Cousin Andy's Ancestors during the Civil War

got an email from cousin Andy last week:

"managed to get on a train of wounded back to Richmond from Manassas without having his leg amputated. He ended up staying with the family of  his Uncle, Gen. Joseph Ried Anderson who owned the Tredegar Iron Works and was nursed back to health by his cousin Ellen Graham Anderson.  (JRA was a field commander early in the war but was later brought back to Richmond to run the Tredegar because of its importance to the Confederacy.  They married but she only lived about a year – not sure of her cause of death but could have been childbirth. His second wife was Mary Louisa Blair and the youngest daughter was named Ellen Graham Anderson. MLB’s father was Col. William Barrett Blair and his wife was Judith Cornelia Nichol (daughter of Gov. Nichol of NY.) So we had conflicting loyalties within the family.

We plan to get to Richmond in the future and hope to see you.

Andy

To Free a Family

     Writer Sid Nathans has written a remarkable book called "To Free A Family,"  It tells the story of Mary Walker, a slave from the Raleigh area who possessed the talents of a designer and seamstress and worked for Mary Todd Lincoln.
     Mary Walker was quite successful and ended up purchasing the Village Smithy House in Cambridge, which was memorialized in the poem by Wordsworth.  She was taken in by a minister and his wife and received a lot of support from the Cambridge community.
     Unfortunately, she was separated from her children, who remained in the Raleigh area.  This story was widely known in Massachusetts.  During the Civil War, a Union soldier located her son, and told him that his mother wanted him and the other children to join her in Massachusetts.  As a consequence, Mary Walker was re-united with her family.
     Author Sid Nathans came to the Durham County Library to give a lecture and slide show about his book.  I had a chance to talk with him and to meet some of the descendants of Mary Walker.

For more information about the book, click on this link:  http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674062122