Jefferson Davis, American

by William J. Cooper

  Sarah Knox Taylor, known generally as Knox, was a bright and delightful young woman. Born at Fort Knox in Vincennes, Indiana Territory, on March 6, 1814, she had been given an excellent education for a girl of her time and place. In Louisville, Kentucky, the home base of Colonel Taylor and his family, she had been tutored by Thomas Elliott; she then attended the Pickett School in Cincinnati. The only extant likeness of her is a stylized portrait of a girlish teenager with long flowing hair, a rounded chin, and a prominent forehead framing luminous eyes. Her winsome personality charmed her contemporaries, who commented on her intelligence and wit and also noted her long hair, hazel eyes, and her slender, diminutive stature. They disagreed, however, on other characteristics. One noticed her dark coloring and her “exquisitely beautiful figure,” but felt the forehead too pronounced for true beauty, while another described her as “extremely pretty.” Her cousin remembered Knox as “very handsome, as graceful as a nymph and the best dancer in the State of Kentucky.”1

  A young man in love, Jefferson Davis followed the convention of his day and asked Knox’s father for her hand and his blessing on their marriage. But although Knox surely wanted her father to respond positively, Colonel Taylor refused to sanction the proposed match. Margaret Taylor concurred. At the outset, at least, the senior Taylors had nothing against Davis personally. It was just that neither wanted their daughter to be an army wife. Colonel Taylor had an especially strong opinion about the difficulties army life posed for wives and families. “I knew enough of the family life of an officer,” he told a colleague; “I scarcely knew my own children or they me.” He held to that position even though in 1829 his eldest daughter, Ann, had married an army officer.2

  Sarah Knox Taylor (painting by J. B. Reid).

  Louisiana State Museum, New Orleans (photo credit i4.1)

  Soon, however, personal concerns reinforced Colonel Taylor’s opposition to the marriage. For some reason—it may have been the court-martial vote—Taylor turned against Jefferson Davis. He went so far as to forbid his subordinate to visit in his home, and he certainly wanted his daughter’s romance with the lieutenant to end. Although the depth of Taylor’s animosity is uncertain, the story that Davis wanted to challenge him to a duel is most certainly apocryphal. Equally fanciful are accounts that Taylor never harbored hard feelings. He was clearly miffed, and for a time quite cold to Davis.3

  Knox Taylor proved to possess as strong and independent a personality as her father. Although she respected his wishes about not marrying Davis, at least for the time being, she informed him that she would never marry any other. She kept on seeing her lieutenant, who also persevered despite his colonel’s displeasure and personal animus. Even with parental objections and within the confines of Fort Crawford, the young couple managed to carry on their courtship with the assistance of friends. When Captain and Mrs. Samuel MacRee invited Knox for a visit to their tent, they informed Davis, who would stop by at that time. Knox’s friend Mary Street, daughter of the resident Indian agent, arranged similar invitations. Thus, visiting Mary Street’s home, Davis would find Knox present.

  Of course, in the small world of Fort Crawford it was most unlikely that these meetings could have been kept secret from Colonel Taylor. Margaret Taylor’s opposition had already softened somewhat, and after a time even the colonel moderated his stance. Then Knox and Jefferson could meet more openly. When Knox took her younger sister and brother out for walks, Jefferson would join the trio. Thereupon Knox would permit the youngsters to romp and play, leaving the sweethearts alone together.4

  By early 1833, Jefferson and Knox had pledged their love and their futures to each other. They became engaged, even though Colonel Taylor still would not give his consent to marriage. The historical record is silent on whether or not his unhappiness about his daughter and Davis had anything to do with making the lieutenant available for the Dragoons. Taylor had never acted against Davis professionally; in fact, some officers believed that he had exhibited favoritism toward Davis. There is also no record of the reaction to the engagement within the Davis family, though Jefferson informed relatives about his feelings for Knox.5

  When Davis departed Fort Crawford in the spring of 1833 for the Dragoons, he took Knox’s love with him. In the face of Colonel Taylor’s adamant opposition, they decided not to marry then, but they broke off neither their courtship nor their intention ultimately to wed. They evidently decided to wait and see if Colonel Taylor would change his mind.

  After leaving Fort Crawford, Davis did not see his fiancée again for more than two years. His passion for her did not fade, however. In December 1834 from Fort Gibson, he wrote the only surviving letter between them. The pangs of their eighteen-month separation leap from the page: “Oh! how I long to lay my head upon that breast which beats in unison with my own, to turn from the sickening nights of worldly duplicity and look in those eyes so eloquent of purity and love.” Such “intense feeling” could lead to superstition. Davis admitted that his recent dreams, which he called our “weakest thoughts,” frightened him. He saw his Knox, “a sacrifice to your parents,” standing on the verge of marrying someone else. The arrival of a letter from her, Jefferson rejoiced, “has driven many mad notions from my brain.” “I have kissed it often,” he confessed.

  Jefferson wanted her to have no doubt about her importance to him. He promised that “whatever I may be hereafter I will ascribe to you.” “Neglected by you,” he continued, “I should be worse than nothing and if the few good qualities I possess shall under your smiles yield a fruit it will be your’s as the grain is the husbandman’s.” He vowed that he and she were one. “I have no secrets from you, you have a right to ask me any question without an apology.” Their future he saw in the flower—“hearts ease”—she had given him: “it is as bright as ever.”

  The two of them had obviously been discussing their marriage, for Davis regretted that their union would separate Knox from her “earliest and best friends.” Recognizing the emotionally unsettling situation, he praised her for the strength that would enable her to take such a large step. “Very few,” he wrote, “have that measure of firmness.” He confided what she certainly knew: “as you are the first with whom I ever [s]ought to have one fortune so you would be the last from whom I would expect desertion.” He expected from his cherished one “all that intellect and dignified pride brings.”

  Davis then turned to more practical matters. Assuring Knox that her “preference to a meeting elsewhere than Prarie-du-Chien and [her] desire to avoid any embarrassment [that] might widen the breach made already cannot be greater than my own,” he agreed their reunion should take place somewhere else. And that wonderful meeting would be “soon.” He suggested that if she knew when she would be in St. Louis, he could join her there. At least they would rejoin each other in Kentucky. During the wait, he hoped she found “in the society of the Prarie enough to amuse if not to please.”

  He assured her that “the griefs over which we weep are not those to be dreaded.” Instead, he pointed to “the little pains the constant falling of thy drops of care which wear away the heart.” Calling her “my betrothed,” he urged her to write him “immediately.” Switching to French, which they evidently used for endearments, he closed: “Adieu Ma chere tres chere amie adieu au Recrire.”6

  Three months after writing that letter Lieutenant Davis left Fort Gibson for Mississippi. Although technically on a forty-day furlough, he had submitted his resignation in case he did not return. Obviously, he was seriously considering a permanent absence. Details of his activities in Mississippi are unknown, but they surely included discussion with brother Joseph about his future. At some point before the end of April, Jefferson Davis made the crucial decision to give up his army career in order to become a cotton planter. He would join Joseph, but not as a business partner. Joseph, owner of thousands of acres on the Mississippi River just below Vicksburg, agreed to provide Jefferson with the land essential for growing cotton.

  It is impossible t
o know how much his impending marriage to Knox Taylor influenced Davis’s decision to shed his uniform permanently. He certainly shared his thoughts and feelings with her, but none of their 1835 correspondence survives. Whether his resignation from the army inclined Zachary Taylor to look more favorably on Davis as a prospective son-in-law is also unknown, though Taylor clearly never became enthusiastic about the match.7

  Sometime during that fateful spring Jefferson and Knox set the time and location for their marriage. At first they planned a fall wedding, but they moved the date up to June. The ceremony would take place in Louisville in the midst of Knox’s relatives. Traveling by steamboat, Knox left Fort Crawford for Louisville sometime earlier. On the boat prior to its departure she met one last time with her father, but again failed to win his unqualified support for her marriage.8

  Zachary Taylor was not adamant in his opposition, however. After Knox had reached Kentucky, he wrote to his sister in Louisville that if his daughter was still determined to marry Lieutenant Davis, he would accede to her wishes, and he wanted her to wed at her aunt’s house. He also sent Knox what she described as a “kind and affectionate letter,” along with what she termed a “liberal supply of money.”9

  Still, Knox was acutely aware that both her parents remained somewhat displeased with her decision to become Mrs. Jefferson Davis. Taking the most important step of her young life, she clearly wished for a blessing she did not have. She revealed her emotional trial in a wedding day letter to her mother: “But you my dearest mother I know will still return some feelings of affection for a child who has been so unfortunate as to form [su]ch a connexion without the sanction of her parents; but who will always feel the deepest affection for them whatever may be their feelings toward her.”10

  On June 17, 1835, Jefferson Davis and Knox Taylor became husband and wife. Exactly when he left Mississippi and arrived in Louisville is unknown, but on the seventeenth he obtained a marriage license, after one slight, albeit trying, delay. The clerk of court would not issue a license until Davis brought with him an uncle of Knox’s to swear that she was of lawful age.11

  Jefferson and Knox were married at Beechland, just outside Louisville, the home of her widowed aunt, Mrs. John G. Taylor, Colonel Taylor’s sister. No Davises attended; Knox’s cousin Richard L. Taylor acted as the groom’s best man. Although neither Zachary nor Margaret Taylor made the journey to Kentucky, Taylors were there in plenitude—Hancock and Joseph Taylor, Zachary’s brothers, and their families; Mrs. John Taylor with her family; Knox’s older sister Ann, whose attendance especially pleased the bride, and her husband. The rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Louisville performed the service.12

  For her afternoon wedding Knox followed her mother’s advice and wore a dark traveling dress with a matching bonnet. Davis was married in a close-fitting, long-tail cutaway coat, a brocaded waistcoat, and tight-fitting pantaloons with straps that passed under his boots and buckled on the sides. In addition, he carried a fashionable stovepipe hat. After a reception with wine and cakes, held at Beechland, the newlyweds drove to the Ohio River and at 4 p.m. went on board a steamboat for Vicksburg.13

  The historical record is silent on the bride and bridegroom’s trip south. Possibly they stopped in St. Louis, for Knox mentions in a letter sent from Mississippi that Jefferson wrote to her parents from that city. Likewise, nothing specifies when they reached Joseph Davis’s plantation. There, on land almost enclosed within a huge bend in the Mississippi River—known as Davis Bend after its predominant landowner—they would make their home. Twenty-seven years old, Jefferson would begin life as a planter and a husband.14

  No documents detail their brief time at Davis Bend. Because Jefferson did not yet have his own house, the young couple lived with Joseph and his wife. While Jefferson began the task of making the acreage Joseph had provided suitable for crops, a cheerful Knox evidently enjoyed her role in a new place. Her only surviving letter from Davis Bend has a happy tone. She was pleased to have heard from her mother, whom she missed. But the delight Knox expressed about her “beautiful colt” bespoke her satisfaction. After inquiring about her sisters and brother, she asked her mother to give “my love to Pa” and to write “as often as you can find time and tell me all concerning you.” The final sentence was eerily ironic: “Do not make yourself uneasy about me; the country is quite healthy.”15

  In the antebellum years the question of health in the hot, humid summer months always occupied the minds of those who lived in the Deep South. Before anyone had any idea of the germ theory of disease, the heat and the humidity, especially in low places, were thought to threaten sickness, particularly fevers, which could be quite serious, even lethal. Without doubt Margaret Taylor expressed her concern about her daughter’s spending a summer in the Mississippi lowlands. Jefferson Davis shared that concern. In August 1828 on his way home from West Point, he requested that the army extend his leave, in part because the sickly season had begun in the lower Mississippi Valley. Yet at the time of his wedding he was confident that Davis Bend was a salubrious location. He would never have brought his adored Knox there otherwise. Usually no one thought of any particular location as unhealthy until the heat and humidity really built up, and often not until people started getting sick. August, an oppressive month, was much more likely to harbor the conditions conducive to sickliness than the more moderate June.16

  Sometime shortly after August 11 when Knox wrote her mother, Jefferson took his wife some 125 miles south to Locust Grove, the home of his sister Anna Smith in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana. The rolling countryside of West Feliciana was considered much healthier than the flat river land at Davis Bend. In the summer months antebellum southerners often journeyed short distances to gain a little higher elevation, which meant for them slightly cooler temperatures, especially at night, and as they saw it a less fertile disease environment.17

  Yet Jefferson and Knox were not to escape the scourge of the southern summer. Very soon after their arrival at Locust Grove, Jefferson fell ill with fever. The next day Knox was struck down. Placed in separate rooms, they both became desperately ill with malaria.18

  Characterized by recurrent fever and chills, malaria is an ancient disease. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, described its major symptoms in the fifth century B.C. It is produced by four different parasites of the genus Plasmodium, with mosquitoes serving as the transmitter to humans; and the specific plasmodium infecting a person is critical in determining the severity of the disease. The most benign form, vivax malaria, had long been known in Northern Europe and during the early decades of the nineteenth century was widespread in the United States. The most dangerous species, Plasmodium falciparum, was restricted to the South, chiefly the Deep South, because it required an especially warm climate to survive. Endemic in Africa, Plasmodium falciparum first reached the South in the bodies of African slaves during the late seventeenth century. Anopheles quadrimaculatus, a local mosquito ranging across the region, became an effective transmitter. No place was more hospitable to this potentially lethal form of malaria than the swampy area of the lower Mississippi River Valley.19

  Every strain of malaria spawns severe chills, which cannot be relieved even with numerous blankets, followed by high fever, frequent nausea, and intense headaches. In extreme cases major organs like the liver, the kidneys, and even the brain can be massively affected. Delirium can occur; coma may follow. Even before the nineteenth century, the curative powers of quinine had been recognized, and its use was widespread in Louisiana. Nothing is known, however, about the medical treatment, if any, given the Davises. The record does not say whether a physician was in attendance or whether one of the widely available published medical guides was used.

  For days the lives of both Knox and Jefferson were in serious jeopardy. Family tradition relates that Jefferson emerged from delirium to hear Knox singing “Fairy Bells,” a favorite song. Rising from his sickbed, Jefferson struggled toward his beloved and reached her side only in time to witness her
death. Knox Taylor Davis died on September 15, 1835, and was buried in the family cemetery at Locust Grove. She was but twenty-one and had been Mrs. Jefferson Davis for only three months.20

  Jefferson himself remained sick and in a weakened condition for another month. Although he came away from this attack with his life, his body was not rid of malaria. Like many other victims of the disease, he experienced repetitive episodes of fever and chills. Finally, he returned to Davis Bend to try to cope with Knox’s death. Her loss had delivered him a massive emotional blow. In his “Autobiography,” written in the last year of his life, he spoke of “liv[ing] in great seclusion” for “many years” after her death. Her memory and his vision of that memory obviously stayed with him for the remaining fifty-four years of his life. A number of years after the tragic event, according to a family story, Davis was rummaging through an old trunk when the sight of one of Knox’s slippers so staggered him that he lost consciousness.21

  Just months before his death he received an offer for the return of a letter from Knox. His reaction underscored the power of the emotion he retained even after almost five and a half decades. “You rightly suppose it has much value to me,” he responded. He went on to inform his potential benefactor that he had kept at his home in Davis Bend all of his and Knox’s correspondence in a “package” in a desk, letters which he never saw again after February 1861. The old man concluded, “it would be a great solace if I could recover the letter Miss Taylor wrote to me.”22

  Now without his cherished Knox, Jefferson Davis had to set out to create a plantation, learn to be a cotton planter and a master of slaves. Now his fortunes, personal as well as financial, were tied even more closely to his eldest brother Joseph, who made the land available for Jefferson to launch his new career.