Capital Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington, 1848-1868

by Cokie Roberts

  249 “for the last quarter century”: “Criminal Court—Trial of Mary Ann Hall on Charge of Keeping a Bawdy House,” Evening Star, February 22, 1864, at ibid.

  249 “first class furniture, very showy”: “Bawdy House Case—Trial of Mary Ann Hall, Criminal Court, Judge Olin,” Evening Star, February 19, 1864, at ibid.

  250 “more than twice the population of the District”: Constance McLaughlin Green, Washington Village and Capital, 1800–1878 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962), 251.

  250 “George Riggs has given in cash $25000”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, September 10, 1863, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 309.

  250 “every available nook and corner”: Lois Bryan Adams, Letter from Washington, 1863–1865, ed. Evelyn Leasher (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999), 34.

  250 “$57,200 in government and railroad bonds”: “The Estate of Mary A. Hall,” Evening Star, February 11, 1886, quoted at Historic Congressional Cemetery website, accessed January 25, 2015, http://www.congressionalcemetery.org.

  251 “many who knew her sterling worth”: “Hall,” Evening Star, at ibid.

  251 “Piper-Heidsieck champagne corks and wire bales”: T. Rees Shapiro, “Washington’s Civil War Madam Could Keep a Secret,” Washington Post, April 27, 2013, http://www.washingtonpost.com.

  251 “the most extensive Whorehouse in the nation”: Ernest B. Furgurson, Freedom Rising: Washington in the Civil War (New York: Vintage, 2005), 292.

  251 “nor common decencies of life”: Dr. John B. Ellis, The Sights and Secrets of the National Capital (1869; reprint, Lexington, KY: ULAN Press, 2013), 384.

  252 “her first step in the road to ruin”: Ibid., 386.

  252 “devils in the form of men”: Ibid., 387.

  252 “whirled into the torrent”: Brooks, Mr. Lincoln’s Washington, 290.

  253 “ ‘He is a butcher’ ”: Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House (New York: G. W. Carleton, 1868), 117.

  253 “All honor to our fair Jewesses!”: Jewish Messenger, vol. 15, no. 17 (May 6, 1864): 134, quoted in Robert Shosteck, “The Jewish Community of Washington, D.C., During the Civil War,” American Jewish Historical Quarterly 56 (March 1967): 319–47, accessed January 25, 2015, http://www.jhsgw.org/exhibitions/online/lincolns-city/exhibits/show/mr-lincolns-city/essays/jewish-community-of-washington.

  254 “ ‘God bless the women of America!’ ”: Soldiers’ Journal, Alexandria, Virginia, April 6, 1864, www.newspapers.com.

  254 “we ask you to use it now to the utmost”: “To the Women of the Republic, January 25, 1864,” Center for Legislative Archives, National Records and Archives Administration, quoted at Slavery and the Making of America, The Slave Experience: Men, Women & Gender, Public Broadcasting Service, accessed January 25, 2015, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/experience/gender/docs2.html.

  255 “the history of our second revolution”: Stanton to Charles Sumner, February 1, 1864, in Elizabeth Cady Stanton as Revealed in her Letters, Diary and Reminiscences, vol. 2, ed. Theodore Stanton and Harriot Stanton Blatch (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1922), Google e-book, 96–97.

  255 “the suppression of the rebellion”: “Susan B. Anthony, Celebrating A ‘Heroic Life,’ ” Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of Rochester Libraries, accessed January 25, 2015, http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?PAGE=4113.

  255 “she has grown huge”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, March 27, 1864, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 360.

  256 “a careless and imperfect one”: Pamela Herr, Jessie Benton Frémont: American Woman of the 19th Century (New York: Franklin Watts, 1987), 366.

  256 “the most charming evidences of sympathy”: Frémont to James T. Fields, January 5, 1863, in The Letters of Jessie Frémont, ed. Pamela Herr and Mary Lee Spence (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 337.

  256 “The restraints of ordinary times”: Jessie Benton Frémont, The Story of the Guard: The Chronicle of the War (Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1863), Kindle e-book, loc. 1618.

  256 “unfaithful watchmen at Washington”: Frémont to George Julian, March 3, 1863, in Herr and Spence, eds., Letters, 349.

  257 “Thank Heaven & the Constitution”: Frémont to John T. Fiala, July 19, 1863, in ibid., 354.

  257 “sly slimy nature”: Frémont to Thomas Starr King, October 16, 1863, in ibid., 356.

  257 “the suffering caused by the war”: Frémont to George Julian, January 16, 1864, in ibid., 361–62.

  257 “preside at your meeting”: Frémont to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, May 4, 1863, in ibid., 351.

  257 “Mrs. Frémont is next door to us”: Herr, Jessie Benton Frémont, 369.

  258 “bound in uniform style”: Ibid., 370n.

  258 “make a growing fund”: Frémont to Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, January 27, 1864, in Herr and Spence, eds., Letters, 365.

  258 “We get on very civilly”: Frémont to Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, March 20, 1864, in ibid., 374–75.

  258 “Pontius Pilate of the slaves”: Frémont to Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, February 14, 1864, in ibid., 369.

  258 “The number of tickets taken at the door”: New York Times, April 9, 1864, http://www.nytimes.com.

  258 his own locks for the head, eyes, and backbone: Herr, Jessie Benton Frémont, 371.

  258–59 “To the Editor of the New-York Times . . . (Signed) CATHARINE C. HUNT”: New York Times, May 18, 1864, http://www.nytimes.com.

  259 “renounce our laces, silks, velvets and diamonds”: “The Ladies National Covenant; A Movement to Reduce the Consumption of Foreign Luxuries,” New York Times, May 5, 1864, http://www.nytimes.com.

  259 “the grand work of retrenchment and reform”: Adams, May 9, 1864, Letter from Washington, 138.

  260 “just as pretty in homespun”: Herr and Spence, eds., Letters, 381n.

  260 “inasmuch as they chose their leader first”: Stanton to Jessie Benton Frémont, May 4, 1864, in Stanton and Blatch, eds., Letters, Diary and Reminiscences, 98.

  261 “what a precious piece of foolery it all is”: “The Cleveland Convention,” New York Times, June 2, 1864, http://www.nytimes.com.

  264 “A large concourse of citizens”: “Local News, The Arsenal Catastrophe,” National Republican, June 20, 1864, http://www.newspapers.com.

  264 “sufferers by the recent explosion”: National Republican, June 24, 1864, http://www.newspapers.com.

  264 “Erected By Public Contributions”: Brian Bergin, The Washington Arsenal Explosion: Civil War Disaster in the Capital, ed. Erin Bergin Voorhees (Charleston, SC: History Press, 2012), e-book, loc. 1629.

  265 “overcome by the burning of Silver Spring”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, July 13, 1864, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 402.

  265 “cleaned out the larder & poultry”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, July 16, 1864, in ibid., 405.

  265 “occupied by rebel troops that night”: Jane Swisshelm, Half a Century (Chicago: Jansen, McClurg, 1880), Gutenberg project e-book, 242.

  266 “an old age in poverty, homeless & etc.”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, July 14, 1864, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 403.

  266 “the advent of the enemy”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Montgomery C. Meigs, July 1864, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

  266 “All the crops were left”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, July 16, 1864, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 404.

  266 “the bravest Union people”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, August 18, 1864, in ibid., 422n.

  266 “the shot & shell fell thick”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, July 16, 1864, in ibid., 404–5.

  267 “refugees come flying in from the country”: Brooks, Mr. Lincoln’s Washington, 353.

  268 “make a penny outside of his salary’ ”: Keckley, Behind the Scenes . . .

  268 “Mrs. Lincoln ransacked the treasures”: New York Herald, May 2, 1864, quoted in Catherine Clinton, Mrs. Lincoln: A Life (New
York: Harper Perennial, 2010), 219.

  268 “patriotic duty”: Katherine Helm, The True Story of Mary, Wife of Lincoln: Containing the Recollections of Mary Lincoln’s Sister Emilie (Mrs. Ben Hardin Helm), Extracts of Her War-Time Diary, Numerous Letters and Other Documents (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1928), 177.

  268 “no hope of the re-election”: Keckley, Behind the Scenes, 68, 136.

  269 “a point of mutual embarrassment”: Goodwin, Team of Rivals, 633.

  269 “ablest of all the Republican Senators”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, July 2, 1864, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 398.

  269 “This looks like a true picture to me”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, February 10, 1864, in ibid., 346.

  269 “a desperate effort made”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, July 3, 1864, in ibid., 399.

  269 “they were mostly Democrats”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, April 23, 1864, in ibid., 369.

  270 “heartily glad to be disconnected”: Salmon P. Chase to Nettie, July 5, 1864, in McClure, Lamphier, and Kreger, eds., Family Letters, 258.

  270 “People never sympathize with such feelings”: Salmon P. Chase to Kate, July 11, 1864, in ibid., 260.

  270 “a difference which cannot be healed”: John Oller, American Queen: The Rise and Fall of Kate Chase Sprague, Civil War “Belle of the North” and Gilded Age Woman of Scandal (Boston: Da Capo Press, 2014), e-book, locs. 1851–64.

  270 “deader than dead”: McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 758.

  270 “the General will thankfully retire”: Frémont to John Greenleaf Whittier, August 22, 1864, in Herr and Spence, eds., Letters, 382.

  271 “Lincoln’s stock is running down rapidly”: Stanton to Susan B. Anthony, August 22, 1864, in Stanton and Blatch, eds., Letters, Diary and Reminiscences, 100.

  271 “the nonsense she talks”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, July 2, 1864, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 399.

  273 “the merest twaddle”: Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Susan B. Anthony, September 25, 1864., in Theodore Stanton and Harriot Stanton Blach, ed., Elizabeth Cady Stanton As Revealed in Her Letters, Diary and Reminiscences, Vol. II, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1922, p. 102.

  273 “utterly refused any appointments, patronage or retaliation”: Frémont to Rutherford B. Hayes, July 7, 1881, in Herr, Jessie Benton Frémont, 488.

  273 “he was going to Europe”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, September 16, 1864, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 429.

  274 “They seem to depend upon your aid”: Kate Chase Sprague to Salmon P. Chase, July 26, 1864, in McClure, Lamphier, and Kreger, eds., Family Letters, 261.

  274 “terminate and forever prohibit the existence of Slavery”: “Republican Party Platform, 1864,” John C. Willis, University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, accessed January 26, 2015, http://static.sewanee.edu/faculty/willis/Civil_War/documents/republican.html.

  275 When she learned about the abolitionist movement she quickly signed up. . . . And then she learned about the women’s rights movement and added that cause to her quiver: Much of this biographical information comes from Notable American Women 1607–1950: A Biographical Directory, vol. 3, P–Z, ed. Edward T. James, Janet Wilson James, and assoc. ed. Paul S. Boyer (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971), 47–81.

  276 “the great and good man Abraham Lincoln”: “Sojourner Truth Calls Upon the President: An 1864 Letter,” Massachusetts Review 13, no. 1/2 (Winter–Spring 1972): 297–99, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25088237.

  277 “the old slave-holding spirit”: Barbara A. White, Visits with Lincoln: Abolitionists Meet the President at the White House (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011), Google e-book, 149.

  277 “all excitement here over the election”: Rebecca R. Pomroy, Echoes from Hospital and White House: A Record of Mrs. Rebecca R. Pomroy’s Experience in War-Times, ed. Anna L. Boyden (Boston: D. Lothrop, 1884), e-book, 227.

  278 “ ‘We can Vote as well as Fight’ ”: Brooks, Mr. Lincoln’s Washington, 379–80.

  278 “I would like to give my vote”: Pomroy, Echoes, 227.

  278 “gone home on furloughs”: Ibid., 228.

  278 “as fearlessly at the ballot-box”: Adams, October 31, 1864, in Letter from Washington, 205.

  278 “she is more anxious than I”: Goodwin, Team of Rivals, 665.

  279 “in the midst of a great civil war”: Ibid., 667.

  279 “the beauty of its proportions”: “The Capitol,” National Republican, November 16, 1864, http://www.newspapers.com.

  280 “I ought not to blame Chase”: Col. William H. Crook, Through Five Administrations: Reminiscences of Colonel William H. Crook, Body-Guard to President Lincoln, ed. Margarita Spalding Gerry (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1907), Kindle e-book, locs. 358–73.

  280 “cure him and he will be satisfied”: Goodwin, Team of Rivals, 680.

  280 “gorgeous in millinery”: Brooks, Mr. Lincoln’s Washington, 401.

  281 “And as it is to so go at all events”: Abraham Lincoln, “State of the Union Address, December 6, 1864,” accessed January 25, 2015, http://www.infoplease.com/t/hist/state-of-the-union/76.html#ixzz3P1lDt0Hd.

  281 “as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah”: “General Sherman to President Lincoln, December 22nd, 1864,” Civil War Trust: Saving America’s Civil War Battlefields, accessed January 25, 2015, http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/general-sherman-to-president.html.

  282 “I now look to the end of the War”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, December 26, 1864, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 453.

  CHAPTER 8: ONE MARY LEAVES, ONE MARY HANGS, AND LOIS WRITES ABOUT IT ALL

  283 “a better talker than ever”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, January 16, 1865, in Wartime Washington: The Civil War Letters of Elizabeth Blair Lee, ed. Virginia Jeans Laas (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 463.

  284 “for her good & ours I hope”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, December 27, 1864, in ibid., 455n.

  284 “the story about his papers”: January 12, 1865, in ibid., 461.

  284 “his arrival in Richmond”: January 14, 1865, in ibid., 462.

  284 “no small sense of joy”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, January 16, 1865, in ibid., 464.

  285 “our one common country”: Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 691.

  285 “her tone, her wit & etc.”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, January 18, 1865, in ibid., 466.

  286 “ ‘I did steal’ ”: Lois Bryan Adams, January 17, 1865, in Lois Bryan Adams, Letter from Washington, 1863–1865, ed. Evelyn Leasher (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999), 226.

  286 “he will have the arsenal work restored”: Daily Dispatch, February 6, 1865, www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2006.05 .1291%3Aarticle%3Dpos%3D11.

  287 “without interfering with the public interest”: Don E. Fehrenbacher and Virginia Fehrenbacher, eds., Recollected Words of Abraham Lincoln (Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), 15.

  287 “most of the valuable instruments”: “DESTRUCTIVE FIRE.; Burning of the Smithsonian Institute at Washington. Serious Loss of Valuable Documents, Records, &c.THE LIBRARY AND MUSEUM SAVED,” New York Times, January 25, 1865, http://www.nytimes.com.

  287 “one seething mass of flames”: Adams, January 24, 1865, in Letter from Washington, 227.

  287 “the most miserable imbecility”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, January 24, 1865, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 468.

  287 “thrown from the windows by excited individuals”: Washington Evening Star, January 24, 1865, quoted in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 468n.

  289 “graceful in her manners; naturally intelligent”: Daily Dispatch, February 6, 1865, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A 2006.05.1291%3Aarticle%3Dpos%3D11..

  290 “settle that question for all time”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, November 10, 1864, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 454n.

 
290 “Our people are working hard for it”: Elizabeth Blair Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, December 26, 1864, in ibid., 453.

  290 “immense power”: Goodwin, Team of Rivals, 687.

  290 “no peace commissioners in the City”: Ibid., 688.

  291 “the rumor that the mission was a failure”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, January 31, 1865, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 469.

  291 “NO desk was unattended, no aisle unfilled”: “Passage—Abraham Lincoln,” Mr. Lincoln and Freedom, the Lincoln Institute and the Lehrman Institute, accessed February 1, 2015, http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/inside.asp?ID=59&subjectID=3.

  292 “the friends of the measure jubilant”: “Congressional,” Cleveland Daily Leader, February 1, 1865, http://www.newspapers.com.

  294 “the dusky race”: Adams, February 13, 1865, in Letter from Washington, 233.

  294 “Emancipate, Enfranchise and Educate”: “The First African American to Speak in the House Chamber,” History, Art & Archives, U.S. House of Representatives, accessed February 1, 2015, http://history.house.gov/HistoricalHighlight/Detail/35139.

  294 “After an event like this”: Adams, Letter from Washington...

  294 “SUMTER 1861.UNION.SUMTER 1865”: Adams, February 23, 1865, in ibid., 236–237.

  294 Confederate deserters appeared daily: Margaret Leech, Reveille in Washington 1860–1865 (New York: Harper, 1941), 440–41.

  295 “He shall be hanged!”: John C. Waugh, Surviving the Confederacy: Rebellion, Ruin, and Recovery—Roger and Sara Pryor During the Civil War (New York: Harcourt, 2002), 268.

  296 “Mrs. L was kind & confidential”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, 4 March 1865, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 479.

  296 “in the bar-room of a country tavern”: Adams, March 2, 1865, in Letter from Washington, 240.

  297 “ ‘who is secretary of the navy?’ ”: “The Inauguration,” Vermont Transcript, March 10, 1865, http://www.newspapers.com.

  297 “a just and lasting peace”: “Primary Documents in American History—Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address,” Library of Congress Web Guides: Civil War and Reconstruction, accessed February 1, 2015, http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Lincoln2nd.html.