On her journey back from a meeting with her publisher, Rebecca met L. Clarke Davis in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, whom she had been corresponding with since he had contacted her as an admirer of her work after the publication of "Life in the Iron-Mills." They became engaged one week after meeting and were married on March 5, 1863. Clarke was four years younger than Davis and not yet financially or professionally established in the world. The following year she gave birth to their first son, Richard Harding Davis, who was to become a writer and journalist himself. Their second son, Charles Belmont Davis was born in 1866 and also became a writer; their daughter, Nora, in 1872.