One of the last known pictures taken of Jefferson Davis.

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Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Honored Fallen Comrade
Joined
Dec 3, 2011
Location
Laurinburg NC
1926861_374714836003376_1201910253_n.jpg



"Taken at the Library Pavilion at Beauvoir."
 
The architecture there is so well-suited to the Gulf Coast, it's painful. With modern heating and air conditioning, there's less need for practical architecture like that, and we lose something wonderful in the process.

I also noticed the open foundation on columns - not high enough to do much against severe flooding, but very practical for encouring a breaze which cools the building a bit. And, of course, the wide covered porches, which also have the same effect.
 
I also noticed the open foundation on columns - not high enough to do much against severe flooding, but very practical for encouring a breaze which cools the building a bit. And, of course, the wide covered porches, which also have the same effect.

My own house (1928) is built on a pier-and-beam foundation like that. The water table is too high for subterranean basements generally, and pouring a concrete slab, although standard practice now (easy and cheap), invites expensive trouble 10-20 years down the road. Pier-and-beam is the way to go for residential construction.
 
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The front porch is built to include a tree.

--BBF
Not uncommon. The most famous example was The Father Ryan House down the beach, check out the palm growing through the front steps,
Father Ryan House - pre Katrina.jpg

Father Ryan House Bed and Breakfast Inn is a National Historic Landmark located in Biloxi, Mississippi. Built circa 1841, it is one of the oldest remaining structures on the Gulf Coast and the one time home of Father Abram Ryan, Poet Laureate of the Confederacy.

The House and grounds have been painstakingly restored and furnished according to that period.

The above is from the old Father Ryan House B&B website.
Unfortunately this house was completely destroyed during Hurricane Katrina.

http://www.gulf-coast.com/Lodging/ryan.html
 
This is a rare photo showing the left side of Davis' face. He had a diseased left eye that troubled him for years, hence paintings and photos generally show the right side of his face. (probably another reason to take this photo from a distance.)

I cant remember what the condition was in his left eye. He endured many treatments including mercury eye drops!

--BBF
 
This is a rare photo showing the left side of Davis' face. He had a diseased left eye that troubled him for years, hence paintings and photos generally show the right side of his face. (probably another reason to take this photo from a distance.)

I cant remember what the condition was in his left eye. He endured many treatments including mercury eye drops!

--BBF

His severe facial neuralgia eventually affected his left eye.
 
Cooper, in his bio of Jefferson Davis, says the problem was a herpes simplex infection of the cornea, which resulted in the loss of most of the vision. It wasn't totally blind but just as good as! People meeting him noted the dead eye and he was self-conscious about its peculiarity.
 
Did this library pavillion survive Katrina? I know the porch surrounding the main house didn't and has had to be reconstructed/restored.
 
He was so very frail and sickly that a visitor meeting him for the first time in 1861 mistook him for a wizened up little old lady!
While I detest Alexander Stephens' politics, and think he had some crazy ideas, I've had a soft spot for the man ever since I read Our One Common Country: Abraham Lincoln and the Hampton Roads Peace Conference of 1865. That book goes into quite a bit of detail about Stephens' background. Despite his noxious views of the black race, in his personal life he was one of the kindest masters in the South. He searched out and bought missing family members of his own slaves, so their families could be reunited, even though he didn't actually need any more workers, and lost money by doing so. He cared for them into their old age -- as they later did him. Breaking the law, he taught them to read and write. After the war, when he released them, none of them wanted to leave.

One blogger somewhere who was critiquing Spielberg's Lincoln movie snarked that there was no way such a bigot as Stephens would have politely said "Much obliged" to the black man who helped him out of the carriage, as depicted in the movie. But actually, that was totally in character for Stephens, who was kind and gracious in person. It also speaks well of him that in Lincoln's two years in Congress back in 1847-49, Stephens was one of Lincoln's best friends. Indeed, before Stephens decided that his primary loyalty was to Georgia, Lincoln had been thinking of offering him a position in his Cabinet.
 
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