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Civil War History 47.3 (2001) 266-268



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Book Review

The Websters:
Letters of an American Army Family in Peace and War

"If You Love that Lady Don't Marry Her":
The Courtship Letters of Sally McDowell and John Miller


The Websters: Letters of an American Army Family in Peace and War 1836-1853. Edited by Van R. Baker. (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2000. Pp. xiv, 337. $45.00.)

"If You Love that Lady Don't Marry Her": The Courtship Letters of Sally McDowell and John Miller, 1854-1856. Edited by Thomas E. Buckley, S.J. (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2000. Pp. xliv, 896. $29.95.)

In the nineteenth century, a letter was a measured writing exercise that reflected a great deal about the writer, by necessity conveying both thoughts and images. Collections of correspondence allow a modern observer to develop a perspective on the subjects within the letters, as well as gain insights into those who wrote them. It [End Page 266] may seem odd, but modern historians may struggle to develop the depth and knowledge concerning modern people that pre-telecommunication historians possess.

Two new books readily serve as valuable records of their own eras, as well as remind us of what we have lost in ours. These volumes are The Websters: Letters of an American Army Family in Peace and War 1836-1853, edited by Van R. Baker, and "If You Love that Lady Don't Marry Her": The Courtship Letters of Sally McDowell and John Miller 1854-1856, edited by Thomas E. Buckley.

The Websters focuses on the correspondence of Lucien Webster, a career army officer, and his wife, Frances Smith. Their letters depict the difficulties all army families face--the distant posts, primitive conditions, separation, loneliness. They also reveal the thoughts, fears, and dreams of two young people who genuinely love each other but continually find themselves in circumstances beyond their control. This work is notable because it contains letters from both Lucien and Frances in a very complete sequence lasting nearly seventeen years.

"If You Love that Lady Don't Marry Her" details the courtship between prominent Philadelphian John Miller and wealthy Virginia plantation owner Sally McDowell. Their courtship was made all the more difficult by the fact that she was divorced and that it was not acceptable by the mores of the time for Miller, a Presbyterian minister, to marry her. Their correspondence, running to just under five hundred letters written in a two-year interval, is both intense and highly revealing of their thoughts and feelings.

After reading these two collections, one comes away with a deeper understanding of just how much American society has changed in one hundred and sixty years. Both couples' observations of themselves and their situations are widely at variance with what is acceptable and commonplace today. Ideas of individuality, contrasted with social station and duty, emerge as guiding themes in both works. Whereas the Websters faced pressures on their private lives from the formal institution of the U.S. Army, the Millers faced the far more pervasive, informal pressures of family and community. Also striking to the modern reader is the circumspection that the correspondents used when speaking to each other about private matters.

The Webster letters naturally offer information on life in the Army and the practices of the War Department, but more importantly on the sense of rural isolation then extant in many areas of the United States. This is particularly interesting, as several of Lucien Webster's most remote postings are in Florida and Maine, places not ordinarily thought of as "frontier" regions during this era.

The Miller-McDowell letters show in intimate detail the sex and gender roles of the period. Of special note is that Sally McDowell was owner and manager of the Colato plantation, a role unusual for a woman in the antebellum South. Their writings also give a personal...

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