History-Revisited

I am currently reading "Jefferson Davis, Ex-President of the Confederate States of America Part One Volume 2: A Memoir By His Wife" written by Varina Howell Davis. I have had a hard time putting it down, for Mrs. Davis has given such a lively account of the times and her husband's life, most of which I have never encountered before. Here are a few accounts given by Mrs. Davis that I found very warm and personal.

Mrs. Davis writes: "In one of the most disheartening periods of the War, when Norfolk had been evacuated and the Virginia destroyed, he (Jefferson Davis) came home, about seven o'clock, from his office, and laid down. He declined dinner, and I remained by his side, anxious and afraid to ask what was the trouble which so oppressed him. In an hour or two he told me that the weight of responsibility oppressed him so, that he felt he would give all his limbs to have someone with whom he could share it. I found that nothing comforted him, and at last picked up Lawrence's "Guy Livingstone." Knowing the he had not read it, I thought it might distract his mind. The descriptions of the horses and the beau sabreur Guy interested him at first, in a vague kind of way, but gradually he became absorbed, and I read on until the sky became gray and then pink. He was so wrapped in the story that he took no notice of time. When Guy's back was broken, and when Cyril Brandon in the interview that followed, struck him, my husband rose up, in the highest state of excitement, and called out,"I should like to have been there to punish the scoundrel who would strike a helpless man when he was down."p.301-302

Later Mrs. Davis writes,"Novels were to him only a means of driving out thoughts of more serious things."p.302

While Jefferson Davis and his wife lived in Richmond shortly after the first battle of Manassas many wounded men had been sent to the city to recover in hospitals. Mrs. Davis gives a very touching account that she witnessed. Mrs. Davis writes," Here I saw a remarkable instance of the position our private soldiers occupied at home. Some money had been sent to me from Vicksburg to relieve the "boys from Warren County." Hearing that there were several at this hospital, I walked from one end to the other and tried in vain to find a man who desired pecuniary aid. One fair-haired boy, with emaciated face and armless sleeve, looked up and whispered,"There is a poor fellow on the other side who I think will take a little, I am afraid he has no money; my father gives me all I want." I crossed the room and asked the sufferer, who had neither hand, if I could not get him something he craved. He flushed and said,"I thank you, madam, for your visit, but I do better than that poor fellow over there; he has lost his leg and suffers dreadfully." And so on to the end of the ward."p.205