Issa and Sally: The War and the Breckinridge Women

by Michiana Covenant | Aug 6, 2013 | Breckinridge

March 21, 2012

The women of the Breckinridge family are a remarkable lot as well. Since my research during this trip has focused on the years 1862-1866, the stories have tended toward the dark, painful, and tragic.

One remarkable providence is that while Robert Jefferson Breckinridge had three sons and two sons-in-law in harm’s way (four of whom were captured at one point or other), none of them died in the war. But as Lee surrendered his sword at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, one of his children lay dying — “one of the victims of this diabolical insurrection.” [1] His daughter, Sally (the one who said, “I wish I was a man,” as I wrote last week), suffered a series of heart attacks that took her at the age of 32. She had spent four years living in Cynthiana — the center of Confederate support in Kentucky — as a staunch Union supporter. During a brief respite in Maryland, she had heard of the capture of her (Union) brother Joseph. She wrote to her father, “I feel so bitter since Josey’s capture. I can hardly stand a rebel in my presence, though the rebels here are not at all like our Kentucky rebels….I dread going back to Cynthiana.” [2]

Of course, for those of you who know something about Civil War history, the timing of Sally’s death was particularly grievous:
April 9, 1865 — Lee surrenders
April 15, 1865 — Lincoln is assassinated
April 23, 1865 — Sally Breckinridge dies
And so as the nation first rejoiced — and then mourned the death of Lincoln — RJB faced a particularly private grief. “[T]he burden…was too great for her frail and sensitive temperament. Whatever idea is most gentle & most powerful, at once, in the words, ‘heroic Christian woman’ — this noble creature realised.” As he commented to Miss Binnie, “Three of my sons, and two of my sons in law — were exposed…as continually, and terribly, to every form of death — as any like number, during this frightful war. And yet the whole five were in this room with me, & with each other but a few days since….The Master came to my flock — and took one noble creature — perhaps the one readiest for the work above…” [1]

The death of Sally, perhaps, was instrumental in drawing those “whole five” together. The Breckinridge children had been drawn close together by the death of their mother in 1844. Mary, the eldest, had cared for the younger children (even wet-nursed the youngest, Charley, who was only four months old when his mother died). But when she married William Warfield in December of 1848, the task of managing the family fell to her 17 year old sister, Sally, who practically reared the younger children for eight years before she married George Morrison in 1856.

Of course, when Sally died — just two weeks after Lee’s surrender — her Confederate brothers were absent: Robert (and brother-in-law Theophilus Steele) in a Union prison in Ohio and William serving in the Confederate Army in North Carolina — only her Union brother, Joseph (recently recovered from his stint in a Confederate prison), and her Union husband, George Morrison, were there.

But less than a month later, all the Breckinridge sons (and sons-in-law) gathered together in RJB’s house, and in most respects, life very quickly returned to some semblance of normalcy. The brothers made occasional references to the “terrible war” (no one at that time would have ever trivialized the War by calling it “the late unpleasantness!”), but never in spite or malice — and the undying love that bound them together once again was made manifest in their daily lives.

In the title of this “chapter,” however, there is a name that has not been mentioned since. There was one Breckinridge who was not reconciled. Yes, the sons and sons-in-law all resumed regular interaction. Even Kate Breckinridge — Robert Jr’s wife — would cheerily invite her father-in-law over for dinner. But Issa Desha Breckinridge, Willie’s wife, remained shrouded in darkness.

Issa was 17 when she married Willie, September 19, 1861. Shortly after her 18th birthday, she gave birth to her first child, Ella (June 7, 1862 — hey, the math works!). Five weeks later, Willie joined Morgan’s Raiders — he had always been a southern sympathizer, but had tried to stay out of the war for his wife’s sake (and blamed his departure on his sister, Mary, accusing her of threatening to denounce him to the Federal authorities) — and did not see his wife or daughter again for nearly three years.

I will not try to adjudicate between Willie and Mary here. But Issa spent the next three years trying to figure out a way to get to her husband. Her parents were concerned that she was too frail — that her health could not survive the rough conditions of the hot, humid, southern summers. She submitted petition after petition to Union Generals, requesting a pass to go to her husband. Denied. She sought assistance from leading men in the county to intercede with the Generals. Denied. She wrote to the President, Abraham Lincoln, who replied that if her father-in-law (RJB) requested it, he would approve.

Issa was furious. RJB was the one man on earth that she would not ask.

Willie tried to persuade his wife to change her attitude toward RJB: “If I am at all worthy of your love — if in my character & culture & training there is anything of which you can be proud or that can add to your happiness, to his love & kindness & influence we should be grateful. I was a delicate child — he was as tender as a mother [remember that Willie’s mother died when he was 8] — I was an obstinate boy — he was patient; I was sensitive & proud — he was kind & indulgent; I was hot-tempered — he was forbearing; I was an eager questioner — he was a willing & oh how patient explainer…. He is old — his life has been a most laborious one — a very great part of it full of suffering — most of it very full of sadness; and my precious loving darling, my heart goes out to him in his old age when I know he has so much to sadden him, with a tenderer warmer love than ever when I loved him better than any one living.” [3]

But when (at Willie’s suggestion) RJB tried to reach out to Issa in March of 1864, her reply stung: “Twenty months and more have passed since Willie was forced to leave Ella & I at your house, and since that time we have had no reason to think that have had even ‘kindly thoughts,’ and I do not now care to accept them, given too only because my husband asks them, and I hope you will no longer feel this as a ‘solemn charge’ when I assure you that neither I nor our child expect or desire any thing from you.” [4] After calming down slightly, she wrote to her husband, saying that in twenty months RJB had never taken the slightest notice of her — or of Ella, “our little child the only child of a son that ought to be so dear to him.” [5]

Since the mails between the Union and the Confederacy were somewhat slower than normal, it was September 1 before RJB could explain his side of the story to Willie: “she had long before that avoided me, and refused to see John….I have occasionally seen your child by accident in the streets; and each time…blessed it, which God, I trust, will ratify.” [6]

Meanwhile, in July of 1864, Issa and her parents heard that the wives of Confederate officers were to be forcibly removed from the state and sent down the Mississippi River. Fearing that Issa could not handle such treatment, her father quickly took her to Toronto, where she joined a group of Kentucky exiles, led by Stuart Robinson (a long-time friend of RJB, who had become his arch-nemesis during the War). Two-year old Ella remained with her grandmother Desha in Kentucky until the fall, when they joined Issa in Canada. Issa wrote to Willie that her health began to improve almost immediately upon arrival in Ontario. She astutely attributed it to the change in the people around her. In Kentucky, “Every time I looked at a Yankee, and our streets were full of them, I felt that I was looking upon the would-be murderer of my husband. My hatred and intense loathing increased every moment.” [7]

Finally, at the request of Dr. Desha, General Burbridge [the commanding general in Kentucky] wrote to Abraham Lincoln on October 24, 1864, requesting Lincoln to grant Issa’s request. Given that Burbridge resided in Lexington and regularly consulted with RJB, I am firmly convinced that RJB knew and approved of this — but also knew that his intercession was not desired, and so (for once) remained silent! And on November 3, 1864, with Issa and her father coming personally to Washington, D.C., Abraham Lincoln granted the pass.

But by the time Issa got back to her hotel, the last “truce boat” had already left Washington. The next one was not scheduled for another month. [Did Lincoln know? One could argue that Lincoln knew what he was doing — and was toying with her. One could also argue that Lincoln knew what he was doing — and was sparing her from the horrors of the final chapter of the war. Atlanta had already fallen to the Union Army. Sherman was marching across Georgia — and Sheridan had begun to make his way down the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. Where could she have gone? She couldn’t live with Willie at the front!] So she returned to Toronto. Shortly thereafter, she received word that she was welcome to return to Kentucky.

She returned by the beginning of April — Willie returned at the end of May. More than 3/4 of their married life had been spent apart. Ella had not seen her father since she was five weeks old.

When Willie had to leave on business three months later (he was gone for three days), Issa feared that the darkness would return: “such a long, long, weary day it has been, recalling those wretched ones when you were far away — days all gloom, anxiety, suspense, almost despair. Thank God they are gone! Would to God I could forget them — so dark is even the recollection of them that to have the remembrance of them blotted out I would gladly forget all the pleasures of childhood, all the hopes of girl-hood — every thing in the past save the remembrance of the happiness with which your love crowned me — and the precious days that followed.” [8]

So perhaps, then, you will understand that when the family gathered in RJB’s house at the end of May of 1865, there was one face that was conspicuously absent. Issa Breckinridge would not go to her father-in-law’s house for more than two years after the war.

I’m sorry to end there — but that is where I am in my research. The Breckinridge family is “sort of” back together again — but now battle-scarred and weary. And RJB, now past his 66th birthday, is beginning to fade from the scene. He had saved Kentucky for the Union — or, more precisely, he had saved Kentucky for the Confederacy (Because Kentucky had remained in the Union — but a majority of the population had favored the Confederacy — they had the legal rights of a Union state, with the voting power of a Confederate state!). Very quickly, the vast majority of Kentuckians wanted nothing more to do with him.

[1] RJB to Miss Binnie, June 9, 1865 (Miss Binnie was one of RJB’s former parishioners from Baltimore in the 1830s; the Binnie family continued to write regularly to RJB long after he left).
[2] Sally to RJB, August 28, 1864
[3] Willie to Issa, March 11, 1864
[4] Issa to RJB, April 2, 1864
[5] Issa to Willie, April 2, 1864
[6] RJB to Willie, September 1, 1864
[7] Issa to Willie, July 30, 1864
[8] Issa to Willie, August 29, 1865. When she wrote the next night, she commented that their servant, Billy, had laughed at her, “Lord, Miss Issa, you ain’t writing to that man already, are you — does you love him so you can’t give him nor rest?”

[All quotes from the Breckinridge Family Papers, Library of Congress]

1862 — The “Late Unpleasantness” in the Breckinridge Family

by Michiana Covenant | Aug 3, 2013 | Breckinridge

[March 14, 2012]

My first two days in the Breckinridge Family Papers this week took me through eight volumes of correspondence, from February 6, 1862 – January 28, 1863 (boxes 220-227). Since I still have 53 volumes to go, that probably means that I will not be able to finish in the six days that remain to me on this trip! Then again, I’m in the middle of the Civil War. Virtually every letter is packed with significance. It’s hard not to slow down a bit when every letter could contain an important piece of information regarding R. J. Breckinridge’s involvement in the defense of the Union in Kentucky (not exactly the most popular stance he ever took among his fellow Kentuckians — but one that showered praise upon him from all over the rest of the Union [along with a fair share of opprobrium from the Confederacy!]).

As of July of 1862, one of his sons (RJB Jr) was serving in the Confederate Army, along with his nephew, John C. Breckinridge (the same John C. Breckinridge who was the “runner-up” to Abraham Lincoln in the presidential election of 1860). His son-in-law, Dr. Theophilus Steele, was a surgeon in the Confederate Army as well — although Mrs. Steele, R.J.’s daughter, Sophy, did not share her husband’s views on the war.

Another of RJB’s sons (Joseph) was serving in the Union Army — and apparently Joseph and Robert were both in the same battle at one point. Joseph’s letters indicate that he fought in Kentucky and Tennessee before being transferred east to Baltimore and then to Florida. A younger son, Charles, spent most of the war at West Point. Two other sons-in-law, William Warfield (Mary’s husband), and the Rev. George Morrison (Sally’s husband) were staunch Union men. Rev. Morrison was even wounded in the battle of Cynthiana, where he joined in the defense of the town from Morgan’s Raiders.

Morgan’s Raiders changed the whole complexion of the war in Kentucky. Until July of 1862, the Union forces were pushing south into Tennessee, and were likely to take control of the Mississippi River. But on July 4, 1862, Captain John Morgan quietly led a daring company into the heart of Kentucky. On July 14, RJB’s second son, William saw a band of 60-80 men pass through his father’s farm outside Lexington. Willie was rumored to be a southern sympathizer, but he had tried to stay out of the war for the sake of his father. He wrote to his father the next day saying that it had been “my purpose to keep myself entirely aloof from this war – taking no part in it and submitting in silence until God worked out the result. My affection & my duty to my wife & to you, my duty to my creditors and the force of the condition I was in, made me choose this course.” He blamed his older sister, Mary Warfield, for falsely accusing him of aiding Morgan — and then promptly rode off to join Morgan!

Two days later, William fought on the side of the Confederates against his brother-in-law, George Morrison, in the battle at Cynthiana. Word spread that Morgan had divided his troops and planned an attack on Lexington next. Morrison’s wife Sally wrote to her father on August 3 that she would feel better if he (RJB) went across the Ohio to Cincinnati, “for if they do come they would rather have you than 100 common men.” Frustrated at only being able to cook and care for the wounded, Sally added, “I wish I was a man!”

[As it turned out, they didn’t want RJB — they wanted his horses! At least two of his finest were “impressed” into the service of Morgan’s troops.]

When Joseph (who was in Florida in the Union Army at the time) heard about Willie’s defection, he wrote to his father on August 7, “It was a culminating blow I had hoped and prayed would be spared you and all of us. As a soldier may he act in the self-balanced, noble way he did before the war, reflect honor upon his political opinions and make his corps respectable. He knows how I have loved and do love him: I am sorry that that side has been joined by so fine a man.”

Willie’s wife, Issa Desha Breckinridge, whose father and brothers were staunch Confederates, urged him on — and never again would speak to her father-in-law (their eldest daughter was seven years old before she met her grandfather — even though they lived in the same town)! She said that she felt no pity for Union men who now felt the pain of being cut off from family and friends.

With hundreds, if not thousands, of southern-sympathizing Kentuckians rallying to Morgan, R. J. Breckinridge telegraphed General J. S. Boyle in Louisville, asking for immediate assistance. Boyle replied [please note: Boyle replied! Normally, when a civilian asks a general for military assistance, the general does not reply!] that his orders did not permit him to deviate from sending troops to Nashville. Central Kentucky was overrun by Morgan, and for the next four months the mails were somewhat irregular (ceasing altogether for nearly two months in the fall).

When the Confederate Army was driven out of Kentucky, Willie wrote once more to his father on October 27, asking him to forward a letter to his wife. He added, “I am glad that if we are driven from Kentucky & she is lost to us, that you & Joseph & Charles & Mary [those] I love will be benefitted by our loss.” Recognizing that he might never return to Kentucky — or see his father again — he concluded, “I can not avoid expressing my unchanged love & gratitude for & to you for the kindness & love you have ever shown me. It was once my hope & desire that I should be the child who would be the peculiar support of your old age — the staff upon which you would most confidently lean. God has ordered it otherwise — another son may be worthier — he could not be more loving.”

That son — for the rest of the war — was William Warfield (Mary’s husband — and father of Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield). There was no one else! Robert and Willie, the two oldest sons, now fought for the Confederacy. His next two sons were in the Union Army. His youngest son, John, was only 12 — and so Warfield, a leading Kentucky horse-breeder in his own right, took over the task of keeping an eye on RJB’s daily affairs.

I hope you can see how the “late unpleasantness” (as the Civil War was euphemized) truly divided father from son, husband from wife, brother from brother.

[All quotations from Breckinridge Mss. Library of Congress]

RJB and His Nephew: Vice President John C. Breckinridge

by Michiana Covenant | Aug 1, 2013 | Breckinridge

March 15, 2011

I have had four days so far in the Library of Congress, and have already found quite a lot of useful information. I have been averaging at least six volumes of correspondence per day, so I have a reasonable chance of getting to the Civil War on this trip (my goal is to get through 1862 — which would leave me with 60 volumes for next time). So far I have worked through the Breckinridge letters from 1854 to 1856.

R. J. Breckinridge’s nephew, John C. Breckinridge, was elected Vice President of the United States in 1856. The election of 1856 was notorious for its violence. Candidates and stump speakers were frequently attacked (physically) by “ruffians” (as RJB called them). Of course, what made Kentucky especially interesting was that RJB was a well-known leader of the “American Party” (sometimes called the Know-Nothings), while JCB was the Vice Presidential candidate for “the Democracy” (as the Democrats billed themselves at that time). At one point JCB wrote to his uncle, asking him if he would please do something to prevent the violence of the Know-Nothings, suggesting that he might have to bring a gang of Democratic thugs to their home town of Lexington to prevent trouble.

This is RJB’s reply:

“That such a necessity as you suppose to be possible should arise, is infinitely to be deplored; and that such a state of excitement should exist, that any considerate man would judge liable to terminate in outrages not be endured, is what every wise and good man must condemn. Supposing all you say to be true, there is, I fear, one point in which you are wholly mistaken; namely, any adequate influence on my part to make things any better. I shall, however, be in Lexington on Friday next – and will most gladly do whatever may be possible, to promote peace, and to ensure the fair exercise of every man’s rights. The course I have long taken in public affairs has been one, in a great degree peculiar to myself – and eminently calculated to render any influence, with any body, impossible, except so far as men would hear & respect reason; whch, it has seemed to me, was the very thing which, in general, they were the very least inclined to do. Every body seems bent on success, no matter by what means: and half the nation ready to destroy the nation itself – unless their own passions are gratified. Riot, bloodshed, sedition, revolution, flow as inevitably from such a state of the public mind, and as other effect follows any other cause. That men of real importance in a coutnry, should persist in such ignorble seditions, is the last form of degration a people reaches: and, as yet, has not been maifested amongst us. Nor need it be, if such men retain a true sense of their own position, a true conception of their real relation to society, no matter what phase society may put on. Believe me, one word of yours fitly uttered from your true position, is more effectual, than any form of public violence it is possible for your head – no matter what counter violence it might be intended to resist. Of course, I would not have you act a part, either unmanly or _. But if violence on your part, is indispensable, the only becoming and the only effectual form of it, is to hold to a personal responsibility the chief authorities, whose connnivance or neglect is the cause of the outrages you will not endure: just as I would, if I had been a public man, have held governor Power & Col Preston, personally responsible for the atrocious abuse concetrated in the Resolutions of the Democratic Convention of this state, a year or two since: a proceeding on the part of that convention which explains much of the violence now so shockingly exhibited over the land – and for which, I doubt not, all parties are responsible, each in its degree. If the ruffians of all parties, may call the leaders of parties and the eminent men of the land, to take personal part in their broils (in their defence, as they may choose to call it), that is a new, and the last step, before society has lost every element of self-control. I cannot agree, that you can, under any conceivable circumstances, have a proper call to mingle in such issues, or to fight them out on any such basis. The element of which such seditions are recruited, is as perfectly distinct, as the element of which presidents are chosen; and no illusion can justify a gentleman, much less one whose mission is _ a most exalted one, either to commit homicide in such a broil, or to fall by the hand of some ruffian in such a cause. Since the world began, no such man as you fell in such a broil, upon such a question as either of those stated in your letter, or as either of them can properly lead to. In short, there are two matters wholly distinct, in the case: one regarding the deplorable state of public excitement; the other regarding the form & extent of the interferance, in the way of force, allowable in those who though of a party – are not of its ruffians.

“I write in more haste than I could desire, in order to get my letter into the mail: and have only time to add that all I have said is on supposition that matters may come to a more serious issue in Lexington, than I can persuade myself they will. I trust in God, we shall see nothing worse, than it has been our misfortune to see often before; and bad as that may be, it seems incident to popular institutions, and must be endured, for the benefits they confer.”

RJB’s reply is interesting — both because of what it reveals about the principles RJB espoused, and also because of what it reveals about the times: namely, that political campaigns in the mid-19th century were brutal and bloody affairs. Some people were willing to kill for their beliefs (and at least a few were ready to die for them).

[And in spite of RJB’s suggestion that this seems to be a recent phenomenon, he himself had experienced the same sort of violence — albeit of a slightly different form — when he ran for the state legislature in the 1820s! When the partisans of RJB and his opponent began attacking each other, and bloodshed seemed imminent, RJB and his opponent bound their arms together and marched out into the fray shouting for order! Does that help you understand what he is saying to his nephew?]

Oh, and by the way — he voted for his nephew for Vice President. (As far as I can ascertain, the only time in his life that he ever voted Democrat!) And it wasn’t simply because JCB was his nephew. In the election of 1856, there were three candidates: James Buchanan (Democrat), John C. Fremont (Republican), and Millard Fillmore (Know-Nothing). Since the Know-Nothings had fallen apart, and the abolitionists had formed the “Black Republicans,” RJB feared that both the (abolitionist) Republicans and the (southern) Democrats were driving the nation toward disunion. While the Know-Nothings were the only party that he trusted, he knew that they had no chance to win (Fillmore took 21.6% of the popular vote — and only carried Maryland). Therefore, while he distrusted the Democratic party, he trusted his nephew to remain true to the Union — and so voted for Buck and Breck (as the Democratic ticket was nicknamed). It probably didn’t hurt that both men were Old School Presbyterians as well…

The irony of all this is that Uncle Robert was losing touch with his beloved nephew — as he would learn most painfully in 1861 when John C. Breckinridge became the arch-traitor of the Union — being the highest ranking U.S. official (former Vice President and sitting Senator from the supposedly Union state of Kentucky) to join the Confederacy! Two of his own sons, Robert and William, would also become Confederate officers — while two others, Joseph and Charles, would serve with the Union.

From Sophy to Virginia

by Michiana Covenant | Jul 18, 2013 | Breckinridge

April 10, 2010

I take scads of photos in my research. I’m trying to keep a quick pace, taking pictures of everything important, rather than stop to read everything now, but the middle of the 1840s were a busy time for RJB.

1844
December — his wife, Sophonisba Preston, dies

1845
He resigns from 2nd Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, in the spring in order to accept the presidency of Jefferson College in western Pennsylvania. He spends the summer in Kentucky with his children, but since there is no house large enough for his eight children, he only takes Robert (11) and Willy (8) with him to Pennsylvania, and sends his 13 year old daughter, Sally, with her Aunt Eliza (Sophy’s sister) in Richmond, Virginia (where she runs a boarding school), and sends his 9 year old daughter, Marie, to stay with her mother’s cousin, Louisiana Hart Gibson near New Orleans. Her sister, Sarah Hart Thompson, takes 6-year-old Sophy and 3-year-old Joseph, and the other sister, Virginia Hart Shelby, takes 17-year-old Mary and 1-year-old Charles.

1846
Long-distance courtship with Virginia Hart Shelby
Long-distance correspondence with his daughter Mary about the children (and about her various potential marriages)

1847
Resigns from Jefferson College and engages in lengthy correspondence with a couple different churches in Kentucky that want to call him

(Can you see why there just might be a lot of correspondence those years?)

Two items for those who are following this so far:
1) Do you remember the story of the near duel in 1821/22? On March 12 I told you that he was at the theatre in Louisville with two Prestons. As it turns out, the theatre was in Frankfort, and he was there with Sophy Preston (later his wife), and her Hart cousins (probably Sarah and Louisiana — since Virginia was only 12 or 13 at the time). Now, 23 years later, the other two cousins who were present that night in Frankfort offer to take their cousin’s children for a time!
2) Also in 1845, RJB falls in love with their younger sister, Virginia Hart Shelby, reputed to be the most beautiful widow in all of Kentucky — and the daughter-in-law of Governor Isaac Shelby. Their correspondence includes some incredibly beautiful love letters, but also not a few hints of what would come in the future. Virginia broke off their first engagement, but insisted that she wanted to continue their correspondence and indicated that if she ever married, she would probably marry him. She also told him on one occasion that she preferred to end the relationship by letter — since she was unable to resist him when he was present! (Any guess what he did?)

So from the summer of 1845 (when he begins to fall for Virginia) through the spring of 1847 (when they get married), there are usually two letters from Virginia each week. I had worked through his letters in Kentucky. Now I’ve worked through her letters (or in some cases, just photographed them, since I know how important they are from his responses!).
In addition, there are Mary’s letters. She was 16 when her mother died, and 19 when he married Virginia. When she was 16 — and living with Virginia, she told her father to press his cause with “cousin Virginia” and was delighted at the prospect of having her as her stepmother. But by 1847, after the wedding, she will tell her father to give her love to “Susan and Isaac and Alfred” (Virginia’s teenage children), but will “forget” to mention Virginia. In her last letter to her father before his marriage, she tells him that five-year old Josey wants “no mother but sister.”

And of course, Mary Breckinridge herself was going through the joys and woes of courtship. When she was 16, she fell in love with Samuel Miller Breckinridge (her first cousin — who was living with them in Baltimore). It was all RJB could do to pry them apart. Then cousin Virginia took her on a trip to New Orleans to visit relatives there — and on the steam boat back up the Mississippi, she fell head over heels for George Forman, a 35 year old bachelor. This romance lasted for six months, with the now 18-year old Mary pleading with her father to let her marry Mr. Forman. The final conversations between father and daughter happened face-to-face in the summer of 1846. All we have recorded is the first draft of a letter from Mary to Mr. Forman stating that he need not make another trip to Kentucky, because she has changed her mind and is going with her father to Pennsylvania. (There are also veiled references in Mary’s later letters to her father that suggest that she traded her happiness for his in that decision!)

But in the winter of 1846-47, RJB had his whole family back together. And in the summer of 1847, he added his new wife and her 17-year old daughter Susan (who, at least at first, was fast friends with Mary).

But in the middle of the family matters, RJB is frequently called upon to advise the session of his former congregation in Baltimore (they try calling James Henley Thornwell — who agrees to come, but the South Carolina College refuses to let him go — and Benjamin Morgan Palmer, whose Presbytery will not release him!). RJB tries to stay out of the pastoral search, but they won’t let him! Further, there are pastoral care issues — in one case a feud starts between two elders, and they beg him to come and help them resolve it — which he does, with excellent results.

What’s more, in 1846, when the Senior Class of Jefferson College revolts (a rebellion that diverts attention in Kentucky from the Mexican War!), it was RJB’s wise and patient handling of the young men that restored order and honor to the college.

I honestly did not expect to find out that RJB would be praised as a peacemaker who was able to restore harmony and tranquility. He has always seemed to me so combative, that I did not think he would be so gracious and humble as he was in convincing the faculty not to expel the students who had insulted him (in the end, only two were expelled — and that was for continued defiance after the rest of the senior class had been pacified).

But needless to say, all of these events required reams of paper (since the parties lived hundreds of miles away from each other!). This is good for me — since most pastoral difficulties are handled in person, not by letter — and most father/daughter interactions over suitors are likewise handled face-to-face. And RJB was kind enough to live so much of his life on the road that even when he had his family at home, he was frequently traveling to General Assembly, or taking business trips to deal with estate matters (or being called to testify in Maryland against Governor Thomas!!).

Finally, in August of 1847, RJB accepted the call of the First Presbyterian Church in Lexington, Kentucky.