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[235] husband, Dr. Taylor, and her two children, to New Orleans, where she has since resided. Consequently she was there through the entire secession movement, during which, by her firm and unswerving loyalty, she contrived to render herself somewhat obnoxious to those surrounding her, of opposite sentiments. Mrs. Taylor watched anxiously the progress of the movements which preceded the outbreak, and fearlessly, though not obtrusively, expressed her own adverse opinions. At this time her eldest son was nineteen years of age, a noble and promising youth. He was importuned by his friends and associates to join some one of the many companies then forming, but as he was about to graduate in the high school, he and his family made that an objection. As soon as he graduated a lieutenancy was offered him in one of the companies, but deferring an answer, he left immediately for a college in the interior. Two months after the college closed its doors, and the students, urged by the faculty, almost en-masse entered the army. Mrs. Taylor, to remove her son, sent him at once to the north, and rejoiced in the belief that he was safe. Immediately after this her persecutions commenced. Her husband had been ill for more than two years, while she supported her family by teaching, being principal of one of the city public schools. One day she was called from his bed-side to an interview with one of the Board of Directors of the schools. By him she was accused (?) of being a Unionist, and informed that it was believed that she had sent her son away “to keep him from fighting for his country.” Knowing the gentleman to be a northern man, she answered freely, saying that the country of herself and son was the whole country, and for it she was willing he should shed his last drop of blood, but not to divide and mutilate it, would she consent that he should ever endanger himself. The consequence of this freedom of speech was her dismissal from her situation on the following day. With her husband ill unto death, her house mortgaged, her means of livelihood taken
1867.
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