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HISTORY OF KERSHAW'S BRIGADE
With Complete Roll of Companies, Biographical Sketches, Incidents,
Anecdotes, etc.
by
D. AUGUSTUS DICKERT
[Illustration: LT. COL. AXALLA JOHN HOOLE Eighth South Carolina
Volunteer Regiment Kershaw's Brigade October 12, 1822-September 20,
1863]
INTRODUCTION.
For three reasons, one purely personal (as you will soon see), I am
pleased to play even a small part in the reprinting of D. Augustus
Dickert's The History of Kershaw's Brigade ... an undertaking in my
judgment long, long, overdue.
First, it is a very rare and valuable book. Privately published by
Dickert's friend and neighbor, Elbert H. Aull, owner-editor of the
small-town weekly Newberry (S.C.) Herald and News, almost all of
the copies were shortly after water-logged in storage and destroyed.
Meantime, only a few copies had been distributed, mostly to veterans
and to libraries within the state. Small wonder, then, that
Kershaw's Brigade ... so long out-of-print, is among the scarcest of
Confederate War books--a point underscored by the fact that no copy has
been listed in American Book Prices Current in fifty years. Only one
sale of the book is recorded in John Mebane's Books Relating to
the Civil War (1963), an ex-library copy which sold for $150. More
recently, another copy, oddly described as "library indicia, extremely
rare," was offered for sale by second-hand dealer for $200. Under
these circumstances it is difficult to determine why, amidst the
ever-increasing interest in the irrepressible conflict, this unique
book has had to wait seventy-five years to make its reappearance on
the American historical scene.
My second reason is that, in company with other devotees of the
Confederacy, I consider Kershaw's Brigade ... one of the best
eye-witness accounts of its kind, complete, trustworthy, and intensely
interesting. Beginning with the secession of South Carolina on
December 20, 1860, Dickert describes in detail the formation,
organization, and myriad military activities of his brigade until its
surrender at Durham, N.C., April 28, 1865. During these four years
and four months, as he slowly rose in rank from private to captain,
Dickert leaves precious little untold. In his own earthy fashion he
tells of the merging of the Second, Third, Seventh, Eighth, Fifteenth,
and Twentieth regiments and the Third Battalion of South Carolina
Volunteer Infantry into a brigade under the command of General Joseph
Brevard Kershaw, McLaws' division, Longstreet's corps, Lee's Army of
Northern Virginia. First Manassas was the brigade's, baptism of
fire. Seven Pines, the Seven Days, Second Manassas, Harper's Ferry,
Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg followed.
And when the enemy began knocking at the back door of the Confederacy
in late 1863, it was Longstreet's corps that Lee rushed to the aid of
Bragg's faltering Army of Tennessee. After the victory at Chickamauga
and a winter in Tennessee, the corps was recalled to Virginia--and
to the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, and the
Shenandoah Valley. Then, once again, as Sherman's mighty machine
rolled relentlessly over Georgia and into South Carolina in 1865,
Kershaw's Brigade was transferred "back home," as Dickert proudly put
it, "to fight the invader on our own native soil."
But Kershaw's Brigade ... is much more than a recounting of military
movements and the ordeals of battles. It is at once a panorama of the
agonies and the ecstacies of cold-steel war. Few such narratives are
so replete with quiet, meditative asides, bold delineations of daily
life in camp and on the march, descriptions of places and peoples,
and--by no means least--the raucous, all relieving humor of the common
soldier who resolutely makes merry to-day because to-morrow he may
die. Thus, to young Dickert did the routine of the military become
alternately matters grave or gay. Everything was grist for his mill:
the sight of a pretty girl waving at his passing troop train, the
roasting of a stolen pig over a campfire, the joy of finding a keg
of red-eye which had somehow fallen--no one knew how--from a
supply wagon; or, on another and quite different day, the saddening
afterthoughts of a letter from home, the stink of bloated, rotting
horses, their stiffened legs pointed skyward, the acrid taste of
gun-powder smoke, the frightening whine (or thud) of an unseen
sharpshooter's bullet, and the twisted, shoeless, hatless body of
yesterday's friend or foe.
E. Merton Coulter, in his Travels in the Confederate States: A
Bibliography (1948), called Dickert's "a well-written narrative,
notably concerned with the atmosphere of army life," adding that
"there is no reason to believe that he embellished the story beyond
the general outlines of established truth." Douglas S. Freeman
considered Kershaw's Brigade ... a reliable source for both his R.E.
Lee (1934-1935) and Lee's Lieutenants ... (1942-1944), and Allen
Nevins et al., in their Civil War Books: A Critical Bibliography
(1967), described it as "a full, thick account of a famous South
Carolina brigade," alive with "personal experiences of campaigns in
both East and West."
With these comments I agree. The book is indeed intimate, vigorous,
truthful, and forever fresh. But, as I stated earlier, there is
a third and personal reason why I am proud to have a hand in the
republication of Kershaw's Brigade.... My grandfather, Axalla John
Hoole, formerly captain of the Darlington (S.C.) Riflemen, was
lieutenant colonel of its Eighth Regiment and in that capacity fought
from First Manassas until he was killed in the Battle of Chickamauga,
September 20, 1863. (His photograph is inserted in this edition and
Dickert's tributes to him are on pages 278, 284-285.)
Two days before his death Hoole pencilled his last letter to his wife.
Previously unpublished, it frankly mirrors the esprit de corps of
the men of Kershaw's Brigade on the eve of battle. En route from
Petersburg to Chickamauga by train, the men of the Eighth Regiment
passed through Florence, just ten miles from their homes in
Darlington. Upon arrival at Dalton, Ga. on September 18 Hoole wrote
"Dear Betsy":
I don't know how long we will remain here, so I am hurrying to write
you a few lines, with the sheet of paper on my knee to let you know
that I am as well as could be expected under [the] circumstances.... I
feel pretty well. I heard yesterday that [General W.S.] Rosecrans had
fallen back, so there is no telling how far we may have to march or
how long it will take before we have a battle here.... Oh, my dear
wife, what a trial it was to me to pass so near you and not see you,
but it had to be. About 40 of our Regt. stopped, and I am sorry to
inform you that all of Company A, except the officers, were left at
Florence. That company did worse than any other.... But I know with
some it was too hard a trial to pass. There were some, however, who
left, who had seen their families in less than a month....
We left our horses at Petersburg to follow us on. I left Joe [his
servant] in charge of mine, and I don't know when they will come up.
I feel the need of Joe and the horse, as I can't carry my baggage, and
fare badly in the eating line. [We] took our two days rations and
went to a house last night to have it cooked, but I can't eat it. The
biscuits are made with soda and no salt and you can smell the soda
ten steps.... If I can't buy something to eat for the next two days, I
must starve.... I made out to buy something occasionally on the way to
keep body and soul together.... I must close, as I may not be able
to get this in the mail before we have to leave here.... Kiss my dear
little ones for me, tell all the Negroes howdy for me.... Write as
soon as you get this. Direct it to me at Dalton, as I expect this will
be our post office for the present. Do my dear wife don't fret about
me. Your ever loving Husband....
D. Augustus Dickert, the author of Kershaw's Brigade ... was born on
a farm near Broad River, Lexington County, S.C., in August, 1844,
the son of A.G. and Margaret (Dickinson) Dickert, both from nearby
Fairfield County. In June, 1861, at age seventeen, he enlisted as a
private in Company H, Third Regiment, South Carolina Volunteers, made
up of men mostly from Fairfield, Lexington, and Newberry counties.
Wounded four times (at Savage Station, Fredericksburg, the Wilderness,
and Knoxville), he was gradually promoted to captain and during the
latter part of the war, according to his friend Aull, "he was in
command of his regiment acting as colonel without ever receiving his
commission as such."
After the war Colonel Dickert, as he was best known, returned to his
farm, and took an active part in community life, including leadership
in the local Ku Klux Klan. Meantime, he read widely to improve his
education--as a boy he had attended a country school for only a
few months--and by middle-age had become "better educated than many
college graduates." Well versed in history, astronomy, and literature,
he turned to writing as an avocation, producing numerous stories which
were published in the Herald and News and several magazines. One of
his stories, A Dance with Death, considered by his contemporaries "one
of the most thrilling narratives," was based on true experiences
which earned him the reputation of being a "stranger to danger and
absolutely fearless." His Kershaw's Brigade ... was written, as
he announced, at the request of the local chapter of the United
Confederate Veterans and published by Aull "without one dollar in
sight--a recompense for time, material, and labor being one of the
remotest possibilities."
Dickert was married twice. By his first wife, Katie Cromer of
Fairfield County, he had four children, Roland, Claude, Alma, and
Gussie; and by his second, Mrs. Alice Coleman, also of Fairfield, one
child, Lucile, now Mrs. A.C. Mobley of Denmark, S.C.
Dickert died suddenly at his home of a heart attack on October 4,
1917, aged seventy-three, and was buried in Newberry's Rosemont
Cemetery.
University of Alabama
W. Stanley Hoole
* * * * *
In preparing this preface I have enjoyed the assistance of Mrs. Lucile
Dickert Mobley, Dickert's only surviving child; Mrs. A.S. Wells,
a niece, of 1120 West 46 St., Minneapolis, Minn.; Mrs. Kathleen S.
Fesperman, librarian of Newberry College; Inabinett, librarian, South
Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, and his student
aide, Miss Laura Rickenbacker; and Robert J. and Mary E. Younger,
owners of the Morningside Bookshop, Dayton, Ohio. Besides the letter
(which I own) and the books mentioned in the text I have also used The
Dictionary of American Biography, X, 359-360 (New York, 1933); Battles
and Leaders of the Civil War, ed. by Robert U. Johnson and Clarence
C. Buell, III, 331-338 (New York, 1884-1888); James Longstreet, From
Manassas to Appomattox ... (Philadelphia, 1896); The Photographic
History of the Civil War, ed. by Francis T. Miller, II, III, X, passim
(New York, 1911); W.A. Brunson, Glimpses of Old Darlington (Columbia,
1910); and Elbert H. Aull, "D. Augustus Dickert" in the Newberry
Herald and News, Oct. 5, 1917.
* * * * *
INTRODUCTION.
More than thirty-four years have passed away since the soldiers who
composed the Second South Carolina Regiment of Infantry, the Third
South Carolina Regiment of Infantry, the Eighth South Carolina
Regiment of Infantry, the Fifteenth South Carolina Regiment of
Infantry, the Twentieth South Carolina Regiment of Infantry, and the
Third South Carolina Battalion of Infantry, which commands made up
Kershaw's Brigade, laid down their arms; and yet, until a short
time ago, no hand has been raised to perpetuate its history. This
is singular, when it is remembered how largely the soldiers of this
historic brigade contributed to win for the State of South Carolina
the glory rightfully hers, by reason of the splendid heroism of her
sons in the war between the States, from the year 1861 to that of
1865. If another generation had been allowed to pass, it is greatly
feared that the power to supply the historian with the information
requisite to this work would have passed away forever.
The work which assumes to perpetuate the history of Kershaw's Brigade
should not be a skeleton, consisting of an enumeration of the battles,
skirmishes, and marches which were participated in--with the names of
the commanding officers. What is needed is not a skeleton, but a body
with all its members, so to speak. It should be stated who they were,
the purposes which animated these men in becoming soldiers, how they
lived in camp and on the march, how they fought, how they died and
where, with incidents of bravery in battle, and of fun in camp.
No laurels must be taken from the brow of brave comrades in other
commands; but the rights of the soldiers of Kershaw's Brigade must
be jealously upheld--everyone of these rights. To do this work, will
require that the writer of this history shall have been identified
with this command during its existence--he must have been a soldier.
Again, he must be a man who acts up to his convictions; no toady
nor any apologist is desired. If he was a Confederate soldier from
principle, say so, and apologize to no one for the fact. If he loved
his State and the Southland and wished their independence, say so, and
"forget not the field where they perished." Lastly, he ought to have
the ability to tell the story well.
The friends of Captain D. Augustus Dickert, who commanded Company H of
the Third South Carolina Regiment of Infantry, are confident that he
possesses all the quality essential to this work. He was a splendid
soldier--brave in battle, clear-headed always, and of that equilibrium
of temperament that during camp life, amid the toil of the march, and
in battle the necessity for discipline was recognized and enforced
with justice and impartiality. He was and is a patriot. His pen is
graceful, yet strong. When he yielded to the importunities of
his comrades that he would write this history, there was only one
condition that he insisted upon, and that was that this should be
solely a work of love. Captain Dickert has devoted years to the
gathering together of the materials for this history. Hence, the
readers are now prepared to expect a success. Maybe it will be said
this is the finest history of the war!
Y.J. POPE. Newberry, S.C., August 7, 1899.
History of Kershaw's Brigade. By D. Augustus Dickert. (9x5-3/4, pp.
583. Illus.) Elbert H. Aull Company, Newberry, S.C.
* * * * *
The name of Kershaw's Brigade of South Carolinians is familiar to all
who wore the gray and saw hard fighting on the fields of Virginia, in
the swamps of Carolina and the mountains of Tennessee. This was "the
First Brigade of the First Division of the First Corps of the Army of
Northern Virginia," and many of its members volunteered for service
before the first gun was fired at the Star of the West, while its
ragged regimental remnants laid down their arms at Greensboro not
till the 2d of May, 1865, nearly a month after the fateful day of
Appomattox. Its history is a history of the war, for, as will he seen,
there were few pitched battles in the East that did not call forth its
valor.
The author of the book is D. Augustus Dickert, who, at the age of
15, ran away to fight and surrendered as captain in the Third South
Carolina Volunteers. He was a gallant soldier all through, and he has
written a good book, for the broader lines of history are interwoven
with many slight anecdotes and incidents that illustrate the temper of
the times and impart to the narrative a local coloring. The following
is a good example of its style: "The writer was preparing to enter
school in an adjoining county. But when on my way to school I boarded
a train filled with enthusiasts, some tardy soldiers on their way to
join their companions and others to see, and, if need be, to take old
Anderson out of his den. Nothing could be heard on the train but war
'taking of Sumter,' 'old Anderson' and 'Star of the West.' Everyone
was in high glee. Palmetto cockades, brass buttons, uniforms and gaudy
epaulettes were seen in every direction. This was more than a youthful
vision could withstand, so I directed myself toward the seat of war
instead of schools." Although somewhat theatric, this is an accurate
presentation of those early days.
The chief merit of Captain Dickert's book is that it presents the gay
and bright, as well as the grave side of the Confederate soldier's
experience. It is full of anecdote and incident and repartee. Such
quips and jests kept the heart light and the blood warm beneath many a
tattered coat.
The student of history may wish a more elaborate sketch. But the
average man who wishes to snatch a moment for recreation will be
repaid as he takes up this sketch. There are some faults of style and
some of typography; but, all in all, this is a hearty, cheery, clean
book. It extenuates some things, maybe; but it sets down naught in
malice. As a local history it is an interesting contribution to the
chronicle of the period. R. MEANS DAVIS. S.C. College. 10-31-01
CAPT D. AUGUSTUS DICKERT. Company H 3d S.C. Regiment.
* * * * *
AUTHOR'S ANNOUNCEMENT.
Comrades: Years ago I was asked by the members of a local camp (James
D. Nance Camp, United Confederate Veterans, Newberry, S.C.,) of
Veterans to write a history of Kershaw's "Old First Brigade in the
Civil War," in order that the part taken by you in that memorable
struggle might be transmitted to posterity through the instrumentality
of a proud and loving participant in all the events that went to make
up the life of an organization second to none, that has ever stood
face to face with an invading foe upon the face of earth.
This request was not based upon a supposition of superior educational
qualifications on my part, for the parties who made it know that my
school days ended at twelve, and that the time usually devoted to
instruction of youth was spent by many of us, from '61 to '65, on the
northern side of Richmond. Consequently, to the love that I treasure
in my heart for the "Old First" is due whatever of distinction attaches
to the position of recorder of actions which prove the worth and
heroism of each constituent part of the brigade. In accepting this
trust I shall repress all desire for rhetorical display. I will not
even attempt to do that justice, which is beyond the power of mortals;
but shall simply try to be your faithful chronicler or recorder of
facts as they appeared to me and others, who have so kindly assisted
me in the compilation of these records, and shall confine myself to
the effort to attain my highest ambition--absolute correctness. It is
true that inaccuracies may have crept in; but these will be found
to be mostly among proper names--due in a great measure to the
illegibility of the manuscripts furnished me by correspondents. Again,
apparent errors will be explained, when it is recalled to your minds
that no two men see the same circumstance from the same standpoint.
Honest differences will appear, no matter how trivial the facts are
upon which they are based.
I have endeavored to be fair and just, and in so doing have laid aside
a soldier's pardonable pride in his own regiment, and have accorded
"honor to whom honor was due." Despite all that maybe alleged to
the contrary, ours was not a "War of the Roses," of brother against
brother, struggling for supremacy; but partook more of the nature of
the inhuman contest in the Netherlands, waged by the unscrupulous and
crafty Duke of Alva at the instance Philip (the Good!), or rather
like that in which the rich and fruitful Province of the Palatine was
subjected to fire and rapine under the mailed hand of that monster of
iniquity--Turenne.
How well the men of Kershaw's Brigade acted their part, how proudly
they faced the foe, how grandly they fought, how nobly they died, I
shall attempt not to depict; and yet--
Could heart and brain and hand and pen
But bring to earth and life again
The scenes of old,
Then all the world might know and see;
Your deeds on scrolls of fame would be
Inscribed in gold
I am indebted to many of the old comrades for their assistance, most
notably Judge Y.J. Pope, of the Third South Carolina; Colonel Wm.
Wallace, of the Second; Captain L.A. Waller, for the Seventh; Captains
Malloy, Harllee, and McIntyre, of the Eighth; Captain D.J. Griffith
and Private Charles Blair, of the Fifteenth; Colonel Rice and Captain
Jennings, of the Third Battalion, and many others of the Twentieth.
But should this volume prove of interest to any of the "Old Brigade,"
and should there be any virtue in it, remember it belongs to Y.J.
Pope. Thrice have I laid down my pen, after meeting with so many
rebuffs; but as often taken it up after the earnest solicitation of
the former Adjutant of the Third, who it was that urged me on to its
completion.
To the publisher, E.H. Aull, too much praise cannot be given. He has
undertaken the publication of this work on his individual convictions
of its merit, and with his sole conviction that the old comrades would
sustain the efforts of the author. Furthermore, he has undertaken it
on his own responsibility, without one dollar in sight--a recompence
for time, material, and labor being one of the remotest possibilities.
D. AUGUSTUS DICKERT.
Newberry, S.C., August 15, 1899.
* * * * *
CHAPTER I
SECESSION.
Its Causes and Results.
The secession bell rang out in South Carolina on the 20th of December,
1860, not to summon the men to arms, nor to prepare the State for war.
There was no conquest that the State wished to make, no foe on her
border, no enemy to punish. Like the liberty bell of the revolution
that electrified the colonies from North to South, the bell of
secession put the people of the State in a frenzy from the mountains
to the sea. It announced to the world that South Carolina would be
free--that her people had thrown off the yoke of the Union that bound
the States together in an unholy alliance. For years the North had
been making encroachments upon the South; the general government
grasping, with a greedy hand, those rights and prerogatives, which
belonged to the States alone, with a recklessness only equalled by
Great Britain towards the colonies; began absorbing all of the rights
guaranteed to the State by the constitution, and tending towards a
strong and centralized government. They had made assaults upon our
institutions, torn away the barriers that protected our sovereignty.
So reckless and daring had become these assaults, that on more than
one occasion the States of the South threatened dissolution of the
Union. But with such master minds as Clay, Webster, and Calhoun in
the councils of the nation, the calamity was averted for the time. The
North had broken compact after compact, promises after promises, until
South Carolina determined to act upon those rights she had retained
for herself in the formation of the Union, and which the general
government guaranteed to all, and withdrew when that Union no longer
served the purposes for which it was formed.
Slavery, it has been said, was the cause of the war. Incidentally it
may have been, but the real cause was far removed from the institution
of slavery. That institution existed at the formation of the Union, or
compact. It had existed for several hundred years, and in every State;
the federation was fully cognizant of the fact when the agreement of
the Union was reached. They promised not to disturb it, and allow
each State to control it as it seemed best. Slavery was gradually but
surely dying out. Along the border States it scarcely existed at all,
and the mighty hand of an All-wise Ruler could be plainly seen in the
gradual emancipation of all the slaves on the continent. It had begun
in the New England States then. In the Caribbean Sea and South America
emancipation had been gradually closing in upon the small compass of
the Southern States, and that by peaceful measures, and of its own
volition; so much so that it would have eventually died out, could not
be denied by any who would look that far into the future, and judge
that future by the past. The South looked with alarm and horror at a
wholesale emancipation, when they viewed its havoc and destruction
in Hayti and St. Domingo, where once existed beautiful homes and
luxuriant fields, happy families and general progress; all this
wealth, happiness, and prosperity had been swept away from those
islands as by a deadly blight. Ruin, squalor, and beggary now stalks
through those once fair lands.
A party sprang up at the North inimical to the South; at first only a
speck upon the horizon, a single sail in a vast ocean; but it grew and
spread like contagion. They were first called agitators, and consisted
of a few fanatics, both women and men, whose avowed object was
emancipation--to do by human hands that which an All-wise Providence
was surely doing in His own wise way. At first the South did not look
with any misgivings upon the fanatics. But when Governors of Northern
States, leading statesmen in the councils of the nation; announced
this as their creed and guide, then the South began to consider
seriously the subject of secession. Seven Governors and their
legislatures at the North had declared, by acts regularly passed and
ratified, their determination "not to allow the laws of the land to be
administered or carried out in their States." They made preparation to
nullify the laws of Congress and the constitution. That party,
which was first called "Agitators," but now took the name
of "Republicans"--called at the South the "black Republicans"--grown to
such proportions that they put in the field candidates for President
and Vice-President of the United States. Numbers increased with each
succeeding campaign. In the campaign of 1860 they put Abraham Lincoln
and Hannibal Hamlin forward as their standard bearers, and whose
avowed purpose was the "the liberation of the slaves, regardless of
the consequences." This party had spies all over the Southern States,
and these emissaries incited insurrection, taught the slaves "that by
rising at night and murdering their old masters and their families,
they would be doing God's will;" that "it was a duty they owed to
their children;" this "butchery of the sleeping and innocent whites
was the road to freedom." In Virginia they sent down armed bands of
whites, roused the negroes at night, placed guns, pikes, and arms of
every kind in the hands of the poor, deluded creatures, and in that
one night they butchered, in cold blood, the families of some of the
best men in the State. These cold blooded butcheries would have done
credit to the most cruel and blood thirsty of the primeval savages of
the forest. These deeds were heralded all over the North as "acts of
God, done by the hands of men." The leader of this diabolical plan and
his compeers were sainted by their followers and admirers, and praises
sung over him all over the North, as if over the death of saints. By
a stupendous blunder the people of the South, and the friends of the
Union generally, allowed this party to elect Lincoln and Hamlin. The
South now had no alternative. Now she must either remain in a Union,
where our institutions were to be dragged down; where the laws were
to be obeyed in one section, but not in another; where existed open
resistance to laws in one State and quiet obedience in another; where
servile insurrections were being threatened continuously; where the
slaves were aided and abetted by whites at the North in the butcheries
of their families; or secede and fight. These were the alternatives
on the one part, or a severance from the Union and its consequences
on the other. From the very formation of the government, two
constructions were put upon this constitution--the South not viewing
this compact with that fiery zeal, or fanatical adulation, as they
did at the North. The South looked upon it more as a confederation
of States for mutual protection in times of danger, and a general
advancement of those interests where the whole were concerned. Then,
again, the vast accumulation of wealth in the Southern States,
caused by the overshadowing of all other commodities of
commerce--cotton--created a jealousy at the North that nothing but
the prostration of the South, the shattering of her commerce, the
destruction of her homes, and the freedom of her slaves, could answer.
The wealth of the South had become a proverb The "Wealthy Southern
Planter" had become an eyesore to the North, and to humble her haughty
pride, as the North saw it, was to free her slaves. As one of the
first statesmen of the South has truly said, "The seeds of the
Civil War were sown fifty years before they were born who fought her
battles."
A convention was called to meet in Columbia, in December, 1860, to
frame a new constitution, and to take such steps as were best suited
to meet the new order of things that would be brought about by this
fanatical party soon to be at the head of the government. Feeling ran
high--people were excited--everywhere the voice of the people was for
secession. The women of the South, who would naturally be the first
sufferers if the programme of the "Agitators" were carried out, were
loud in their cries for separation. Some few people were in favor of
the South moving in a body, and a feeble opposition ticket for the
delegates to the convention was put in the field. These were called
"Co-operationists," i.e., in favor of secession, but to await a union
with the other Southern States. These were dubbed by the most fiery
zealots of secession, "Submissionists" in derision. The negroes, too,
scented freedom from afar. The old cooks, mammas, house servants, and
negro eavesdroppers gathered enough of "freedom of slaves," "war,"
"secession," to cause the negroes to think that a great measure was
on foot somewhere, that had a direct bearing on their long looked for
Messiah--"Freedom." Vigilance committees sprung up all over the South,
to watch parties of Northern sentiment, or sympathy, and exercise a
more guarded scrutiny over the acts of the negroes. Companies were
organized in towns and cities, who styled themselves "Minute Men," and
rosettes, or the letters "M.M.," adorned the lapels of the coats worn
by those in favor of secession. The convention met in Columbia, but
for some local cause it was removed to Charleston. After careful
deliberation, a new constitution was framed and the ordinance of
secession was passed without a dissenting voice, on the 20th of
December, 1860, setting forth the State's grievances and acting upon
her rights, declaring South Carolina's connection with the Union at
an end. It has been truly said, that this body of men who passed the
ordinance of secession was one of the most deliberate, representative,
and talented that had ever assembled in the State of South Carolina.
When the news flashed over the wires the people were in a frenzy of
delight and excitement--bells tolled, cannons boomed, great parades
took place, and orators from street corners and hotel balconies
harangued the people. The ladies wore palmetto upon their hats or
dresses, and showed by every way possible their earnestness in the
great drama that was soon to be enacted upon the stage events. Drums
beat, men marched through the streets, banners waved and dipped,
ladies from the windows and from the housetops waved handkerchiefs or
flags to the enthusiastic throng moving below. The bells from historic
old St. Michael's, in Charleston, were never so musical to the ears of
the people as when they pealed out the chimes that told of secession.
The war was on.
Still with all this enthusiasm, the sober-headed, patriotic element
of the South regretted the necessity of this dissolution. They, too,
loved the Union their ancestors had helped to make--they loved the
name, the glory, and the prestige won by their forefathers upon the
bloody field of the revolution. While they did not view this Union as
indispensable to their existence, they loved and reverenced the flag
of their country. As a people, they loved the North; as a nation,
they gloried in her past and future possibilities. The dust of their
ancestors mingled in imperishable fame with those of the North. In the
peaceful "Godsacre" or on the fields of carnage they were ever willing
to share with them their greatness, and equally enjoyed those of
their own, but denied to them the rights to infringe upon the South's
possessions or rights of statehood. We all loved the Union, but we
loved it as it was formed and made a compact by the blood of our
ancestors. Not as contorted and misconstrued by demagogueism and
fanaticism. We almost deified the flag of the Union, under whose folds
it was made immortal by the Huguenots, the Roundheads, the Cavaliers,
and men of every faith and conviction in the crowning days of the
revolution. The deeds of her great men, the history of the past, were
an equal heritage of all--we felt bound together by natural bonds
equal to the ties of blood or kindred. We loved her towering
mountains, her rolling prairies, her fertile fields, her enchanting
scenery, her institutions, her literature and arts, all; all were
equally the South's as well as the North's. Not for one moment would
the South pluck a rose from the flowery wreath of our goddess of
liberty and place it upon the brow of our Southland alone. The
Mississippi, rising among the hills and lakes of the far North,
flowing through the fertile valleys of the South, was to all our
"Mother Nile." The great Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada chained our
Western border together from Oregon to the Rio Grande. The Cumberland,
the Allegheny, and the Blue Ridge, lifting their heads up from among
the verdant fields of Vermont, stretching southward, until from their
southern summit at "Lookout" could be viewed the borderland of
the gulf. In the sceneries of these mountains, their legends and
traditions, they were to all the people of the Union what Olympus was
to the ancients. Where the Olympus was the haunts, the wooing places
of the gods of the ancient Greeks, the Appalachian was the reveling
grounds for the muses of song and story of the North and South
alike. And while the glories of the virtues of Greece and Rome, the
birthplace of republicanism and liberty, may have slept for centuries,
or died out entirely, that spirit of national liberty and personal
freedom was transplanted to the shores of the New World, and nowhere
was the spirit of freedom more cherished and fostered than in the
bright and sunny lands of the South. The flickering torch of freedom,
borne by those sturdy sons of the old world to the new, nowhere took
such strong and rapid growth as did that planted by the Huguenots on
the soil of South Carolina. Is it any wonder, then, that a people
with such high ideals, such lofty spirits, such love of freedom, would
tamely submit to a Union where such ideals and spirits were so lightly
considered as by those who were now in charge of the government--where
our women and children were to be at the mercies of a brutal race,
with all of their passions aroused for rapine and bloodshed; where we
would be continually threatened or subjected to a racial war, one of
supremacy; where promises were made to be broken, pledges given to be
ignored; where laws made for all were to be binding only on those who
chose to obey? Such were some of the conditions that confronted South
Carolina and her sister States at this time, and forced them into
measures that brought about the most stupendous civil war in modern or
ancient times.
To sum up: It was not love for the Union, but jealousy of the South's
wealth. It was not a spirit of humanity towards the slaves, but a
hatred of the South, her chivalry, her honor, and her integrity. A
quality wanting in the one is always hated in that of the other.
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