Sarah Anne Ellis Dorsey
| Sarah Dorsey | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Sarah Anne Ellis February 16, 1829 Natchez, Mississippi, U.S. |
| Died | July 4, 1879 (aged 50) New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S. |
| Occupation | Author; benefactor of Jefferson Davis |
| Spouse(s) | Samuel Worthington Dorsey (married 1852–1875, his death) |
Sarah Anne Dorsey (née Ellis; February 16, 1829 – July 4, 1879) was an American novelist and historian from the prominent southern Percy family. She published several novels and a highly regarded biography of Henry Watkins Allen, governor of Louisiana during the years of the American Civil War. It is considered an important contribution to the literature of the Lost Cause.
By 1876 Dorsey was a widow and, when learning of Jefferson Davis' misfortunes, she invited him to visit her plantation of Beauvoir and use a cottage. He ended up living there the rest of his life, and their friendship created a scandal, but both ignored it, and his second wife, Varina Davis, also came to stay. In 1878, Dorsey realized she was terminally ill, rewrote her will, and bequeathed her property to Jefferson Davis. He wrote his history of the Civil War there and began his autobiography.
Sarah Anne Ellis was born to Mary Malvina Routh and Thomas George Percy Ellis.
Sarah Anne Ellis was the niece of Catherine Anne Warfield and Eleanor Percy Lee, the “Two Sisters of the West,” who while young published two volumes of poetry together. Catherine Anne Warfield went on to publish a number of novels, which achieved significant popular acclaim, including The House of Bouverie, a gothic fiction in two volumes, which was a bestseller in 1860. She and Ellis became quite close after her sister Eleanor died in 1849, with Sarah Anne encouraging her to write again.
Sarah Anne's father died when she was nine. Her widowed mother Mary soon remarried to Charles Gustavus Dahlgren, of Swedish descent. Her stepfather, who saw great potential in Sarah, provided her with a first-rate education, engaging as her tutor Eliza Ann DuPuy, the same woman who had inspired and trained her aunts Catherine and Eleanor. Later, about 1838-1841, he sent her to Madame Deborah Grelaud’s French School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, founded in the 1790s by a refugee from the French Revolution. Mme Grelaud was a Huguenot, and the school was Episcopal. There Sarah excelled in music, painting, dancing, and languages, quickly gaining fluency in Italian, Spanish and German, as well as French.
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