Shell Lake Watchman, William Irle, established 1882.
AN ODD CHAPTER IN POLITICAL HISTORY—THE BLACK HAWK WAR.
Gen. Winfield Scott, when a young man, was stationed at Fort Snelling, at that day perhaps the remotest outpost of the United States. When the Black Hawk War was inaugurated some militia from Illinois proffered their services to aid in conquering the savages. With a view to mustering them into the service of the United States two lieutenants were sent by Scott to the then village of Dixon. One of these was a very fascinating, good-looking, easy-mannered, affable, and fluent young gentleman. The other equally pleasant, but an exceedingly modest young man. On the morning when the mustering in was to take place a tall, gawky, slab-sided, homely young man, dressed in a suit of home-made blue jeans, presented himself to the two lieutenants as the captain of the recruits, and was duly sworn in. This was he who afterward became the president of the United States—the lamented Lincoln. One of the lieutenants, the modest youth, was he who fired the first gun from Sumter, Maj. Anderson. The other, and he who administered the oath, was in after years president of the southern confederacy, Jefferson Davis.
AN EARLY RUNAWAY MATCH.
We have gleaned from the newspapers the particulars of a love romance in which Jefferson Davis was the central figure.
It was down at old Fort Crawford, whose ruins are still to be seen just south of Prairie du Chien. It was away back in 1834, when ex-President Zachariah Taylor, then a colonel in the regular army, was commandant of the post. Jeff. Davis, who was then a young lieutenant, was assigned to duty under Col. Taylor, and fell in love with his commander's beautiful daughter. The love making between the young people was the most natural thing in the world under the circumstances, but for some reason Col. Taylor had taken the most intense dislike to the young lieutenant and frowned upon his suit. In order to prevent his daughter from marrying Davis the grim old warrior sent her to a convent at Baton Rouge.
Some months afterward the young lieutenant appeared before Col. Taylor with a document which required his signature. It was an order from Gen. Wayne granting a furlough to Davis. Old Zach. understood human nature well enough to know that when young Davis got his leave of absence he would take a bee line for Baton Rouge, so he immediately dispatched his swiftest messenger to bring his daughter home by the most circuitous route, and thus thwart the young officer, who he knew would be hurrying to meet her. When Davis returned to Fort Crawford the coldness between himself and his old commander grew more frigid, while the young woman pined away in the seclusion of a log hut, where her father had established his headquarters, until at last she was released from her imprisonment by her lover, who took her from her father's roof by stealth and in the night, and taking her across the river to a spot where a priest was in waiting, they were made man and wife.
George Green, an old river man, now eighty years old, who still lives at Prairie du Chien, is the person who rowed them over the river that night. He says that Davis took the young woman from an upper window in the log cabin and by the assistance of the chaplain was able to get her beyond the picket lines unobserved. Green was at the river bank in waiting with a canoe and took them to the spot where the marriage ceremony was performed. He says the young lady cried a good deal during the voyage across the river, but she leaned her head on the young lieutenant's bosom in a way that assured him that she was not altogether unhappy. Soon after the marriage a steamboat from St. Paul came down the river and by a preconcerted arrangement halted, took the bridal couple on board and passed on down the Mississippi to Jeff. Davis' home in the South.
Gen. Taylor never did forgive Davis for marrying his daughter. He never spoke to him from that time until the evening after the close of the battle of Buena Vista. Jeff. Davis had undoubtedly won the battle with his Mississippi Rifles, and as he lay wounded in his tent that night Gen. Taylor walked in, extended his hand in friendly greeting and thanked him for his gallant services. But there was no further attempt at reconciliation after that. Mrs. Davis did not live long, and the lady who now presides over Beauvoir is Mr. Davis' second wife. She was a Miss Howell, of Georgia.