The First Lady of the Confederacy (wife of the only President of the Confederacy) looks back on her life, with all its tragedy and tiny victories. Married off by her impoverished family to the ambitious Jefferson Davis, Varina becomes a glittering fixture in Washington DC. When Davis is elected to lead the breakaway states, Varina stays with him despite her conviction that the South is on "the wrong side of history". Told in parallel timelines as Varina recounts her wartime experiences to a African-American man who believes he was a part of her household as a child, and as she escapes the victorious and vengeful Union army through a hellish war-ravaged landscape, Varina shows the tough and independent spirit that allowed her to survive a life of uncertainty and loss.