To-day was fixed for the visit to Mr. Pringle's plantation,
which lies above Georgetown near the Pedee River. Our party, which consisted of
Mr. Mitchell, an eminent lawyer of Charleston, Colonel Reed, a neighboring
planter, Mr. Ward, of New York, our host, and myself, were on board the
Georgetown steamer at seven o'clock, A. M., and started with a quantity of
commissariat stores, ammunition, and the like, for the use of the troops
quartered along the coast. There was, of course, a large supply of newspapers also.
At that early hour invitations to the “bar” were not uncommon, where the news
was discussed by long-legged, grave, sallow men. There was a good deal of
joking about “old Abe Lincoln's paper blockade,” and the report that the
Government had ordered their cruisers to treat the crews of Confederate
privateers as “pirates” provoked derisive and menacing comments. The full
impulses of national life are breathing through the whole of this people. There
is their flag flying over Sumter, and the Confederate banner is waving on all
the sand-forts and headlands which guard the approaches to Charleston.
A civil war and persecution have already commenced. “Suspected
Abolitionists” are ill-treated in the South, and “Suspected Secessionists” are
mobbed and beaten in the North. The news of the attack on the 6th
Massachusetts, and the Pennsylvania regiment, by the mob in Baltimore, has been
received with great delight; but some long-headed people see that it will only
expose Baltimore and Maryland to the full force of the Northern States. The
riot took place on the anniversary of Lexington.
The “Nina” was soon in open sea, steering northwards and
keeping four miles from shore in order to clear the shoals and banks which
fringe the low sandy coasts, and effectually prevent even light gunboats
covering a descent by their ordnance. This was one of the reasons why the
Federal fleet did not make any attempt to relieve Fort Sumter during the
engagement. On our way out we could see the holes made in the large hotel and
other buildings on Sullivan's Island behind Fort Moultrie, by the shot from the
fort, which caused terror among the negroes “miles away.” There was no sign of
any blockading vessel, but look-out parties were posted along the beach, and as
the skipper said we might have to make our return-journey by land, every sail on
the horizon was anxiously scanned through our glasses.
Having passed the broad mouth of the Santee, the steamer in
three hours and a half ran up an estuary, into which the Maccamaw River and the
Pedee River pour their united waters.
Our vessel proceeded along-shore to a small jetty, at the
end of which was a group of armed men, some of them being part of a military
post, to defend the coast and river, established under cover of an earthwork
and palisades constructed with trunks of trees, and mounting three 32-pounders.
Several posts of a similar character lay on the river banks, and from some of
these we were boarded by men in boats hungry for news and newspapers. Most of
the men at the pier were cavalry troopers, belonging to a volunteer association
of the gentry for coast defence, and they had been out night and day patrolling
the shores, and doing the work of common soldiers — very precious material for
such work. They wore gray tunics, slashed and faced with yellow, buff belts,
slouched felt hats, ornamented with drooping cocks' plumes, and long jackboots,
which well became their fine persons and bold bearing, and were evidently due
to “Cavalier” associations. They were all equals. Our friends on board the boat
hailed them by their Christian names, gave and heard the news. Among the cases
landed at the pier were certain of champagne and pâtés, on which Captain
Blank was wont to regale his company daily at his own expense, or that of his
cotton broker. Their horses picketed in the shade of trees close to the beach,
the parties of women riding up and down the sands, or driving in light
tax-carts, suggested images of a large picnic, and a state of society quite
indifferent to Uncle Abe's cruisers and “Hessians.”
After a short delay here, the steamer proceeded on her way to Georgetown, an ancient and once important
settlement and port, which was marked in the distance by the little forest of
masts rising above the level land, and the tops of the trees beyond, and by a
solitary church-spire.
As the "Nina" approaches the tumble-down wharf of
the old town, two or three citizens advance from the shade of shaky sheds to
welcome us, and a few country vehicles and light phaetons are drawn forth from
the same shelter to receive the passengers, while the negro boys and girls who have
been playing upon the bales of cotton and barrels of rice, which represent the
trade of the place on the wharf, take up commanding positions for the better
observation of our proceedings.
There is about Georgetown an air of quaint simplicity and
old-fashioned quiet, which contrasts refreshingly with the bustle and tumult of
American cities. While waiting for our vehicle we enjoyed the hospitality of
Colonel Reed, who took us into an old-fashioned, angular, wooden mansion, more
than a century old, still sound in every timber, and testifying, in its quaint
wainscotings, and the rigid framework of door and window, to the durability of
its cypress timbers and the preservative character of the atmosphere. In early
days it was the grand house of the old settlement, and the residence of the
founder of the female branch of the family of our host, who now only makes it
his halting-place when passing to and fro between Charleston and his
plantation, leaving it the year round in charge of an old servant and her
grandchild. Rose-trees and flowering shrubs clustered before the porch and
filled the garden in front, and the establishment gave one a good idea of a
London merchant's retreat about Chelsea a hundred and fifty years ago.
At length we were ready for our journey, and, in two light
covered gigs, proceeded along the sandy track which, after a while, led us to a
road cut deep in the bosom of the woods, where silence was only broken by the
cry of a woodpecker, the scream of a crane, or the sharp challenge of the jay.
For miles we passed through the shades of this forest, meeting only two or
three vehicles containing female planterdom on little excursions of pleasure or
business, who smiled their welcome as we passed. Arrived at a deep
chocolate-colored stream, called Black River, full of fish and alligators, we
find a flat large enough to accommodate vehicles and passengers, and propelled
by two negroes pulling upon a stretched rope, in the manner usual in the
ferry-boats in Switzerland.
Another drive through a more open country, and we reach a
fine grove of pine and live-oak, which melts away into a shrubbery guarded by a
rustic gateway: passing through this, we are brought by a sudden turn to the
planter's house, buried in trees, which dispute with the green sward and with
wild flower-beds the space between the hall-door and the waters of the Pedee;
and in a few minutes, as we gaze over the expanse of fields marked by the deep
water-cuts, and bounded by a fringe of unceasing forest, just tinged with green
by the first life of the early rice-crops, the chimneys of the steamer we had
left at Georgetown, gliding as it were through the fields, indicate the
existence of another navigable river still beyond.
Leaving the veranda which commanded this agreeable
foreground, we enter the mansion, and are reminded by its low-browed,
old-fashioned rooms, of the country houses yet to be found in parts of Ireland
or on the Scottish border, with additions, made by the luxury and love of
foreign travel, of more than one generation of educated Southern planters.
Paintings from Italy illustrate the walls, in juxtaposition with interesting
portraits of early colonial governors and their lovely womankind, limned with
no uncertain hand, and full of the vigor of touch and naturalness of drapery,
of which Copley has left us too few exemplars; and one portrait of Benjamin
West claims for itself such honor as his own pencil can give. An excellent
library — filled with collections of French and English classics, and with
those ponderous editions of Voltaire, Rousseau, the “Mémoires pour Servir,” books of travel and history
which delighted our forefathers in the last century, and many works of American
and general history — affords ample occupation for a rainy day.
It was five o'clock before we reached our planter's house —
White House Plantation. My small luggage was carried into my room by an old
negro in livery, who took great pains to assure me of my perfect welcome, and
who turned out to be a most excellent valet. A low room hung with colored
mezzotints, windows covered with creepers, and an old-fashioned bedstead and
quaint chairs, lodged me sumptuously; and after such toilet as was considered
necessary by our host for a bachelor's party, we sat down to an excellent
dinner, cooked by negroes and served by negroes, and aided by claret mellowed
in Carolinian suns, and by Madeira brought down stairs cautiously, as in the
days of Horace and Maecenas, from the cellar between the attic and the thatched
roof.
Our party was increased by a neighboring planter, and after
dinner the conversation returned to the old channel — all the frogs praying for
a king — anyhow a prince — to rule over them. Our good host is anxious to get
away to Europe, where his wife and children are, and all he fears is being
mobbed at New York, where Southerners are exposed to insult, though they may
get off better in that respect than Black Republicans would down South. Some of
our guests talked of the duello, and of famous hands with the pistol in these
parts. The conversation had altogether very much the tone which would have
probably characterized the talk of a group of Tory Irish gentlemen over their
wine some sixty years ago, and very pleasant it was. Not a man — no, not one —
will ever join the Union again! “Thank God!” they say, “we are freed from that
tyranny at last.” And yet Mr. Seward calls it the most beneficent government in
the world, which never hurt a human being yet!
But alas! all the good things which the house affords, can
be enjoyed but for a brief season. Just as nature has expanded every charm,
developed every grace, and clothed the scene with all the beauty of opened
flower, of ripening grain, and of mature vegetation, on the wings of the wind
the poisoned breath comes borne to the home of the white man, and he must fly
before it or perish. The books lie unopened on the shelves, the flower blooms
and dies unheeded, and, pity ’tis, ’tis true, the old Madeira garnered ’neath
the roof, settles down for a fresh lease of life, and sets about its solitary
task of acquiring a finer flavor for the infrequent lips of its banished master
and his welcome visitors. This is the story, at least, that we hear on all
sides, and such is the tale repeated to us beneath the porch, when the moon
while softening enhances the loveliness of the scene, and the rich melody of
mockingbirds fills the grove.
Within these hospitable doors Horace might banquet better
than he did with Nasidienus, and drink such wine as can be only found among the
descendants of the ancestry who, improvident enough in all else, learnt the
wisdom of bottling up choice old Bual and Sercial, ere the demon of oidium had
dried up their generous sources forever. To these must be added excellent
bread, ingenious varieties of the galette, compounded now of rice and
now of Indian meal, delicious butter and fruits, all good of their kind. And is
there anything better rising up from the bottom of the social bowl? My black
friends who attend on me are grave as Mussulman Khitmutgars. They are attired
in liveries and wear white cravats and Berlin gloves. At night when we retire,
off they go to their outer darkness in the small settlement of negro-hood,
which is separated from our house by a wooden palisade. Their fidelity is undoubted.
The house breathes an air of security. The doors and windows are unlocked.
There is but one gun, a fowling-piece, on the premises. No planter hereabouts
has any dread of his slaves. But I have seen, within the short time I have been
in this part of the world, several dreadful accounts of murder and violence, in
which masters suffered at the hands of their slaves. There is something
suspicious in the constant never-ending statement that “we are not afraid of
our slaves.” The curfew and the night patrol in the streets, the prisons and
watch-houses, and the police regulations, prove that strict supervision, at all
events, is needed and necessary. My host is a kind man and a good master. If
slaves are happy anywhere, they should be so with him.
These people are fed by their master. They have half a pound
per diem of fat pork, and corn in abundance. They rear poultry and sell their
chickens and eggs to the house. They are clothed by their master. He keeps them
in sickness as in health. Now and then there are gifts of tobacco and molasses
for the deserving. There was little labor going on in the fields, for the rice
has been just exerting itself to get its head above water. These fields yield
plentifully; the waters of the river are fat, and they are let in whenever the
planter requires it by means of floodgates and small canals, through which the
flats can carry their loads of grain to the river for loading the steamers.
SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and
South, p. 127-32
