How did jefferson davis die
Jefferson davis family tree.
Early Years
Varina Howell was born on May 7, 1826, in rural Louisiana where her parents, William B. Howell and Margaret L. Kempe, of Natchez, Mississippi, were visiting relatives.
After distinguished service in the American Revolution (1775–1783), her grandfather, Richard Howell, became governor of New Jersey in the 1790s.
Jefferson davis, wife picture
Her father, who fought in the War of 1812, settled in Natchez and married Kempe, a Virginia native whose father was an Irish immigrant. That Varina, born to a family with roots in both the North and the South, should become the First Lady of the Confederacy is a historical irony.
She called herself a “half-breed.”
William Howell was for many years a successful merchant until he went bankrupt late in the 1830s. His daughter nevertheless received a superb education, attending a boarding school in Philadelphia.
(The tuition was probably paid for by relatives.) While she was in school, she developed a lifelong fondness for her Northern kinfolk.
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