thank you.

yeah. good evening, ladies and gentlemen. i'm tom ryan, president, ceo of lancaster history. and i'm delighted to welcome our visitors here as well as those on and the future c-span audience. we have c-span in the room tonight recording thisdistribut. lancaster history's regional colloquium is very proud to introduce mark kelly, the author of the highly anticipated autobiography of lydia hamilton smith, entitled, an uncommon woman the life of lydia hamilton smith co-published by lancaster history and penn state press.

i would like to ask of you to silence your cell phones if you haven't done so so far. i will do the same■■k in woman explores the life of lydia hamilton smith a prominent mixed race business woman in lancaster, figure of rising science and progressive action. smith was instrumental to stephen's success as. he led the drive to end slavery, impeach andrew and push the ratification of the 13th, 14th and 15 amendments to the constitution. in this biography, mark kelley reveals how smith's served the cause of abolition managed stevens household acquired property in her own■ right, eventually running to boarding houses and cross racialized social boundaries.

as many of you are aware, lancaster history engaged in the planning and fundraising to create the thaddeus stevens and mith center for history and democracy in, the house on south queen street, where mr. stevens law office was located, where stevens and smith lived with her two sons and his two adopted nephews. i hope youyv will visit our website and click on the link to the stevenson smith's for additional tonight, dr. kelley will discuss some of the negative forces arrayed against mrs. smith, as well as the middle ground people who can sintered her a little more than a housekeeper, but then third group who look upon her as a heroic woman who accomplished too much as a businesswoman,

supported stevens in his elaborate and dangerous underground railroad activity and risked her own health caring for him and frankly, keeping him alive to complete his work on the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments. dr. kelley holds a ph.d. in journal from syracuse university. he worked for 25 years as a broadcast journalist and has taught journalism and mass communication at several institutions of higher learning, an uncommon woman is his fourth book, kelley currently serves on the scholarly advisory committee for the stevens and smith center history and democracy. the museum under development by lancaster history. he design resides here in lancaster. his wife marti, who i believe is in the audience tonight. hello marty, it's my pleasure to give you mark kelly.

thank you. let me add my welcome to tom's, just so happy that you had time to come here and be with us tonight because nobody i enjoy talking about more than lydia hamilton smith. let me just offer a couple of initial thoughts and disclaimer hours before we begin. my talk tonight, which is which i have entitled defining lydia hamilton smith is based largely this book through a shameless ug right here, an uncommon man and tom's already giving you theest of the title the goal of my book was to capture the many dimensionss. smith. and i think just from tom's brief introduction, you, you

recognizeshe had a lot of dimensions. to say, has recsome very'm happy favorable reviews. one local review wasn't so favorable, but pretty much everybody else was. and in my favorite one so far is is from barry olmsted. he writes, he did a review for libry journal and he says, among other things, kelly seeks to do for smith. what annette gordon-reed did for the hemings family in the slow, which is to provide a biography of a figure given only glancing attention in the annals of history that captures it. that's what i to do. and it took it took some work to get it all done. the challenge was really that nobody took it upon themselves when when she was first gone

from us to preserve her papers, you know, thaddeus stevens there's somebody transcribed all of his oh scratch scratchy written documents, his was even worse than mine i think. and, and they published a two volume set of thaddeus stevens papers. there's, there's no two volume set of lydia hamilton smith's papers. she did write she wrote a lot of letters, but nobody i mean as tom suggested, a lot of people said, oh she's just a house housekeeper.you know, you know,e papers of the housekeeper. i think i hope by the time i'm finished here tonight, you'll know that that was a mistake. that. in fact and and it's not an accident that nobody preserved her memories john hope franklin, the distinguished black historian had this to suggest

about why people like lydia hamilton smith and and thaddeus stevens have not been remembered. and he says that defenders of the lost cause is familiar with that. there's lot of talk about that today. intimidation and lynching of black voters, reprisals against white civil rights activists, revision of civil war and reconstruction history. there's been a lot of that and paul and nikki haley get caught up in that one recently so. simple question i mean to me i think it's a simple question. apparently not nikki. i don't mean to get political here. i caution that i would i would you before we get going, is that biography like the journalism that i for so many years is an invasive enterprise.

you know, in the broadcast world, we take a microphone and get in people's faces when they had just suffered some horrible some horrible event like a mother who's lost her, her, you know, ten year old child to a in a gun accident, you know, that kind of■u thing. and i had that same and i can tell you that there maybe some don't but the i worked with we would come away from those encounters feeling like we ought to go home, take a shower. we didn't have a lot of respect for ourselves doing that. well, i began to feel that as i pushed closer and closer to lydia hamilton smith, i thought that she want me inside her front door to shoot, that she won't be standing outside thaddeus stevens bedroom. and the first thought that i had was would she like me if i met her? i think she would have. but by all accounts was a vivacious, pleasant person.

so that that that all of that said, i did, as tom suggested, break down the people who tried to define lydia hamilton smith during her lifetime and later into three groups just a housekeeper and those who say she was really a heroic woman in her time. there's a subgroup who it completely even they know about her when they're often this is people who areri stevens and i't know some of you have already the book how in the world could you write a book about thaddeus stevens and not talk about this woman crazy and you know, it's interesting that the people who did remember thaddeus stevens lydia hamilton smith were the people who hate of the most when they were alive. and that brings us to these two

character years. that's thomas nixon, the left and d.w. griffith, who became quite famous and successful filmmaker back in the silent filmay right, both sons of the both white and dixon was a southern baptist minister who really thought a lot of himself, and he came north and ended up on the lecture circuit, and he, in saint louis, missouri, one night, and he had a little time on his hands. so he took in a stage perfmance uncle tom's cabin and lo and behold, he walked out of that theater with tears is face. this whites supremacist, because he was and said he wasn't identifying the characters in

stowe's story. he was angry that she had perverted what he knew to be the real story of. the south and what what the union had done to the south and ruined down there with the civil war and reconstruction. and he vowed to write books and he was going to set the record straight. so in short order he wrote oh, and he i tried to read these books that the terrible he's not a good writer so he tried to he he ends up coming up with a book inside old the clansman which is al a celebration of the ku klux klan for driving union soie and government officials out of the south after the civil war, after reconstrti, when andw basically shut down reconstruction and they dixon

thought they were heroes. and soe ites the bookk& and makes a ton of money. you would not believe how popular this man was in the north. i'm not talking about southern cities necessarily. he was popular in the north. and a lot of people who loved what he was doing and after he'd made tons of money on the book, he made a play out of it and he thought that was cool and made a whole bunch more money. and then he thought, you know, i just i feel like i'm not reaching enough people. so he goes to talk. his friend d.w. griffith, they were both white supremacist of the confederacy. their families helped start the ku klux klan and in their particular home state. and and griffith is only too klansman.make a and when they started putting together, they needed some principle llains.

well, that's the character austin stone and and lydia brow that that's that's real hdly masked. hehose fatty stevens and lydia hamilton smith a pceeded to just hammer them into the ground and showed them as the worst kind of people i and but what i ink oh and also lydia o s a mixed race woman but of somewhat fairer complexion. she wasn'thite. she never tried to pass for white, but she was played by that wanight there, mary alden, a white actress. you see how she looks in blackface pretty disgusting. so in in this story, thaddeus is is this amazing? i won't go through all the plot twists but eventually thaddeus stevens stoneman comes toao see the light when he's hanging

around. these southerners finally sees the light that that that white people should be running the south. yeah. yeah, it really lydia hamilton smith on the other hand, because she the biggest threat that thomas dickson and d.w. griffith could even imagine, which was she she was already the product of race mixing and they were dedicate it to preserving the purity of the white race. so, so whereas they, they, they let stevens the hook at the end of the story, lydia was described as but lascivious, hypersexual, animalistic mulatto woman and mulatto is a is a spanish word for an animal. right. which it's interesting that even the u.s. census would classify people mulatto in the 19th century. i don't when they start doing it, but it's pretty disgusting.

and who used her sexual stephens this white man and and allow black people to take over the south. there were other haters. george drake was a newspaper editor. please change. there we go. george drake was a newspaper from union springs, alabama, and he traveled all the way from alabama to come here in lancaster so he could eyeball these people. thaddeus stevens■4 of they were some of the most renowned people in the country in their time. lydia was as well. no matter anybody locally would try to, say. and after he seen them, i think he went to the house. south queen street and and after he'd been here heeven got home .

he said in the city of lancaster, thaddeus stevens has t woman whom he seducedultery■ó from h husbafull blooded --. this mulatto manageshod both ind in washington, receives the rejects as visitors th will speaks of mr. stephens and herself. asn, all things comports herself as if she enjoy rights of a lawful wife. sh neat, tidy housekeeper, appears to be polite and well trained as. -- general are. i only mention the fact that st is doing this, that the ultra godly sar defied saints of the african ascendancy may get the beam out of their own eye because stephens had had condemned white plantation ners for for forcing themselves on their enslaved women in the south. the demon of their own before

the gouge so mercilessly at the moody and hours, other haters. imagine now this is this is our lydia hamilton smith and we're she she had to deal with this and so did thaddeus stevens. in the 19th century pennsylvania democrats, you know, just reverse. i see letters in the paper all the time say, oh, you know, it's the democrats who are racist. or, you know, it's like, well, yeah, they were, but the republican party gave them rm. they just drifted there. i'm sorry. sorry. tomtom's going to. give me th hook. anyway, one evens biographer said the whole democratic press, a pennsylvania was in the of assailing mr. stevens on account of his association with this woman and charged it was illicit stevens mind was as crippled as is clubfoot. they said, and they made sneering allusions to hishousekr white man employed -- servants.

and in 1970 there was still that kind of think he was still going around james dell he wrote stories persist that stevens was informed directly or indirectly by a -- mistress and he joll traces it back to dixon and the klansman. well, a lesser hater. and i'm not going to dwell on this too much. oj dickey came to lancaster and i don't remember the exact year at the moment, but he shared a space in stephen's law office at one time and when stevens died or and so stevens knew him pretty well, and stevens even made him one of the executors of his estate. when stevens died and he died in washington washington, lydia and the family arranged for you can e em there. it's not a great picture. there aren't many great pictures

of these guys, the butlers wives. they were a special military unit that worked o of out of washington dc and lydia asked and they were black. and lydia asked them to come stand, honor guard for stevens, who was allowed to lie in state in the rotunda of the capitol. tells youomething about his ownt according to some people. anwhen they were done in the capital, they they put stevens on train, his casket on the train, and lydia and the family asked th wives to accompy m to lancaster and to to process through the street with the with the casket over to shriner cemetery where he would be buried and so they a telegram to oj dickey who was heading the funeral prep operations and he

immediately wrote back arrangements in lancaster would admit of no military display of colored men at the funeral. this is a guy i mean, these these black soldiers were were glad to do it because they really respected and thaddeus stevens had done things for them over years and was continuing to work for them to have the same rights as everybody else. so but by the time they sent th. these wives were already the train. and they got here. dickey let him get off the train and stay overnight and immediately put him back on the and they were they were chagrined least to be treated in that fashion. also, mr. dickey, of when lydia and i get maybe into more of

this in a moment, but when lydia was to get back wages, thaddeus stevens dearly wanted her have after he died, dickey not only tried to prevent her from those wages, but he pulled a trick to make sure that she couldn't get them. i mean, deceitful if you want to read the book, it's all there. and i was i read this stuff down in the basement of the the county office building where they have the archives. going nuts because i justi shaking my fist and i couldn't believe that she was treated like that. but she was and then' said times stevens, two of his nephews, came to live with them when she had first come to lancaster to be his ostensibly housekeeper.

and and he distinguished thad junior, the younger of the two nephews from distinguished himself bit. i think during the civil war. and then all that time actually beginning i think and when he was in prep school over limits he had an alcohol problem and he came home from the war and and when his when his died he instead of practicing law in lancaster, which is what he had been doing, he took himself out to stevens could see him get drunk and every so often he'd show up in lancaster and he'd he'd want to be cleaned. i mean, really filthy and and he would he say, i want mrs. smith send for mrs. smith. she was in washington dc by this

time running a boarding house. this was after died and dickey gets involved because thad junior went to dickey and said, get mrs. smith and. and dickey says, you know, i remember that when she first came to lancaster, fattiest even told everybody in their circles, when you talk to her, this is a black woman, when you talk to her, you call her mrs. smith. you don't call her by her first name. you. and and dickey when when he when he sent for her, he would just refer as smith. he said, sir smith should off tt night. meaning, dear gettysburg. oh yeah. we have some. her 20th century haters. woodrow wilson who said the --

were exalted. how they doing on time were exalted. their name until the whites who w real citize got control again. he actually screened the birth the nation at the white house isorrific celebrating the ku klux klan. and how did they mawell, it turn and woodrow wilson went to school together at johns hopkins university in baltimore. so ugly birds, a feather stick together. another columbia university dunning.n would say william, he promoted the view that black people were incapable of governemselves and reconstruction would have been a colossal err reversing reconstrucas reversion to ral order, the same fact of racial inequality that slavery once■ encoded the n order, is black people to be enslaved.

that's from this vantage point. it's kind of hard to get in touch with the okay, so let's go the next group, just the housekeeper, you know, and then, you know, tear her down or anything but but they also they didn't want to give her a whole lot of credit for anything. landis, a noted jurist in lancaster county back in a defense of stephens and smith, a very detailed defense. in fact, he says at the beginning of it, i've researched this, so don't you dare question anything i say. and here he did make a couple of mistakes. but anyway, he wanted to defend against the scurrilous attacks that that thomas dixon, d.w. had said. and he talks about lydia. he said she was a decent, wier station.kept herself quite she was warmly welcomed by

lancasters leadingilies. and you know, that same concept carried over to the most recent stephens biograptre of was by dr. bruce levine. and in 2022 and he said lydia came to work for stephens, a housekeeper, and the two devea close frienand working relationship. they were not intimate, he said. the idea thatde they were came from those hoping to tarnish stephens image. there is no firm evidence to substantiate it. i beg to differ. i beg to differ. there were those who wanted to defend her memory, but only so they insist she would never have a sexua thaddeus stevens because she was devout irish catholic woman al life. she'd never think of it on her

gravestone. and we're not sure who wrote this epitaph, but it says, among r things. i mean, the fact that she was married to jacob smith before smaller font at the top the big letters are reserved for this expression and for many years the trust in the housekeeper of honorable thaddeus stevens. oh yeah i don't have to read just the housekeeper. yes. thomas. frederick woodley and i received his biographer. they they really that lost cause crowd really managed to bear the memory of these people. these people mean in their day, they were widely known. stephens was probably during the civil war with the most powerful member ofongress. he chaired the house ways and means committee means he held the purse strings for the civil.

and he really dearly wanted to put an end to slavery. and when civil rights for the newly freed people and for all people of color for that matter. frederick woodley stephens biographer that lydia was a woman of poise and personal dignity. she was unusually attractive. some of these guys think they really had a crush on her. they they just go on and on and and, you know, what can i say? i was so pleased when like when penn state decided to put her on the cover. she's a looker. say? but she never traded on that from what i could tell, she was unusually attractive. neat in appearance. well above average intelligence. she was very intelligent, didn't have a lot of formal, but she was very intelligent. she was light complected with almost caucasian features, and

stevens grew more and more to rely on herju a housekeeper. woodley talks about her packing all of stephen's stufwhen he goes off his unmatch shoes. people have focused on his. the facthathaddeus stevens had a clubfoot. some people explain in his whole personalitanthe things that he did because, he resented having this clubfoot. you know, he was lucky h brother was born with two club ■ d i found i information that suggested that in his prime when stephen's younger he was very athletic and he's a good looking guy. so he'sotn bad rap by many people. more about lydia she conducted his home quietly and efficiently and, superviseth other servants. so she was a servant. she wasn't anything else. i'll get back to that when.

he did entertain. she served the food, refreshments pernally. well, really put herself out for the old thaddeus thaddeus. where am i? here am i? am i one? one behind? yes. here we go. others the lancaster new1■fg er. after she died in her obituary, speaking to her generous addie and her other abilities. she was a magnificent caterer as the managing head of stephens households also came in contact with the great men of this country of whom she conversed intelligently and entertainingly. she's kind of little. little, little music box there. whenever people came to visit, you know, just turn lydia on. she bounced around through the house and and just, you know, beam and she was pretty song, you know. sure t didn't being around her and she came in contact with the great men of this country whom she conversed.

judge landis would say at one point, mrs. smith was often at the houses of those gentlemen. that is the leading of lancaster like thomas burroughs, the father of public education, who in pennsylvania, dr. henry carpenter, who was stephen's physician, as well as lydia's, and of others of the social persona, you know, they moved in, in the best social circles. and she was on terms of intimacy with their families, so intimate that she left legacies to some of their children in her will, her place owing to. stephen'relatives in his home af their parties. you can't the housekeeper sitting at dinner with you can you. so according to this. at one time a hostess for entertaining this is according to judge landis.

i'm not sure if i totally agree. because stephens had no female of his formally, maybe at one of the parties, his friend and neighbor, mrs. susan brinton, received for him at another, it was the wife of oliver j. dickey, who performed the same service. hope she was nicer than he was. okay. so enough of that. let's get to at we really need to be saying about her. the lancaster new era would also y about her eventually that having become possessed of considerable mea wch she mostly thrghhrough real estate. but she also she had a livery service when they we tn he when he was in congrs d she was she was living with him down there in washington, dc. i mean, thwo just stopped coming up with ideas for things to do in business, which, you know and i know womeof any

kind were not supposed to be doing in 19 century america. they were supposed to be putting on an apron, cooking food for the old man and raising the ki. well, she wasn't satisfied with that. well, ■v í keep getting behind . forgive me. i'll go back. oh, yeah area okay. another indication of her bng heroic there's a story of o.c. gilbert that. i think some of you knowray harris has a lot of work on digging out the o.c. gilbert story. gilbert was of a group of fugitives who were on to columbia, and somebody said you need to go to this house in laasr is on south queen street and is thaddeus stevens house while lydia was there. so i mean, s increasingly became she was a woman in a

house. d so i think that o.c. gilbert, although he mentioned her by name in anyinthat he latere have known that lydia smith because she was there an sheared all those people who were passing through lancaster wereoong for freedom. stevens insisted that she was. mrs. smith not just was that just respect? was it something more. and quotinfr my own book here, taking her into his life, mrs. smith, not simply as lydiar in every aspect of that life might have been as close as they could come publicly to telling the world how deeply involved they were. you know, the restrictions of 19th century america. she's black, he's white. i mean, when she she left her husband in harrisburg to come to lancaster.

but didn't divorce him. and that sounds like a good catholic woman. but eventually he died so she could have married, except nobody was really up for that at that point in time. so. and she endured. i mean this is incredible to me. i mean you would not believe the things■ that people said about these two people here in as well as from across the country. they just southerner is especially just hated. steven and they hated her too. and some of them thought that she she was the reason stephens was pushing for the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments because she was black and she wanted her people to run the south. i mean, just unbelievable and but this goes on for years and years and years and she never said thing and he never said a

thing. i mean this is i cannot imagine keeping that in. i would have been all over somebody at some point expressing my displeasure with their with their comments, their behavior. well, okay she did actually she fired her had had enough in 1847. there's really only years after she got here to lancaster was a democrat aligned newspaper here. so they were particularly vitriolic, stephens and smith, they just ha much time for abolition and trying to put an end to slavery. so. lydia and so they published all hings. and lydia finally, finally said, that's and and she, she was, she would actually tell when she got there she'd tell them my my friends told me i should come call you out on this and the newspaper editor henry smith at

the time. proceeded he called his buddy over in the newsroom and they whole that she was there and then wrote it up and i think really enjoyedg e this uppity black woman coming up in here and giving us grief. and she so angry that she ended up when when he wouldn't say he would stop, she turned to him and said, i will, you don't. the next time you run something like that, i will cow hide the editor. good for her. for her. he deserved. where i here. okay. she was also i think this is heroic. she had two boys. they were almost when she came to lancaster and she no sooner had gotten here. she was 34 years old when.

stephens brother died up in vermont, leaving two sons orphaned and so the family decided. stevens was from vermont originally. the family decided, well, let's all send them down to uncle, uncle thaddeus. and, you know, he's a lawyer. he can because he was already training of people to the law. let's just have himon and thad e law. that would be neat. so suddenly, lydia finds herself with her two sons, william and isaac, and these two guys from vermont, allinson and thad junior. she's 34 years old. i don'tn#w much fun that would have been, but but she did it and she related to them, she never, ner stepped away from them. in fact, when when they would get crosswise with sometimes especially his nephews. well the other guys her sons got

crosswise stevens too on occasion but lydia, they would end up writing to lydia and saying, can you can you tell uncle thaddeus that, you know, i don't think as bad as he thinks it is and some very touching, touching letters that she writes, these people, these guys, guys and, they didn't end up doing well either. but let's see, william got involved with a the daughter of 14 year old daughter of a of an ironworks employee over in franklin county. he got her pregnant, had ultimately to children to her eyes a nurse and then he off to war and he died. the battle of chickamauga and lydia's with this her older son

boy, get ready for this one. william got himself caught up in some kind of a love triangle right hen lancaster. and he was engaged to be married to this one woman. but ends up having a child to well, the first woman writes him a letter and says, i'm not married you, you did that. so william takes a gun, shoots himself over the heart. some people in the newspaper and otherwise to this day say that it's just a just a gun handling accident like fun■g he. he had himself in a like and he just couldn't see way to get out of it then then the younger younger boys said junior he an alcohol problem from very very early on and and whentephens

his will he it because that junior was the last of the line he didn't have any other direct if said junior had gotten dry for three years running, he would have inherited stephen's estate, which was probably millions of dollars in those days because he bought real estate land all over the■ acres fed couldn't do it. they couldn't do it really, i said. and lydia, you know, i already told you she would have to come over washington to clean this kid up so old enough to know better. but he didn't didn't. so she was front and center as wealth. oh, and her son isaac, whojudgeo him as his little isaac smith. he was four feet, 11 inches tall, and she had terrible time

with him because he got into drinking early on, like when he was, again, about 15, 16, 17. and she met various times. she would she would when she came home one time. and then when he was he was getting all messed up and she swore out an arrest warrant for him, put him in jail for drunk and disorderly, and he did 30 days of hard labor, i think. you know, she was progressive, little tough love. that's right. a little tough love. so again, she was just really just a really sharp person. and she was being here in lancr that mid 19th century period, she. she was front and center. some of the most important in

american history. you know, she she was here for when the the fugitive slave act was passed in 1850. and that had a big impact on the elaborate underground railroad system that. i know she was already supporting stephens with here in lancaster. she was here. the dred scott decision was passed, can you imagine how she felt about that she know the dred scott? yeah the roger b taney, the chief justice of the u.s. supreme, wrote one and he said basically, black people will never citizens of the united states. and i don't see that they have they have accruing to them any rights constitution. i mean, she's living with one of the best lawyers in the country i got a feeling they talked that

over anyway she faced dangers delights anguish exhaustion and it wasn't until pretty late in her life after she had been running the boardinghouse in washington for a while that she wrote to a friend of hers and said you know sometimes i just get pretty tired especially in the summer keeping this this going that's the first timifound anything being tired this woman was she was beyond the energize■ bunny. was just she really was was driven. i partly because she was she born into pretty impoverished circumstances and i think she was bound and determined to get ahead. she was generous almost to a fault in her will. she left all kinds of money to people. she had a half sister, jane

cooper, who actually was sent as a child to baltimore or was indentured to one of the wealthiest families in the city of baltimore, maryland and she kept in touch with, i do li because her will she left jane, sizable amount of money. she also left money for jane's children. they could get educated and that would have been if they used it properly. she would have had a better education than she had. i'm sure she left money. go to goodrich. i don't know if you know the goodrich from york county they wereea m that that one of the members of the goodrich family was a pioneer in photography. this country did some amazing things, but they got into the underground railroad. they got so far into it that when the fugitive slave act was passed, they had to think about getting out of town. and some of them did, too, just to survive.

they went north to get out of it. out of here and is actually a goodrich museum in new york today, if you ever want to go and take a look at it. she was the court's frequently to address problems. she had personal financial. and i think, again, as with her investments in real estate, she was advised by thaddeus stevens. why would you advise housekeeper to to help build up an estate. am let me let me move down here. okay.t of time. lydia hamilton smith and thaddeus stevens it was said by some observers that she kept his house like a wife, not like a housekeeper, like a wife. this is the of their relationship. she walked beside him for nearly

25 years. she got involved in that underground railroad stuff and she went he he was engaged in in in pushing through the 13th, 14th a the the freedom and of these newly newly freed people of color from the south. stephens also experienced some very debilitating illness. one of them was a lot of problem with the lower tract. he have these bouts of diarrhea. sorry to be distasteful here, but from time to they would lay him up for like, you know, weeks on end and. he just couldn't do anything. d needed, according to dr. carpenter, he 24 hour nursing care because these medications to be administered in the right or he would die and who do you

think took care of that lydia hamilton. oh well don't me startedhat ther issues of the time right after the civil war started when they had the first battle obu run and it didn't go well for the union he wrote a letter to her and said we didn't do so well on. this one. but then he also ends up telling her, i know, i know you're thinking that is by this time thaddeus jr and allanson already signed up for the war and you know, initially they could sign up for three months they thought was going to be over in three months and and he he immediately reassured, he said that junior and allanson weren't

in this battle and. i really expect them to come home soon and i hope they do. why would he tell housekeeper that. and then there's blanchard. he an abolitionist minister and journalist who traveling around came to gettysburg while stephens was still practice in law there. and i think helped stephens actually come todeep commitmento racial equality for the rest of his andde