First White House of the Confederacy – Montgomery, Alabama
While visiting Montgomery, Alabama, we visited the First White House of the Confederacy.
What made the house striking to us was how early it entered the story of the Civil War. The Davis family moved into this Montgomery residence in February 1861, when the Confederate States of America had only just been formed. That same month, delegates from the seceding Southern states gathered in the city to organize their new government. Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as president on February 18, all before a single shot had been fired.
Open warfare would not begin until April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces bombarded Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. This First White House of the Confederacy was already functioning as an executive home and political center nearly three months before the war officially started. These rooms witnessed strategy meetings as well as the domestic life of a family preparing for a conflict whose scale is not yet fully understood.
Once the fighting began and Virginia seceded, the Confederate capital was moved to Richmond in May 1861. The Davis family moved, leaving Montgomery and relocated to what became known as the Second White House of the Confederacy in Richmond. Their stay in this Albam house had been brief, but it marked the opening chapter of a government stepping into a war that would soon engulf the nation.
Read More From Nancy
Dutch Farmhouse – New York
During our homeschooling years, many of our lessons took place on the road. We would explore historic houses throughout New England and the Hudson River Valley, giving the girls a chance to step inside the past rather than just read about it. Traveling through this part of New York also reminded us that the region […]
Hill-Stead Museum – Farmington, Connecticut
On a day trip to Connecticut, we stopped to tour a remarkable home set quietly back on the rolling lawns in Farmington. We walked past the white facade with black shutters into the rooms covered with early impressionist paintings. These works once challenged convention and helped shape the future of art. Hill-stead was completed in 1901 […]
Fruitlands Farmhouse – Harvard, Massachusetts
The farmhouse at Fruitlands is a house that we visited often. When my daughters were volunteering at the Orchard House in Concord, the farmhouse at Fruitlands helped fill in another part of the story of the Alcott Family. It was here that Bronson Alcot attempted to create and intentional community based on transcendentalist ideals. In […]
