Jefferson F Davis- US Army Lt. and then Col. Zachary Taylor - Their Early Realtionship

By: Howard Edward Haller, Ph.D.

This article shares an insight into who Jefferson Davis really
was and specifically his relationship with Colonel Zachary
Taylor, who would play an important part of Jefferson Davis’s
life for several decades.

This article shares information about his growth as an adult, his
leadership style and life as a young US Army Officer in the
frontier. This part of the Jefferson Davis story all took place
after he graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point in
1828 at age 20, with much of the focus on their early
relationship after Jefferson Davis became a US Army Officer. The
further adventures of young Lieutenant Jefferson Davis will be
shared in this article. However, this article will be tightly
focus will be on the initial and unique nature of the
relationship with his new Commanding Officer, Colonel Zachary
Taylor.

The rest of the full Jefferson F. Davis story will be shared in
later articles. Lieutenant Jefferson Davis was also industrious
young man who after he resigned from the US Army carved out a
plantation from a brier covered swamp land, served as a
Mississippi Militia Colonel (later a Major General), then served
in US Congress (both as a multiple term Senator and a
Congressman), as an outstanding US Secretary of War for
President Franklin Pierce, in addition to having been President
of the Confederate States of America. Jefferson Davis was a
truly Renaissance man with deep values as a humble, reverent,
caring and compassionate man.

After Jefferson Davis graduating from West Point he was awarded
a US Army Commission as a Second Lieutenant. Jeff was first
assigned to the to the US Army 6th Regiment of Infantry at only
20 years of age. Second Lieutenant Davis was subsequently
assigned to the US Armies 1st Regiment of Infantry. He was sent
to Fort Crawford (in what is know Wisconsin) which was then only
a slightly inhabited portion of the United States Northwest
Territories. Jeff found the Northwest Territories a much colder
climate than Mississippi or Kentucky, where he grew up. Lt.
Davis only at Fort Crawford for a short while before he was then
sent to Fort Winnebago, which was also in the Northwest
Territories.

Lt. Jefferson Davis found that a material part of his required
functions in the US Army First Regiment of Infantry to perform a
number of risky tasks on his patrol in the sparsely inhabited
Northwest Territories. Lt. Davis found that many of his US Army
military duties were both boring and mundane. Second Lieutenant
Jefferson Davis job discovered that for his first three years in
the US Army was to assist in the effort by the Army in
protecting US Citizens from attacks from both the local Indians
and the British.

While in the US Army, Jeff caught pneumonia and became very ill
while he was stationed in the freezing cold, the dampness, and
snowy frontier of Wisconsin. Jefferson Davis soon recovered from
his bad case of pneumonia, just in time to meet the US Army 1st
Regiment of Infantry, new regimental commander, a fellow
southerner, Colonel Zachary Taylor.

I discussed at some length in another article Jefferson
Davis’s involvement in the Black Hawk Wars and his
relationship with the defeated Indian Chief Black Hawk. This
article will focus on events after the Black Hawk Ward and cover
Jefferson Davis’s relationship with his Commanding Officer,
Colonel Taylor.

Lt. Jefferson Davis was still stationed in the US Army in the
Northwest Territories, after the end of the Black Hawk Wars. It
was then that Lieutenant Jeff Davis fell in love with the
daughter of the Regimental Commander, then US Army Colonel
Zachary Taylor. Jeff and the Colonel’s daughter, Sarah Knox
Taylor, officially announced that they wanted to get married.

Colonel Taylor was reticent to approve their union. His major
objection to their marriage was he did not want his daughter to
become a wife of a military officer. He did not want her and
their children to have to constantly from rural military post to
another military post.

There was small incident several years earlier in which Jeff
annoyed Colonel Taylor by Jeff’s insignificant offense to
Taylor in which was not yet forgiven and held against Davis by
Taylor. The incident arose when young Lt. Davis asked Colonel
Taylor and another member [Major Thomas Smith] of a
court-marshal, if Lieutenant Davis could be allowed to fulfill
his duties as an officer on the Court with requiring him to wear
his formal dress uniform. The Colonel was strongly against this
idea and he voted No, but Major Smith who disliked Taylor voted
Yes, and then Davis voted Yes. The Colonel held this impropriety
against Jeff at the time of his and Sarah’s announced
engagement. Jeff was still in his early twenties at the time of
the offense. Jefferson Davis later reflected about the upsetting
incident, or offense, about informal military dress with Colonel
Taylor, when Jeff was a young slightly rebellious US Army
Lieutenant, that he said -I was right as to the principle, but
impolite in the manner of asserting it. (Strode, 1964, p. 80)

Jeff and Sarah were very much in love, so while they anxiously
for her Dad (his Commanding Officer) blessing so in order not to
upset Colonel Taylor they had be careful and sometimes
clandestine to be able to have a rendezvous. Fortunately
Sarah’s little brother, Richard, assisted the couple to be
able to see each other without the Colonel knowing about their
secret date. An interesting foot note about this helpful younger
brother of Sarah Taylor is that he would grow up to become
General Richard Taylor, of the Confederate States of America,
under President Jefferson Davis.

Jefferson and Sarah, after waiting for two years for the Colonel
blessing, they all worked it out. Not withstanding the
misinformation in the writing of others that they had to elope,
they did not.

The simple truth is Colonel Zachary Taylor did finally give his
blessing that they could wed. Colonel Taylor agreed them
marrying, but his conditions included Jeff resigning from the US
Army and that marriage would not take place at an Army Fort.
Colonel Taylor did agree to marriage provide the wedding take
place at Zachary's sisters home with several other Taylor family
members present.

The Colonel also had to be secondary apprehension about Sarah
moving to Mississippi with Jeff after he had resigned from the
US Army. Colonel Taylor had already lost two of Sarah sister’s
to malaria in Louisiana and he also almost lost both his wife
and Sarah to their previous malaria infections. This was minor
underlying matter which Colonel Taylor did not stress, but was
clearly on his mind, having lost two daughter to malaria in the
South.

As requested, Jefferson and Sarah, with Colonel Taylor's specific
blessing, they were married in Lexington, Kentucky with at the
home of Mrs. Gibson Taylor the oldest sister of Colonel Taylor
with several other Taylor family member present on June 17,
1835. New bride, Sarah Taylor Davis wrote a note to her mother
in which she also specifically thanked her father for the money
that he [Colonel Zachary Taylor] had sent for her wedding to
former US Army Officer Jefferson Davis. (MvElroy, 1937, I, pp.
33-34).

Jefferson Davis later in life gave this written account of the
events surrounding his marriage to Sarah Taylor, as quoted by
his second wife, Varina Howell Davis, in her biography of her
husband: In 1835 I resigned from the army, and Miss Taylor being
then in Kentucky with her aunt--the oldest sister of General
Taylor-- I went thither and we were married in the house of her
aunt, in the presence of General Taylor's two sisters, of his
oldest brother, his son-in-law, and many others of the Taylor
family. (Davis, 1890, Vol. I, p. 162)

Historical Note: This one of series of well-documented and
informative articles will explore an number of the facets of
Jefferson Davis's life as a West Point graduate, a US Military
career officer, his relationship with Colonel (later General)
Zachary Taylor as his Commanding Officer when Jeff was a young
US Army Lieutenant, was well as his relationship with Colonel
Taylor his future father-in-law, and a number of years later
when Jeff Davis was Colonel reporting to his Commander (at their
mutual request) in the Mexican War, General Zachary Taylor.

Jefferson Davis was also an industrious young man who carved out
a plantation from a brier covered swamp land, was a Mississippi
Militia Colonel (later Militia Major General), served in US
Congress (both as a multiple term Senator and Congressman), as
the outstanding US Secretary of War for President Franklin
Pierce, in addition to having been the First and Only President
of the Confederate States of America. Jefferson Davis was a
truly renaissance man with deep values as a caring and
compassionate man. Jefferson Davis had passionate opinions of
the importance of States Rights strict interpretation of the US
Constitution in which the Founding Fathers of United States
clearly limited the power of the Federal Government. Jefferson
Davis was named by his parents after the leading drafter of the
US Constitution, Thomas Jefferson,

The 1978 successful effort to restore Jefferson Davis United
States citizenship was led by United States Senator's Eastland,
Thurmond, Hatfield and Hatch on the US Senate Judiciary
Committee to Jefferson Davis's citizenship (the author's Great
Great Grandfather).

Jefferson F. Davis was a West Point graduate at the age of 20, a
US Military career officer, created a successful plantation from
swamp land, was a Mississippi Militia Colonel (later Militia
Major General), served in the US Congress (as Congressman and
twice as Senator), as the US Secretary of War for President
Franklin Pierce, all this in addition to having been President
of the Confederate States of America.

Dr. Howard Edward Haller actively lobbied on both sides of the
aisle of the US Congress, along with the significant efforts by
Senators Eastland, Thurmond, Hatfield and Hatch, to successfully
finally restore Jefferson Davis citizenship. Dr. Haller worked
with President Jimmy Carter and his senior White House staff,
including Carter’s White House Chief of Staff. President
Carter signed the unanimously passed US Senate Joint Resolution
16, on October 17, 1978.

Article Source: https://www.collectibles-articles.com

Dr. Howard Edward Haller is a well respected academic scholar, University Professor, University Trustee, former President of University Board of Trustees, award winning author, and professional speaker. He is also an accomplished senior business executive. Dr. Haller is the Great Great Grandson of Jefferson Davis and respected scholar.

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