Margaret Mackall Smith Taylor
After the election of 1848, a passenger on a
Mississippi riverboat struck up a conversation with easy-mannered Gen. Zachary Taylor, not knowing his
identity. The passenger remarked that he didn't think the general
qualified for the Presidency--was the stranger "a Taylor man"? "Not much
of one," came the reply. The general went on to say that he hadn't voted
for Taylor, partly because his wife was opposed to sending "Old Zack" to
Washington, "where she would be obliged to go with him!" It was a
truthful answer.
Moreover, the story goes that Margaret Taylor had taken a vow during the
Mexican War: If her husband returned safely, she would never go into
society again. In fact she never did, though prepared for it by genteel
upbringing.
"Peggy" Smith was born in Calvert County, Maryland, daughter of Ann
Mackall and Walter Smith, a major in the Revolutionary War according to
family tradition. In 1809, visiting a sister in Kentucky, she met young
Lieutenant Taylor. They were married the following June, and for a while
the young wife stayed on the farm given them as a wedding present by
Zachary's father. She bore her first baby there, but cheerfully followed
her husband from one remote garrison to another along the western
frontier of civilization. An admiring civilian official cited her as one
of the "delicate females...reared in tenderness" who had to educate
"worthy and most interesting" children at a fort in Indian country.
Two small girls died in 1820 of what Taylor called "a violent bilious
fever," which left their mother's health impaired; three girls and a boy
grew up. Knowing the hardships of a military wife, Taylor opposed his
daughters' marrying career soldiers--but each eventually married into the
Army.
The second daughter, Knox, married Lt. Jefferson Davis in gentle defiance
of her parents. In a loving letter home, she imagined her mother
skimming milk in the cellar or going out to feed the chickens. Within
three months of her wedding, Knox died of malaria. Taylor was not
reconciled to Davis until they fought together in Mexico; in Washington
the second Mrs. Davis became a good friend of Mrs. Taylor's, often
calling on her at the White House.
Though Peggy Taylor welcomed friends and kinfolk in her upstairs sitting
room, presided at the family table, met special groups at her husband's
side, and worshiped regularly at St. John's Episcopal Church, she took no
part in formal social functions. She relegated all the duties of
official hostess to her youngest daughter, Mary Elizabeth, then 25 and
recent bride of Lt. Col. William W.S. Bliss, adjutant and secretary to
the President. Betty Bliss filled her role admirably. One observer
thought that her manner blended "the artlessness of a rustic belle and
the grace of a duchess."
