Burr Box 3 – Folders 37-52

[8/4/2010] Burr Box 3 – Folders 37-52 [8/11/2009 – Rodi York] Burr Collection – page 2 Folder Items 37 17 Burr Papers; Sarah Lord Hyde letters 1851-1856, 61-62 [Letters 1861-1862; Civil War; Selden on way to New Orleans; 4 items from Noah H. Gillet; 1 Morgan] Mrs. H.A. Burr [“My dear Niece”] fr N.H. Gillet (Unity Parsonage) 20 Aug 1861; with envelope addressed to Mrs. H.A. Burr, Hamburg P.O., Lyme, Conn, postmarked Latrobe PA, Aug 22; re Civil War, excuses for not replying sooner to her letter, “Were I to make an excuse it would be the war, the war! For 4 months, I have been taking a daily paper (besides my weeklies & monthlies for which I have to send or go two miles. This, together with my official duties & overseeing & sometimes helping about my hay making &c has eaten up all my time.”; “My health has been pretty good most of the time since I wrote last, but that of my wife has been but poor all summer, & still worse the last two or three weeks. She is seldom in bed, still keeps about attending to her business, because she has no girl but a little one 11 years old, and lately we have had a good deal of company. Sometimes she has been obliged to lie down several times a day. Today I went 5-1/2 miles to visit an afflicted family of my Cong that furnished three young men for the war (three months now[?]) one of whom was buried last Friday & the other two are quite ill. I took my wife along for a ride, she getting out of the buggy before coming to the house, and resting on the grass in a cool summer’s breeze, for half an hour in preference to the fatigue & the impure air she would have suffered in going with me to the house. The ten mile ride did her good, and this evening she is decidedly better.”; “We have had a very fruitful season for most crops, and generally healthy. Last Sab. was our communion, we had nearly 200 communicants, seated at three successive tables as our manner is, two added on examination & two on certificate. But most of the people have been too much taken up with the war to be zealous & warm hearted in religion. I have felt it my duty to give instruction & warning in regard to our sins & our dangers and our duties as individuals & as a nation. Sometimes in conversation in the social circle but most in public discourse. I have made three addresses to some of our young soldiers. One at the close of a sermon the Sab. Eve. previous to the departure of two companies from Latrobe (in presence of the largest & most solemn assembly I ever addressed in our House of worship there.) Another was last Sab. eve. week in the same house after there return & then again at the funeral above named. You judge right that I am no abolishionist, but strongly anti slavery in my views. But it is another feeling than hatred to slavery that prompts my in giving my prayers co- operation & influence to the present war, patriotism & duty to support the government. At the commencement of our difficulties I was anxious for some honorable & safe compromise if it could be had. But when such an one was rejected by the South, & their voice waxed louder & louder for ‘Down with the constitution and the Union,’ one fort after another was seized & finally to make sure of the work & to provoke a quarrel that could never be healed, they actually commenced the way by bombarding Fort Sumpter[sic.] then I gave up. And gave my influence for the war. 14 or 16 connected with my own congregation, 4 of which are communicants, went in the first enrolment. But if you want to know my views more fully I will refer you to a sermon I first preached to my own people e4xtemporaneously then remodeled & partly wrote it preaching it in a neighboring cong. at the request of the pastor, & very unexpectedly was requested to furnish a copy for one of our county papers. As I design to send you a copy I ought to explain why I thought it necessary to give my own views so fully to prevent misapprehension. The Pastor (who requested me to preach the sermon) married a Virginia lady & spent the first years of his ministry in that State & Maryland, his wife is known to be a secessionist, his daughter leaning that way, he has a brother in law, two married daughters who with their husbands & a single son, are all living in Virginia & doubtless all sympathize with the South, while the Pastor himself holds views similar to my own, yet cannot utter a word about the sins of the people and the dreadful scourge of war which providence has brought upon us, without being misunderstood, & stirring up the wrath of his Republican hearers, while some of the Ultra Democrats denounce their Republican brethren with severity. After stating the case to me the pastor says in his letter, ‘I wish you would exchange pulpits with me & come & try to settle my excited people. Your visit last Mar’ (a time of revival there) ‘has greatly endeared you to many of my people & I think you might do much good’. It is to be published tomorrow, & though full of imperfections, & topographical errors no doubt, yet I will send you a copy. The length will try your patience I fear.” Mrs. E.F. Burr (“Dear Auntie”) fr Sam, (Norwich) 11 Oct 1862; with envelope addressed to Mrs. E.F. Burr, Hamburg, Conn, postmarked Norwich, Oct 11; “You have undoubtedly heard from Mr. Hyde that mother was unwell, and it is even so. About a week ago she was taken sick and Dr. Haile[?] was sent for but by some misunderstanding he did not understand her case for some time. But now, by her request I write to inform you that she is getting well rapidly and is doing well.”; Lizzie also sick Angie fr Sarah (Walnut Hills) 27-30 April 1861; with envelope addressed to Mrs. E.F. Burr, Hamburgh, Conn, postmarked Cincinnati, May 2; Angie and mother visited “brother G” for few days; Albert’s health improved, “His knee is not so sensitive as it was and he is able to go up stairs by using one crutch and holding on to the banisters which is a great relief to me as I found it very fatiguing to carry him up and he took a fancy that I could take him up better than his father. When I think of the change in him I cannot give up all hope of seeing you this summer yet I do not see exactly how it is to be accomplished even if Albert is well enough to travel that distance.”; weather, first warm day, fields green; doesn’t know when Annie & Gertrude will come; has heard that Carrie looks well; Ned plays with his baby brother, “I do not know how many times a day they go off up stairs into the lumber[?] room together and toss about on the straw mattress and tote the straw pillows hither and thither to the great discomfort of their papa.”; “Millie is very desirous that I should finish a dress of G’s that I am altering for her, so that she may go to the city Saturday and spend the day with Emma Coffin.”; mentions “Poor Mrs. Brockway”; “How do you get your washing done. Does someone come to the house or do you put it out.”; “I send you a little sheaf of hair from Harry’s head in order that you may not be under the necessity of ‘referring all particulars of him to Fancy’.” To Mrs. EFB? fr “your friend” John R. Morgan; 23 Dec? 1862; 4 pieces of paper, some cut down, first page missing?; Civil War; “. I am well and hope this will find you all the same I had left camp Buckingham I received your letter the 23 of dec and was glad to hear from you I received those papers that you sent by Mr. hide [Hyde?] I thank you are kindly for them and then gave them to others to read I thank you for the kind [?] you gave me in your letter you sent to [?] i hope . .”; “I hope to Be a good soldier in My country call and a better soldier in the service of the lord Jesus Christ and enlist under the great [?] of our salvation let us put our trust in God . .”; “Thank Mr. Burr for the prayers he has offered for me and all the soldiers and I hope he will continue to pray for me and all the soldiers . .”; “. if anything should happen that I should not return back to those I love let us trust in god that we may meet in heaven where we shall not Be separated . .”; “I have not rote [written] anything about the situation of the placed I do no think that it is as pleasant as camp Buckingham I went up the parapet the other day it is somewhere about to [two] or three miles in lenth [length] it is five miles to the [?] they have to [two] hundred about 50 negroes to work on it there is numbers[?] of Big guns Mounted there is several [?] guns the news come to the iland [island] that we were all lost But it mistake.

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