News at St. Catherine's

Times Dispatch: Davis’ daughter no stranger to heartache

St. Catherine's alumna Heath Hardage Lee '88 returned to Richmond to speak at the Virginia Historical Society on her book "Winnie Davis: Daughter of the Lost Cause."
BY KATHERINE CALOS
Richmond Times-Dispatch


Winnie Davis, newborn of the Confederate president 150 years ago tomorrow, could have been the heroine in a Civil War “Romeo and Juliet,” from the perspective of her first full biographer.
     Heath Hardage Lee, born in Richmond more than a century later, wrote “Winnie Davis: Daughter of the Lost Cause” after first becoming fascinated with her portrait, which hangs now at Virginia House.
     “Who is this woman and why is she so sad?” Lee, 44, asked herself after encountering the 1897 portrait of Varina Anne “Winnie” Davis. Her answers to that question found their way into a thesis at Davidson College and now into a book that’s attracted the attention of at least one movie studio.
She’ll speak about it today at noon at the Virginia Historical Society and Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Museum of the Confederacy. The Saturday speech will be filmed by C-SPAN for eventual broadcast.
     Winnie’s romance, which was forbidden by wartime animosity, and her early death bring “Romeo and Juliet” to mind, Lee said. Winnie’s life had become a symbol of Confederate ideals that banned a match with a New Yorker, even if she personally would have preferred reconciliation.
Her exaltation began with her birth on June 27, 1864, in the White House of the Confederacy, now part of the Museum of the Confederacy. It offered a ray of hope in a time of tragedy.
In the two preceding months, 5-year-old Joe Davis, the favorite child of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, had fallen to his death from the White House portico, and Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart had been mortally wounded. Union forces had fought their way around Richmond and dug in at Petersburg.
     The Confederacy needed a good luck symbol, and Winnie was it. Troops regarded the birth as a sign that the South might still triumph, despite the odds against them, Lee said. After the war, Confederate veterans transformed Winnie into a symbol of all that they had fought for, a status that would have tragic implications for her future.
Winnie became a flashpoint for sectional tension when she became engaged in her 20s to a New York lawyer. Not only was he a Yankee, but he also was the grandson of an abolitionist.
     “That becomes a big scandal in Richmond and across the South,” Lee said. “Her parents get horrible letters and threats.”
     Winnie had been educated in Europe and introduced to family friends from her father’s pre-Confederate years as a U.S. senator and secretary of war in Washington. She was ready for reconciliation, but the South was not.
The engagement was called off. Neither Winnie nor her fiancé ever married.
     After her father’s death in 1889, Winnie and her mother moved to New York City — “another thing that Southerners never forgive them for,” Lee said. The women needed to work to make ends meet, and Joseph Pulitzer, also a family friend, had jobs for writers.
     Winnie wrote two novels while trying to live up to the adoration of former Southern compatriots. She traveled throughout the South to appear at veterans’ reunions, one of which may have contributed to her early death. Riding in an open carriage in Atlanta, she was drenched in a rainstorm and unable to change clothes. She developed a high fever and died at age 33.
     “She was just fascinating,” Lee said. “It was too good of a story to let it lie. It’s like “Romeo and Juliet,” except what does she do after (the failed romance), she does what she really wants to do, which is write.”
     Lee said she identified with Winnie because of her Richmond upbringing. She lives now in Des Moines, Iowa, with husband Chris and children Anne Alston, 11, and James, 9. Every summer, she brings the children to visit family in Richmond for six weeks.
     She said the book has been selling well, reviews are positive and the movie studio may be interested in filming Winnie’s story.
     “I’ve been thrilled,” Lee said. “It’s exactly what I hoped for.”

kcalos@timesdispatch.com (804) 649-6433
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Located in the heart of Richmond, Virginia, St. Catherine’s School is a private, all-girls pre-K, kindergarten, elementary, middle and high school. We provide a well-rounded educational experience for girls from communities across Richmond, Chesterfield, Henrico and all of central Virginia. St.Catherine’s all-girls educational experience is rooted in more than a century of history and tradition. From our revolutionary past to our dynamic present, St. Catherine’s has always focused on preparing students for a boundless future.