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| You are in: Museum of History >> Hall of USA >> US First Ladies >> Margaret Mackall Smith Taylor | |
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| You are in: Museum of History >> Hall of USA >> US First Ladies >> Margaret Mackall Smith Taylor | |
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Margaret Taylor, born in Calvert county, Maryland, about 1790; died near Pascagoula, Louisiana, 18 August, 1852, was the daughter of Walter Smith, a Maryland planter. She received a home education, married early in life, and. until her husband's election to the presidency, resided with him chiefly in garrisons or on the frontier. During the Florida war she established herself at Tampa bay, and did good service among the sick and wounded in the hospitals there. Mrs. Taylor was without social ambition, and when General Taylor became president she reluctantly accepted her responsibilities, regarding the office as a "plot to deprive her of her husband's society and to shorten his life by unnecessary care." She surrendered to her youngest daughter the superintendence of the household, and took no part in social duties.
--Her eldest daughter, SARAH, became the wife of Jefferson Davis.
--Another daughter, Elizabeth, born in 1826, was educated in Philadelphia, married Major William W. S. Bliss in her nineteenth year, and, on her father's inauguration, became mistress of the White House. Mrs. Bliss, or Miss Betty, as she was popularly called, was a graceful and accomplished hostess, and, it is said, "did the honors of the establishment with the artlessness of a rustic belle and the grace of a duchess." After the death of her father in 1850, and her husband in 1853, she spent several years in retirement, subsequently marrying Philip Dandridge, of Winchester. Va., whom she survives.
-Her only son, Richard, soldier, born in New Orleans, 27 January, 1826; died in New York city, 12 April. 1879, was sent to Edinburgh, Scotland, when thirteen years old, where he spent three years in studying the classics, and then a year in France. He entered the junior class at Yale in 1843, and was graduated there in 1845. He was a wide and voracious though a desultory reader. From college he went to his father's camp on the Rio Grande, and he was present at Palo Alto, and Resaca de la Palma. His health then became impaired, and he returned home. He resided on a cotton-plantation in Jefferson county, Mississippi, until 1849, when he removed to a sugar-estate in St. Charles parish, Louisiana, about twenty miles above New Orleans, where he was residing when the civil war began. He was in the state senate from 1856 to 1860, was a delegate to the Charleston Democratic convention in 1860, and afterward to that at Baltimore, and was a member of the Secession convention of Louisiana. As a member of the military committee, he aided the governor in organizing troops, and in June, 1861, went to Virginia as colonel of the 9th Louisiana volunteers. The day he reached Richmond he left for Manassas, arriving there at dusk on the day of the battle. In the autumn he was made a brigadier-general, and in the spring of 1862 he led his brigade in the valley campaign under " Stonewall" Jackson. He distinguished himself at Front Royal, Middletown, Winchester, Strasburg, Cross Keys, and Port Republic, and Jackson recommended him for promotion. Taylor was also with Jackson in the seven days' battles before Richmond. He was promoted to major-general, and assigned to the command of Louisiana.
The fatigues and exposures of his campaigns there brought on a partial and temporary paralysis of the lower limbs; but in August he assumed command. The only communication across the Mississippi retained by the Confederates was between Vicksburg and Port Hudson ; but Taylor showed great ability in raising, organizing, supplying, and handling an army, and he gradually won back the state west of the Mississippi from the National forces. He had reclaimed the whole of this when Vicksburg fell, 4 July, 1863, and was then compelled to fall back west of Berwick's bay. General Taylor's principal achievement during the war was his defeat of General Nathaniel P. Banks at Sabine Cross-Roads, near Mansfield, De Soto parish, Louisiana, 8 April, 1864. With 8,000 men he attacked the advance of the northern army and routed it, capturing twenty-two guns and a large number of prisoners. He followed Banks, who fell back to Pleasant hill, and on the next day again attacked him, when Taylor was defeated, losing the fruits of the first day's victory. These two days' fighting have been frequently compared to that of Shiloh--a surprise and defeat on the first day, followed by a substantial victory of the National forces on the second.
In the summer of 1864 Taylor was promoted to be a lieutenant-general, and ordered to the command of the Department of Alabama, Mississippi, etc. Here he was able merely to protract the contest, while the great armies decided it. After Lee and Johnston capitulated there was nothing for him, and he surrendered to General Edward R. S. Canby, at Citronelle, 8 May, 1865. The war left Taylor ruined in fortune, and he soon went abroad. Returning home, he took part in politics as an adviser, and his counsel was held in special esteem by Samuel J. Tilden in his presidential canvass. During this period he wrote his memoir of the war, entitled "Destruction and Reconstruction" (New York, 1879).