Miss Carroll had early shown an intense interest in moral and religious questions, following her father's views on these subjects. She became interested in the ministrations of Dr. Robert J. Breckenridge, of Kentucky, then settled over a Presbyterian church in Baltimore.
Dr. Breckenridge was the uncle of John C. Breckenridge, afterward one of the leading secessionists, utterly opposed to his uncle in political views, and one of the candidates for the Presidency in 1860.
Dr. Robert J. Breckenridge was a valued friend of Governor Carroll.
Miss Anna Ella became a communicant and earnest member of his church, and a mutual friendship arose, terminated only by the death of the aged minister, who has left on record his high appreciation of the mental abilities and the great services afterward rendered by his remarkable parishioner.
We will give in part two letters from this excellent man to Miss Carroll, written from Kentucky in after years. For want of space we must greatly shorten them.
Danville, Ky., December 6, 1864.
My Excellent Friend:
It is very seldom I have read a letter with more gratification than yours of November 29th. How kind it is of you, after so many events, to remember me; and how many people and events and trials and enjoyments, connected with years of labor, rush through my heart and my brain as you recall Maryland and Baltimore so freshly and suddenly to me; and how noble is the picture of a fine life, well spent, which the modest detail of some of your efforts realizes to me. It is no extravagance, not even a trace of romance; it is a true enjoyment, and deeply affecting, too, that you give me in what you recount and what is recalled thereby. For what is there in our advanced life more worthy of thankfulness to God than that our former years were such that if we remember them with tears they are tears of which we need not be ashamed. My life during the almost twenty years since I left Maryland has been, as the preceding period had all been, a scene of unremitting effort in very many ways; and now, if the force of invincible habit permitted me to live otherwise, I should hardly escape by any other means a solitary if not a desolate old age. Solitary, because of a numerous family all, except one young son, are either in the great battle of life or in their graves. Desolate, because the terrible curse which marks our times and desolates our country has divided my house, like thousands of others, and my children literally fight in opposite armies and my kindred and friends die by each other's hands. There is no likelihood, in my opinion, that our Legislature will send me to the Senate of the United States; and will you wonder if I assure you that I have never desired that they should. Was it not a purer, perhaps a higher, ambition to prove that in the most frightful times and through long years a simple citizen had it in his power by his example, his voice and his pen, by courage, by disinterestedness, by toil, to become a real power in the State of himself; and have not you, delicately nurtured woman as you are, also cherished a similar ambition and done a similar work, even from a more difficult position? * * * I beg to be remembered in kind terms to your father, and that you will accept the assurances of my great respect and esteem.
Robert J. Breckenridge.
Danville, Ky., April 27, 1865.
My Dear Miss Carroll:
* * * You will easily understand how much I value the good opinion you express of my past efforts to serve our country, and of my ability to serve it still further; and it is very kind of you to report to me with your approbation the good opinion of others, whom to have satisfied is in a measure fame. * * * Many years ago, without reserve and with a perfect and irrevocable consecration, I gave myself and all I had to Him, and have never, for one moment, regretted that I did so. The single principle of my existence, from that day to this, has been to do with my might what it was given to me to see it was God's will I should do. You see, my dear Miss Carroll, that I, who never sought anything, am not now capable of seeking anything, nor even permitted to do so; and, on the other hand, that I, who never refused to undertake any duty, am not allowed now to hesitate, if the Lord shows me the way, nor permitted to refuse what my country might demand of me. This is all I can say—all I have cared to say for nearly my whole life. I would not turn my hand over to secure any earthly power or distinction. I would not hesitate a moment to lay down my life to please God or to bless my country.