Letter to Joseph R. Anderson, Jr., 1904

Scope and content:

Autobiographical letter from Moses J. Ezekiel to VMI historian Joseph R. Anderson, Jr. In the letter, Ezekiel recounts his experience as a VMI cadet at the Battle of New Market on May 15, 1864 and his post-VMI career through July 1904. He discusses caring for his classmate Thomas G. Jefferson, who was mortally wounded in the Battle and expresses regret for missing VMI reunion at which New Market Medals were issued to veterans.

Language:

English

Other descriptive data:

Rome July 23, 1904

As you want me to give you a kind of record of myself and according to the prospectus you sent I take pleasure in doing so. My parents were Jacob Ezekiel and Catherine de Castro My grandparents Jacob de Castro & Hannah Pepper- Maternal and Michael Ezekiel and Rebekah Israel - Paternal grandparents

My Parents were living in Richmond Va. when I was matriculated.

My Grandparents and great grandparents, are on my father's side buried in Philadelphia & on my mother's side in Richmond Va.

I was born in Richmond Va. Oct. 28, 1844.

Entered the V.M.I. the second year of the War and when back to reform the Corps, and graduated in the first class after the War. I gathered up in Lexington all the books and paintings I could find that had been dispersed by Hunter's Raid and reorganized the debating society, and gave the pictures later to the Letcher family and others, to whom they belonged. I was orderly sergeant of Company on the Intermediate lines below Richmond.

I was never a student at any institution before going to the V.M.I. But matriculated later and studied anatomy at the Richmond Medical College at night and from my 12th year on, kept books for my grandparents, and spent any spare hours in drawing & painting & modelling, never having a teacher of any kind, and it was then I modelled my Father's Bust which is still considered a good likeness.

I have I see given my War record first. But must add that I was slightly wounded in the Battle of New Market. But as the ball passed through my jacket and only grazed my breast, I took no notice of it. I was arrested and put in Castle Thunder in Richmond after the surrender, because I refused to take the oath of allegiance. About this time I wrote a letter which was published in all of the leading American papers, in which I denounced General Grant, comparing him to the worst Czars of Russia- for his famous or rather infamous Order No. 11, in which he prohibited any Jew in the U.S. Army having any concern in the Quarter Master's department. I do not now remember any more of it, than that I gathered the statistics & published them proving that the abuses in that department had not been done by Jews at all- and called upon all men in the United States of that persuasion or religion to vote for any man for the next President rather than for General Grant.

The General replied to my letter in the papers by deploring that he had ever published that Order No. 11 which he said he had given out upon information which be found out later was false. Meanwhile a secret carpet bag or political Yankee Committee in Richmond, sent me a letter saying that my life would be in danger if I stayed in Richmond after writing and publishing such a letter about General Grant their Hero: & this letter was forwarded to me, to Amelia County, at the Home of Mr. Garland Jefferson, the father of my dead comrade, where I had gone to carry the lock of hair of the dead boy to his mother. So I immediately on the receipt of that letter of intimidation jumped on to the first freight train that passed Amelia Courthouse & returned to Richmond. I went about my own affairs during the days, but coming home at night and passing 17th Street the concealed Ruffians fired at me from their concealment in the old market & let loose a shower of stones which smashed a number of windows, but left me unharmed. I reported at once to the Police Station in the bell house. But none of the gang were found & a second letter advising me to leave town came. But I took no notice of it, and so it all ended. As my Parents house had been rifled by the mob at the evacuation, and my Fathers store rooms of cotton and tobacco burned up, with the loss of an entire fortune of at least ¼ of million dollars, I staid at home, & with my youngest brother helped as well as we could to begin a little business and earn enough to live upon in a slender way, & when my father had again been able to start into a new business, I went West, and staid in Cincinnati a year, working for the first time in the studio of Mr. Jones (in 1868), a sculptor of some merit and well known there.

I then modelled my first statuette of "Industry", which was exhibited there, and the favorable criticism in the papers encouraged me penniless as I was to go abroad. I sold a breast pin I owned- which enabled me to travel second class to Berlin (in 1869) where I matriculated at the Royal Academy and passed the examination. In order to continue my studies I gave lessons in English in the mornings early- and drawing lessons at night, and spent the rest of the time at the academy, where I was elected by my Colleagues president of the Art Students league at the Academy. I also worked in the studio of Prof. [Siemernig] & then of Prof. Wolff and often worked In the open air or buildings in Berlin then in construction modelling heads and carytids and ornaments in order to earn an extra dollar. No one ever knew that I needed anything and I led a happy life all the same, and the Bohemian life of the student was mine also, to the fullest extent. I modelled then the ¾ life sized figure of Virginia Mourning her Dead and sent Mrs. General Lee a photo of it, as I was always in correspondence with that estimable wife of our Great Hero.

That statue I have always kept and it is now in my studio here, and is the model of the statue my brother cadets were good enough to unveil at the parade ground of our Alma Mater last year.

My finally gaining the Prix de Rome at the academy- and my being honored for my art works by the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen and the German Emperor and the Medal from the Art Society in Rome, my various works in America, England, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Russia are not subjects for my writing about: I have with all this the sincere regret that I have never been called upon in my own home Virginia, nor in the South, to execute a single work of art- excepting the one for my own comrades which links me forever with the Alma Mater, the V.M.I., where every stone, and every blade of grass is dear to me- and the name of Cadet of the V.M.I. the proudest and most honored title I can ever possess.

Of course my comrade I am writing this as a letter to you & not one for publication. You can glean from it any particulars you may choose for your Biography, of which I shall want several copies, besides I do want to contribute my mite to the picture of General Scott Shipp, and am surprised that I was not asked to do so as an Alumnus.

There never was any one I admired more than I did our then Col. Shipp, and when in the battle of New Market, his horse was wounded and he was down, I could not help running to him, to ask if he was hurt & when he said "no, go ahead" I left him. Randolph too was shot when we were shoulder to shoulder. He had just said smiling, there's no use dodging boys, if a ball's going to hit you, it'll hit you anyway! When he fell, I thought he was dead. But I found him at night in the hospital.

And now let me tell you that it has been a real grief to me not to have been able to join either last year or this year in the Corps Ceremonies which were of such deep interest to me. But I am under contract to finish a monument this fall & place it in Fairmount Park Philadelphia & I have several other works to finish and deliver and I could not come home until I could bring the monument and place it in position. These are hard facts, and have interfered with what would have been nearest to my own heart. But you will now understand it all.

Your kind letter has been waiting a long time to be answered, and it only seems a few weeks to me, as my life here is so full and every day brings me visitors from home or elsewhere, and so many duties, that for a couple of months I have absolutely had to neglect pen and ink nolens volens so I throw myself upon your kind indulgence, and with the most sincere and affectionate greetings

I am always your comrade and friend

18 Piazza Termini

Subjects:

New Market, Battle of, New Market, Va., 1864
New Market Cadets
Correspondence

Names:

Jefferson, Thomas G. (Thomas Garland), 1847-1864
Anderson, Joseph R., Jr. (Joseph Reid), 1851-1930

Access and use