Early Life and Education
Mary Elizabeth was born as the youngest daughter of five to Margaret Mackall Smith and Zachary Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, then on the frontier. She also had a younger brother Richard. She and her siblings grew up alternately at their plantation in Louisville and United States Army forts, where her father, a career Army officer, was often in command. Her mother mostly taught the children at home, sometimes with the help of tutors or young officers at forts. In the late 1820s, the family moved to a plantation near Baton Rouge, as her father was purchasing land in Louisiana.
In the early 1830s, the family was with Taylor at Fort Crawford as he waged the Black Hawk War. Later they returned to Baton Rouge when he went to Florida for the Seminole War and to Texas.
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