the process of being rebuilt.
The destruction Katrina has caused to historic structures on the coast and in other areas of the state has been massive. The historic buildings on the coast have suffered extensive damage and in some cases blocks of buildings in historic districts have been wiped clean by Katrina's storm surge. Since Katrina MHT has been working with its partner organizations - Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Mississippi Main Street Association, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation - to save as many damaged historic structures as possible. This is difficult work with very little resources out there to help historic structures and increasing pressure to clean up the coast by removing all debris including damaged houses.
http://www.mississippiheritage.com/HurricaneKatrina.html
Sources
Varnia Howell Davis Bio by Donald Rayfield FindaGrave.com Memorial Page.
http://www.civilwarhistory.com/davisphoto/varina.htm
http://www.civilwarhome.com/varinadavisbio.htm
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Beauvoir_%28Biloxi%2c_Mississippi%29
Read more: http://americanhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/varina_howell_davis#ixzz0WyPTFVLy
http://www.thebriarsinn.com/index.php
http://jeffersondavis.rice.edu/gene.cfm The Jefferson Papers, Geneology of th eDavis Family