(b. May 7, 1826; d. October 16, 1905) First Lady of the Confederate States of America.

Varina Ann Howell, later Varina Ann Howell Davis, was born at the Briars, near Natchez, Mississippi, on May 7, 1826. Her parents, William Howell and Margaret Kempe, occupied a respectable place among Mississippi's slave-owning class. Varina Howell was educated at Madame D. Grelaud's Female Seminary in Philadelphia and also had a private tutor. By the age of seventeen she outwardly fit the model of a perfect Southern lady: vivacious and well mannered, she could play the piano and read French and Latin. But throughout her life Varina Howell Davis was somewhat at odds with the ideal of southern womanhood and resented a social order that expected women to comply with men.

At a Christmas gathering in 1843, she met the equally well-connected Jefferson Davis, a West Point Academy graduate and plantation owner. The future president...