The sea coast echo. [volume] (Bay Saint Louis, Miss.) 1892-current, 1907-06-08
A CORRECTION CONCERNING JEFFERSON
DAVIS.

832 North Carolina Avenue, Colorado
Springs, Colo, May %, 1907.
The Editor Picayune: Dear Sir-l
am Just recovering from a severe III
ness. but | feel l must contradict the
extraordinary and utterly false state
ment published in your columns May
10, for which statement you give Mrs.
]. r. Gordon as authority.
Mrs. Gordon must have known, when
she said the old cashmere dressing gown
she has was worn by my father when ne
was captured, that she was making a
false statement of facts; and more than
that, that the Union soldiers who cap
tured Jefferson Davis have repeatedly
published statements describing the
riding suit of Confederate gray he wore
when captured, and which can now be
seen, and which has been identified by
United States soldiers in the Confeder-
ate Museum at Richmond, Va. Why
Mrs. Gordon wishes to tell these roman
tic falsehoods, have no means OF Judg-
ing, as | do not know her except by
hearsay.
AS to the utterly false account OF how
Beauyoir came into my fathers posses
sion, l will ask you to give the true ac-
count 20 your readers. In 1876 l mar
ried, and my parents went to Europe to
put my sister Winnie to school, and
after years stay my father returned
alone, as my mother was to i'll to travel.
He came directly to Memphis, Tenn,
to visit me, and while there received an
invitation to visit Mrs. Sarah A. Dor
sey on the Mississippi coast. He was
then about to begin his book, 'The
Rise and Fall of the Confederacy," and
as Mrs. Dorsey was an authoress and
devoted Southerner, she offered to write
at Mr.. DAVIS dictation. Accepting her
kind offer, my father stipulated that he
should pay his board and that OF his
man-servant and later that of my
brother, who joined him and took pos
session of an Office in the, grounds.
When my mother, Mrs. Jefferson Davis,
was able to return, she also joined him
there, but not as an impoverished guest,
as Mrs. Gordon says, but as boarder.
Also my sister was at no time Mrs. Dor
sey's guest, as she was in Germany un-
til after Mrs. Dorsey's death. My father
loaned Mrs. Dorsey large sums of
money, and when she offered to make
him her heir he refused and offered to
buy Beauyoir, which offer she accepted.
He had made two payments before
she died on this property, besides the
large sums Mrs. Dorsey owed him.
When her will was opened it was found
that she had left all her property to my
minor sister, Varina A. Davis, and a
life interest to my father. I may add,
she offered to make me her heir, but
declined most decidedly, as I felt it
would be impossible for me to live there,
and for other reasons also.
Mr.. Dorsey died many years before
his wife did. He was fine, true
hearted gentleman, and my father and
mother both felt deeply attached to him.
AT no time was my father an object
of charity, nor was he ever willing to
accept assistance or support from any
one. According to the rules of the
French language, Bellevue, as trans
lated, would be more correct than Beau
voir, which, as | understood from Mrs.
Dorsey, was the name of an old French
family; but I will not challenge Mrs.
Gordon's statement as to this, as it mat
ters very little.
To return to the dressing gown. If
it ever belonged to my father, it is
probably the remains of one sent him
while he was in Fortress Monroe by the
loyal women of the South, to whom his
lack of comforts and failing health ap-
pealed. The absurdity of his having a
dressing gown with him when he was
riding through the woods en- route for
Texas, is self-evident, and, while Mrs.
Gordon's statement may be very roman
tic, it is utterly false; therefore can
not countenance it.
| ask you to publish this conspicu-
uosly, so that your readers may know
the truth, for this absurd staten ent,
placing my father, Jefferson Davis, in
both an undignified and false light be-
fore the public, has distressed. me
greatly. May also hope that in future
Southern papers will refer all such
statements to me before publishing
them, thereby avoiding sending broad.
cast such falsehoods?
Yours sincerely,
MARGARET HOWELL JEFFERSON DAVIS
A Heavy Increase in Assessments.