Sarah Dorsey
Encyclopedia
Sarah Dorsey was an American
novelist and historian.
, she became a novelist and historian. She was known as the "companion" of Jefferson Davis
, to whom she proved a great boon in his post-Civil War
life. Her father Thomas, a successful planter, was a member of the famed southern Percy family. It produced notable politicians, lawyers and writers, such as Senator LeRoy Percy
, William Alexander Percy
, Walker Percy
, and the historian William Armstrong Percy III.
Sarah AnneEllis was the niece of Catherine Anne Warfield
and Eleanor Percy Lee
, the “Two Sisters of the West,” who while young published two volumes of poetry together. Catherine Anne Warfield went on to publish a number of novels, which achieved significant popular acclaim, including The House of Bouverie, a gothic fiction
in two volumes which was a bestseller in 1860.
Sarah Anne’s father died when she was nine, and her mother soon remarried to Charles Gustavus Dahlgren. Her stepfather, who saw great potential in Sarah, provided her with a first-rate education, engaging as her tutor Eliza Ann DuPuy, the same woman who had inspired and trained her aunts Catherine and Eleanor. Later he sent her to Madame Deborah Grelaud’s French School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
, where she excelled in music, painting, dancing, and languages, quickly gaining fluency in Italian
, Spanish
and German
, as well as French
.
During her stay in Philadelphia, Sarah Anne became very close with her teacher Anne Charlotte Lynch
. (Later as Anne Botta, she started the first and most famous salon
in Manhattan of the 19th century. She also wrote the Handbook of Universal Literature (1860), which remained in print for fifty years. At her salon the circle of intellectuals included Horace Greeley
, William Cullen Bryant
, and Ralph Waldo Emerson
. She frequently welcomed visitors such as Anthony Trollope
, Charles Dickens
, and Charles Kingsley
.) (Wyatt-Brown, pg. 125)
family. His father Thomas Dorsey, a failed lawyer, had accumulated large plantations in the Tensas Parish
region, which Samuel inherited. Between the Dahlgren-Routh-Ellis plantations on Sarah's side and Samuel's family’s plantations, the rich newlyweds settled first in Maryland. Soon, however, they were living on a Routh family plantation near Newellton
in Tensas Parish.
She published her first work in 1863–1864 in the Southern Literary Messenger
, which serialized her novel Agnes Graham. It was a sentimental tale about a young woman who falls in love with her cousin, whom she plans to marry until she learns about their common blood line. The success of the serials prompted her aunt Catherine’s publisher to republish it in complete volume. Other fictional works of Dorsey include Lucia Dare (1867), Athalie (1872), and Panola (1877).
In 1866, Dorsey published a biography
of the wartime Governor Henry Watkins Allen
, whom she had first met in 1859, while wandering through the Rhine River Valley in Europe with her husband. "As a leader of wartime relief for the poor, an advocate of emancipation
for slaves as reward for Confederate service, and other bold if not always welcomed innovations, Allen much deserved her praise." (Wyatt-Brown, pg. 134) The highly regarded work is considered to be an important contribution to the Lost Cause
legend of southern memory. It is in print through Sarah Hudson-Pierce
's Ritz Publications in Shreveport, Louisiana
.
In 1873, the Dorseys moved to Beauvoir
near Mississippi City, now Biloxi
, overlooking the Gulf of Mexico
. Soon after her husband died in 1875, Dorsey invited the former President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis
to visit her on the plantation in December 1876. Davis was married to his second wife, Varina Howell Davis, who had been a classmate of Dorsey’s at Madame Grelaud's French school.
Impoverished after his imprisonment and living with his wife and numerous progeny in Memphis
, Davis moved into Beauvoir on a permanent basis. There he composed his memoirs, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. Some claim that Dorsey ghost wrote the Davis memoir, but the style is too tedious to have been hers. Dorsey was instrumental in his success, organizing his day, motivating him to work, taking dictation, transcribing notes, editing and offering advice. Rumors quickly began to fly that the two were having an illicit affair, so much so that Varina Davis became greatly enraged and refused for a long time to set foot on Dorsey’s property. Eventually she too moved into one of the guest cottages at Beauvoir.
When the Davises' last surviving son, Jefferson Davis, Jr., died in 1878, the loss devastated both his parents. That summer, Sarah Dorsey nursed Varina through a long debilitating illness, probably a combination of physical and emotional causes. Soon afterward, Sarah Dorsey learned that she had inoperable tumors in her breast. As her health declined, Varina Davis became her primary nurse.
performed by Dr. T. G. Richardson, assisted by Dr. Rudolph Matas.
The Percy family sued, but failed to break the will. After Jefferson Davis' death, Beauvoir became a home for Confederate
veterans, many of whom are buried in the cemetery behind the house. After the last veteran died, it was adapted as a house museum.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
novelist and historian.
Biography
Born Sarah Anne Ellis to Thomas George Percy Ellis and Mary Malvina Routh in Natchez, MississippiNatchez, Mississippi
Natchez is the county seat of Adams County, Mississippi, United States. With a total population of 18,464 , it is the largest community and the only incorporated municipality within Adams County...
, she became a novelist and historian. She was known as the "companion" of Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Finis Davis , also known as Jeff Davis, was an American statesman and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, serving as President for its entire history. He was born in Kentucky to Samuel and Jane Davis...
, to whom she proved a great boon in his post-Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
life. Her father Thomas, a successful planter, was a member of the famed southern Percy family. It produced notable politicians, lawyers and writers, such as Senator LeRoy Percy
LeRoy Percy
LeRoy Percy was a wealthy planter from Greenville, Mississippi in the heart of the Delta. He attended the University of Virginia, where he was a member of the Chi Phi Fraternity. He served as United States Senator from Mississippi from 1910 to 1913...
, William Alexander Percy
William Alexander Percy
William Alexander Percy , was a lawyer, planter, and poet from Greenville, Mississippi. His autobiography Lanterns on the Levee became a bestseller. His father LeRoy Percy was the last United States Senator from Mississippi elected by the legislature...
, Walker Percy
Walker Percy
Walker Percy was an American Southern author whose interests included philosophy and semiotics. Percy is best known for his philosophical novels set in and around New Orleans, Louisiana, the first of which, The Moviegoer, won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1962...
, and the historian William Armstrong Percy III.
Sarah AnneEllis was the niece of Catherine Anne Warfield
Catherine Anne Warfield
Catherine Anne Warfield was an American writer of poetry and fiction in the South. Together with her sister Eleanor Percy Lee, she was first of the published authors in the Percy family. The most noted authors have been William Alexander Percy and Walker Percy of the twentieth century...
and Eleanor Percy Lee
Eleanor Percy Lee
Eleanor Percy Lee, born Eleanor Percy Ware , was an American writer of the South who co-authored two books of poetry with her sister Catherine Anne Warfield, which were published in the 1840s...
, the “Two Sisters of the West,” who while young published two volumes of poetry together. Catherine Anne Warfield went on to publish a number of novels, which achieved significant popular acclaim, including The House of Bouverie, a gothic fiction
Gothic fiction
Gothic fiction, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. Gothicism's origin is attributed to English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, subtitled "A Gothic Story"...
in two volumes which was a bestseller in 1860.
Sarah Anne’s father died when she was nine, and her mother soon remarried to Charles Gustavus Dahlgren. Her stepfather, who saw great potential in Sarah, provided her with a first-rate education, engaging as her tutor Eliza Ann DuPuy, the same woman who had inspired and trained her aunts Catherine and Eleanor. Later he sent her to Madame Deborah Grelaud’s French School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
, where she excelled in music, painting, dancing, and languages, quickly gaining fluency in Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, as well as French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
.
During her stay in Philadelphia, Sarah Anne became very close with her teacher Anne Charlotte Lynch
Anne Lynch Botta
Anne Charlotte Lynch Botta was an American poet, writer, teacher and socialite whose home was the central gathering place of the literary elite of her era.-Early life:...
. (Later as Anne Botta, she started the first and most famous salon
Salon (gathering)
A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to...
in Manhattan of the 19th century. She also wrote the Handbook of Universal Literature (1860), which remained in print for fifty years. At her salon the circle of intellectuals included Horace Greeley
Horace Greeley
Horace Greeley was an American newspaper editor, a founder of the Liberal Republican Party, a reformer, a politician, and an outspoken opponent of slavery...
, William Cullen Bryant
William Cullen Bryant
William Cullen Bryant was an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post.-Youth and education:...
, and Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...
. She frequently welcomed visitors such as Anthony Trollope
Anthony Trollope
Anthony Trollope was one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of his best-loved works, collectively known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire...
, Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
, and Charles Kingsley
Charles Kingsley
Charles Kingsley was an English priest of the Church of England, university professor, historian and novelist, particularly associated with the West Country and northeast Hampshire.-Life and character:...
.) (Wyatt-Brown, pg. 125)
Marriage and family
In 1852, Ellis married Samuel Worthington Dorsey, a member of a prominent MarylandMaryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
family. His father Thomas Dorsey, a failed lawyer, had accumulated large plantations in the Tensas Parish
Tensas Parish, Louisiana
Tensas Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The seat of the parish is St. Joseph. In 2010, the population of Tensas Parish was 5,252; it is the least-populous of all sixty-four parishes....
region, which Samuel inherited. Between the Dahlgren-Routh-Ellis plantations on Sarah's side and Samuel's family’s plantations, the rich newlyweds settled first in Maryland. Soon, however, they were living on a Routh family plantation near Newellton
Newellton, Louisiana
Newellton is a town in northern Tensas Parish in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Louisiana. The population is 1,227 in the 2010 census, a decline of 255 from 2000. Newellton is some 65 percent African American. It is just west of the Mississippi River on Lake St. Joseph, an ox-bow lake....
in Tensas Parish.
Literary career
Dorsey wrote articles for the New York Churchman in the 1850s.She published her first work in 1863–1864 in the Southern Literary Messenger
Southern Literary Messenger
The Southern Literary Messenger was a periodical published in Richmond, Virginia, from 1834 until June 1864. Each issue carried a subtitle of "Devoted to Every Department of Literature and the Fine Arts" or some variation and included poetry, fiction, non-fiction, reviews, and historical notes...
, which serialized her novel Agnes Graham. It was a sentimental tale about a young woman who falls in love with her cousin, whom she plans to marry until she learns about their common blood line. The success of the serials prompted her aunt Catherine’s publisher to republish it in complete volume. Other fictional works of Dorsey include Lucia Dare (1867), Athalie (1872), and Panola (1877).
In 1866, Dorsey published a biography
Biography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
of the wartime Governor Henry Watkins Allen
Henry Watkins Allen
Henry Watkins Allen was an American soldier and politician, and a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War...
, whom she had first met in 1859, while wandering through the Rhine River Valley in Europe with her husband. "As a leader of wartime relief for the poor, an advocate of emancipation
Emancipation
Emancipation means the act of setting an individual or social group free or making equal to citizens in a political society.Emancipation may also refer to:* Emancipation , a champion Australian thoroughbred racehorse foaled in 1979...
for slaves as reward for Confederate service, and other bold if not always welcomed innovations, Allen much deserved her praise." (Wyatt-Brown, pg. 134) The highly regarded work is considered to be an important contribution to the Lost Cause
Lost Cause of the Confederacy
The Lost Cause is the name commonly given to an American literary and intellectual movement that sought to reconcile the traditional white society of the U.S. South to the defeat of the Confederate States of America in the American Civil War of 1861–1865...
legend of southern memory. It is in print through Sarah Hudson-Pierce
Sarah Hudson-Pierce
Sarah Rachel Hudson-Pierce is an author of inspirational books, a publisher, a journalist, and a former cable television host in Shreveport, the seat of Caddo Parish and the largest city in North Louisiana....
's Ritz Publications in Shreveport, Louisiana
Shreveport, Louisiana
Shreveport is the third largest city in Louisiana. It is the principal city of the fourth largest metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana and is the 109th-largest city in the United States....
.
In 1873, the Dorseys moved to Beauvoir
Beauvoir (Biloxi, Mississippi)
Beauvoir is the historic post-war home and Presidential library of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, begun in 1848 at Biloxi, Mississippi. The main house and library were badly damaged, and other outbuildings were destroyed during Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005...
near Mississippi City, now Biloxi
Biloxi, Mississippi
Biloxi is a city in Harrison County, Mississippi, in the United States. The 2010 census recorded the population as 44,054. Along with Gulfport, Biloxi is a county seat of Harrison County....
, overlooking the Gulf of Mexico
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...
. Soon after her husband died in 1875, Dorsey invited the former President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Finis Davis , also known as Jeff Davis, was an American statesman and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, serving as President for its entire history. He was born in Kentucky to Samuel and Jane Davis...
to visit her on the plantation in December 1876. Davis was married to his second wife, Varina Howell Davis, who had been a classmate of Dorsey’s at Madame Grelaud's French school.
Impoverished after his imprisonment and living with his wife and numerous progeny in Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
, Davis moved into Beauvoir on a permanent basis. There he composed his memoirs, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. Some claim that Dorsey ghost wrote the Davis memoir, but the style is too tedious to have been hers. Dorsey was instrumental in his success, organizing his day, motivating him to work, taking dictation, transcribing notes, editing and offering advice. Rumors quickly began to fly that the two were having an illicit affair, so much so that Varina Davis became greatly enraged and refused for a long time to set foot on Dorsey’s property. Eventually she too moved into one of the guest cottages at Beauvoir.
When the Davises' last surviving son, Jefferson Davis, Jr., died in 1878, the loss devastated both his parents. That summer, Sarah Dorsey nursed Varina through a long debilitating illness, probably a combination of physical and emotional causes. Soon afterward, Sarah Dorsey learned that she had inoperable tumors in her breast. As her health declined, Varina Davis became her primary nurse.
Death
Recognizing that she was dying, Dorsey rewrote her will in 1878, from which she cut out all her family, bequeathing all her capital and, more importantly, Beauvoir to Jefferson Davis. Dorsey died in the St. Charles Hotel in New Orleans on July 4, 1879, at the age of 50, following an unsuccessful operation for cancerCancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
performed by Dr. T. G. Richardson, assisted by Dr. Rudolph Matas.
The Percy family sued, but failed to break the will. After Jefferson Davis' death, Beauvoir became a home for Confederate
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
veterans, many of whom are buried in the cemetery behind the house. After the last veteran died, it was adapted as a house museum.
Percy Writers
- Kate FergusonKate FergusonKate Ferguson was a notorious "southern belle", who hailed from two of the South’s most prominent families. She was born Catherine Sarah Lee, to the southern poet Eleanor Percy Lee and William Henry Lee, cousin of General Robert E. Lee. Her life was mired in scandal, mostly through her husband,...
- Eleanor Percy LeeEleanor Percy LeeEleanor Percy Lee, born Eleanor Percy Ware , was an American writer of the South who co-authored two books of poetry with her sister Catherine Anne Warfield, which were published in the 1840s...
- Walker PercyWalker PercyWalker Percy was an American Southern author whose interests included philosophy and semiotics. Percy is best known for his philosophical novels set in and around New Orleans, Louisiana, the first of which, The Moviegoer, won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1962...
- William Alexander PercyWilliam Alexander PercyWilliam Alexander Percy , was a lawyer, planter, and poet from Greenville, Mississippi. His autobiography Lanterns on the Levee became a bestseller. His father LeRoy Percy was the last United States Senator from Mississippi elected by the legislature...
- William Armstrong Percy, IIIWilliam Armstrong Percy, IIIWilliam Armstrong Percy, III, is an American professor, historian, encyclopedist, and gay activist. He taught from 1968 at the University of Massachusetts Boston, and started publishing in gay studies in 1985....
- Catherine Anne WarfieldCatherine Anne WarfieldCatherine Anne Warfield was an American writer of poetry and fiction in the South. Together with her sister Eleanor Percy Lee, she was first of the published authors in the Percy family. The most noted authors have been William Alexander Percy and Walker Percy of the twentieth century...
Sources
- "Dorsey, Sarah Anne Ellis" Notable American Women, Vol. 1, 4th ed., The Belknap Press of Harvard University PressHarvard University PressHarvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
, 1975