Winnie Davis
Daughter of the Lost Cause
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Potomac Books Inc
Published:15th Apr '14
Currently unavailable, our supplier has not provided us a restock date
Winner of the Colonial Dames of America Book Prize
Varina Anne “Winnie” Davis was born into a war-torn South in June of 1864, the youngest daughter of Confederate president Jefferson Davis and his second wife, Varina Howell Davis. Occurring only a month after the death of beloved Confederate hero general J.E.B. Stuart during a string of Confederate victories, Winnie’s birth was hailed as an omen of victory by war-weary Southerners. But after the Confederacy’s ultimate defeat, Winnie would spend her early life as a genteel refugee and expatriate abroad.
After returning to the South from German boarding school, Winnie was christened the “Daughter of the Confederacy” in 1886. For Confederate veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Winnie became an icon of the Lost Cause, eclipsing even her father. Winnie Davis: Daughter of the Lost Cause is the first published biography of this little-known woman who unwittingly became the female symbol of the defeated South.
Winnie’s controversial engagement in 1890 to a Northerner lawyer whose grandfather was a famous abolitionist and her later move to work as a writer in New York City shocked her friends, family, and the Southern groups who worshiped her. Faced with the pressures of a community that violently rejected the match, Winnie desperately attempted to reconcile her prominent Old South history with her personal desire for tolerance.
“Heath Hardage Lee does a masterful job of introducing the world to Winnie Davis, one of the most enigmatic figures in American history. . . . A terrific story, beautifully told.”—Ellen F. Brown, author of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind: A Bestseller’s Odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood
"Heath Lee has produced an engrossing, fast-paced account of one young woman's brush with a celebrity that she was unable to renounce."—Jane Turner Censer, Virginia Magazine
“Heath Hardage Lee has captured thoroughly the tale of the shy, unassuming [Winnie Davis] who was involuntarily thrust into a role as an icon for the defeated South.”—James McGrath Morris, author of Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power
“[Lee’s] recurring use of loss as a unifying theme effectively engages the reader and places Winnie Davis firmly within the context of both her family and the Lost Cause.”—Casey O. Shellman, Journal of Southern History
"Lee makes the most of Davis' brief life and accomplishments by grounding her subject firmly in historical context."—Margaret Flanagan, Booklist
“Can there be any major Civil War story that we haven’t heard? The answer is, yes! Here comes Heath Lee with the fascinating—and surprising—life of Varina Anne ‘Winnie’ Davis. . . . Clear, strong writing brings the history, mores, and manners of the day brilliantly to life.”—Lee Smith, author of Guests on Earth and Fair and Tender Ladies
“Heath Lee has written a beautiful and thoughtful biography of Winnie Davis. . . . This is, in a sense, a biography of America in the aftermath of a civil war as much as it is a captivating story of a young woman who struggled to preserve her individuality when others elevated her to an icon.”—Carol Berkin, author of Civil War Wives and Wondrous Beauty
“Heath Lee tells this tale with simple elegance and matter-of-fact sensitivity. She makes you understand that neither of Winnie Davis’s two worlds—the languor of the Mississippi Gulf Coast or the hustle of downtown New York—would ever bring her peace.”—Guy Gugliotta, author of Freedom’s Cap: The United States Capitol and the Coming of the Civil War
"A fascinating story of a woman who sought to reconcile her own family history with her own beliefs in the virtues of tolerance, Winnie Davis: Daughter of the Lost Cause is highly recommended especially for personal and public library biography collections."—Midwest Book Review
- Commended for Independent Publisher Book Awards (Mid-Atlantic Nonfiction) 2015
ISBN: 9781612346373
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
248 pages