Capital Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington, 1848-1868
Page 47
203 “the South have achieved their independence”: Touched with Fire: Civil War Letters and Diary of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., 1861–1864, ed. Mark deWolfe Howe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1946), 73, quoted in McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 648.
204 “the dearest little duck”: New York Times, February 11, 1863, http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1863/02/11/issue.html.
204 “Grace Greenwood the Patriot”: Furgurson, Freedom Rising, 225.
205 “no livery”: New York Times, September 7, 1852, http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1852/09/07/issue.html.
205 “ ‘the characters of your sons and daughters!’ ”: Highland Weekly News, Hillsboro, Ohio, January 1, 1863, http://www.newspapers.com.
206 “the mother of the Republican party”: Donald Ritchie, American Journalists: Getting the Story (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), Google e-book, 73–74.
207 “a loyal, liberty loving woman”: Jane Swisshelm, Half a Century (Chicago: Jansen, McClurg, 1880), Gutenberg project e-book, 155.
208 “I want to employ women to cut the Treasury notes”: Mary Clemmer Ames, Ten Years in Washington: Life and Scenes in the National Capital, as a Woman Sees Them (1874; reprint, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Library, Michigan Historical Reprint Series, 2005), 372.
208 as Washington rents increased: “Abraham Lincoln’s White House: Other Government Buildings—Treasury Department,” Mr. Lincoln’s White House, the Lincoln Institute and the Lehrman Institute, accessed January 24, 2015, http://www.mrlincolnswhitehouse.org/inside.asp?ID=166&subjectID=4.
208 more women came to town: Margaret Leech, Reveille in Washington 1860–1865 (New York: Harper, 1941), 339.
209 “made womanly virtue its price”: Ames, Ten Years in Washington, 373.
209 “all the other deeds of my life”: “Uncle Sam as Woman’s Boss,” New York Times, April 18, 1926, http://www.nytimes.com.
209 “I have a list of Senators”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, February 17, 1863, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 241.
209 “I was egotistic enough”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, February 26, 1863, in ibid., 243.
209 “tomorrow after church”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, March 10, 1863, in ibid., 244n.
210 “a pleasant chat”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, January 14, 1863, in ibid., 231.
210 “Father & you both will be angry”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, March 5, 1863, in ibid., 249.
210 “can’t go in a storm”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, March 10, 1863, in ibid., 250n.
210 “from cot to cot”: Noah Brooks, Washington in Lincoln’s Time (New York: Century, 1895), Google e-book, 48.
211 jolly his wife out of the anger: Catherine Clinton, Mrs. Lincoln: A Life (New York: Harper Perennial, 2010), 200.
211 “ ‘a great relief to get away’ ”: Ibid., 50.
212 “it is easily done”: Nettie Coburn Maynard, Séances in Washington: Abraham Lincoln and Spiritualism During the Civil War, ed. with commentary Irene McGarvie (1891, as “Was Abraham Lincoln a Spiritualist?” reprint, Toronto: Ancient Wisdom, 2011), Kindle e-book, loc. 862.
212 “if we are going to take spirits’ advice”: Ibid., 992.
213 “What will the country say!’ ”: Brooks, Lincoln’s Time, 57–58.
214 “Silence is ever ominous”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, April 30, 1863, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 265n.
214 “ ‘our army is in full retreat’ ”: Maynard, Séances, 1006.
214 “excludes the War Dept”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, May 6, 1863, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 265–66.
214 “gallantry of his raid”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, May 8, 1863, in ibid., 267.
214 “drunk all the time”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, May 8, 1863, in ibid., 266.
214–15 “ ‘thus we are disgraced’ ”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, May 8, 1863, in ibid., 268.
215 “take pride in his heroism”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, May 13, 1863, in ibid., 267n.
215 “see him & his comforts”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, May 6, 1863, in ibid., 266.
215 “none of the horrors”: Maynard, Séances, 1035.
215 “she rallied and bravely returned”: Maynard, Séances, 1056, 1069.
216 “wreath of large white roses”: Mrs. Janet W. Seward, Personal Experiences of the Civil War, January 20, 1898, for the “Fortnightly,” Woman’s Literary Club, Auburn, New York, reprinted in History of “The Ninth New York Heavy Artillery” (Worcester, MA: F. S. Blanchard, 1899), 5.
216 “a box of broken pieces”: Ibid., 5–6.
217 “brought up in log cabins”: Ibid., 7.
218 “a little one-horse wagon”: Ibid., 11.
218 “running from the enemy”: Ibid., 11–12.
218 “raids by the guerillas”: Ibid., 12.
218 “a race between Hooker & Lee”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, June 15, 1863, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 275n.
218 “nearer than Harper’s Ferry & Centreville”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, June 18, 1863, in ibid., 274.
218 “ ‘Her Bright Smiles Haunt me Still’ and a ‘Scene de Ballet’ ”: “Grand Vocal and Instrument Concert for the Benefit of the Washington City Orphan Asylum,” National Republican, May 27, 1863, http://www.newspapers.com.
218 “my heart is so much in this establishment”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, June 2–3, 1863, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 271 and 271n.
219 “if we are defeated”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, June 26, 1863, in ibid., 277n.
219 “your astonishment cannot have exceeded mine”: Goodwin, Team of Rivals, 531.
220 “all the pluck out of that Washington concern”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, July 1, 1863, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 279.
220 “laugh and eat & sleep—hope & pray”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, June 29, 1863, in ibid., 279.
220 “Lee’s whole object”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, July 1, 1863, in ibid., 280.
221 “he was disappointed”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, July 4, 1863, in ibid., 282–83.
221 “Lee Retreating”: “Extra,” National Republican, July 6, 1863, http://www.newspapers.com.
221–22 “sea of blood this dreadful war has cost’ ”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, July 7, 1863, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 285.
222 “that holds the South’s two halves together”: Bob Zeller, “The Long, Gruesome Fight to Capture Vicksburg,” Hallowed Ground, Summer 2013, at Civil War Trust: Saving America’s Civil War Battlefields, accessed January 24, 2015, http://www.civilwar.org/hallowed-ground-magazine/summer-2013/fight-to-capture-vicksburg.html.
222 “the war will be over before very long”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, July 16, 1863, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 289.
222 “too happy to grumble”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, July 10, 1863, in ibid., 287n.
222 “an easy prey within our grasp”: Ibid., 284n.
223 “break into the Lord & Taylor store”: David Barnes, The Draft Riots in New York, July 1863, The Metropolitan Police: Their Service During Riot Week, Their Honorable Record (New York: Baker & Godwin, 1863), Google e-book, 40.
223 More than one thousand people died or were wounded: Goodwin, Team of Rivals, 536.
223 “ ‘we may have the house burned’ ”: Seward, Personal Experiences, 12.
223 “the Copperhead element was very active”: Ibid.
224 “leave it all with my Heavenly father”: Rebecca R. Pomroy, Echoes from Hospital and White House: A Record of Mrs. Rebecca R. Pomroy’s Experience in Wartimes, ed. Anna L. Boyden (Boston: D. Lothrop, 1884), 57–58 quoted at Mr. Lincoln’s White House, Rebecca R. Pomroy (1817–1884), the Lincoln Institute and the Lehrman Institute, accessed January 24, 2015, http://www.mrlincolnswhitehouse.org/inside.asp?ID=65&subjectID=2.
225 “a liberal instead of a selfish view”: Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House, (New York: G. W. Carleton, 1868), 55.
226 “a single tear shed for a dead enemy”: Ibid., 217.
226 “no sympathy for a Southern-born woman”: Ibid., 217–18.
227 “her beloved Southland”: Ibid., 221.
227 “Send her to me”: Ibid.
227 “in silence and tears”: Ibid., 221–22.
227 “to be cheerful and accept fate”: Ibid., 223.
227 “our dear, red-headed baby brother!”: Ibid., 224.
228 “Her nerves have gone to pieces”: Ibid., 225.
228 “it would kill her”: Ibid., 225–26.
228 “It is unnatural and abnormal”: Ibid., 227.
229 “ ‘they should all be opposing yours’ ”: Ibid., 229–30.
229 “powerless to protect a guest”: Ibid., 230.
229 “I am longing for Kentucky and mother”: Ibid., 231.
229 “ ‘on your return to Kentucky’ ”: Ibid., 232.
230 “quite a belle in Washington”: Keckley, Behind the Scenes, 58.
230 “judging how its associations suit her”: Leech, Reveille in Washington, 348.
230 “Mr. Sprague is not attractive”: “Marriage in Official Circles,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 14, 1863, http://www.newspapers.com.
230 “I cannot afford to be extravagant”: Salmon P. Chase to Kate Chase, August 17, 1863, “Spur Up Your Pegasus”: Family Letters of Salmon, Kate and Nettie Chase, 1844–1873, ed. James P. McClure, Peg A. Lamphier, and Erika M. Kreger (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2009), 218.
231 “the same relation between father & daughter”: William Sprague to Salmon P. Chase, November 4, 1863, in ibid., 235.
231 “love cannot be perfect”: Salmon P. Chase to Kate Chase, August 12, 1863, in ibid., 216.
232 “The Kate Chase Wedding March”: Ibid., 239.
232 “bow in reverence”: Goodwin, Team of Rivals, 581.
232 “the gaiety was very lame”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, November 12, 1863, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 319.
232 “offend the eye or taste”: “Marriage in Official Circles,” Washington Chronicle, reprinted in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 14, 1863, http://www.newspapers.com.
232 horses with names like General McClellan: Leech, Reveille in Washington, 320.
232 “in fashionable force”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, September 30, 1863, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 309.
232 “Dining room furniture alone”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, October 11, 1863, in ibid., 312.
233 “the great struggle for our National existence”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Montgomery C. Meigs, December 16, 1863, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
234 echoed by artillery at the Forts: “The Statue of Freedom,” Architect of the Capitol, United States Capitol, accessed January 24, 2015, http://www.aoc.gov/capitol-hill/other-statues/statue-freedom.
234 “engage herself to him”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Montgomery C. Meigs, October 11, 1863, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
234 “Mary Meigs is said to be engaged”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, November 12, 1863, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 319.
235 “his mind and his feelings are so different”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Montgomery C. Meigs, November 8, 1863, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
235 “do not learn much”: Louisa Rodgers to Brother, December 16, 1827, Rodgers Family Papers, Naval Historical Foundation Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
235 “amiable, intelligent and sprightly”: David W. Miller, Second Only to Grant: Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs (Shippensburg, PA: White Mane Books, 2000), 14.
235 “disease of the brain”: Ibid., 23.
235 “what a convenient thing”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Minerva Dineson Rodgers, July 1842, Rodgers Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
235 “the full in all its follies”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Nannie Rodgers, January 1845, Rodgers Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
236 “feast your reason & imagination”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Nannie Rodgers, February 1845, Rodgers Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
236 “Detroit has been very dull”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Nannie Rodgers, April 1848, Rodgers Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
236 “seem to have slept four years”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Henry Rodgers, November 1850, Rodgers Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
236 “I know it will annoy Mother”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Nannie, March 1851, Rodgers Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
236 “as if you had accomplished a victory”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to John Rodgers Meigs, September 4, 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), 110–11.
236 “watch you before you left me”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to John Rodgers Meigs, September 1, 1860, in ibid., 72.
237 “useless or extravagant”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Montgomery C. Meigs, October 28, 1863, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
237 “the head of a great army”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Charles Meigs, November 5, 1863, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
237 “still held the reins of power”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Montgomery C. Meigs, October 25, 1863, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
237 “your good health & spirits”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Montgomery C. Meigs, November 23, 1863, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
238 “We live very quietly”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Montgomery C. Meigs, December 6, 1863, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
238 “something I can give everybody”: Glenna Schroeder-Lein, Lincoln and Medicine (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2012), 30.
239 “now all subscribe to the message”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, December 8, 1863, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 325.
239 “I bought a toy for Blair”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, December 21, 1863, in ibid., 332.
CHAPTER 7: ANNA SPEAKS, JESSIE CAMPAIGNS (AGAIN), SOJOURNER VISITS
241 “the help of the suffering freedmen”: “Words for the Hour,” National Republican, January 14, 1864, http://www.newspapers.com.
242 “services in the campaigns”: Ibid.
243 the fiery young woman: Lois Leveen, “The Civil War’s Oratorical Wunderkind,” New York Times, May 21, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com.
243 “a pitch of enthusiasm”: “Complimentary to Miss Dickinson,” Liberator, Boston, MA, May 8, 1863, http://www.newspapers.com.
244 “the dirty puddle of party politics”: “Miss Dickinson, Mr. Beecher, and the Directors of the Academy of Music,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 1, 1863, http://www.newspapers.com.
244 shot off a lock of her hair: Judith E. Harper, Women During the Civil War: An Encyclopedia (New York: Routledge, 2004), 111.
244 “a splendid burst of applause”: Noah Brooks, Mr. Lincoln’s Washington: Selections from the Writings of Noah Brooks, Civil War Correspondent, ed. P. J. Staudenraus (South Brunswick, NJ: Thomas Yoseloff, 1967), 280.
244 “thunders of applause”: Ibid., 281.
244 “her brief and spl
endid career”: Ibid., 282.
245 “her long and picturesque career”: Noah Brooks, Washington in Lincoln’s Time (New York: Century, 1895), Google e-book, 74.
245 “disrespectful to the minority of this House”: National Republican, January 19 1864, http://www.newspapers.com.
245 “an immense train flowed out behind”: Brooks, Mr. Lincoln’s Washington, 274–75.
246 “a blue brocade gown”: Ibid., 275.
246 “affectedly call our ‘Republican Court’ ”: “Inklings of Idleness,” National Republican, January 13, 1864, http://www.newspapers.com.
246 “such a rampage”: Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 600.
247 “Abe has the inside of the track”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, January 13, 1864, in Wartime Washington: The Civil War Letters of Elizabeth Blair Lee, ed. Virginia Jeans Laas (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 340.
247 “The Radicals will throttle him”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, January 24, 1864, in ibid., 340n.
247 “the wishes of our friends in Ohio”: Salmon P. Chase to Nettie Chase, March 15, 1864, in “Spur Up Your Pegasus”: Family Letters of Salmon, Kate and Nettie Chase, 1844–1873, ed. James P. McClure, Peg A. Lamphier, and Erika M. Kreger (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2009), 255.
248 “the field in the spring”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, January 12, 1864, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 336.
248 “think how much easier said than done”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, December 13, 1863, in ibid., 332n.
248 “where there are no ladies”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, January 26, 1864, in ibid., 340n.
248 “the deep crimson shade of the silk”: William O. Stoddard, Inside Lincoln’s White House in War Times (1892; reprint, Big Byte Books, 2014), e-book, loc. 2076.
249 “far more of refinement in manner and appearance”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, January 28, 1864, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 343.
249 “in virtuous black”: “Heavy Raid Upon the Fancy, The Big Establishments Attended to, Mary Ann Hall and Others of the Elite Marched up to the City Hall,” Washington Evening Star, January 15, 1864, quoted at Historic Congressional Cemetery website, accessed January 25, 2015, http://www.congressionalcemetery.org.