Lincoln’S Loyal Lady: Anna Ella Carroll, a Brief

By C. Kay Larson

Lincolns Loyal Lady: Anna Ella Carroll, a Brief

The story of Abraham Lincolns female kitchen cabinet member?a formidable, trailblazing woman?is a tale some dont want to be told.
Anna Ella Carroll broke all the rules for a woman of the Civil War era. A politician, pamphleteer, adviser to President Lincoln, and military secret agent, Carroll operated in the highest political and government circles for more than a quarter of a century.
Washington, DC, the White House, May 12, 1862
I will tell you what Mr. Lincoln said of you last night. Miss Anna Ella Carroll is the head of the Carroll race, and when the history of this war is written, she will stand a good bit taller than ever old Charles [Carroll] did.
Rep. William Mitchell (R-Ind.), 13 May 1862

The Hon. Benjamin F. Wade, former chairman, Committee on the Conduct of the War, May 10, 1876, House Misc. Doc. 58, May 18, 1878, p. 24:
In the very last interview with Mr. Stanton, just before his death, he referred to your [Carrolls] services . . . in the strongest terms he could express, and . . . stated that if his life should be spared, he would discharge the great duty of seeing your services to the country properly recognized and rewarded. Your claim is righteous and just, if ever there was one and, for the honor of my country, I trust and hope that you will be suitably rewarded, and so declared before the world.

Lucinda B. Chandler, Anna Ella Carroll: The Great Unrecognized Military Genius of the War of Rebellion, Godeys Magazine, 1896

Can we afford to leave in the archive of our history only this record of ineffable meanness and ingratitude?
Kay Larsons insightful account of the contributions made to our nation by Anna Ella Carroll redresses a major inequity in the historiography of nineteenth-century America.
Col. James S. Wheeler, professor of history retired, US Military Academy, West Point, New York

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 26, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499080353

C. Kay Larson

In Civil War author C. Kay Larson´s new work of fiction, South Under a Prairie Sky: The Journal of Nell Churchill, U.S. Army Nurse & Scout, our teenaged heroine grows up in Monmouth, Illinois in the antebellum era. Nell begins her journal entries in 1856, as unrest breaks out in Kansas over the slavery issue. Her relatives flee the state and take refuge at the Churchill farm home, finally settling in Monmouth. In real life, Nell Churchill was Larson’s great-great grandmother’s niece who was born in nearby Biggsville, ca. 1896. In this work she is moved back in time to the Civil War era and transformed into a composite fictional character. Monmouth was taken as Nell’s hometown as Larson’s aunt’s family, the Winebrights, resided there until the 1990s. George A. Winebright enlisted in the 83rd Illinois Infantry Regiment as a young German immigrant. As an independent scholar and a Civil War buff since childhood, for the last twenty years, Larson has been researching and writing on women’s military history. Her previous publications have included articles on the women Civil War soldiers and Great Necessities: The Life, Times, and Writings of Anna Ella Carroll, 1815-1894, on Lincoln’s political/legal advisor. Her Civil War website is titled: “Springing to the Call: A Documenatary View of Women in the American Civil War.” The idea for Nell’s journal resulted from the posting of the website. Larson realized that if she made a composite character of the women described, she would have a very good storyline for a fictional work. After graduating from high school, Nell attends Knox College in Galesburg, one of the first open to women. She becomes involved in the political questions of the day and follows the 1858 senate and the 1860 presidential campaigns in which Abraham Lincoln is a candidate. Her family also aids in the running of underground railroad stations for fugitive slaves. Family tradition has it that the Winebright farm was part of the network of stations in the area. Nell’s brother and cousins attend Monmouth College. Uncle Sylvester Churchill is the town doctor. He is taken after Larson’s ancestor who was a doctor in nearby Kirkwood in the 1870s. Shortly after the Civil War breaks out in 1861, Nell’s brother and cousin enlist, as later do their brothers-in-law. Nell and Sylvester join medical teams in Tennessee after the battle of Shiloh. She becomes the protege of the legendary Sanitary Commission agent, Mary "Mother" Bickerdyke of Galesburg, Illinois, who is presented as herself in the book. In the fall of 1862, Nell is enrolled as an army scout by Gen. William S. Rosecrans, commander, Army of the Cumberland. She completes two important undercover missions into Confederate lines. Nell also finds romance, falling in love with a dashing Swedish-American cavalry officer from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Although a fictional account, virtually every incident in the book is fact-based. Featured town, county, college, and political events have been taken from private papers, local documents, histories, and newspapers. Nurse memoirs were culled for facts and poignant stories. Scout accounts are largely based on the exploits of Pauline Cushman, U.S. scout for the Army of the Cumberland, and Pinkerton Detective Hattie Lawton, as well as accounts of female scouts noted in the official war records. Larson affords a wide view of the Midwest, also incorporating scenes from her home state of Wisconsin, as well as Chicago and St. Louis. All sources are referenced in the Underbook that adds facts and commentary. The facts of the military deaths of two Larson relatives, David Salter and John Shook, are featured in the work. Wyatt Earp and John Wayne’s ancestors, all of whom lived in Monmouth, add color. SEE WHAT READERS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT: SOUTH UNDER A PRAIRIE SKY South Under a Prairie Sky is a captivating blend o

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Copyright © 2014 by C. Kay Larson.

Cover design: by C. Kay Larson with Andrew Todd; Anna Ella Carroll (1815-1894). Artist: S. B. Peabody, 1891. Gift of Nellie Calvert Carroll. Item ID Number: 1961.103. Collection: Museum Department. Courtesy: Maryland Historical Society.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2014918062

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-4990-8034-6

                Softcover      978-1-4990-8036-0

                eBook            978-1-4990-8035-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 12/11/2014

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Contents

Introduction

Chapter I:    A Proper Patrician Political Lady

Chapter II:    On the President’s War Powers

and Emancipation

Chapter III:    The Tennessee River Campaign

Chapter IV:    The Story of Anna Ella Carroll’s Story,

1861–to the Present

Exhibits

Appendices

Appendix A: Military Writings

The Tennesse River Campaign Plan (Full Text)

By Anna Ella Carroll, 30 November 1861

The Vicksburg Campaign

Appendix B: The Constitutional Power Of The President To Suspend The Writ Of Habeas Corpus Examined

Appendix C: 1881: Gen. E. S. Bragg’s House Report 386, 46Th Congress, 3Rd Session

About The Author

List of Illustration

Anna Ella Carroll portrait, gift of niece Nellie Calvert Carroll

Thomas King Carroll portrait. Artist: Gregory Stapko, ca. 1973

Carroll notes on grandparents, Dr. Henry and Mrs. Stevenson

Pres. Millard Fillmore. Engraver: J. Sartain

Gov. Thomas H. Hicks, ca. 1861-1865

Sen. Charles Sumner (R-Mass.), ca. 1861-1865

Harriet Tubman, ca. 1860-1870

Abraham Lincoln’s Last Reception. Artist: Anton Hohenstein

Statue of Pres. Abraham Lincoln. Sculptor: Augustus St. Gaudens

Bombardment of Fort Henry on Tennessee River, Feb. 6, 1862

Edwin M. Stanton, secretary of war, ca. 1862

Asst. Secty. of War Thomas A. Scott, ca. 1862

Lemuel D. Evans, Dept. of State secret agent for Texas and Mexico

Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, USA, ca. 1861

Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote, USN, ca. 1861

Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, USA, seated, with staff

U. S. S. Cairo, gunboat, Western Rivers Squadron

Sen. Benjamin F. Wade (R-Oh.), ca. 1861-1865

Illustration of Carroll, Godey’s Magazine cover, 1896

War of 1812 re-enactor honor guard at grave ceremony for Anna Ella Carroll, d. unknown

U. S. National Park Service, Ft. Donelson Battlefield Park recognizes Carroll, carte de visite, 2012

Friends of Anna Ella Carroll, Dorchester County, Md., with Common Council members

Guests attending 1,200-person premier of Carroll movie, Lost River

Bruce Bridegroom, Esq., producer, Lost River film, at Carroll gravesite

Suffragists lobby House Judiciary Committee, 11 January 1871

Map: Mississippi/Tennessee River valleys, Chapter III

DEDICATION

To the memory of my father, Ralph E. Larson,

a Civil War buff himself, who encouraged my study of the war as a child, which led me to Anna Ella Carroll’s story, when I was in my teens.

Forewords

. . . and the war came—

U. S. Senate campaign, Illinois, 1858:

"Now, sirs, for the purpose of squaring things with this idea of ‘don’t care if slavery is voted up or voted down, for sustaining the Dred Scott decision, for holding that the Declaration of Independence did not mean anything at all,’ we have Judge [Sen. Stephen A.] Douglas. . .saying that the people of America are equal to the people of England. According to his construction, you Germans are not connected to it. Now I ask you in all soberness, if these things. . .if ratified, if confirmed and indorsed, if taught to our children. . .do not tend to rub out the sentiment of liberty in this country, and transform this Government into the government of some other form.

These arguments that are made, that the inferior races are to be treated with as much allowance as they are capable of enjoying, that as much is to be done for them as their condition will allow. What are these arguments? They are the arguments that Kings have made in enslaving the people in all ages of the world. You and I find that all the arguments in favor of King-craft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden. That is their argument, and the argument of the Judge is the same old serpent that you work and I eat, you toil and I enjoy the fruits of it. Turn in whatever way you will—whether it comes from the mouth of a King as an excuse for enslaving the people of a country, or from the mouth of men of one race, as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same serpent, and I hold if that course of argumentation is made for the purpose of convincing the public mind, that we should not care about this, should be granted, that it would not stop with the Negro.

I should like to know if, this old Declaration of Independence which declares that all men are created equal upon principle, and making exceptions to it, where will it stop? If one man says it does not mean a Negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man? If the declaration isn’t the truth, let’s get the Statute book, in which we find it and tear it out. Who is so bold as to do it? If it is not true, let us tear it out! [cries of no, no]; let us stick to it then. Let us stand firmly by it."

— Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln-Douglas debates

"Better that Washington had perished like Hampden. That Jefferson had never drafted the Declaration of Independence. That Lee, Adams, Franklin, Sherman, Livingston, etc., had died like Sydney and Russell* upon the block, than that this Union, created to be the daylight to break the night of ages, should finally collapse, and traitors be permitted to write the epitaph, ‘it lived and died.’"

—Anna Ella Carroll, Reply [to the speech of the

Hon. John C. Breckinridge, in the U. S. Senate,

16 July 1861]

Like everything else that comes from you [Carroll], I have read the address to Maryland with a great deal of pleasure and interest. …It is just what is needed now and you were the one to do it.

— Pres. Abraham Lincoln, to Anna Ella Carroll,

August 1862

It would be better, far better, that every loyal man at the north should be slain, than that this rebellion should not be suppressed. The generations of future centuries will look back to this period of history and calculate the effect of our conduct on human civilization. …It is a matter of consequence to the civilized world. . .[and] to the men of all future times, that this Government should not be overthrown.

— Rep. William P. Sheffield (R-R. I.), 1862

. . .this contest. . .determined that the course of the world’s history would be modified by the existence of one great nation, instead of several rival states, upon the North American continent.

— Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influence of Sea

Power on History, 1660-1783

Sources: [Lincoln-Douglas] Political Debates, Republican National Committee,1860; Anna Ella Carroll, Reply, 1861; C. Kay Larson, Great Necessities.

* Carroll Forewords quote: John Hampden, Algernon Sydney, and William, Lord Russell were Carroll’s heroes of the English Civil War, all political martyrs. Hampden was a radical member of Parliament who protested Charles I’s ship money tax and later died fighting in the Parliamentary Army against the crown. Sydney and Russell were arrested in an alleged (fabricated) plot to assassinate James II. In his house, officials found the manuscript for Sydney’s powerful Discourse on Government, in which he wrote that under certain conditions rebellion is justified. For his writings he went to the block. Russell committed suicide in prison. (GN: 56)

INTRODUCTION

I n 2004, after twelve years of research, I published Great Necessities: The Life, Times, and Writings of Anna Ella Carroll, 1815-1894 (GN)*, the definitive work on the most important American political woman of the nineteenth century, suffragists aside. As my book flier proclaims, Carroll broke all the rules for a woman of her era. She became a nationally known political writer and strategist, advising two presidential candidates; she was trained in constitutional law by her father, Maryland Gov. Thomas King Carroll (1830); and advised Pres. Abraham Lincoln on his war powers. Finally, Carroll contributed to a major change in Union military strategic planning in the West in early 1862.

Despite recommendations from Harvard and Yale, I was forced to self-publish Great Necessities, after numerous rejections by academic and trade publishers, for typically vague reasons. Yet, had my manuscript been accepted by a publisher, as a first-time independent author, although one not at all lacking credentials, I would likely have had to cut my text to the bone. In that case, I would not have done Carroll, her political and legal thought, or her writings justice (130 pages of her war powers pamphlets are reprinted in GN). So, ironically, because of the rejections, Great Necessities does say all I wanted and needed to say to do Carroll justice.

With the above said, a nearly 700-page work is a big chunk for any person to mentally bite into. Moreover, because Carroll’s life was dedicated to politics and governing, I’ve always known this she-politician will not be everyone’s cup of tea. Fundamentally, one cannot turn Carroll or her work into a frothy, breezy tale, no matter how one simplifies the words.

Therefore, to make Carroll’s story more accessible to a larger, busy reading public, what I have done is to shorten her story, providing the most critical information. Hopefully I’ve also spooned in enough good quotes to give readers a sense of the quality of Carroll’s incisive mind.

Thus, Lincoln’s Loyal Lady: Anna Ella Carroll, a Brief features expanded versions of two previously published articles and a reprint of the chapter on Carroll’s Tennessee River military campaign plan, included in Earl Brannock’s new book: Marylanders All: Ten Unsung Heroes of Dorchester County (Xlibris Corp., 2014). In all most of the facts are taken from Great Necessities.

Recently, however, some important information on Carroll’s early life has been unearthed and included in Chapter I. Additional material has been added to Chapter II, on Carroll’s legal writings, as well as on the Tennessee River campaign. Note, however, that in an effort to meet readers’ specific interests, each article is a stand-alone one; hence some facts are repeated.

End notes or a bibliographical summary ends each article. The last chapter, on the story of Carroll’s story, lists events by date, with sources noted in the text. Finally, the appendix reprints a few of Carroll’s military memoranda and letters, her short treatise on habeas corpus, and the complete 1881 Bragg congressional committee report.

Regarding, the historiography chapter, I and Frank A. Bittner, chair of the Friends of Anna Ella Carroll felt the need to document the longstanding and continuing efforts to publicize Carroll’s life work. Before 1950, Carroll mostly had supporters, but once Marjorie and Sydney Greenbie’s biographies were published (1940 and 1952), detractors came to the fore. This drumbeat of negativity and denial, which goes beyond a legitimate historical debate, has extensively damaged Carroll’s reputation and still continues, as has been noted.

Even though five adult biographies and one novel have been published on her, like other female heroines in military history, Carroll has largely been ignored by historians. We believe there are three major reasons for this: she is perceived as competing with Ulysses S. Grant for credit for the 1862 Tennessee River campaign; she breaks up the boys club of Civil War leadership; and she is generally known as a controversial figure, so many don’t take more time to learn the true facts of her case.

In reality, however, as the Bragg Committee report states clearly, during Carroll’s lifetime, no controversy as to the extent or merit of her wartime contributions existed. Four military committee of the Congress pronounced favorably on the facts of her claim for reimbursement for her war pamphlets and general services, over a period of almost thirty years.

Regarding the findings of these committees, this author points out that the false accusations made against Carroll also denigrate