U.S. Presidents with Confederate Ties-- Part 3: Zachary Taylor's Children

Some of the Civil War split between North and South involved the children of U.S. presidents.

One of President Zachary Taylor's sons, Richard, rose to the rank of lieutenant general in the Confederate Army and was a top figure in the Trans-Mississippi theater of the war.  He surrendered his army on May 4, 1865, four weeks after Robert E. Lee.

Another of Taylor's children, Sarah, married future Confederate president Jefferson Davis in 1835 at the age of 21.  At the time, Davis was serving in the U.S. Army under Taylor and Taylor  forbade the relationship, saying, "I will be damned if another daughter of mine will marry into the Army."

Sarah came down with malaria later in 1835 and died.  Taylor, who did in office in 1850, reportedly never forgave Davis for her loss.

In addition, one of Taylor's grandsons, John Taylor Wood,  served on the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia in its famed battle with the USS Monitor in Hampton Roads in March, 1862.  He was the son of Taylor's eldest daughter Ann.  He also commanded the CSS Tallahassee in a very successful commerce raid along the U.S. coast.  That ship left out of Wilmington, North Carolina.

He also had a brother who served in the Confederate Army named Robert Crooke Wood, Jr.

--Old Secesh