Sarah Knox Taylor was the daughter of General

General

A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....

 Zachary Taylor

Zachary Taylor

Zachary Taylor was the 12th President of the United States and an American military leader. Initially uninterested in politics, Taylor nonetheless ran as a Whig in the 1848 presidential election, defeating Lewis Cass...

, later President of the United States

President of the United States

The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 and Margaret Taylor

Margaret Taylor

Margaret Mackall Smith "Peggy" Taylor , wife of Zachary Taylor, was First Lady of the United States from 1849 to 1850.-Early Life and Marriage:...

, and was married to Jefferson Davis

Jefferson Davis

Jefferson Finis Davis , also known as Jeff Davis, was an American statesman and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, serving as President for its entire history. He was born in Kentucky to Samuel and Jane Davis...

 before he became President of the Confederate States of America

President of the Confederate States of America

The President of the Confederate States of America was the Head of State and Head of Government of the Confederate States of America, which was formed from the states which declared their secession from the United States, thus precipitating the American Civil War. The only person to hold the...

.

While living at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin

Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin

Prairie du Chien is a city in and the county seat of Crawford County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 5,911 at the 2010 census. Its Zip Code is 53821....

 where her father commanded Fort Crawford

Fort Crawford

Fort Crawford was an outpost of the United States Army located in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, during the 19th Century. The Second Fort Crawford Military Hospital was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1960....

 and fought Black Hawk War

Black Hawk War

The Black Hawk War was a brief conflict fought in 1832 between the United States and Native Americans headed by Black Hawk, a Sauk leader. The war erupted soon after Black Hawk and a group of Sauks, Meskwakis, and Kickapoos known as the "British Band" crossed the Mississippi River into the U.S....

, Sarah met and fell in love with her father's second in command, Jefferson Davis

Jefferson Davis

Jefferson Finis Davis , also known as Jeff Davis, was an American statesman and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, serving as President for its entire history. He was born in Kentucky to Samuel and Jane Davis...

, later President of the Confederate States of America. Davis was a recent graduate of the United States Military Academy

United States Military Academy

The United States Military Academy at West Point is a four-year coeducational federal service academy located at West Point, New York. The academy sits on scenic high ground overlooking the Hudson River, north of New York City...

 and a lieutenant

Lieutenant

A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...

 at the time.

Taylor admired Davis for his soldiering skills, but opposed the romantic match. He and his wife, whose older daughter had already married Army surgeon Robert C. Wood, and were raising three young children in a desolate frontier outpost, felt that frontier Army life would be too harsh for Sarah.

Complying with Taylor's wish, Davis resigned from the Army and married Sarah Knox Taylor on June 17, 1835 at the home of her aunt, near Louisville, Kentucky

Louisville, Kentucky

Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...

. Both of the newlyweds contracted malaria

Malaria

Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...

, and she died three months later at the Louisiana

Louisiana

Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

 home of his sister.

Posthumous

Davis was devastated by the death of his young wife, as were her parents. Her death caused years of ill will between the two, which was finally resolved in a chance meeting between Davis and Taylor in 1845 on a Mississippi steamboat

Steamboat

A steamboat or steamship, sometimes called a steamer, is a ship in which the primary method of propulsion is steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels...

.

Recovering from his own illness, and in need of respite from the loss of his wife, Davis sailed to Havana, Cuba, and then to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. In 1836, he retired to the Brierfield Plantation in Warren County, Mississippi

Warren County, Mississippi

-National protected areas:* Theodore Roosevelt National Wildlife Refuge * Vicksburg National Military Park -Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 49,644 people, 18,756 households, and 13,222 families residing in the county. The population density was 85 people per square mile...

.

External links

• Sarah Knox Davis at Findagrave
• Jefferson Davis to Sarah Knox Taylor from The Papers of Jefferson Davis, Volume 1, pp. 345-47