A Letter from Rebel Cousin Rachel

Chasing History: Exploring My Ancestral Roots - Post #24

By Tonya Graham McQuade

Envelope addressed to Mr. Bailis Petree, St. Joseph, MO (Feb 25th, but year unknown)

In today's post, I'm sharing one of the most unique letters that was included in the box of old family letters I received back in February - this one from someone named Rachel (I have not figured out who she was in my family tree) to "Cousin Bailis" (my GG Grandfather). She signed the letter "Rachel of Rebel Rendezvous" - and basically wrote him a letter telling him he needed to see the error of his ways and join the Southern cause. Another cousin added a note at the bottom and signed it "Nancy Neutrality." That certainly made me laugh.

I wanted to include the letter in the book I'm working on, Missouri Daughter, so here you can see how I have drafted it in. I'm still trying to figure out one of the names Cousin Rachel mentions - Ed Pace/Bace - and I am not certain about the skirmish to which she alludes involving Pace/Bace and Silas Gordon. There were many attacks by Bushwhackers on Union soldiers and their supporters. However, the details about the Platte River Bridge disaster on September 3, 1861, are historically accurate, and Silas Gordon is suspected of helping to lead that attack. My GG-GF Bailis Petree served in the Missouri Militia from Oct. 1861 to Feb. 1862 in the St. Joseph area, so it's likely he was tasked with helping to find Gordon and his men.

What the letter certainly captures, though, is how the Civil War tore many families apart - and this excerpt ends with Mollie pondering the divisions that now exist between her and the cousins with whom she played as a child, as well as how difficult it would be for her father if he ever came face to face with his nephews on the battlefield.

Rachel's actual letter, pgs. 1 & 4

Excerpt from Missouri Daughter, Chapter 7:

Later that afternoon after returning from town, Bailis walked in with a strange look on his face and words clearly itching to escape from his mouth. “Would you look at this?” he said to Mollie, a sense of disbelief in his voice. “Look at this letter I just received from cousin Rachel.” 

Mollie took the letter from Bailis’s outstretched hands and began reading:

February 25, 1863

 

Hurrah for Jeff Davis, for Beauregard, for Price, for Jackson, and every other brave man in the Southern army! Rebel Rendezvous

 

Dear Cousin:

 

Bailis, you see by the state of this that I have emigrated; pens and ink are more plentiful here than farther south, but I do not care for that. The farther north I go, the better I like the dear, dear South.

 

Now dear cousin Balis, why do you not come to see your rebel cousin and bring her to light the lamp of secession with, for as you surely know it has long since been blown out by these Northern winds, and we sainted rebels are wandering from our way. I am afraid we will wander so far North that we will not find our way back, and we will forget all our secessionist paths and rebel haunts - for Bailis, we all forget what we do in less than a week after.

 

Dear cousin Bailis, I should like to hear your opinion of the three last fights in Kentucky and Tennessee. I want to know if you are foolish enough to call them victories. If you do and anticipate any more such, you are to be disappointed for our valiant Jeff has determined to act on the defensive no longer. It is going to be entirely on the offensive (I don’t know if you have thought it very offensive all along). We are going to learn you that we don’t care for or mind your cannon balls and bombshells. We are coming north to your own soil to fight you. We are going to fight you with Bowie knives. We are going to show you what Southern chivalry is.

 

Bailis, I do not write this to hurt your feelings. It is to warn you of your danger. I fear I shall have been a traitor to my country if I say much more on this subject, but then you are my very dear cousin, and I have a faint hope of convincing you of the error of your ways, for you surely see it will be sure destruction to you. You may think you are safe away up here so far north, but just wait until warm weather comes when the wind ceases to blow, and when we can once more live in the hazel dells. Then and not till then will you see your blunder, benighted Bailis.

 

Bailis, I have heard it hinted that you were among the number that fought the brave Ed Pace (Bace?) and his brave little band. Oh! the grief of the south when they heard of his death, he having fallen behind a tree. And there was the brave Gordon! But he is now safe going south with the Arkansas traveler. I also hear your friends are making fun of our General Price. I tell you – beware! Oh! Take care - you will yet have to dance to a new tune of the Arkansas traveler.

 

Bailis, I hope you will not have any hard thoughts on this. I mean to make you mad. I hope the scales will fall from your eyes and you may get later to be President of the Southern Confederacy.

 

Bailis, if I have any more cousins in the Federal armies, I want you to read this letter to them; and if they are officers, give it to them that they may study it well and may finally see how they are bewildered and led astray. Dear Bailis, come to see me soon, and bring the rest of my cousins (if I have any) with you.

 

Answer this immediately and relieve the anxiety of your cousin,

Rachel of Rebel Rendezvous

 

Cousin Nancy is here from the south and wants to write you a few words.

 

Cousin Bailis,

I take no sides, but the South is a kind country, cousin. I hope the south will be victorious. Cousin Deb sends her love to you.

Nancy Neutrality, age 46

 

Nancy Neutrality, indeed! Bailis thought to himself. And that Rachel! Bailis remembered well the skirmish Rachel mentioned. His company had come across a band of guerrillas, led by bushwhacker Ed Pace, in their pursuit of the men responsible for burning the Platte River Bridge, and a number of shots had been fired. One shot took down Pace before the guerrilla band fled.

How could Rachel speak of him – and that evil Silas Gordon – as heroes? Innocent men, women, and children had been killed when that train derailed. Those guerrillas were not soldiers – they were outlaws, ruffians, and criminals, deserving of punishment. Bailis had been glad when the reports came in of the 18th Missouri Infantry’s success in capturing and executing some of Gordon’s men. Unfortunately, Gordon had slipped away – and now, here was his cousin, rejoicing in the fact.

"Oh, my. That is indeed quite a letter!” Mollie said with exasperation. “And to think Rachel believes that you are the one who needs to have the scales removed from your eyes so you can see the error of your ways! She cheering on this rebellion - and her family are still keeping slaves!”

 

“I’m not sure that’s true anymore,” Bailis replied. “Many of the slaves from that region have been freed by the Jayhawkers and have crossed the river into Kansas to freedom. I’ve heard that some have even joined up with that colored regiment Jim Lane put together, the one that was part of that skirmish at Island Mound over in Bates County against the guerrillas.”

 

“I hope all of them will gain their freedom soon,” Mollie said emphatically, her usually cool temper starting to flare. “How we have allowed that abominable institution to continue for so long is beyond me.”

 

Ever since she had read Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Mollie had felt even more certain of the need for Abolition. She had been extremely moved when she read of the determined Eliza hopping across the Ohio River on ice floes, her young son Harry clutched tightly to her chest, in an effort to prevent Harry from being sold down river and to escape her pursuing captors. Mollie had cheered when Eliza had finally reached Canada and been reunited with her husband George, who had made his own incredible journey to the North and freedom.

 

While Mollie’s parents had never kept slaves, some of the neighboring farms did - and her own Grandmother Hale in Tennessee had several slaves that her Uncle Enoch, with whom Grandmother was now living, hired out to help pay for her upkeep. Mollie hoped at least some good would come from this war – she hoped that the country would finally see an end to slavery.

 

“Now, calm yourself, Mollie,” Bailis encouraged. “I don’t want you getting upset. We both have cousins who have taken up the Rebel banner, but I don’t want to think of them as enemies. Think how your father must feel, knowing he could face his nephews on the battlefield! I pray that never happens. I’m glad his brothers Lewis and Enoch are too old to fight.”

 

“Yes, so am I. That would be too much for him to bear,” Mollie agreed, thinking of the Tennessee cousins she used to play with as a child.

*************************************************************

I hope you've enjoyed this peek at the historical fiction novel I'm working on, Missouri Daughter. While I have no way of knowing whether my GG Grandmother Mollie (aka. Mary Ann Hale) ever read Uncle Tom's Cabin, she certainly might have! She seems to have been well-educated and well-read.

According to Wikipedia, “Uncle Tom's Cabin was the best-selling novel and the second best-selling book of the 19th century, following the Bible. It is credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause in the 1850s. The influence attributed to the book was so great that a likely apocryphal story arose of Abraham Lincoln meeting Stowe at the start of the Civil War  and declaring, "So this is the little lady who started this great war."

I may be giving Mollie stronger abolitionist views than she possessed, but she was definitely a strong supporter of the Union cause. I believe it's fair to assume she felt torn by the divisions in her country and in her family, and she must have worried what would happen if her father ran into any of his family members on the battle field.

It's hard to imagine what it must have been like for those family members to reunite after the Civil War to sit down to a meal together, celebrate together at a wedding, join in prayer for a family member at a funeral, or sit down together at a church worship service. But we know it happened - that in many cases they found a way to put their differences behind them. Perhaps there is a lesson there for today as many families struggle with political, religious, and cultural differences of opinion and wonder if they will ever find a way back to each other.

Stay tuned for a letter from Bailis's brother, Benjamin Petree, in my next post. And don't forget, if you liked this post, to "Subscribe via Email" to get future notifications.

A Letter from California - 15 Sept. 1860, Placer County

Chasing History: Exploring My Ancestral Roots - Post #23

by Tonya Graham McQuade

Civil War letter written by James Calaway Hale, 

with flag sewn by his daughter, Mary Ann "Mollie" Hale,

which he carried with him through the war

Today, I'm sharing an excerpt from chapter 7 of my draft of Missouri Daughter, my historical fiction novel that incorporates the Civil War letters written by my GGG Grandfather James Calaway Hale, to wrap up my earlier posts (#13-19)  about family members who headed West along the Oregon Trail and Mormon Trail - some to California during and after the Gold Rush; some to Walla Walla Washington; and some to Salk Lake City, Utah.

This chapter includes a letter from a friend from Andrew County, Elias Edwards, who made the decision to stay in California. I love his descriptions of the California scenery and social customs and troubles of the time, and I'm very impressed by his vocabulary and writing style. While the actual letter is dated September 15, 1860, I change the date in the book to March 1863 for the sake of the storyline.

The excerpt I'm sharing opens with Bailis (my great great grandfather) and Mc (McDonald, Mollie's brother) heading to the post office after a fishing trip.

Missouri Daughter, Chapter 7:

... Two letters were waiting for them at the post office in Savannah: one from Papa and one from their old friend Elias Edwards, who had been living in California for quite a few years now. They had not heard from him since he had left, so both Bailis and Mc were excited to read the news.

“We’d better wait to open the letter until we get back to the house,” Bailis suggested. “We don’t want the others getting upset at us for spoiling the fun.”

 

They stopped to pick up Mollie and Jimmy before heading down the road to take Mc home. There was plenty of excitement when they all walked in with the giant catfish, crappy and trout, two letters, and 75 cents from their catfish sale that Mc presented to Mama with a grandiose display. Mama beamed at him, and it made his heart glad. Then she eagerly urged them all to sit down and asked Mollie to read the two letters.

 

Mollie decided to start with the letter from Elias since it had been many years since they had heard anything from him:

 

March 1863 – Iowa Hill, Placer County, California

 

Dear Mollie and Family,

 

I received a letter from a friend of mine a few days since in the vicinity of Savannah, Missouri, who informs me that it is your request I should write to you a letter and that if I do, you will answer the same. Many years have elapsed and many changes taken place since I last saw you all, and although it has been my lot to form many new acquaintances and fond ties of friendship, I still remember you all fondly.

 

I hear, Mollie, that you and Bailis have now married. Let me offer my best wishes for your happiness. As for myself, sad to say, I find myself having to answer to that accursed title of Bachelor. You request me through my friend to write a good and long letter. Sadly, a good letter is something I am not capable of doing, and to write a long one gives birth to a question in my mind as to what subject would be the most interesting to you. However, I have selected the longest sheet of paper that I could find, and should I find interesting matter enough to fill it, I suppose you will give me credit for the effort.

Actual 24", double-sided letter written by

Elias Edwards, dated Sept. 15, 1860 

 

I suppose you often read glancing accounts of this country and that you often converse with those that have been here and shared the inconveniences of a California life (from which you have no doubt become as conversant as with the geography and general customs and habits of the country as I am myself), a repetition of which would only serve to wear your patience. Notwithstanding, I consider it due to myself and to the state in which I live to say that nature has done its part for the Pacific Coast. The climate is of the best, the sail of the quickest, the water of the purest, the Bachelors of the plentiest, and the hauls of the fastest.

 

If you have an eye for scenery, you ought to come to this country. Travel when you will on the Pacific Coast, and you will daily see something new to excite your admiration. The valleys of California are decidedly the most beautiful part of the globe I ever laid my eyes on. The mountains of California are also blessed with some very interesting scenery, and the climate is equally as pleasant as that of the valley, although the fact of its being so very rough and hilly makes the mountains not so desirable a place to live as the valleys. But yet in consequence of their mineral wealth, the mountains are thickly populated; in fact, the improvements that have been for the last few years continually going on go to prove that people are continually becoming more permanently located, and I think the time is not far distant when the mountains of California will be second to no mountainous country in the United States.

 

The time has been here that good society could not exist, but the emigration of the finer sex has wrought a material change in the last few years, and I am proud to say that at the present time society is tolerable good and still improving. There are some churches and Sunday schools established throughout the state. There may be found in almost every little town and village in the state a Masonic Lodge and an Order of Odd Fellows. We have good schools – also singing and dancing schools. We have social parties. We have good and well-conducted balls. In short, we have everything in this country that there is anywhere, but the great difficulty is we have too much vice and too little morality.

 

Also, we have too many old bachelors and young men and not enough old maids and young girls. There appears to be a great many ladies in this country at the present day, but yet in comparison to the opposite sex there is but few. I have never heard of an old maid in this country yet; in fact, few girls live single here to see their eighteenth birthday. A great many gain in the enviable pleasures of matrimony at the age of fourteen and fifteen years, while others become impatient and place themselves under the protection of some fatherly old bachelor at the age of thirteen, in the majority of instances marrying men of about twice their own age. The fact of the girls marrying so young here makes them a scarce article in the market. To give you a more correct idea of the matter, I will just state that within the last year there has been some eight weddings in the vicinity, the girls ranging in age from fourteen to eighteen years and the men they married from twenty-five to forty-five.

 

It is impossible to get up a ball or party in this country without the attendance of married ladies, a great many of whom expect the young men to go and take them the same as though they had no husband nor no half a dozen brats to leave at home. To illustrate the matter more plainly, I will just say that a few nights since I attended a ball – what we call a very good ball – the participants of which consisted of eighteen females of the following description: eight married ladies, six juveniles, and four young ladies; thirty-four males as follows - three married men and thirty-one young men and bachelors from the age of twenty-one to fifty. The above is about an average for this country.

 

The scarcity of young ladies is a great drawback to this country. So now, dare I say to widows, old maids, and young ladies – you want to marry and be of service to your country and add to the rising generation, come immediately to this country and redeem some of the despairing bachelors from a life lonely, miserable, inconvenient, and contrary to the plans of God.

 

One year ago I paid the valleys a visit – was gone from here some four months. In my travels over the valleys, I saw and made the acquaintance of your Uncle Jahue Brown but have not seen him since I left there. I shall expect an answer from this letter immediately. Please give me all the news. This is not very fashionable paper that I have written on, but if you will only send me long, full-filled sheets of the same lines, I will be satisfied.

 

From Your Faithful Friend,

Elias Edwards

 

Elizabeth’s ears perked up at the mention of her brother Jahue, from whom she had not heard any news in several years. He had never been good at writing letters or keeping up with the family, and he tended to move around a lot so it was hard to know where to write to him. She was glad to know he was alive and well. Just two years before, her mother had written to her from Tennessee, desperate to get in touch with Jahue because he had some debts that had come due, and his land was going to be sold to pay the debt if he did not take care of it. Elizabeth wondered now what had ever come of that. She did not like to recall how anxious her mother had sounded in the letter.

 

Jahue was quite similar, she thought, to James’s nephew Enoch, the prodigal son of James’s oldest brother Lewis. When Enoch had first journeyed to California, Lewis went more than a year without knowing whether he was alive or dead – then finally, a letter came one day. Soon after that, Enoch had traveled all the way to the Sandwich Islands, two thousand miles west of California in the middle of the Pacific Ocean! No one in the family could fathom such a journey, but Enoch eventually returned home with heart-stopping tales of tropical forests, dancing natives, giant banyans, swaying palms, delicious pineapples, sweet-fleshed coconuts, colorful fish, breaching whales, and spewing volcanoes.

 

Now, Enoch was back in California, married and living in Butte County. Last she had heard, he was serving there in the Union army. Elizabeth wondered what that must be like for Lewis – having sons fighting on both sides in this dreadful war. At least with Enoch living thousands of miles away on the west coast, it wasn’t likely he would ever encounter one of his brothers on the battlefield.

 

Suddenly remembering where she was, Elizabeth returned to the moment at hand. “When you write back, Mollie, please be sure to ask Elias if he has a postal address for Jahue,” she requested. “I know my poor mother would be glad to hear from him. In her last letter, she said she wasn’t sure if he was alive any longer.”

 

“I will,” Mollie reassured her. “I wonder how the two of them ever met!”

 

“It sounds like Elias would rather not be a bachelor,” Bailis said, with a tinge of jealousy in his voice. Elias clearly had fond memories of Mollie – perhaps too fond, Bailis thought. “I think he’s hoping we will encourage more of the young ladies here to set out for California!”

 

“Well, if this war keeps going on, there might be an abundance of ladies both old and young here in need of husbands,” Mollie said, with a sense of sorrow in her voice. “So many of our brave Southern men are leaving their homes, never to return.”

 

“So true,” Mama said with anxious concern. “Perhaps it’s time you read Papa’s letter. I want to know if his medicines have been working.”

 

Mollie opened the letter, then looked up with worry and fear in her eyes. Papa was no longer in Arkansas – his letter, dated a week ago, was coming from the General Hospital in St. Louis.

Benton Barracks, where "Papa" (James Calaway Hale)

spent time in and out of the hospital for almost two years

I hope you've enjoyed this "peek" into Missouri Daughter - which I hope to see published sometime in the future. In my next blog post, I'll be sharing one of my favorite letters - from "Rachel at Rebel Rendezvous" - who tries to convince Cousin Bailis to see the error of his ways and join the Southern cause!

Ellis Island: My Austria-Hungary Connection, Part III

Chasing History: Exploring My Ancestral Roots - Post #22

by Tonya Graham McQuade

Anna Halper Wagner (1894-1972)

A few years ago, as I was preparing for my daughter, who was 19 at the time, to head over to Hong Kong for a year of study abroad, I got to thinking about my Great Grandma Anna Halper Wagner, who at age 19 left her home in Hungary to travel to the United States to begin a new life. I already shared her story in Post #20, but here I want to share the poem I wrote back in Fall 2018:

I Wish I Got to Know Her

In 1913,

at the tender age of 19,

she came to this new country

with twenty-six dollars in hand,

passing through Ellis Island,

leaving her family behind

in Orallas, Hungary,

never to return.

She must have wondered about them,

missed them,

worried about them.

She must have felt torn.

 

In Chicago, she joined up

with others like her,

crowded into single family homes

bursting at the seams at times

with four families crowded in –

Justine, Bishop, and Laflin,

all streets welcoming immigrants to Chicago –

to neighborhoods made up of

Germans and Poles and Lithuanians

and others who sought

the American dream –

others who believed that

“money fell from trees” –

but often found

The Jungle instead.

 

At some point

she met my great grandfather –

also an immigrant from Hungary –

and they married,

still living on Bishop Street,

but eventually in their own home.

There, they raised my grandfather,

who died at 52 of a heart attack

(probably from working too long

around toxic chemicals),

a daughter

who died too young of epilepsy,

another son

who died too young of tuberculosis –

or perhaps it was alcoholism –

and a daughter who lived to

a ripe old age: my great aunt.

 

I do remember meeting her

when I was very young –

the smell of the house overwhelming

my antiseptic senses,

her accent still thick,

nearly every surface covered

with crocheted doilies,

piled up with the many treasures

she had accumulated from

nearly sixty years of living

on the often stifling streets of

Cook County, Chicago.

My mother, Dorothy, holding me, beside Great Grandma Anna

My mom most remembers

her generosity.

Though she’d spent much of her life

in poverty,

she was always ready to give

to those around her.

She also remembers a few German phrases –

though no one I know who speaks German

ever recognized them.

Perhaps it was some Orallas slang -

or maybe it was Hungarian.

 

While still new to the country,

she watched the U.S. go to war

against her home country,

where undoubtedly she still had relatives.

She must have wondered about them,

missed them,

worried about them.

She must have felt torn.

 

During World War II,

while facing prejudice

against Germans at home,

she sent her oldest son off to fight

far away in Italy.

What he saw, what he experienced,

he would never talk about.

My mother heard none of his stories.

I wonder if his mother ever did?

What did he write to her

in his letters home?

She must have wondered about him,

Missed him,

Worried about him.

She must have felt torn.

My grandpa, John Paul Wagner, as a young boy

 

Later, she welcomed

four grandchildren,

Dorothy, John, Michael, and Tracey,

and three great grandchildren,

Tonya, Cameron, and Andrew,

to her Justine Street home,

watching her family line

live on in this country

where she had learned

money didn’t fall from trees,

but that didn’t mean

you couldn’t still hope.

 

While none of her own children

attended college,

two of her grandchildren did –

and all of her great grandchildren.

Now, more than forty-four years

after her death,

I think she would be happy

to meet her six great-great grandchildren

and to learn that among them,

one shares her name:

my daughter, Anna Rose.

 

I wish she could have met her.

I think she could have liked her spunk,

her spirit, her determination,

her drive, and her courage …

as she prepares to travel

across a different ocean,

also at the age of 19,

leaving her family behind,

boarding a plane alone,

to pursue her own dreams

in a far off land.

 

I know I will wonder about her,

miss her,

worry about her.

I know I’ll feel torn.

But I also know

that by venturing out,

we often find ourselves,

find the lives

we were meant to lead.

So, I’ll have to let her go …

just as all those Orallas parents

had to let their own children go

so long ago.

 

What stories I’m sure

Great Grandma Anna could tell,

if I ever got to know her.

Daughter Anna atop Suicide Cliff in Hong Kong - 

19 and ready to take on the world!

Tune in next time as I return to the family letters from the mid-1800's that helped kickstart this project. I'll be sharing an excerpt from Missouri Daughter, Chapter 7, where the Hale family in Andrew County, Missouri, receives another letter from a friend who headed to California during the Gold Rush: Elias Edwards. Elias chose to stay in California and writes about California's scenery, its social scene, and its "scarcity of young ladies."