Jefferson Davis, American

by William J. Cooper

  But on October 11 came the dreaded telegram. Jeff Jr. had been stricken with yellow fever. Walthall’s daughter recorded the impact of the news: “[The Davises] looked wretchedly, Mr. Davis looked as if he had received some terrible blow that had completely crushed him.…” Varina desperately wanted to go to her son’s side, but travel was dangerous because of infected places and quarantines. Eventually her husband and Walthall, who had just returned to the coast, convinced her of the peril. Instead, Walthall agreed immediately to retrace his steps and take charge of the young man. But Jeff Jr. was beyond anyone’s help. After a brief rally, he died on October 16 at age twenty-one.

  His death staggered his parents. Davis cried out in anguish: “The last of my four sons has left me. I am crushed under such heavy and repeated blows. I presume not God to scorn, but the many and humble prayers offered before my boy was taken from me, are hushed in the despair of my bereavement.” Yet even in his torment, Sarah Dorsey spoke of his “bear[ing] it manfully.” He spoke of his son’s letters to him, a toothpick and walking stick the boy had made for him, and a pocketknife that had been a present. “These are put away to be preserved and looked at, as long as I live,” he wrote. A devastated Varina lay helpless in bed, prostrated by a dangerous fever. Sarah Dorsey said she did not leave Varina’s sickbed for six days and nights, except to bathe and change clothes. Mother and father had only their two daughters remaining.34

  The year 1878 was a bittersweet one for Jefferson Davis. While he lost his one remaining son, he regained his legal right to Brierfield. In April the Mississippi Supreme Court overturned the decision of the Warren County Chancery Court. In awarding Brierfield to Davis, the Supreme Court rejected any relevance for estoppel and said Davis had proven indisputably that he had cleared the land that became Brierfield and he had resided on and farmed the property from that time until the war years. The court asserted that under a Mississippi statute of 1844, which granted ownership to anyone who had “ten years actual adverse possession” of land, Davis clearly owned Brierfield. In Davis’s legal action to recover his plantation, the court found nothing “inconsistent with the lofty integrity … which history attests for Jefferson [Davis].”

  Although the Mississippi Supreme Court handed down a legal judgment written in legal language, politics had a controlling influence on its decision. In January 1876 a Republican judge in Warren County decided against Davis. At that point he would also have lost in the Supreme Court, for it then had three Republican justices. But by the time the court ruled on Davis’s case, its makeup had fundamentally changed. Two of the Republicans had been replaced by Democrats, both former Confederate officers. The two Democrats decided for Davis; the lone Republican dissented. This realignment accompanied the end of Reconstruction in Mississippi. In 1875 the Democratic party, the agent of white Mississippians, had won control of the legislature in a bitter, violence-marred election. Five months later the Republican governor, who was facing impeachment, resigned. The new Democratic governor and legislature started to eliminate Republican power and influence on the state level. By 1878 they had largely succeeded.

  The close of Reconstruction found Davis at one with almost all southern whites, just as he had been through its course. By the late 1870s he was in an even larger company, for by that time almost all white northerners agreed with white southerners that Reconstruction was wrong and should end. Davis applauded what he and most white Mississippians called the redemption of their state. Speaking in May 1878 to a group of Confederate veterans who had come to honor him, Davis declared: “Well may we rejoice in the regained possession of local government, in the power of the people to choose their representatives and to legislate uncontrolled by bayonets.” The demise of the Republican-dominated regimes in the southern states, supported by the power of the United States government, signaled the triumph of his brand of constitutionalism. “The constitution of the United States, interpreted as it was by those who made it, is the prophet’s rod to sweeten the bitter water from which flowed the strife, the carnage, the misery and shame of the past, as well as the foils of the present.”35

  Although the court had restored Davis’s legal ownership of Brierfield, he could not take immediate possession. First, judicial proceedings were required to remove the Montgomerys. On June 1, 1880, the Warren County Chancery Court issued an order authorizing foreclosure on the Montgomery mortgage, which was in default. Appeals held up enforcement of this decree until 1881. Finally, on December 1, 1881, for the first time in his life Jefferson Davis received deed and title to Brierfield.36

  Throughout these months of gladness and sadness, Davis’s relationship with Sarah Dorsey deepened. Although he spoke of her as his “hostess,” he began to feel more responsibility for the widow who had so befriended him. In time he took over management of Beauvoir as well as her other business affairs. In May 1878 she gave him power of attorney. According to her, Davis “kept a kind of oversight” over her. “Now that I am left so entirely alone & desolate in the world,” she told a mutual friend, “He is kinder & more considerate than ever.” Even Varina warmed to this other woman, especially after her serious illness following Jeff Jr.’s death. She said she knew of no other person except her own mother who could match Sarah Dorsey as a nurse.37

  For Sarah Dorsey, Jefferson Davis remained the hero of the age, in her eyes “the highest & noblest in existence.” When Davis first arrived at Beauvoir, a number of her relatives also made extended visits, and a half brother managed the place. But after a time he left, and the others stopped coming. Sarah Dorsey wanted to ease Davis’s retirement, and realizing that he had limited means and had grown enormously fond of Beauvoir, she decided in February 1879 to sell it to him. The price was $5,500—a fair bargain, but no gift. The terms were most generous, however. She demanded no down payment and said she would accept payment over three years, with the first installment due on January 1, 1880. The sales contract also provided for her right to repurchase Beauvoir, should Davis precede her in death.

  There was talk at the time, and later, that Davis and Sarah Dorsey were physically intimate at Beauvoir. No known document supports such a contention, and much circumstantial evidence contradicts it. Both he and she were quite Victorian in their attitude toward sex. In one of her novels she even downplayed its importance vis-à-vis true understanding, which she believed she and Davis had achieved. Moreover, illness plagued both of them. Davis suffered from his usual and frequently recurring range of ailments, and by late 1877 she had developed breast cancer, which would eventually kill her. Besides, for the final half of the thirty months that Jefferson Davis and Sarah Dorsey shared Beauvoir, Varina Davis also lived there.

  The course of Sarah Dorsey’s cancer altered the transfer of Beauvoir from her to Davis. Although she had agreed to sell him Beauvoir, she also made provision for him possibly to obtain it at no cost. Declaring that she had already done enough for her relatives, she left the place to him in her will dated January 1878. Beauvoir, along with all of her other property, was willed to Davis in fee simple, with everything to go to his daughter Varina Anne upon his death. William Walthall prepared the document at her request, and Davis was aware of its contents.38

  In June 1879 Sarah Dorsey went to New Orleans for surgery to remove her cancer. Although she came through the operation with no problem, it provided no cure and did not lengthen her life. As death approached, Davis was summoned to the city. The end came early on the morning of July 4. At her bedside during the final moments, Davis reported that he felt “deeply grieved at her death.” To Walthall, he wrote, “… you cannot know how deeply grateful I am to her for years of unvarying kindness & service & therefore cannot realize how sorrowfully I feel her loss.” He accompanied her body upriver for interment in Natchez.39

  Back in New Orleans, Davis on July 10 applied to the Second District Court, Parish of Orleans, for the probation of her will. Five days later, the court accepted the will as legitimate. At that point Sarah Dorsey’s relatives learned that s
he had made Davis her sole heir. Frustrated and angry, several of them decided to challenge the will. Although Davis denounced what he termed “vile attempts by greedy, ungrateful relatives, to impugn the motives and question the validity of her will,” need rather than avarice governed their conduct. Attempting to overturn the will, in December 1879 they filed suit in the United States Circuit Court, District of Louisiana in New Orleans, charging that Davis had insinuated himself into a vulnerable widow’s affections. But no evidence supported their accusations, and in March 1880 the court without comment decided against the plaintiffs, upholding the validity of the will. The losers did file notice of their intent to appeal to the United States Supreme Court, but no appeal was ever made. They had no reason to think they could prevail.40

  Davis inherited an estate worth some $50,000, but one also in debt. He promptly moved to eliminate the outstanding debt by borrowing against future revenues from the property, which he estimated at about $2,500 annually. That money came from cotton plantations in Louisiana, not Beauvoir. Davis said that Beauvoir had never produced any income for either his benefactress or himself. He maintained that he always had to struggle to keep the Dorsey property solvent; expenses consumed income. Still, although Sarah Dorsey’s bequest did not make Davis wealthy, it did give him a home he came to cherish.41

  In 1881, the year Rise and Fall came out and Davis actually took possession of Brierfield, he made his fifth and final trip to Europe. He and Varina both went solely to bring back their daughter Winnie, who had spent five years in the girls’ preparatory school in Karlsruhe. This time he was not pursuing any business goals, either elusive or illusive. With their youngest daughter abroad, Jefferson and Varina had written often with news of home and siblings, including the sad tidings of Jeff Jr.’s death, and praise for her accomplishments. Noting her study of languages, he teased that when she returned with command of three languages, she “[would] be expected to talk three times as much as you did formerly.” But the serious-minded father with high demands was also present. While he lauded Winnie’s “stoical heroism” in embarking on an ambitious course in a foreign place, he did not shy away from directives: “that you should be happy and healthy are requisites to your becoming well educated, and in these are contained the measure of your power to render your parents happy when we shall be reunited.”42

  In an oppressively hot August the Davises sailed from New Orleans for Liverpool on the Bernard Hall. Thence they traveled almost directly to Paris for a reunion with Winnie, who had already left Germany. For around two months the reunited family enjoyed the French capital and Chantilly, where Davis stayed with his old friend Dudley Mann. The Davises also enjoyed a visit, their last, with Judah Benjamin.43

  While Jefferson spent most of his time in Chantilly, with its “higher and drier atmosphere,” Varina and Winnie usually stayed in the city. The mother desired her daughter to have “the advantage of a few months in Paris” to complete her education. She also worried about Winnie’s health—overmuch, according to her husband. And the two women shopped. Jefferson urged his wife not to “allow the cares of shopping to prey upon your spirits.” “Though not rich,” he reminded her, “we can meet all your requirements without going to the ‘poor ’ouse.’ ” Perhaps Varina could afford what she needed, but what really captured her attention she considered too expensive. A train ride took her to Sèvres, which she designated “the throne of ceramics,” with “glowing china.” The exquisite creations forged a union between her aesthetic sense and her emotions. “As I looked on the angel forms depicted there,” she wrote her husband, “the longing of my life to create something that would live after me was greater than ever.”

  Although he did go into Paris, Jefferson enjoyed the more rural environment of Chantilly. He and Mann took long walks over the famous race course that was home to the French Derby. He saw magnificent racehorses and a massive stable that awed him; he also found impressive the forest in which hunters still stalked boar and stag. On one occasion in Paris he and Varina enjoyed the Luxembourg Gardens, especially a statue of a queen of Navarre. To the Davises the sculpture bore an uncanny likeness to his niece Mary Stamps.44

  After more than eight weeks in and around the French capital, the three Davises headed for England and a ship home. They departed from Southampton on November 22 bound for New York. Traveling via Louisville, they were back in Mississippi before the end of the year.45

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “There Is Much Preparation”

  After their return from Europe, Jefferson and Varina Davis settled in at Beauvoir with their daughter Winnie. The publication of Rise and Fall completed the task that for four years had consumed the household. No other such undertaking loomed ahead.

  At Beauvoir, Davis found a satisfying home. As Sarah Dorsey had observed, the climate “renews the life of Mr. Davis.” In 1882 he spoke of “loving the coast.” He enjoyed the variety of fish and shellfish and even built a bathhouse on the edge of the water where, during the season, he liked to watch the flounder at night. He was delighted when oranges began ripening in late winter. The relative solitude of his seaside retreat pleased him, but he never became a hermit. He traveled, hosted visitors, and participated in some local activities. He became a member, and even a vestryman, of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Mississippi City.1

  Varina did not share her husband’s happiness with their new home. She found the heat of the Deep South no more congenial than she ever had. Even though the sea breezes often cooled Beauvoir, it could still get quite hot. She also moaned about the seclusion in such an out-of-the-way location. “Oh, me! I do not like solitude,” she cried, “I must be able to put my hand to a friend at least once a day in order to be ’appy.” Like her distaste for hot weather, her preference for a more social environment was not new. Before 1861 she had greatly preferred Washington to Davis Bend. She called Beauvoir “a bright airy place,” but she still did not care for it. “As home is here, I stay here & cultivate a few roses and take care of things.” Yet, “I do get so tired here of the sameness,” she admitted.

  She confessed that her loneliness exacerbated her sadness. Writing an old friend from prewar Washington, Varina hid nothing: “So sweet so sad the days that are no more are to me that each one of you who constituted the beloved circle within which I hoped to grow old start up before me sometimes as though a living presence had been sent to crown my efforts at naturalization.” She could find no joy. “I do not like the contemplative joys of the country and every thing that ever hurt me in my life comes up and ‘will not down’ there being no one else to occupy the chairs, the ghosts do.”2

  Her advancing years added to her general unhappiness. When in 1886 she turned sixty, she said she felt old. She also acknowledged that she had “grown very fleshy,” a condition reporters noted and photographs confirm. In addition, she remarked that aging was more pronounced in her than in her husband. As he approached eighty, she commented, “It is in the evening of life that a discrepancy of age tells in married relations, and we are now in a condition to understand the risk.” Still, she declared she certainly did not want to die, and “would see the world if I could, but only in an impersonal way—being merely a looker on.”

  Despite her melancholy and her self-deprecation, Varina Davis remained an impressive woman. Visiting in 1882, a Canadian who had known her during her stay in his country described her as an “exceedingly clever and accomplished lady.” Charles Francis Adams, Jr., recalled a “memorable” visit with her. A Philadelphia reporter, portraying her for his readers, characterized her as a “cultured and genial woman.” She could still place her social skills and bright mind on full display.3

  Although Beauvoir was certainly rural, it was not isolated. The Louisville & Nashville Railroad tracks a few hundred yards behind the house gave easy access to Mobile and New Orleans. That access was not a secret. Even though he declaimed against the “great horror of intruders,” Davis was generally a civil, and often charming, host. Numerous
visitors did come, groups as well as individuals. Contingents of Confederate veterans arrived to pay their respects to their former commander in chief, who always received them graciously and stressed to them the marvelous record they had made between 1861 and 1865. Friends, new acquaintances, and even strangers found their way to Davis’s door. Jubal Early was a frequent guest. Davis’s Transylvania mate and longtime friend George Jones of Iowa came for a few days. Reporters from various newspapers as far away as New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis showed up, at times unannounced. When at home, Davis generally greeted them warmly, and most wrote positive, even admiring, articles about him. Young Charles Francis Adams stopped by in 1885, as did the newspaper baron Joseph Pulitzer and his entourage three years later. Pulitzer’s wife, a distant cousin of Davis’s, had met Winnie in New York and grown quite fond of her. A most unusual caller was the young Irish poet-lecturer Oscar Wilde. On a lecture tour in the United States in 1882, Wilde pronounced Davis the American he most wanted to see. When he appeared at Beauvoir, he captivated Varina and Winnie, though Davis found his demeanor and dandyish dress off-putting. Wilde left him an unrequested, signed photograph.4

  To help them maintain Beauvoir and accommodate their various guests, the elderly Davises had considerable assistance. Even though Varina complained about trouble with black servants, as did many southern whites of her time, she managed a sizable staff that performed a number of tasks. There was a cook, a houseboy, a cleaning woman, as many as three men to tend the animals and the vineyard, and a gardener. She employed no washerwoman because she sent her laundry out.5