From: Confederate Veteran, Vol. IV, February, 1896

Samuel Davis' Sister-in-Law

Mrs. Kate Kyle of LaVergne, Tenn., who was a Miss Patterson and married John G. Davis, an older brother, writes:

Sam Davis came on his last trip from the South to my home [ on ] Nolensville Pike a little before daylight Sunday morning.  He said he would then go to Rains' thicket and that I must take his breakfast and horse feed; also my cousin Miss Robbie Woodruff must go with me, and spend the day.

We found him up, looking as bright as if he had slept all night, and, oh, he did enjoy his good warm breakfast, for we rode fast and had his coffee in a jug to keep it warm.

Two of my little brothers brought our dinner and we spent a nice, pleasant Sunday together ~ the last he spent on earth but one.

On Monday, Oscar Davis, Sam's brother, carried him a lot of nice things to eat.  He found Sam fast asleep with his head resting on a grape vine for a pillow, but he was up in a minute with his pistol in hand, ready to defend himself.

Sam gave me a list of articles to get for him in Nashville.  I got in my buggy with [ my ] cousin, and started for Nashville, got everything he wished, also a lot of the latest newspapers.  We lived nine miles from Nashville, got back about sundown, and that night Sam started for the South.

In the Iarge seat of my buggy I would often bring out cavalry saddles, bridles, boots, spurs, gray cloth, and I smuggled medicines such as quinine, morphine, etc.   I have brought $500 and $600 worth of medicine out at one time around my waist.   Quinine and morphine were very high.  I always kept on the good side of the Commanding General and could get passes when I desired to do so.

I went to Nashville very often, so I always kept posted; had many confidential friends there, always readv to help me when asked. After the war, Capt. H. B. Shaw, or "Coleman" made our house his home until the fall of '66, when he persuaded Sam's father and my husband, John G. Davis, to purchase a steamboat called the David White, a very large, fine steamer valued at $150,000, and in l867, February 17th, this boat was blown up on the Mississippi River below Helena, Ark., and many lives were lost, among the number my precious husband and Captain Shaw.  Before the war Shaw was a steamboat captain.

He told us that from his cell window in the Pulaski jail he saw them start with Sam Davis to the gallows.   He said the papers that Sam had were stolen from Gen. Dodge's table, while he was at a meal, by a negro boy that once belonged to Mr. Bob English, near Lynnville, [ who ] gave them to him.

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