WHO WAS MARY? A Civil War Mystery
In four parts, the story of an album composed in Glasgow, Missouri, during the 1860s, and of the clues that led to identification of its original owner.
First published in The Glasgow Missourian, Friday, June 17, 2016
Kenneth Westhues

PART TWO:

MARY'S POLITICS DURING THE CIVIL WAR

Victorian British artist Edward Corbould's version of "The Lovers," reproduced in Mary's album, is less erotic and more romantic than Giulio Romano's famous 16th-century painting of the same title, but the underlying fact it celebrates, the mutual attraction of boy and girl, is timeless and universal. Mary seems to have had many suitors, who related to her, as she did to them, with the formality and reserve characteristic of that era, even in the midst of civil war.

You know by now that the rich leather album from Glasgow in the 1860s belonged to a young unmarried woman, “Miss Mary,” from a well-off Presbyterian family. You do not yet know her full name or what became of her, any more than I did when I first turned the fragile, yellowed pages of her book.
                Most of the entries are genteel platitudes expressed in poetic, even flowery language. The penmanship is flawless. References tying the album to specific events are few. Mary and her friends were inclined to timeless romanticism.
                Here is an example, a verse dated March 18, 1865, and signed only “E. L. D.” The author is probably a friend of Mary’s named Emma L. Davis, since this name appears elsewhere in the book.
Dear Mary,
My joy is, dearest, to adore thee
My bliss to breathe a blessing o’er thee
And guardian spirits hovering near
My invocating prayer will hear
And to their will my wishes join
And crown thy life with bliss divine.
                What beautiful words! And how useless for ascertaining who Mary was!
                Yet from searching on Google for some of the full names in the book, mainly of young men, it becomes clear that Mary’s friends and relatives were all or almost all aligned with the Union side in the Civil War.
                As is well known, political loyalties were divided in Little Dixie. At least half of the white residents supported the Confederacy. Most of the founding families were from the South. General Sterling Price himself was a local boy, hailing from south of Keytesville. Harboring and supplying bushwhackers was a way of life for many Howard County residents during the Civil War.
                By contrast, those of Mary’s friends I have found information about were on the Union side. This fact greatly narrows down which of all possible Mary’s owned the album.
                An example is Joseph B. West, whose name appears more than once. Conceivably, he had a crush on Mary, or she on him. A history of the state of Nebraska, published by a Chicago company in 1882, included an entry for one “Joseph B. West,” born in Delaware in 1837.
                According to this entry, West enlisted in the Union army in 1861 and served three years in the Eleventh Pennsylvania Cavalry, mustering out with the rank of Second Lieutenant. He then “engaged for a few months in the cigar manufactory business, at Glasgow, Mo.”
                Any romance there might have been between Mary and Lt. West during this period came to nought. He moved to Omaha in 1867, and entered into partnership with Charles Fritscher to run a cigar factory. He married a woman from England in 1869. By 1882, when the state history was published, he and his wife had four children, and the cigar factory had 50 employees.
                The single most poignant entry in Mary’s album was from another possible suitor, a 25-year-old Glasgow printer named Monte Lehman, son of a German immigrant. The dateline reads “Glasgow, Mo., January 29th, 1865.”
                Price’s Confederate Army had been driven from the state by then, but bushwhackers continued to wage guerrilla war, and Union militias continued to hunt them down.
                Lehman served in one of these militias. He had enlisted in the Ninth Missouri Cavalry in 1862, and now held the rank of Second Lieutenant. Unlike most entries in the album, which were written in pencil, Lehman wrote his with pen and ink.
                “Dear Mary,
                “Permit me this evening to inscribe upon the pages of your Album a few thoughts which have suggested themselves to my mind. In the morrow, if an overruling Providence is willing, I take up the line of march for Fulton, Mo. ‘Tis the soldier’s duty to move at the word of command, however unwilling he is to part from those he loves and adores. The reflections of one’s leaving the comforts and enjoyments of home: of parting from those dear friends who have been his constant associates from infancy, are really painful and sensitive to the lover of home, friends, and relations; but, kind friend, before my departure I cannot refrain from wishing you the continuance of life’s sweetest blessings, health, prosperity and happiness – may God watch over you, and He is a sentinel in whom you can put your trust; He will guide your footsteps aright, and my prayer is that His Guardian Angels may protect and guide you.
                “Your friend,
                “Monte Lehman
                “2nd Lieut. Co. H 9th Cav. Mo. S. Mil.”
                Lehman survived the war, but his friendship with Mary did not lead to marriage. According to the History of Howard and Cooper Counties, published in 1883, he traveled to Philadelphia after the war to study commerce, then returned to Glasgow to partner with his father in running one of Howard County’s largest retail stores. It sold dry goods, clothing, and shoes. Lehman married Fannie Hessrich in 1875. They had three children by 1883.
                Knowing that mysterious Mary was friends with soldiers on the Union side brings us a step closer to discovering who she was. Young, unmarried, affluent, Presbyterian, and loyal to the Union: the clues are adding up.

GO ON TO PART THREE: HOW MARY WAS TOUCHED BY THE WAR