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Capital Dames

Page 45

by Cokie Roberts


  108 “to defend their capital and your own”: Anna Ella Carroll to Thomas H. Hicks, April 21, 1861, in Janet L. Coryell, Neither Heroine nor Fool: Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1990), 52.

  108 “The rumor of invasion and battle was startling”: Green, April 25, 1861, “1861 Diary,” 24.

  109 “God alone knows”: Ibid., April 25, 1861, 25.

  109 “will astound and appall the South”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to John Rodgers Meigs, May 2, 1861, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

  109 Mrs. Lincoln’s Zouaves: Adam Goodheart, 1861: The Civil War Awakening (New York: Knopf, 2011), 275.

  110 “disgraced with Lincoln’s low soldiery”: 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), 151.

  110 “like one grand water closet”: Thomas Walter to Amanda Walter, quoted in Guy Gugliotta, “1861, The U.S. Capitol at War,” Capitol Dome 49, no. 1 (Winter 2012): 19.

  110 “which often precedes the storm”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Minerva Rodgers, April 28, 1861, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

  110 “the common sense of silence”: Green, April 29, 1861, “1861 Diary,” 26.

  111 “impelled them to this sacrifice”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to John Rodgers Meigs, May 2, 1861, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

  111 four hundred left to take positions: Ernest B. Furgurson, Freedom Rising: Washington in the Civil War (New York: Vintage, 2005), 114.

  111 “Troops are still pouring in”: Green, May 7, 1861, “1861 Diary,” 29.

  111 “receiving fourteen hundred and fifteen soldiers”: Ibid, May 6, 1861, 28.

  111 “Virginia troops had attacked Washington”: S. A. Douglas Jr. to Adele Cutts Douglas, May 8, 1861, Box 46, Folder 8, Stephen A. Douglas Papers 1764–1908, Special Collection Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

  112 “the fanatical Mrs. Lee”: Clopton, Belle of the Fifties, 152.

  112 “a very nice set of teeth”: Green, May 22, 1861, “1861 Diary,” 33.

  112 “an attack on Alexandria is expected”: Lomax, May 1, 1861, Leaves, 152.

  112 “we would be in no danger”: Ibid., April 23 1861, 151.

  113 “kill my own people”: Ibid., May 7, 1861, 152–53.

  113 “the outcome of this frightful war”: Ibid., May 11, 1861, 153.

  113 “with a sad heart”: Ibid., May 12, 1861, 154.

  113 “the clang of their weapons”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Minerva Rodgers, May 26, 1861, Rodgers Family Papers, Naval Historical Foundation Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

  114 “his horse covered with a black pall”: Green, May 26, 1861, “1861 Diary,” 34.

  114 “The Zouaves followed the hearse”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Minerva Rodgers, May 26, 1861, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

  115 “All a false alarm”: Green, May 26, 1861, “1861 Diary,” 34.

  115 “but what a changed scene”: Ibid., June 2, 1861, 35.

  115 “be illy spared by the nation”: “Death of Stephen A. Douglas,” New York Times, June 4, 1861, http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1861/06/04/issue.html.

  115 “extremely jealous of her superior attractions”: Keckley, Behind the Scenes, 74.

  116 “the cold shoulder in the City”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, July 14, 1861, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 61.

  116 “the good taste of Mrs. Lincoln”: Washington Star, quoted in “Downstairs at The White House: State Dining Room,” Mr. Lincoln’s White House, accessed December 14, 2014, http://www.mrlincolnswhitehouse.org/inside.asp?ID=75&subjectID=3.

  116 “will take any part in this war”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, June 1, 1861, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 40.

  117 “our horses are fast”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, June 4, 1861, ibid., 43.

  117 “I wish her no ill”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, June 11, 1861, ibid., 47.

  117 “serious consequences might have ensued”: National Republican, June 26, 1861, p. 2, http://www.newspapers.com.

  118 “one universal grumble”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, June 25, 1861, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 51.

  118 “pouring in to the city”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, July 3, 1861, Ibid., 57.

  118 “some good result”: Green, June 20, 1861, “1861 Diary,” 39.

  118 “far exceeding in splendor”: National Republican, July 3, 1861, 3, http://www.newspapers.com.

  119 “but I held my tongue”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, July 17, 1861, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 63.

  119 “its perusal by the people”: Sarah Ellen Blackwell, A Military Genius: Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland (Washington, DC: Judd & Detweiler, 1891), e-book, 54.

  119 “Overwhelming forces”: Green, July 16, 1861, “1861 Diary,” 43.

  120 “All sorts of barbarous acts”: Ibid., July 17, 1861, 44.

  120 “the roar in my ears”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, July 21, 1861, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 65.

  120 “I still cling to the idea”: Green, July 12, 1861, “1861 Diary,” 45.

  120 “rocking our boy to sleep”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, July 21, 1861, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 65.

  121 “the army is completely routed”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Minerva Rodgers, July 28, 1861, quoted in Furgurson, Freedom Rising, 121.

  121 “tales of carnage and bloodshed”: Green, July 22, 1861, “1861 Diary,” 45.

  121 “the southern victory”: Ibid., July 23, 1861, 46.

  121 “our boasted free country”: Ibid., June 27, 1861, 41.

  121 “A tradition only”: Rose O’Neal Greenhow, My Imprisonment and the First Year of Abolition Rule at Washington (1863; reprint, Whitefish, MT: Kessinger, 2010), 15.

  122 “via Fairfax Court House and Centerville”: Rose Greenhow quoted in Ishbel Ross, First Lady of the South: The Life of Mrs. Jefferson Davis (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958), 100.

  123 “we are ready for them”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 5.

  123 “well-informed person”: “Condition of Affairs at Manassas; Reports of a Returned Prisoner,” New York Times, August 3, 1861, http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1861/08/03/issue.html.

  123 “The Confederacy owes you a debt”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 6.

  123 “pell-mell into the Potomac”: Ibid., 6.

  123 “a general massacre”: Ibid., 8.

  124 “conscious of the great service”: Ibid.

  124 “clear of all secessionists”: Florence Greenhow Moore to Rose O’Neale Greenhow, July 23, 1861, in Ann Blackman, Wild Rose: Rose O’Neale Greenhow, Civil War Spy, A True Story (New York: Random House, 2005), 35.

  124 “The alarm-guns of the Yankees”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 12.

  125 “shoot her at sunrise”: Bayne, Tad Lincoln’s Father, 60.

  125 “until evidence was shown”: “The Great Rebellion: Important News from the National Capital,” New York Times, August 26, 1861, http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1861/08/26/issue.html.

  125 “ ‘Mother has been arrested’ ”: Bayne, Tad Lincoln’s Father, 62.

  126 “The Sixteenth-street gaol”: “Political Prison for Ladies in Washington,” Freeman’s Journal, Dublin, Ireland, February 19, 1862, http://www.newspapers.com.

  126 “a detective stood sentinel”: “What Mrs. Greenhow Says of Her Imprisonment,” McArthur Democrat, Vinton County, Ohio, January 9, 1862, http://www.newspapers.com.

  126 “a note informing the lady”: “The Immense Armament Secured by the Government,” New York Times, December 31, 1861, http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1861/12/31/issue.html.

  1
26 “a quart of wine a day”: “Items from Washington,” Cleveland Morning Reader, January 8, 1862, http://www.newspapers.com.

  127 “the old Capitol prison”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 8.

  127 “steamed all night”: Green, July 23, 1861, “1861 Diary,” 46.

  127 “completely demoralized”: Ibid., July 25, 1861, 47.

  128 “McDowell and Tyler were drunk”: Ibid., July 26, 1861, 47.

  128 “great exertions to reorganize the Army”: Ibid., July 31, 1861, 48.

  128 “the opinion of everybody”: Francis Preston Blair to Elizabeth Blair Lee, August 4, 1861, Blair and Lee Family Papers; 1764–1946 (mostly 1840–1920), Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

  128 “even ‘around Silver Spring vicinity’ ”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, August 14, 1861, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 71.

  128 ducking bullets: Green, August 3, 1861, “1861 Diary,” 49.

  128 “fifteen thousand troops about Tennallytown”: Ibid., August 14, 1861, 52.

  129 “Southerners were confidently expected”: Ibid., August 15, 1861, 52.

  129 “I looked at the shot hole”: Ibid., August 16, 1861, 53.

  129 “every particle of poultry gone”: Ibid.

  129 “All our peaches”: Ibid., August 4, 1861, 49.

  129 “finished on the fruit”: Ibid., September 1, 1861, 57.

  129 “dear little boy”: Ibid., August 6, 1861, 50.

  129 “enjoy my other grandchildren”: Ibid., September 22, 1861, 63.

  130 “separation with all its restrictions”: Ibid., September 13, 1861, 61.

  130 “About the war we know nothing”: Ibid., September 17, 1861, 62.

  130 “they will never do it”: Francis Preston Blair to Elizabeth Blair Lee, August 21, 1861, Blair and Lee Family Papers; 1764–1946 (mostly 1840–1920), Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

  130 “slept on their arms”: Elizabeth Blair Lee to Francis Preston Blair, August 30, 1861, ibid.

  130 “this wicked conspiracy”: Elizabeth Blair Lee to Francis Preston Blair, September 7, 1861, Ibid.

  131 “no matter what danger”: Varina Howell Davis to Margaret Howell, June 1861, in Jefferson Davis: Private Letters 1823–1889, ed. Hudson Strode (1966; reprint, Boston: Da Capo Press, 1995), 124.

  131 “devotedly in love with him”: Elizabeth Blair Lee to Francis Preston Blair, September 7, 1861, Blair and Lee Family Papers; 1764–1946 (mostly 1840–1920), Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

  131 “old Jeff is still alive”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, September 12, 1861, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 77.

  131 “lukewarm hands heads & hearts”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, August 19, 1861, ibid., 72n.

  133 “I have begged Mr. Fremont”: Frémont to Elizabeth Blair Lee, July 27, 1861, in The Letters of Jessie Frémont, ed. Pamela Herr and Mary Lee Spence (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 255.

  133 “miracles on the Mississippi”: Frémont to Montgomery Blair, July 28, 1861, ibid., 257–58.

  133 “begging and bullying”: Frémont to Montgomery Blair, August 5, 1861, ibid., 260.

  133 “the absolute want of arms”: Frémont to Abraham Lincoln, August 5, 1861, ibid., 262.

  133 “I am mistaken in the men”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, August 20, 1861, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 74.

  134 “only infer from signs”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, September 12, 1861, ibid., 77.

  135 “suits the President’s convenience”: Frémont to Abraham Lincoln, September 10, 1861, in Herr and Spence, eds., Letters, 264.

  135 “ ‘A. Lincoln. Now’ ”: Jessie Benton Frémont and F. P. Frémont, Great Events During the Life of Major General John C. Fremont . . . and of Jessie Benton Fremont, unpublished manuscript, 1891, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, quoted in Herr and Spence, eds., Letters, 265.

  135 “an audience with me at midnight”: John George Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln, A History, vol. 4 (New York: Century, 1909), Google e-book, 414–15.

  136 “tomorrow or the day after”: Frémont and Frémont, Great Events, quoted in Herr and Spence, eds., Letters, 265–66.

  136 “a lady who has lost her temper”: Catherine Coffin Phillips, Jessie Benton Frémont: A Woman Who Made History (San Francisco: John Henry Nash, 1935), quoted in Pamela Herr, Jessie Benton Frémont: American Woman of the 19th Century (New York: Franklin Watts, 1987), 339.

  136 “not fit for a woman”: Frémont and Frémont, Great Events, quoted in Herr and Spence, eds., Letters, 267.

  137 “a very high look”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, September 17, 1861, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 79.

  137 “made that investigation necessary”: Frémont to Abraham Lincoln, September 12, 1861, in Herr and Spence, eds., Letters, 270.

  137 “any hostility towards him”: Abraham Lincoln to Frémont, September 12, 1861, in ibid., 271n.

  137 “Mrs. Fremont left there”: “Rumor That Gen. Fremont Is to Be Superseded,” New York Times, September 14, 1861, http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1861/09/14/issue.html.

  138 “pride precedes a fall”: Elizabeth Blair Lee to Francis Preston Blair, September 18, 1861, Blair and Lee Family Papers; 1764–1946 (mostly 1840–1920), Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

  138 “the General and his Body Guard”: “The Preparation in Missouri,” New York Times, October 3, 1861, http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1861/10/03/issue.html.

  138 “his attention to that lady”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Montgomery C. Meigs, October 4, 1861, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

  138 “travels with a grand cuisine”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, October 16, 1861, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 86.

  139 “Father was most incautious”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, October 7, 1861, ibid., 83.

  139 “She is perfectly unscrupulous”: Montgomery Blair to W. O. Bartlett, September 26, 1861, Blair and Lee Family Papers; 1764–1946 (mostly 1840–1920), Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library, quoted in Herr, American Woman, 342.

  139 “his groveling nature”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, October 14, 1861, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 85.

  139 “He is too prejudiced against me”: Frémont to Ward Lamon, October 26, 1861, in Herr and Spence, eds., Letters, 283.

  139 “good brain & bad heart”: Frémont to Dorothea Dix, late October 1861, ibid., 285–86.

  140 “this tenderness toward slavery”: Frémont to Thomas Starr King, December 29, 1861, ibid., 304.

  140 “actually owning slaves”: Bayne, Tad Lincoln’s Father, 6.

  142 “the General has decided”: “General Butler and the Contraband of War,” New York Times, June 2, 1861, http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1861/06/02/issue.html.

  142 “beginning of a battle”: Montgomery C. Meigs to Louisa Rodgers Meigs, October 5, 1861, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

  142 “keeps me very anxious”: Green, October 6, 1861, “1861 Diary,” 67.

  143 “disburse special supplies”: Penny Colman, Breaking the Chains: The Crusade of Dorothea Lynde Dix (Lincoln, NE: ASJA Press, 1992, 2007), e-book, 1312.

  144 “she wore men’s clothes”: Bayne, Tad Lincoln’s Father, 72.

  144 “male surgeons may take the credit”: Coleman, Breaking the Chains, 1377.

  145 “the whole benevolence of women”: Katherine Wormeley, The United States Sanitary Commission: A Sketch of Its Purposes and Work (Boston: Little, Brown, 1863), 3.

  146 “mere formalists, idlers, and evildoers”: Gollaher, Voice for the Mad, 415.

  146 “fallen in the fight”: Julia Ward
Howe, Reminiscences, 1819–1899 (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1899), Kindle e-book, loc. 2607.

  146 “ ‘most things that I have written’ ”: Ibid., locs. 2635–51.

  147 “he meant well”: Ibid., loc. 2621.

  147 “The character of the war”: Green, November 16, 1861, “1861 Diary,” 74.

  148 “secured a tutor for the boys”: Bayne, Tad Lincoln’s Father, 65.

  148 “in and out of the White House”: Ibid., 66.

  148 “what she wanted she wanted when she wanted it”: Ibid., 20.

  148 “No lady of the White House”: “Press Hounding Mrs. Lincoln,” Chicago Tribune, August 31, 1861, quoted in Catherine Clinton, Mrs. Lincoln: A Life (New York: Harper Perennial, 2010), 151.

  149 “ ‘Lady President’ ”: Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 385.

  150 “gave that paper an advantage”: Harold Holzer, Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014), 369–72, and Clinton, Mrs. Lincoln, 154.

  150 “climate congenial to them”: Furgurson, Freedom Rising, 149.

  151 “Now Fortune turn thy wheel”: Frémont to Thomas Starr King, Herr and Spence, eds., Letters, 305.

  151 “I cannot help feeling sorry”: Louisa Rodgers Meigs to Montgomery C. Meigs, November 21, 1861, Montgomery C. Meigs Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

  151 “back down flat”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, December 23, 1861, in Laas, ed., Wartime Washington, 93.

  152 “an explosive condition”: Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee, December 30, 1861, ibid., 94.

  CHAPTER 5: ROSE IS RELEASED, CLARA GOES TO WAR, LOUISA MAY BRIEFLY NURSES

  153 “state of crude incompleteness”: 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), 67–68.

  153 “the nation’s neglect and shame”: Ibid., 70.

  154 “money will ever again be subscribed”: Anthony Trollope, North America, vol. 2 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1862), Project Gutenberg e-book, locs. 230–245.

  154 “more given to enjoy hospitality”: Ibid., locs. 385–99.

 

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