Autograph letter signed by Elizabeth Reynolds Rodgers Smith (1827-1906) to her mother, Anna Maria Perry Rodgers (1797-1858). Charleston, [South Carolina], 13 November [1846]. 4 pages, 4to. With address panel to integral leaf. 

An interesting letter written by a young woman who had just endured a sea voyage. Elizabeth Reynolds Rodgers Smith was the daughter of Commodore George Washington Rodgers (1878-1832) a career Navy officer who had been on board the USS Wasp during the War of 1812. 

Here, she writes to her mother after arriving in Charleston, South Carolina. Notably, she mentions the local enslaved population: "it seems very strange here. I have just been looking out into the yard. There are about half a dozen slaves there at work singing, Lucy Neal. Carts are all the time passing, filled with cotton bails so that I can scarcely tell where I am, but I feel that it is not home."

The majority of the letter concerns the ship encountering a storm, a ship in the convoy being abandoned, and a fainting spell she experienced after eating "nothing the whole passage except apples and ginger cakes."

A candid description of antebellum Chalreston and maritime travel. 

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