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"ON THE QUI VIVE FOR THE LONG LETTER": WASHINGTON LETTERS FROM A NAVY WIFE, 1861 Edited by Virginia Jeans Laas "jany 1st 1861 comes in politically like a Lion—God grant it may go out like a Lamb." So Elizabeth Blair Lee prayerfully wrote to her husband, Commander Samuel Phillips Lee, U.S. Sloop Vandalia. For nearly twenty years, Lizzie Lee, fulfilling a vow made when they married in April 1843, had written to her "dear Phil" almost every day when they were apart. A career naval officer since 1827, Phillips Lee necessarily spent many weeks and months away from his home. The result was a voluminous correspondence; Lizzie wrote literally thousands of letters to her husband.1 In her "talks" with Phil, she poured out her feelings and thoughts and eloquently expressed her deep and abiding devotion to him. She also described political events, offered herjudgments of public figures, and kept her husband informed of her activities and the wellbeing of their numerous and far-flung relatives. Of paramount importance to Phil were Lizzie's reports of the progress of their four-year old son Blair. With a mother's pride, she recounted his childish antics and triumphs, always including little Blair's expressions of love for his absent father.2 Samuel Phillips Lee, the absent father and object of Lizzie's adoration, was the grandson of Richard Henry Lee, a signer of the Declaration of 1 These letters are part of the rich collection of Blair-Lee papers in the Harvey Firestone Library at Princeton. They are here published with permission of Princeton University Library. Written from 1843 to 1894, the letters fill ten full reels of microfilm. Sometimes Lizzie wrote separate, daily letters from one to eight pages long; on other occasions, her letters take the form of bulletins or journals covering a week or even a fortnight. Fortunately , Elizabeth's "scribblements" are somewhat more legible than what Marquis James (Andrew Jackson's biographer) called "the cabalistic scrawl" of her father, Francis Preston Blair. 2 Their only child, born August 9, 1857, Francis Preston Blair Lee was the first popularly elected U.S. Senator from Maryland, serving from 1913-17. Dumas Malone, ed., Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933-36), VI, 130. Civil War History, Vol. XXIX, No. 1 Copyright ® 1983 by The Kent State University Press 0009-8078/83/2901-0002 $01.00/0 LETTERS OF A NAVY WIFE29 Independence. An orphan raised by a court-appointed family committee , Phil went to sea as an acting midshipman at age fourteen and by perseverance, natural competence, and dedication to his calling, rose steadily through the ranks, retiring in 1873 as a Rear Admiral. Lizzie must have sensed the void in Phil's unusual childhood, for her letters at times reflect a maternal tenderness in addition to a robust, un-Victorian love for her husband. Commander Lee, ordered to the China Station, sailed Vandalia from New York on 9 December 1860. Anticipating the outbreak of war, he made an unhurried voyage to Cape Town, arriving 27 February 1861. Until 18 March Vandalia remained in port, where Lee learned of the secession of South Carolina. It is tempting to surmise that Lee read the news in Lizzie's letters; it is more likely, however, that other ships stopping at Cape Town brought him the word. For a week he cruised in the waters south and west of Africa, but on 26 March, disregarding his orders, Lee set Vandalia's course firmly north by west and returned to his divided country, anchoring at the New York navy yard 15 May.3 As an eyewitness to one of the most critical periods of all American history, Lizzie wrote from a unique vantage point. Her father, Francis Preston Blair, was a close friend of AndrewJackson and a member of his Kitchen Cabinet. As editor of the Globe, Blair was a political power in Washington and an influential advisor to five presidents. Owning two homes—onein the city just across the Avenue from the White House and the other a country residence at Silver Spring, Maryland, just outside the northern-most boundary of the District of Columbia—the...

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