Letter Dated “Rochester [NY], Sep 15^th. 4 pp. in ink, 8 x 5”. Exhibits fold-lines, else fine.

U.S. Congressman Alfred Ely and Calvin Huson, Jr. were two Rochester, N.Y., politicians who attended the Battle of Bull by carriage and were captured during the Union retreat and installed as POWs in Richmond’s Libby Prison. The irony of the pairing was that Huson had been Ely’s opponent during the election that saw him elected to Congress. Following their capture Huson took sick, recovered and then, in early September came down with typhoid fever. Moved from the prison to a private house, Huson died on October 14, 1861. Congressman Ely remained a prisoner until Christmas Day, when he was exchanged for a high ranking Confederate political prisoner. In this letter, Ely’s wife writes his former opponent’s wife to assure her that her husband is well, which by that time, he wasn’t.

Text:

“My Dear Mrs. Huson…….Imagining your great anxiety to hear anything which you can of your husband I take the liberty of writing you at this time to inform you that in a letter just received from Mr. Ely he says “Mr. Huson desires you to say to his wife he is very well”. Brief tho’ this is it comprehends a great deal and I can well imagine how much comfort it will afford you. Truly we can sympathize to either now and I know well how to appreciate your feeling from my own and that every word coming from thre prison home our husbands are most preicious & welcome….

I have received a number of letters from my husband perhaps more than you have done and in every one I think he has made allusion to Mr. Huson assuring me that he well and bearing his confinement to his own terms with “great patience & philosophy too…

I have written to my husband frequently sending my letters by different means—Some of them by mail as far as Louisville, some Adams Express and in some instances I have sent them to Washington to be forwarded from there. I do not think that many of my letters have reached him….

I will now close by saying that altho’ we have formerly been comparative strangers yet I think we shall never feel so hereafter as there will have been a bond of sympathy betrween us which can never be forgotten by either…”

A unique letter pertaining to the Congressman whose carriage was captured at Bull Run. Includes transcript and documentation from the Rochester Historical Society; also the following snippet from a letter of Samuel Selden Partridge, Lieutenant and Quartermaster of the 13^th Reg’t N.Y.V. Infy.: “Alfred Ely and Calvin Huson happened to visit the battlefield—and both got taken prisoners. Ely was brave but Huson was a coward. Both of them were fools.”

The Bull carriage capture is an intriguing Civil War episode.  [JP]

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