General Notes

Notes for NATHAN IGNATIUS LOUGHBOROUGH:

Nathan left home around the age of 20,his sisters,Aunt Carrie and Aunt Daisy wanted him to become a priest. He drifted down to Arizona and northern Mexico and most of his earlier life is very unclear.There were stories that he had been in trouble with the law,but why was  [-?-].Unlike Kathleen's family,( who rarely contacted her or she them ), his family kept in close touch, sent money, clothes for the kids, etc.. He even made a trip back to Washington,D.C. to see his mother several years before she died. Aunt Carrie and Aunt Daisy did come out once when he lived at Rucker,and also his brother David from Texas had visited. Things never were prosperous for Nat , his farm wasn't big enough to support a family,( when he lived in Rucker ). He didn't have enough cattle to really " ranch" . Aunt Carrie and Aunt Daisy made him sell the cattle to pay for the place,partially that is. His brand was Bar-N-L. When he moved to town as park caretaker things didn't work out, he was too country for the city. He had hoped to move to Mexico if he had lived. He didn't have a funeral here,but a reluctant "blessing" by Father Ross, he was shipped by train to Washington D.C. and buried in his family plot. His worst experience was the loss of "Peggy" Margaret Cable, named after Aunt Daisy, from strepp . His passport picture expresses that depression.A second daughter ,died shortly after birth.. Note by Patricia Ann Loughborough Mendez

Applied for Sons of the American Revolution

application on file at

The Archives and Special Collection at the University of Maryland

Series VI - Membership Files

Box 2 Volume 9

961 Loughborough, Nathan

I recall on poor fellow, I used to go and sit with him, read to him and fan him, write his letters, do anything I could. He had lost a leg but was doing nicely. He was from the far south. One evening he said to me, "I expect my father tomorrow. I want you to meet him."

The rooms in this hospital opened on a corridor at the end of which sat the night nurse, from time to time, she would go into the rooms of those who were very ill, but the convalescents, of who my patient was one, rang a bell for what they needed. The next morning I found his father there, but the son was dead. An artery had broken loose in the stump of his leg and he had bled to death in his sleep, the patient in the adjoining room had heard the drip but thought a pitcher was leaking.

A few days later I was waiting at the depot and saw a stalwart negro carrying in his arms a soldier who had lost his arms and legs. I went up to him and asked if I could get his ticket, and said some word of sympathy; "Madam," said he, "I am the happiest man in the South. I wrote to my sweetheart and released her from her engagement to such a wreck, but she replied, "Come, if there is enough of you left to be carried to the altar, I hold you to your promise."

The hospitals were all crowded with wounded. They would sometimes be at the depot twenty four hours before horses enough could be impressed to take the wounded to the hospital. I have often seen market women sitting in their wagons on the street where they had to stay until their horses were returned to them.



The ladies who would go to the depots, carried food and water and did all they could for them.

The hospitals were so crowded that as soon as the breath was out of a patient's body, he was taken to the dead room so as to make room for a live man, as soon as a coffin could be knocked together.

One day, soon after a battle, I went to one of the cemeteries. Near the entrance the coffins were piled up, waiting their turn for interment. The coffins were of boards and through one hand protruded. I said to the gate-keeper, "I think it is a shame; they might at least make the coffins strong." "Oh," he said, "it's just as well they do not. Not long ago in the night I heard a knock. I went to the door and there was a man in his shroud using very strong language and wanting to know why he had been boxed up. He had broken out."

On one occasion I was invited by a friend to spend an evening with her and meet General Lee. I accepted gladly. A lady also invited was a refugee from below Richmond; her house had been burned, stock taken off, her negroes enticed away, a little girl had died of exposure on her way to Richmond, her husband killed at Seven Pines and she was in an office trying to support her three little children. She turned to General Lee and said. "General, if you ever invade the North, treat the women and children there as we have been treated, burn their houses over their heads, and leave them destitute, then the North will realize what we have endured."

General Lee looked gravely at her and replied: "Madam, one had only to look at you to see how greatly you have suffered; you may have given up all for our cause and we owe you much. There is very little I could refuse you, it is against all my traditions and principles to war on women and children, we will leave that to the enemy."

And people wondered that we worshipped General Lee.

My mother-in-law sent me through her sister, Mrs. John Hill Carter, who lived in the debatable land of Farquier County, a shepherd's plaid and some other articles, including two pounds of tea. How I blessed her.

My husband's aunt and cousin, wife and daughter of Commodore Bissell, U.S.A., in the active service of the enemy, were ardent sympathizers with the South and became so imprudent they, with Mrs. John Hill Carter and her little girl, were thrown into the old Capitol, where they were kept for several months and treated with a good deal of contumely.

Mrs. Bissell was an extremely witty and sarcastic woman and I don't think General Baker had a good time with her. They were all eventually sent through to Richmond where their clothes were the subject of much admiration.

My husband's sister, Mrs. Keyes, was also a Southern sympathizer, and helped the Southern prisoners in every way she could. Her husband, General E. D. Keyes, U.S.A. resigned when General McClelland was superseded, not caring to work under his successor.

Admiral Porter was a cousin of my husband's. The wife, sons, and daughter of Admiral Porter's brother, Commodore Porter, U.S.N. also came South. The sons went into our Army, Edna supported her mother and herself. She was one of my bridesmaids. I mention this to show how the country divided.

In Richmond was Mrs. William Davis. Her husband was in the Army. Mrs. Davis had two beautiful daughters, the younger a child at the time. They knew Mrs. Jeff Davis very well. I asked her in Mrs. William Davis' presence if they were not related. They both said no.

After Katie grew up she married Joseph Pulitzer and had Winnie staying with her. When Pulitzer died all of the papers said Mrs. Pulitzer was Jeff Davis' niece.

Her family all lived where the Methodist University now is in Washington, D.C. Everyone knew them in the neighborhood and knew there was no relationship.

I stayed in Petersburg one night during the shelling. I went to stay a week, but one night was sufficient. I never heard anything as horrible as the whistling and shrieking of the shells, the houses torn, the town full of shells, and the people brave and determined. They had the usual notice to leave before shelling, but they had no where to go where they would be out of danger, and they refused to leave their homes. I heard many tales of the most marvelous escapes and many tragedies. The Petersburg women were the bravest I ever knew.

My mother, hearing our Government needed money, converted everything she had into Confederate bonds. She had three hundred dollars in gold with which she also bought bonds, she also gave the hospital several pounds of quinine.

My mother's gold bond I gave to the Georgetown College museum.

One of our smaller troubles was Christmas. We hated to destroy the children's faith in Santa Claus. The last dolls I heard of in Richmond the Cary sisters brought from Baltimore stuffed with quinine. There were no toys to be found. With the girls it was not so bad - we could make scrapbooks and dolls.

An old Jew, who kept a store in Richmond, unearthed some old pen-knives, Sheffield. He said they must have been over a hundred years old. I bought five to send home.

In November, 1861, in the meeting of the heads of the different divisions of the Auditor's office, Colonel Taylor read instructions from the Secretary of War ordering that everything absolutely necessary and important must be secretly packed at night and every document that could be spared burned, making, in doing so, as little smoke as possible.

Only those clerks who were in the implicit confidence of the superiors to be employed.

That is was possible and probable that at any time orders might come to evacuate Richmond.

I could not even tell my husband what I had heard, but it made em anxious; although in the Yankee lines I would have had immediate protection but it would separate me from everyone I hold dear.

My husband was urging me to go, saying in a letter I had before me, "My mind would be easier if I knew you were safe with my family."

The only thing that he feared was for those at home.

"You say you won't consider going until you see me. I will put in an application for a furlough but have no hopes as owing to the constant desertions of the conscripts General Lee has ordered that from now on none are to be granted. Some of the conscripts are brave fellows who were needed at home but our Army is so depleted we cannot grant an exception even to the only son of a widow."

In December a friend asked me how I was off for flour that it would be one thousand a barrel Christmas and the bakers would close. I was also out of coal. The agent of a house owned by my father-in-law kindly allowed me $500.00 of the $5000.00 he owed us. Two hundred and fifty of that I put in a sack of flour, the other was for coal. I made a tour of the coal yards but was told everywhere that the Yankees had torn up the tracks and seized the mines and that they had seized all the coal in Richmond. No wood could be bought of less than $150.00 a cord. I was advised to see the Government Agent. It was a bitterly cold winter and I had no fire. I went to the Government office and saw Capt McHenry who was in charge of the fuel supply. He told me he was very sorry but could do nothing for me. I took my seat by his fire, a lovely one, and drew out my work to the great consternation of the office force as they could not smoke. In about an hour Captain McHenry gently suggested that the snow was falling and I might not be able later to get home. I replied "my husband is fighting for this Government defending this city; I have no fire and feel that I am entitled to keep warm as those in the Government offices and I expect to spend all of my spare time here until I can buy coal." So in desperation he sold me a load which lasted during the remainder of my stay in Richmond. It was a sad, sad winter of 1864 & 5, the woman who had made Richmond gay, Senators, Cabinet Ministers wives had left the city. The Richmond women had lost those they loved in battle, Petersburg was invested, I was making every effort to procure a furlough for my husband. Christmas everything was high. I copy some prices from a Richmond paper in my possession of that date. The Confederate dollar was worth two cents in gold. Sugar was $30.00 a pound, salt $1.00, butter $40.00, wood $150.00 a cord. A turkey brought $175.00, a ham $300.00, meal $80.00 a bushel, coarse black molasses $80.00 a gallon. As I was sitting at my desk in the Auditors office in Jan'y 1865, Mr. Calvert of Md. Came in and stood by me, and asked me if I still wanted a furlough for my husband, saying that he, Admiral Semmes, Marshall Kane, and Vice President Stephens had been invited to Gen'l Lee's headquarters to dine and inspect the fortifications around Petersburg; he offered to take a letter if I would write it, and hand it to General Lee himself, and they would do what they could for me as they all knew me. I wrote the letter and they were true to their promises. General Lee endorsed this on the back of my letter, "If there is no reason whey the soldier mentioned within should not have a furlough, grant him one extending for four days, unless recalled." My letter went down the line and was handed him by his Captain (who had previously tried to get him one) who said "this is what you get for having a persevering wife." The train for Richmond had left so he walked beating it. As soon as he returned I notified Col. Could that I was ready to avail myself of my pass North, and asked him to make arrangements for my passage. I resigned my office taking an oath to reveal nothing I knew, to keep quiet about the privations endured and the worthlessness of the money. As soon as it was known I was going North everyone who had a friend there came to me with letters. I told them I would take them upon condition that they were stamped with U.S. stamps and that I could read them and be the judge whether they should be delivered. Some had U.S. bank notes in them for the purchase of things needed by the writers. Miss Emily Mason and Mis Emily Harper brought me numerous letters from their hospital boys to friends North. I could only take a few things from my scanty wardrobe with me. My diary which I had kept from childhood, including daily records of life in Richmond during the war. My Confederate apron of red, white, and red, with a blue bib upon which the 10 stars were sewed, were packed in a bonnet box and sent to a commission house to be sent to my Mother, they were burned at the evacuation of Richmond. The latter part of February we had floods, terrible ones, on the James River. The torpedoes off Drury's Bluff had been displaced, and a Confederate Flag of Truce boat had been destroyed. I did not get off until March 1865. We had to go on a large flat boat to Rocketts, I think that was where the Exchange was made, but perhaps further down. On our boat were a number of women (some had been in the bread riot), who were disloyal to the South, a number of Andersonville prisoners. I had two Miss Breckinridges of Kentucky under my charge placed there by Mrs. Davis, two ladies, friends of General Ord, Col. Ould, Capt. Hatch, Commissioners of Exchange, John Mitchell and other of the ambulance Committee. In a small Cabin were stacks of corn bread for the Confederates they would bring back. I had a market basket full of letters to take to Baltimore to be mailed.

When we got to the Exchange point there was a large U.S. War vessel which was the home of Col. Mulford, U.S. Commissioner of Exchange. Col. Mulford came on board our boat and Col. Ould introduced me saying he would answer for me that the letters I carried were all right. I then went into the Exchange U.S. boast where to my horror I saw negroes in Uniform on equal terms with the white soldiers and sailors. I had never seen one before who was not a slave. It was night before Col. Mulford was at liberty. While we were waiting in the saloon for his return, Gen'l Ord came in to see his friends. Seeing my name on the record he introduced himself as a friend of the Loughborough family, ordered me a state room. There were only two vacant, his friends had the other, and got his Chaplain Father O'Hagan to telegraph to the Loughboroughs of my safe arrival. Later Col. Mulford came, took me to his quarters, introduced me to his wife, invited me to the first good supper I had had form many a long day and gave me a double stateroom so that I could have my charges with me. The next day we were all packed in ambulances to cross the neck of land. The road was in horrible condition, bottomless mire, cut up with the passage of caissons, etc. We then took a boat to Fortress Monroe, there we were asked if we would take the Oath of Allegiance to the U.S. I answered as Col. Ould had advised that I would. The others indignantly refused. Nothing more was said. From the Fort we took the boat to Baltimore where I stayed with a sister of my Mother in law and the next day found that all the flag-of-truce passengers, but myself, had been summoned to the Provost Marshall's office to take the oath. I suppose they took the will for the deed and I never have taken it. I sealed and mailed all the letters entrusted to me. I found afterwards that they had all been opened, and those enclosing money confiscated. I suppose the Post Masters knew from the character of the paper they could only have come from the South. In Baltimore in March 1865, the fashionable ladies were wearing bonnets very much the shape old ladies wear now, quilted silk petticoats in colors, with dresses looped over them in festoons, and for the first time in my life I saw ladies feet and ankles showing on the streets. Now let me describe my costume as I landed in Baltimore and Washington. A home made flannel under skirt, woven on the plantation, home knit white stockings, shoes my husband bought from a sutler's wagon at Gettysburg, cost him $250.00, a unwillingly taken in Confederate money, a hoop skirt cost $150.00, a coarse black alpaca dress, a silk girdle from my grandmother's scrap bag. The dress was trimmed with three rows of worsted skirt braid which I had redyed with pokeberry juice. The dress reached the ground all around, made from a pattern out of the Ark, a black embroidered lace veil, a bonnet with cape crown and strings filled me around the face with ruchings and rosebud strings tied in a wide bow under the chin, (see National Museum for model), a very old India Cashmere shawl, hair pins made of locust thorns with sealing way heads, and a point lace collar yellow with age - handkerchief made of old table cloth. Two days after I reached Baltimore, persons to whom I had brought letters commenced to call to thank me, ask me to dinners, drives, and to go to the Cathedral the next day. I put on my street costumes and told them that if after seeing me in it they withdrew their invitations I should be neither surprised or mortified, but they were ardent Confederates and said they would only be too proud to be seen with me. As we were driving out I saw for the first time women with hats and driving. Whenever we met a girl who wore a hat and driving herself I was told she was a yankee, - And the dinners - such as for four years I had dreamed of but never hoped to partake. I had a book sent by its author Bishop Magill of Richmond to the Archbishop which I took to him. He said to me "My child how can the poor South succeed, they have nothing, here, this Army has everything." As my confidence had not abated I replied that the hungrier our soldiers got the fiercer they fought.

On Monday I took the train for Washington. Only a few trains ran each day. I had never seen my husband's family who lived at Grassland, not in town. An Aunt of my husband who lived in Georgetown was to meet me/she was late, it was dark, there was only one line of cars, small horse cars, which ran from the B&O Depot to Georgetown, the streets were cobblestoned, cut up with caissons and cavalry and filled with soldiers, but, there was one blessing, they had, until reconstitution times "Jim Crow" cars. For several years after the war a negro could only ride on the street cars in Baltimore when accompanied by a white person, as a servant. I remember in 1868 being in Baltimore visiting my sister-in-law, I had with me a girl, an old slave, as a nurse to my two little children. She wished to visit a relative and as he lived in another part of Baltimore and there were no "Jim Crow" cars, I let her accompany me as far as the Photographers, then walk to her relatives home and back, while I had the children taken which was then a work of time. But I have digressed.

My costume showed from whence I had come, a lady commenced questioning me. I found afterwards she was a spy, things were serious for me. I had no money, my father in law had sent me a check, but the banks would not cash it, as my relatives had taken me on faith. I found on questioning this lady that it would be impossible to reach my destination that night, but with the faith in the hospitality of my peers. I never doubted that if I could recollect the names of any old friends of my husband whom I had heard him mention and for whom I had brought letters, I would receive a welcome, I ransacked my memory. I found one, Mrs. Mesher, and was told she lived near the car line. I found the house and was taken in with open arms. The next morning I drove out to Grassland (bought by Secretary Whitney of the Cleveland Administration after my father-in-law's death) where my welcome was all I could desire. I received every care and attention I needed. I was placed in a Doctor's care. He said I was suffering for want of proper nourishment. Of course we could only hear what the Northern papers said about the South. The first news I had of my husband was through Admiral Porter's wife after Richmond surrendered. My father in law was an invalid. One sister was an ardent Confederate, she afterwards married a Confederate soldier. The other sister was inclined toward the Union as she was engaged to the son of a Union general. Early one morning in April we were awakened by the firing of guns from Fort Rene which was near us, and other Forts thundered salutes. I woke my sister in law asking her what it meant. Oh! Some Yankee lie was her answer. When they want the North to think they are doing something, they pretend a victory. That satisfied me I went to sleep again; but I had a rude awakening. While we were at breakfast, an ardent sympathizer with the South came in saying, Petersburg had fallen, Richmond had been evacuated. Grant is there of course. We were miserable, we could hear no authentic news, we did not believe the papers. The next morning our neighbor called again and told us Richmond had been burned to the ground. While we were at dinner that day my mother in law got up for some reason and looking out of the window sank to her seat looking pale as death. When we went to her she pointed to the window and said look. There was and is a large field in front of the house between what is now Wisconsin Avenue and Loughborough Road. On it was a beautiful stand of wheat. We looked and saw regiment after regiment file in on the wheat, putting up their tents, and in a few moments the field was gone, the fence was gone, filled with tents; the soldiers invaded the lawn, everywhere. My mother in law, a small but plucky person, with an empty pistol drove a number of them from her well. There among them a Regiment of the Noble Indian, a dirty undersized lot who used to milk our cows, steal the chickens and make night hideous by fighting and war whooping up and down Loughborough Road, until we hated "Cooper". Never until I was brought in contact with the U.S. soldiers did I realize what privations our poor Confederates suffered. Not only did the Union soldiers have every necessity but every luxury; never did I imagine such was as was in their camp. Well fed, well clothed, reinforced from all Europe, it seems a miracle that our soldiers held out as long as they did. The officers were kind and considerate, and did all they could to protect the family. The neighbors who brought all of our bad news ran a milk wagon which served the White House and Cabinet officers with milk and cream. While we were at breakfast on April 15th, (Holy Saturday) he rushed in saying "Lincoln is killed" and the milk wagon sent back. There was a Provost Marshall's office in Tanally Town, and another opposite St. Albans Church. No one could pass in or out of Washington without a pass, until Booth had been captured. The papers were blasphemous, they compared Lincoln's death on Good Friday with our Savior's, if anything Lincoln's was the more glorious in their eyes. All mourning and black was exhausted in Washington. My husband had an Aunt a very witty woman. She was on her way to Trinity Church, Georgetown, when a coal black negro woman she knew approached her asking if she could give her (the negro) a black dress, as she wanted to go in mourning for Marse Lincoln. My aunt advised her to take off her clothes and wouldn't need black.

All kinds of new sifted to us - that the members of the Cabinet had been assassinated - that Grant's promises to Lee at the surrender would not be kept. With us, the sons, brothers, and husbands fates being  [-?-], made us very unhappy. My father in law, a union man, but who had a horror of Andrew Johnson, was very much depressed. He would think of nothing else, exclaiming the "poor South." He told me the Country would never again be what it was before the war and told me of much graft he had seen. Easter Sunday he got up to go to early Mass. We heard a fall and when we reached him found the shock of the preceding day had paralyzed him. He only live three months, as surely killed by the war as any soldier on the field.

On the 14th of May, we learned that President Davis had been taken, our armies had surrendered and the war was over. Shortly after that my husband had ridden from Richmond on a horse he had captured before Lee's surrender. The day after his arrival we were at breakfast when in came a fine looking Union Major General who after shaking hands all around, came to my husband saying "why this is Hennery, well Hennery I have searched many a battlefield for you. I am glad you are safe, I will give you and your wife my camp chest and table to set you up in housekeeping." He was as good as his word; many small hands broke the china, but I have the table yet. General De Trobriand was a Frenchman as his name denotes, the same who during the Reconstruction cleared the Legislature out of the State Capitol in Louisiana and installed a Rump one instead. He commanded the New York Zouaves and was stationed on my father in law's place (Grassland) he had become intimate with the family. At one time Mr. Lincoln had come out and reviewed his regiment. Afterwards the General had a fine dinner for Lincoln on the lawn. He borrowed from my mother-in-law the table I now have for the President, the minor officers using planks laid on barrels. After dinner Lincoln was called on for a speech. He got up placing his hands on his stomach, said: "Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to oblige you, but am too full for utterance." General De Trobriand went back to France and wrote a book full of bitterness and falsehoods.

On one occasion my husband drove his mother to Washington on business, using his war horse. She suffered a good deal with rheumatism and found it difficult to walk. When he stopped on the Avenue a soldier walked up to the horse and said very rudely this horse I will take it belongs to the U.S. My husband begged the man to let him return home with his mother, promising to return the horse, but the man refused. "If Commodore Aulick, U.S.N. will go my surety" said my husband "will you permit it?" "Yes," was the reply. They drove to the Commodore's and the guard pulled the horse on the sidewalk. Just then the old Commodore came out and with an oath that was balm to my husband ordered the guard to remove the horse. Then he said, "Henry, what can I do for you?" When he was informed the Commodore said that what Mr. Loughborough promises he will do; let him have the horse. It was a great loss and on speaking of it to his uncle, Commodore Bisselle, U.S.N. his uncle said "Sit down and write a letter to Grant, and I will give it to him. State the circumstances of the capture of the horse, and that you were riding him at Appomattox." The letter was written and sent, and in a few days he received an order to go over to the government stables and get his horse. It was a very fine animal. When my husband looked over the horses he found it was not there. The officer in charge was very much worried and told my husband to take his choice of horses in the stables, which he did, hearing an officer say as he rode out in triumph, "D----- it, I wonder they don't turn the whole country over to the d----- rebels."

When the trial of the conspirators took place they were railroaded to their death, the boy Harold, 16 years old, was known to be innocent but was hung as was Mrs. Surratt. The latter was about forty six years old and delicate. I hear Father Wigett tell my mother-in-law she was a martyr to modesty, confined in the old Capitol, not a woman allowed near her, sick in bed with a man, a guard, standing close by her side night and day, never alone for one instant. When the verdict was announced, the so-called conspirators were sentenced to die the next morning at day break. No one, priest or preacher, was to be allowed to see them by order of that cold blooded fiend, Stanton. In the "Evening Intelligence" Fathers Wigett and Walter came out in a vigorous protest, asking if the American people would stand for these poor creatures (cont under Ludwell)



More About NATHAN IGNATIUS LOUGHBOROUGH:

Burial: November 28, 1945, Oak Hill Cemetary, Washington D.C.

Cause of Death: Pulmonary Edema

Fact 6: Soc.Sec.# 526-09-7773

Medical Information: Pneumonia (Virus Type )

More About NATHAN LOUGHBOROUGH and OLIVE FORD:

Marriage: December 3, 1930, Lordsburg, Hidalgo,New Mexico