Portrait of Varina Howell Davis by John Wood Dodge (1807-1893), 1849, watercolor on ivory. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Varina Webb Stewart. Catalog description: Varina Howell was a young woman of lively intellect and polished social graces who married Jefferson Davis when she was at the age of eighteen. As the wife of the president of the Confederacy, she lived in Richmond during the Civil War and admirably fulfilled her three primary roles as an affectionate spouse to a proud and sensitive husband, an attentive mother to five young children (two of whom were born during the war), and a socially engaging first lady.