Helen M. Anderson Letter to General McClellan,
March 6, 1862

MS1989.13

The Helen M. Anderson Papers include an initial plea to Gen. McClellan for protection of her house and property during the town’s occupation. Subsequently, she received a safeguard from the town’s provost marshal.

Nonetheless, in the letter shown here, Mrs. Anderson writes Maj. Gen. John A. Dix on September 13 to say: “My house was broken open this morning by an armed band of Soldiers, and a large quantity of very valuable old wine, which has been in my family for many years, taken away” and urged him to act swiftly to prevent its immediate consumption.

Later notes show that Union officials promised to return the wine, but insisted it must be kept at the Insane Asylum for “safe keeping.” Frequently requested by various officers for unspecified purposes, the bottles gradually disappeared. Similar instances were reported of the military, which “seized upon bottle after bottle snapped off the necks, and drank the nectar to the health of the justly irate owner.”

Civil War