Manly Tello, Confederate Captain & Catholic Editor

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Manly Tello, Confederate Captain & Catholic Editor

#206960 | Escorcio | 01 Sep 2008 22:15

Pedro Cornelius MANLY TELLO
Porto Santo (Madeira) 1842 - Cleveland (Ohio) 1905
Confederate Captain in the 2nd Maryland Batallion, Leading Catholic Editor,
Poet and Lawyer

Manly Tello was the son of João António Tello (Porto Santo 1806 - New York 1862) and Jane Henrietta Manly (Manlyville, 1823 – Ebensburg, Pennsylvania 1873). His paternal grand-parents were Pedro António Manly Tello (son of António Teixeira Telo de Brito and D. Catarina Escórcio de Velosa) and D. Gertrudes Augusta Perestrelo da Câmara (daughter of Baltazar Perestrelo da Câmara and D. Maria Escórcio Drumond), all of Porto Santo. His family traces back to Bartolomeu Perestrelo, a Portuguese navigator and explorer, of Genoese origin, who was granted as hereditary fief the island of Porto Santo to colonize. One of his daughters, Filipa Moniz, married Christopher Columbus (c. 1497).

João António Tello who was a political exile, met his future wife, Jane Henrietta Manly, in the school of languages he had opened in little old New York, shortly after his flight from Porto Santo. The couple were married in 1838 by Father Félix Varela at the Transfiguration Church, Manhattan.

Jane Henrietta Manly Tello was the daughter of Denis Manly, of Manlyville, North Carolina, who was engaged in the tobacco business and who at his death emancipated his slaves. Jane became one of the principals in the New York Public Schools. She spoke six languages, was a musician, a poet and an artist. She died at 50 and was buried at Ebensbury cemetery next to her 7-year grand-son Manly Tello Jr.

Pedro Manly Tello was born in Porto Santo, while the family were visiting the paternal home (but his legal birthplace was New York City), and was christened Pedro Cornelius Manly Tello. The family spent long spells in Madeira and Porto Santo. In1854, when he was 12, and his sister Gertrude 14, they settled permanently in the U.S.

Before turning to law, Manly Tello intending to study for priesthood, entered Holy Cross College, Worcester, Massachusetts, St. Charles Seminary, Catonville, Maryland, and St. Mary’s, Emmitsburg, Maryland.

His sympathies were hereditarily with the South and, when the Civil War broke out, he cast his lot with the Southerners. The fact that he was an exponent of the lost Southern cause, coloured and affected all of his life to come.

Manly Tello was 19 when he enlisted with the Confederate army as an artilleryman, then changed to cavalry (attached to the 2nd Maryland Cavalry) with permission to take out scouting parties, under Generals Stonewall Jackson and Beauregard. He carried dispatches, concealed in the buttons of his coat, through the North.

On October 31, 1863, Manly Tello went with his Lieutenant to a Southern home to get information. His Lieutenant, an Irish man, was watching from the kitchen, and Manly Tello was with his host and daughter in the dining room when the alarm was given that the Federals had surrounded the house. They made for the adjacent woods – the only possible way of escape. When they reached the wood, they ran right into a line of soldiers of the 1st New York Cavalry. A few minutes saw them stripped of most of their possessions. One captor took boots and silver spurs, another a shirt - barely enough to cover the captives was left, as they were marched off to be detailed from one prison to another, until they reached Camp Chase, Ohio, and later Rock Island prison camp, in the Mississipi river. From there in a spring morning of 1864, he escaped. His mother had managed to get a Federal uniform to him, which he donned. While crossing a bridge, he saw a Federal officer coming towards him. He decided to salute and go through. Luckily, he succeeded.

He went on, and finally reached Toronto, where he soon got into contact with Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, and Judah P. Benjamin, Southern Secretary of Civil War, for whom he had done some work in the Signal Service.

When General Lee surrendered at Appomatox, Manly Tello received word to dump certain ammunition and supplies into Toronto harbour, which he did on the first dark night that followed.

Canada sympathized with the South, and the Southern soldier found a ready welcome in Toronto homes. He was invited to a ball shortly after reaching that city. As he entered the ball room, dark, handsome, and distinguished as he must have been in his grey Captain’s fatigue uniform, his military beard making him look at least thirty instead of his twenty-two years, he saw standing in the centre of the room, a young girl of about sixteen, fair, with masses of bright auburn hair surmounting a radiant face, with laughing blue-grey eyes. She was dressed in the Southern colours in a red, white and blue starred gown of silken gauze. Standing in the entrance, his eyes met hers, his right hand came involuntarily to salute as he caught sight of the young belle dressed in the colours of his beloved flag.

Introductions followed. The young lady was Rowena Lucinda Scales, born 1847, in Covington, Kentucky, and educated at Sayre Institute, Kentucky. Her father Joab Scales was a Confederate refugee: he and his family were exiled for the part he had played in helping the Confederacy.

In 1866, when Rowena was a little over seventeen and Manly Tello about twenty-three, they were married. The marriage displeased his grand-father, because Manly Tello was a Catholic, and the Scales were Protestants, of the same family as Governor Scales, General Alfred Scales of the Confederate Army. As a result, as they told jokingly afterwards, they were married three times: first by a minister, second by a priest, and a year later again by a priest after Rowena became a Catholic.

They went to live in Louisville where he was admitted to the Bar.

In 1869 he was editing and managing a weekly newspaper in St. Paul, Minnesota, the "North Western Chronicle".

Finally, he accepted an offer from Rt. Rev. Richard Gilmour, Bishop of Cleveland, to edit and manage another weekly, the "Catholic Universe". He and his family went to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1877, where, until 1893, he was a leading Catholic editor, and as such was well known as a valiant defender of his faith and a great figure of his day. As a mouthpiece of the church hierarchy, Manly Tello enlarged the "Catholic Universe" and it became one of the most influential Catholic papers in the country. The "Catholic Universe" was not a financial success under Manly Tello, who was known more for his literary sense than for his business acumen. He was also criticized for occasionally using the paper to promote Southern interests. In an attempt to broaden the paper's appeal, he introduced baseball coverage, which caused some controversy. For his outspoken views, Manly Tello, even within the diocese, attracted as much negative attention as positive.

His wife died in 1889, leaving her husband, a son Jack, and four daughters. He later married again, Anna Boylan of Cleveland, Ohio, a daughter of Captain P.C. Boylan of that city, and practiced law from 1893 until his death, in 1905, leaving his widow and one daughter by his second marriage, and four daughters and one son by his first.

Manly Tello was always a strong defender of the Confederacy and the Catholic faith, both of which were the object of much controversy in those days.

In 1936, his daughter, writer Marie Tello Phillips, published a collection of his writings for children “Once Upon a Time, Verses and Stories for Children” for private circulation.

He was buried in Cavalry Cemetery.

General Daniel Telo Simões Soares (b. Porto Santo 1864-d. Lisbon 1938) governor of Madeira and Porto Santo and Senator, was his cousin.

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