56 “she has a fine mind”: Jefferson Davis quoted in Ishbel Ross, First Lady of the South: The Life of Mrs. Jefferson Davis (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958), 8.
56 “a ‘comfortable’ dress”: Carol Berkin, Civil War Wives: The Lives and Times of Angelina Grimké Weld, Varina Howell Davis, and Julia Dent Grant (New York: Knopf, 2009), 119.
56 “a pretty good seam”: Davis, Volume I: A Memoir, 254.
56 “I think it is a trick”: Ibid., 226.
57 “a proud young creature”: Ibid., 245.
57 “not an impressive man”: Ibid., 267.
57 “impossible for us ever to live together”: Berkin, Civil War Wives, 133–34.
58 “thoughtless, dependent wife”: Varina Howell Davis to Jefferson Davis, January 25, 1849, in Strode, ed., Private Letters, 58.
59 “dissatisfied with the Administration”: Davis, Volume I: A Memoir, 548.
59 “biting him on the nose”: Ibid., 559.
59 “his own fine horses”: Ibid., 571.
60 “all ‘the passing show’ ”: Ibid., 579.
60 “the most unexpected kindnesses”: Ibid., 583.
60 “relief and confidence about her”: Ibid., 38.
61 “These reminiscences of Boston”: Ibid., 39.
61 “lose the objects of those cares”: Varina Howell Davis to her mother, November 21, 1858, in Strode, ed., Private Letters, 11.
61 “lovely sometimes to cut duty”: Varina Howell Davis to her father, November 14, 1858, quoted in Berkin, Civil War Wives, 150.
62 “offered for keeping peace”: Jefferson Davis to Margaret Howell, March 28, 1859, in Strode, ed., Private Letters, 103.
62 “Don’t feel uneasy about me”: Varina Howell Davis to Jefferson Davis, April 3, 1859, ibid., 105.
62 “every day to rear him”: Varina Howell Davis to Jefferson Davis, April 17, 1859, ibid., 107.
62 saving Varina’s life: William Ernest Smith, The Frances Preston Blair Family in Politics, vol. 2 (New York: Macmillan, 1933), 323.
63 “here and out of danger”: Elizabeth Blair Lee to Francis Preston Blair, May 21, 1859, Blair and Lee Family Papers; 1764–1946 (mostly 1840–1920), Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.
63 “part of a powerful party”: Varina Howell Davis to Jefferson Davis, July 2, 1859, in Strode, ed., Private Letters, 111.
63 “Mrs. Davis is parting for Washington”: Elizabeth Blair Lee to Francis Preston Blair, 16 September 1859, Blair and Lee Family Papers; 1764–1946 (mostly 1840–1920), Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.
63 “not subject to taxation”: quoted in Constance McLaughlin Green, Washington Village and Capital, 1800–1878 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962), 206–7.
64 “Here, the lock is off”: Washington Star, October 3, 1859, quoted in Green, Washington Village, 227.
64 “Poverty, squalor, prejudice, and violence”: Ibid., 228.
64 the overcrowded public schools: Ibid., 213.
65 “nothing but starvation or beggary”: E.D.E.N. Southworth, The Hidden Hand, first serialized in New York Ledger, 1859 (reprint, New York: Hurst, 1907), Kindle e-book, loc. 628.
65 an abridged version of the tract: James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 199.
66 “mutual hatred between North and South”: Davis, Volume I: A Memoir, 648.
66 “pestilent, forceful man”: Ibid., 644.
67 “churches were draped in mourning”: James Buchanan, Mr. Buchanan’s Administration on the Eve of the Rebellion (New York: D. Appleton, 1866), Google e-book, 63, also quoted in Davis, Volume I: A Memoir, 644–45.
67 “wild with passion”: Pryor, Reminiscences, 92–94.
67 “punch a head or two”: Abigail Brooks Adams to Henry Brooks Adams, December 26, 1859, microfilm edition of the Adams family papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.
69 “my most hearty approval”: Rose Greenhow, My Imprisonment and the First Year of Abolition Rule at Washington (London: Richard Bentley, 1863), Internet Archive e-book, 65–66.
69 “a little more upper crust”: Abigail Brooks Adams to Henry Brooks Adams, December 26, 1859, microfilm edition of the Adams family papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.
69 “the unfortunate affair of Brown”: Pryor, Reminiscences, 95.
70 “tell him the whole truth”: Anna Ella Carroll to Thurlow Weed, January 27, 1860, quoted in Janet L. Coryell, Neither Heroine nor Fool: Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1990), 43.
70 “made a dozen mistakes”: Abigail Brooks Adams to Henry Brooks Adams, February 1, 1860, microfilm edition of the Adams family papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.
71 “never appeared at Miss Lane’s receptions”: Pryor, Reminiscences, 98.
71 “were stately & elegant”: Abigail Brooks Adams to Henry Brooks Adams, February 8, 1860, microfilm edition of the Adams family papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.
72 “never invite any of us to dinners”: Abigail Brooks Adams to Henry Brooks Adams, February 26, 1860, microfilm edition of the Adams family papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.
72 filling its tail with cannon balls: Green, Washington Village, 204.
73 “thousands of patriotic hearts”: Weekly Standard (Raleigh, N.C.), February 29, 1860, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045706/1860-02-29/ed-1/seq-3/.
74 “I am treated like a queen”: Abigail Brooks Adams to Henry Brooks Adams, March 4, 1860, microfilm edition of the Adams family papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.
75 “headstrong, willful, fighting”: Abigail Brooks Adams to Henry Brooks Adams, March 30, 1860, ibid.
75 “met several nice people”: Abigail Brooks Adams to Henry Brooks Adams, March 24, 1860, ibid.
75 “the bitterest opponent Grandpapa ever had”: Abigail Brooks Adams to Henry Brooks Adams, April 4, 1860, ibid.
75 “even Mrs. Jeff Davis”: Abigail Brooks Adams to Henry Brooks Adams, March 11, 1860, ibid.
75 “Don’t let any of them in but Mrs. Lee”: Smith, Blair Family in Politics, vol. 2, 258.
76 “I stick to the Seward colors”: Abigail Brooks Adams to Henry Brooks Adams, March 11, 1860, microfilm edition of the Adams family papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.
76 one of the leading ladies of Washington: Abigail Brooks Adams to Henry Brooks Adams, April 29, 1860, ibid.
77 “turned a cold shoulder to its guests from the North”: Pryor, Reminiscences, 95–96.
77 “I shall become a pauper”: F. O. Prince to Adele Cutts Douglas, April 26, 1860, Box 46, Folder 5, Stephen A. Douglas Papers 1764–1908, Special Collection Research Center, University of Chicago Library.
78 “Visits are falling off”: Abigail Brooks Adams to Henry Brooks Adams, May 5, 1860, microfilm edition of the Adams family papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.
78 “I gave him a piece of my mind”: Abigail Brooks Adams to Henry Brooks Adams, April 9, 1860, ibid.
79 “He is a trial to his party”: Abigail Brooks Adams to Henry Brooks Adams, May 5, 1860, ibid.
79 “fell from the lips of the men”: Pryor, Reminiscences, 101.
79 “chat & gossip, & laugh & spend money”: Abigail Brooks Adams to Henry Brooks Adams, May 13, 1860, microfilm edition of the Adams family papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.
79 “twenty thousand dollars to put it in repairs”: Abigail Brooks Adams to Henry Brooks Adams, April 9, 1860, ibid.
80 “every show that comes along”: Pryor, Reminiscences, 63.
80 “crowding curiously to gaze at them”: Clopton, Belle of the Fifties, 111.
80 “some sat for their photographs”: Abigail Brooks Adams to Henry Brooks Adams, May 13, 1860, microfilm edition of the Adams family papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.
8
0 “imagined oneself at a funeral”: Pryor, Reminiscences, 63–64.
81 “all inelegant”: Abigail Brooks Adams to Henry Brooks Adams, May 13, 1860, microfilm edition of the Adams family papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.
81 “stoop to such tricks”: Abigail Brooks Adams to Henry Brooks Adams, May 17, 1860, ibid.
82 “the embodiment of the enmity”: Davis, Volume I: A Memoir, 685.
82 “Jeff Davis & Douglas make speeches & quarrel”: Abigail Brooks Adams to Henry Brooks Adams, May 28, 1860, and June 3, 1860, microfilm edition of the Adams family papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.
83 “first lady in the land”: “Harriet Lane Biography,” National First Ladies’ Library, accessed December 13, 2014, http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=16.
84 “a great slave sale”: “The Prince in Washington,” New York Times, October 6, 1860, http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1860/10/06/77869690.html.
84 barely anyone had voted for the new president: “1860 Presidential General Election Results,” Dave Leip’s Atlas of Presidential Elections, accessed November 15, 2014, http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?year=1860.
85 “the dissolution of the Union”: Elizabeth Lindsay Lomax, Leaves from an Old Washington Diary, 1854–1863, ed. Lindsay Lomax Wood (Mount Vernon, NY: E. P. Dutton, 1943), 133.
85 “the reputation of Sodom”: George William Bagby, quoted in Ernest B. Furgurson, Freedom Rising: Washington in the Civil War (New York: Vintage, 2005), 15.
85 “crime goes unpunished”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Montgomery C. Meigs, January 6, 1861, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
85 “talked of forts and fusillades”: Clopton, Belle of the Fifties, 138.
85 “the lurid picture of disunion and war”: Pryor, Reminiscences, 98.
85 “ ‘spunk however justified’ ”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Montgomery C. Meigs, November 29, 1860, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
86 “ ‘The papers are teeming with secession . . . . God defend us from civil war’ ”: Lomax, Leaves, 134–35.
86 “event which was to change all our lives”: Pryor, Reminiscences, 111–12.
87 “unfurling of our national flag”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Montgomery C. Meigs, December 6, 1860, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
87 “peaceable secession is a fallacy”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, December 25, 1860, in Wartime Washington: The Civil War Letters of Elizabeth Blair Lee, ed. Virginia Jeans Laas (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 19.
87 “a defiance of public feeling”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Montgomery C. Meigs, January 17, 1861, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
87 “but this day is oh, so different”: Lomax, Leaves, 138.
87 “North and South mingled fraternally”: Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, January 19, 1861, quoted in Ann Blackman, Wild Rose: Rose O’Neale Greenhow, Civil War Spy, A True Story (New York: Random House, 2005), 20.
87 “resolved itself literally this year”: Pryor, Reminiscences, 117.
87 “At the elbows of Senators”: Clopton, Belle of the Fifties, 142.
87 “pregnant with storm and cloud”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Montgomery C. Meigs, January 3, 1861, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
88 “Political events breathe defiance”: Lomax, Leaves, 140.
88 blow her brains out”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Montgomery C. Meigs, February 8, 1861, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
88 “women grew hysterical . . . before the evil”: Clopton, Belle of the Fifties, 147–48.
89 “his desire for reconciliation . . . ‘May God have us in His holy keeping’ ”: Davis, Volume I: A Memoir, 696–99.
89 “many, we knew, would be final”: Clopton, Belle of the Fifties, 151.
89 “break any bonds between us”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, December 17, 1860, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 18.
89 “We left Washington ‘exceeding sorrowful’ ”: Varina Davis, Jefferson Davis, Ex-President of the Confederate States of America, Part Two V2: A Memoir By His Wife (1890; reprint, Baltimore: Nautical and Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1990), 5–6.
90 “giving up whatever of social dominion”: New York Herald, February 7, 1904, quoted in Pryor, Reminiscences, 82.
90 “no friend either North or South”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Montgomery C. Meigs, January 17, 1861, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
90 “we do not feel in a party mood”: Lomax, Leaves, 142.
91 “Mrs. Davis is a warm personal friend”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, February 8–9 , 1861, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 33.
91 “signal of every Northern lady’s leaving”: Anna Ella Carroll to Thomas Hicks, January 30, 1861, quoted in Coryell, Neither Heroine, 50.
91 “children out to the far west”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, February 5, 1861, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 32.
92 “bid adieu to the bright days”: Pryor, Reminiscences, 118–19.
CHAPTER 4: ROSE GOES TO JAIL, JESSIE GOES TO THE WHITE HOUSE, DOROTHEA GOES TO WORK
93 “counting the president’s votes”: Elizabeth Lindsay Lomax, Leaves from an Old Washington Diary, 1854–1863, ed. Lindsay Lomax Wood (Mount Vernon, NY: E. P. Dutton, 1943), 143.
94 “a very military appearance:” Louisa Rodgers Meigs to John Rodgers Meigs, February 16, 1861, in A Civil War Soldier of Christ and Country: The Selected Correspondence of John Rodgers Meigs, 1859–1864, ed. Mary A. Giunta (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006), 99–100.
94 “the grandest parade”: Ann Green, February 22, 1861, in “The 1861 Diary of Ann (Forrest) Green of Rosedale,” unpublished diary, courtesy of her great-great granddaughter, Catherine O’Donnell, 13.
94 “a united and happy people”: Lomax, Leaves, 143.
94 “Mrs. Lincoln and son came in the afternoon”: Ibid., 143–44.
95 “extensive and organized conspiracy”: David Gollaher, Voice for the Mad: The Life of Dorothea Dix (New York: Free Press, 1995), 393.
95 “the knowledge of the people”: Green, February 23, 1861, “1861 Diary,” 13.
95 “awfully western, loud and unrefined”: Harriet Lane to Sophia Plitt, 24 February 1861, James Buchanan and Harriet Lane Johnston Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
95 “in triumph all the way”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, February 15, 1861, in Wartime Washington: The Civil War Letters of Elizabeth Blair Lee, ed. Virginia Jeans Laas (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 37.
96 “a worthy successor”: New York Times, February 21, 1861, http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1861/02/21/issue.html.
96 “ ‘not bad looking by any means’ ”: Lewistown Gazette (Lewistown, Pa.), February 28, 1861, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83032276/1861-02-28/ed-1/seq-2/.
97 “The city thronged with strangers”: Lomax, Leaves, 144.
97 “hated by half the people”: Mary Montgomery Meigs to John Rodgers Meigs, January 6, 1861, in Giunta, ed., Selected Correspondence, 88.
97 “everything went off peacefully”: Green, March 4, 1861, “1861 Diary,” 15.
97 “no doubt of its sanity”: Lomax, Leaves, 144–45.
98 “found no quarters”: New York Times, March 5, 1861, http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1861/03/05/issue.html.
98 “ ‘But he will never come back alive’ ”: Julia Taft Bayne, Tad Lincoln’s Father (1931; reprint, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001), e-book, 7.
98 “fair ladies by the score”: New York Times, Marc
h 5, 1861, http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1861/03/05/issue.html.
99 “the least dislike to his living”: Clara Barton to Annie Childs, March 5, 1861, in Elizabeth Brown Pryor, Clara Barton: Professional Angel (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987), 75.
99 “the belle of the evening”: New York Times, March 5, 1861, http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1861/03/05/issue.html.
100 “the nasal twang of the strong-willed Puritan”: Cincinnati Daily Press, March 8, 1861, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84028745/1861-03-08/ed-1/seq-1/.
100 “holy hands of horror”: Bayne, Tad Lincoln’s Father, 6.
100 “the fatigue of the two and a half hour siege”: Gilson Willets, Inside History of the White House: The Complete History of the Domestic and Official Life in Washington of the Nation’s Presidents and Their Families (New York: Christian Heralds, 1908), 312.
101 “I will not dress”: Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House (New York: G. W. Carleton, 1868), 71.
102 “susceptible of a double construction”: New York Times, March 5, 1861, http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1861/03/05/issue.html.
103 “as she did secession”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, February 12, 1861, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 36.
103 “the south wing of the Treasury Building”: Lomax, Leaves, 148.
104 “God only knows”: Ibid., 149–50.
104 “men bold and brave enough”: Richmond Enquirer, December 25, 1860, quoted in John Lockwood and Charles Lockwood, The Siege of Washington: The Untold Story of the Twelve Days That Shook the Union (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), e-book, 22.
105 a cocky Varina Davis: Ibid., 99.
106 hoarded food and supplies: Ibid., 215.
106 “Heaven only knows”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Minerva Rodgers, April 28, 1861, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
107 “fearful apprehensions rule the hour”: Green, April 19, 1861, “1861 Diary,” 23.
107 “martial law will be proclaimed”: Ibid., April 20, 1861, 23–24.
Capital Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington, 1848-1868 Page 44