There were two first families in the early 1860s — the Lincolns and the Davises.

Here are photos of the less recognizable Davis clan.

 

 
Jefferson and Varina Davis
 

 

The surviving Davis children photographed after the war. Two of the children were already deceased, one from a fall in the Executive Mansion.

After the Battle of Paducah in March 1864, Confederate Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest was reading the newspaper accounts of his raid on Union supplies in the Kentucky riverfront town. They included a disturbing fact.

The newspapers stated that Forrest missed more than 100 fine horses hidden by the Yankees.

Forrest sent soldiers back to Paducah several weeks later.

They captured those horses too.

One word for Emilie Helm’s visit to the White House — awkward.

Helm, Mary Lincoln’s younger half-sister, came to her sister’s home for sympathy after her husband Confederate Brigader General Benjamin Hardin Helm died in battle at Chickamauga.

The Lincolns, who favored her and her deceased husband even over other family members, welcomed her warmly. Still, having the widow of an enemy general in the presidential mansion presented some problems.

Visitors who encountered Helm were taken aback.

Tad Lincoln became agitated when his little visiting cousin shouted, “Hurrah for Jeff Davis” and when the cousin told him his father couldn’t be president.

Although Emilie Helm tried to disappear when visitors called, some of them wanted news about their friends in the South.

Political talk was prickly. Sen. Ira Harris of New York, a good friend of the president’s, blurted out to Helm, “We have whipped the rebels at Chattanooga, and I hear, madam, that the scoundrels ran like scared rabbits.” Emilie Helm managed to say, “It was the example you set them at Bull Run and Manassas.” Mary Lincoln tried to change the subject, but Emilie Helm, shivering and weeping stumbled out of the room.

Gen. Dan Sickles, who had lost a leg at Gettsyburg, hobbled up the stairs to the room where President Lincoln was resting in bed and said, “The child has a tongue like the rest of the Todds. You should not have that rebel in your house.”

Mrs. Helm soon left for Kentucky on a presidential pass that did not require an oath allegiance.

Reveille at Washington by Margaret Leech