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.Each night she prayed for peace but feared herprayer would not be answered.After predicting that Lincoln wouldprobably win the election, she declared that the country might be buried under negrodom, which suggests that she feared he wouldemancipate the slaves.If so, she had begun to feel for the first timethat armed resistance might be best and that the Southern men would resist.Yet Davis also wished she had lived sixty years earlier,when the nation was at peace.Then she sent her affectionate re-membrance to Franklin Pierce and concluded the letter Very sin-cerely and affectionately your friend. The last seven weeks of thecampaign Davis spent apart from her husband, who left on a speakingtour of the Deep South in mid-September.From Washington she an-90 [To view this image, refer tothe print version of this title.]Varina Howell Davis, circa 1860.On the eve of leaving Washington, the cityshe loved.(Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia) first ladyswered some of his routine correspondence for him, and she wrote tohim, but her letters did not reach him and are now lost.Nor is thereany evidence of her immediate reaction after the votes were talliedon November 6.Her husband voted for Breckinridge, as did mostvoters in Mississippi.17CDbetween lincoln s election on November 6, 1860, and herhusband s resignation from the Senate on January 21, 1861, Varinawrote four letters, which are filled with contradictory, strangely jar-ring elements about the political crisis unfolding around her.In thefirst letter, written to her husband on November 15, she hoped thatnewspaper reports about his good health were accurate, because shehad not heard from him in a month, and after relaying news of theirchildren, she related that there was intense interest in Washington asto what he was going to do. I always say I don t know and can tguess, she wrote, and when anyone talked impudently of disunionin her presence, she denied that her husband was a secessionist.Thetown was gloomy, with the politicians trying to decide what to do. Everybody is scared, she said, especially President Buchanan.SenatorLouis Wigfall pontificated, Senator Robert Toombs considered resign-ing his seat, Secretary Jacob Thompson waited to see what the publicwanted, and editor William M.Browne rings the true metal for se-cession, repudiating Buchanan, even though Browne s newspaper hadbeen the official administration organ.She closed with a prayer thatGod would direct him right. The phrase true metal could be inter-preted as support for secession, whereas the adverb impudently ap-plied to talk of disunion could have the opposite connotation.On No-vember 27, her husband arrived in Washington.18Sometime in December 1860, Varina Davis penned a one-para-graph note that appears to be both self-conscious about region andstrongly pro-Southern.To the sergeant-at-arms in the Senate she rec-ommended Margaret Coleman for a patronage job as attendant in the ladies apartment in the Senate.Even though Coleman was not arelative or friend, Davis had already mentioned it to him before, and92 first ladythis time she added firmly, I know you could not appoint a northernwoman and Coleman s appointment would give her great satisfac-tion. Another one-paragraph letter, composed on Christmas Day1860, to James Buchanan is quite friendly, with no references to thesecession crisis.She sent her holiday greetings to the President and agift, some slippers she made for him, and assured him of her sincereaffection and great regard. She signed it faithfully your friend andstayed on good terms with him although her husband broke all socialcontact after assailing Buchanan s policies in January 1861.As theDavises prepared to leave Washington in January, she went alone tothe White House to bid him what she called an affectionate fare-well.Finally, she wrote a short note to an unidentified friend on thefirst of the new year, 1861, describing the town as a great mau-soleum filled with gloom, with no dinners and no parties
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