Treasury Department, Comptroller's Office, }
February 20, 1862. }
This will accompany copies of two letters written by Miss Anna Ella Carroll to the War Department.
Having informed me of the contents of the letters, I requested her to permit me to copy her duplicates. When she brought them to me she enjoined prudence in their use. They are very extraordinary papers as verified by the result. So far as I know or believe, our unparalleled victories on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers may be traced to her sagacious observations and intelligence. Her views were as broad and sagacious as the field to be occupied. In selecting the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers instead of the Mississippi, she set at naught the opinions of civilians, of military and naval men.
Justice should be done her patriotic discernment. She labors for her country and her whole country.
Elisha Whittlesey.
Letters To Miss Carroll From Hon. Benjamin F. Wade.
Hon. Benjamin F. Wade, who during the war was Chairman of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, and during the last period of his services, after the assassination of President Lincoln had elevated Andrew Johnson to the Presidency, was acting Vice-President and President of the Senate, was a friend of Miss Carroll. He addressed the following letter to her in 1869, just before the close of his last Congressional session:
Washington, March 1, 1869.
Miss Carroll:—I can not take leave of my public life without expressing my deep sense of your services to the country during the whole period of our National troubles. Although a citizen of a State almost unanimously disloyal and deeply sympathizing with secession, especially the wealthy and aristocratic class of her people, to which you belonged, yet, in the midst of such surroundings, you emancipated your own slaves at a great sacrifice of personal interest, and with your powerful pen defended the cause of the Union and loyalty as ably and effectively as it has ever yet been defended.
From my position on the Committee on the Conduct of the War, I know that some of the most successful expeditions of the war were suggested by you, among which I might instance the expedition up the Tennessee River.