A military genius : $b Life of Anna Ella Carroll of MarylandBlackwell, Sarah Ellen
History
A military genius : $b Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland
Blackwell, Sarah Ellen
Carroll, Anna Ella, 1815-1894; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865
However, she made the best possible use of such education as a
ladylike school permitted, was noted for her intelligence, and made
many friends; but her true education began and continued with Governor
Carroll at home.
Miss Carroll had early shown an intense interest in moral and
religious questions, following her father's views on these subjects.
She became interested in the ministrations of Dr. Robert J.
Breckenridge, of Kentucky, then settled over a Presbyterian church in
Baltimore.
Dr. Breckenridge was the uncle of John C. Breckenridge, afterward one
of the leading secessionists, utterly opposed to his uncle in
political views, and one of the candidates for the Presidency in 1860.
Dr. Robert J. Breckenridge was a valued friend of Governor Carroll.
Miss Anna Ella became a communicant and earnest member of his church,
and a mutual friendship arose, terminated only by the death of the
aged minister, who has left on record his high appreciation of the
mental abilities and the great services afterward rendered by his
remarkable parishioner.
We will give in part two letters from this excellent man to Miss
Carroll, written from Kentucky in after years. For want of space we
must greatly shorten them.
DANVILLE, Ky., _December 6, 1864_.
My Excellent Friend:
It is very seldom I have read a letter with more gratification
than yours of November 29th. How kind it is of you, after so many
events, to remember me; and how many people and events and trials
and enjoyments, connected with years of labor, rush through my
heart and my brain as you recall Maryland and Baltimore so
freshly and suddenly to me; and how noble is the picture of a
fine life, well spent, which the modest detail of some of your
efforts realizes to me. It is no extravagance, not even a trace
of romance; it is a true enjoyment, and deeply affecting, too,
that you give me in what you recount and what is recalled
thereby. For what is there in our advanced life more worthy of
thankfulness to God than that our former years were such that if
we remember them with tears they are tears of which we need not
be ashamed. My life during the almost twenty years since I left
Maryland has been, as the preceding period had all been, a scene
of unremitting effort in very many ways; and now, if the force of
invincible habit permitted me to live otherwise, I should hardly
escape by any other means a solitary if not a desolate old age.
Solitary, because of a numerous family all, except one young
son, are either in the great battle of life or in their graves.
Desolate, because the terrible curse which marks our times and
desolates our country has divided my house, like thousands of
others, and my children literally fight in opposite armies and my
kindred and friends die by each other's hands. There is no
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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