Unknown Letter #11

Unknown Letter #11

Ellis, L.M.

Allie

From L.M. Ellis to Allie

L. M. Ellis

Jerome Peirce Collection, National Park Service

HIST 428 (Spring 2020), University of Mary Washington

1863

NPS, Civil War Study Group, Josef Rokus (Transcriber)

For educational purposes with no commercial use. Courtesy of National Park Service, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania NMP, FRSP 16095-16102 (FRSP-00904).

English

Text

Unknown Letter #11

Unknown

My dear friend,
I have been writing again to your husband and hearing that the regiment had again moved. I do not whether to direct it to Cairo as he directed me. I hope it does not trouble you to send my epistles with yours. He is so far from home and friends that I know he must be glad to hear of them and to know of them and to know he is remembered.
I hope you are well and little Lucy too. She will be a young lady before I shall see her. Is your sister with you? My kind regards to her. Mrs. Greenleaf always like to hear from you. Her little ones have been well since they have been in the country.
Yours truly,
L. M. Ellis
Jerome’s letter was dated 28 July.

Transcriber’s Note: The following was written on the reverse side of this letter:
Mrs. Jerome Peirce

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

NOTE 1: This letter is undated, but based on the contents and on the dates of the letters Jerome wrote from Cairo, Illinois, it was most likely written in the summer of 1863.

NOTE 2: Jerome mentioned the Ellis family, and Dr. George E. Ellis in particular, in several of his letters, including that he had received a letter from Lucy M. Ellis, who presumably wrote this letter.
Based on references made to Lucy Ellis in several letters, Lucy M. Ellis was almost definitely the wife of Dr. George E. Ellis. The Ellis family had established a relationship with Jerome and Allie because Ellis was the pastor in the church in Charlestown, Massachusetts, that the Peirce family belonged to prior to moving to Orange, Massachusetts.
An Internet search provided the following details about George Edward Ellis. He was born in 1814 in Boston, Massachusetts, and he died in 1894, also in Boston. He graduated from Harvard College in 1833 and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1836, and he was ordained in 1840 as the pastor of the Harvard Unitarian Church in Charlestown, Massachusetts. From 1857 until 1863, he was professor of systematic theology in the Harvard Divinity School. In addition to being the pastor at the church, he also wrote and lectured extensively. George Ellis resigned from the pastorate of the Harvard Unitarian Church in 1869. He was president of the Massachusetts Historical Society and also a member of the Board of Overseers of Harvard University in 1850-1854. Harvard awarded him the degree of D.D. in 1857 and that of L.L.D. in 1883. He is buried in the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
A few days before the funeral service was held for Jerome on June 19, 1864, in the church in Orange, Massachusetts, where Jerome Peirce had been the Sabbath School Superintendent, Dr. Ellis sent a lengthy letter to the pastor of the church in Orange, Rev. Levi Ballou, requesting that that letter, in which he discusses Jerome’s virtues extensively, be read at that service. That letter is now part of this collection of letters and is identified as Number 225.