For her (and his) eyes only: Candid correspondence between brigadier general and his young bride are donated to Virginia Tech. Their honesty still resonates

A letter exchanged by the Whartons (Virginia Tech) and a 2022 book about them

The recent donation to Virginia Tech of more than 500 letters exchanged by a Confederate general and his young wife is all the more remarkable because those she sent survived.

Civil War historian and author William C. “Jack” Davis explained why in an interview about the correspondence between Brig. Gen. Gabriel C. Wharton and Anne “Nannie” Radford Wharton from early 1863 to July 1865.

“Typically, the woman’s letters -- wife, mother, whomever -- didn’t survive because they got carried around in a soldier’s knapsack, got wet or were read or reread until they fell apart,” Davis said in 2022. “But General Wharton kept her letters, and every few months he would send them all back to her, and he told her to put them all together into a book to preserve them.”

Virginia Tech on Monday announced the donation of the letters and other 19^th century papers by Sue Heth Bell (left), a 1988 alumna and great-great-granddaughter of Wharton. She lives in Wellesley, Mass. (Virginia Tech photo)

When Gen. Wharton passed away in 1906 (Nannie died in 1890), he left the papers in steamer trunks and boxes in his Glencoe Mansion in Radford. The family sold the property in the 1980s (it is now a museum). Bell’s mother took the boxes to Florida, unaware of their contents, according to the Roanoke Times. Sue Bell located the letters in 2012.

“Buried under what seemed like a pile of forgotten papers, were over 1,000 Civil War era documents, including deeply personal letters that offer an unfiltered glimpse into history,” Bell said in a Virginia Tech article about the correspondence, much of which was stitched together.

Bell spent years going over what was inside. She and Davis collaborated on a 2022 book, “The Whartons’ War,” featuring many of the candid letters. It covers their courtship (He was 37, she 19 when they married), the course of the war, life at home, news from the front, the general’s superiors and more. Bell and Davis spoke Saturday night at Virginia Tech about the southwest Virginia couple.

One bit of correspondence must have been particularly difficult.

According to the Roanoke Times, Gabriel wrote Nannie to say her brother, Col. John Taylor Radford, had been wounded. Radford later died.

“One of the most powerful moments came on Nov. 15, 2018, when I opened a letter from Nov. 15, 1864,” Bell told Virginia Tech. “My heart stopped as I read that Nannie’s brother Johnnie had been shot -- presumed mortally but not confirmed. I forced myself to wait until the next day to learn his fate just as his family had to wait for the news. I kept reminding myself that these people had been dead for over 160 years but in that moment, their anguish felt so real. I can still feel my own emotion as I read that terrible letter.” (Virginia Tech photo of a letter)

Bell discovered signed orders of the day from Gens. Jubal Early and John C. Breckinridge, both of whom Wharton fought alongside, and documents reflecting Confederate roll calls of troops and sick calls, according to the Roanoke newspaper.

Davis, in his interview with “America’s Civil War,” said the letters collection “opens the door on southwestern Virginia itself -- on what was going on in one of those overlooked backwaters that was, in fact, vitally important to the Confederacy, in part because it was home to the only east-west railroad, and it was a major source of lead, coal, and other such essentials.” (At right, Sue Bell with Aaron Purcell of VT University Libraries)

The article was titled “A Confederate Love Affair: Was This the Most Romantic Couple of the Civil War?”

Davis describes Nannie as shrewd and direct.

“Whereas General Wharton is all about feeling. It’s like someone today who at the drop of a hat will start gushing about how he’s feeling. I’m not saying he’s not manly. He doesn’t seem hung up in the male ethic of the time. He’s willing to be very sensitive and vulnerable, and his openness with her is pretty striking,” Davis told the magazine

The officer served in Virginia and Tennessee, and his regiments included the 45^th and 51^st Virginia Infantry. As a brigade commander he fought at New Market, Cold Harbor and during Early’s raid on Washington, D.C.

After the war, Gen. Wharton was involved in mining and became instrumental in the development of a railroad line. He served in the state legislature and with Virginia Tech boards in the 1870s. The campus is in Blacksburg.

William C. "Jack" Davis and Sue H. Bell talk about the Wharton letters (Virginia Tech)

The couple’s correspondence will be cataloged by and preserved by Virginia Tech's  Special Collections and University Archives. Some of the letters will be digitized and be made available to researchers. (The Davis and Bell book includes transcriptions of much of the correspondence).

The materials also contribute to the African American history of the region, detailing the lives and experiences of enslaved individuals associated with the Wharton family, said the school.

“Unlike official records or polished memoirs, these letters were never meant for public eyes,” Bell told Virginia Tech. “The people who wrote them were simply corresponding with loved ones, sharing their thoughts, fears and daily struggles with raw honesty. Reading them 160 years later, I don’t just see history, I meet real people. And what is most striking is how much they resemble us today.”

Abraham Lincoln's crucial blockade order on Southern ports is purchased by Illinois governor and wife and donated to presidential library in Springfield

Lincoln issued this order just after Fort Sumter fell (Photo: ALPLM)

President Abraham Lincoln’s monumental order that launched the “Anaconda Plan,” a strategy intended to place a stranglehold on the Confederacy, has been purchased and donated by Illinois’ governor and first lady to a library dedicated to the 16^th president.

Just a few days after the fall of Fort Sumter in April 1861, Lincoln issued the order, which called for a naval blockade of vital Southern ports, to be imposed in conjunction with land assaults. The seven states cited in the order had seceded from the Union by that time.

The office of Gov. J.B. Pritzker made the donation announcement Tuesday. The news was first reported by the Associated Press.

Pritzker and his wife M.K., who purchased the blockade order on behalf of the people of Illinois, on Tuesday visited the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield.

The document will be available for viewing in the ALPLM Treasures Gallery beginning Wednesday and will remain on display until February 2025, when it will be transferred to the ALPLM vault for safekeeping, a news release said.

Cartoon of Anaconda Plan with caricatures (Library of Congress)

“To me, this document – and the museum as a whole – serves as a reminder of how far we’ve come,” said the governor. “Despite our divisions and challenges, more than 150 years later, our nation perseveres.” 

Steve Lansdale with Heritage Auctions confirmed to the Picket that the document was sold for $471,000 in July 2023. The document – formally entitled “Order to Affix Seal of the United States to a Proclamation of a Blockade” – had been owned by anonymous private collectors.

Lansdale says the company does not release information on buyers or sellers, and Pritzker’s office declined to provide details on the purchase or price.

Andy Hall, who has written extensively about the blockade, wrote in his Dead Confederates blog that Lincoln’s proclamation “was one of a series of actions and reactions that expanded the conflict between the national government in Washington and that of the seceded southern states. The blockade order was, most directly, a response to Jefferson Davis’ call on April 17 for privateers to obtain Confederate letters of marque to attack U.S. shipping.”

While the one-page order is now at the Lincoln library, the fuller proclamation is kept at the National Archives.

Harper's Weekly depiction of chase of a blockade runner (Library of Congress)

The blockade was meant to prevent the export of cotton from the South to foreign nations and the import of essential supplies into the Confederacy, according to Pritzker’s office.

The Lincoln document reads in full:

"I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of State to affix the Seal of the United States to a Proclamation setting on foot a Blockade of the ports of the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, dated this day and signed by me and for so doing this shall be his warrant. Abraham Lincoln, Washington, 19th April, 1861."

Dr. Ian Hunt, the ALPLM’s acquisitions director, said the order captures Lincoln at an unprecedented moment of crisis.

“A lesser president might have dithered and delayed while searching for a ‘safe’ option,” Hunt said in a statement. “President Lincoln acted boldly by ordering a blockade. This is the symbolic tip of the spear in his long struggle to save the nation and, ultimately, end slavery."

Hunt, in a library Facebook video, provided some historical background to the Lincoln order. The president's Cabinet had some reservations about the idea, including the possibility it could be construed as recognition of the Confederacy as a nation. Union Gen. Winfield Scott argued a total blockade would be needed to crush the rebellion. 

The blockade required monitoring 3,500 miles of Atlantic and Gulf coastline with180 possible ports of entry, according to the library. “The United States had about 40 working ships at the time. By war’s end, it had 671. The Navy destroyed or captured about 1,500 Southern blockade runners over the course of the war.”

Hunt said the addition of the document to the library is "phenomenal."

In wartime and as president, Grant turned to his wife, Julia, for strength. She wore this opera cloak during celebrated world tour

Julia Grant's opera cloak (Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library)

A couple years back, mostly while commuting to work by train, I read a fascinating book, “Lincoln’s Generals’ Wives: Four Women Who Influenced the Civil War -- for Better and for Worse.” It focused on Julia Grant, Ellen Sherman, Jessie Fremont and Nelly McClellan.

Author Candice Shy Hooper described Jessie and Nelly as feeding their husbands’ delusions, egos and arrogance; she provided much more laudable descriptions of the other spouses:

Grants during the Civil War

“While Ellen Sherman’s and Julia Grant’s belief in their husbands’ character and potential was ardent, it was not unbounded,” reads a book summary on Amazon. “Ellen and Julia did not hesitate to take issue with their spouses when they believed their actions were wrong or their judgments ill-advised. They intelligently supported their husbands’ best instincts -- including trust in and admiration for Lincoln -- and rebuffed their worst. They were the source of strength that Sherman and Grant used to win the Civil War.”

The book made quite clear Julia Grant’s impact on Ulysses S. Grant during the Civil War and his presidency, and it’s known that they were ardently devoted to each other. In May 1877, shortly after their two terms in the White House ended, the couple – weary of the stress of leadership -- embarked on a nearly three-year, heralded world tour. Their itinerary took them to Paris on three occasions and they spent a month there during one stop.

Among their social events was a trip to the opening of the opera house in the French capital. Julia in November 1877 purchased a black, beaded silk evening wrap for the occasion. She bought a second version as a wedding present for a family friend, Fannie Drexel.

The 37-inch-long restored cloak, created by renowned French designer Emile Pingat, is on display through December 2020 at Mississippi State University’s Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library museum in Starkville.

Restored neck band with designer label (Grant Presidential Library)

According to the university, the opera cloak, containing six panels of bead work, was restored earlier this year by New Orleans conservator Jessica Hack.

“Hack vacuumed the 140-year-old cloak with a low-suction, HEPA-filtered cleaner and hand dry-cleaned the piece with mineral spirits. She also clipped and trimmed loose and broken threads, restrung broken bead strands, stabilized the neckband with a crepe-line silk overlay, dyed china silk to blend with the color of the shredded band, and heat fused the crepe line and neckband together.”

Hack told the Picket the cloak “was in very good condition” and sturdy. But the interior neck lining had deterioration and threads used to string the beads were in poor condition.

“I put all those beads on, the sheer act of handling the coat, broke more threads,” she said. “If you replace strands of beads and the strand next to it is also rotted, it is going to break.”

Hack estimated she replaced 10%-15% of the threads in the garment. “When you are stringing bead by bead and more are falling off it is sort of a never-ending task.” She also put in a new lining.

Loose and broken threads were clipped and trimmed

Julia Dent Grant enjoyed being part of the social scene, according to histories, and enjoyed opera. Ulysses, well, not so much.

Mrs. Grant apparently went on a shopping spree in Paris, including a visit or two to the House of Worth.

“I had a splendid time shopping. Mr. Worth personally directed the fitting of my costumes, and Madam Virot attended me in person for any millinery I wished, and there were no small attentions, I assure you,” she said.

Julia Grant was cross-eyed and preferred profile images (Library of Congress)

Throughout the world tour, Ulysses was hailed as a hero more for his military accomplishments than his presidency.

The Grants settled in New York City after the tour ended in late 1879. They lost nearly all their money in an investment scheme and the president wrote his classic memoirs shortly before he died in 1885 in order to procure his family some security.

In the late 1890s, Julia gave the cloak to a young woman who was attending Corcoran Art School in Washington, D.C. and stayed at her home. The recipient’s grandson donated the garment to the Ulysses S. Grant Association in the 1970s.

Julia, born to a slave-owning family, traveled with her husband throughout his Civil War campaigns and was an indefatigable champion of his work and legacy. She died in 1902.

The Grants with son Jesse on vacation (Library of Congress)

“Although a typical woman of her era in some respects, she was extraordinary in many other ways,” the National Park Service says. “She had great strength of character, shared in the mixed fortunes of her husband Ulysses S. Grant, and promoted his welfare, loved and cared for her family, and fulfilled her patriotic duty as First Lady. “

Her own memoirs weren’t published until 1975.

Writing of her “Ulys,” Julia concluded: “For nearly thirty-seven years, I, his wife, rested and was warmed in the sunlight of his loyal love and great fame, and now, even though his beautiful life has gone out, it is as when some far-off planet disappears from the heavens; the light of his glorious fame still reaches out to me, falls upon me, and warms me.”

Civil War veteran to be interred

On Friday, Moberly, Mo., residents will have the rare opportunity to attend the funeral of a Civil War soldier. The remains of Private John W. Kling, a Union Army Civil War veteran, and his wife, Elizabeth, unclaimed since her death in 1923, will be interred at the Missouri Veterans Cemetery. • Article