Jefferson F Davis- US Army Lt. & 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 share 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 Zacharys 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 Taylors 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 Taylors 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.

About the Author

Dr. Howard Edward Haller is a respected academic scholar, University Professor, University Trustee, past University Board President, award winning author & professional speaker. Dr. Haller is an accomplished senior business executive. Dr. Howard Edward Haller is the Great Great Grandson of Jefferson Davis. Dr. Haller actively lobbied Congress, along efforts by Senators Eastland, Thurmond, Hatfield & Hatch, to restore Jefferson Davis citizenship.