He died of yellow fever at age 21 on October 16, 1878, during an epidemic in the Mississippi River Valley that caused 20,000 deaths.[18] Joseph Evan Davis, born on April 18, 1859, died at the age of five due to an accidental fall on April 30, 1864.[19] William Howell Davis was born on December 6, 1861, and was named for Varina's father; he died of diphtheria on October 16, 1872.[20] Varina Anne "Winnie" Davis was born on June 27, 1864, two months after Joseph's death. Known as the "Daughter of the Confederacy" as she was born during the war, she died years after her father on September 18, 1898, at age 34. After her parents had refused to let her marry into a northern, abolitionist family after the war, she never married.[21]