From the Richmond Sentinel, 5/2/1864, p. 2, c. 3
Melancholy Accident – A Child of President Davis Killed
by a Fall. – Saturday evening the Presidential mansion in this city was the
scene of a most melancholy occurrence. At 5 o’clock that evening one of the
servants discovered President Davis’s third child, a little boy five years old,
named Joseph, lying in an insensible condition on the ground, in year of the
back porch, with blood oozing from his mouth and nose and one of his thighs
broken. The child had evidently fallen over the railing of the porch, a distance
of, perhaps, twenty feet. None of the President’s family being in the house at
the time, the ladies of the neighborhood were called in and medical aid sent
for. Every effort was made to revive the little sufferer but without success. –
The child continued to sink, and expired at a few moments before seven o’clock,
having lived about two hours after the discovery of the accident. How long after
the accident before it was discovered is not known.
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