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

by Cokie Roberts

  298 “the Inauguration day passes in peace”: Adams, March 4, 1865, in Letter from Washington, 242–44.

  298 “great jam”: “The Inauguration,” Appleton Motor, Appleton, Wisconsin, March 16, 1865, http://www.newspapers.com.

  298 “the disgraceful business”: 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, loc. 316.

  299 “as had everyone else in Washington”: Ibid., 77–92.

  300 “powdered with silver and golden dust”: “The Inauguration Ball,” Cleveland Daily Leader, March 10, 1865, http://www.newspapers.com.

  300 President Lincoln’s glove: Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House (New York: G. W. Carleton, 1868), 68.

  301 “to see anything of the Army life”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Nannie, March 1865, Rodgers Family Papers, Naval Historical Foundation Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

  301 “an increase of agony”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Nannie, 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), 244.

  301 “bore him and have lost him”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Nannie, November 27, 1864, in ibid., 246.

  301 “I petitioned the General”: Julia Dent Grant, The Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant (Mrs. Ulysses Grant), ed. John Y. Simon (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1975), 141.

  302 “a regiment of deserters”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, March 24, 1864, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 487.

  303 “in fresh business”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, March 27, 1865, in ibid., 488.

  303 “events are now so portentous”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, March 28, 1865, in ibid., 489n.

  304 “a bunch of wild flowers for the President”: Crook, Through Five Administrations, 550.

  304 “Richmond Ours!!!”: Leech, Reveille in Washington, 465.

  305 “surrendered to colored troops”: Keckley, Behind the Scenes, 72.

  305 “some sympathy with the National feeling”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Mary Meigs, April 4, 1865, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

  305 “put up the Flags”: Montgomery C. Meigs to Louisa Rodgers Meigs, April 9, 1865, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

  305 “the Rebels had escaped”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, April 4, 1865, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 489.

  306 “a wanderer without a home”: Crook, Through Five Administrations, 595–610.

  306 “a mounted escort clattering after”: Mrs. Burton Harrison (Constance Cary), Recollections Grave and Gray (New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1911), 199.

  306 “scowled darkly upon our party”: Keckley, Behind the Scenes, 73.

  307 “incurred Mrs. Lincoln’s displeasure”: Ibid., 74.

  307 “Now You’ll Remember Me”: Grant, Personal Memoirs, 150–51.

  307 “so disfigured by bruises”: Diary of Fanny Seward, April 5, 1865, from Patricia Carley Johnson, “Sensitivity and Civil War: The Selected Diaries and Papers, 1858–1866, of Frances Adeline [Fanny] Seward” (Ph.D. diss., University of Rochester, 1963), 868.

  308 “decked with flags and screaming desperately”: Adams, April 11, 1865, in Letter from Washington, 254.

  308 “a good plan for you to play Dixie”: Crook, Through Five Administrations, 704.

  308 “The great rebellion is crushed”: “PEACE!; The Surrender of Gen. Lee The End of the Great Rebellion. Harmony Among the Generals of the Army,” New York Times, April 10, 1865, http://www.nytimes.com.

  309 “Hang ’em”: Leech, Reveille in Washington, 472.

  309 “Shouting the battle cry of freedom!”: “Civil War Lyrics, Battle Cry of Freedom by George F. Root—Civil War Music,” Civil War Heritage Trails in Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina, accessed February 1, 2015, http://civilwarheritagetrails.org/civil-war-music/battle-cry-of-freedom.html.

  309 “the last speech he will ever make”: Goodwin, Team of Rivals, 728.

  310 “a sudden and violent end”: Keckley, Behind the Scenes, 79.

  310 “literally swathed in flags and bunting”: Grant, Personal Memoirs, 153.

  310 “it was this I coveted”: Ibid., 154.

  311 “we have both been very miserable”: Goodwin, Team of Rivals, 733.

  311 “I did not want to go to the theater”: Grant, Personal Memoirs, 155.

  312 “glared in a disagreeable manner”: Ibid., 156.

  312 “They have shot the President!”: Goodwin, Team of Rivals, 739.

  313 “ ‘the spirit fled to God who gave it’ ”: Dr. Charles Leale, “Report on Death of President Lincoln,” L.262.S.G.O. 1865, courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.

  314 “My dress was stained with it”: Diary of Fanny Seward, April 14, 1865, in Johnson, “Sensitivity and Civil War,” 875–892. Fanny actually wrote her account of the assassination three weeks later.

  314 “if the terrible news was true”: Grant, Personal Memoirs, 156.

  314–15 “ ‘thus you escaped me’ ”: Ibid., 157.

  315 “a guard of 6 men to protect this house”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, April 14, 1865, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 494.

  315 “but not mortally wounded”: Keckley, Behind the Scenes, 81.

  315 “the hours drag so slowly”: Ibid., 82.

  315–16 “fallen in the hour of his triumph”: Ibid., 84.

  316 “the President himself was dead”: Ibid., 83.

  316 “some contradiction which we long for”: Adams, April 15, 1865, in Letter from Washington, 256.

  316 “the grief of the people here is sincere & intense”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, April 15, 1865, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 495.

  317 “absolute quiet . . . & a low diet”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, March 7, 1865, in ibid., 481.

  317 “enjoys his food hugely”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, March 18, 1865, in ibid., 483.

  317 “improves daily in health & cheerfulness”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, March 21, 1865, in ibid., 484–85.

  318 “troubled about it”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, March 22, 1865, in ibid., 486.

  318 “The strap which holds my skirts”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, March 27, 1865, in ibid., 489.

  318 “entirely disappeared from sight”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, April 14, 1865, in ibid., 493–494.

  318 “these last months of our long separation”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, April 15, 1865, in ibid., 495.

  318 “outburst of grief from the soul”: Keckley, Behind the Scenes, 84.

  318 “dear heart-broken Mrs. Lincoln”: Grant, Personal Memoirs, 157.

  319 “She begs me not to smile”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, April 19, 1865, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 497.

  319 “by beauty’s presence”: Cleveland Morning Leader, April 22, 1865, quoted in 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, 1932.

  319 “unspeakable sorrow and affection”: 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, 247.

  320 leading the other mourners: Leech, Reveille in Washington, 496.

  320 “24 hours of unflagging watching”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, April 20, 1865, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 498.

  320 “constantly refers to his religious faith”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, April 22, 1865, in ibid., 499.

  321 “no earthly power can prevent it”: Nettie Coburn Maynard, Séances in Washington: Abraham Lincoln and Spiritualism during the Civil War, ed. with commentary Irene McGarvie (18
91 as “Was Abraham Lincoln a Spiritualist?” reprint, Toronto: Ancient Wisdom, 2011), Kindle e-book, loc. 1505.

  321 “branded all over with infamy”: Adams, May 6, 1865, in Letter from Washington, 261.

  322 “I do dread it more & more”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, May 4, 1865, in ibid., 500n.

  322 “It was plundered”: 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, The Michigan Historical Reprint Series, 2005), 240.

  322 “The silence was almost painful”: Keckley, Behind the Scenes, 92.

  324 “She ranks me”: L. P. Brockett, M.D. and Mrs. Mary C. Vaughn, Woman’s Work in the Civil War: A Record of Heroism, Patriotism and Patience (Philadelphia: Zeigler, McCurdy, 1867), e-book, loc. 2305.

  325 “what little money I had”: Janesville Weekly Gazette, May 25, 1865, http://www.newspapers.com.

  326 “the whole party”: Varina Howell Davis to Montgomery Blair, June 6, 1865, in Women’s Letters: America from the Revolutionary War to the Present, ed. Lisa Grunwald and Stephen J. Adler (New York: Dial Press, 2005), 331. Original document also can be found, “Letter (pages 13–20), Varina Davis to Montgomery Blair describing the capture of her husband, Jefferson Davis, 6 June 1865,” Words and Deeds in American History, accessed February 1, 2015, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mcc:@field(DOCID+@lit(mcc/005)).

  326 “gifts of flowers and fruit”: Virginia Clay Clopton, A Belle of the Fifties: Memoirs of Mrs. Clay of Alabama, covering social and political life in Washington and the South, 1853–66, put into narrative form by Ada Sterling (New York: Doubleday, Page, 1905), 274.

  326 “first Class Nurse & attendant”: Leech, Reveille in Washington, 519.

  326 “My heart’s sympathy is with her”: Keckley, Behind the Scenes, 92.

  328 “breaking up old associations”: Ibid., 30.

  328 “inclined to treat you harshly”: Ibid., 31.

  328 “remarkable woman”: Catherine Clinton, Mrs. Lincoln: A Life (New York: Harper Perennial, 2010), 162.

  328 “Mrs. Lincoln made frequent contributions”: Ibid., 51.

  329 four years of continuous migration to the capital: Constance McLaughlin Green, Washington Village and Capital, 1800–1878 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962), 277.

  330 “the employment it affords them”: J. S. Griffing to C. H. Howard, October 4, 1867, report on the operations of her industrial school, from Bureau Records, quoted in Keith E. Melder, “Angel of Mercy in Washington: Josephine Griffing and the Freedmen, 1864–1872,” Records of the Columbia Historical Society of Washington, D.C. 1963–1965, ed. Francis Coleman Rosenberger (Washington, DC: Historical Society of Washington D.C., 1967), 254.

  331 “a chartered car full of these freed people”: Ibid., 257.

  331 three to five thousand destitute freed people: Ibid., 259.

  331 “no home, family, friendship or subsistence”: J. S. Griffing, letter to Horace Greeley, September 12, 1870, in ibid., 267.

  333 “Judges, counsel, prisoners, witnesses, and spectators, men, women, and children”: Adams, June 23, 1865, in Letter from Washington, 274.

  333 “ ‘She made no scenes’ ”: Elizabeth Steger Trindal, Mary Surratt: An American Tragedy (Gretna, LA: Pelican, 1996), 169.

  334 “backed with certain political strength”: “END OF THE ASSASSINS; Execution of Mrs. Surratt, Payne, Herrold[sic] and Atzeroth,[sic]” New York Times, July 7, 1865, http://www.nytimes.com.

  335 “submit to the supreme physical power”: Kate Clifford Larson, The Assassin’s Accomplice: Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln (New York: Basic Books, 2008), 207.

  335 “ ‘women enough hanged in this war’ ”: Ibid., 199.

  336 “what will be ANNA’s fate?”: “END OF THE ASSASSINS; Execution of Mrs. Surratt, Payne, Herrold and Atzeroth,” New York Times, July 7, 1865, http://www.nytimes.com.

  336 “the testimony of an important witness”: “The Assassination,” Daily Times, New Berne, N.C., July 12, 1865, http://www.newspapers.com.

  337 “unreasoning and dangerous enemies”: Adams, July 18, 1865, in Letter from Washington, 280–81.

  338 “the acquitted lady fainted”: “The News,” Daily Progress, Raleigh, North Carolina, July 25, 1865, http://www.newspapers.com.

  338 “most unfortunately notorious”: Adams, August 1, 1865, in Letter from Washington, 283–85.

  339 “handsome blocks and dwellings”: Adams, October 2, 1865, in ibid., 328–29.

  342 “run up the old flag”: Stephen B. Oates, A Woman of Valor: Clara Barton and the Civil War (New York: Free Press, 1994), 335.

  342 responded to more than 63,000 letters: “Clara Barton’s Missing Soldiers Office,” Civil War Museum, National Museum of Civil War Medicine, accessed February 1, 2015, http://www.civilwarmed.org/clara-barton-museum/about-clara-bartons-missing-soldiers-office/.

  342 “admires and criticizes itself”: Adams, July 8, 1865, in Letter from Washington, 277.

  343 “She was the stepping stone”: “Eliza Johnson Biography,” National First Ladies’ Library and Historic Site, accessed February 1, 2015, http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=18.

  343 “always dressed elegantly and appropriately”: Grant, Personal Memoirs, 164.

  344 “the utter impossibility of living another day”: Mary Todd Lincoln to Elizabeth Blair Lee, August 25, 1865, quoted in Goodwin, Team of Rivals, 753.

  344 “a needle in her hand”: Keckley, Behind the Scenes, 99.

  344 “gala days”: Grant, Personal Memoirs, 161.

  CHAPTER 9: VIRGINIA AND VARINA RETURN, SARA SURVIVES, MARY IS HUMILIATED, KATE LOSES

  348 “the talk of the whole country”: Virginia Clay Clopton, A Belle of the Fifties: Memoirs of Mrs. Clay of Alabama, Covering Social and Political Life in Washington and the South, 1853–66, Put into Narrative Form by Ada Sterling (New York: Doubleday, Page, 1905), 301.

  349 “no moment alone”: Ibid., 307.

  349 “an interview with the president”: Cleveland Daily Leader, November 23, 1865, http://www.newspapers.com.

  349 “one of the first familiar faces I saw”: Clopton, Belle of the Fifties, 310–11.

  349 “The amnesty was granted”: Staunton Spectator (Staunton, Va.), August 15, 1865, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024718/1865-08-15/ed-1/seq-2/.

  350 “my heart was full of indignant protest”: Clopton, Belle of the Fifties, 310–11.

  350 “Your husband’s manly surrender”: Ibid., 316.

  350 “Our next President”: Ibid., 315.

  351 “our treasury was terribly depleted”: Ibid., 193.

  351 “a prodigious amount of sewing”: Ibid., 195.

  352 “an outward indifference to Paris fashions”: Ibid., 225.

  352 “it will do us harm to let it get abroad”: Ibid., 194.

  352 “peanut chocolate”: Ibid., 224.

  352 “pins were the rarest of luxuries”: Ibid., 227.

  353 “God in mercy help us now!”: November 20,1864, Virginia Clay diary, 1859–66, C. C. Clay Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

  353 “No letters, no telegrams!”: December 1864, ibid.

  353 “no letter or intelligence from my husband”: December 8, 1864, ibid.

  353 “great loss of officers & men”: December 16, 1864, ibid.

  353 “Savannah has fallen!”: December 22, 1864, ibid.

  353 “homeless, husbandless, childless”: Clopton, Belle of the Fifties, 237.

  354 “the water deeply, darkly, beautifully blue”: May 18, 1865, Virginia Clay diary, 1859–66, C. C. Clay Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

  354 “land my darling at this fort”: May 20, 1865, ibid.

  354 “Mrs. Davis bore the parting remarkably well”: Raftsman’s Journal (Clearfield, Pa.),
May 31, 1865, http://www.newspapers.com.

  354 “weeping of children and the wailing of women”: Clopton, Belle of the Fifties, 262.

  354 “a regiment of Negroes in full dress!”: Ibid., 275.

  355 “rest passively under conditions so alarming”: Ibid., 289.

  355 “Some will offend you with malice”: Ibid., 299.

  355 “respectfully recommend the release of Mr. C. C. Clay”: Ibid., 317.

  355 “furnished with copies of the charges against him”: Ibid., 318.

  356 “hobnobbing with that old Abolitionist!”: Ibid., 330.

  357 “My life depends upon it”: Ibid., 337.

  357 “the President’s good offices”: Ibid., 339.

  358 “ ‘I do not fear Mr. Stanton or anyone else’ ”: Ibid., 341.

  358 “the marriage was quite private”: Norfolk Post (Norfolk, Va.), January 26, 1866, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85038624/1866-01-26/ed-1/seq-1/.

  358 “one of the finest looking and most fascinating men in the country”: Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), January 16, 1866, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1866-01-16/ed-1/seq-2/.

  359 “reported and believed in the City”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, December 30, 1862, in Wartime Washington: The Civil War Letters of Elizabeth Blair Lee, ed. Virginia Jeans Laas (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 222.

  359 “Mother’s comment was witty”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, February 21, 1863, in ibid., 261.

  359 “both granted special interviews”: Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), October 11, 1865, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1865-10-11/ed-1/seq-2/.

  359 “Was kind & I melted”: February 14, 1866 Virginia Clay diary, 1859–66, C. C. Clay Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

  360 “recommendations for her husband’s release”: “Probably Speedy Release of Clement C. Clay,” Progress Index (Petersburg, Va.,) April 18, 1866, http://www.newspapers.com.

  361 “he was not allowed to take leave of me”: Davis to Varina Howell Davis, April 21, 1866, in Jefferson Davis, Private Letters 1823–1889, ed. Hudson Strode (1966; reprint, Boston: Da Capo Press, 1995), 247.