First Lady of the Confederacy: Varina Davis's Civil War

by Joan E. Cashin

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674030374
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	02/15/2009
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Joan E. Cashin is Professor of History at The Ohio State University.

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

What People are Saying About This

Cashin is always sure-handed in showing us Varina Davis as a woman who kept an inner toughness while giving in to inflexible demands, a woman who endured a marriage that was "so many holocausts of herself." A signal scholarly achievement and a marvelous read!

David Herbert Donald

This fascinating biography is the first full life of Varina Howell, the wife of Jefferson Davis. It is also the first detailed account of their turbulent marriage--between an adoring woman who could not always agree with her husband's ideas, and a stiff, much older man who cared nothing for his wife's opinions but demanded her total obedience. Joan Cashin has done an extraordinary amount of research--much of it in manuscripts and diaries hitherto unused by historians--and she writes with sensitivity, but without sentimentality. This is a major biography, essential for an understanding of the Confederacy and important for the history of women.
— David Herbert Donald, author of Lincoln

Jane Turner Censer

Cashin is always sure-handed in showing us Varina Davis as a woman who kept an inner toughness while giving in to inflexible demands, a woman who endured a marriage that was "so many holocausts of herself." A signal scholarly achievement and a marvelous read!

— Jane Turner Censer, Professor of History, George Mason University

William C. Davis

Fascinating in her own right, Varina Davis was in some ways a 20th century woman out of her time. Her force of personality, dedication, and independent spirit, make her in many ways more interesting than her husband. In Joan Cashin's First Lady of the Confederacy: Varina Davis's Civil War we have a biography worthy of the woman at last.
— William C. Davis, author of An Honorable Defeat: The Last Days of the Confederate Government

Jean Baker

Joan Cashin's superb new reading of the First Lady of the Confederacy offers a vivid yet balanced account of Varina Howell Davis. This is biography at its best: deep research, new material, a perceptive author, and an engrossing subject. In Cashin's hands Varina's story reaches beyond the First Lady's unique circumstances as wife, mother and widow to tell us about the old and new South. Both specialists and the general public will enjoy this exceptional portrait.
— Jean Baker, Professor of History, Goucher College

Editorial Reviews

First Lady of the Confederacy: Varina Davis's Civil War is that rare combination of a scholarly masterpiece which is also enjoyable to read. You will come away from it glad that you took the time to get to know this woman and her life.

Civil War Interactive - Laurie Chambliss

Joan Cashin has dedicated years of research and writing to produce what will surely become the definitive work on this remarkable and misunderstood woman. Meticulous research in contemporary newspapers, government documents and correspondence places Varina Davis within the political and social framework of her world. The contents of nearly 600 letters reveal Davis' private thoughts on the hot-button issues of her time: women's rights, slavery and secession. Her belief that women should have at least equal rights within the bonds of marriage set her apart from her husband on numerous occasions...Varina Davis occupies a unique position in American history, and Cashin's masterful work leaves us imagining what this woman of talent and tenacity might have achieved in a later time.

Charleston Post and Courier - Mary Hatcher

This fascinating biography is the first full life of Varina Howell, the wife of Jefferson Davis. It is also the first detailed account of their turbulent marriage—between an adoring woman who could not always agree with her husband's ideas, and a stiff, much older man who cared nothing for his wife's opinions but demanded her total obedience. Joan Cashin has done an extraordinary amount of research—much of it in manuscripts and diaries hitherto unused by historians—and she writes with sensitivity, but without sentimentality. This is a major biography, essential for an understanding of the Confederacy and important for the history of women.

David Herbert Donald

Cashin has done justice to this compelling figure. A respected and prolific scholar of southern women's history, Cashin spent over fourteen years researching Varina Davis, painstakingly examining print sources and combing the many archives that hold relevant manuscript material. This extraordinary effort and Cashin's skill as a historian and writer are apparent on every page of this thorough, objective, and engaging book. Cashin has been careful not to impose twenty-first-century feminist values on Varina Davis, instead establishing the historical context of social, political, and gender relations and letting the documentary evidence fill in the details of Davis's life. The result is a subtle examination of an actual person, warts and all.

North Carolina Historical Review - Elizabeth Bramm Dunn

Cashin presents an engaging look at the Confederacy's first lady, who surprisingly did not believe in the Southern cause.

Choice - B. A. Wineman

In prose as vivid and daring as that found in Varina's letters, Joan Cashin...has written a biography that reveals the many facets of Varina, which will bring her the attention she deserves, and which Varina herself would have probably admired...Since Cashin candidly reveals the many humiliations that Varina endured during the course of her marriage, First Lady of the Confederacy is sometimes painful to read. How, one wonders, can such a lively and curious woman be so loyal to this rigid, often arrogant man? But if one accepts Varina's rules one can only admire her good grace...Although I found myself disappointed by Varina, I was fascinated by each twist in her story, by the wonderful vignettes of people as disparate as Oscar Wilde and Judah Benjamin, and by the portrait of those tumultuous years.

Boston Globe - Roberta Silman

Cashin is always sure-handed in showing us Varina Davis as a woman who kept an inner toughness while giving in to inflexible demands, a woman who endured a marriage that was "so many holocausts of herself." A signal scholarly achievement and a marvelous read!

Jane Turner Censer

Joan Cashin's superb new reading of the First Lady of the Confederacy offers a vivid yet balanced account of Varina Howell Davis. This is biography at its best: deep research, new material, a perceptive author, and an engrossing subject. In Cashin's hands Varina's story reaches beyond the First Lady's unique circumstances as wife, mother and widow to tell us about the old and new South. Both specialists and the general public will enjoy this exceptional portrait.

Jean Baker

The history of complex Southern feelings about the subjugated blacks in their midst is as long as the history of slavery and segregation. New evidence of this is brought to light by Joan Cashin in First Lady of the Confederacy. Her title is somewhat misleading, as this biography of Jefferson Davis's wife encompasses far more than the four years of the war, but it does underscore the point that Varina Howell Davis was involved in internal as well as external struggles. She doesn't seem to have questioned slavery more than occasionally and half-heartedly, but she believed that secession was foolish and the war unwinnable for the Confederacy. She supported her husband unflinchingly, as was expected of wives in that time, but she disagreed with him frequently and apparently wasn't afraid to tell him so.

Jonathan Yardley Book World

It would be impossible to write about Varina Davis, wife of Jefferson Davis, without writing about him. These two characters make Joan E. Cashin's First Lady of the Confederacy interesting and educational reading...Varina Davis is portrayed as a troubled woman reared on the precept that men and women have different natures, with men seeing women as chattel, only a fraction higher than slaves, with many duties and few rights. On one hand, she supported her husband, but she defied a woman's role by thinking for herself. After her husband died, she went to New York to become a journalist.

Oklahoman - Melba Lovelace

Fascinating in her own right, Varina Davis was in some ways a 20th century woman out of her time. Her force of personality, dedication, and independent spirit, make her in many ways more interesting than her husband. In Joan Cashin's First Lady of the Confederacy: Varina Davis's Civil War we have a biography worthy of the woman at last.

William C. Davis

Over the past three decades a great deal has been written about Southern women in the Civil War period, and it has left little doubt that some of them were far more restless and rebellious than their husbands and fathers would have preferred. But the case of Varina Davis takes on special meaning because she was the most prominent Southern woman of her time...Cashin's book leaves no doubt that she was in fact a considerably more interesting person than her husband, and a better one as well.

Jonathan Yardley

Cashin has written a smashing study--the first scholarly biography of Varina Howell Davis (1826-1906), wife of Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Cashin follows Davis from her Mississippi childhood through her marriage, her years in Washington (when her husband served in the Senate), through the Civil War, concluding with her widowhood, during which Varina lived in New York City and supported herself by writing for newspapers. Davis had a deep commitment to family (and in later years an almost co-dependent attachment to her daughter) and intellectual sophistication. She was a passionate reader and a scintillating conversationalist. The letters quoted here sparkle with wit. Cashin also uncovers Davis's ambivalence about the Confederacy; a "wavering Confederate patriot," she believed the South was doomed from the start. Davis kept up correspondence with Northern friends and relatives throughout the Civil War, an act that could have landed her in jail. Cashin is a strong, clear writer and situates her complex subject in larger academic debates, for example, about gender in the 19th century, without getting bogged down in academese. All in all, this is a terrifically winning portrait of a fascinating woman. (starred review)-- "Publishers Weekly" (5/22/2006 12:00:00 AM)

Cashin is always sure-handed in showing us Varina Davis as a woman who kept an inner toughness while giving in to inflexible demands, a woman who endured a marriage that was "so many holocausts of herself." A signal scholarly achievement and a marvelous read!--Jane Turner Censer, Professor of History, George Mason University

First Lady of the Confederacy: Varina Davis's Civil War is that rare combination of a scholarly masterpiece which is also enjoyable to read. You will come away from it glad that you took the time to get to know this woman and her life.--Laurie Chambliss "Civil War Interactive"

Cashin has done justice to this compelling figure. A respected and prolific scholar of southern women's history, Cashin spent over fourteen years researching Varina Davis, painstakingly examining print sources and combing the many archives that hold relevant manuscript material. This extraordinary effort and Cashin's skill as a historian and writer are apparent on every page of this thorough, objective, and engaging book. Cashin has been careful not to impose twenty-first-century feminist values on Varina Davis, instead establishing the historical context of social, political, and gender relations and letting the documentary evidence fill in the details of Davis's life. The result is a subtle examination of an actual person, warts and all.--Elizabeth Bramm Dunn "North Carolina Historical Review" (1/1/2007 12:00:00 AM)

Cashin presents an engaging look at the Confederacy's first lady, who surprisingly did not believe in the Southern cause.--B. A. Wineman "Choice" (5/1/2007 12:00:00 AM)

In prose as vivid and daring as that found in Varina's letters, Joan Cashin...has written a biography that reveals the many facets of Varina, which will bring her the attention she deserves, and which Varina herself would have probably admired...Since Cashin candidly reveals the many humiliations that Varina endured during the course of her marriage, First Lady of the Confederacy is sometimes painful to read. How, one wonders, can such a lively and curious woman be so loyal to this rigid, often arrogant man? But if one accepts Varina's rules one can only admire her good grace...Although I found myself disappointed by Varina, I was fascinated by each twist in her story, by the wonderful vignettes of people as disparate as Oscar Wilde and Judah Benjamin, and by the portrait of those tumultuous years.--Roberta Silman "Boston Globe"

It would be impossible to write about Varina Davis, wife of Jefferson Davis, without writing about him. These two characters make Joan E. Cashin's First Lady of the Confederacy interesting and educational reading...Varina Davis is portrayed as a troubled woman reared on the precept that men and women have different natures, with men seeing women as chattel, only a fraction higher than slaves, with many duties and few rights. On one hand, she supported her husband, but she defied a woman's role by thinking for herself. After her husband died, she went to New York to become a journalist.--Melba Lovelace "Oklahoman"

Joan Cashin has dedicated years of research and writing to produce what will surely become the definitive work on this remarkable and misunderstood woman. Meticulous research in contemporary newspapers, government documents and correspondence places Varina Davis within the political and social framework of her world. The contents of nearly 600 letters reveal Davis' private thoughts on the hot-button issues of her time: women's rights, slavery and secession. Her belief that women should have at least equal rights within the bonds of marriage set her apart from her husband on numerous occasions...Varina Davis occupies a unique position in American history, and Cashin's masterful work leaves us imagining what this woman of talent and tenacity might have achieved in a later time.--Mary Hatcher "Charleston Post and Courier" (10/29/2006 12:00:00 AM)

Over the past three decades a great deal has been written about Southern women in the Civil War period, and it has left little doubt that some of them were far more restless and rebellious than their husbands and fathers would have preferred. But the case of Varina Davis takes on special meaning because she was the most prominent Southern woman of her time...Cashin's book leaves no doubt that she was in fact a considerably more interesting person than her husband, and a better one as well.--Jonathan Yardley "Washington Post" (9/3/2006 12:00:00 AM)

The history of complex Southern feelings about the subjugated blacks in their midst is as long as the history of slavery and segregation. New evidence of this is brought to light by Joan Cashin in First Lady of the Confederacy. Her title is somewhat misleading, as this biography of Jefferson Davis's wife encompasses far more than the four years of the war, but it does underscore the point that Varina Howell Davis was involved in internal as well as external struggles. She doesn't seem to have questioned slavery more than occasionally and half-heartedly, but she believed that secession was foolish and the war unwinnable for the Confederacy. She supported her husband unflinchingly, as was expected of wives in that time, but she disagreed with him frequently and apparently wasn't afraid to tell him so.--Jonathan Yardley "Washington Post Book World" (12/3/2006 12:00:00 AM)

Though Davis's life reads like a tragic novel, Cashin has taken care not to romanticize her subject...Cashin has meticulously researched her subject's long life, including her move to New York after Jefferson Davis's death in 1889 and her subsequent career as a writer.--Tessa L. H. Minchew "Library Journal" (7/1/2006 12:00:00 AM)

Fascinating in her own right, Varina Davis was in some ways a 20th century woman out of her time. Her force of personality, dedication, and independent spirit, make her in many ways more interesting than her husband. In Joan Cashin's First Lady of the Confederacy: Varina Davis's Civil War we have a biography worthy of the woman at last.--William C. Davis, author of An Honorable Defeat: The Last Days of the Confederate Government

This fascinating biography is the first full life of Varina Howell, the wife of Jefferson Davis. It is also the first detailed account of their turbulent marriage--between an adoring woman who could not always agree with her husband's ideas, and a stiff, much older man who cared nothing for his wife's opinions but demanded her total obedience. Joan Cashin has done an extraordinary amount of research--much of it in manuscripts and diaries hitherto unused by historians--and she writes with sensitivity, but without sentimentality. This is a major biography, essential for an understanding of the Confederacy and important for the history of women.--David Herbert Donald, author of Lincoln

Joan Cashin's superb new reading of the First Lady of the Confederacy offers a vivid yet balanced account of Varina Howell Davis. This is biography at its best: deep research, new material, a perceptive author, and an engrossing subject. In Cashin's hands Varina's story reaches beyond the First Lady's unique circumstances as wife, mother and widow to tell us about the old and new South. Both specialists and the general public will enjoy this exceptional portrait.--Jean Baker, Professor of History, Goucher College

From the Publisher

The history of complex Southern feelings about the subjugated blacks in their midst is as long as the history of slavery and segregation. New evidence of this is brought to light by Joan Cashin in First Lady of the Confederacy. Her title is somewhat misleading, as this biography of Jefferson Davis's wife encompasses far more than the four years of the war, but it does underscore the point that Varina Howell Davis was involved in internal as well as external struggles. She doesn't seem to have questioned slavery more than occasionally and half-heartedly, but she believed that secession was foolish and the war unwinnable for the Confederacy. She supported her husband unflinchingly, as was expected of wives in that time, but she disagreed with him frequently and apparently wasn't afraid to tell him so.

Washington Post - Jonathan Yardley

Cashin presents an engaging look at the Confederacy's first lady, who surprisingly did not believe in the Southern cause.
— B. A. Wineman

Choice

It would be impossible to write about Varina Davis, wife of Jefferson Davis, without writing about him. These two characters make Joan E. Cashin's First Lady of the Confederacy interesting and educational reading...Varina Davis is portrayed as a troubled woman reared on the precept that men and women have different natures, with men seeing women as chattel, only a fraction higher than slaves, with many duties and few rights. On one hand, she supported her husband, but she defied a woman's role by thinking for herself. After her husband died, she went to New York to become a journalist.
— Melba Lovelace

Oklahoman

In prose as vivid and daring as that found in Varina's letters, Joan Cashin...has written a biography that reveals the many facets of Varina, which will bring her the attention she deserves, and which Varina herself would have probably admired...Since Cashin candidly reveals the many humiliations that Varina endured during the course of her marriage, First Lady of the Confederacy is sometimes painful to read. How, one wonders, can such a lively and curious woman be so loyal to this rigid, often arrogant man? But if one accepts Varina's rules one can only admire her good grace...Although I found myself disappointed by Varina, I was fascinated by each twist in her story, by the wonderful vignettes of people as disparate as Oscar Wilde and Judah Benjamin, and by the portrait of those tumultuous years.
— Roberta Silman

Boston Globe

The history of complex Southern feelings about the subjugated blacks in their midst is as long as the history of slavery and segregation. New evidence of this is brought to light by Joan Cashin in First Lady of the Confederacy. Her title is somewhat misleading, as this biography of Jefferson Davis's wife encompasses far more than the four years of the war, but it does underscore the point that Varina Howell Davis was involved in internal as well as external struggles. She doesn't seem to have questioned slavery more than occasionally and half-heartedly, but she believed that secession was foolish and the war unwinnable for the Confederacy. She supported her husband unflinchingly, as was expected of wives in that time, but she disagreed with him frequently and apparently wasn't afraid to tell him so.
— Jonathan Yardley

Washington Post Book World

Joan Cashin has dedicated years of research and writing to produce what will surely become the definitive work on this remarkable and misunderstood woman. Meticulous research in contemporary newspapers, government documents and correspondence places Varina Davis within the political and social framework of her world. The contents of nearly 600 letters reveal Davis' private thoughts on the hot-button issues of her time: women's rights, slavery and secession. Her belief that women should have at least equal rights within the bonds of marriage set her apart from her husband on numerous occasions...Varina Davis occupies a unique position in American history, and Cashin's masterful work leaves us imagining what this woman of talent and tenacity might have achieved in a later time.
— Mary Hatcher

Charleston Post and Courier

First Lady of the Confederacy: Varina Davis's Civil War is that rare combination of a scholarly masterpiece which is also enjoyable to read. You will come away from it glad that you took the time to get to know this woman and her life.

— Laurie Chambliss

Civil War Interactive

Over the past three decades a great deal has been written about Southern women in the Civil War period, and it has left little doubt that some of them were far more restless and rebellious than their husbands and fathers would have preferred. But the case of Varina Davis takes on special meaning because she was the most prominent Southern woman of her time...Cashin's book leaves no doubt that she was in fact a considerably more interesting person than her husband, and a better one as well.
— Jonathan Yardley

Washington Post

Cashin has done justice to this compelling figure. A respected and prolific scholar of southern women's history, Cashin spent over fourteen years researching Varina Davis, painstakingly examining print sources and combing the many archives that hold relevant manuscript material. This extraordinary effort and Cashin's skill as a historian and writer are apparent on every page of this thorough, objective, and engaging book. Cashin has been careful not to impose twenty-first-century feminist values on Varina Davis, instead establishing the historical context of social, political, and gender relations and letting the documentary evidence fill in the details of Davis's life. The result is a subtle examination of an actual person, warts and all.
— Elizabeth Bramm Dunn

North Carolina Historical Review