Gulf of Mexico. Later years Soon after her husband died in 1875, Dorsey learned that Jefferson Davis, the former president of the Confederacy, was ill and bankrupt. She invited him to visit at the plantation in December 1876. Davis had been married since 1845 to his second wife, Varina Howell Davis, but they had suffered difficulties. (As a girl, Varina had also attended Madame Grelaud's French school.) Impoverished after his imprisonment, the Davises had been living with their eldest daughter and her family in Memphis, Tennessee. Davis moved into Beauvoir on a permanent basis, where Dorsey provided him with a cottage on the grounds for his use. There he began to write his memoir, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. Dorsey was instrumental in his success, organizing his day, motivating him to work, taking dictation, transcribing notes, editing and offering advice. Rumors quickly began to fly that the two were having an illicit affair, and it was nearly "an open scandal," but they refused to yield to it. Varina Davis became enraged and refused for a long time to set foot on Dorsey's property. Eventually she accepted Dorsey's invitation to live there and moved into one of the guest cottages at Beauvoir. When the Davises' last surviving son Jefferson Davis, Jr. died in 1878, the loss devastated both his parents. Varina Davis warmed to Dorsey's hospitality. That summer, Sarah Dorsey nursed Varina through a long debilitating illness. Soon afterward, Sarah Dorsey learned that she had inoperable tumors in her breast. As her health declined, Varina Davis became her primary nurse. Death Recognizing that she was dying, Dorsey rewrote her will in 1878. She bequeathed all her capital, and more importantly Beauvoir, to Jefferson Davis. Dorsey died in the St. Charles Hotel in New Orleans on July 4, 1879, at the age of 50. She had undergone an unsuccessful operation for cancer performed by Dr. T. G. Richardson, assisted by Dr. Rudolph Matas. Legacy The Percy family sued but failed to break the will. After Jefferson Davis' death in 1889, Beauvoir was adapted as a home for Confederate veterans. Many were buried after their deaths in the cemetery behind the house. After the last veteran died, the property was adapted as a house museum. Works Agnes Graham (1863–1864), serialized in the Southern Literary Messenger Biography of Henry Watkins Allen (1866), governor of Louisiana Lucia Dare (1867) Athalie (1872) Panola