Varina Davis

Varina Anne Banks Howell Davis was the only First Lady of the Confederate States of America, and the longtime second wife of President Jefferson Davis. She moved to the Presidential Mansion in Richmond, Virginia, in mid-1861, and lived there for the remainder of the American Civil War. Born and raised in the South and educated in Philadelphia, she had family on both sides of the conflict and unconventional views for a woman in her public role. She did not support the Confederacy's position on slavery and states' rights, and was ambivalent about the war.