When Jefferson Davis became the president of the Confederacy, his wife, Varina Howell Davis, reluctantly became the First Lady. According to Dr. Joan E. Cashin, author of First Lady of the Confederacy: Varina Davis's Civil War, Mrs. Davis's loyalty to the South did not come easily and Varina spent long years struggling to reconcile her societal duties to her personal beliefs.

Raised in Mississippi but educated in Philadelphia, and a long-time resident of Washington, D.C., Mrs. Davis never felt at ease in Richmond. During the war she nursed Union prisoners and secretly corresponded with friends in the North. Though she publicly supported the South, her term as First Lady was plagued by rumors of her disaffection. After the war, she endured financial woes and the loss of several children, but following her husband's death in 1889, she moved to New York and began a career in journalism. Here she advocated reconciliation between the North and South and became friends with Julia Grant, the widow of Ulysses S. Grant.

A free and public lecture with the author of First Lady of the Confederacy: Varina Davis's Civil War is scheduled from 6-7 p.m., Dec. 8, at the University of Louisville's Chao Auditorium, located on the lower level of Ekstrom Library (directions). The event is part of the McConnell Center's year-long history project, "Remembering America: From Colonization to the Cold War."