The Story Emma
Never Told
((1864-65) (a diary extract))
“A night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury”
Emma Hightower was receiving mail from Private Erwin Summerfield of Columbus, Ohio, her distance first cousin, he belonged to the D.C., Volunteers (evidently him and her brother, Frank had gotten together one day, being on different sides of the battlefield and discussed home life, and Emma), and the erotic sketches he was drawing and sending to her thereafter, she’d reply within her letters “The sketches, are just want the boys I’m sure would like,” there in Company B.,” and she’d draw others for him to give to them other boys?” And he became infatuated with her.
Private Erwin was well acquainted with the barrooms or as they were referred to as low saloons, near the Treasury Building, and brothels of Washington D.C., he handed them these obscene drawings out into the hands of unwilling younger men. It was during these times erotic photos were greatly published and sold among the soldiers. Especial the carte de visite, a photo print glued on cardboard, and was quite easily mass produced (over 200-million in one year alone).
They became so popular, Private Erwin figured he’d go into this business himself, and ordered hundreds, and sold them to his soldier friends. He got them square-cornered with gold boarders; naked women showing it all. And he even sent some to Emma Hightower, telling her he was going to mass produce them when he got out of the Army, after the war, and she and he could marry. And he was tall and handsome, but his name became associated with this kind of business. He became so indulged in this business, he became part of the Provost Marshal’s Office, giving prostitutes, issuing them their weekly certificates of health, and gathering them up to register and to be examined or face confinement. He became part of General Hooker’s Division, and was even sent to Nashville, as an overseer for the medical staff—
During his off hours, between drinking and womanizing, and Army life that is, he was attracted to the new so called “Peep-show box,” displaying a nude photo, which attracted many a Federal soldiers, he himself had intentions of building several of them.
While in Nashville, he was assigned to the Hospital Number Eleven, the Female Venereal Hospital, located on Market Street, near Locust Street. They were—those among the ill, prostitutes that followed the soldiers from place to place, and worked the city’s streets, all were detained for treatment here, Corporal Erwin, while among the women doing he laundry, fooled around with a black matron, a nurse, a cook even the maintenance man. He was sexually addicted, and black prostitutes was to him his doom, because once they started admitting them, receiving desegregate medical care, he became overwhelmed with them, feel head over heel over this one young missy (perhaps a girl of eighteen).
He would have been, might have been, that is, had fate not plaid him his rightful due, or portion of tribute that such persons get after such an uncommon lust for female flesh, a wealthy man…
All during this time Emma and now Sergeant Erwin wrote letters back and forth until one day he became one of the many unfortunate soldiers with scabs and blisters characteristic of the rupia-type lesions of their third –stage of syphilis. The remedy in 1865—was simply a joke ‘A night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury.” (Venus being the ecstasy and lust and beauty one gets before he befalls to Mercury—the unstable, erratic god of swift flights, from one place to another)(Or one planet, Venus, being of a bright beauty, the other dead and scorched with black doom))—all in all, a life with Mercury was a life he got, a slow death.
Never Told
((1864-65) (a diary extract))
“A night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury”
Emma Hightower was receiving mail from Private Erwin Summerfield of Columbus, Ohio, her distance first cousin, he belonged to the D.C., Volunteers (evidently him and her brother, Frank had gotten together one day, being on different sides of the battlefield and discussed home life, and Emma), and the erotic sketches he was drawing and sending to her thereafter, she’d reply within her letters “The sketches, are just want the boys I’m sure would like,” there in Company B.,” and she’d draw others for him to give to them other boys?” And he became infatuated with her.
Private Erwin was well acquainted with the barrooms or as they were referred to as low saloons, near the Treasury Building, and brothels of Washington D.C., he handed them these obscene drawings out into the hands of unwilling younger men. It was during these times erotic photos were greatly published and sold among the soldiers. Especial the carte de visite, a photo print glued on cardboard, and was quite easily mass produced (over 200-million in one year alone).
They became so popular, Private Erwin figured he’d go into this business himself, and ordered hundreds, and sold them to his soldier friends. He got them square-cornered with gold boarders; naked women showing it all. And he even sent some to Emma Hightower, telling her he was going to mass produce them when he got out of the Army, after the war, and she and he could marry. And he was tall and handsome, but his name became associated with this kind of business. He became so indulged in this business, he became part of the Provost Marshal’s Office, giving prostitutes, issuing them their weekly certificates of health, and gathering them up to register and to be examined or face confinement. He became part of General Hooker’s Division, and was even sent to Nashville, as an overseer for the medical staff—
During his off hours, between drinking and womanizing, and Army life that is, he was attracted to the new so called “Peep-show box,” displaying a nude photo, which attracted many a Federal soldiers, he himself had intentions of building several of them.
While in Nashville, he was assigned to the Hospital Number Eleven, the Female Venereal Hospital, located on Market Street, near Locust Street. They were—those among the ill, prostitutes that followed the soldiers from place to place, and worked the city’s streets, all were detained for treatment here, Corporal Erwin, while among the women doing he laundry, fooled around with a black matron, a nurse, a cook even the maintenance man. He was sexually addicted, and black prostitutes was to him his doom, because once they started admitting them, receiving desegregate medical care, he became overwhelmed with them, feel head over heel over this one young missy (perhaps a girl of eighteen).
He would have been, might have been, that is, had fate not plaid him his rightful due, or portion of tribute that such persons get after such an uncommon lust for female flesh, a wealthy man…
All during this time Emma and now Sergeant Erwin wrote letters back and forth until one day he became one of the many unfortunate soldiers with scabs and blisters characteristic of the rupia-type lesions of their third –stage of syphilis. The remedy in 1865—was simply a joke ‘A night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury.” (Venus being the ecstasy and lust and beauty one gets before he befalls to Mercury—the unstable, erratic god of swift flights, from one place to another)(Or one planet, Venus, being of a bright beauty, the other dead and scorched with black doom))—all in all, a life with Mercury was a life he got, a slow death.
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