The White House of the Confederacy

Called “The White House”, the Executive Mansion was rented from the City of Richmond by the Confederate government to serve as the residence of President Jefferson Davis and his family.  The White House of the Confederacy  is located at Clay and 12^th Streets.

Security was lax by modern standards.  The President’s two personal secretaries were armed.  Additionally, a soldier was stationed at the front door, and another at the basement door.  Twelve soldiers were stationed on the grounds.

Jefferson Davis, his wife Varina, and their three small children moved into the White House in August, 1861.  Two more children were born in the White House, in 1861 and 1864 respectively.  Five year old Joseph, died from a fall at the house in 1864.

After the fall of Richmond, President Lincoln and his son Tad went to view the ruined city.  Lincoln went to the Confederate White House (depicted in the next picture), went to the second floor and triumphantly sat at Jefferson Davis’s desk.  Thousands assembled outside to catch a glimpse of Lincoln.

The 1865 Fall of Richmond in Pictures

The last death agonies of the Confederacy captured in pictures.

Love, Sex, and Marriage in the Civil War

A brief look at love, sex, and marriage in the Civil War. The book covers courtship, marriage, birth control and pregnancy, divorce, slavery and the impact of the war on social customs.

Pet First Aid Kit

Fake News in the American Civil War

Confederate President

Jefferson Davis (1861)

Apparently the news media has been in the habit of producing “fake news” for a very long time.

In late 1861, the New York Herald reported: “Our latest telegraphic advices from Louisville, Washington and Fortress Monroe assure us positively of the death of Jefferson Davis….Considering that his health has been in a very shattered condition for several years, and considering his extraordinary labors, anxieties, and exhausting excitements of the last five months, we think it remarkable that he was not carried off three or four months ago.”

This was a case of wishful thinking.  Davis was alive and active.  Indeed, he lived another twenty eight years, dying at the age of 81.

Southern editors lambasted the article as “Yankee delusion and unreliability,” denouncing the Herald as a “mendacious journal…(with) a record for lying second to none.”

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Jefferson Davis Funeral (1889)

The Great Northern Rebellion of 1860 (alternate history)

In 1860, disgruntled secessionists in the deep North rebel against the central government and plunge America into Civil War. Will the Kingdom survive? The land will run red with blood before peace comes again.

Love, Sex, and Marriage in the Civil War

A brief look at love, sex, and marriage in the Civil War. The book covers courtship, marriage, birth control and pregnancy, divorce, slavery and the impact of the war on social customs.