The reality of same-sex sexual relationships in the American antebellum South is rarely discussed. The extraordinarily explicit letters below, from Thomas Withers to James Hammond (who would become one of the South's most beloved statesmen and pro-slavery figures), remind us that such relationships did exist, and exist between people whose politics do not match modern perceptions of gay people's values. The letters were discovered in 1978 by Martin Duberman, who has written extensively of his battle with the South Caroliniana Library to be allowed to publish them.

Columbia, South Carolina

May 15, 1826

Dear Jim: I got your Letter this morning about 8 o'clock, from the hands of the Bearer . . . I was sick as the Devil, when the Gentleman entered the Room, and have been so during most of the day. About 1 o'clock I swallowed a huge mass of Epsom Salts – and it will not be hard to imagine that I have been at dirty work since. I feel partially relieved – enough to write a hasty dull letter. I feel some inclination to learn whether you yet sleep in your Shirt-tail, and whether you yet have the extravagant delight of poking and punching a writhing Bedfellow with your long fleshen pole – the exquisite touches of which I have often had the honor of feeling? Let me say unto thee that unless thou changest former habits in this particular, thou wilt be represented by every future Chum as a nuisance. And, I pronounce it, with good reason too. Sir, you roughen the downy Slumbers of your Bedfellow – by such hostile – furious lunges as you are in the habit of making at him – when he is least prepared for defence against the crushing force of a Battering Ram. Without reformation my imagination depicts some awful results for which you will be held accountable – and therefore it is, that I earnestly recommend it. Indeed it is encouraging an assault and battery propensity, which needs correction – & uncorrected threatens devastation, horror & bloodshed, etc. . . .

With great respect I am the old

Stud,

Jeff

September 24, 1826

My dear Friend, I fancy, Jim, that your elongated protuberance – your fleshen pole – your [two Latin words; indecipherable] – has captured complete mastery over you – and I really believe, that you are charging over the pine barrens of your locality, braying, like an ass, at every she-male you can discover. I am afraid that you are thus prostituting the "image of God" and suggest that if you thus blasphemously essay to put on the form of a Jack – in this stead of that noble image – you will share the fate of Nebuchadnazzer of old. I should lament to hear of you feeding upon the dross of the pasture and alarming the country with your vociferations. The day of miracles may not be past, and the flaming excess of your lustful appetite may drag down the vengeance of supernal power. – And you'll "be damn-d if you don't marry"? – and felt a disposition to set down and gravely detail me the reasons of early marriage. But two favourable ones strike me now – the first is, that Time may grasp love so furiously as totally [?] to disfigure his Phiz. The second is, that, like George McDuffie [a politician], he may have the hap-hazzard of a broken backbone befal him, which will relieve him from the performance of affectual family-duty – & throw over the brow of his wife, should he chance to get one, a most foreboding gloom – As to the first, you will find many a modest good girl subject to the same inconvenience – and as to the second, it will only superinduce such domestic whirlwinds, as will call into frequent exercise rhetorical displays of impassioned Eloquence, accompanied by appropriate and perfect specimens of those gestures which Nature and feeling suggest. To get children, it is true, fulfills a department of social & natural duty – but to let them starve, or subject them to the alarming hazard of it, violates another of a most important character. This is the dilemma to which I reduce you – choose this day which you will do.

I was reading the infamous letter written by Robespierre in 1783, where he overcomes his desire for pastries and then writes a poem in honor of their inventor.

Since our arrival every moment has been given to pleasure. Since last Saturday I have been eating tarts to my heart's content. Fate has ordained that my bed should be placed in a room which is the storeroom for pastries. Thus I was exposed to the temptation of eating all night, but I considered that it is great to master one's passions, and I slept surrounded by these seductive objects. It is true that I made up for this long abstinence during the day.

"I give thee thanks who first with skillful hand

Did fashion paste and pastry to command,

And gave to mortals this delicious dish,

So nothing more was left for them to wish.

Have they raised altars to thy glorious name,

All consecrated to thy talents' fame ?

Hundreds of lands are prodigal of vows

The universe, its groves and temples, shows ;

But of thy genius they have little ken,

Who brought Ambrosia on the earth to men.

Pies reign in honour at their festal board,

But thou'rt forgot as if by one accord."

Of all the ingratitude of which mankind has been guilty towards their benefactors, this mark of ingratitude is to me the most revolting. It has fallen to the natives of Artois to expiate it; in the opinion of fall Europe, they better than any people of the world have learnt the value of a tart. Their glory demands that they should build a temple to the inventor of tarts. I will tell you confidentially that I have a plan for this purpose, which I intend to propose to the States of Artois. I expect to be powerfully supported by the whole body of the clergy.

Amazing.

ETA: On a much less hilarious note, I've also been reading a letter that I've seen referred to twice as the last letter written by Fouquier-Tinville to his wife before his execution, but it's dated the autumn of 1794, and he died in May the next year. He clearly expected to die very soon after writing it, and maybe people have just gone with that? Or he just didn't write anything else for six months. I don't know. Either way, it's a sad read.

Though I haven't been interrogated yet, I have to expect, my good friend, to be judged soon; in a different time, sure of my innocence, I would have no doubts before this judgement; but in the difficult circumstances where we find ourselves, and after the horrible diatribes, calumnies and vociferations of all kind which have gathered around my head since my imprisonment, it's useless to give ourselves up to illusions. All these frightening vociferations, and hatefully being called execrable, a conspirator, a tiger drunk with blood, without anything to back it up, is the prelude to my judgment. It's a tactic of the liberticide faction to be sure to be rid of me...

So, I expect to be sacrificed to a public opinion which has been excited against me by all means, and not to be judged: it is something which I have thought for a long time, but have always wanted to spare you from as long as possible. I will die for having served my country with much zeal and activity, and for having conformed to the will of the government, with my hands and heart pure.

But, my good friend, what will become of you and our poor children? You will be delivered to the most frightful misery, and this too is the proof that I have served my country with the selflessness of a true republican. These are the dark thoughts that torment me day and night.

I was born for unhappiness; what an awful thought! To die as a conspirator, I, who have never ceased to wage war against them. This is the reward for my patriotic zeal. Having been through all these disasters, there is still a ray of satisfaction, or rather of consolation, it is knowing that you are convinced of my innocence, at least this conviction gives me hope that you won't fail to tell our children that their father died unhappy, but innocent, and that he always had your confidence and your esteem; I ask you not to give yourself over to misery and to take care of your health for your own sake and for our children. Forget the little differences we might have had, they were caused by my vivacity, my heart has never ceased to be attached to yours, be sure of that as I know that yours has always been attached to mine. Oh! my good friend, who could have thought that I would end like this, I who have never known intrigue or been pained by a lack of wealth.

It is hard, my good friend, to share these dark thoughts with you. I am well balanced, but considering that while I am being judged I won't be able to do it, I am determined to give to you my last feelings for you, and to thank you for all the pains you have taken during my imprisonment: I ask you again not to give yourself to misery, and encourage you not to reject any opportunities which might give you a happier lot: with tears in my eyes and a tight heart, I bid you farewell for the last time, to your aunt and to my poor children, I embrace you a thousand times. Oh! such sweet satisfaction it would be if I could see you again and hold you in my arms. But, my good friend, it's done, it can't be thought of! Farewell, a million times farewell, and to the few friends who are left to us, and above all to the good one par excellence, embrace our children and your aunt for me, be the mother to my children who I ask to be wise and listen to you: Farewell, farewell.

Your faithful friend until my last sigh, A.Q. Fouquier

The only token of my friendship that is in my power is a little bit of hair which I ask you to keep.

Fouquier was the public prosecutor at the revolutionary tribunal during the Reign of Terror. Under his watch, over 2000 people were executed during a little more than a year, and near the end of it they were executing on average 35 people every day, with a record of somewhere around 70 at a time. So when he complains about not being judged fairly it's kind of difficult to feel all that sympathetic with his plight. Especially since a good chunk of his work during the Terror was fiddling with facts to make other "patriots" look like conspirators and counterrevolutionaries.

Is it time for another Caffarelli story? Why yes I do think it is.

A letter dated June 12th, 1739 from the Auditor General Erasmus D. Ulloa Severino to the Marquis of Salas. Translation is my own and is largely garbage but you get the jist of what went down. (Any actual Italian speakers please to correct me!) A story in which Caffarelli and another castrato named Nicola Reginella beat each other with sticks in a church. From here.

On the morning of the 8th, above the orchestra of the Church of the Lady Romita, where they were solemnly celebrating the profession of a lady nun, with a full concurrence of people and especially the ladies and gentlemen, he aforementioned Cafarelli was singing a motet. From the violinist Crescenzo Pepe was dispensed the parts, and it happened that he did not hand it to Cafarelli, requiring the others for more coming musicians, who had taken it and passed into the hands of the same, and said, "Give this to Sig. Gaetano." Reginelli, passed it along with the assumption that the part was for the priest Gaetano Leuzzi, who could not proceed, as he sang tenor, also because he had gone after him wondering who else was called Gaetano. At this Cafarelli responded that he was Gaetano Cafarelli, who was to sing, and repeated it twice with a scowl, and Reginelli responded that if he was Gaetano Cafarelli it was after meeting Nicola Reginelli, so that with these words that they went too far and came to resent each other and spoke words sharp and dishonest, so outraged, Cafarelli then raised up a small cane, which he was carrying in his hand, in which the action Reginelli, having taken off his stick, he struck up behind the faithful, and demanding his sword and not being able to have that ready, took a piece of wood, which was accidently found there, and returning to the orchestra, they attacked one another, giving themselves some beatings, of which the bystanders also received many, and in that act Cafarelli unsheathed his sword, but did nothing with that, since both were detained, and the cries of the nuns who were above the choir, were divided. [as this happened] in a festivity so solemn and in a church of such qualified lady nuns, so that the Vicar of the same, who was also celebrating, was forced to expel them from same church, and declare them excommunicated. But as far as I am told, Reginelli was then absolved, so much so that the other morning he was singing at the Royal Chapel, but Caffarelli is still however suspended, with the due diligence I have practiced it is also understood that it has passed between them to acts of threats, and that Reginelli has some brothers of little good reputation, likely to produce another disorder that could be worse, in order to repair all the evil, I have enjoined a mandate not to offend, not at least one to Reginelli and one to his brothers, which is about Cafarelli.

The original Italian:

Nel mentre la mattina dell’8 corr. stavano sopra l’orchestra nella Chiesa di Donnaromita, ove solennemente celebravasi la funzione della professione d’una Monaca Dama, con pieno concorso di molta gente e soprattutto di Dame e Cavalieri, dovendo cantare un mottetto il cennato Caffarelli, dal violino Crescenzo Pepe si dispensarono le parti, e comechè non giungeva a darla in propria mano del detto Caffarelli, richiese l’altri musici più prossimi, che l’avessero pigliata e passata in mano del medesimo, con dire: – Date questa al Signor Don Gaetano. – Il Reginelli ciò sentendo e col supposto che detta parte si dasse al Sacerdote Don Gaetano Leuzzi, che non poteva a lui precedere, si perché quello canta di tenore, così altresì perché era andato dopo di lui, domandò chi era detto Don Gaetano. A questo il Caffarelli rispose ch’egli era il Don Gaetano Caffarelli, che doveva cantare replicandolo due volte con ciera brusca, ed il Reginelli rispose, che se egli era Don Gaetano Caffarelli, esso all’incontro era Don Nicola Reginelli, tanto che da queste parole nacque che eccederono ad offendersi scambievolmente d’altre parole pungenti e disoneste, onde indignati, il Caffarelli alzò contro di quello una picciola canna che portava in mano, nel quale atto il Reginelli alzò anche il suo bastone, ma furono trattenuti dall’altri musici; con tutto ciò il Caffarelli prese l’arco del Contrabasso, ed il Reginelli, perché se l’era tolto il bastone, si fe’ dietro l’intavolato, chiedendo la spada, e non potendo aver quella pronta, prese un pezzo di legno, che accidentalmente ivi ritrovò, e ritornando all’orchestra, s’attacarono l’uno con l’altro, dandosi alcune bastonate, delle quali ne riceverono molte gli astanti che divisero, ed in quell’atto il detto Caffarelli sguainò la sua spada, però con quella niente fece, poichè entrambi furono trattenuti, ed alle grida delle Monache, che stavano sopra al Coro, furono divisi. Qual grave scandalo e disturbo con la perturbazione dei Divini Uffici abbia potuto apportare detto fatto, lo lascio alla saggia considerazione di V. E. in una festività così solenne ed in una chiesa così qualificata di Monache Dame, tanto che il Vicario della medesima, che stava celebrando, fu necessitato farli ambedue espellere da detta Chiesa e denominarli scomunicati. Però per quanto mi si dice che il Reginelli sia stato assoluto, tanto che l’altra mattina cantò nella Cappella Reale, e che il Caffarelli sta tuttavia sospeso, con dette diligenze da me praticate ho anche inteso, che sian tra loro passati ad atti di minacce, e che il Reginelli avendo alcuni fratelli di poco buona fama, dubitavasi che avesse potuto sortire altro disordine maggiore, onde per riparare ogni male, ho fatto ingiugnere mandato de non offendendo, non meno al detto Reginelli ed uno de’ suoi fratelli, che a detto Caffarelli.

I think the last letter of Marie-Antoinette to her sister-in-law Madame Elisabeth (who would be executed the following year) before her execution is always poignant.

It is to you, my sister, that I write for the last time. I have just been condemned, not to a shameful death, for such is only for criminals, but to go and rejoin your brother. Innocent like him, I hope to show the same firmness in my last moments. I am calm, as one is when one's conscience reproaches one with nothing. I feel profound sorrow in leaving my poor children: you know that I only lived for them and for you, my good and tender sister. You who out of love have sacrificed everything to be with us, in what a position do I leave you! I have learned from the proceedings at my trial that my daughter was separated from you. Alas! poor child; I do not venture to write to her; she would not receive my letter. I do not even know whether this will reach you. Do you receive my blessing for both of them. I hope that one day when they are older they may be able to rejoin you, and to enjoy to the full your tender care. Let them both think of the lesson which I have never ceased to impress upon them, that the principles and the exact performance of their duties are the chief foundation of life; and then mutual affection and confidence in one another will constitute its happiness. Let my daughter feel that at her age she ought always to aid her brother by the advice which her greater experience and her affection may inspire her to give him. And let my son in his turn render to his sister all the care and all the services which affection can inspire. Let them, in short, both feel that, in whatever positions they may be placed, they will never be truly happy but through their union. Let them follow our example. In our own misfortunes how much comfort has our affection for one another afforded us! And, in times of happiness, we have enjoyed that doubly from being able to share it with a friend; and where can one find friends more tender and more united than in one's own family? Let my son never forget the last words of his father, which I repeat emphatically; let him never seek to avenge our deaths.

I have to speak to you of one thing which is very painful to my heart, I know how much pain the child must have caused you. Forgive him, my dear sister; think of his age, and how easy it is to make a child say whatever one wishes, especially when he does not understand it. It will come to pass one day, I hope, that he will better feel the value of your kindness and of your tender affection for both of them. It remains to confide to you my last thoughts. I should have wished to write them at the beginning of my trial; but, besides that they did not leave me any means of writing, events have passed so rapidly that I really have not had time.

I die in the Catholic Apostolic and Roman religion, that of my fathers, that in which I was brought up, and which I have always professed. Having no spiritual consolation to look for, not even knowing whether there are still in this place any priests of that religion (and indeed the place where I am would expose them to too much danger if they were to enter it but once), I sincerely implore pardon of God for all the faults which I may have committed during my life. I trust that, in His goodness, He will mercifully accept my last prayers, as well as those which I have for a long time addressed to Him, to receive my soul into His mercy. I beg pardon of all whom I know, and especially of you, my sister, for all the vexations which, without intending it, I may have caused you. I pardon all my enemies the evils that they have done me. I bid farewell to my aunts and to all my brothers and sisters. I had friends. The idea of being forever separated from them and from all their troubles is one of the greatest sorrows that I suffer in dying. Let them at least know that to my latest moment I thought of them.

Farewell, my good and tender sister. May this letter reach you. Think always of me; I embrace you with all my heart, as I do my poor dear children. My God, how heart-rending it is to leave them forever! Farewell! farewell! I must now occupy myself with my spiritual duties, as I am not free in my actions. Perhaps they will bring me a priest; but I here protest that I will not say a word to him, but that I will treat him as a total stranger.

The letter never made it to Elisabeth. We've already had mention of Robespierre in this thread - it was him that kept the letter for some, unknown reason. The reason that Antoinette asks Elisabeth to 'forgive the child' is to do with her son Louis-Charles. Elisabeth was famously devout and pious, and one of the accusations levelled against Marie-Antoinette and Elisabeth was that they had committed incestuous acts against the little Dauphin. The boy, separated from family at a young age when his mother had previously noted he was very impressionable and eager to please the adults around him - even if that meant the truth was not told - had accused his mother and aunt from his own mouth. The charge was that they had lain him between them and taught him to masturbate while still at Versailles, if anyone is interested.