Thomas Sim Lee Papers, cousin of Harper Carroll

Thomas Sim Lee Papers, Catholic University, Washington, D. C.

Historical Context: Thomas Sim Lee was the son of John Lee and Harriet Carroll, the granddaughter of Charles Carroll of Carrollton and daughter of Charles Carroll and Harriet Chew of Homewood. Thus, he was the cousin of Harper Carroll and the other children of Charles Carroll of Doughoregan and his wife, Mary Digges Lee. Lee was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1842 and was often at Needwood, the family home in Frederick County, Maryland. Like his cousin Harper Carroll, he attended Mount St. Mary’s College in Emmitsburg, Maryland, though their paths separated after this point. While Harper went to Georgetown, Thomas Sim Lee traveled to Rome to study for his ordination as a Catholic priest. Returning to Baltimore in 1866, he served St. Vincent de Paul’s Church before being made secretary to Archbishop Spaulding at the Cathedral. In 1873 he was made rector of the Cathedral and he finished his career as rector of St. Matthew’s Church in Washington D. C. Monsignor Lee died at Needwood on August 11, 1922 after having served more than fifty years as a priest. (Source: Golden Jubilee pamphlet, 1916, Thomas Sim Lee Papers, Catholic University, Washington, D.C.)

It has often been said that the Civil War was a conflict with brother against brother, but in the case of the Lee/Carroll family, it was cousin against cousin. While Albert and Harper Carroll of Doughoregan enlisted in the Confederate army (and there is an indication that their brother Charles also made an attempt) the Needwood cousins supported the Union. The most interesting letters in the Lee Papers in this context have to do with Mary Digges Lee’s entertaining General George McClellan at Needwood and Thomas Lee’s concern that his younger brother Charles would enlist to fight in the Union army, thus fighting against his mother’s nephew, Harper Carroll (Albert had already been killed at the time the letter was written.) At the time of the first letter, Harriet Carroll was living at Needwood with her daughter, Mary Digges Lee, and son, Charles Carroll Lee. The father, John Lee, was President and Director of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company and resided in Washington, D.C.. Early in the war, Mary fell in love with a the chief medical officer of the Army of the Potomac, Dr. Jonathan Letterman, and the couple spent some time trying to get the permission of the Church to marry, as Letterman had once been engaged to a divorced woman. Her brother, Thomas Sim Lee, helped obtain the dispensation to marry. The couple would have two children, Mary Catherine and Ann Madeleine, before Mary Digges Lee died suddenly in San Francisco in November or December of 1867. (for more on Dr. Letterman, considered “The Father of Modern Battlefield Medicine” see his entries.)

Charles (“Charley” in the letters) Carroll became a physician and enlisted in the Union Army. Following the war, he and his wife, the former Helen Parrish of Philadelphia, moved to New York City and he became gynecologist with several hospitals and a leader in the field of women’s health. At the time of his death on May 10, 1893, he was the President of the Medical Society of New York. He and his wife were survived by their children Thomas Sim Lee, James Parrish Lee, Helen Lee, and Mary Digges Lee. Three other children had died in infancy.

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Letter from Thomas Sim Lee to his sister, Mary Digges Lee, from Rome, July 25 (Someone has written 1863 in brackets, but internal evidence points to the letter as being written in 1862, since McClellan was relieved of command by President Lincoln on November, 1862. The fighting around Richmond to which Lee refers was the Seven Days Battle that took place in June, 1862.) Thomas Sim Lee Papers, Catholic University, Washington, D.C.

“By this time I presume the turning battle of the war has been fought and McClellan has either retrieved his defeat before Richmond or has forfeited his place, which he probably will do so if unsuccessful in another battle. In the latter case I suppose there will not only be a foreign intervention to settle the difficulties in America, but also a general war in Europe. I hope Charley will not think that he is obliged to go to the war because he has relations amongst the ranks of the enemy. Independently of the natural evils of Civil War, fighting against one’s own flesh and blood, &c. there certainly are duties which he cannot desert. It was not for nothing that he received those rare advantages which fall to the lot of so very few young men in his position. If (and it would require no prophet to predict the event as certain,) if in a few months from this, slavery in Maryland be abolished and, on account of the war, free labor be slow to supply the place of the slaves, Charley will be the only support of you and Ma and Father. I do not mean to say that you will be reduced to beggary, but you will fall nearer that condition than I hope ever to see you or any one whom I love. Unless the last two years have effected a great change in the family treasury Ma is not overwhelmed with money. And if there be now a debt upon her shoulders which she cannot shake off, what will it be when her property is taken from her and her favorite gone off to fight her nephew? If she had two sons in the worldly lives I would not say what I have said. But as for me, you know that I could not in conscience leave the vocation to which God has called me. Charley should think well before he abandons his post, and at least await the changes which a few months must certainly bring about. I was extremely sorry to hear of Dan Carroll’s death. Poor fellow! . . . . Since the beginning of the war I have heard of the deaths of a great many of my college companions, all killed on the side of the South.”

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Letter from Mary Digges Lee to Thomas Sim Lee, October 26 from Needwood. Though this letter has no year, internal evidence points to 1862. The battle of South Mountain was fought on September 14 and Antietam was fought on September 17, 1862. The bloodiest single day in American history, the battle of Antietam resulted in 28,000 killed and many times that number wounded. Frederick County, along with many other areas of Maryland, was inundated with the wounded, both Union and Confederate. Mary Digges Lee does not refer to the death of her cousin Albert Carroll, had been killed on September 7^th near Bunker Hill, West Virginia, in a Confederate offensive leading up to the invasion of Maryland, though that fact had been published in the Baltimore newspapers. An ardent supporter of her “hero” General McClellan, Mary Digges Lee is convinced that, as McClellan had written his wife, the President was attempting to "push (him) into a premature advance into Virginia." McClellan’s case of the “slows” would cause President Abraham Lincoln to relieve him as commander of the Army of the Potomac on November 7^th, just three days after the midterm elections. Political considerations had prevented Lincoln from acting earlier. An interesting side note is that the Mr. O’Donnell to whom Miss Lee refers, may have been the father of Josephine O’Donnell and grandfather of Harper Carroll’s future wife, Mary Digges Lee.

“On the 8^th of this month, as I was about serving 12 o’clock dinner to the sick, Gen’l McClellan and his staff road through the village, and came over to see me, think of the honor! I heard of it accidentally, walked home with one of his aides in the broiling sun, and found my hero in the North parlor. Ma did not know him, and only one of his officers so I had to set to work, get a lunch and entertain them all, they stayed two hours; the Gen’l was moving his quarters for a few days, near Mr. O’Donnells, and told me he expected his wife to spend two or three days; he had not seen her for 6 months—of course I asked him to bring her here, and on the 12^th they came, with her parents, & baby, stayed two days, then moved into Pleasant Valley where his head quarters have been ever since. Ma was charmed with both of them as every one must be who knows them. Of course I have had the comfort of seeing a good deal of my friends who are with him. We spend a nay and night with Mrs. McClellan in Pleasant Valley at a farm house near Brownsville, and visited the battlefield of Antietam. There have been camps all around us, and Gen’l Pleasanton sent me a guard, but now all the troops that lay in this valley have crossed into Dixie. The radicals are goading Gen’l McClellan to advance, while supplies as usual are carefully kept back from him; it would enchant them if he could be forced to fight without proper supplies and then defeated, but God is good, and our trust is in Him.

Charley is getting a commission as a surgeon—you know surgeons are noncombatants; he says if he had any other profession he would have gone to fight, but he can serve his country equally in the field, and in the Hospital.

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Letter from Harriet Lee to Thomas Sim Lee, July 30, 1863, Needwood. General George Meade was made head of the Army of the Potomac on June 28, 1863, and gained renown as the victor of Gettysburg in the weeks immediately after. The exact date General Meade dined at Needwood is unclear, but it was probably after Gettysburg when the invading Confederates had withdrawn from Pennsylvania and Maryland. Mrs. Carroll expresses the opinion that “nothing decisive” resulted from the battle of Gettysburg. This is surprising to modern Americans taught that Gettysburg was the “high water mark of the Confederacy” and the turning point of the war, but that fact only became clear months after the southern defeat. Harriett Carroll seems unaware that her son Thomas was already familiar Dr. Letterman from his sister’s letters.

“There is nothing but continual prayer to the Almighty, which can put a stop to this destructive state of warfare in a country, lately so prosperous, but, unfortunately, so ungrateful to the Giver of all good. . . .

The accounts of army movements, have reached Europe, doubtless, in this, but nothing decisive seems to have resulted from the movements of both armies in this direction, and we have had very little disturbance, I am thankful to say, merely troops passing through the neighborhood. Gen^l Meade and his staff called here to see me, and dined with yr sister and myself, Dr. Letterman dining here also with them. Gen’ ^l M. was a former acquaintance of mine, and Dr. L. is one of his staff.”

Love from Sister, Charley, and your own

Mother

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Letter from Thomas Sim Lee to Mary Digges Lee, August 11, 1863, from Rome. The invasion of Pennsylvania and Maryland to which he refers took place in late June 1863, leading up to the battle of Gettysburg on July 1-3. Though Lee is unaware of the fact, his cousin Harper had been at the battle, having left his honeymoon to fight on the field in civilian dress, and was part of the difficult retreat of the southern army across the swollen Potomac. Lee’s reference to the Letterman possibly offending the “blind president” (Abraham Lincoln) implies the doctor supported his former commander, George McClellan, who captured the nomination of the Democratic Party but was defeated by Lincoln in 1864. “Henny” appears to have been a family slave. Lee is quite pessimistic about the fate of former slaves after emancipation, and his grim predictions were common at the time both in the North and the South. The “Propaganda” is the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, the Sacred Congregation for Propagating the Faith of the Roman Catholic Church. Lee is quite accurate about the virulent racism of the New York City Riots of July, 1863 which were partially triggered by opposition to the Emancipation Proclamation of January of that year. Eleven men were lynched during the days of rioting, and many other men, women and children were attacked by mobs pledging “vengeance on every nigger in New York.”

“I know how anxious you must have been during the invasion of Maryland & Penn^a, nor is the war yet over. However the saftey with which Dr. L. (Letterman) has passed through so many bloody battles, is an earnest of his future preservation from all harm. Nor would the Southerners willingly injure a surgeon, though he be on the opposite side, otherwise they would show themselves not men but demons. You must trust to the God of battles who can save or destroy, as it seems good to His infinite wisdom. I am very glad that Dr. L. has not offended the political foresight of the blind president (Abraham Lincoln). His is not to tear down but to build up, and therefore cannot injure the opposite party. . . .

So poor Henny is dead. I hope she is now in Heaven. She has escaped the fate that awaits the unfortunate negroes of America. If care is not taken, something like the inhuman barbarity of the New York riots will break out in other parts of the country. Some time ago a Maryland or Virginia negro who was studying in the Propaganda (he was in the class above me) thinking he had no vocation, went to Liverpool and thence to A(merica). He must have arrived in N.Y. about the time of the riots. If so I presume he was made well-acquainted with the lampposts of that wild town.”

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Letter from Thomas Sim Lee to Mary Digges Lee Letterman, April 12, 1864 from Rome. The Lettermans had married by this time and were living in Philadelphia after Dr. Letterman resigned his commission in the army. Harriet Carroll was living alone at Needwood at this time, with Charley serving as Assistant Surgeon of the First Maryland Cavalry. “Cousin Out” is Outerbridge Horsey (1819-1902) of Petersville, Frederick County, Maryland, son of John Lee’s sister, Eliza Lee and her husband Outerbridge Horsey. Emancipation would not be passed in Maryland until November 1, 1864, but in advance of that event, many slaves were running away or demanding wages.

Mary had offered to send money to her brother in Rome, but he suggests that any payment be deferred until the end of the war. “The war is not yet over, nor can any one tell when it will end nor how disastrous it may yet be; and this from enemies not only in the field but also at home. . . .

I am sorry for both his sakes and for Ma’s that Cousin Out’s servants have asked for wages; I suppose their bad example will spread in the neighborhood. I am glad she has a housekeeper, as this must make Needwood less lonely for her.”