brown william cheney (1 Ergebnisse)

Unbound. Zustand: Near Fine. A collection of 71 letters written between William Cheney Brown, Jr. and his family members between 1902 and 1918. Brown served as a War Department Chief of Staff in Washington, DC during World War I. Most letters are near fine, some have very light tidemarks. Also included are postcards, dried plants, and a small piece of animal hide. Correspondence to and from William Cheney Brown, Jr. and his family members living in Hartford, Connecticut before and during WWI. During his service Brown was War Department Chief of the Embarkation Service. Most of the letters center on Brown's time towards the end of the war. He writes to his parents, his younger sister Rachel, and his wife Mary, usually about his advancement in the War Department or about how much he misses them: "It won't be long.Don't grow up too fast without me." Brown focuses on his uncertainty about the end of the war stating, "What do you think of this peace business? Man woke me up this morning reading the headline that Germany has acceded to any demand." Often these letters continue with Brown's worry about the war not actually ending or a compromise being unreachable. In 1918 he writes home to his father about a possibility for a peace treaty: "I was actually shocked - perhaps more than usual.I could scarcely believe it." Brown's earlier letters are from his time at Harvard University. He entered law school and was president of the *Harvard Law Review* while there. Brown completed his degree in 1917 before entering the service. He was a former president of Harvard's literary magazine *The Crimson*, in which some of his submitted poems are included in these letters. Brown also traded dried flowers with his mother and younger sister Rachel by sending small envelopes to each other. An obituary from the time states that Brown died on January 21st 1919 in Washington DC at the age of 27. While the cause of his death is unclear, it was likely due to complications from the Spanish Flu. An interesting collection of correspondence to and from a promising young man during WWI, who died young and before fully achieving that promise.