Jefferson daviss second marriage

Varina recalled: "The messenger with the notification that Mr. Davis had been elected President After a few minutes' painful silence he told me, as a man might speak of a sentence of death. After distinguished service in the American Revolution — , her grandfather, Richard Howell, became governor of New Jersey in the s. Her father, who fought in the War of , settled in Natchez and married Kempe, a Virginia native whose father was an Irish immigrant.

That Varina, born to a family with roots in both the North and the South, should become the First Lady of the Confederacy is a historical irony. His daughter nevertheless received a superb education, attending a boarding school in Philadelphia. The tuition was probably paid for by relatives. While she was in school, she developed a lifelong fondness for her Northern kinfolk.

Her father was unable to support his family or provide a dowry, and she was better educated than most women of her generation. By the standards of the mid-nineteenth century, she was not attractive—tall and thin, with the olive complexion of her Welsh ancestors. In , she met Jefferson Davis at a Christmas party and quickly fell in love with him.

He was a handsome older man, a wealthy plantation owner, widower, and hero of the Mexican War — He also had beautiful manners. After they married in , she realized that he had conventional attitudes about gender, and he expected his wife to submit to his wishes; she also discovered that he revered the memory of his first spouse, Sarah Knox Taylor, who died the year he married her.

Taylor was the daughter of U. As Davis admitted in her old age, her husband had always loved his first wife more than he loved her. But marriage to Jefferson Davis had a number of compensations for Varina Davis. He became a professional politician, representing Mississippi as a Democrat in the House of Representatives and the U. Senate, serving as secretary of war in the cabinet of U.

The family was eventually given a more comfortable apartment in the officers' quarters of the fort. Jefferson and Varina photographed in Montreal, Canada, in Although released on bail and never tried for treason, Jefferson Davis had temporarily lost his home in Mississippi, most of his wealth, and his U. In the late 20th century, his citizenship was posthumously restored by then President Carter.

The small Davis family traveled constantly in Europe and Canada as he sought work to rebuild his fortunes. The family began to regain some financial comfort until the Panic of , when his company was one of many that went bankrupt. In their son William Davis died of typhoid fever , adding to their emotional burdens. He returned to the US for this work.

Varina Davis remained in England to visit her sister who had recently moved there, and stayed for several months. The surviving correspondence suggests her stay may have been prompted by renewed marital difficulties. Both the Davises suffered from depression due to the loss of their sons and their fortunes. Clay was the wife of their friend, former senator Clement Clay , a fellow political prisoner at Fort Monroe.

During this period, Davis exchanged passionate letters with Virginia Clay for three years and is believed to have loved her. In Davis was reported as having been seen on a train "with a woman not his wife", and it made national newspapers. For several years, the Davises lived apart far more than they lived together. Davis was unemployed for most of the years after the war.

In he was ill and nearly bankrupt. Advised to take a home near the sea for his health, he accepted an invitation from Sarah Anne Ellis Dorsey , a widowed heiress, to visit her summer cottage Beauvoir on the Mississippi Sound in Biloxi. A classmate of Varina in Philadelphia, Dorsey had become a respected novelist and historian, and had traveled extensively.

She arranged for Davis to use a cottage on the grounds of her plantation. There she helped him organize and write his memoir of the Confederacy, in part by her active encouragement. She also invited Varina Davis to stay with her. She was with him at Beauvoir in when they learned that their last surviving son, Jefferson Davis, Jr.

That year 20, people died throughout the South in the epidemic. During her grieving, Varina became friends again with Dorsey. Learning she had breast cancer, Dorsey made over her will to leave Jefferson Davis free title to the home, as well as much of the remainder of her financial estate. Her Percy relatives were unsuccessful in challenging the will.

She had fallen in love when at college, but her parents disapproved. Her father objected to his being from "a prominent Yankee and abolitionist family" and her mother to his lack of money and being burdened by many debts. Forced to reject this man, Winnie never married. After Winnie died in , she was buried next to her father in Richmond, Virginia.

Varina Davis inherited Beauvoir. She solicited short articles from her for her husband's newspaper, the New York World. In Varina Davis accepted the Pulitzers' offer to become a full-time columnist and moved to New York City with her daughter Winnie. He had served the United States long and honorably as a soldier, Member of the U. House and Senate, and as Secretary of War.

General Robert E. Lee's citizenship was restored in It is fitting that Jefferson Davis should no longer be singled out for punishment.

Jefferson daviss second marriage

Our people need to turn their attention to the important tasks that still lie before us in establishing those principles for all people. Davis traveled around the world on business following his political and military careers. His condition was complicated by malaria. He died on 6 December at the age of 81 years old. The beloved of our land, the unfaltering upholder of Constitutional liberty, the typical hero and sage, is no more; the fearless heart that beats with sympathy for all mankind is stilled forever, a great light is goneJefferson Davis is dead!

His death was not given the usual attention politicians receive upon their demise, with exceptions across the South.