Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 07.djvu/351

Rh He has co-operated with us earnestly and actively in all our efforts, and has sometimes expended the public money in his hands to promote the objects of our mission. Indeed, I am indebted to him for most of the money which I have used; but Mr. Thompson has, since Mr. Sanders was started to Richmond, put in my hands all the funds I asked for and more than I shall probably employ.

When Mr. Holcombe left the result of the measures for the release of our prisoners was not known, and, on that account, he transferred to me the balance of money on deposit to his credit in the bank at this place, that I might use it in affording those who had escaped, or might escape, the necessary transportation to Wilmington. He left here at the instance of Mr. Thompson and myself for reasons which he will explain.

1em

General Richard Taylor was only son of President Zachary Taylor. His father and mother were natives of Virginia, and his grand father, also a Virginian, commanded a brigade of Virginia troops in the battle of Brandywine. The hereditary residence of the family was in Orange county, Virginia.

President Taylor's eldest daughter married Lieutenant Jefferson Davis, the late President of the Southern Confederacy; another daughter married Surgeon Wood, of the United States army, and the other was Mrs. Bliss, now Mrs. Dandridge, of Winchester. When her father was President of the United States, it was Mrs. Bliss who gracefully extended the hospitalities of the President's house. Quite early in life General Dick Taylor took charge of his father's plantation in Mississippi, and soon afterwards moved to a fine estate in Louisiana, to the development of which he addressed himself until the war of 1861 called him to the field. He married Miss Bringer, of Louisiana, thereby connecting himself with several able and prominent men of the State and with one of the most respectable of the Creole families.

His active, vigorous mind could not find scope in the avocations