Virginia Clay-Clopton

Virginia Clay-Clopton
Virginia Clay-Clopton, circa 1860s
Born	1825 Nash County, North Carolina
Died	1915 (aged 89–90)
Resting place	Maple Hill Cemetery
Nationality	American
Spouse(s)	Clement Claiborne Clay
Parent(s)	Peyton Randolph Tunstall Anne Arrington

Virginia Clay-Clopton (1825–1915) was a political hostess and activist in Alabama and Washington, DC. She was also known as Virginia Tunstall, Virginia Clay, and Mrs. Clement Claiborne Clay. She took on different responsibilities after the Civil War. As the wife of US Senator Clement Claiborne Clay from Alabama, she was part of a group of young southerners who boarded together in the capital in particular hotels. In the immediate postwar period, she worked to gain her husband's freedom from imprisonment at Fort Monroe, where Jefferson Davis, former president of the Confederacy, was also held.

In the late 19th century, Clay-Copton (who remarried after her first husband died) became an activist in the United Daughters of the Confederacy, a group established after the Civil War that was instrumental in shaping public discussions about the war and role of the South. She worked to raise funds for Confederate cemeteries and memorials. She also worked for women's suffrage. Clay-Copton was one of a number of Southern women to publish her memoir at the turn of the 20th century; these women's accounts became part of the public discourse about the war. The United Daughters of the Confederacy specifically recommended her book as one of three for serious discussion by the membership. Such works helped shape memories of the antebellum years and the Lost Cause.

Born Virginia Tunstall in Nash County, North Carolina to Anne Arrington and Dr. Peyton Randolph Tunstall, she was reared by several of her mother's numerous half-siblings after her mother died when Virginia was three years old. Her father left her to her mother's family and moved to Alabama. The girl lived first with the Drakes in North Carolina.

At the age of six, Virginia was taken to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where she lived with her maternal aunt and her husband Henry W. Collier, later appointed to the State Supreme Court. In 1837 he was made Chief Justice. More than a decade later, in 1849 he was elected by an overwhelming margin as the governor of the state, and served for two terms.

After four years, Virginia's aunt was suffering failing health. Virginia went to live with her maternal uncle, Alfred Battle, and his family on their plantation outside Tuscaloosa. Virginia was tutored but also had much time to play with her cousins and have the run of the property. During this period, she became close to her father's brother, Thomas B. Tunstall, Secretary of State for Alabama, who took her under his wing, introducing her to literature, poetry and music.