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This beautiful romance, taken from the “Confed
erate Veteran,’’ gives a sacred, charming glimpse
into the heart life of one of America’s truest
patriots—Jefferson Davis.
HE LIFE of President Davis ran the
gamut of all emotions; he was swept on
by Fate till he mounted the highest pin
nacle of fame and was tossed back till
for years, save among his own people,
there were few so poor as to do him
reverence, and now, in death, once again
he has taken his place among the great
immortals. In his early youth the gold-
T
en glow of romance lit his file into divine radiance.
He was only twenty-five when lie fell in love with
Susan Knox Taylor, the daughter of General Taylor,
called by his many friends “old Zack” and “Rough
and Ready.” General Taylor was hot-tempered, and
bitterly resented his daughter’s engagement to the
young lieutenant, though he had no further reason
for. his opposition than his being a soldier, and he
was opposed to a military life for his child.
For nearly two years the young people kept faith
ful to each other, though meeting but seldom. Then,
as the altar fires of love still burned as brightly as
ever, Miss Taylor went to her father and told him if
he could advance no better reason for his opposition
than the one he had already given she had decided
to cast in her lot with young Davis, and they would
be married at the ancestral home of the Taylors.
With the full knowledge that she was giving up
home and father forever, Miss Taylor bade him good
bye, and, on the steamer, made her way to Louis
ville, where her young lover was to join her. Here
she was met by her father’s eldest sister, Mrs. Gib
son Taylor, who took her to the beautiful old Taylor
home on the Brownsboro road, near Louisville, Ky.
Lieutenant Davis arrived in Louisville a few days
before the wedding, and on June 17, 1835, visited
the courthouse with Hancock Taylor, a brother of
Zachary, and obtained a license to marry “Susan
Knox Taylor, of lawful age, as testified to by Han
cock Taylor.”
The wedding was set for the afternoon of the
18th, and as the happy bridegroom was riding in his
buggy through the shady roads, he was hailed by
Patrick Pope, the County Court clerk, who had
issued the license, who said: “Lieutenant, will you
let me see that license? I want to look at it again.”
When he took the license in his hands, he deliber
ately tore it into bits and threw them in the road.
Dumfounded, the bridegroom, whose wedding was
not three hours off, stared at the man and demanded
an explanation of what seemed the act of a madman.
The cl^ r k said he had been informed that Miss Tay-
A BOY WITH MORAL COURAGE.
Almost a century ago a boy went to
the city of New York to carve out his
own fortune. He had learned the
printing trade in the country town in
which he was brought up, and that
knowledge was his only aid to fame
and fortune, except a thorough train
ing in a simple Christian home.
He found work in one of the largest
offices in the city. One Saturday
afternoon he was given a long “take”
of copy which he could not possibly
“set” without working on Sunday. He
gave it a glance and said: “I will
work on this, till 12 o’clock • tonight,
and finish what I can; but I can not
work tomorrow.”
“Then you’ll lose your place,” said
the foreman.
The boy took the copy to his em
ployer and told him that he had been
taught to reverence the Sabbath, and
that he would resign his situation
rather than violate his conscience.
His employer could' not but respect
such a spirit, and he never again re
quired him to work on Sunday.
That boy was John Harper, the
principal founder of the publishing
DA VIS—LO VER
lor was under age and that her father was intensely
antagonistic to the marriage.
There was no time for arguments. So Lieutenant
Davis drove quickly to the house of the bride’s rela
tives and told his story. Hancock Taylor was very
indignant, and called his sister, Mrs. Gibson Taylor,
to the conference. She said she had lately received
a letter from her brother Zachary, in which he stated
that he still opposed the marriage for the old rea
sons, but that his daughter was of age; and if she
persisted in her intention, the wedding had best take
place in the family home. This was enough for Han
cock Taylor, who, with his nephew-elect, drove rap
idly to the courthouse. Here he swore to the bride’s
age—twenty-two—and demanded of Clerk Pope a re
issuance of the license. With this, they returned,
the horse covered with foam from the swift drive,
and within a few moments of their return the bride
and groom stood side by side in a room made beauti
ful with the fullness of June blooms, listening to the
grand words of the Episcopal marriage service
given by Rev. Mr. Ashe, at that time the only Epis
copal clergyman in Louisville.
Mrs. Robinson, who was one of the Taylor chil
dren present at the wedding, says: “My Cousin
Knox Taylor was very beautiful, slight, and not very
tall, with brown wavy hair and clear gray eyes, very
lovely and lovable, and a young woman of decided
spirit. She was dressed in a dark traveling dress,
with a small hat to match. Lieutenant Davis was
dressed in the conventions of the time, in a long
tail cutaway coat, brocaded waistcoat, breeches
tight-fitting and held under the instep with a strap,
and high stovepipe hat. He was of slender build,
had polished manners and was of a quiet, intellec
tual countenance.”
Lewis Taylor and Sallie Taylor (afterwards Mrs.
Jewett), first cousins of the bride, were groomsman
and maid of honor. None of Lieutenant Davis’
people could be present, and the guests were en
tirely of the bride’s relatives. Mrs. Robinson says
she distinctly remembers how she shared the other
children’s disgust because Mr. Davis was the only
person present who did not cry.
The bride and groom left at once on the steam
boat for Natchez, Miss. July and August were spent
in honeymooning at the different plantations of his
people in Mississippi and Louisiana. In September,
at Locust Grove, the plantation of his sister, Mrs.
Luther Smith, near Bayou Sara, both were stricken
with malarial fever. From the first her case was
hopeless, and though desperately ill himself, Lieuten
ant Davis nursed her day and night. On September
5, as the afternoon shadows were gathering softly,
she began to sing, in her beautiful voice, “Fairy
Bells,” her favorite song. He soothed her to quiet
_
house of Harper Brothers, a house
which has issued some of the best
literature in the land and exerted an
influence felt throughout the world.
BE A BLESSING.
Sidney Smith cut the following
from a newspaper and preserved it for
himself: “When you rise in the morn
ing, say that you will make the day
blessed to a fellow-creature. It is
easily done. A left-off garment to the
man who needs it; a kind word to the
sorrowful; an encouraging expression
to the dejected—trifles in themselves
as light as air—will do it at least for
the twenty-four hours. And if you are
young, depend upon it, it will tell upon
you when you are old; and if you are
old, rest assured that it will send you
gently and happily down the stream of
time to eternity. By the most simple
arithmetical sum, look at the result.
If you send one person away happily
through the day, that will be three
hundred and sixty-five in the course
of a year. And suppose you live forty
years only, after you commence that
course of medicine, you have made
fourteen thousand six hundred persons
happy—at all events for a time.”
The Golden Age for June 9, 1910.
Pull a long at Fate and you’ll get
her cold shoulder.
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with fond words and caresses, and nestling in the
arms of her young lover like a tired child, she fell
asleep, a sleep that knew no waking.
(It is a singular coincidence that so many years
after, years filled with triumphs and defeats, joys
and sorrows, he should have contracted again this
fever in the same place and be carried to New Or
leans to fall asleep in turn. “Life’s fitful fever over,
he rests well.”)
When Zachary Taylor heard of the death of his
young daughter, like the prophet of old, he refused
to be comforted; but he did not forgive the bride
groom who had taken her away frdm.him. Fourteen
years passed on, and in the war with Mexico the
young lieutenant won many laurels, and his name
became a synonym for valor and patriotism; but the
grim general made no sign. It was only when in
the battle of Buena Vista, and Colonel Davis, by his
brilliant generalship practically saved the day to
the Americans, that he relented and sent for his son
in-law, and across the chasm of years peace was de
clared between them.
The old house, the scene of the golden romance of
Jeff Davis’ youth, has passed into other hands. The
Taylor family has drifted away, and no one cared
for the house, with its poetic ghosts of memory. One
story has been removed from the house, and the
other part is rapidly falling to decay. The room in
which that day, in joyous June, was held the fairy
like marriage is now used for a bedroom by a farmer
boy, whose toil-deepened slumbers are never dis
turbed by dreams of that long-ago romance. The pigs
and chickens feed at the doorstep once crossed by
the fair bride, the daughter of one future President,
the wife of another. Only the locust trees are faith
ful. Year by year they offer their burden of blos
soms as snowy and sweet as when the wedding bells
rang their joyful peals. They alone whisper togeth
er of the marriage that they saw —the joy-crowned
woman who so soon would fall asleep to dream no
more.
Mr. Davis was not only good and honorable; he
was a devoted Christian. In 1862, in the midst of the
stress of war which tried men’s souls, he was bap
tized by Dr. Charles Minnegerode, rector of St.
Paul’s Church at Richmond. During the anxious
years after the war he was often wounded by unjust
criticisms at home and abroad; but unjust criticisms
must be expected by all persons bearing heavy re
sponsibilities. Even George Washington was abused
by enemies, both British and American.
We may be glad that the Lord gave Mr. Davis a
long life, and that, instead of dying under the weight
of his and our sorrows and griefs, he lived to the
age of eighty, and that peace and love crowned his
days. At “evening time it was light” for him.
Some shoulders are not fitted to go
in double harness.
