Winnie Davis

by Heath Hardage Lee

  This European life, so intellectually and culturally broadening for Winnie despite its flaws, was not to last. Events at home were once again turning ominous. Death and depression, familiar visitors to the Davis household, were about to announce themselves once again.

  CHAPTER 7

  Yellow Fever

  God seems to keep green the memory of our solitary little dead children—Whether they lie on a hillside in the midst of enemies or sleep in the earth where their father defended Richmond … The past is inexpressibly bitter is it not.

  Letter from Varina Davis to Jefferson Davis, June 20, 1875

  While Winnie was still ensconced in her German convent and her father and mother were living at Beauvoir, the family turned its attentions to the last living Davis boy, Jeff Jr. Jeff was handsome and a charming young man, though perhaps lacking a bit in motivation. As a child, Jeff displayed a hot temper and a protectiveness of his family that was unusual in a small boy. When he was just nine, he fought a sixteen-year-old boy who had teased him by repeating the false rumor that Jefferson Sr. had been wearing petticoats when he was captured.1

  Virginia Clay, whose husband, Clement, was imprisoned with Jefferson Davis at Fort Monroe, recalled in her memoirs that little Jeff had reacted violently when his father was taken to prison. “When I get to be a man, I’m going to kill every Yankee I see!” the child had cried.2 When Virginia then held him and tried to calm him, he relaxed and reportedly said, “My papa told me to take care of you and my Mamma!”3 From a young age Jeff Jr. was expected to take on this protective role, becoming the “man of the house” while his father was absent.

  Young Jeff’s childhood after the Civil War was an itinerant one: he attended schools in Canada, England, and the state of Maryland, moving from place to place as his parents’ fortunes waxed and waned. The young man attended military school at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in Lexington, beginning in 1873. His father withdrew him from the school two years later, however, fearing the boy’s expulsion was imminent due to his poor academic performance.4

  While Varina’s memoirs paint an idealized portrait of Jeff Jr. as a “strong, sober, industrious, and witty young man, who was exceedingly intimate with his father, and loved him devotedly—indeed they were like two young friends together,”5 Jefferson worried about his oldest son’s lack of maturity. Like most boys his age, the young man preferred parties to schoolwork. At twenty years old Jeff Jr. cut a dashing figure in Memphis and was popular with the town belles. He looked like a young, slim Clark Gable with piercing blue eyes and a handsome mustache. He soon fell in love with local beauty Bessie Martin.6

  Jefferson and Varina were clearly concerned about their eldest son; although they loved Jeff Jr. dearly, they worried he would not amount to much. Sounding much like a frustrated parent of today, Jefferson noted drily, “We do not understand him and fear we never shall.”7 The father had apparently forgotten the troubles of his own youth when he was a cadet at United States Military Academy at West Point.

  Jefferson Sr. had constantly been in trouble at school for disobeying orders, not keeping his room clean, being absent from parades, and drinking and fighting. He narrowly avoided dismissal from the school several times. He graduated in the bottom third of his class and racked up an impressive number of demerits during his time at West Point.8 In this respect father and son had very similar educational experiences. Jefferson had later achieved great renown, despite his lackluster college career. Perhaps Jeff Jr. would follow the same pattern.

  By 1877, however, Jefferson Sr. had had enough of his son’s gallivanting aimlessly around Memphis, where he had become a familiar presence on the local social scene. Jeff was feted and adored by the young people of Memphis, and he was soon swept up in the social whirl of the city.9 In January of that year Jefferson insisted that Jeff Jr. move to Beauvoir, where he and Sarah Dorsey were still living, ostensibly so the young man could help him with his memoirs.

  Surely the father thought the relative isolation and quiet of the Gulf Coast estate would calm down his son’s spirited nature and keep him away from parties, drinking, and other temptations. Jefferson knew his son had no way of marrying and supporting his love, Bessie, until he obtained appropriate and steady employment. The Davis family, wealthy before the Civil War, now had little money to ease their son’s transition into adulthood.

  Aside from a summer visit to Memphis, Jeff Jr. remained at Beauvoir studying and acting as his father’s secretary until October, when Varina finally returned home from England. Father and son greeted Varina in Memphis. Jefferson Sr. soon returned to his coastal retreat, but the younger Jefferson elected to stay in Memphis with his mother and sisters.10 Naturally, the lure of urban life and society was far too strong for twenty-year-old Jeff Jr. to ignore. He was young, handsome, and sought after in Memphis. Beauvoir and the Gulf Coast were isolated and lacked such entertainments and diversions. His sister Winnie would learn this herself when she returned home from Europe.

  In 1878 Jeff Jr.’s new brother-in-law, Addison Hayes, tried to help the directionless young man by finding him a job as a bank clerk in Memphis. Jefferson and Varina were thrilled and hopeful that a respectable job in finance would set young Jeff on the path to an industrious adulthood.11 Perhaps he could finally marry Bessie and settle down.

  Despite the good fortune of finding a promising career, sometime in September 1878 young Jefferson had a strange and prophetic dream about his own death. He seemed to have inherited his mother’s ability, or curse, to foresee imminent disaster.12 A classmate of Jeff’s at VMI had noted this trait when Jeff was much younger: “He had a sort of clairvoyant, or sixth sense and had a way of seeing things around the corner which I could never quite understand.”13

  Jeff Jr.’s nightmare would soon come true. A few months after the young man’s arrival in Memphis, one of the worst outbreaks in that century of yellow fever overwhelmed the town. Mosquitoes carry this dread disease, and the warm weather of Memphis and its dreadful sanitary conditions provided the perfect breeding ground for the illness to spread.14 By September 1878 it was as if a medieval bubonic plague had descended on the city. Government offices and businesses were closed, while carts full of dead bodies flooded the streets and funeral bells rung continuously. More lives were lost in this Tennessee city from the disease than in the infamous tragedies of the San Francisco fire, the Johns town flood, and the Chicago fire combined.15 Over 5,150 citizens of Memphis eventually died in this particular epidemic.16

  By mid-October Jeff was among those infected with yellow fever. He quickly showed signs of the “black vomit” that signaled his internal organs were disintegrating. Yellow fever begins suddenly, after a three-to six-day incubation period. Victims often rally and seem to improve, as Jeff Jr. appeared to do. During one of these lulls he reportedly received a letter from Bessie Martin, replying to his recent proposal of marriage. He never opened the letter, telling his brother-in-law, Addison, that he would read it when he was better.17

  A more intense period of suffering often follows such respites from this illness, with the afflicted person vomiting blood and suffering liver and renal failure. Jeff Jr. and the other Memphians who stayed there during the epidemic died painful and frightening deaths, experiencing symptoms such as fever chills, jaundice, and hemorrhaging.18

  The last living son of the Davises died on October 16, 1878, the sixth anniversary of his brother Billy’s death. Unbelievably, neither parent was present at the time, something Varina apparently regretted deeply until the end of her life.19 She said she was torn between helping her husband at Beauvoir with his memoirs and tending to her children in Memphis.20

  Why did the parents not journey as quickly as possible to their dying son’s bedside? In a letter to Winnie after Jeff’s death, Jefferson explained to her that he and Varina had received multiple assurances that Jeff was fine, until they received a telegram on October 11 stating that he was infected with the dread disease. Jefferson claimed he and Varina were both t
oo ill to travel, so he sent their friend Maj. William T. Walthall to check on Jeff Jr.

  The major was present at Jeff Jr.’s deathbed along with Addison and several nurses. Even to the end, the major said, Jeff was able to “talk in a lucid, intelligent and sometimes sparkling way.”21 More than likely, this was just the major’s kind lie to ease the bereaved parents’ pain. The “Good Death” was a concept that nineteenth-century families clung to as a way to ease their own suffering. If the deceased had declared himself devoted to God and had expressed a lucidity of mind at the time of death, this assured the departed eternal salvation and reassured those family members left behind.22 The major’s unlikely description of Jeff Jr.’s passing was probably fabricated for his parents’ peace of mind. The death the major witnessed would not have been a Good Death. It would have been a horribly painful final experience, worsened by the lack of parental support.

  Varina’s despair over losing their last boy was crushing. She noted in her husband’s memoirs: “Our son died of a short, sharp illness in which he knew his danger and expressed his willingness to obey God’s will … The last of our sons at age twenty-one, was now taken from us, and we had but two children left.”23

  Bessie, Jeff Jr.’s girlfriend and probable fiancée, was also devastated by his early demise. She remained friends with the Davis family all her life, and Varina considered Bessie one of her daughters, writing to the young woman six years after Jeff Jr.’s death, “You will never cease to be mine as well as your Mother’s.” The bereaved mother often mentioned their mutual loss and the “common grief” that bound the two women together.24

  Winnie also remained great friends with Bessie and visited her often in New York after the Memphis belle married a doctor and became Mrs. J. Harvey Dew. Varina even called Bessie “Winnie’s twin,”25 thus integrating Bessie further into the family fabric. The young woman who was once a distraction was now a precious link to the past.

  Despite moving on with marriage, children, and a move to New York, Bessie apparently never forgot her first love, the witty, fun-loving young Jeff.26 She kept reams of newspaper clippings about Jeff Jr. and his early death. One friend commented that in her old age Bessie talked often of “her beloved Jeff … Mrs. Dew would cry telling of her love for him and how dear he was to her.”27

  How must Jefferson and Varina have felt, after losing their fourth and final son, the one whom they had assumed would take care of them both in their old age? Even by the standards of the day, losing all four sons to accident and illness was the cruelest of blows. Both parents were clearly stunned by this latest turn of events.

  Jefferson wrote his son-in-law, Addison, just a few days after Jeff Jr.’s death. The two men had an affectionate relationship. Jefferson treated the young man as if he were a blood relative. Addison appreciated his father-in-law’s respect and trust. He would later take over many of Jefferson’s financial and business affairs. In Jefferson’s heartfelt letter to Addison, the former leader of the Confederacy communicated his utter shock at losing the last of his male heirs. “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.”28

  Jefferson’s work on his memoir came to an abrupt halt. According to Varina, he would stare off into space and lose his train of thought, so preoccupied was he with thoughts of his last son’s untimely and tragic death.29 He was utterly and completely depressed, and his health and literary work were quickly undermined by this unexpected tragedy. Yet despite this most recent loss, Jefferson was still concerned with the present and the future of his family. In his letter to Addison he asked about Maggie, now known to all as “Margaret.” Jefferson and Varina had forbidden her to nurse Jeff Jr. during the yellow fever epidemic, though she had offered to do so. “Now what of my Daughter, where and how is she?” he asked his son-in-law.30

  Winnie was far away from yellow fever and her brother’s death, still isolated per her parent’s wishes in her convent school in Germany. Jefferson wrote to Winnie from Beauvoir on November 27, echoing the sentiments he had displayed for Addison in October. “I only shut my eyes, to what it is not permitted to me to see, and stifling the outward flow, let my wounds bleed inwardly.”31

  The stoic former president of the Confederacy was deeply affected by the death of each of his children, but he was not outwardly demonstrative. This stoicism did not enhance his physical health. The inner turmoil ate away at both his nerves and his constitution, slowly sapping his vitality as the years passed and his family tragedies increased.

  Varina sent Winnie a letter right after Jeff’s death informing her of the tragedy so she would not see it first in a newspaper account. Winnie had apparently asked for a photograph of her brother. But no letter from Winnie about this painful loss seems to have survived.32

  Varina and Jefferson each mourned the loss of Jeff separately and questioned their ability to go on. The pervasive theme of each of their lives was loss: of family, of the war, of fortune. It was a bleak scenario against the backdrop of looming poverty that continued to haunt the couple. The significance also resonated with them and with their family and friends that there would be no male heirs to carry on the Davis legacy unless the next generation had children.

  The future of the Davis family name was further thrown into question when Margaret lost her first child, a son named Jefferson Hayes Davis. Born in the fall of 1877, the baby died of cholera later that year at his parents’ home in Memphis.33 Like yellow fever, this disease also raged in Tennessee during the 1870s.

  “King Cholera” is a deadly disease of the intestines, contracted through drinking or using unsanitary water tainted by human waste. The victim suffers from diarrhea, vomiting, excessive thirst, high fever, and unbearable pain in the limbs.34 Like his uncle, baby Jefferson must have suffered an excruciating death. Margaret and Addison were shocked and devastated. The young wife was particularly despondent.

  The oldest Davis girl understandably began to demonstrate evidence of depression after her first child’s birth and subsequent death. After this tragedy Margaret often suffered from severe back pain and fainting fits. She excused herself to her mother for not writing more often, claiming, “Writing makes my spine and head ache so that even after writing a short note … I have to lie down.”35

  The young woman may have harbored a lingering resentment that her mother did not come to help her after her son’s death from cholera. Why did Varina stay away from Margaret and Addison and let Sarah Dorsey once again become the family nurse? Varina may have hated Sarah, but she did allow her to take a central place in the family a number of times when she could have easily prevented it.

  It is likely that the Davises’ eldest daughter suffered from what we would now term “postpartum depression” caused first by the experience of being a new mother and later by the agonizing grief over losing her firstborn. Varina, who had experienced so many losses, would have certainly related to Margaret’s situation—another reason why her lack of response to her daughter’s crisis is so puzzling. There were legitimate reasons why Varina did not appear to aid her children in times of need: geographic distance, fear of infection, poor communication methods of the time, her continuing poor health, and pure bad luck. Even so, she missed a number of opportunities to watch over, encourage, or even bid final farewells to her offspring.

  The first notable such occurrence was, of course, accidental. Little Joe’s death after falling from the balcony of the White House of the Confederacy occurred when Varina was out of the Executive Mansion taking a meal to Jefferson. But when Winnie left London for German boarding school in 1877, Varina did not come to see her off, despite knowing how anxious and bewildered her youngest daughter was about being sent away. Winnie was shipped off to boarding school as a direct result of Varina’s nervous state.

  Varina did not go to her oldest son’s, Jeff Jr.’s, side when she kne
w he was extremely ill from yellow fever in the fall of 1878. He was her last surviving boy. One imagines that after having already lost three sons, most mothers would be frantic to reach their child’s bedside, despite the possible consequences. Her excuse about having to help her husband finish his memoirs, believing that her son’s health was improving, is questionable in light of the generally terminal outlook for those infected with yellow fever in this era.

  It is likely that Varina’s own black depressions and the physical ills she manifested as a consequence were at times so crushing that she had to shut out any additional grief or stress just to survive. After years of tragedies and bitter disappointments, Varina had dealt with more grief than most people could have borne.

  After her sister, Margaret, failed to write to her after her son Billy’s death in 1874, Varina wrote a letter to Jefferson spelling out her feelings for Margaret and the Howell side of the family: “I have worked for them all, prayed, and denied myself the joys, the best of youth, and sacrificed the little vanities of life to them every one, and not one thinks of me, and I am done. I am done, I ceased to hope and then to care, and then to wish—how bitter this has been to me I can scarcely even say to you.”36 Perhaps Varina was also unconsciously talking about her own immediate family and her utter exhaustion due to the many trials she had faced in her life thus far.

  While the former first lady of the Confederacy seemed to be distancing herself from family obligations, Addison was becoming more and more engaged in the Davis clan. Margaret’s continuing depressions may have spurred him to take over the family correspondence to Winnie for a period of time. In a letter to Winnie on March 19, 1877, he made excuses for his own lack of communication: “I have been very busy during the day and your sister has been sick so much that I have been unable to write.” He then continued in a sympathetic vein, “We are … very sorry dear Winnie should be left so far from home, but she will have to be a brave little girl.”37