Virginia Clay-Clopton was an American memoirist and political hostess. She was also known as Virginia Tunstall, Virginia Clay, and Mrs. Clement Claiborne Clay.

Biography

Born Virginia Tunstall in Nash County, North Carolina

Nash County, North Carolina

Nash County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is part of the Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of 2000, the population was 87,420. Its county seat is Nashville.- History :...

, she grew up in Tuscaloosa

Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Tuscaloosa is a city in and the seat of Tuscaloosa County in west central Alabama . Located on the Black Warrior River, it is the fifth-largest city in Alabama, with a population of 90,468 in 2010...

, Alabama

Alabama

Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...

 and was schooled in Nashville

Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...

, Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

. She married Clement Claiborne Clay

Clement Claiborne Clay

Clement Claiborne Clay was a U.S. senator from the state of Alabama from 1853 to 1861, and a C.S.A. senator from the Alabama from 1861 to 1863...

 in 1843 and moved with him to Huntsville

Huntsville, Alabama

Huntsville is a city located primarily in Madison County in the central part of the far northern region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Huntsville is the county seat of Madison County. The city extends west into neighboring Limestone County. Huntsville's population was 180,105 as of the 2010 Census....

, Alabama. When her husband was elected a U.S. Senator in 1853, Virginia Clay began a period living in the elite circles of Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 socialites.

In 1861, Alabama seceded from the Union. Clement Claiborne Clay represented his state in the Confederate legislature and Virginia Clay continued to move in high society, but now in Varina Davis

Varina Howell

Varina Banks Howell Davis was an American author who was best known as the First Lady of the Confederate States of America, second wife of President Jefferson Davis.-Childhood:...

’ Richmond, Virginia

Richmond, Virginia

Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...

.

In 1865, at the end of the war, Virginia Clay and her husband were suspected of partaking in a plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

. They were arrested and imprisoned at Fort Monroe, Virginia. President Andrew Johnson

Andrew Johnson

Andrew Johnson was the 17th President of the United States . As Vice-President of the United States in 1865, he succeeded Abraham Lincoln following the latter's assassination. Johnson then presided over the initial and contentious Reconstruction era of the United States following the American...

 ordered their release in April, 1866. The Clays then returned to Huntsville. Clement Clay died there in 1882.

In 1887 Virginia Clay married Judge David Clopton, and became known as Mrs. Clay-Clopton. Judge Clopton died in 1892. Virginia Clay-Clopton became active in the women’s suffrage movement and the United Daughters of the Confederacy

United Daughters of the Confederacy

The United Daughters of the Confederacy is a women's heritage association dedicated to honoring the memory of those who served in the military and died in service to the Confederate States of America . UDC began as the National Association of the Daughters of the Confederacy, organized in 1894 by...

.

In 1904 she published a memoir entitled, A Belle in the Fifties covering her life from girlhood through her confinement at Fort Monroe.

She is interred in Maple Hill Cemetery (Huntsville, Alabama)

Maple Hill Cemetery (Huntsville, Alabama)

Maple Hill Cemetery is the oldest and largest cemetery in Huntsville, Alabama. Founded on two acres in about the year 1822, it now encompasses nearly 100 acres and contains over 80,000 burials...

.