Biography

Anthony Lafayette Manning (1831-1878) was born in East New Market, Maryland, the son of Major Anthony Manning (1787-1849) and Harriett Willis Manning (1808-1837).   The father had 17 children by three wives.   Only eight children survived to adulthood.   A.L. Manning was the oldest of two surviving children by his father's second wife, Harriett Willis.   A.L. Manning's mother Harriett passed away in 1837 at at 29.   A.L. Manning was age six.  His father remarried in 1841.  (See BIble.)

In 1847, when Manning was 16, his father arranged for him to attend Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.  Manning was very homesick as evidenced by the distraught writing in his letters to his father.  The McClintock Slave Riot took place in Carlisle while Manning was there.  He wrote to his father that he must not let anyone know that Professor McClintock was still teaching at the College after the riots.  His earliest poem found to date is from a letter that Manning wrote to his father in 1847.  (See Letters.)

A.L. Manning's father Major Anthony Manning passed away in 1849.  Major Manning left to his son his "brick house and lot as it is laid off in East New Market."  The large beautiful brick house was built in 1793 and later known as the "Old Brick Hotel".  In 1852, Anthony L. Manning graduated from the University of Maryland Medical School in Baltimore.  An 1853 letter from his sister, Eugenia, "offers encouragement in increasing business at his (new) medical practice in Baltimore."

Dr. Anthony Lafayette Manning (1831-1878) and Sarah Elizabeth Mackey (1834-?) were friends and local residents of East New Market, Maryland.  Sarah was also known as Sallie.  Sarah was the daughter of Phillip Mackey and Margaret Ann Adelaide Green (?-1847) of East New Market.  She had one full brother William P. Mackey and two half-sisters, Margaret and Ada Smith.   After her mother passed away in 1847, Sarah lived with her aunt, Elizabeth Green Edmondson and her husband William V.M. Edmondson.  Dr. Anthony L. Manning and  Sarah E. Mackey married in Baltimore on 27 October 1853.

Dr. Manning kept a small locket with Sarah's photo.  Family who inherited the locket found a very small folded up poem about Dr. Manning's relationship with Sarah behind the photo.  The poem was titled "Thou Hast Been My Ruin".   The poem contains a line "E're James R. Pollard broke my rest."  During the 1860 Census, Sarah was living in a boarding house in Baltimore.  Another boarder living in the same household with Sarah was Dr. James Pollard.  In May 1861, Anthony and Sarah Manning divorced.   

Sarah Mackey Manning has not been found in records after the 1861 divorce.  Records for Dr. James R. Pollard also have not been found after his entry in the 1860 Census.  Did Sarah remain in Baltimore?  Did she continue a relationship with James Pollard?  Did she remarry?  Did she  pass away?

On 2 September 1862, Governor Thomas H. Hicks wrote a letter to Secretary of War, E.W. Stanton introducing Dr. AL Manning as a good physician and an unflinching Union man.  He stated that Dr. Manning "was desirous of being made a surgeon for the US Army".  On 1 April 1863, Dr. Manning joined the Union Army as a Assistant Surgeon for Company S, 1st Regiment of the Eastern Shore Infantry.  Expecting an invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania by the Confederate Army in June 1863, the 1st Eastern Shore Regiment of Infantry asked to be sent to the Army of the Potomac at the front.  With General Lockwood's Brigade, the regiment was transported to Baltimore, and then marched to the battlefield of Gettysburg. They reached Gettysburg on the morning of July 3, 1863, and immediately went into action with the 12th Army Corps on Culp's Hill.  After the battle of Gettysburg, the 1st Regiment, Eastern Shore Infantry, continued with the Army of the Potomac until the Confederate Army was driven out of Maryland.  After a brief duty on the upper Potomac, the regiment again returned to the Eastern Shores where it continued in the performance of special duty.  

Dr. Manning mustered out on 23 December 1864.  The Report of Surgeon Jonathan Letterman gives details about the operation of the medical department during the Battle of Gettysburg.  The burden on Union surgeons at Gettysburg was great.  Surgeon's at Gettysburg would need to be skilled with many medical practices, including amputation.  As evidenced by the medical instruments in Dr. Manning's two surgical kits, he likely performed many amputations.  For more information about what surgeons encountered at Gettysburg refer to "The Army Medical Department, Chapter 10, The Civil War in 1863, Hammond's Last Year, pages 208-216, Care of Sick and Wounded in the East."

Dr. Manning's half-brother, George Manning, fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War as a Sergeant for the 2nd Battalion Maryland Infantry.  In August 1864, he was captured by the Union Army during the battle of Globe Tavern, VA and sent to Point Lookout, Maryland as a prisoner.  George was released to the custody of his brother Dr. A.L. Manning in May 1865 after spending 9 months in the prison.

For a while, Dr. Manning maintained a residence and medical practice in both East New Market and in Baltimore.  He appears to have been in East New Market at the outbreak of the Civil War.   From 1867 through 1872 he was listed at 84 Hanover in the Baltimore City directories.   In 1867, the Medical Board of Baltimore found him qualified to practice medicine.  During the 1870 Census, he was working as a Physician in Baltimore and listed as a separate household in the dwelling of restaurant owner Edward Perry and family.  In an 1873 letter, Dr. Manning indicated an interest in working as a surgeon for a European Steamer based in Philadelphia.  Dr. Manning was back in East New Market by 1876 as his nephew addressed a letter to him there.  In 1876, he planned to lease out his frame dwelling in East New Market, but apparently never did.  

According to the Manning Family Bible, Dr. Anthony L. Manning, "was taken suddenly ill on Friday at 10 O'clock with heart-disease- Jan 25th 1878, & died Saturday P.M. 10 O'clock Jan 26th 1878."  He died at age 46.  

Dr. Manning stated in his Last Will and Testament that "I desire that my poems and my prose life shall be published together, and suitably illustrated in book form, one copy to be made a present to each of the following libraries: the Peabody, the Mercantile, the Maryland Institute, and the Maryland University school of Medicine libraries; all of Baltimore City, Maryland, and the Smithsonian Institute library of Washington, D.C. and the remaining copies to be sold as deemed best, and the proceeds if any therefrom the five thousand copies, to go to my sister Mrs. Eugenia S. Thomas".  Also in the Will, Dr. Manning entrusted "the revising and corrections of my poems to my brother-in-law Dr. James H. Thomas who is my sister's husband, and my respected old school mate, before they go to the press for publication."

The Will also instructed the creation of a large monument of polished scotch granite of a reddish hue in East New Market cemetery etched with Dr. Manning's self-written epitaph.  It is not clear if his sister followed through with Dr. Manning's instruction to produce 5,000 copies of his Poetry & Prose book and donate a copy to each of the five libraries.   

One thing that was a constant in Dr. Manning's life was his poetry.  So far the author of this project has located thirteen of Dr. Manning's poems and prose.   However, the elusive poetry book is yet to be found.