Explore the beautiful rooms of the White House of the Confederacy online. Members only can take this virtual tour. Click here to learn more.
360-degree panoramic photography by Cramer Gallimore, Cramer Gallimore Photography Studio, cgphoto.com Sample Tour! Explore the White House entrance now. Click and drag on the picture above.
Quicktime 5 or later required to view virtual tour.
NEW Digital Photography!
New high-resolution digital photographs allow museum staff, visitors, and researchers to virtually explore artifacts up close and personal! Please click on this photo of Varina Davis's butterfly quilt (above) to see and learn more, or follow this link to view the Museum's entire Digital Collection.
Have a piece of history sent to you! Get your copy of The White House of the Confederacy: A Pictorial Tour from The Haversack online store.
Designated a National Historic Landmark, the White House of the Confederacy is one of the nation's finest historic, architectural and decorative treasures. The Washington Post has written that the White House of the Confederacy “is a meticulously restored neoclassical masterpiece that, in terms of quality, historical associations and authenticity, probably is second only to Mount Vernon among restorations of historic American dwellings.”
Nestled beneath the tall buildings of modern downtown Richmond, Virginia, the gray-stuccoed mansion has stood at the corner of 12th and Clay Streets in the historic Court End neighborhood since 1818. Home to a succession of wealthy families throughout the antebellum period, the building earned a unique stature in American history for its role as the Executive Mansion of the Confederate States of America from 1861 to 1865. The official residence of President Jefferson Davis, his wife Varina and their children, the house was also the social, political and military center of the Confederacy.
The mansion has been restored to the splendor of its mid-nineteenth century phase, with over half of the original furnishings from its wartime role as the Confederate White House, supplemented by a rich collection of period fabrics and furnishings. Guided tours of the White House of the Confederacy are conducted on a daily basis and usually last 40 minutes. Make plans to visit today!
A Southern Legacy: The Confederate Executive Mansion Situated on a hill overlooking Shockoe Valley in Richmond’s historic Court End neighborhood, the White House of the Confederacy is one of the nation’s finest historic, architectural and decorative treasures. The official residence of the first and only President of the Confederate States of America Jefferson Davis and his family during the Civil War, the building has earned a unique stature in American history as the social, political and military center of the Confederacy.
Little is mentioned about the stately home in the voluminous literature of the Civil War. In its years as the executive mansion, it functioned much like its northern counterpart, as a hub of social activity and strategic decision-making. And, like some of its more prestigious counterparts in the north as well, a battle was waged to maintain its existence as a historic site long after its principal function was past. Now a National Historic Landmark, this Southern treasure is a premier artifact in the most comprehensive collection of Confederate artifacts anywhere in the nation. Download a chronology of the White House of the Confederacy.
Long before earning the designation of White House, the home was known for decades as the Brockenbrough house, after John Brockenbrough, president of the Bank of Virginia who commissioned the building of the large residence. The house built on two adjoining lots on the southeast corner of 12th and K (later Clay) street overlooking the Shockoe Valley is typically attributed to Robert Mills, a prominent American neo-classical architect and acquaintance of John Brockenbrough’s. The home, typical of Richmond’s finer early nineteenth century dwellings, was two-stories tall with a slate flat roof. The principal floor featured a parlor, drawing room and dining room, while the bedrooms were upstairs. A kitchen and servants’ residence were located in an adjoining outbuilding. A garden was built on the remaining land, with terraces down the hillside to the east.
Brockenbrough made changes to the house a few years after its completion, remodeling the front door and entrance hall, enhancing the wood trim especially on the first floor, and replacing the rectangular staircase with a graceful circular one. Brockenbrough and his wife lived in the showcase home in Richmond’s elite Court End neighborhood until 1844. The home changed hands several times in the prewar period, each owner making additional improvements, putting their personal mark on the estate, including adding a carriage house and stable. When wealthy Richmond flour manufacturer Lewis Crenshaw purchased the home in 1857, he added the third floor and undertook a major refurbishing and redecorating of the residence. But, Crenshaw and his family enjoyed the fruits of their labor for only a brief period.
In the spring of 1861, Virginia seceded from the Union and Richmond was declared the new capital of the newly-formed Confederate States of America. That May, arriving from the original Confederate capital in Montgomery, Alabama, President Jefferson Davis and his family arrived in Richmond to great fanfare the “honor due to a new Washington.” They were ensconced at the Spotswood Hotel on Main Street while the city acquired appropriate accommodations. Soon after, at Crenshaw’s invitation, the City of Richmond purchased his house and its contents, and then leased it to the Confederate government to serve as the new nation’s executive mansion.
The Civil War had already been underway for four months, before the Davises and their three young children settled into their new home in August of 1861. The President, faced with the threat of invasion of his new capital and frequent bouts of debilitating illness, took rooms on the second floor as his office and that of his secretary, Burton Harrison. The Davis family’s private quarters were on the second floor. The third story provided rooms for Harrison, military aides, the housekeeper and family guests. The first floor was reserved for formal state affairs, with the exception of a small, private library. The basement of the home housed a family dining room, warming kitchen, butler’s pantry, coal and wine storage and possibly sleeping space for slaves and servants. Outbuildings used by the first family, included slave quarters, a two-story brick kitchen, large stable and carriage house, and a gardener’s cottage.
While Davis tried to spend his days at his executive office in the Treasury Building on Main Street, his stern devotion to work and unpredictable health, forced him to conduct much of his military and state business in his private office in the executive mansion. Military advisors, members of his cabinet, other political aides and petitioners were often met in the White House. Despite the stress and business of war and state going on so close about them, the Davises maintained a warm family life. Their first child, Samuel Emory died before their arrival in Richmond. Margaret, Jefferson, Jr., and Joseph Evan moved into the large nursery and were eventually joined by William and Varina Anne, who were born in the Confederate White House. Visitors to the home were likely to hear ringing laughter and screams of bedlam from the playing children, who were infamous for having unbridled spirits and unbroken wills. Tragically, Davis lost his young son, Joseph “his hope and greatest joy in life” when the five-year old fell from the east portico on April 30, 1864 and died within an hour. In the decades after the war, three more Davis children succumbed to disease. Ultimately, only one daughter, Margaret, survived her parents and had children of her own.
When Richmond’s fall to Federal troops was imminent in the spring of 1865, Davis and his family evacuated the city, leaving behind the fully furnished house and ending its term as an executive mansion. Davis would never set foot again in the Confederate White House, although his wife returned several times later to provide valuable insight as the home became the Confederate Museum (later The Museum of the Confederacy). On April 4, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln came to Richmond to inspect the former Confederate capital and the Davis residence, which had become the headquarters for the occupying army. This heralded the beginning of a Federal military occupation of both the house and the City of Richmond that lasted five years. Souvenir hunters removed many items, while the more substantial furnishings were sold a public auction in the fall of 1870 after the residence and its contents were ceded back to the City of Richmond. The City used the elegant home as part of a new public schools system. Over six hundred students attended school every year in the mansion and its outbuildings. In 1889, threatened with destruction, the home was saved and ultimately became a museum dedicated to preserving the history of the Confederate nation.
To learn more about the history of this National Landmark, click here to read about the beginnings of the Museum of the Confederacy.
Jefferson F. Davis was born on June 3, 1808 to farmer Samuel Davis and his wife, Jane Cook Davis, in Kentucky. He was named for the then President, Thomas Jefferson. While Davis was still young, the family moved to Wilkinson County, Mississippi.
After attending a number of preparatory schools, Jefferson Davis was admitted in 1823 to Kentucky’s Transylvania University, known as the South’s Harvard. The following year, he received an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. As a student, he had a reputation for a fondness of drinking and socializing, which was perhaps the source of his average grades. Following his graduation from West Point in 1828 and his acceptance into the United States Army as a second lieutenant, Davis served at a number of frontier military posts, including Fort Crawford, Prairie du Chien (Wisconsin) where he met and fell in love with Sarah Knox Taylor. Taylor was the daughter of his commander, future president Zachary Taylor. After resigning from the Army in 1835, Davis married Taylor over the strong objections of her father. Tragically, however, the marriage was brief, as the new bride died of malaria three months after the wedding in September 1835. A grief-stricken Davis retired to "Brierfield," a Mississippi plantation given to him by his brother, Joseph.
Jefferson Davis met the second great love of his life during the Christmas holidays of 1843. Davis, then thirty-five, fell in love with seventeen-year-old Varina Howell, an attractive and intelligent young woman from Natchez, Mississippi. They were married a year later in 1845, shortly before his election to the United States House of Representatives. While her husband served in a succession of Federal offices, Varina won the favor of Washington society and was known for her wit, grace and vivaciousness. Their marriage, though often punctuated by long separations, would last forty-four years and produced four sons and two daughters. Davis enjoyed a long and illustrious political career, most notably holding several terms as a United States senator for Mississippi; running unsuccessfully for governor of Mississippi; and serving as President Franklin Pierce’s secretary of war. When Mississippi seceded from the Union, Davis resigned his Senate seat and became the major general of Mississippi state troops. On February 9, 1861, the provisional Confederate Congress elected him president of the provisional government. Davis was informed of his new role while clipping roses in his garden. Varina would report that he received the message “as if some calamity had fallen upon him.” Davis himself would later write in his memoirs that, “I had not believed myself as well suited to the office as some others. I thought myself better suited to command in the field.” In November, he was elected to a six-year term as president of the Confederate States of America, the first and only person to hold this office.
Richmond, Virginia, was chosen to replace Montgomery, Alabama, as the capital of the Confederate States of America and Davis arrived in the city with great fanfare on May 29, 1861. He brought to the office a wealth of political, administrative and military experience. He also had his share of human failings, including a host of frequent and debilitating illnesses, an inordinate sensitivity to criticism, and an indifference to popular feeling. His leadership elicited both bitter criticism and high praise, as he undertook the difficult and perhaps impossible task of simultaneously forging a new nation and leading it in a fight for its existence.
While crowds and flowers marked the Davises arrival in the southern capital, quite the opposite was true of their departure. With the fall of Petersburg and the increased vulnerability of the Confederate capital due to Lee’s retreat across Virginia, Davis evacuated Richmond in April of 1865. His family had already left the imperiled city and he joined them in a five week flight from one temporary capital to another. On May 10, 1865, he was captured in Georgia with his family and members of his cabinet and staff by Union cavalry. Indicted for treason, Davis was held in Federal custody for two years in Fort Monroe, Virginia.
Though a trial was never held and Davis never convicted, he lost his US citizenship when he refused to ask for a pardon. Barred from politics and unable to reoccupy “Brierfield”, he pursued a short and unsuccessful career as the president of a life insurance company. Davis traveled extensively before finally settling in “Beauvoir” plantation near Biloxi, Mississippi, where he wrote his memoirs entitled The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. He died in New Orleans on December 6, 1889, and was buried there until 1893. Davis was reinterred in Richmond’s distinguished Hollywood Cemetery next to his young son, Joseph, who had perished in an accidental fall at the Confederate White House. Varina, who enjoyed a writing career in New York following his death, was also buried there in 1906.
The Museum of the Confederacy Please note all images on this website are not to be copied or reproduced without the express permission of The Museum of the Confederacy. See photography collection for more information
or
Brockenbrough made changes to the house a few years after its completion, remodeling the front door and entrance hall, enhancing the wood trim especially on the first floor, and replacing the rectangular staircase with a graceful circular one. Brockenbrough and his wife lived in the showcase home in Richmond’s elite Court End neighborhood until 1844. The home changed hands several times in the prewar period, each owner making additional improvements, putting their personal mark on the estate, including adding a carriage house and stable. When wealthy Richmond flour manufacturer Lewis Crenshaw purchased the home in 1857, he added the third floor and undertook a major refurbishing and redecorating of the residence. But, Crenshaw and his family enjoyed the fruits of their labor for only a brief period. 
accommodations. Soon after, at Crenshaw’s invitation, the City of Richmond purchased his house and its contents, and then leased it to the Confederate government to serve as the new nation’s executive mansion. 
eventually joined by William and Varina Anne, who were born in the Confederate White House. Visitors to the home were likely to hear ringing laughter and screams of bedlam from the playing children, who were infamous for having unbridled spirits and unbroken wills. Tragically, Davis lost his young son, Joseph “his hope and greatest joy in life” when the five-year old fell from the east portico on April 30, 1864 and died within an hour. In the decades after the war, three more Davis children succumbed to disease. Ultimately, only one daughter, Margaret, survived her parents and had children of her own. 
