Harper's Resignation as ADC to General Ewell

Unfortunately, two pieces of correspondence about the reasons for Harper's resignation, one from Harper and the other from Eleanor Thompson Carroll, were part of the correspondence of Jefferson Davis, now lost. In the microfilm copies of Davis' correspondence, the letters are noted as having been filmed but in fact were not. It seems likely that Ella's worsening health from tuberculosis prompted Harper's resignation and determination to get her out of the Shenandoah Valley and ultimately to Montreal, where they could be together. Harper says in his resignation that at the time he accepted the appointment, he was not in the service of the Confederate States. Indeed, he had not been officially in the service since May, 1862, and as a Marylander, was not subject to conscription by the Confederacy.

The letter is addressed to General Samuel Cooper, who had been Adjutant General in the old army and accepted the same post in the Confederacy when offered it by his friend Jefferson Davis. Though born in the North, General Cooper had married a granddaughter of George Mason and was living in Alexandria when the war began.