Varina Howell
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Varina Howell was born to Virginians William B. Howell and Margaret Lousia Kempe on 7 May 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.
Varina attended Madame Greenland's school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1844, when she was 17 years old, Varina met 36-year-old Jefferson Davis. In 1845, the two married at "the Briars," her parents' home in Natchez. Jefferson Davis served in both houses of the U.S. Congress as a Representative and a Senator and was the United States Secretary of War in the cabinet of President Franklin Pierce.
She became the first (and last) First Lady of the Confederate States of America when Jefferson Davis became the President of the Confederate States. they moved to Richmond, Virginia in May, 1861, 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 2 years. He was eventually released on bail, and never tried, but had lost his home in Mississippi and his citizenship. In the early 1870s, with the help and aide of a friend, Jefferson and Varina purchased "Beauvoir," the Mississippi estate to which they 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 16 October 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.