Qualla: Beauvoir https://qualla.com/beauvoir-biloxi-mississippi en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/2/s/beauvoir-biloxi-mississippi-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Beauvoir https://qualla.com/beauvoir-biloxi-mississippi Beauvoir: Introduction https://qualla.com/beauvoir-biloxi-mississippi/ Photo credit Brian.S.W, CC BY-SA 4.0. Sarah Dorsey heard that Jefferson Davis was struggling. The former president of the Confederacy, stripped of citizenship and fortune after the Civil War, had no home and no clear future. In 1876, the novelist and plantation owner invited Davis to her Gulf Coast estate, offering him a cottage where he could live and write in peace. Davis came for a visit and never left. Beauvoir -- French for 'beautiful view' -- became the place where one of the most controversial figures in American history spent his final thirteen years, composing his two-volume memoir while gazing across the waters of the Gulf of Mexico from a raised Louisiana-style cottage surrounded by cedars, oaks, and magnolia trees.

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Image: Brian.S.W | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/2/s/beauvoir-biloxi-mississippi-wp/dj2s-beauvoir-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Beauvoir: A Writer's Refuge https://qualla.com/beauvoir-biloxi-mississippi/ Photo credit Brian.S.W, CC BY-SA 4.0. Beauvoir was built by planter James Brown between 1848 and 1852. By the time Sarah Dorsey purchased it in 1873 with her husband Samuel, it was a working cotton plantation. Sarah was no ordinary planter's wife -- born into the prominent Percy family of Natchez, Mississippi, she wa...

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Image: Brian.S.W | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/2/s/beauvoir-biloxi-mississippi-wp/dj2s-beauvoir-a-writers-refuge.mp3 0:06 2 full Beauvoir: The Davis Years https://qualla.com/beauvoir-biloxi-mississippi/ Photo credit Altairisfar (Jeffrey Reed), CC BY-SA 3.0. Davis moved into the main house with his wife Varina and their daughter Winnie, who became known as 'the Daughter of the Confederacy.' The family's years at Beauvoir were marked by quiet domesticity but also by the social constraints of their position. They refused to allow Winni...

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Image: Altairisfar (Jeffrey Reed) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/2/s/beauvoir-biloxi-mississippi-wp/dj2s-beauvoir-the-davis-years.mp3 0:06 3 full Beauvoir: Surviving the Storms https://qualla.com/beauvoir-biloxi-mississippi/ Photo credit Altairisfar (Jeffrey Reed), CC BY-SA 3.0. Beauvoir endured Hurricane Camille in 1969, but Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005, nearly erased it. The main house lost its newly refurbished galleries and a section of roof. The Hayes Cottage, Library Pavilion, Confederate Museum, a barracks replica, and the director's home ...

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Image: Altairisfar (Jeffrey Reed) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/2/s/beauvoir-biloxi-mississippi-wp/dj2s-beauvoir-surviving-the-storms.mp3 0:06 4 full Beauvoir: Contested Ground https://qualla.com/beauvoir-biloxi-mississippi/ Photo credit Woodlot, CC BY-SA 3.0. Beauvoir sits across US Highway 90 from Biloxi Beach, a Louisiana-raised summer cottage flanked by a botanical garden, a historic Confederate cemetery containing the Tomb of the Unknown Confederate Soldier, and the Jefferson Davis Presidential Library and Museum. The National Par...

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Image: Woodlot | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/2/s/beauvoir-biloxi-mississippi-wp/dj2s-beauvoir-contested-ground.mp3 0:06 5 full