Rachel Goes to Washington: A Civil War Diary

I love diaries, especially women’s diaries from the Civil War era, so when I saw a mention of the diary of Rachel Rosalie Phillips and found out where a transcript was held, I had to get a copy of it. It’s an account of a young woman’s stay in Washington, D.C., in 1864, when a sojourn in a war capital could be a grand adventure.

Eighteen-year-old Rachel Rosalie Phillips, the oldest daughter of Jonas L. Phillips and Esther Peixotto, was from a prominent Sephardic Jewish family. Jonas, listed first as a ship chandler and then as a surveyor in directories and censuses, was active in New York City affairs, particularly the fire department.

In late 1863, Rachel left her home in Manhattan to visit her uncle, Adolphus Solomons, who along with an Englishman named Franklin Philp owned a well-known stationery business and bookstore/publishing house in Washington. Solomons, whose business had a contract to supply the government, was prominent in both the Jewish community and in Washington civic affairs. Philp and Solomons’ operations included a photographic gallery, under the supervision of Alexander Gardner, and one of Abraham Lincoln’s last photographs was taken there. Among his many accomplishments, Solomons would later assist Clara Barton in founding the American Red Cross. The 1864 city directory lists his residence as 507 E Street North; the business was located on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Rachel began writing her diary on January 1, 1864, when she noted that she had spent Christmas visiting military hospitals with journalist Benjmain Perley Poore, Senator Charles Sumner, and Miss Philp from England. (Elizabeth Philp, Franklin Philp’s sister, was a singer and songwriter who made her home in London.) There, Rachel observed “several Rebels,” who received the same dinner as the Union soldiers. On New Year’s Day, the Solomons children received presents from Santa Claus. As it was Friday, Solomons, an observant Jew,  led the family in Sabbath prayers that evening, and the family went to synagogue the next morning. (Solomons often gave Rachel Hebrew lessons as well.) On Saturday evening, Rachel went to Ford’s Theatre, where she tried out the opera glasses, “the prettiest pair I have ever seen,” that she had received as a New Year’s present. (Rachel records several visits to Ford’s in her diary.)

Having sewn the morning of January 5, Rachel amused herself that evening by dressing herself in her uncle’s clothes and presenting herself in the parlor, where Miss Philp “thought I made a capital man.”

Rachel visited the White House on January 9, where she was “introduced to the President, and Mrs. Lincoln and shook hands with both of them. Mrs. Lincoln was handsomely attired in a Black Velvet dress gored with white satin; she wore white and black velvet flowers in her hair. The jewelry she wore was Onyx set around with pearls she looked remarkably well. Mr. Lincoln appears to be a very good natured man, and was very sociable with all his guests. He always leaves a good impression. Everybody is pleased with him.” Three days later, Rachel saw Mrs. Lincoln again at a reception. The First Lady “wore a very handsome White Satin with black lace flowers.”

Late on January 13, Rachel went to a “hop” at Willard’s hotel, to which she wore a green silk dress. She arranged her hair in a fashionable “waterfall” with “puffs.” On January 21, she went to another “hop,” this time at the National Hotel, where she quaffed five glasses of champagne, spent half of the evening dancing with a Mr. Briggs, and stayed until 3:00 a.m. Rachel wore a white tarlatan dress and ornamented her hair with pink flowers. “I do not think I ever looked better,” she told her diary. “I think I am enjoying myself a great deal more than if I was in New York.” The Washington Chronicle also reported on the “hop”: “Diamonds flashed and silks rustled the live long evening! The cheeks of many a fair one were all aglow with the roseate hues of health, while those of others rivalled the purity of  Parian marble!”

Not all of Rachel’s Washington stay, however, was taken up with frivolities. Rachel went to the House of Representatives on January 16 to hear a lecture by Anna Dickinson, a young abolitionist who was enjoying great success as a public speaker at the time. The Lincolns were there, along with Vice President Hamlin and the Speaker of the House. Rachel also heard Raphael De Cordova, a Jamaican-born Sephardic Jew who was a popular speaker of the day, give a humorous talk on “Love and Courtship.” She sniffed, “I did not like it being the most miserable lecture I ever heard him give.”

Having spent Saturday, January 23, walking and reading The Scarlet Letter, Rachel received an invitation to travel to Virginia, where the Third Corps of the Army of the Potomac was preparing to put on a ball. On January 25, with her white dress packed in a small trunk, Rachel, in company that included her uncle and the British writer George Augustus Sala, boarded a train of the Orange and Alexandria Rail Road and traveled to Brandy Station, from which the company was transported by wagon to the army headquarters.

Unlike the teenage Rachel, who not surprisingly focused on the ball, Sala, who was sending dispatches to London’s Daily Telegraph, described the journey to headquarters in some detail. Although he enjoyed the provisions Solomons had laid on for the travelers, including anchovy and beef sandwiches, a plum cake, Stilton cheese, crackers, and cold milk punch, Sala wrote that this was the first time he had been “in the absolute and visible presence of war.” He noted the “entire nakedness and desolation” of his surroundings, and was particularly affected by the dead horses left to decay. Ironically, the party was greeted at Brandy Station by Philp’s wife and sister on horseback; the English ladies, who had gotten a head start over the Solomons party, had taken their sidesaddles and riding habits with them. The ball was held at a canvassed-in garden at General Carr’s headquarters, an ordinary farmhouse.

As for Rachel, she had a “splendid time” at the ball, and no wonder: Sala estimated that only about sixty women were present, as contrasted to about three hundred officers. Indeed, an illustration from Harper’s Weekly shows that those men without a lady partner for supper indulged in a “gander dance” with each other instead. Sala also recorded that the ladies were provided with cologne, bouquets, and black servants to wait upon them. A Virginian and two of his daughters were present; Sala noted that one of the girls abruptly stopped dancing when the band began to play “Yankee Doodle.”

Having danced until four in the morning, Rachel, along with the Philp women, retired to General Rufus Ingalls’ tent. The next morning, she chatted with some officers and reluctantly told them that she had to leave with her uncle that same day. During the train ride back to Washington, the party stopped at Manassas and spent an hour walking around. Rachel may have been more affected by her surroundings than she let on in her diary, because on February 1, when she heard that there was to be another ball given by the Third Corps, she wrote, “I do not think I shall go as it is too dangerous.”

In March, a “Captain Fassit” took Rachel by surprise by proposing to her, even offering to change his religion. Rachel informed him that “he was very impertinent to ask such a question.” (If this was Captain John Barclay Fassitt, he was awarded a Medal of Honor in 1894 for his heroism at the Battle of Gettysburg.)

Having met the President and First Lady, visited an army camp, worn out her dancing shoes, and received a proposal of marriage, Rachel returned later in March to her parents’ home in New York, where over the next few weeks she went to a number of plays, saw the family’s future new home at 36 West Twelfth Street, and attended a Purim ball, dressed patriotically as the Child of the Regiment.  (She also received some photographs of herself that had been taken during her last day in Washington, but although Rachel mentions having her photograph taken on several occasions in her diary, I have not found one of her.)  On April 11, she wrote, “What an Idiot I was to write a Diary.”  After a few more entries for 1864, recording a visit to a Sanitary Fair and the family’s move to the new house, her diary trails off until 1866, when she mentioned going to the library and being waited on by a male friend.

Sadly, Rachel’s story does not have a happy ending. On December 24, 1870, at age twenty-four, she died of sub-acute meningitis and was buried in Beth Olom Cemetery in Queens. The Jewish Messenger eulogized her thus: “Strong in principle, devout in sentiment, and benevolent in heart, she was active in charity and service to all who needed help or sympathy. So qualified in mind and person to take the greatest step in life, she was betrothed, and would have been married in a few weeks, but for the malady which proved as fatal as it was mysterious.”

As Rachel did have a sense of humor, however, it seems unfair to leave on a gloomy note. At the beginning of the diary, Rachel writes, “If you wish to know all my secrets, turn to page Thursday Feb 18 1864.” The reader who obeys will be told, “You are a bigger fool than I thought you was.”

Sources:

Rachel Rosalie Phillips diary transcript in David M. Klein Collection, MS-695, American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Find-A-Grave, John Barclay Fassitt.

Harper’s Weekly, “A Military Ball,” February 20, 1864.

Jewish Messenger, December 30, 1870.

George Augustus Sala, “America in the Midst of War,” Daily Telegraph, March 15, March 17, and April 6, 1864.

George William Sheldon, The Story of the Volunteer Fire Department of the City of New York.

“Raphael J. de Cordova, 1822-1901,” in Jamaicans Abroad.

Washington Chronicle, January 28, 1864.

Gary Phillip Zola, We Called Him Rabbi Abraham: Lincoln and American Jewry, A Documentary History.