When Jefferson Davis became president of the Confederacy, his wife, Varina Howell Davis, reluctantly became the First Lady. For this highly intelligent, acutely observant woman, loyalty did not come easily: she spent long years struggling to reconcile her societal duties to her personal beliefs. Raised in Mississippi but educated in Philadelphia, and a long-time resident of Washington, D.C., Mrs. Davis never felt at ease in Richmond. During the war she nursed Union prisoners and secretly corresponded with friends in the North. Though she publicly supported the South, her term as First Lady was plagued by rumors of her disaffection. After the war, Varina Davis endured financial woes and the loss of several children, but following her husband's death in 1889, she moved to New York and began a career in journalism. Here she advocated reconciliation between the North and South and became friends with Julia Grant, the widow of Ulysses S. Grant. She shocked many by declaring in a newspaper that it was God's will that the North won the war. A century after Varina Davis's death in 1906, Joan E. Cashin has written a masterly work, the first definitive biography of this truly modern, but deeply conflicted, woman. Pro-slavery but also pro-Union, Varina Davis was inhibited by her role as Confederate First Lady and unable to reveal her true convictions. In this pathbreaking book, Cashin offers a splendid portrait of a fascinating woman who struggled with the constraints of her time and place.

Southern First Ladies explores the ways in which geographical and cultural backgrounds molded a group of influential first ladies. The contributors to this volume use the lens of “Southernness” to define and better understand the cultural attributes, characteristics, actions, and activism of seventeen first ladies from Martha Washington to Laura Bush. The first ladies defined in this volume as Southern were either all born in the South—specifically, the former states of the Confederacy or their slaveholding neighbors like Missouri—or else lived in those states for a significant portion of their adult lives (women like Julia Tyler, Hillary Clinton, and Barbara Bush). Southern climes indelibly shaped these women and, in turn, a number of enduring White House traditions. Along with the standards of proper behavior and ceremonial customs and hospitality demanded by notions of Southern white womanhood, some of which they successfully resisted or subverted, early first ladies including Martha Washington, Dolley Madison, Julia Tyler, and Sarah Polk were also shaped by racially based societal and cultural constraints typical of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, some of which have persisted to the present day. The first nine women in this volume, from Martha Washington to Julia Grant, all enslaved others during their lives, inside or outside the White House. Among the seven first ladies in the book’s last section, Ellen Wilson, for example, was profoundly influenced by the reformist ethos of the Progressive Era and set an example for activism that five of her Southern successors—Lady Bird Johnson, Rosalynn Carter, Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton, and Laura Bush—all emulated. By contrast, Ellen’s immediate successor in the White House, Edith Wilson, enthusiastically celebrated the “Lost Cause.” Southern First Ladies is the first volume to comprehensively emphasize the significance of Southernness and a Southern background in the history and work of first ladies, and Southernness’ long-standing influence for the development of this position in the White House as well as outside of it.

“A handy, all-in-one reference on the Confederate capitals . . . Rich details and effective anecdotes . . . evok[e] a real sense of the people, places, and events” (The Civil War Monitor). The Confederate States of America boasted five capital cities in four years. The center of the Confederate government moved from one Southern city to another, including Montgomery, Richmond, Danville, Greensboro, and Charlotte. From the heady early days of the new country to the dismal last hours of a transient government, each city played a role in the Confederate story. While some of these sites are commemorated with impressive monuments and museums, others offer scant evidence of their importance in Civil War history. Join award-winning historian Michael C. Hardy as he recounts the harrowing history of the capitals of the Confederacy. Includes photos!

Varina Anne ôWinnieö Davis was born into a war-torn South in June of 1864, the youngest daughter of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his second wife, Varina Howell Davis. Born only a month after the death of beloved Confederate hero General J.E.B. Stuart during a string of Confederate victories, WinnieÆs birth was hailed as a blessing by war-weary Southerners. They felt her arrival was a good omen signifying future victory. But after the ConfederacyÆs ultimate defeat in the Civil War, Winnie would spend her early life as a genteel refugee and a European expatriate abroad. After returning to the South from German boarding school, Winnie was christened the ôDaughter of the Confederacyö in 1886. This role was bestowed upon her by a Southern culture trying to sublimate its war losses. Particularly idolized by Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Winnie became an icon of the Lost Cause, eclipsing even her father Jefferson in popularity. Winnie Davis: Daughter of the Lost Cause is the first published biography of this little-known woman who unwittingly became the symbolic female figure of the defeated South. Her controversial engagement in 1890 to a Northerner lawyer whose grandfather was a famous abolitionist, and her later move to work as a writer in New York City, shocked her friends, family, and the Southern groups who worshipped her. Faced with the pressures of a community who violently rejected the match, Winnie desperately attempted to reconcile her prominent Old South history with her personal desire for tolerance and acceptance of her personal choices.

The first reference work to draw together the stories and studies of women in the American Civil War, this annotated bibliography offers access to the literature that documents the history of women who experienced the war, changed it, and were changed by it. Offering nearly 800 entries, it lists both primary and secondary sources, classic and current works, and items in print and available on the Internet. Drawing together over one hundred years of writings, Women in the American Civil War: An Annotated Bibliography is an invaluable resource for readers and researchers interested in this neglected topic. During the American Civil War women played a highly significant role, yet modern writers often overlook their experiences and contributions. Women in the American Civil War: An Annotated Bibliography is the first reference work to focus exclusively on women in the war. Sections list sources on such diverse topics as women as nurses and medical relief workers, women's changing economic roles, their lives as refugees, as spies and scouts, or in military camps. It also looks at the literature on the miscellaneous topics of women in public, wives of politicians and military commanders, family life, and women on the wrong side of the law.

Drawing from a wealth of historic documents and personal papers, William Warren Rogers, Jr., provides a detailed political, economic, social, and commercial history of Montgomery, Alabama, from 1860 to 1865. Rogers's account begins with an examination of daily life in the city before the war and ends with the situation in Montgomery as set against a disintegrating Confederacy and the city's surrender to Union troops.

[I]f should you happen to have a strong hatred for socialism, and a love for philosophy and true history! Than this unreconstructed and politically incorrect book, will be a valuable tool in anyones personal library. This kind of information would never be allowed in the reconstructed public schools.

This volume presents thirty-nine interpretive biographical essays on all first ladies, from Martha Washington to America's newest First Lady, Laura Bush. This new edition contains updated material on all the living First Ladies and updated bibliographies for each entry, as well as a portrait of the newest First Lady.

A guide to the former Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, with “a good deal of historical information, much of it neglected in histories of the war” (The NYMAS Review). “On To Richmond!” cried editors for the New York Tribune in the spring of 1861. Thereafter, that call became the rallying cry for the North’s eastern armies as they marched, maneuvered, and fought their way toward the capital of the Confederacy. Just 100 miles from Washington, DC, Richmond served as a symbol of the rebellion itself. It was home to the Confederate Congress, cabinet, president, and military leadership. And it housed not only the Confederate government but also some of the Confederacy’s most important industry and infrastructure. The city was filled with prisons, hospitals, factories, training camps, and government offices. Through four years of war, armies battled at its doorsteps—and even penetrated its defenses. Civilians felt the impact of war in many ways: food shortages, rising inflation, a bread riot, industrial accidents, and eventually, military occupation. To this day, the war’s legacy remains deeply written into the city and its history. This book tells the story of the Confederate capital before, during, and after the Civil War, and serves as a guidebook including a comprehensive list of places to visit: the battlefields around the city, museums, historic sites, monuments, cemeteries, historical preservation groups, and more.