Boy, I don't know. We
are hard on our first ladies. Ours from the war took a beating IMO- and I'm including Mary Custis Lee. There's a terrific clue here on why Varina's been ignored. We hear almost nothing about Mary and only seem to see Varina when her photograph is being photo shopped to ' prove ' she wasn't ( gasp ) a white chick. My take has always been both women, Mary Lee pre-war and Varina post war, sought genuine unity in this country. Heck, Mary's family retracted publication of her letters speaking of her love for our Union ( Martha Washington's grand daughter would sure have something to say ) and still won't budge. We never hear much of Varina's friendship with Julia or any of her regrets from the war. IMO, they've been and continued to weaponry, variety dependent on agenda.
Even browsing the most critical era articles and books containing mention of Varina, never came across a thing on an addiction
@WJC . I'm just not convinced. If there'd been a good stick to use to beat her, someone would have ' spilled ' during her life time over an opioid addiction. Does this, combined with that
very odd, kinda dismissive description of her childhood make her seem she came from nowhere? Varina was a Howell- names meant something when and where she grew up. She writes from that exact place, read a letter by her where she's considering Davis. She's intrigued by him. It's clear he's one of quite a few interested in a lovely, beautifully educated and much-sought belle. This ' thing ' where Davis moped for the rest of life because his wife died continues a narrative of which I'm also not convinced- the uber-romantic love story of a beautiful dead bride and the man who buried his heart with her? Just no.
Beautifully rendered, too, is Frazier’s chronicle of Varina’s youth. The daughter of a profligate entrepreneur from New Jersey and a well-to-do Mississippi woman, Varina was shipped off at age 17 from her home in Natchez to a plantation called the Hurricane, ruled by the tyrannical slaveholder Joseph Davis, whose gloomy brother Jefferson she married the next year
Yep. On the leaving it. Just weird.
I'm not saying any of this from a stupid North v. South perspective. Three women from the war have yet to emerge from a fog of critique binding them in those myths. History can come down to how it's told. Our 2 Mary's and Varina. Biggest sin any of them committed was apparently marrying men who would be famous. I may read this if
@AshleyMel tells us it does Varina justice.
Sorry to be lengthy. Those three women and how they tend to be portrayed is a ' thing '. Bugs me.