Varina Howell
Varina Howell and Jefferson Davis' wedding picture
Varina Howell was born to Virginians William B. Howell and Margaret Lousia Kempe on May 7 1826 in Natchez, Mississippi (In the 1880 U.S. Federal Census for Biloxi, Harrison County, Mississippi, Varina Davis'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.
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. In the early 1870s, with the help and aide of a friend, Sarah Doherty, Jefferson and Varina purchased Beauvoir, the Mississippi estate to which they had retired.
Following Jefferson Davis's death in 1889, Varina published Jefferson Davis, A Memoir in 1890. She then moved to New York City, New York, 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, survived only by 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.