Surfing American history through Great Grandpa. My ancestors were packrats–they saved every letter, bill, and anything that came on paper. (That was long before the paperless revolution.) I admit that,
much to my wife’s and my chagrin, I have inherited that habit.

My paternal great grandfather was a surgeon; I know nothing about where he received his medical training–I only know that he was born in eastern North Carolina in 1819. But I have some interesting letters from him that bear on American history (actually, war history).

The Mexican War

This letter is my favorite. It was written to his fiancée, later my great grandmother (you expected that, didn’t you?). It is headed “October 1st 1846 U.S. Frigate Potomac Off Pensacola Navy Yard” His handwriting was in immaculate Spencerian style, with all the flourishes. These are my favorite passages:

This moment I have heard that you have been watching with anxious solicitude over the bed of a sick mother...What is more dear than a kind and devoted mother. It is she who has anxiously, tenderly, affectionately guarded and watched over us during our helpless moments. I venerate the name of mother.

And there is much more in this vein. I can’t imagine a 27-year-old man writing such schmalz today. But the interesting part is his commentary on the Mexican War.

We shall be leaving on the tenth of this month for Vera Cruz...The last rumor from the department is that the war is to be prosecuted with renewed vigor by sea and by land, that the overture of peace byour government has been indignantly rejected. From all I can learn I can see but little prospects of peace for some time to come.

A man by the name of Samuel Jackson, seaman on board of the St. Mary’s has been sentenced to death by a Court Martial recently held upon the charges preferred against him for mutiny. The Commodore has approved the sentence, and the day has been appointed for carrying it into effect. An example of the kind becomes sometimes an act of humanity. If he be let off a dozen ultimately may have to suffer his sentence carried into effect. It is possible the Commodore may reprieve him. If he does it will be a death blow to the discipline of the Squadron.

The frigates Potomac, St. Mary’s, and a third one, the name of which I don’t have at hand, were a squadron of three which went together. The St. Mary’s, according to some information I came across some time ago, was involved in the battle against the Barbary pirates off the coast of Tripoli.

The charge of mutiny is interesting because Herman Wouk, in his preface to The Caine Mutiny Trial said that no one had been convicted (or executed, I don’t recall which) for mutiny in the U.S. Navy. Maybe this Jackson was spared execution, or maybe he was executed under some other charge.

There are some more personal bits of interest:

Our sick list has greatly diminished. We are getting rid of the scurvy very fast. A few weeks more will free us entirely of it...In addition to an extraordinary heavy sick list on board ship, we have 40 odd cases of (yellow) fever to attend to in the Navy Yard.

A very amusing little circumstance occurred some time ago in Pensacola among two of my friends and myself and the postmaster. We walked up to the office to deposit our letters. I waited until they had got through, and then handed my letters to the P.Master, one of which I desired him to pay the postage of (handing it to him separately with the money). He took up his pen to mark it, and commenced repeating the name, asking if that was the one. I immediately stopped him (but of course coloured (sic) up) by telling him it was addressed to a lady. The P.M. in a moment perceived his error and desisted from the balance of the name...my friends enjoyed it as a capital joke.

A "capital joke" to be sending a letter to a lady, about which he coloured up. Indeed! Two points of interest: One, the postmaster wrote on the envelope the postage paid, which was because that was in the days before postage stamps were in widespread use. We have a number of letters, dating back to 1836, with the postage handwritten on the letter folded over and sealed. The second, the British spelling “coloured,” which leads to the question of when Americans dropped the “u”.

We shall probably be absent from this place for about 4 months...I hope to obtain leave from the Department to return home to my examination...This examination is to ascertain whether the assistant surgeon is qualified for promotion to surgeon...After passing, the salary is raised from $1028 to $1273 a year.

The Civil War

When North Carolina seceded, Great Grandpa joined the Confederate army as a surgeon. (I don’t know whether he stayed in the U.S. Navy up until then, or whether he went back to civilian life at some time during that interval). By then he had become a widower with three young children (two sons and a daughter) who were cared for by relatives during his military service. We have several letters written to his daughter (my paternal grandmother) from the field of battle. The following is headed “Richmond June 6th 1864" (His handwriting is nothing like the fancy one of 1846–it is very ordinary.)

I have been worked down and there is no end of it–I have never seen so many wounded men together as I have seen in the Yankee Hospital–800 or more all desperately wounded. My hands have been in dreadful condition from wounds received in operating on them.

I don’t know how he became involved with the “Yankee Hospital.” But a later letter, headed “Chaffins Bluff August 17th, 1864" he describes his current situation:

The Yanks are very near here, have been fighting for two days–shot and shell flying all in sight of my hospital. It is possible I shall have to move out of the building tomorrow.

I eventually found out where Chaffins Bluff was. Oddly enough, I found it on a map sent to me by a British business colleague (now deceased) who, for some reason, was a buff of the American Civil War. It is maybe 20 miles southeast of Richmond on a bluff overlooking the James River. I went there one summer and found it remote and mosquito-ridden.

What an admirable man Great Grandpa must have been: not only had he lost his wife (to whom he had so endearingly written in his 1846 letter quoted from above) and had three young children to care for, but even, while he was caring for the war casualties, with “shot and shell flying all in sight of my hospital,” he managed to be interested in things back home. In other letters to his daughter he inquired about family friends.

Especially interesting is his counsel to his daughter about joining the Episcopal church. He refers in a letter to her from Chaffins Bluff, dated December 16, 1864, to one that he had recently received from her in which she had expressed an interest in joining that church (she was 13 at the time).

Are you satisfied that you have been changed in heart? That through the blood (illegible) of Jesus Christ your sins have been pardoned and you made his heir?...I cannot find it in my nature to forbid it. I do hope, my dear child, that you will endeavor to be certain as to the nature of the case.

And there is a lot more in the letter on the subject. Remarkably, here he is, in a war-torn place where he has had to operate on severely wounded men, many of whom died, and has himself lived in miserable conditions, but yet can give this much of himself to the matter of his thirteen-year-old daughter joining a church.

I don’t have any later information on him, except that he died in 1892 at age 73 (a considerable age to achieve at that time, especially by one who was in two wars). He is buried in a family graveyard near the small town of South Mills in eastern North Carolina.

...and through Great Grandma. My paternal great grandmother, who was the recipient of Great Grandpa’s 1846 letter quoted from above and, later, his wife, also contributed in her letters to our historic past. In 1840, at age 16, she was a student at Miss English’s school for girls in Georgetown D.C (evidently the city of Washington had not yet annexed Georgetown). On November 10, 1840 she wrote a letter to her sister back home in eastern North Carolina. As in the case of Great Grandpa’s 1846 letter to her, there was no postage stamp on it–rather, it been sealed with sealing wax and someone at the post office had handwritten the postage (“18 3/4") on it and placed a large postmark (“GEORGETOWN DC NOV 10") on it.

Here are some of Great Grandma’s comments:

We are great politicians here. We search all the papers to ascertain the result of the elections. Yesterday we heard that the Whigs had New York and Pennsylvania, and today that Old Tip was elected. One of the girls when they heard of it said she was badly defeated and the cause of her distress was her father told her if Van was elected he would give her a party and a fine dress.

The poor girl who didn’t get her party or the “fine dress” had yet another misfortune:

...and she also got two censures for her politicks. Miss Wright gives them to us and deprives us of our recesses. She says we are too much excited, and will be glad when it is all over.

Miss Wright would probably have apoplexy if she were at a girls’ school today. Could those girls of 1840, who were “too excited,” have even imagined what it would be like–about 80 years later–to be able to vote themselves?

While Harrison and Tyler won New York by a substantial margin: 225,945 to 212,743, 51.2% of the vote, they took Pennsylvania by a whisker: 144,023 to 143,784, an even 50.0%. (Source: History of American Presidential Elections–1789-2001 vol II. p. 690 Edited by Arthur M Schlesinger, Jr. and
Fred L. Israel, Chelsea House Publishers, Philadelphia, 2002)

Harrison served the shortest period of time of any elected president to date. He was inaugurated on March 4, 1841 and died precisely one month later on April 4th. The historian Samuel Eliot Morison wrote (in his The Oxford History of the American People) that Harrison gave a one-hour-forty-minute inaugural address in bitter cold weather, without a hat or overcoat, as a result of which he caught a bad cold that developed into pneumonia and brought about his quick demise.

I sense a strange feeling reading over the words of my ancestors as they were living and being involved in these historic events. The letters referred to above are just a few of our old family letters; we have many more from other ancestors dating back as far as 1836.