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Bloodlines and Battlelines in the White House
Presidents, their families and the Civil War by Sgt Timothy Hollamby, Hardy's Brigade Medical Section PART I
The Civil War was the most tragic chapter in American history,
especially among the nation's families. Regardless of their
loyalties to the Union or Confederacy, the conflict tore families
apart. The war took its toll on families that lived in the White
House as well. For generations before, during, and after the war,
its effects would be felt by and affect presidents and their
families for decades afterwards.The Presidents, First Ladies and their
children and even grandchildren would play roles in the bloodiest
conflict on United States soil.
In
Support of the Confederacy
The
Virginians: The New American Aristocrats
It was no accident or coincidence that the Confederate capital
was in Richmond, Virginia. From the Republic's beginning, sons of
Virginia came to the forefront of the country's leadership. First
Lady Martha Washington's relationship and family ties to Robert E. Lee
are well known. Thomas Jefferson might also have philosophically
supported the Confederacy. One of his most famous quotes was "I
hold that a bit of rebellion from time to time is a good thing."
Regarding slavery, he had another interesting quote, "Slavery is like
holding a wolf by the ears, you don't like it but you dare not let it
go." Virginians continued to dominate early American politics.
Four of the first six presidents were Virginians: Washington
[1789-1797], Jefferson [1801-1809], Madison [1809-1817] and Monroe
[1817-1825]; all left enduring legacies on the office of the
president. The effect of John Adams [1797-1801] and his son, John
Quincy Adams [1825-1829], and their descendants will be discussed
in Part II.
During the first fifty years of the 1800's, another Virginian, the
ninth president, William Henry Harrison [1841], would carry on the
tradition of Virginia leadership. Although he had the shortest
term of any president ever, just 32 days, his descendants would
have major impact on the Civil War and the American presidency.
Harrison was a professional soldier, serving in early Indian conflicts
and the War of 1812, rising to the rank of major general.
Harrison's fifth of his nine children, John Scott Harrison
(1804-1878) would become a prosperous Ohio farmer and anti-slavery
congressman who would father 13 children, two of whom were
distinguished Union officers; Lt Col. Irwin Harrison and eventual 23rd
president Brigadier General Benjamin Harrison
[1889-1893]. John Scott Harrison was the only man in American
history to be brother to one president and father of another.
Harrison's successor in the White House, tenth president John Tyler
[1841-1845] was a staunch Confederate whose 5 sons of a total of 14
children served the Confederate government. Robert Tyler
(1816-1877) was Register of the Treasury of the Confederacy. John
Tyler, Jr (1819-1896) served as Assistant Secretary of War. Dr.
Tazewell Tyler (1830-1874) served as a surgeon in the Confederate army.
David Gardiner Tyler (1846-1927) was a Confederate soldier as was his
younger brother John Alexander Tyler (1848-1883) who served in the
Confederate army as well as the European Franco-Prussian war where he
was decorated by the Prussian government. Interestingly, a sixth
son, Dr. Lachlan Tyler (1851-1902) served in the U.S.Navy as a surgeon
beginning in 1879. Former President Tyler was elected to the
Confederate House of Representatives but died January 18th, 1862 before
he took his seat.
The
Taylor Davis Affair
The story reads like a romance novel. Eleventh President Zachary
Taylor [1849-1850] was a 40 year veteran career soldier from 1808 to
1848; he saw action in the War of 1812, the Black Hawk War, the Second
Seminole War and the Mexican War. He was known as "Old Rough and
Ready" by his soldiers. Taylor had 4 children; his second
daughter, Sarah Knox Taylor fell in love with Jefferson Davis in
1835. Davis at the time was a West Point graduate serving under
General Taylor. Taylor was furious and forbade his daughter to
see Davis. Ann Mackall Taylor, his oldest daughter, had married
Dr. Robert C. Wood, and Army surgeon and Taylor had declared, "I will
be damned if another daughter of mine will marry into the army...I know
enough of the family life of officers." Tensions
between the two ran high and almost came to a duel to settle the
matter. Davis and Sarah courted secretly and eventually married
in Kentucky; neither Zachary or his wife Margaret attended the
wedding. The marriage ended tragically; while visiting Taylor's
relatives in Louisiana, both Jefferson and Sarah contracted
malaria. Davis recovered, but Sarah succumbed to the disease at
the age of 21. Taylor's only son Richard (1826-1879) was a
Brigadier General in the Confederate army. Taylor's nephew, John
Taylor Wood was a Confederate Lieutenant aboard the CSS Merrimac during
its' historic naval battle with the USS Monitor.
Franklin
Pierce - An unlikely ally to the Confederate Cause.
Franklin Pierce was the fourteenth President [1853-1857] and curiously
a supporter of the Confederate cause. Franklin and his wife,
Jane, endured a devastating personal tragedy when their only child, 12
year old Benjamin, was killed in a train accident in 1853. For
two years in the White House, Jane lived as a virtual recluse,
writing letters to her dead son and when the Pierces' left office,
Franklin sunk into depression and alcoholism. He then returned to
his native New England and became an outspoken opponent of Abraham
Lincoln's war policies. In a speech on July 4th, 1863,
immediately after Gettysburg, Pierce denounced what he called "the
fearful, fruitless, fatal Civil War...prosecuted upon the theory of
emancipation, devastation, subjugation." He added, "How futile
are all our efforts to maintain the Union by force of arms."
Pierce's neighbors and friends called him a traitor and shunned
him. An angry mob threatened his home after Lincoln's
assassination. Pierce lost his wife to tuberculosis in 1863 and
died in 1869.
Mary
Todd Lincoln-Flirting with Treason?
First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln suffered emotional problems throughout her
life. She was born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1818 to a wealthy and
slave holding family. She bore Abraham Lincoln [1861-1865] four
sons; only Robert, the eldest would survive to maturity. First
was Edward, dead in infancy; a second son, Willie, died in 1862, while
Mr. Lincoln was in the White House. Thomas, also known as "Tad"
Lincoln died in 1871 at the age of 18. She made no secret of the
fact that her brother and three half-brothers were fighting in the
Confederate army. Tragically, her brother Alec would die in the
conflict. She once referred to General Grant as a "butcher" and
hated his wife, Julia, eventual First Lady in her own time.
Mary's fragile emotional stability was damaged even further when
Congressional charges accused her of Confederate sympathies and even
possible spying! After Lincoln was assassinated, she was
committed to an asylum for a short time by Robert, now an adult and a
lawyer, and she died a broken, reclusive woman in 1882.
The
Story of Martha Bulloch-Proud Confederate
Martha "Mittie" Bulloch was born in 1824 and raised a true Southern
belle on a Georgia plantation. She married a wealthy New York
merchant and set up housekeeping, feeling disjointed without slaves at
her beck and call. Two of her brothers were in the Confederate
navy. She donated food and clothing frequently to the cause
through Confederate agents in New York. She never hid her
Southern pride and sympathies, and considered herself unreconstructed
to the day of her death. Her second of four children would become
a national icon; cowboy, soldier, big game hunter and political
giant. His name was Theodore Roosevelt [1901-1909], the
twenty-third president. She was also great aunt to First Lady
Eleanor Roosevelt. "Mittie" died on Valentine's Day 1884,
tragically on the same day as Theodore Roosevelt's first wife,
Alice.
Woodrow
Wilson [1913-1921]
The twenty-eighth President was born in Virginia and moved to
Augusta, Georgia while still an infant. His earliest memory was
reported to be as a four year old boy hearing a passerby say Mr.
Lincoln was elected and that there would be war. At the age of 9
in 1865, he saw General Robert E. Lee pass by their home under Union
guard. Wilson's father, Joseph Ruggles Wilson (1822-1903) was a
staunch Confederate Presbyterian minister and helped organize the
Presbyterian Church of the Confederate States of America.
Harry
S. Truman [1945-1953]
Our thirty-third President had ancestors who were imprisoned in
interment camps during the Civil War. Truman's mother, Mary Ellen
Young Truman, resented the Federal Government because of her family's
treatment at the hands of the Union troops. Many years later,
while she was visiting the White House, she was invited to stay in
the Lincoln Bedroom; whereupon she replied that she would rather
sleep on the floor!
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