The McLaws Family

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The McLaws Family — Children

William Huguenin McLaws William Huguenin was the first child born to Lafayette and Emily McLaws. Willie was born at Fort Gibson, Cherokee Indian Territory in 1852. He was a central character in Lafayette McLaws's letters home. Eleven year old Willie was with McLaws during the Knoxville campaign in December, 1863. He died in 1870 at the age of seventeen.
John Taylor "Johnnie" McLaws John Taylor "Johnnie" was born on September 20, 1853 at Fort Gibson. Lafayette wrote Emily on April 17, 1861 that he was "certain Johnnie would wonder and be delighted by the sea, more I think than any other of the children." John T. McLaws worked as a clerk for his father in the Savannah Post Office before becoming a purser on the steamship Nacoochee. He died on August 17, 1821.
Laura Taylor McLaws Laura was the flower of McLaws's life. He continually referred to her in letters home. Hu, Lafayette's brother, described Laura as a "bright eyed rosy cheeked little lady" in August, 1862. Laura, contracted a fever while away in a Virginia school and returned to the family home in Egypt, Georgia. Virginia wrote Laura died in October 1877 at the age of twenty-one, another "great blow to to her mother and father especially."
Uldrick Huguenin McLaws Uldrick Huguenin was born in Augusta, Georgia on November 30, 1861. His father wrote several letters home urging Emily not to name their new son Lafayette. "Call him Ulric Huguenin, he is or was a Count in the family, and there is some claim to it, besides there is no one else of that name. . .Much better than Lafayette or Fayette which is an affected abbreviation." Uldrick became a prominent attorney in Savannah and married the former "Gertrude Livingston Hobby, a direct descendant of Philip Livingston, president of the Provincial Congress in 1775." All four children figured prominently in the Civil War Letters.
Three daughters were born after the war.
Annie Lee McLaws Annie Lee was born in 1867, Virginia Randall in 1868, and Elizabeth Violet in 1870. Annie Lee became teacher in Savannah before her unexpected death in 1890 from Typhoid Fever.
Virginia Randall McLaws Virginia Randall became a nationally recognized artist on the Art Department's faculty at Sweetbriar College. She was cited several times in Who Was Who in American Art. Her artistic talents contrasted sharply with her father's poor grades in drawing at West Point. Most importantly, it was Virginia who left her father's papers to the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Elizabeth Violet McLaws King "Elizabeth, the youngest daughter, became a children's librarian and for a brief period, worked at the Georgia Historical Society." Elizabeth later married her younger cousin, Edward Postell King Jr. of Atlanta. King was promoted to major general shortly before he was forced to surrender U.S. Army forces on the island of Bataan in World War II. ⁽¹⁾
(1) ASG, 16-17; 152. GHS-VM ETM, 2.