[10] See "Suwanee River Tales."
["THE DAUGHTER OF THE CONFEDERACY"—HER LIFE, CHARACTER, AND WRITINGS.][11]
BY CHARLES CLIFTON FERRELL, PH. D. (LEIPZIG).
It was on the 27th of June 1864 that Winnie Davis was born in the 'White House' of the Confederacy at Richmond. The boom of cannons in the distance seemed to celebrate this important event,—the birth of a daughter in the reigning family. But in reality the firing was not a manifestation of joy; many of the cannons were hostile cannons which were ultimately to deprive her of her birthright. The superior forces of the Union were closing in upon the Confederate capital, and it was not long before it fell, and the little girl, as well as her parents and friends, became an outcast. She took part in the flight from Richmond, traveling by day and night in an army ambulance for hundreds of miles over rough roads through lonely woods, and being even carried at times long distances in her mother's arms. It was a veritable via dolorosa! The happy cooing of the baby alone comforted the bleeding hearts of the family and brought smiles to eyes bathed in tears. During the dark days of her father's imprisonment little Winnie, who alone of the children was allowed to visit him,[12] was the only sunshine that came to him. She liked to stay in his cell, where she played and prattled, all unconscious of the sad surroundings. She would put her arms round his neck, and he would clasp her to his bosom, forgetting everything for the moment except the baby fingers that were pressed against his cheek and the blue eyes that looked into his. It would be hard to overestimate the comfort she afforded him while he was treading the winepress of bitterness and humiliation.
Thus the infant had received the baptism of fire and deserved the name of 'Daughter of the Confederacy.'
Mrs. Davis tells some interesting anecdotes of the little girl's precocity, which I repeat in her own words. "When Winnie was very small,—I think three years old,—her father was reading aloud to me an essay on the refusal of a tomb to Byron in Westminster Abbey. The nurse took her up to carry her to bed and she called out: 'Oh, do leave me until I hear the rest. The English will regret refusing their great man a grave in their church;' showing she had comprehended the whole paper. Another time, when she was five years old, she was asked: 'For what was Abraham blessed?' 'For the manifestation of faith in hospitality,' she answered. No one had told her in this phrase, for I was her only teacher. At this same time she chanced to be at a church meeting, waiting for me and heard us talking of the minister's needs. For six months afterward she saved up her little pennies and one day tipped up behind him and put them into his hand, which was behind his back, saying: 'Dear Doctor, buy everything you want,—here is the money.' She asked questions which it taxed our mind and ingenuity to answer, and reasoned out her own theories and adjusted facts so as to suit her own ideas of right and justice. She could never become reconciled to the fatted calf being killed for the prodigal son, and sympathized passionately with the dutiful son who came from the field overtired with labor in his father's service to hear sounds of revelry in honor of the prodigal son, while he had never been given a fatted calf with which to entertain his friends."
The father took great pride in the development of his younger daughter's bright mind. He and Mrs. Davis were her first teachers and introduced her to the immortal writers that they knew best. Before she could read she knew 'The Wreck of the Hesperus,' 'The Fight at Coilantogle Ford,' and Allan-Bane's song in the dungeon of Stirling castle, and had the Bible at her tongue's end. At the age of twelve she knew by heart also many striking passages from Shakespeare and was an ardent admirer of the 'Wizard of the North.' In 1877 she was placed in a boarding school at Karlsruhe, Germany, where she remained five years. The mental and moral discipline maintained by the Protestant sisterhood that directed the school was of the strictest kind; the life was as secluded and as free from gaiety and frivolity as that of a convent. In 1882 Miss Davis went to Paris, where she studied French several months, and afterwards traveled extensively.
When she returned home she spoke German and French more fluently than English, and was well-versed in European, especially German literature and history, but had little reverence for the learning and literary history of her own country. Her parents began by dictations and by interesting excerpts from Anglo-Saxon history to make her breathe their atmosphere and adapt herself to their habits of thought. After her many years of seclusion a new world opened before her young eyes when she made her first appearance in the gay society of New Orleans at the time of the Exposition. Now was formed her first acquaintance with theatre and opera. She was well prepared for this,—really her first encounter with life,—bringing to it a mind vigorous by nature and well disciplined by the study of history and economics. Hence, in spite of the great enthusiasm with which she met the world, she was prevented from forming any but just judgments of men and things. She was queen of Comus this same season,[13] and somewhat later while attending her father on his triumphal procession through Alabama and Georgia she was introduced to the Confederate veterans by General Gordon as 'The Daughter of the Confederacy,'—an eminently appropriate title which she always wore in a manner worthy of her father's daughter.
In 1879 the family had moved to Beauvoir, where they lived until the death of Jefferson Davis. Miss Winnie's devotion to her father is said to have been beautiful. She was his constant companion, accompanying him on all his trips through the South; she served him as private secretary and assistant in all his literary work. She would walk hand in hand with him by the sounding sea; she would pore over volumes uninteresting to her because she knew his heart was in them; she would read aloud to him by the hour, and when he was weary she would sing to him sweet old Southern songs. In fact she was the stay of his declining years, succeeding in her effort to fill not only her own place but that of the sons he had lost.
After the death of the husband and father, Mrs. Davis and her daughter moved to the North. They felt that they must do so in order to secure work, which was now a necessity.[14] It was also a great advantage to them in their literary labors to be in close touch with their publishers, and the Northern climate was better suited to the mother's health. 'The Daughter of the Confederacy' received an urgent and hearty invitation to attend every function connected with the 'lost cause,' which she always accepted when it was possible. Both hemispheres were shocked at the announcement that her life had been cut short at Narragansett Pier on the 18th of September 1898. As was fitting, her body was buried at Richmond, where her cradle had stood,—in that city which is richest in memories of the 'lost cause' and all that is associated with it.