Sarah Ann Evans informs the court that she married Bushrod Washington Evans in 1830. She further represents that Bushrod grew violent after three years of marriage and that he started "maltreating her by whipping her with a switch & beating her very cruely with his hands." Sarah Ann admits that "she was enabled by the exercise of great patience & forebearance to live with & bear his cruel & brutal conduct." She confesses, however, that when Bushrod whipped her as she lay in bed following the birth of her child and compelled her "to leave her room & go to 'cooking' to the manifest endangering her health," she "was compelled to leave his roof & seek protection elsewhere." The petitioner therefore prays that she be granted "a divorce 'a mensa et thoro' from said Evans" along with "a liberal yearly allowance in the way of Alimony." Bushrod Evans's answer denies many of the charges in said bill of complaint; however, he does acknowledge that he once "did inflict upon the face of the said Sarah Ann a few blows ... owing to great and the most provoking provocations she having visited places in town and commited acts wholly contrary to the wishes, requests and instructions of him the said respondent." He further argues that, when he accused of her neglecting one of his female slaves "by not ordering for her the common necessaries for her comfort," the said Sarah Ann arose from her sick bed "and seizing a pair of tongs assailed him in the most violent manner."
Result: Motion for separate allowance overruled.
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Repository: Circuit Court Clerk's Office, Petersburg, Virginia
