As I'm sure everyone here is aware, frequently orders/telegrams/etc were ended with 'Your obedient servant' or some shortened form thereof. Does anyone know (even colloquially) where this pattern originated?
It's somewhat surreal to see communications between, for example, Maj. Robert Anderson and P.G.T negotiating the surrender of Sumter with language like that. Personally, I love reading the old speech mannerisms in the OR and diaries; there's an almost dry wit to some of the stories they convey.
If you love reading the old speech mannerisms, can I quote for you a letter written during the Civil War, between commanders of opposing armies. I am referring to the English Civil War though ! But the letter deserves to be remembered.
In June 1643, Sir Ralph Hopton, commanding for the King in the west of England, wrote to Sir William Waller, the opposing Parliamentary commander. The two men had been firm friends before the war, and remained so despite their subsequent affiliations. Hopton's forces were located at the small cathedral city of Wells in Somerset, and Waller was about 30 miles away, besieging Royalist cavalry under Prince Rupert in the town of Devizes in Wiltshire. Hopton suggested a meeting but Waller (despite his obvious affection for his old friend) decided that his honour could not allow him to agree.
This is what he wrote (the 17th century spellings have been updated):
To my noble friend Sir Ralph Hopton at Wells
Sir,
The experience I have of your worth and the happiness I have enjoyed in your friendship are wounding considerations when I look at this present distance between us. Certainly my affection to you is so unchangeable that hostility itself cannot violate my friendship, but I must be true wherein the cause I serve. That great God, which is the searcher of my heart, knows with what a sad sense I go about this service, and with what a perfect hatred I detest this war without an enemy; but I look upon it as an Opus Domini and that is enough to silence all passion in me. The God of peace in his good time will send us peace. In the meantime, we are upon the stage and must act those parts that are assigned to us in this tragedy. Let us do so in a way of honour and without personal animosities.
Whatever the outcome I will never willingly relinquish the title of Your most affectionate friend.
William Waller
I suppose that identical feelings must have been experienced by individuals on your side of the Atlantic two hundred years later.
Anyway, a few weeks after Waller wrote his letter, the two armies met in battle on Roundway Down, Devizes, the result being a victory for the Royalists.
Jumping forward three centuries almost exactly, the Americans came to Roundway, in the form of the US Army 803rd Central Hospital. After WW2 when the Yanks went home the camp was handed to the British Army. It was such a large establishment that the Brits divided it up into three separate camps, naming each for a commander in the 1643 battle, viz. Hopton Barracks, Waller Barracks and Prince Maurice Barracks. Fifty-two years ago I found myself living and working in those old US hospital huts whilst stationed with a medium artillery regiment. They have all gone now, and a light industrial park known as Roundway occupies the site.
The wheels of history roll on.