[Letter from Elizabeth Upshur Teackle to her husband, Littleton Dennis Teackle, August 1812]
Mentioned in this letter
- Education, Religion, Literacy, and Culture
- Mythology
- Government, Law, and Military
- Crime - Riots
- Crime - Riots - Baltimore Riots of 1812
- Political Parties - Democratic Republican Party (U.S.)
- Politics
- Home, Health, and Social Life
- Fashion - Bonnets and Hats
- Fashion - Cloth
- Fashion - Cloth - Spinning
- Fashion - Dresses
- Health - Accidents
- Health - Death
- Health - Disease and illness - Headache
- Health - Remedies and Medicine
- Home economy
- Home expenses
About this letter
- Description
- Letter from Elizabeth Upshur Teackle to her husband, Littleton Dennis Teackle, discussing the accounts she has heard of the riots in Baltimore. Anti-war articles written by Alexander Contee Hanson in the Federal Republican newspaper caused riots against the newspaper. Elizabeth is horrified by these events and asks for her husband's recounting of the events. She also discusses their finances and her sister, Ann Upshur Teackle.
- Creator
- Teackle, Elizabeth Uphsur
- Creation Date
- August 1812
- Subjects
- Teackle, Elizabeth Upshur, 1783-1837
- Teackle, Littleton Dennis, 1777-1848
- Baltimore Riots, Baltimore, Md., 1812
- United States -- History -- War of 1812
- Item Type
- letter
- Identifier
- MSS 2338, 2338-a, 2338-b Box 1
- Publication Information
- Papers of the Quinby, Teackle, and Upshur families, 1759-1968, Accession #2338, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.
- Institution
- Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library
- Collection
- Voices of the Eastern Shore
- Place Names
- United States - Maryland - Somerset County - Princess Anne
- United States - Maryland - Baltimore County - Baltimore
August [1?] '12 P Anne
My dear husband
It is impossible to express the horror of my mind on receiving the dreadful accounts of the late riot in B_____e. Gracious god! Is it not the commencement of a Civil War? Was ever anything equal to this last outrage on the liberty of a free nation. Liberty! A free nation! We are no longer free. We are the slaves of the worst of tyrants. A Mob! And this is but a foretaste [of] the more systematic subjection to the tyrant Bonaparte. My blood curdles. Horror seizes every nerve, for turn which way [words obscured] may! It is either Bonaparte, and his detestable foreign dominion, or the more horrible prospect of civil war at home. I am irrevocably impress’d that either the one or the other or both is our miserable fate and that, closely impending. Where were you amidst this uproar? Safe I hope, for surely you had too much prudence to risk your safety in a hopeless contest.
Poor Hanson1 has smarted severely for his [fair]ness in support of the right of speech, and the right cause. Daniel Murray Esqr. too we are told is wounded. His brother James I hear has left town with an intention of seeing him
and the particulars of this business as we heard them from young Mr. Done is one more additional proof of the perfidy, the treachery of Democratic principles, to give up a handful of unarmed men to the savage power of an infuriated mob, to be butchered in cold blood! I did not even think that a Democrat wou’d have been guilty of so cool and deliberate an act of treachery. [And] every Demon of Anarchy has combined to make Baltimore the boiling cauldron of their infernal machinations, and evil shism and trouble. This is a divided country! And who [words obscured] shall free her from her tyrants? When Brutus saw his Rome under the dominion of a Cesar, he sacrificed the tyrant. But it is a Herculean task to sever the Hydra head of a rabble mob, and there are no longer Brutuses in the world.
Your two last letters in closing 20 dollars each, one by the mail the other through Mr. Dorsey, I have receiv’d. Also the cotton, half of which I have disposed of to Mr. Talbot and have settled my account with him. I have also received sundry letters notifying me of the stores which are to come. I have paid Muir the freight of the last as
I shall endeavor to leap and rise to the best of my knowledge, as I feel sensible of the necessity in every sense.
I should have written you by the last mail, but really my head is in so dreadful a nervous state that writing is painful to me. I hope you will pardon my omission.
My sister has not yet come. I am afraid she will make it so late that the season for using the waters will be over, and health is the only inducement in this excursion. And [I suspect] Mr. Eyre can’t leave home until a[fter] August court in Northampton. [words obscured] bout the second Monday. If you have an immediate opportunity to this place, I wish you to send me the 2 yds black crepe I wrote for. I have a dress to trim which I must finish before I go. And also I must make myself some sort of bonnet to ride in.
We are all pretty well.
God bless you.