These were heady days. Her husband and his associates were inventing a new nation. Varina, with much expected of her on the social scene, set a pace that quickly established the same tradition of hospitality she had enjoyed in the national capital. She entertained in a formal and sophisticated way, her receptions and dinners impressing the Confederates who crowded into Montgomery. But there would be critics to decry her fancy soirees and eventually to dub her “Queen Varina.”
For all her own new responsibilities, she was more sensitive than ever to the towering problems her husband had been called to shoulder. Diarist Mary Chesnut, a good friend throughout the war and after, made an entry in her journal about this time that is revealing: “Mrs. Davis does not like her husband being made President.” Apparently Varina also told Mary Chesnut, “General of the Armies would have suited his temperament better.” For one thing, Varina was afraid her husband was not yet adept in the art of politics.
Varina, herself by now quite polished in the political realm, won the respect of the men who surrounded the president, especially Confederate Cabinet member Judah Benjamin, with whom she developed a lasting friendship. As Varina became known for her sparkling wit and quick mind, critics of her president-husband suggested he leaned too much on his wife in matters of state. But she, better than anyone, understood the need to smooth the way for her Jefferson, who still struck some associates as inordinately stiff, even cold.
The move from Montgomery to Richmond, new capital of the Confederacy, presented a hurdle of a different kind for Varina. Accustomed to the warm, open manners of the deep South, she found a sometimes chilly reception from the established social leaders of the very traditional Richmond. However, her natural resilience still stood her in good stead as, despite the grim backdrop of a horrifying war, she pursued a social agenda in support of Jefferson Davis.
Indeed, a darkness descended upon Varina’s beloved South. Forts Henry and Donelson fell. Then came the disaster at Shiloh. New Bern, North Carolina, and New Orleans were soon in the hands of the Union. The naval yards of Virginia were lost. Gettysburg and Vicksburg became twin benchmarks in the sad litany for the struggling nation.
Personal tragedy struck, too. In April of 1864, five-year-old Joe Davis, playing on an open porch at the White House of the Confederacy in Richmond, climbed a railing and fell to his death on the brick walk below. Varina wandered around in a daze while Jefferson Davis, besieged by the South’s troubles on every front, had no time for personal grief—except for the pain in his heart.
The loss seemed to soften the antagonism some still held for Varina. “People do not snub me any longer,” she wrote to Mary Chesnut, “for it was only while the lion was dying that he was kicked; dead, he was beneath contempt.” And an afterthought: “Not to say I am worthy to be called a lion, nor are the people here asses.”
Varina was underestimating herself, for if not a lion, she had the heart and courage of one. She continued to give her strong shoulder to Jefferson as disaster begat disaster on the war front—the siege of Petersburg, the fall of Atlanta, Sherman’s march to the sea.
One ray of sunshine did lighten the grim days—a baby girl was born to Varina on June 27, 1864. Named Varina Anne, she was called “Winnie” (a pet name Jefferson had used for his wife) and would soon be known as the “Daughter of the Confederacy.”
“She looks like a little rosebud,” wrote the proud mother.
After the fall of Atlanta, the president went to visit his troops and make speeches around the South to shore up confidence. Along the way he stopped off in Columbia, South Carolina, to visit the Chesnuts, who were renting a small cottage there. Mary Chesnut had to scrimp and save to put together a decent repast in the face of ever-worsening shortages and her family’s reduced financial fortunes. As she did her best to provide fitting hospitality, she told the visiting Jefferson Davis, “It is the wind-up, the Cassandra in me says: and the old life means to die royally.”
In Richmond, Varina, too, was trying to make ends meet, no longer able to indulge in her sometimes regal ways. As she sold off some of her elegant clothing, she gave up the most colorful dresses. Especially painful to part with was a favorite green silk, but she did not expect to wear it again anytime soon since she was always in mourning. Indeed, for the rest of her life Varina was rarely seen in any color but black.
In those final days in Richmond, Varina coped as best she could with her limited largess and the mounting pressures created by the South’s looming defeat. She won over many more of her critics, while strengthening the respect that others already accorded her. Robert E. Lee, for instance, remained loyal to both Davises until the very end; he always treated Varina with unusual respect, even admiration. He quite obviously understood the burdens she carried along with the “menfolk”; he saw the constant attention she gave her husband, along with her readiness to help her friends. She often caught Lee’s ear with some special plea on behalf of friends concerned for a son, brother, or husband. Lee was aware, too, that Varina sometimes sat in on meetings her husband held with various delegations come to discuss serious matters such as the exchange of prisoners.
As calamity followed calamity, the very heart of the South bled. “Darkness seemed now to close swiftly over the Confederacy, and about a week before the evacuation of Richmond,” Varina wrote later, “Mr. Davis came to me and announced the necessity for our departure.” She begged to stay and be near him, but he was adamant that she must seek safety, saying, “I have confidence in your capacity to take care of our babies.” In the end, Varina packed away a few things, while many of their household goods (which Davis called “trumpery”) were sold to a dealer who wrote a large draft on a Richmond bank for the items. Never cashed, the check remained among Varina’s personal effects after her death.
The first lady of the Confederacy now gathered her teenage sister and the four Davis children—Margaret, age nine; Little Jeff, age eight; Little Billie, age three; and Winnie, still an infant—”to go forth into the unknown.”
The huddled, despairing group of Davises and three daughters of close friends, escorted by presidential secretary Burton Harrison, left Richmond on a train pulled by a “worn-out engine.” Twelve hours later—with no arrangements for sleeping quarters—they reached Danville, Virginia. Then it was on to Charlotte, North Carolina. After a brief reprieve in a rented house that had been arranged for in advance, their flight continued across South Carolina at Chester and Abbeville to another Abbeville via tiny Washington, Georgia. They at last arrived in Irwinville in south Georgia. The trip was hectic and harried, uncomfortable and uncertain, but throughout their separate flights— Jefferson Davis was now on the run also—the two fugitives kept in touch by courier, their letters stating and restating their abiding love for one another.
Jefferson Davis had just missed his wife when he arrived in Charlotte with his Cabinet. At the “dreadful” news of Lee’s surrender on April 9, Varina had continued on her southward journey. After a harrowing train ride as far as Chester and a five-mile walk in the darkness through mud while carrying a “cheerful little baby in my arms,” Varina and her entourage had arrived in Abbeville, South Carolina. Here, her gloom was momentarily dispelled when a courier delivered a long letter from her husband dated April 23. “Dear Wife,” it began, “this is not the fate to which I invited [you] when the future was rose colored to us both; but I know you will bear it even better than myself and that of us two I alone will ever look back reproachfully on my past career…. Farewell, my dear, there may be better things in store for us than are now in view, but my love is all I have to offer and that has the value of a thing long possessed and sure not to be lost.”
Varina at once responded: “It is surely not the fate to which you invited me in brighter days, but you must remember that you did not invite me to a great Hero’s home, but to that of a plain farmer. I have shared all your triumphs, been the only beneficiary of them, now I am but claiming the privilege for the first time of being all to you now the
se pleasures have past [sic] for me.”
Before they would meet again, Varina heard about the Lincoln assassination, news that came like a thunderclap just days after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Her response had been immediate: “I burst into tears,” she later wrote, “tears which flowed from the mingling of sorrow for the family of Mr. Lincoln and a thorough realization of the inevitable results to the Confederates, now that they were at the mercy of the Federals.”
This prediction was to prove true over and over again for Varina and her beloved South. But for now the dark clouds over the separately fleeing Davises lifted ever so slightly—suddenly they were reunited. In the vicinity of Milledgeville, Georgia, Varina’s party had paused and was under guard because of the constant danger of marauders when up rode her worn but still stately horseman. Jefferson and Varina were together again.
But not for long. Exhausted, the two had little time to talk. While the children danced around in joy, husband and wife—historic figures now—made plans for her to escape to Nassau and to join him wherever and whenever possible. But Davis had to leave her briefly. And after his return one night, encamped by a stream, Jefferson and Varina were awakened next morning by the sound of horses’ hoofs—Union cavalrymen—then gunfire. By mistake they were firing at each other, and two troopers were killed. Jefferson stepped out of the tent, hesitated a moment, then, disguised by a shawl Varina threw over him, attempted to walk quietly away. But he had no such good fortune—he was seized and captured. Thus, on May 10, 1865, began the long, dreadful months of imprisonment for the president and Varina’s long struggle to free him.
Transported over rutted roads in broken-down carriages and then by train to Macon, Georgia, next hustled onto a rusted river tug, and finally placed aboard the ocean steamer William P. Clyde at Savannah, the weary and bedraggled captives arrived in a few days at Hampton Roads, Virginia. Here, without so much as a moment’s warning, Jefferson Davis was removed from his loving wife. Varina wrote that he had only time to approach her and say, “It is true, I must go at once.” But he was also able to whisper quickly, “Try not to weep, they will gloat over your grief.” His body trembled as he embraced her—then he was gone, to be incarcerated at Fortress (Fort) Monroe on May 22, 1865.
Jefferson Davis was treated harshly. He was placed in a cold, damp cell and for a few days was held in leg irons. Not even Varina’s words can quite convey the deprivation and humiliation he suffered: “Worn down by privation, overexertion, and exposure, my husband was in no condition, when thrown into prison, to resist exciting causes of disease.” Said she also: “The damp walls, the food too coarse and bad to be eaten, the deprivation of sleep caused by the tramping of sentinels around the iron cot, the light of the lamp which shone full upon it, the loud calling of the roll when another relief was turned out, the noise of unlocking the doors…[all] produced fever, and rapidly wasted his strength.” Davis was refused his mail—even a trunk containing a change of clothes.
Varina and the children were taken back to Savannah, where she had no family connections or friends. Here, without funds, she momentarily was held under house arrest at the Hotel Pulaski. Many citizens of the grand old Georgia city welcomed her, but any attempt to help her husband fell on deaf ears. For months, the only news she received of him came from newspapers. As Mrs. Robert E. Lee wrote to a friend, “She [Varina] writes very sadly, as well she may, for I know of no one so to be pitied.”
Finally, with no really meaningful response to the pleas she directed in letters to government officials of all kinds, friends or even remote acquaintances in Washington and elsewhere, she contacted Horace Greeley, famous as a New York newspaper editor—and also known to champion lost causes. Even though he had reviled Jefferson Davis in his newspaper, he also had called for the due process of law in dealing with the Southern leader, whose very life hung in the balance in the hysteria still lingering from the Lincoln assassination. Varina now hoped that a public outcry over her husband’s treatment would prompt even greater support from Greeley. She wrote to him: “How can the honest men and gentlemen of your country stand idly by to see a gentleman maligned, insulted, tortured and denied the right of trial by the usual forms of law?” Greeley did take up the cause to the extent that he engaged legal counsel on behalf of the imprisoned Jefferson Davis. And in time the Federal government’s prosecutors found no evidence of complicity in the Lincoln plot and even backed off the charges of treason based on secession. Still, Jefferson was kept confined.
Varina would stop at nothing to win her husband’s freedom. Now she went to the top. She wrote President Andrew Johnson, who himself faced legal problems in the form of impeachment proceedings.
Her efforts having positive effect at last, she soon was on her way to Washington. It was in late May 1866 that Varina returned to the capital where once she had been sought after and admired as the wife of the young senator from Mississippi. This time appearing as the wife of the world’s most famous prisoner, she created a sensation. Her friends of old were quick to notice the changes wrought by the years of suffering. Her eyes, once so sparkling, were now deep set and sad. Yet those who studied her could sense a new dimension about Varina, a depth that seemed to sustain her in all her anguish.
The president received her cordially—she even felt sorry for such a political innocent now being demeaned by his own party. She was gratified that the immediate result of the meeting was that Davis was allowed more freedom within his prison walls. Soon Varina was even allowed to move in with him.
Many months would pass, however, before Jefferson Davis was granted his freedom. After the better part of two years, he was finally released on bail in Richmond. “Strangely enough,” wrote Hugh MacCulloch in his book Men and Measures of Half a Century, “Horace Greeley and Gerrit Smith, the distinguished abolitionists, were among the signers of his bond.”
All of Richmond took to the streets to greet the reunited couple the day of his bond hearing in the city that had played such an important role in their lives. They were given the very same suite at the Spotswood Hotel that they had shared in happier (if uncertain) days here so long ago. And after the bond hearing—free at last!
More tests lay ahead as Varina set out to find a place in the sun—both figuratively and literally—for herself and her weary, wounded husband, now a man without a country. As pleased as the Davises were, Richmond was a city of painful memories, and they were anxious to rejoin their children in Lennoxville, Canada.
After a stopover in New York, the Davis couple at last had a joyful family reunion in Canada. Staying to enjoy the company of family, friends, and a few Southern compatriots, Varina and Jefferson found solace in the simple pleasures. For Varina, soothing her husband’s proud soul was demanding. The long, cold Canadian winter of 1867 left her restless; she was not content to sit out the rest of their lives on the sidelines, and she persuaded her husband to join her in a search for new horizons. The “king and queen in exile” would move on.
First it was to Cuba for a brief sojourn, then to New Orleans, with a rousing welcome there from old friends and Confederate diehards. Finally came the heartbreaking return to Brierfield—the buildings burned, the fields overgrown, the roses covered in bramble. Since it could no longer be home to them, they returned to Lennoxville, where they had established residence in a pension. The next summer, at Varina’s urging, they sailed for England.
Here the old conviviality and flair of her earlier days had to be held in abeyance, since Varina found it hard to accept invitations from wealthy lords and ladies while she could not reciprocate in expensive Victorian style. Traveling on the Continent, Varina and Jefferson soon found their financial resources low, and he reluctantly accepted a position as president of an insurance company in Memphis.
And so this Southern city on the Mississippi River became home for a while. Varina again made many new friends, but much of the stimulating social scene, once so much a part of her life, eluded her there. Things did not go so well for Jef
ferson, either. Deciding there was no future for him in the business world, he once again took his wife off to England.
As fate would have it, a wealthy plantation owner whose husband had recently died was traveling in England. Sarah Dorsey, another vivacious, ambitious woman and an old Mississippi acquaintance, heard about Jefferson’s wish to write his own memoir. She had recently bought Beauvoir, a beautiful estate on the Mississippi coast, and she offered the wandering former president of the Confederacy a place to come home to.
Bidding Varina good-bye—a chronic heart condition, more and more troublesome these days, apparently prevented her from attempting the ocean voyage at this time—Jefferson returned alone to his native Mississippi. There, in the fresh air and ocean breezes of an idyllic setting, he began to unwind. A pavilion set off from the main house became his haven, and the story he had already lived began to unfold on paper. Thus began his two-volume tome, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government.
Many months would pass before Varina was strong enough to leave England. When she did return to America, for once she did not rush into the arms of her husband. She went to Memphis to be with her daughter Margaret, who had lost her first baby.
But more than concern for her daughter kept her away from Jefferson. Sarah Dorsey, whom Varina had known when they were both young girls in Natchez, now posed an intrusive threat. By midsummer, Varina, hoping to squelch gossip about her husband and Mrs. Dorsey, moved to Beauvoir and achieved a truce with Sarah. Never doubting the unabiding love of her husband nor her enduring devotion for him, Varina made her peace with Jefferson, too. But she would carry her resentment toward Sarah to the grave.
Jefferson, who had been none too happy over their separation, needed her now more than ever. She stepped naturally into the role she had filled so often as his assistant and collaborator.
Best Little Stories from the Civil War: More than 100 true stories Page 37
