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Summary
Summary
When Jefferson Davis became president of the Confederacy, his wife, Varina Howell Davis, reluctantly became the First Lady. Pro-slavery but also pro-Union, Varina Davis was inhibited by her role as Confederate First Lady and unable to reveal her true convictions.Cashin offers a splendid portrait of a fascinating woman who struggled with the constraints of her time and place.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Cashin has written a smashing study the first scholarly biography of Varina Howell Davis (1826-1906), wife of Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Cashin, an associate professor of history at Ohio State, 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. B&w photos. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
As historian Cashin remarks in the concluding chapter of this thorough biography of the wife of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, If Mary Todd Lincoln is remembered as the First Lady who went to an insane asylum, Mrs. Davis is scarcely remembered at all. Sympathetic but not uncritical in her well--researched treatment, Cashin gives Varina Davis her due, drawing distinct images of her personality and clearly estimating her effect on her husband and country. Finding that Mrs. Davis made many sacrifices for a cause she did not fully support and for a husband who did not fully return her love, Cashin views her within a framework of the traditional role expected of a Southern plantation wife and the role that was anticipated by the Confederate public for their first First Lady. Living in Washington, D.C., as the wife of a congressman, then senator, then secretary of war under President Pierce, was a happy time for her; conversely, times were unhappy when she resided in the Confederate White House in Richmond. --Brad Hooper Copyright 2006 Booklist
Choice Review
In this first academic biography of Jefferson Davis's wife, Varina, Cashin (Ohio State Univ.) presents an engaging look at the Confederacy's first lady, who surprisingly did not believe in the Southern cause. Much of the book, however, focuses on Davis's life after the Civil War, when she struggled to support her penniless husband and later managed her own survival as a widow for over 25 years. Varina Davis drew vast criticism during the postbellum years from her fellow Southerners for her controversial views on the war, particularly when she proclaimed that God's will had provided the North's victory. In spite of the disparagement, Davis spent much of her later life publicly working toward mending the rift between North and South, moving to New York and even befriending the wife of former Union general Ulysses Grant. While the narrative occasionally leans toward overt sympathy, Cashin's study presents an otherwise objective analysis of the tragic Davis and her often-vilified husband. Loaded with previously unused primary sources and balanced with superb sociopolitical context, this book is an excellent source for any Civil War, US South, or gender collection. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Most levels/libraries. B. A. Wineman US Army Command & General Staff College
Library Journal Review
A native Mississippian, educated in Philadelphia and later happily assimilated into Washington, DC, society, Varina Howell Davis, wife of Jefferson Davis, was a very learned and worldly woman by the standards of her time. The Civil War caused her, like many other Americans, to wrestle with hard choices about regional loyalties and beliefs. Her indecision, coupled with her education and Northern connections, would have a negative impact on her time as Confederate First Lady, with repercussions that followed her for the rest of her days. Though Davis's life reads like a tragic novel, Cashin (history, Ohio State Univ.) has taken care not to romanticize her subject. A large part of the text focuses on Davis's Civil War years, but-despite the subtitle-Cashin follows Davis from birth to death, offering the first biography to do so since Ishbel Ross's First Lady of the South almost 50 years ago. 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. Making ample use of rich primary sources, including Davis's personal correspondence, the author hews to academic standards while remaining accessible to the average reader. Recommended for all libraries.-Tessa L.H. Minchew, Georgia Perimeter Coll., Clarkston, GA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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 |