Jefferson Davis to Sarah
Knox Taylor

Fort Gibson [Arkansas Territory] Dec 16th 1834

Tis strange how superstitious intense feeling renders us. but stranger still
what aids chance sometimes brings to support our superstition, dreams my dear
Sarah we will agree are our weakest thoughts, and yet by dreams have I
been latly almost crazed, for they were of you and the sleeping
immagination painted you not such as I left you, not such as I could like and
see you, for you seemed a sacrifice to your parents desire the bride of a wretch
that your pride and sense equally compelled you to despise, and a [illegible]
creature here, telling the on dits of the day at St Louis said you were "about
to be married to a Doctor Mc" a poor devil who served with the Battalion of
Rangers possibly you may have seen him--but last night the vision was changed
you were at the house of an Uncle in Kentucky, Capt [Samuel] Mcree was walking
with you when I met you he left you and you told me of your Father [Zachary
Taylor] and of yourself almost the same that I have read in your letter to
night. Kind, dear letter, I have kissed it often and it has driven many mad
notions from my brain. Sarah whatever I may be hereafter I will ascribe to you.
Neglected by you I should be worse than nothing and if the few good qualities I
possess shall under your smiles yield a fruit it will be your's as the grain is
the husbandman's.

It has been a soure productive of regret with me that our union must seperate
you from your earliest and best friends, a test to which the firmness of very
few are equal, though giddy with passion or bouant by the hope of reconciliation
there be many who brave it, from you I am prepared to expect all that intellect
and dignified pride brings, the question as it has occured to you is truly
startling Your own answer is the most grattifying to me, is that which I should
expected from you, for as you are the first with whom I ever ought to have one
fortune so you would be the last from whom I would expect desertion. When I
wrote to you I supposed you did not intend soon to return to Kentucky. I approve
entirely of your preference to a meeting elsewhere than at Prarie-du-Chien and
your desire to avoid any embarrassment might widen the breach made already
cannot be greater than my own, did I know when you would be at St Louis I could
meet you there. At all events we meet in Kentucky. Shall we not soon meet Sarah
to part no more? oh! how I long to lay my head upon that breat which beats in
unison with my own, to turn from the sickening sights of worldly duplicity and
look in those eyes so eloquent of purity and love. Do you remember the "hearts
ease" you gave me, it is bright as ever--how very gravely you ask leave to ask
me a question. My dear girl I have no secrets from you, have a right to ask me
any question without an apology. Miss Bullitt did not give me a guard for a
watch but if she had do you supose I would have given it to Capt Mccree.
But Ill tell you what she did give me, [manuscript torn] most beautifell and
lengthy lecture on my and your charms, the which combined, once upon an evening
at a "fair" in Louisville, as she was one of the few subjects of conversation we
had apart from ourselves on that evening you can & I have left you to guess
what beside a sensibility to your charms constituted my offence. the reporters
were absent and the speech I made is lost.

Pray what manner of messages could la belle Elvin have sent you concerning
me? I supose no attempt to destroy harmony. I laughed at her demonstrations
against the attachment existing between myself a subaltern of Dragoons but that
between you and I is not fair, gains it is robbing to make another poor, but No!
She is too discerning to attempt a thing so difficult and in which sucess would
be valueless. "Miss Elizabelth one very handsome; lady" Ah; Knox what did you
put that semicolon between handsome and lady for? I hope you find in the society
of the Prarie enough to amuse if not to please The griefs over which we weep are
not those to be dreaded. It is the little pains the constant falling of thy
drops of care which wear away the heart, I join you in rejoicing that Mrs McCree
is added to your society. I admire her more than any one else you could have had
Since I wrote to you we have abandoned the position in the Creek Nation and are
constructing quarters at Ft Gibson

My lines like the beggars days are dwindling to the shortest span. Write to
me immediately My dear Sarah My betrohed No formality is proper between us.
Adieu Ma chere tres chere amie adieu au Recrire

Jeffn.

From The Papers of Jefferson Davis, Volume 1, pp. 345-47. Transcribed
from a privately owned original. This is the only known surviving piece of
correspondence between Davis and Taylor.

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