Winnie Davis

by Heath Hardage Lee

  This newspaper report was completely false, one of a number of false press reports and rampant speculations about the Davis-Wilkinson romance post-breakup. First and foremost, Winnie was not in New York City on the date mentioned in the article. Varina was in the city for business reasons, but her daughter had remained in Mississippi at Beauvoir. There is also no evidence that Libbie Custer was friendly with Varina and Winnie and thus absolutely no reason she would have lent the pair her apartment or grounds for having made such disparaging comments about the Daughter of the Confederacy’s character.4

  Furthermore, it is unlikely that Winnie would have granted an interview to anyone about the engagement breakup. She was a very private person and would have cringed at the thought of her romance being analyzed in the newspapers. The view put forth in many northern papers such as this one was, of course, anti-Confederate and deliberately portrayed Winnie in an unflattering light. The northern media was still tremendously biased toward the South and its leaders or anyone related to them for that matter.

  It is true, however, that both Winnie and Fred made separate brief announcements concerning the dissolution of their romance and engagement. On October 14 Fred was quoted in the New York Times, stating, “A few weeks ago, [Winnie] expressed the wish of both herself and her estimable mother that the engagement cease.” Winnie reportedly responded, rather brusquely but kindly: “Mr. Wilkinson is an estimable young man. I think a great deal of him and his family. That’s all there is to it.”5

  Even after these announcements regarding the dissolution of the engagement were reported, other melodramatic and sordid rumors continued to circulate about the real cause of the breakup. Although many southerners as well as their northern counterparts were relieved that the marriage would not take place, embellishments continued to be embroidered upon the bare-bones information released to the press by Varina, Winnie, and Fred.

  The first myth that gained wide credence, especially in the South, was that Winnie had refused to give up the Davis name. A Richmond scrapbook with articles from the time claimed, “Because of her anxiety and determination to preserve and perpetuate the hallowed name of her father, she persistently refused to enter into any matrimonial alliance that would have resulted in the change of her own name.”6 No written record exists, however, of Winnie expressing this sentiment. These words were almost certainly not Winnie’s but those of Confederate veterans who were loath to part with their beloved “daughter.” Varina encouraged these thoughts in her press releases regarding the engagement.

  The second more fantastical rumor that spread across the South was a complete falsehood and slandered Fred’s character. The shocking story claimed that Winnie had rejected her northern beau because “the young man is said to have imbibed too freely of . . . ‘Kentucky Elixir.’” In a drunken state, so the tale goes, Fred told Varina his generally negative opinion concerning mothers-in-law, undressed in front of both Winnie and her mother, and followed Mrs. Davis into her bedroom, whereupon Varina ordered him to leave the household.7 While many southerners, such as Fred’s old enemy Jubal Early, probably delighted in this story, it was patently untrue. Nevertheless, the wild tale gained acceptance in some southern circles. The rumor illustrates the extent of the lies that some were willing to believe in order to rationalize their harassment of Winnie, her family, and Fred.

  Die-hard Confederates were willing to put such rumors out there in order to protect the honor of their cause. In the words of Eron Rowland, Varina’s biographer, “Winnie’s story of loyalty to the Confederacy in her love affair was just as they wanted it to appear in history, and none dared to put any other construction upon the circumstance.”8

  One might imagine that after the highly stressful experience of a broken engagement, feelings of relief and release might have displaced Winnie’s feeling of loss for a while. Finding peace after all the controversy that swirled around her doomed engagement might have provided some balm. Yet a sense of tragedy seemed to haunt Winnie from this point forward. Old friends and acquaintances often remarked upon the change evident in Winnie after she parted ways with Fred. She had lost even more of the enthusiasm for life that she had pondered while viewing Mount Vesuvius with her fiancé during her trip abroad with the Pulitzers.

  The strain of the breakup and the furor surrounding the match had left its mark on Winnie, and her natural lack of resilience seemed to make her wary of forming any new romantic attachments. She had other admirers after Fred, but she remained indifferent to all of them. Winnie’s friend the writer Harry Stillwell Edwards wrote, “Life’s conflict was telling upon her, some labor was never to be finished; some aspiration never ceased to allure.”9 Perhaps that aspiration had included marriage, children, and an idyllic domestic life with Fred in Syracuse.

  While Winnie may have privately despaired at times about her choice to part from Fred, she was publicly praised throughout the South for having made this difficult decision. After a few years had passed, accounts of the breakup paint the picture of a woman whose supreme goal was intentional sacrifice for the Lost Cause. The press tended to portray Winnie as a woman who willingly denied her personal needs for the good of the South, just as her father had done during the Civil War. Many years later the Richmond Times referred to Winnie’s sacrifice in glowing terms: “No matter what had been her feelings, she recognized that, like the heroic daughter of Jephthah, she was vowed to the Cause for which people had fought, suffered, and died. It was grander to be the ‘Daughter of the Confederacy’ than a wife, and to that land which had christened her and anointed her . . . she was faithful.”10

  Winnie’s perceived conduct in ending her ill-fated engagement manifests some striking parallels to the life of the Confederate heroine Irene in Macaria; or, Altars of Sacrifice (1864). This popular Civil War novel by Augusta Jane Evans examines the psychology of women’s wartime sacrifices. In Greek mythology the character of Macaria saved Athens from war by sacrificing herself to the gods.11 Sacrifice rapidly became a vocation for right-thinking Confederate women. In the novel Irene tries to submerge her personal identity in the war effort, forgoing previously coveted items such as stylish clothes. Individual wants were secondary to the glory of the cause.12

  During the war this hope for self-obliteration upon the Confederate altar seemed to reflect the fear of spinsterhood prevalent among women of this period. Potential husbands were dying by the thousands, creating a frightening “man shortage.” Evans’s novel spoke to these women’s legitimate fears of a life lived without a husband or children. Yet Confederate heroines such as Irene who chose to remain unmarried were able to play significant roles that set them apart from their married peers. Married women might be happier, notes Irene, but a single woman could be more useful to the Confederacy because a women who “dares to live alone is certainly braver and nobler and better” than one who consents to a “loveless marriage.”13 Thus, single women were able to create a career out of this forced sacrifice.

  As historian and Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust points out: “Evans heroine is ambitious of martyrdom. The novel is structured as her pilgrimage toward ‘Womanly Usefulness,’ which she ultimately realizes in the Confederate war effort.”14 Irene and those who imitated her were praised and accepted as single women because of their devotion to the cause. This occupation exempted them from their traditional roles as wives and mothers.

  Although Winnie’s sacrifice of her northern beau was not acted out within the context of the Civil War, her engagement was certainly crushed by the memory of that event. Her motivations and actions reflect the Confederate mind-set that had been deeply implanted in her by both her parents and the southern community. The Daughter of the Confederacy was a postbellum public figure inculcated with a wartime mentality that she could not deny. Like Irene, she was allowed to remain single after she demonstrated her devotion to the cause through the denial of personal desire. She had exchanged her freedom for a pedestal in 1886, though she did not realize it at the time.

&
nbsp; Winnie was also similar to the fictional Irene in that she had a significant symbolic job that took precedence over long-established feminine roles. As Daughter of the Confederacy, she already had a “family” in the form of Confederate veterans and later also through her relationship with the United Daughters of the Confederacy. As a single woman with no husband and children to tie her down, she was much more “useful” to the Lost Cause legacy.

  The young, now unattached Winnie did not disassociate herself from the cause that had denied her true love. She did not turn upon its principles and become bitter over this loss. Instead, she simply resumed her duties in her allotted role. She again attended veterans’ reunions and appeared before huge crowds, representing the virtues of her father. She attended balls and parties in his honor, both with and without her aging mother.15

  Winnie seemed to accept this fate with resignation and no complaints, just as her father would have advised her to do. Outwardly, she even seemed to enjoy her required duties as Confederate mascot and head cheerleader. But beneath the surface there was always a sense of sadness, of longing and loss. In 1889 Fred had prophesied that his life and Winnie’s would be lost if the marriage did not take place.16 Winnie’s sacrificial choice required them to continue on alone, along their separate paths, each toward a different kind of existence.

  Winnie’s popularity climbed steadily in the 1890s. Following her break with Fred, she became highly sought after for society functions. She was given a variety of honorary posts, such as “World Manager” at the World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1890.17 The post was purely figural, but it recognized her special status. New Orleans society in particular had admired Winnie’s grace and poise since she had served in the first “Court” of Comus under Queen Mildred Lee in 1884.

  Eight years later the New Orleans community tried to show its admiration for Winnie once again by awarding her the title of Queen of Comus in the New Orleans Mardi Gras celebrations of 1892. The invitation seemed a sort of a consolation prize for having given up her northern beau. This was a historic choice of a queen for the Mistick Krewe of Comus, as Jefferson Davis’s youngest daughter was the first nonnative of New Orleans to be tapped for the role.

  Although Winnie never knew it, the original young woman who had been chosen for this honor, Miss Emma Sinnott, daughter of former Confederate colonel James Butterfield Sinnott, had relinquished the throne at her father’s request, as he insisted that Miss Davis not walk behind his daughter at the ceremony.18 The queen’s robe, which had already been ordered from Japan to fit seventeen-year-old Emma was secretly altered to fit twenty-eight-year-old Winnie. Emma considered it a huge honor to have relinquished her throne to the Daughter of the Confederacy. Until her death in 1941, she deftly turned aside all questions about her relinquished crown.19

  Winnie’s reign as Comus queen was significant as a firm acknowledgment of the legitimacy of the Lost Cause. The New Orleans press rhapsodized: “It was a gallant and touching tribute to that dead cause from the ashes of which sprang, Phoenix-like, such blessings of amity and peace, that the Daughter of the Confederacy, Miss Winnie Davis, should have been chosen from all the beautiful women of the Southland to be queen of the godly Comus.”20

  The Mistick Krewe of Comus, founded in 1857, was the oldest of the New Orleans parade organizations. Its all-male members favored representative women endowed with both beauty and good taste who also had an aristocratic and politically acceptable pedigree. Winnie distinctly fit the bill. Historian Reid Mitchell says of the choice: “In 1892, Comus picked the ubiquitous ‘Daughter of the Confederacy’ as Queen of the ball. Nothing could have made clearer that the honors of the Carnival Court were often meant more for the fathers of the chosen than for the women themselves.”21 Winnie was again tasked with carrying on the legacy of both her father and of the Confederacy.

  The 1890s marked a period of growing interest in all things Asian. The theme of the 1892 Mardi Gras, “Nippon, Land of the Rising Sun,” reflected this trend. Winnie and her entire court were outfitted in ball gowns made out of Japanese silk and “decorated with lavish embellishments and Japanese-style sleeves.”22 One of Winnie’s portraits as Queen of Comus that now resides in a Confederate Memorial Hall in New Orleans shows a half-smiling Winnie in this resplendent gown embroidered with golden chrysanthemums and an obi sash. She is covered in Mardi Gras jewels—including a colorful red sunburst brooch, necklace, panel, and scepter—which she wore to the Comus celebrations.23

  Winnie’s glamorous time in New Orleans inspired a “biography” entitled Queen of a Mystic Court. Mary Craig Kimbrough, Winnie’s young Mississippi neighbor, wrote this fanciful, romanticized version of Winnie’s life. The Kimbrough family’s summer home, Ashton Hall, was about a half-mile down the road from Beauvoir. Mary Craig’s mother, Mary Hunter Southworth Kimbrough, became a good friend of Varina over her years spent at Beauvoir and fought tirelessly for the home’s preservation after Varina’s death.24

  Mary Craig’s book provides vivid descriptions of New Orleans of the 1890s, its social whirl and intoxicating carnival atmosphere. Most girls would have been giddy with excitement to rule socially over it all. But for Winnie outfitting herself in fashionable clothes and attending parties were simply duties to be fulfilled rather than pleasures to be enjoyed.

  Mary Craig noted that many in the New Orleans community were well aware of the Davis family’s lack of funds. Apparently, the Krewe of Comus benevolently decided to provide both Winnie and her maids of honor with their gowns. According to Mary Craig, this gift had never before been bestowed on a Queen of Comus and her court and was a distinct honor. “Winnie Davis must be spared the expense of her coronation robes, without offending her sensitive pride.”25

  New Orleans Mardi Gras revelries of the 1890s were much the same as those of the present day. Mary Craig described the atmosphere: “Everywhere throughout the town, there was bustle and pleasant excitement. Everywhere from roof to cellar, festooned from window to door-way, were the royal colors, purple, green and gold . . . The city was full to overflowing with a great holiday crowd.” Luncheons, dinners, teas, pageants, and parades filled Winnie’s days and nights.26

  In the midst of all this color and light, Mary Craig observed that Winnie appeared to many as a gray dove, spiritual and solemn. Melancholy seemed to surround her like a halo. Ioranthe Semmes, a childhood friend of Winnie who appears as a fictionalized version of herself in Queen of a Mystic Court, comments about Winnie’s penchant for simple gray dresses with their overtones of mourning: “I have often wondered if the color of the prison walls that Winnie Davis shared with her father impressed its somber grey upon her infant mind?—or probably, she is partial to the color because the Confederate soldiers wore it.”27

  The highlight of the season came on March 1, 1892, as Winnie opened the grandest ball of Carnival with her Comus court. She was the center of a triumphant living tableaux with her maids of honor at the city’s French Opera House. Mary Craig described her as “a beautiful girl robed in white satin, heavy with gold embroideries with a glittering crown upon her head . . . attended by her ladies in waiting.” Mary Craig continued dramatically: “For a moment, she paused and stood pale and composed while the tremendous applause from the audience that greeted her resounded through the vast building.”28

  A gorgeous canopy composed of hundreds of colored Japanese lanterns hung over the reviewing stand of the Pickwick Club, sheltering Winnie and her court during the parade as floats rolled by. Accompanying the Queen of Comus were other Carnival queens, Governor Francis T. Nicholls and Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard. Winnie’s maids were Miss Josie McGinnis, Miss Nettie Miller, and Miss Emma Sinnot.29

  Although Winnie’s heart was surely elsewhere, she seemed to participate enthusiastically in the event to the delight of her southern audience. The performance bolstered and even cemented her place in the hearts of the Lost Cause faithful. Writer Martha M. Boltz notes this reaction: “Winnie’s participation as Queen of the Mistick Krew of
Comus further endeared her to Southerners as well as to the Confederate Veterans, who had so loved and respected her father.”30

  An elaborate ball followed the presentation at the Old French Opera House. Mardi Gras Queen Winnie reigned sad but supreme, dressed in her gorgeous embroidered silk kimono. The Daughter of the Confederacy was publicly feted and worshipped by the crème de la crème of New Orleans society. Privately, however, the acclaim meant little. The one man she would ever truly love was gone, sacrificed to the memories of another generation.

  Mary Craig herself had suffered a broken engagement, which, her mother decided, uniquely qualified her to tell Winnie’s tale. According to her daughter, Mrs. Kimbrough had declared dramatically: “You must become a writer. You are the only person who can tell the true story of the love affair of Winnie Davis. You have suffered exactly as she did.” Yet Mary Craig was ultimately advised to keep Winnie’s tragic love affair under wraps. It would reflect badly on Confederate veterans, she was told. Best keep the embarrassing scandal out of the public eye. “Almost everywhere I had gone for opinions of Winnie,” she wrote, “I got only opinions of the inadvisability of publishing the facts.”31

  Mary Craig interviewed many of Winnie’s friends as well as some of the ladies of her 1892 Mardi Gras court.32 She gained the official approval of both the United Confederate Veterans and Varina Davis for the book, though it was never published.33 A combination of fact, fiction, and Mary Craig’s own social aspirations, Queen of a Mystic Court nonetheless presents some intriguing details of the time period, in addition to the New Orleans tableaux.

  The great influence Jefferson Davis had over Winnie was duly noted by Mary Craig: “He adjured her always to uphold the ‘Right’ no matter what the cost to herself, and to pray to God for the strength with which to do it.” The author also described an interesting point of view held by Winnie’s childhood friends from Memphis. The Davises’ youngest child came across to many as haughty and reserved. Unlike her siblings, she often did not play with the other children in the neighborhood. Mary Craig again used the voice of Winnie’s old friend Ioranthe Semmes to note: “The truth was, as Ioranthe realized now as she thought the matter over, nothing more than a little girl’s insatiable taste for study and her parents’ constant encouragement of it, had kept her apart from other children in their play.”34 Winnie’s parents, it seemed, had kept her apart from her peers deliberately and contributed perhaps as much to her outsider status as her later schooling in Germany did.