Like their husbands, Mary Todd Lincoln and Varina Davis Howell had a lot in common. Both were first ladies of countries besieged by war. Both women grew up in prosperous slave-owning families. Both were well educated, better educated, in fact, than most women at the time. Both were often ridiculed and intensely hated by those who worked closely with their husbands. Although the Civil War divided them, Mary Todd Lincoln and Varina Davis Howell were more alike than different.
Mary Todd Lincoln
Mary Todd Lincoln was born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1813 to Robert Todd, a well-to-do merchant and state senator who was eminent in Lexington. Her father, unusually for the time, insisted that Mary have an education; Consequently, eight-year-old Mary was sent to the Shelby Female Academy and completed her education at Madame Victorie Mentelle’s Select Academy for Young Ladies, near her Lexington home.
After completing her education, Mary went to Illinois to live with her sister, Elizabeth, the wife of a prominent Springfield citizen. Due to her sister’s social position, Mary was introduced to Illinois society, where she enjoyed the status of a beautiful young woman. Two of the suitors who courted her in Illinois were Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln.
It was Lincoln who won Mary’s heart, and after a tortuous engagement, opposed by her family and broken up at least once, Mary and Abraham Lincoln finally married in 1842.
Mary’s life as the wife of a poor country lawyer would have been in stark contrast to her upbringing; The Lincolns’ first home as newlyweds was an $8-a-week room in a tavern. Despite the privations, however, the Lincolns were happy and had four children together: Robert Todd, born in 1843, Edward Baker, born in 1846, William Wallace, born in 1850, and Thomas, known as Tad, in 1853. She losing two of these sons, Eddie and Willie, in infancy.
Mary Todd Lincoln was as politically ambitious for her husband as he was for himself. In addition to keeping up with the political news of the day, discussing politics with him—and influencing many of his views—of hers, she was convinced that one day he would be president.
She supported her husband in his position as a member of the House of Representatives, and when he ran for president, she used her connections and education to dispel the notion that she and her husband were ignorant, a popular notion at a time when few presidents came from the “west.”
Mary took her position as First Lady in all but a cozy climate. Mary was thought by many to be a spy for the South, despite the fact that she herself was a strong supporter of both the Union and the abolition of slavery. Her fickle temperament convinced many that she was insane, and her lavish wartime White House entertainments made others perceive her as frivolous.
The death of her son Willie in 1862 and the assassination of Lincoln in 1865 were blows from which Mary Todd Lincoln never fully recovered. Her mental and physical health deteriorated drastically. At one point, she was confined to an insane asylum. She died in 1882, having outlived all but one of her children, heartbroken by the losses she had suffered.
Varina Howell Davis
Born in 1826 on her family’s prosperous Mississippi plantation, Varina Howell, like Mary Todd Lincoln, enjoyed an education denied to many women of the day. Educated by a private tutor, then at an exclusive graduate school in Philadelphia, Varina grew up interested in both politics and literature.
While coming home from school for Christmas, Varina gets into Jefferson Davis. Davis, a widower who was 36 to Varina’s 17, began courting Varina, a courtship her parents strongly opposed, both because of their age difference and because of Davis’s political beliefs: he was a Democrat, the Howell were Whigs.
Despite her parents’ opposition, Varina and Davis married in 1845. They had six children. Davis, then Secretary of War, spent much time in Washington, and Varina joined him there, where she earned a reputation for being a wonderful hostess and, at the same time, assisting her husband in her political aspirations. .
When Davis was elected president of the Confederate States of America, he and Varina moved from Mississippi to Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy. Her influence on Davis was such that some of her commanders and cabinet ministers not only feared and resented her, but found being in her good place not only useful but essential.
Like Mary Todd Lincoln, Varina Howell Davis came under scrutiny during the war. She was also criticized for entertaining at the Confederate White House during the era: some criticized her for entertaining too much, others claiming that she did not entertain enough. Her family’s northern roots—her grandfather had served several terms as governor of New Jersey—made her loyalty questionable, and her open gossip led to her being labeled rude. .
After the war, the Davises’ fortunes immediately declined. Jefferson Davis was imprisoned for a time (Varina actually joined him there for a time, not because of any wrongdoing on her part, but to be close to him), and Varina worked tirelessly to free him and restore her family’s rights. under the duress of Reconstruction. . She supported herself by writing her memoirs and pieces for periodicals after her husband’s death in 1889. She died in 1905, having outlived all but one of her children, still embittered by the treatment her family received afterward. from the war.