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Varina Davis

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:3,000.00 - 3,500.00 USD
Varina Davis

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Auction Date:2014 Mar 12 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:236 Commercial St., Suite 100, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
ALS signed “Varina Jefferson Davis,” eight pages on two sets of two adjoining sheets, 4 x 5, March 7, 1905. Letter written from New York’s Hotel Girard to Wilkes Barre Record editor J. Andrew Boyd. In part: “I have very gratefully received your kind note with slip enclosed, corroborative of my opinion after being shown Genl Miles order book which he showed me while I was at the Fort with my Husband…Mr Davis was taken to prison on the 19th [May 1865], I sailed under sealed orders on the 23d not knowing to what port we were bound, or what was to be our fate, with my four babies—I may have asked Miles to give me what news he could, and he certainly gave me false answers, but I believed him and was willing perhaps to send him thanks, however the date of the note shows that my approval of his course even if he had stated the truth fairly, only extended to four days when he had the best reason to know I could have known nothing of his conduct or of my husband’s condition, and the thanks were personal.” Accompanied by the address panel from the original mailing envelope addressed in Davis’s hand. Also accompanied by a March 14, 1905, letter from Margaret H. Jefferson Davis Hayes to Boyd. In fine condition, with some scattered mild toning and a central horizontal fold to both sets of pages.

While in command at Fort Monroe, Nelson Miles became the target of public outrage, accused of inflicting cruel and excessive punishment on his prisoner, defeated Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Hoping to clear his name and run for national office, he reopened the issue in 1898 by publicly claiming that Varina Davis had thanked him for treating her husband well at the Fort. In 1905, after years of bitter public exchanges, she challenged the ‘coarse and untruthful man whose ambitions have urged him to risk exposure which he did not anticipate’ to document his statement; he replied by publishing the first two sentences of a note from her dated May 23, 1865. Here she addresses the letter, stating, “he certainly gave me false answers, but I believed him and was willing perhaps to send him thanks, however the date of the note shows that…I could have known nothing of his conduct or of my husband’s condition.” This lengthy letter, written by the weary hand of the elderly widow, holds the conviction and passion that helped the Confederate First Lady maintain her dignity and rebuild a life after the war: an extraordinary piece addressing her husband’s imprisonment and his harsh captor.