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ANNA ELLA CARROLL: INVISIBLE MEMBER OF LINCOLN'S CABINET
The purpose of this article is to investigate the life of Anna Ella Carroll, examine her role in the Civil War and her claims against the United States Government for "services rendered". I became interested in Anna Carroll while reading William Safire's Freedom, a novel that centered around the Emancipation Proclamation. In researching "Anna Carroll" I focused on government documents and two other principal sources: A Military Genius: Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland and Anna Carroll and Abraham Lincoln. The former book was written by Sarah Ellen Blackwell who interviewed Anna Carroll in her declining years. The latter volume was authored by Sidney and Marjorie Greenbie. It is interesting to note the genesis of the Greenbie book. While looking at the card catalog in the Library of Congress Marjorie Greenbie saw the heading "Carroll, Anna Ella, the great unrecognized member of Lincoln's Cabinet". At that point Marjorie said to her husband, "Why don't you write her biography?" Sidney responded, "She is a woman; you write it."(1)
Anna Ella Carroll was landed gentry. Her family settled in the New World long before the Revolution and her father, Thomas King Carroll, was governor of Maryland. According to the record, Governor Carroll was convinced that slavery was wrong, but he did not want to disrupt the institution on which the whole social fabric of Maryland was built.(2)
Anna Ella Carroll was born in 1815 at the family estate, Kingston Hall. She was the eldest child and the favorite of her distinguished father. Governor Carroll was an intellectual of his time. The library of Kingston Hall was well provided for and there was never a lack of stimulating discourse within its halls. When she was three years old Anna could be found listening as her father read his favorite passages from Shakespeare.
Anna showed no taste for the common persuits of her time. At age eleven her favorite books were Alison's History and Kant's Philosophy. Her reading of nonfiction was primarily directed toward those works which her father directed. Anna's interest was focused on Blackstone and the political debates and discussions of the day. At an early age, her letters addressed the most profound subjects. An analytical, reasoned argument...