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Publié par
Date de parution
15 novembre 2013
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9781611172980
Langue
English
Poids de l'ouvrage
1 Mo
Most of what we know about how the Civil War affected life in the Confederacy is related to cities, troop movements, battles, and prominent political, economic, or military leaders. Far less is known about the people who lived in small Southern towns remote from marching armies or battles. Philip N. Racine explores life in one such place—Spartanburg, South Carolina—in an effort to reshape the contours of that great conflict.
By 1864 life in most of the Confederacy, but especially in rural towns, was characterized by scarcity, high prices, uncertainty, fear, and bad-tempered neighbors. Shortages of food were common. People lived with constant anxiety that a soldiering father or son would be killed or wounded. Taxes were high, inflation was rampant, good news was scarce and seemed to always be followed by bad. The slave population was growing restive as their masters' bad news was their good news. Army deserters were threatening lawlessness; accusations and vindictiveness colored the atmosphere and added to the anxiety, fear, and feeling of helplessness. Often people blamed their troubles on the Confederate government in faraway Richmond, Virginia.
Racine provides insight into these events through personal stories: the plight of a slave; the struggles of a war widow managing her husband's farm, ten slaves, and seven children; and the trauma of a lowcountry refugee's having to forfeit a wealthy, aristocratic way of life and being thrust into relative poverty and an alien social world. All were part of the complexity of wartime Spartanburg District.
Publié par
Date de parution
15 novembre 2013
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9781611172980
Langue
English
Poids de l'ouvrage
1 Mo
LIVING A BIG WAR IN A SMALL PLACE
Spartanburg, South Carolina, during the Confederacy
Philip N. Racine
The University of South Carolina Press
© 2013 University of South Carolina
Published by the University of South Carolina Press Columbia, South Carolina 29208
www.sc.edu/uscpress
22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Racine, Philip N.
Living a big war in a small place : Spartanburg, South Carolina, during the Confederacy / Philip N. Racine.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-61117-297-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-61117-298-0 (ebook) 1. Spartanburg County (S.C.)—History—19th century. 2. Spartanburg County (S.C.)—Social conditions—19th century. 3. South Carolina—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—History. I. Title.
F277.S7R33 2013
975.7'2903—dc23
2013013543
This book is for my students.
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
PART ONE: THE DISTRICT
One: The Setting
Two: Spartanburg Wages War
Three: Spartanburg Beleaguered
Four: Slavery during the War
PART TWO: INDIVIDUALS
Five: The Slave Catherine and the Kindness of Strangers?
Six: Emily Lyles Harris, Reluctant Farmer
Seven: A Question of Loyalty
Eight: Having Fled War
Conclusion
Notes
Works Cited
Index
ILLUSTRATIONS
Map of South Carolina
Map of Spartanburg District
1809 Spartanburg Village
Palmetto Hotel
Confederate Encampment
David G. Harris
Walker House
Confederate Dead
Picking Cotton
Slave Apartments
Morgan Square, 1884
Emily Lyles Harris
“12 We Wonders”
James Bivings House
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This small book is a distillation of material gathered over many years of studying and writing about the history of South Carolina and Spartanburg in particular. The contribution of the best of researchers, my wife Frances, to my last book, Gentleman Merchants , and this one is deep and invaluable. She found primary sources I surely would have missed. Since the material on which this book rests has been gathered over a forty year period, I owe many librarians and curators my deepest thanks. The debt goes far beyond that indicated in the endnotes and bibliography. Lastly, I thank my students for being so inquisitive about the story that is this book.
South Carolina. Map by Philip N. Racine, prepared by Spartan Photo Center.
Spartanburg District. Map by Philip N. Racine, prepared by Spartan Photo Center.
THE DISTRICT
PART ONE
People in Spartanburg District were in trouble. Life had become defined by scarcity, impossibly high prices, bad-tempered neighbors, and hard living. Many people were short on food. Salt, necessary to keep meat edible over time, was difficult to find and even then too expensive. Many lived in constant anxiety that a father or son off at war might be killed or wounded at any time. Often people blamed their troubles on their new government. Taxes were too high, everything cost too much and prices only seemed to get higher. What good news there was about the war seemed always to be followed by bad. The slave population was turning surly, and army deserters were threatening lawlessness—all creating fear. It seemed as if the new nation was on the brink of collapse, and leaders were asking for even more sacrifice, taxes, and fighting men, all resulting in more worry. How had such a good thing become so hard? How could their new nation, the Confederacy, and Spartanburg District survive? After starting off so well, so promising, so exciting, how had it all come to this?
1
The Setting
L ocated in the northwestern part of South Carolina among the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, Spartanburg District is made up of rolling hills drained by three river systems: the Pacolet, the Tyger, and along its most northeastern border with York District, the Broad. In the antebellum period half of the adjoining county of present day Cherokee was part of Spartanburg District. Dotted by shoals and in the dry season, shallows, none of the rivers is navigable to the coast. Since the latter part of the eighteenth century the upstate had the majority of the state's white population and a minority of its black population. Some of South Carolina's lowcountry districts had populations that were 80 percent slaves while its upcountry districts had populations that were typically about 30 percent slaves. By 1860, the lowcountry was dominated by plantations. Coastal areas grew rice and cotton (on the sea islands and up to thirty miles inland planters grew the long fiber, silky, “sea island cotton” and the rest of the area grew inland, short staple cotton) while the upcountry districts grew corn, other grains, and the short fibered cotton. In Spartanburg District 56 percent of the heads of households owned their own land and 44 percent were tenants; overwhelmingly they grew grains, especially corn, and only a few bales of cotton. Only about 30 percent of the heads of households owned slaves, and almost all of those households grew cotton.
The center of the district was the city of Spartanburg. The city was more of a village. It had been laid out in 1787 on the Williamson plantation after its owner had sold the district a two-acre tract which contained a substantial spring. 1 The layout of the buildings was centered around a large rectangle of vacant land, which, in 1881, would become known as Morgan Square—named for the statue of Daniel Morgan erected to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of his victory at the Battle of Cowpens.
This 1809 drawing shows the rectangle of land around which Spartanburg village grew. Notice the jail on one end of the open space and the court house in the middle. Courtesy of Wofford College Library Archives.
At first the “square” was dominated by a jail on one end and a court house in the middle. By the 1860s, both had been removed; the court house (Spartanburg's third), was replaced in 1856 by an imposing structure with six two-story columns. Since 93 percent of the district's inhabitants were engaged in agriculture the village was small with one thousand to twelve hundred residents. In the mid 1850s, the Carolina Spartan , the village's newspaper, reported that the village consisted of “Thirteen dry-goods establishments; two saddler and harness establishments; two confectionary and druggist stores; one furniture room—any articles manufactured here; three carriage manufactories, five blacksmith shops; two shoe and boot making rooms; three tailoring establishments; three excellent hotels; three commodious churches, and another in progress of construction; two Academies, male and female; two day-schools for smaller pupils; lawyers and doctors a-plenty.” 2
By 1860 there were some changes: now there were nine lawyers, nine surgeons and dentists, fifteen more merchants, one watchmaker, one brick mason, several wealthy farmers and one college for males—Wofford College, established in 1854. 3 Spartanburg's business community grew little during the war. The Confederate government discouraged growing cotton, so agriculture stagnated. That same government bought up the production of the district's cotton mills, and other businesses had all they could handle supplying local demand. Many wealthy Confederates living elsewhere in the South late in the war nearly or actually bankrupted themselves by investing their fortunes in various Confederate bonds. It appears that the district's entrepreneurs did not as there was sufficient local capital after the war to promote and sustain a revived and expanded cotton mill building boom and a significant population increase in the city of Spartanburg. 4
Built in 1850, the Palmetto House was one of three hotels in Spartanburg village during the Civil War. Photograph courtesy of the Herald-Journal Willis Collection, Spartanburg County Public Libraries.
As to industry and manufacturing in the rest of the district, the 1860 Industrial and Manufacturing Census reported forty-six grist and saw mills employing fifty hands, six tanning establishments employing thirty-eight hands, six cotton mills employing sixty-two male hands and seventy-four female hands (continuing a tradition which dated back to the first of Spartanburg's mills which preferred female hands as mill owners considered them more careful with the thread, less likely to break it, and less likely to create labor troubles), one iron foundry, and four cotton gins. All these enterprises were small and supplied little more than the local market. Ultimately, trade outside of the district was in cotton grown by a few plantations and large farms—owners of small farms who were lucky enough to grow one or two bales sold them to their more substantial neighbors who blended them into their own larger crops.
The district also had seven male academies with 284 students and eight teachers, and two female academies with fifty eight students taught by two teachers. The census also listed forty-eight “primary schools,” with a student population of 1,316 pupils taught by forty-eight teachers. The category “primary schools” probably included all the neighborhood, privately funded educational enterprises taught by tutors brought together by the individual efforts of farmers and businessmen. Year by year in their neighborhoods these people contracted with a teacher to instruct their childr
