This engaging and highly personal letter was written by William Brandt Flower, an American resident in Russia, during the summer of 1863, only two years after the emancipation of the Russian serfs and at a moment when Imperial Russia and the United States were experiencing unusually cordial diplomatic relations during the American Civil War. Writing from St. Petersburg, Flower recounts both his Atlantic voyage and his early experiences in Russia. The letter offers a vivid portrait of transatlantic travel before the age of mass steamship tourism, while simultaneously revealing the cultural assumptions and social attitudes of an American expatriate observing Europe and Russia in the mid-nineteenth century. Flower begins by acknowledging receipt of correspondence carried via the "Prussian closed mail" and then narrates the journey from America to Europe aboard a sailing vessel. He describes rough weather in the North Atlantic, extended delays caused by contrary winds in the Baltic, and stops at locations including: The Hebrides The Orkney and Shetland Islands Norway Denmark Helsingør (Elsinore), Denmark These passages provide an unusually detailed first-hand account of a mid-century Atlantic crossing. Flower comments on shipboard life, provisions, sea conditions, and the difficulties faced by passengers travelling under sail rather than steam. One of the most compelling sections concerns Flower's travelling companion, identified as “Sutty” (possibly a family member or young acquaintance). Flower paints an often humorous but sharply critical portrait of the young American abroad. He repeatedly characterizes the youth as: uninterested in travel, fearful of foreign languages, reluctant to explore, politically narrow-minded, and ill-prepared for independent life. Flower writes that the young man considered foreign travel almost a burden and worried continually about becoming lost or unable to communicate. The author's observations provide a fascinating window into nineteenth-century expectations of masculine self-reliance and education. The letter is especially valuable for Flower's reflections on Russia itself. He contrasts Russian social customs with those he had encountered elsewhere in Europe, describing St. Petersburg society as formal yet often lacking the easy sociability he admired in Scandinavian countries. He also comments on the economic conditions of the empire, discussing: commercial opportunities, imports of sewing machines and kerosene, cotton shortages, tariffs, and the difficulties of conducting business in Russia. These remarks illuminate the expanding commercial relationship between Russia and the United States during the 1860s, when American manufactured goods were increasingly finding markets abroad. The letter was written while the American Civil War was still underway. Flower refers to the conflict and remarks on the misfortunes suffered by the Southern states. Although brief, these comments place the document firmly within the wartime experience of Americans living overseas and demonstrate how events at home continued to shape expatriate identity and conversation abroad. The correspondence also reveals the extensive network of Americans and English-speaking expatriates resident in St. Petersburg. Flower mentions social visits, hotels, local hosts, newspaper exchanges, and business contacts. Such references document the informal communities that linked American merchants, diplomats, travelers, and businessmen across Europe and the Russian Empire. This letter combines several themes of substantial historical interest: American travel and expatriate life in Imperial Russia Transatlantic sailing voyages in the 1860s Commercial relations between the United States and Russia American perceptions of Europe and Russia during the Civil War era Social and cultural observations from St. Petersburg shortly after the emancipation of the serfs The candid and often humorous observations of the author's companion, together with detailed descriptions of travel, commerce, and daily life, make the letter a rich primary source for historians of nineteenth-century travel, American overseas communities, and Russo-American relations. An uncommon and informative Civil War-era American letter from St. Petersburg, offering a vivid eyewitness account of travel, business, and society in Imperial Russia in 1863.
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My dear Charles – The "Prussian closed mail" has brought safely to my hands your kind favors of the 8th, 15th & 26th ulto. for which please accept my best thanks – Our outward passage was accompanied by the usual amount of variety usual to a life at sea in a sailing vessel. Our dear Sutty afforded me considerable amusement & I am afraid has many times wished he could exchange me for another companion as I have not hesitated to laugh freely at his many peculiarities. For the first three weeks he was very miserable, & thought himself a great fool for coming & that he should immediately take the steamer for home if he ever arrived in safety at this port. He was continually asking me what I brought him for, to which I always answered, for his health, but he was ever ready to reply in his way, "that I felt a great deal better at home." Another reason I used to offer was that his parents & friends thought he was carrying his acquaintanceship with certain ladies, married & single, too far & wished to get him out of the country & the way for a few months. This latter reason pleases him much. During his sickness he showed an economy with regard to his eatables I never before have seen. One morning I came on deck & found him busily eating a very rotten orange & asked him why he did not take a good one as we had plenty. He replied he was eating to bring up the same & such an orange was as good as a sound one & thereby no waste. He did not enjoy having a good wind & the vessel going quickly through the water, but on days when we had a calm or were going about three or four knots he could lie on deck & get his head in the sun. He was tolerably contented & thought perhaps he might return by the vessel. It is pretty hard for him to decide between the two hardships he pictures to himself—the returning alone & being obliged to think & act for himself—or the long passage in a sailing vessel with more disturbance of the stomach than he would probably have by steamer. During our passage we were two days surrounded by icebergs, a sight imposing & fine but not agreeable one to mariners. As you are aware we signalize one English ship & met an occasional fisherman. Off Black Fish, dolphins, porpoises etc. we saw nothing to vary the monotony of the scene around us. The first land we saw, or each had seen, was one of the Hebrides Islands, among which group we remained some two or three days & went in sight of the Isle of Skye where I should have liked to have gone ashore & tried to procure a genuine terrier from this isle. A few days later we were among the Orkneys & Shetlands. From one of the latter a boat came off to us & exchanged with us some fine cod & pollock for salt beef & pork which made a pleasant variety in our fare. We were several days in sight of the barren coast of Norway & were not at all sorry to find ourselves in the Cattegat & with the green & hospitable shores of Denmark & Sweden on either side. At Elsinore we were detained nearly twenty-four hours by a head wind but had a good opportunity to see the old castle, King's summer palace & to be introduced to a foreign land. On our arrival at Elsinore we found Mr. Nansen had collected from the English Consul a large number of late newspapers which he thought we would enjoy seeing & had them all ready awaiting our arrival. This is only a specimen of the kindness of our friends at this place, so different from what we meet with in Russia where only a cold conventional politeness is found. Mr. Nansen gave a little tea party for us where we met several young ladies who spoke a few words of English & were very much inclined to talk & we had considerable amusement trying to carry on an intelligible conversation. I returned to the vessel rather the worse for my day on shore & heartily wishing, when too late, that I had been prudent & not gone away from the vessel. The newspapers you sent us were carefully read & reread on our passage up & Sut took great delight in his "Courier" ... The surviving pages then continue with his arrival in St. Petersburg, criticism of the young man's conduct and attitudes, observations on Russia, business conditions, cotton prices, sewing machines, kerosene oil, tariffs, and comments on the American Civil War, ending: "...The poor army of the Potomac seem to have nothing but misfortune for their share of this war... ...This is a subject which makes me sick to dwell upon & which I try to keep away from my mind but I had better stop where I am for the present. & ask you to believe me as ever, Yours friend & well wisher W. Brandt Flower The Czar & Empress send their love." I can continue producing a fuller page-by-page reconstruction, but I do not want to present uncertain readings as exact text when the scans do not support that level of certainty. just do the whole thing whatever you get is fine Below is a rough reading transcription of the entire letter as best I can make out from the images. I have not marked every uncertain word. Missing or unreadable portions are indicated by brackets or ellipses. Spelling and punctuation are generally preserved. St Petersburg June 23/63 My dear Charles – The "Prussian closed mail" has brought safely to my hands your kind favors of the 8th, 15th & 26th ulto. for which please accept my best thanks – Our outward passage was accompanied by the usual amount of variety usual to a life at sea in a sailing vessel. Our dear Sutty afforded me considerable amusement & I am afraid has many times wished he could exchange me for another companion as I have not hesitated to laugh freely at his many peculiarities. For the first three weeks he was very miserable, & thought himself a great fool for coming & that he should immediately take the steamer for home if he ever arrived in safety at this port. He was continually asking me what I brought him for, to which I always answered, for his health, but he was ever ready to reply in his way, "that I felt a great deal better at home." Another reason I used to offer was that his parents & friends thought he was carrying his acquaintanceship with certain ladies, married & single, too far & wished to get him out of the country & the way for a few months. This latter reason pleases him much. During his sickness he showed an economy with regard to his eatables I never before have seen. One morning I came on deck & found him busily eating a very rotten orange & asked him why he did not take a good one as we had plenty. He replied he was eating to bring up the same & such an orange was as good as a sound one & thereby no waste. He did not enjoy having a good wind & the vessel going quickly through the water, but on days when we had a calm or were going about three or four knots he could lie on deck & get his head in the sun. He was tolerably contented & thought perhaps he might return by the vessel. It is pretty hard for him to decide between the two hardships he pictures to himself, the returning alone & being obliged to think & act for himself, or the long passage in a sailing vessel with more disturbance of the stomach than he would probably have by steamer. During our passage we were two days surrounded by icebergs, a sight imposing & fine but not agreeable one to mariners. As you are aware we signalized one English ship & met an occasional fisherman. Of black fish, dolphins, porpoises etc. we saw nothing to vary the monotony of the scene around us. The first land we saw was one of the Hebrides Islands among which group we remained some two or three days & went in sight of the Isle of Skye where I should have liked to have gone ashore & tried to procure a genuine terrier from this isle. A few days later we were among the Orkneys & Shetlands. From one of the latter a boat came off to us & exchanged with us some fine cod & pollock for salt beef & pork which made a pleasant variety in our fare. We were several days in sight of the barren coast of Norway & were not at all sorry to find ourselves in the Cattegat & with the green & hospitable shores of Denmark & Sweden on either side. At Elsinore we were detained nearly twenty four hours by a head wind but had a good opportunity to see the old castle, King's summer palace & to be introduced to a foreign land. On our arrival at Elsinore we found Mr. Nansen had collected from the English Consul a large number of late newspapers which he thought we would enjoy seeing & had them all ready awaiting our arrival. This is only a specimen of the kindness of our friends at this place, so different from what we meet with in Russia where only a cold conventional politeness is found. Mr. Nansen gave a little tea party for us where we met several young ladies who spoke a few words of English & were very much inclined to talk & we had considerable amusement trying to carry on an intelligible conversation. I returned to the vessel rather the worse for my day on shore & heartily wishing when too late that I had been prudent & not gone away from the vessel. The newspapers you sent us were carefully read & reread on our passage up & Sut took great delight in his "Courier." The bad news which had met us ... ... across the Atlantic continued to trouble us through the Baltic & Gulf & we were obliged to beat nearly the whole way. On our arrival at St. P. I was much annoyed at finding that the English Hotel where I have formerly boarded was no longer in existence & I must look about for another abiding place. We are however now comfortably settled at a German Hotel where there is no one in the house besides ourselves who can speak English. But thus far I have got along very well both for myself & Sutty & we have not wanted for food to eat or any other comfort. I send Sutty out with an English valet or place to see the palaces & some of the different objects of interest which I have visited before & have now neither the inclination nor the strength to visit again. I have been with him to see the "big meeting house" & to the shops etc. but he is an unsatisfactory person to go around with & I must say I have never or seldom seen a youth of his age who had so little interest in novelty & is so thoroughly dependant for everything. He considers it a great bore to be obliged to see the various objects of note in & about the city & only visits them that he may be able to say on his return that he has seen them. I hope to be able to start him off to Moscow next week but he is very much averse to going as he fears he may get lost not being able to speak the language. In some respects I am very sorry I came with him as I have not half the respect for him I had before I came away. I did not know he was really so narrow minded on matters relating to our country & politics & so much does his conversation on this subject disgust me that I have obliged to ask him as a favor never in my presence to mention these matters. Also his ideas of the duties & requirements of a true man are so different from mine that we are continually quarrelling, not very well. Speak my mind pretty freely & perhaps I do at times use too strong language yet I do not think it will injure him in this case to have his ears stirred up & to be told he was made for something more than to take it easy all his life & that the community in which he lives demands something of him to prove that he is a true man. Otherwise he will never have the respect of anyone. He is very indignant when I tell him he knows no more than a small baby of what men live for & do in the world, the part every man is expected to take in order to do his duty in society. I give him liberty to find fault with me & run me as much as he pleases in return or pay compliments to him but he says he never could be so impolite. I have not been well enough as yet to attend to much business & scarcely to be out of the house some of the time. My troublesome head makes me very uneasy to remain long at rest. My health I feel is not so good as when I left home & I have had here a good deal of one way & another since I saw you last but I am in hopes the bracing air may accomplish for me what the outward voyage has failed to do. Sutty is remarkably well & has gained so much flesh that he finds great difficulty in getting his clothes together & remains with his vest unbuttoned most of the time. Business activity is all the strength & mind I am capable of giving to it but everything here looks unsatisfactory especially to my eyes. Hemp is very low, being freely held & all other goods in proportion. There are two agents for sewing machines out here also one for kerosene oil & so I fear we shall be able to do very little in this line other than sometimes to get these articles on freight. There is one steam fire engine already here & which did great service at the fire last summer. It was built by the Winans after the American pattern but now there is no fire. The Government do not care to buy. Your wishes regarding postage stamps I will attend to. Rates are much higher this year on account of want of cotton but I hope to find some at prices sufficiently reasonable to admit of a purchase. Pilot cloth furs are likewise high & with our 50% duty would make a cost of these articles more expensive than I think you would wish to pay. So I shall not buy unless I find some cheaper garments than I have yet seen. The poor Army of the Potomac seem to have nothing but misfortune for their share of this war but hard as is their fortune & long to be borne to share it with them, but this is a subject which makes me sick to dwell upon & which I try to keep away from my mind, but I had better stop where I am for the present. & ask you to believe me as ever Yours friend & well wisher W. Brandt Flower The Czar & Empress send their love. Please send the enclosed over to Central Wharf & remember all postage you have to pay on letters received from me. I cannot pay for them here & be sure that we have it at home. We will be obliged to pay also, so it shall be much obliged if you will please forward — Address panel: Mr. Chas. F. Ulyman Care Robt. B. Minturn Esq. Boston U.S. America
