Lowcountry Confederates Page 3

  The dispirited men sheltered themselves as best they could from the icy rain and sleet that had been falling all afternoon. Canvas tents and crisp uniforms were long gone, as were hopes for the dying Confederacy. Their recent rout at the Battle of Nashville had brought those hopes to a dismal end.

  Cold, coarse cornbread, baked without salt or grease, made up their only meal that Christmas Day. Yankee raids against coastal saltworks had finally taken their toll. The Confederate Army had no more salt to preserve its limited supplies of meat, much less to flavor food for scattered troops. Scrounging for lard had even grown difficult in the cheerless countryside.

  As the despairing men choked down their sodden rations, soldiers from Company A started to reminisce about a happier time three years earlier, before they had ever left their beloved South Carolina. Soon they were regaling their comrades with often-repeated tales of that magical night, the night of The Legendary Feast.

  “You never saw such a fancy house! Painted pictures hanging on every wall and looking glasses too. And every single servant wearing a jacket made out of green velvet, with white lace on the collar.”

  “At first, all you could think about was the wonderful smell of that juicy pink ham almost falling off the bone and you had to have some of it, but then they started parading out platters—real silver platters—with big old roast turkeys sitting on them, the skin all brown and crispy, and you just had to try some of that too.”

  “Did you get a taste of that peach cobbler? I had two helpings. They gave you as much as you wanted.”

  “Two? I had three! And I poured sweet cream all over mine.”

  “I liked those fellows at the end of the room playing music. They had fiddles and a banjo and some kind of funny-looking horn. You should have seen old Bob here trying to get the First Sergeant to dance, and both so drunk from that fancy French wine, they could hardly find their feet.”

  As the soldiers’ discouraged companions listened, faces relaxed. Hearts lightened. Depression lifted. Maybe they could go on!

  Uncle Mose always credited those tales of that magnificent night with reviving the spirits of his exhausted men—at least briefly—during their long retreat from the disastrous Tennessee campaign.

  ~

  You asked about happenings around here during the War. We were extremely fortunate along our part of the coast. We had little actual damage. Sherman’s army burned everything to the ground in places farther west like Columbia and Cheraw but he bypassed our area.

  Other Yankees bombarded Charleston savagely, but Union gunboats that came into Murrells Inlet and up the Waccamaw River really destroyed relatively little here in Georgetown County, even though the horrible blast of exploding shells frightened everyone terribly.

  We did lose all our county records though. During the winter of ‘65, when it looked like the Yankees were heading our way, officials in our county seat of Georgetown packed up all our courthouse records and sent them to the state capital at Columbia for safekeeping.

  Of course, General Sherman set fire to everything there when he came through. So all our Georgetown County land and court records from that era, and going back to early colonial days, are gone. But really we were very fortunate. They didn’t burn our homes and our crops here along the coast like they did farther inland.

  The only actual fighting in our area took place right on the seashore. Some of it had to do with saltworks, where planters made salt from seawater, and some of it involved blockade-runners, a story for another day. It was the defense of one saltworks that set the Legendary Feast in motion.

  Salt ranked as a particularly important commodity in pioneer times, up until this century. Back then, it wasn’t just for seasoning dishes, like we use it today. It represented the main way people preserved food, especially meat. There was no such thing as refrigeration and canning was not too common. Using salt was the only way to keep meat for more than a few days.

  Farmers rolled chunks of beef or pork, still warm from the butchered animal, in coarse salt and stored them in sheds or smokehouses. Meat would keep that way for months without spoiling because bacteria couldn’t grow in the salt. Farmers also used salt when they smoked hams or bacon. To make jerky out of other cuts, they sliced them into thin strips, soaked them in brine, and dried or smoked them.

  Lard also played a prominent role in those days. When farmers butchered pigs, they melted down every scrap of fat in big iron kettles, that’s called rendering, and poured the pure lard off into crocks. Those solid “cracklins” left in the kettle sure made delicious snacks.

  Local folks used lard for everything back then: for frying golden-crusted chicken and baking hot biscuits or flaky pie pastry, but also for ointments and hand cream and hair grease, and axle grease. My mother made our soap by mixing lard with lye leached from wood ashes.

  I’ve heard stories about how some people around Columbia only survived the last winter of the War by eating cold lard straight from the crocks they had buried in the woods before General Sherman came through. His army stole or burned everything else they owned.

  But back to salt. Salt was the important item. Our Lowcountry planters had always made salt, either for their own use or to sell for extra cash. When the War came, they supplied salt to the Confederate Army to process meat for its troops.

  To make salt, small plantation owners like my grandfather and great grandfather just built campfires on the shore and propped their saltpans over the flames. They hauled buckets of seawater to the saltpans by hand and boiled it down until the water evaporated away, leaving just the crusty salt.

  Large plantation owners often constructed elaborate saltworks. Captain Joshua Ward, who owned Brookgreen Plantation before the War, had the biggest salt operation in our area. It stood on the seashore near the south end of The Oaks Creek. That’s the saltwater channel that runs through the marshes just behind the barrier island of Huntington Beach here at Brookgreen Gardens.

  These large saltworks used gigantic iron vats to boil down seawater pumped up into them with machinery powered by mules or horses. Fires usually burned under the vats day and night. During the War, they only built the fires at night, however. Otherwise, Federal gunboats patrolling the coast spotted the smoke and sent in shells to destroy the operation.

  Yankee gunboats often bombarded our saltworks. Sometimes they launched landing parties to break up the operations, or to attack blockade-running ships docked at Murrells Inlet, or just to worry folks. Captain Ward’s big saltworks met that fate soon after hostilities began.

  Early in the War, a local militia unit called the Waccamaw Light Artillery protected our coast along here. They patrolled from Georgetown, down in the south, up past Pawleys Island, Murrells Inlet, and today’s Myrtle Beach, all the way to Little River on the North Carolina line. That’s a stretch of about sixty miles. Captain Joshua Ward commanded this unit.

  Fewer than a hundred officers and men made up the Waccamaw Light Artillery, not many to guard sixty miles of coastline. But if necessary, they could call on Confederate troops stationed near Georgetown to help repulse attacks. In fact, one day after the War had only been going on for a few months, Captain Ward sent down a call for help to the Tenth South Carolina Volunteer Infantry Regiment in their training camp near Georgetown. Federal troops were landing just south of Pawleys Island.

  The Tenth South Carolina Volunteers constituted the main Confederate force in our area. Twelve companies of Lowcountry men—some still boys really—made up the Tenth. Most joined this regiment soon after the opening of hostilities, hoping to protect their homeland, their families, and their way of life from Yankee invaders. All together, the regiment totaled about 1,200 officers and men at the beginning of the War, including two of my three great uncles who fought in the Confederate Army.

  Uncle Mose Sarvis joined Company G, the “Horry Rough and Readys.” He started out in 1861 at the age of 25 as their First Sergeant, but was leading the company as their Captain by the end of the War. Advancement c
omes rapidly when casualties are high.

  Mose’s younger brother, 20-year-old Uncle Joe, also enlisted in 1861 but in Company B, the “Brooks Rifle Guards.” He began as their Second Sergeant and reached the rank of Lieutenant by the time he turned 21.

  Company A of the Tenth South Carolina Volunteers, the company that attended the Legendary Feast, represented an older military unit. It got its start as a local militia, called the “Georgetown Rifle Guards,” long before Southern troops first fired on Fort Sumter.

  Although its members drilled and marched through the streets of Georgetown, I think they probably joined as much for social activities as for local defense. All wore fancy blue uniforms trimmed with gold lace. Officers sported blue and white hat plumes. Even the sergeants wore flashy steel swords and colorful sashes.

  The hundred or so members of the Georgetown Rifle Guards included young merchants and businessmen from the city of Georgetown. Storeowner Stephen Rouquie, who later helped Captain Daggett construct his torpedo, served as their First Lieutenant. Sons of wealthy planters from the surrounding countryside also joined in the fun.

  Several older prominent men even enlisted in the militia as privates. These included forty-one-year-old Plowden Charles Jennet Weston, owner of Laurel Hill and Hagley Plantations here on the Waccamaw Neck, which, if you’ll remember, is that narrow strip of land between the Waccamaw River and the ocean.

  Private Weston was the son of Francis Weston, the planter who had first hired Captain Daggett to be his rice mill engineer. The Westons’ Laurel Hill Plantation lay on the north end of the block of four plantations Archer Huntington later purchased to create Brookgreen Gardens.

  Plowden C. J. Weston, the Master of Laurel Hill and Hagley Plantations, was quite someone. Educated in England like many plantation owners’ sons, he took an English wife. At their marriage, each father tried to outdo the other in wedding gifts—but that’s another story, as is that of their ghosts who still make appearances at Pelican Inn on Pawleys Island.

  As a young man, Plowden Weston inherited both Laurel Hill and Hagley, then purchased several other plantations on the Waccamaw Neck. He combined them all into a grand rice-growing empire. More than a thousand slaves worked his rice fields and staffed his magnificent Hagley Plantation mansion.

  Plowden Weston valued scholarship and belonged to several historical societies. As an enthusiastic member of Waccamaw Neck’s Hot and Hot Fish Club, which I’ll tell you about another time, he wrote and published a history of that organization. Weston succeeded in many other endeavors and near the end of his life became Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina.

  But for now, we are concerned with Private Plowden C. J. Weston of the Georgetown Rifle Guards.

  When the War began, this local militia turned to serious matters. They reorganized to enter state service as Company A of the Tenth South Carolina Volunteers. In the reorganization, they elected Plowden Weston as their new Captain. When he was still just Private Weston, he had often furnished fat turkeys and chilled champagne for Company A’s Sunday dinners—perhaps one reason he became Captain Weston.

  Once he did become captain, this wealthy rice planter lavishly outfitted his entire company using his own personal funds. He supplied an English Enfield rifle with all the accessories to each man and officer in Company A, along with a knapsack, a winter uniform, and a summer uniform. He assigned four of his most trusted servants, properly uniformed and equipped with shovels and axes, to clear brush from the line of march when his men went into the field. Another group of his servants played the fife and drums for weekly Company A parades at their training camp near Georgetown.

  So when Captain Ward’s messenger arrived at Georgetown with word of Union troops landing just south of Pawleys Island, endangering a saltworks there, Colonel Arthur Manigault (we pronounce his name “MANNY go” here in South Carolina), commanding officer of the Tenth South Carolina Volunteers, ordered Captain Weston and his Company A to respond to the threat. A few others went along as well.

  Altogether, about 150 men set out for Pawleys Island that day. These included neither Uncle Mose nor Uncle Joe, much to their lasting regret.

  Under Colonel Manigault’s direction, Captain Weston marched his eager company onto paddle wheelers docked in Georgetown Harbor. The men looked forward to action after their tedious months of training. How exciting to be headed for a real fight!

  The boats soon crossed breezy Winyah Bay, and quickly steamed up the slow-flowing Waccamaw River, its waters colored dark by surrounding cypress swamps. The company disembarked about ten miles from Georgetown at Captain Weston’s Hagley Plantation Landing, later the site of a ghostly happening involving a long-lost Confederate soldier and his cherished bride; ghosts seem to run rampant on the Waccamaw Neck.

  From the plantation landing, the soldiers began their arduous three mile march across the sand and swamp of the Waccamaw Neck toward the ocean and the invading enemy.

  Somewhere along this trek, a second messenger intercepted Colonel Manigault. It had all been a false alarm. No Federal forces were landing.

  You can be sure that this episode took place very early in the War because when the men heard the news, they all grumbled and swore at being denied the opportunity to fight Yankees. And all that tramping through the sand and muck in their nice new uniforms for nothing!

  Captain Weston now faced a challenge of leadership. How could he revive the flagging morale of his troops? After giving it some thought, the good captain came up with a plan. He would invite Colonel Manigault and the entire group of 150 men to his home for dinner!

  Colonel Manigault accepted immediately, so Captain Weston dispatched a messenger back to Hagley Plantation to order preparations. With only a few hours notice, the plantation staff prepared a fabulous banquet for the Colonel and all his men.

  This feast of truly legendary proportions reflected the vast wealth and immense resources of Captain Weston’s rice empire. That evening Colonel Manigault, Captain Weston, and each one of their 150 men dined inside the palatial Hagley Plantation mansion at long tables elegantly set with snowy linens, fine china, and polished silverware, enough for all. Sparkling crystal glassware reflected hundreds of candles lighting the hall.

  The menu featured wonderfully tantalizing roast turkeys, roast ducks, and baked hams, with all the trimmings. Rice dishes, sweet potatoes, hot cornbread dripping with butter, fresh vegetables, and stewed fruit rounded out the fare. Richly dressed and elegantly mannered servants presented all the dishes. The finest imported wines plentifully accompanied each course and added to the high spirits of the feasting young men.

  Plantation musicians entertained the company long into the evening, playing both patriotic and dance tunes, “Dixie” of course, and the newly popular “Bonnie Blue Flag” celebrating the Confederacy’s first official banner. Some of the more inebriated young soldiers danced jigs to the sprightliest fiddle tunes like “Turkey in the Straw,” much to the amusement of all.

  Late that night, buttery pound cake and warm fruit cobbler topped with fresh, vanilla-scented cream, accompanied of course by chilled champagne, concluded the magnificent feast.

  Captain Weston had certainly succeeded in his mission. The men of Company A ever-after counted their expedition up the Waccamaw River as a day—and a night—well spent!

  This Legendary Feast must have been one of the last gala celebrations on the Waccamaw Neck. Soon, the 1,200 men and officers of the Tenth South Carolina Volunteers marched west to join the Army of Tennessee. This courageous regiment saw four long years of fighting throughout Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and then back again to South Carolina as the ill fated conflict progressed.

  Conditions turned dismal. Casualties mounted. Yet memories of that marvelous night helped sustain the men of Company A and their fellow soldiers through the cold, the heat, the dust, the mud, the despair.

  That last miserable Christmas Day of the War eventually passed for the Tenth South Carolina Volunteer Infantry Regi
ment huddled in icy drizzle on the banks of that rain-swollen river. In the spring, after several more months of disheartening struggle, the surviving Tenth South Carolina Volunteers finally surrendered to General Sherman at Greensboro, North Carolina.

  Not one officer remained in the entire regiment. My own Uncle Joe had died at the Battle of Atlanta, shot through the heart. Uncle Mose had returned home, struck down by the chills and fever of malaria. Colonel Manigault lay in a South Carolina hospital wracked by wounds that would later end his life. And Captain Plowden C. J. Weston, the Master of Hagley and Laurel Hill Plantations, had succumbed to tuberculosis.

  The Tenth South Carolina Volunteers who surrendered to General Sherman that April morning included all the remaining members of Captain Weston’s Company A. After the formalities concluded, these ragged young men, the last of the 150 who had dined so festively at Hagley Plantation that night nearly four years earlier, began their long and weary trudge home. There were six of them.

  Historical Digression:

  The Waccamaw Light Artillery

  Cousin Corrie provided this informal history of one Confederate unit in the South Carolina Lowcountry.

  As the threat of war grew more ominous during the decade of the 1850s, communities throughout South Carolina began organizing and training local militias. Men in the city of Georgetown organized the Georgetown Rifle Guards.

  As war neared, three wealthy brothers organized, outfitted, and supplied their own militia group here on the Waccamaw Neck. They called their company the Wachesaw Riflemen, after the name of one of their plantations.

  These brothers were sons of Colonel Joshua John Ward, who had developed big grain Carolina Gold rice at Brookgreen Plantation earlier in the century that allowed him to become the wealthiest planter in the area. The three Ward brothers now owned most of the land on the Waccamaw Neck, from Brookgreen Plantation up to the Horry County line.