Charles F. Penley captured letters, 1864, 1915

Summary

Creator:

Penley, Charles Freeland, 1833-1920

Abstract:

This collection comprises five letters apparently sent and received by Captain Edward Willoughby Anderson in correspondence with Miss Maria Davis in 1864. The letters concern life in Richmond and a Confederate soldier's perspective of the Civil War. Also present are two photographs taken in and after 1915 of Charles Freeland Penley, a Union soldier who captured the Anderson/Davis correspondence during the Civil War.

Extent:

7 items

Language:

English

Sponsor:

James S. Schoff Civil War Collection

Authors:

Collection processed and finding aid created by Sara Quashnie, December 2018

Background

Scope and Content:

This collection comprises five letters apparently sent and received by Captain Edward Willoughby Anderson in correspondence with Miss Maria Davis in 1864. The letters concern life in Richmond and a Confederate soldier's perspective of the Civil War. Also present are two photographs taken in and after 1915 of Charles Freeland Penley, a Union soldier who captured the Anderson/Davis correspondence during the Civil War.

See the Box and Folder Listing below for details about each item in the collection.

Biographical / Historical:

Charles Freeland Penley was born May 11, 1833, in Paris, Maine, to Joseph Penley (1792-1865) and Lovina (Monk) Penley. During the Civil War, Penley served in Company C of the 17th Maine Volunteers (August 18, 1862- June 4, 1865) and finished the war as a Corporal. He married Abbie Locke and had three children: Francis Homer Penley, Alice Penley, and Albert Eames Penley. He married three subsequent times. Penley and his family moved to Augusta, Kansas, in 1870. Penley worked as a farmer for much of his life and died January 6, 1920, in South Paris, Maine.

Edward Willoughby Anderson was born November 11, 1841, in St. Augustine, Florida, to Captain James Willoughby Anderson (1812-1847) and Ellen Mannevillette (Brown) Anderson (1814-1862). After his father's death in the Battle of Churubusco, Anderson, his mother, and two sisters, moved a number of times before settling in New York. As a sophomore at the New York Free Academy in 1859, he received Ward Medals in Drawing and Hygiene, as well as a thirty-dollar prize. Appointed by General Winfield Scott, Anderson became a cadet at West Point in 1860. In April 1861, following the secession winter, he refused the oath of allegiance and resigned. Subsequently, he moved to Norfolk, Virginia, and enlisted with the Provisional Army of Virginia as a Second Lieutenant. After the war, Anderson married Elizabeth Masi (d. 1903) and moved to Washington, D.C. He attended the Columbian University Law School and embarked on a career in patent law. Following Elizabeth's death, he married Anna Jarboe. He was a member of the United Confederate Veterans, Oldest Inhabitants of the District, the Aztec Club of 1847, and Potomac Lodge, No. 5, of the Freemasons. He passed away on September 2, 1915, in Washington, D.C. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Sallie Maria Davis (1844-1924) was the daughter of William Frederick Davis (1817-1854) and Martha (Bohannan) Davis (1811-1874) of Richmond, Virginia. Her father, William Frederick Davis, was president of the Mutual Building Fund and Loan Company in Richmond. She died in Helena, Arkansas, on February 15, 1924, and is buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia.

Dr. Walter Somerville was a slaveholder, doctor, and preacher from Culpeper County, Virginia. Born on September 2, 1804, to James Somerville and Mary (Atwell) Somerville in Fredericksburg, Virginia, he graduated from the Medical College of the University of Pennsylvania in 1826. According to United States Census Slave Schedules, Somerville owned thirteen slaves in 1850 and four slaves in 1860. He married Mary Henry Briggs (1809-1859) on October 9, 1827. They raised twelve children, including Margaret Somerville (1835-1906), Julia Somerville (1836-1926), and James Wilson Somerville (1842-1900). Julia Somerville married Edward Gray (1832-1913), a private in the Confederate army from Richmond, Virginia. While serving as a surgeon with the Confederate army at Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond, Dr. Somerville was taken prisoner and paroled in 1865. Somerville helped found Rapidan Chapel, the precursor to Mitchells Presbyterian Church and as an elder was certified to preach to African-Americans. He died on November 25, 1890, and is buried in the family plot in Somervilla Cemetery.

Acquisition Information:

Gift of Heather Gates, from the collection of David M. and Marian Gates, 2016. M-6025 and M-6034 .

Arrangement:

The collection is arranged chronologically.

Rules or Conventions:

Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS)

Related

Additional Descriptive Data:

Related Materials

Anderson, Edward Willoughby. Carded Records Showing Military Service of Soldiers Who Fought in Confederate Organizations. National Archives, Washington, D.C. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/51102788

Anderson Family Papers, United States Military Academy Library, West Point, NY.

Davis Family Bible Records, 1741-1924, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, VA.

Samuel Edwin Lewis Papers, 1861-1917, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, VA.

Bibliography

"Capt. E. W. Anderson, War Veteran, Is Dead," Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), September 2, 1915.

Confederate Military History: Volume III. Atlanta: Confederate Publishing Company, 1899.

Connelly, William E. A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans: Volume II. Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company, 1919.

Denham, James M. and Keith L. Huneycutt. Echoes from a Distant Frontier: The Brown Sisters' Correspondence from Antebellum Florida. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 2004.

Lapham, William B. History of Bethel, Formerly Sudbury Canada, Oxford County, Maine, 1768-1890 with a Brief Sketch of Hanover and Family Statistics. Augusta, Me.: Press of the Maine Farmer, 1891.

Packard, F. H. "Charles F. Penley." Oxford Democrat (Paris, Me.), February 3, 1920.

Scheel, Eugene M. Culpeper: A Virginia County's History through 1920. Culpeper, Va.: Culpeper Historical Society, 1982.

Spofford, Ainsworth R. Eminent and Representative Men of Virginia and the District of Columbia of the Nineteenth Century. Madison, Wis.: Brant & Fuller, 1893.

Sullivan, Francis P. "Letters of a West Pointer, 1860-1861." The American Historical Review 33, no. 3 (1928): 599-617.

Thomas, Arthur Dicken, Jr. and Angus McDonald Green, ed. Early Churches of Culpeper County, Virginia: Colonial and Ante-Bellum Congregations. Culpeper, Va.: The Culpeper Historical Society, 1987.

Thompson, William E. First in War: The Hampden-Sydney Boys. Farmville, Va.: Zebrabooks Publications, 2013.

Yates, Robert Somerville. A History of James Somerville of Culpeper, County, Virginia: His Ancestors and Descendants from 1700 to 1987. Ballwin, Mo.: R. S. Yates, 1988.

Subjects

Click on terms below to find any related finding aids on this site.

Subjects:

Soldiers--Confederate States of America--Correspondence.

Formats:

Letters (correspondence)
Photographs.

Names:

Confederate States of America. Army of Northern Virginia.
United States. Army. Maine Infantry Regiment, 17th (1861-1865). Company B.
Penley, Charles Freeland, 1833-1920.
Burnham, J. U. P.
Davis, Maria.
Swan, J. W.

Places:

Richmond (Va.)
United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865.