USA > South Carolina > Spartanburg County > A history of Spartanburg county > Part 13
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1863, when the body of Colonel O. E. Edwards was brought home for burial, was there a great public funeral. The whole population met the train, various organizations in regalia. The Rev- erend J. G. Landrum preached a funeral sermon in the Baptist Church. The Masons officiated at the burial. Every paper had its obituaries, and its pathetic notices of disabled soldiers returning home. Daily prayer meetings were held in the Methodist Church. Denunciations were heaped on profiteers ; and those millers, tanners, shoemakers, blacksmiths, millwrights, and others who had secured exemption were warned that to the front must go all who made exorbitant profits on
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their products. By 1864 prices rose alarmingly-to five and ten times their pre-war level.
Impairment Yet that there were brighter aspects is clear from a of Morale pleasing example of patriotism and energy cited by the Spartan, September 8, 1864: "Mr. James Anderson, a planter on Tyger River, about 84 years of age, yet superintends his own plan- tation, and has already paid his tithe of oats, hay, and wheat for the present year, has hauled and sold to the government a considerable amount of flour, and manufactured and sold to the government two hundred gallons of molasses, at schedule prices, and promises to do a great deal more. Mr. Anderson did not wait to be called on for any of these articles, but came up nobly through a sense of duty. We commend his example to the old men (The Property Holders ) of the country, and would rejoice to see them do likewise. Haul in supplies for the government and do not wait to be visited on the subject. If the liberal and patriotic spirit of Mr. Anderson should prove con- tagious, we would then hear no more of half rations among the sol- diers."
In the phrase, "half-rations among the soldiers," the editor touched on the crux of the situation. Hungry soldiers, conscious of hungry families at home, and apprehensive of raids on them, could not main- tain their morale. The murmur deepened that it was "a rich man's war, and a poor man's fight."
Deserters Colonel J. D. Ashmore, August 1863, reported that he had a list of 502 deserters; that along a mountain frontier of one hundred fifty miles, in Spartanburg, Greenville, and Pickens Dis- tricts, they were collected in armed organized bands. He requested a cannon to reduce a strong blockhouse of deserters near Gowans- ville, and said these deserters were preying on the property of loyal citizens. His comments on the conditions back of this situation are interesting, for he said bluntly that the men were in many cases infuriated to their course by extortion and speculation-war profiteer- ing-practiced by the men at home.
Home There had always been a disaffected element in the upper Guards sections of Greenville and Spartanburg Districts and in the mountains of North Carolina. In these sections deserters found refuge and welcome in such numbers that on June Salesday of 1863 steps were taken to organize Home Guards as a protection against
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them. Companies were formed in each community with influential leaders as organizers. The State furnished arms and equipment for the Home Guards, which in Spartanburg District was an organized regiment of mounted infantry, containing ten companies. The com- manding officers were B. B. Foster, G. W. H. Legg, and T. Stobo Farrow-all soldiers disabled for active service by wounds in battle, or by illness. The ranks were filled with old men and boys and those men detailed to stay at home to manage factories and mills. In No- vember 1864, the descent of an organized party upon the southern parts of Polk County, North Carolina, and the upper section of Spartanburg District led to the sending of a detachment of the Spar- tanburg Home Guards under command of Captain Warren DuPre and Lieutenant John H. Marshall against the deserters. Their camp was found, but the marauders had taken refuge in the mountains.
Union Soldiers A few shocking but sporadic inroads by "bummers" in Spartanburg from the army or the deserters constituted the only threats of danger at home. The District was not in the path of Sherman's march, and did not suffer as did communities subjected to that ordeal. Not until after the surrender at Appomattox did a body of uniformed United States soldiers enter the county. Then, April 29, 1865, Brigadier General Palmer, in command of a detachment which was attempting to capture Jefferson Davis, stayed in the town thirty-six hours, establishing his headquarters in the home of Simpson Bobo. He knew that Davis, making for the West, was on the road between York and Abbeville, guarded by three de- tachments of Confederate soldiers numbering 2,500 men; and it was his plan to push on through Greenville to head off the Confederates before they could cross the Savannah River. The Unionists thought that Davis was carrying a great amount of gold from the Confed- erate treasury and they wished to capture this. No efforts were made in Spartanburg to interfere with Palmer's movements, for Spartans were convinced that the war was over, and that resistance would be folly.
Record of At last the soldiers came home. During the war, Spartan Soldiers Spartanburg District had furnished the Confed- eracy 3,484 soldiers. Of these, 608 died in service, and about 500 returned to their homes disabled. Twenty-six companies from Spar- tanburg were enrolled in the Confederate service from 1861 to 1865.
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The Spartan Rifles was the first company from Spartanburg re- ceived into the Army of South Carolina. Its officers were: Captain Joseph Walker, First Lieutenant John H. Evins, Second Lieutenant T. Stobo Farrow, Third Lieutenant Dr. C. E. Fleming. Farrow was soon elected major in Colonel A. C. Garlington's regiment, and H. H. Thomson succeeded Fleming, who succeeded Farrow. The company had more than a hundred men, and was incorporated into the Fifth Regiment, S. C .V., as Company K. In April 1862, when this regiment was organized and made a part of the Palmetto Sharp- shooters, under Colonel Micah Jenkins, Joseph Walker was elected lieutenant colonel. Subsequently, when Jenkins was made a brigadier general, Walker became colonel of the regiment, and as such led his men through the Virginia campaigns, and was present at Appo- mattox. Dr. C. E. Fleming was transferred in 1862 to the 22nd Regiment as surgeon.
The Morgan Rifles, at a muster at Bomar's Old Field, January 1, 1861, divided into two parts, and formed from those who wished to volunteer immediately a company called the Morgan Light In- fantry, of which G. W. H. Legg was elected captain. This company drilled every two weeks until called to Columbia for active service. When the Fifth Regiment was organized, Captain Legg was elected its lieutenant colonel. Thereupon John Benson was made captain of the Morgan Light Infantry, which became Company I. It was sent to Charleston, April 13, 1861, and encamped on Sullivan's Island for six weeks for training. This company eventually became Company D, Palmetto Sharpshooters, under Captain A. H. Foster, sharing the experiences of the Spartan Rifles in Jenkins Brigade. This com- pany numbered 134 in 1862, and, of these, 37 were killed in battle, 21 wounded, 20 died of disease, and between 10 and 25 surrendered at Appomattox.
The Forest Rifles, organized in the summer of 1861, under Cap- tain Stobo Farrow, became Company C, of the 13th Regiment, S. C. V., which Colonel Oliver Evans Edwards of Spartanburg or- ganized. The Forest Rifles left Spartanburg August 27, 1861, for an encampment at Lightwood Knot Springs, near Columbia, and re- mained there in training until they were sent, in October, to the coast. They did coast duty there until the spring of 1862, when they were made a part of Gregg's Brigade and sent to Virginia. During the war, Duncan became major and Carlisle became captain of the
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Forest Rifles, which, under him, as Company C, 13th Regiment, S. C. V., Gregg's Brigade, Hill's Division, Jackson's Corps, Army of Northern Virginia, surrendered at Appomattox. Its rolls showed that it had 122 members, of whom 26 were killed in battle, 35 were wounded, an unknown number died of disease or were discharged disabled. Twenty guns were surrendered at Appomattox.
Only three Spartans attained so high a rank as that
Spartanburg's Three Colonels of colonel-Oliver Edwards, Benjamin T. Brock- man, and Joseph Walker. Colonel Oliver Evans Edwards, who or- ganized the 13th Regiment, was a son of Colonel Zachary Edwards, who in the thirties had been a leader of the States' Rights or Nulli- fication party in Spartanburg, and was a very popular man, elected several successive years to command the 26th Regiment, S. C. M. In 1850 the son, in his turn, was elected colonel of the same regiment ; and such was his ability that he was, in 1854, made brigadier general of the Ninth Brigade, S. C. M. Two years later he was elected from Spartanburg to the legislature, and succeeded himself in 1856, receiv- ing the largest vote Spartans had ever, up to that time, given a can- didate for the legislature. While in the legislature he became chair- man of the committee entrusted with the reorganization of the military forces of the State and making it ready for the impending conflict.
Edwards was prevented by personal obligations from joining the Spartan troops which went first to Virginia, but as soon as he could do so, he followed them and joined as a volunteer. In a few months, however, he came back to South Carolina and organized a new regi- ment, the 13th, and was made colonel of it. Eight of its twelve companies were made up chiefly of Spartans. Its loss during the war was 17 officers and 203 men. Colonel Edwards led his regiment through the hottest of the Virginia battles. At Chancellorsville, May 3, 1863, he was mortally wounded, and he died at Goldsboro, North Carolina, June 21. His body was brought to Spartanburg and in- terred with all the solemnity and pomp befitting the occasion, June 24, 1863.
Colonel Benjamin T. Brockman, of the Reidville community, who had fought under Colonel Edwards, succeeded to the command of the regiment. He, like his chief, died from a battle wound, received while he gallantly led a charge at Spottsylvania Courthouse, May 12, 1864. He had an arm amputated, and died of gangrene a month later, in a Richmond hospital. He was buried in Hollywood Cemetery.
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Colonel Joseph Walker, who left Spartanburg as captain of the Spartan Rifles, with the first volunteers, was the only one of the three Spartans who achieved a rank so high as colonel to return. He lived to command a camp of Confederate Veterans named for him, and to take a leading part in the upbuilding of Spartanburg.
Later Years The armies were reorganized in 1862. Some who had of the War volunteered for a year refused to re-enlist, and returned home. Many resented the increasing severity of military regulations ; and, especially, they chafed against not being allowed to elect their own officers, as had been the custom in the old militia system. The draft was generally resented. In April, and again in September, the Confederate Government had called all males between eighteen and forty-five years old. In 1864 South Carolina raised the upper age limit to fifty. Exemptions were granted clergymen, teachers, gov- ernment officials, and others whose services at home were of greater benefit to the government than if they remained in the army. Even- tually all under sixty were conscripted for duty within the State, and substitutes could not be provided.
As the war went on, it took its toll of Spartans, not merely on the battlefields, but also in the hospitals, where dysentery, smallpox, and typhoid fever took many lives. Men wounded or too much weak- ened by disease to serve in battle returned home and served with the Home Guards, or in other capacities. Some took matters into their own hands and deserted. All through the last year of the war fre- quent notices appeared in the papers urging deserters to return to their posts, and assuring them that no charges would be pressed against those who returned voluntarily.
When the Boys At last the war ended, and the boys began to return Came Home home. The soldiers found that life had not been all sadness and sorrow during their absence; nor had their own experi- ences all been harrowing. Defeat brought them no loss of self- respect, for they were conscious that theirs had been a creditable struggle against overwhelming odds.
They came home to conditions that, while not normal, had not throughout the war entailed real suffering. Coffee and salt and im- ported goods had not been obtainable, or, if at all, only at the exorbi- tant prices charged by the blockade runners. But only about three thousand of its population of more than twenty-five thousand had
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gone away from Spartanburg District. Those who stayed at home had maintained a fairly normal existence; they had raised and raced horses, attended concerts and tableaux given for the benefit of absent soldiers, spread feasts for Boys in Gray at home on furlough, held conventions and camp meetings, and had worked harder than ever before in their lives. Every mill in the District had been put in order. Every woman had learned how to spin and weave and dye and con- trive makeshift clothing.
When the soldiers on furlough were entertained at "magnificent suppers" at the Walker House or the Palmetto House, their own garments were rough and maybe patched, and their ladies probably wore homespun dresses, cornshuck or rye-straw bonnets, and wooden- soled, cloth-topped shoes ; the bread maybe was of coarse brown flour or even meal, raised by mixing sour milk and clean corncob ashes ; coffee was quite likely a substitute made of parched cereal and po- tatoes ; pudding maybe was made of home-grown molasses, cornmeal, and persimmons. But they had pork and turkey and chickens and game and fish in abundance, and home-grown fruits and vegetables, and the products of the stills, which never ceased operation in spite of stringent regulations and prohibitive licenses. These conditions continued for a time.
Many who had been prosperous and who had ventured greatly for the Confederacy found themselves, upon its downfall, with their former wealth gone; some capitalists and manufacturers faced bank- ruptcy. Yet the District itself was here, with its rich farmlands, its well-developed manufacturing plants, and a citizenry whose past history impelled them to live up to the Spartan standards of energy, pluck, resourcefulness, and perseverance.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Political Cross-Currents-1865-1868
The Political Confederate soldiers accepted with the surrender Situation After the War the idea that the Union was indissoluble. A pro- clamation of President Johnson, May 29, 1865, offered pardons to ex-Confederate soldiers, with exceptions based on rank of office held and property owned, on condition that they take the oath of allegiance to the Federal government. The require- ment of allegiance was anticipated by the defeated South, but that selected groups of citizens should be excluded from citizenship on either of the grounds stated was not expected, and seemed to in- dicate that defeat and surrender were to be followed by vengeance.
The Administration of B. F. Perry- June 13, 1865- December 21, 1865
B. F. Perry was appointed provisional gov- ernor, and took office June 13, 1865. His first step was to reappoint to all public offices those who had held them under the fallen govern-
ment. He had instructions from President Johnson to assemble a State Convention which should take immediate steps to reestablish South Carolina in the Union. Perry's earnest desire was to insure that representative and influential citizens should be chosen as dele- gates to this convention. With this end in mind he secured from the President pardons for eight hundred and forty-five South Car- olinians excluded from citizenship by the proclamation of May 29.
The Constitution of 1865 The Convention met September 13, 1865, with one hundred and sixteen delegates. Spartanburg sent to it James Farrow, J. W. Carlisle, John Winsmith, M. C. Barnett, and R. C. Poole. These men, like those from the other districts, were influential leaders, safe and sane, and were actuated by the purest patriotism. But neither this fact nor Governor Perry's manifest eagerness to see his State again in the Union could offset the vengeful spirit of extremists among the Northern Radicals, who appeared to be on the lookout for opportunities to make trouble. The Convention ratified the Thirteenth Amendment and framed a new Constitution which "readjusted the State to the Union without sacrificing her integrity." It evaded the subject of Negro suffrage, and provided for several reforms long desired. But it provided its enemies with a weapon by enacting a "Black Code" for the regu- 140
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lation of the freedmen, a step which aroused the resentment of the North, where it was not realized how necessary some such action was, nor how innocent was the South Carolina Convention of intent either to affront the conquerors or to wrong the freedmen. The Convention adjourned September 27, after having provided for a special session of the legislature to be held October 25. At this special session, which lasted from October 25 to November 13, 1865, dates were set for holding fall elections, and the new Constitution was ratified.
Legislative Session The legislature met in regular session November of November- December, 1865 27. Spartans, concerned with domestic affairs, took no outstanding part in politics during this period. They were resigned to the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, and were pleased with the results of the fall elections- in which James L. Orr was elected governor ; B. F. Perry and John L. Manning, United States Senators; and James Farrow, Congress- man from the Fourth District. Spartanburg was represented in the State Senate by John Winsmith, and in the lower house of the General Assembly by J. W. Carlisle, A. B. Woodruff, D. R. Duncan, Gabriel Cannon, and Alexander Copeland. The people of Spartan- burg did not believe that the "Black Code" was other than a wise and essential piece of legislation, and felt outraged when D. E. Sickles, Military Administrator, declared its provisions void, and when Congress refused to seat Perry and Manning and Farrow. They approved the course of the General Assembly in its reorgani- zation of the State militia, a step displeasing to Northern Radicals.
On December 21, 1865, Secretary of State Seward instructed B. F. Perry to relinquish the Governor's office to James L. Orr, thus according to the election at least a partial recognition.
A Military Orr, in his first proclamation, recognized the supremacy Regime of the military organization, by which the State was divided into military districts, and garrisons were stationed in the leading towns. Union was headquarters for the district comprising Spartanburg, Laurens, Newberry, and Union. As a concession, for the convenience of the people, two assistant provost judges were appointed to care for legal transactions in Spartanburg-G. W. H. Legg and J. M. Elford. A small garrison of Federal soldiers was stationed in Spartanburg; and its relations with the community were pleasant enough, as was shown by the comment of the Carolina Spar-
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tan, in May, 1866, when the Federal soldiers were transferred to Anderson, to the effect that the garrison had been well-behaved, and if the community must have a garrison, it could not ask for a more acceptable one. Ex-Confederate soldiers and Union soldiers re- spected each other. The Confederates were familiar with military procedures and not inclined to resist constituted authority. The Union soldiers impressed on the freedmen that they must make and keep contracts, and hold themselves amenable to the courts; and they thus prevented a confusion that might have led to anarchy.
The editor of the Carolina Spartan quoted approv-
Resentment and Gloom ingly, March 8, 1866, the New York Times: "The Union is restored, and with the restored Union came back the equal- ity of the States and the full title of each to the privileges conferred by the Constitution." But as the days dragged along, and the papers brought news of deepening antagonisms between the President and the several factions against him and his policies, public sentiment became bitter. In June, 1866, the editor of the Spartan described, in a long editorial, the weariness and disheartenment of the people, who would cheerfully have reentered the Union before the acts of the Congressional Investigating Committee and the Reconstruction Committee had inflamed their resentment. What Spartanburg re- garded as the malice and stupidity of the "iron-clad" oath was es- pecially galling. In June 1866, because he could not take this oatlı, J. A. Lee, long postmaster at Spartanburg, was replaced with a "carpet-bagger."
An editorial in the Carolina Spartan, entitled "Fourth of July," sets forth the general feeling of the time :
We regret that this day, so distinguished, brings us no com- fort in the contemplation of the great truths which are interwoven in the frame-work of the Government of the United States. . . Heretofore we rejoiced at the dawn of this once glorious day- listened at its booming cannon, and burned with patriotic ardor under the thrilling speeches of its inspired orators. Not so now. Today, we are excluded from the halls of representation - no voice from the sunny South is heard. . . Give us freedom-give us liberty-and we shall be glad. Deny us our rights as a free and gallant people, and the recollection of ancestral valor will hardly awaken other than feelings of sorrow on the advent of this day.
The next Fourth of July was to find the editor more sad and em- bittered on this great day, for by its refusal to ratify the Fourteenth
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Amendment the South had precipitated the Reconstruction policy under which it was to agonize for ten years.
Divisions of Opinion in Spartanburg-as, indeed, throughout the Opinion South-was divided in 1866 on a burning question : whether or not to send representatives to the National Union Party Convention, meeting in Philadelphia, August 14. The editor of the Carolina Spartan severely condemned appeals to the South to re- nounce the Democratic Party and participate in this Convention; he reiterated his own opinion that no decent Southern man could go to the Philadelphia Convention, despite the fact that forty in- fluential Senators and Representatives in Congress endorsed it as the only practical way for the Southern States to regain their rights. Dominant political sentiment differed with the Spartan in Spartan- burg District, which was represented at the preliminary State Con- vention held in Columbia, August 1, 1866. One of its delegates, James Farrow, was selected to represent South Carolina at the Na- tional Convention in Philadelphia.
By request, Farrow made an address at the Courthouse on Sales- day in August on "The State of Public Affairs." He justified himself for accepting the appointment to the National Unionist Con- vention, and announced his determination to cooperate in good faith with other delegates, ignoring past differences. He hoped such a course might quell the Radicals and hasten the restoration of their full rights to the Southern States. Gabriel Cannon, speaking in endorsement of Farrow's position, said that he felt the honor of the State would not suffer from following a policy advocated by Hampton, McGowan, Wallace, Haskell, and others like-minded. Opponents of the policy persisted in their criticism, however. They would have Democrats suffer in silence. "Let not the Radical vil- lains of the North think we crawl," exclaimed one of them in a letter which filled an entire column of the Spartan.
The editor of the Spartan, commenting on the "Convention Ad- dress," conceded it to be well written, and of considerable argu- mentative force ; and he reproduced it in full; filling more than five columns. However, the editorial comment on Farrow's report of the Convention made to his Spartanburg constituents on September Salesday, dryly repeated the advice to stand aloof. "Stay at home and be quiet and trust to events working out," was, up to the early spring of 1867, the Spartan's policy ; but March 2, 1867, Congress
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passed the first Reconstruction Act, based on the assumption that no Southern States had governments with legal status; and the Spartan said :
We have hitherto been averse to any action on the part of the South ... thought it best to do nothing and wait- The time has now come when the paramount question is what will you do? . . . Granting negro suffrage and consenting to the disfranchisement of a portion of our best citizens appear to be the terms on which restoration is offered. .. We need not say whether we will adopt negro suffrage or not, for that is already inflicted. .. The best we can do will leave us for a time an unhappy people. We have tried resistance. in every form, and failed. We poured out Southern blood like water-we have done all that human bravery could do-we have appealed to the nations of the earth, and have humbly laid our wrongs before God, and yet we have failed. We conclude, therefore, that it would be best that our beloved State, with a hopeful eye to the future, bow to the storm now raging over her desolated fields and ruined cities, by accepting the terms offered.
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