The Allstons of Chicora Wood: Wealth, Honor, and Gentility in the South Carolina Lowcountry

The Allstons of Chicora Wood

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The Allstons

of chicor a wood



w e a l t h, h o n o r, a n d g e n t i l i t y in the south carolina lowcountry



William Kauffman Scarborough

Louisiana State University Press Baton Rouge

Published by Louisiana State University Press Copyright © 2011 by Louisiana State University Press All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America First printing Designer: Michelle A. Neustrom Typefaces: Adobe Minion Pro, text; Filosofia, display Printer: McNaughton & Gunn, Inc. binder: Acme Bookbinding

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Scarborough, William Kauffman. The Allstons of Chicora Wood : wealth, honor, and gentility in the South Carolina lowcountry / William Kauffman Scarborough. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8071-3843-4 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8071-3846-5 (epub) — ISBN 978-0-8071-3844-1 (mobi) — ISBN 978-0-8071-3845-8 (pdf) 1. Allston, Robert F. W. (Robert Francis Withers), 1801–1864. 2. South Carolina—History—1775–1865. 3. Chicora Wood Plantation (S.C.) 4. Plantation life—South Carolina—History—19th century. 5. Rice—Planting—South Carolina—History—19th century. 6. Alston family. I. Title. F273.A6S28 2011 975.7'03—dc22 2011010145

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. 䊊 ⬁

For my grandchildren— Bradley, Michael, Phillip, and Charlotte

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contents acknowledgments

introduction

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1 the early years: West Point and Return to Carolina 9 2 politics and marriage, 1828–1840

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3 constructing a plantation empire

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4 church and school: Robert Allston’s Religious and Educational Contributions 62 5 politics and family: Senate President, the Nashville Convention, and Ben at West Point, 1840–1855 81 6 governor and the approach of armageddon, 1856–1861 111 7 war and defeat: The Deaths of James L. Petigru and Robert F. W. Allston, 1861–1865 130 8 postbellum travails: Adele’s School, Return to Chicora Wood, Bessie as Woman Rice Planter 159 appendix a: The Allston and Petigru Families 185 appendix b: The Allston Plantations

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appendix c: The Public Career of Robert F. W. Allston 190 bibliography index

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illustrations following page 80 Portrait of Robert F. W. Allston Portrait of Adele Petigru Allston Chicora Wood, Georgetown District Exterior, Nathaniel Russell House, Charleston Staircase of Nathaniel Russell House Elizabeth Allston Pringle with “Bonaparte” Charles Petigru Allston

Map of the Allston Plantations, Georgetown District, appears on page 36.

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acknowledgments s usual, the most enjoyable aspect of this project has been the archival research. Happily, most of the primary materials on the Allstons are located in my two favorite places on this earth—Charleston, South Carolina, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I wish to thank the personnel of the South Carolina Historical Society and the Manuscripts Department of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for providing me with invaluable assistance, always with a cheerful demeanor, during my numerous visits to those sites. Staff members at two Charleston agencies—the South Carolina Historical Society and the Historic Charleston Foundation—have been especially supportive of this project. I am particularly grateful to Karen Stokes, Processing Archivist at the SCHS, for her assistance during the many hours I spent at the Fireproof Building poring over the rich manuscript sources of the society. Karen, together with Michael Coker, former Visual Materials Curator, and Archivist Mary Jo Fairchild, were instrumental in providing me with the photos from the collections of the society. Three officers of the Historic Charleston Foundation have been extremely helpful in providing me with the remaining pictorial images in the book. I am indebted to Karen Emmons, Archivist/Librarian of the foundation, for furnishing the exterior and staircase views of the Nathaniel Russell House; to Brandy Culp, Curator of the foundation, for allowing me to publish the Kurtz portrait of R.F.W. Allston in the Russell House; and above all to Valerie Perry, Associate Director of Museums, for serving as my general liaison to appropriate Charleston residents and for putting me in contact with Allston descendant Preston Wilson, who generously allowed me to photograph the Sully portrait of Adele Allston in his residence.

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acknowledgments

I shall always remember with pleasure the August day in 2009 when Valerie, who had made all the arrangements, and Preston accompanied me on a day-long visit to Chicora Wood. The present owner, Jamie Constance of Santa Barbara, California, who spends six months each year at Chicora (but not in August), had graciously granted us access not only to the grounds but also to the interior of the mansion. I am pleased to report that Chicora Wood still stands majestically on the banks of the Pee Dee, just as it did in antebellum days. Thanks to the efforts of Mr. Constance, it is in superb condition. A number of my colleagues in the History Department at the University of Southern Mississippi have encouraged and assisted me in various ways. Among them are Kevin Dougherty, Sarah Franklin, Louis Kyriakoudes, Amy Milne-Smith, my superlative doctoral student Christian Pinnen, and above all Shelia Smith, our administrative secretary, whose knowledge of computers is unsurpassed and without whose constant assistance this technologically challenged author would never have completed this book. Finally, it has been my pleasure to work once again with the staff of the LSU Press, an association that now extends to nearly a half-century. Above all, I wish to extend my gratitude to Executive Editor John W. Easterly, a true Southern gentleman in every sense of the word, who has been my principal contact from the inception of the project until his retirement in September 2010. Since then, Managing Editor Lee Sioles has provided able assistance in guiding this book to its completion. I have been especially fortunate to have the expert services of copy editor Elizabeth Gratch. I am also grateful to Mary Lee Eggart, Research Associate in the Cartographic Section of the LSU Department of Geography and Anthropology, for skillfully drawing the map of Georgetown District. Last, but not least, I wish to thank the anonymous reader for the LSU Press whose suggestions appreciably strengthened the third chapter of this book. For all else, I alone am responsible. As always, Patricia, my wife of fifty-seven years, has displayed uncommon patience, understanding, and encouragement throughout the duration of this project.

The Allstons of Chicora Wood

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introduction number of distinguished Lowcountry families have left an indelible mark upon the political and economic history of South Carolina. One thinks immediately of such names as Heyward, Lowndes, Middleton, and Pinckney. Just north of Charleston in Georgetown District, which was destined to become the leading rice-producing county on the coast, other powerful families emerged during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Chief among them were the Pringles, LaBruces, Wards, Westons, and Allstons. It is upon the latter, or more precisely, the fifth generation of that family in South Carolina, that this book will focus. John Allston, the first of the family to settle in Carolina, migrated from Middlesex, England, to the colony just two decades after it was founded. After establishing his residence near Charleston, he enjoyed some degree of prosperity, but two of his sons elected to venture beyond the Santee River, where they began to accumulate land in what later would become Georgetown District. With the introduction of rice culture into South Carolina at the end of the seventeenth century, the slave population began to increase dramatically. The Georgetown Allstons were among those who reaped handsome dividends from the cultivation of the primary Lowcountry staple crop. By 1800 the Allstons and their cousins (who shared a surname but with a different spelling, “Alston”) had collectively accumulated more than 850 slaves. That number climbed to more than 2,000 by 1820 and, when combined with those of their other cousins, the Pyatts, to nearly 3,500 on the eve of the Civil War—or approximately one-fifth of the entire slave population in Georgetown District.1

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1. J. H. Easterby, ed., The South Carolina Rice Plantation as Revealed in the Papers of Robert F. W. Allston (Chicago, 1945), 11; MS census returns, 1800, 1820, Georgetown District, S.C.; William Dusinberre, Them Dark Days: Slavery in the American Rice Swamps (New York, 1996), 287, 512 n. 9.

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Following the untimely death in 1834 of Joseph Waties Allston, planter, state militia general, and former state legislator, the patriarchal mantle of the Georgetown Allstons passed to his younger brother, Robert Francis Withers Allston. After graduating from West Point in 1821 and serving briefly in the army, Robert embarked upon a planting career with a patrimony consisting of only half a plantation and 16 slaves. In 1832 he became the sole proprietor of Matanzas (also called Matanza and renamed Chicora Wood in 1853) and, through hard work and capitalistic entrepreneurial skills, gradually increased his holdings until by 1860 he presided over an agrarian empire that included seven rice plantations and 631 slaves. During that time he earned an international reputation for the quality of his rice and for his expertise in rice culture. In the words of editor James D. B. De Bow he became “one of the most practical and well-informed rice planters of South Carolina” as well as “one of the highest-toned and most enterprising citizens” of the state. But Allston’s contributions extended far beyond the realm of agriculture.2 In 1823, at the age of twenty-two, he began a lifetime of public service with his appointment as surveyor general of the state. After two terms in that position he was elected by the citizens of Prince George, Winyah, in 1828 to the South Carolina House of Representatives and then, four years later, to the State Senate, where he served for twenty-four years— the last six as president of that body—before he was elected governor in 1856. While still a member of the Senate, he was chosen as a delegate to the Nashville Convention of 1850 and to two Southern Commercial conventions in the mid-1850s. Politically, he was a states’ rights Jeffersonian Democrat, strongly opposed to both the National Bank and the protective tariff. In the three major confrontations between his state and the federal government, he supported nullification in 1832, acted with the secessionists in 1850, and supported secession in 1860, though in the last two instances he could not be described as a rabid fire-eater in the vein of Robert Barnwell Rhett. Indeed, on the eve of the bombardment of Fort Sumter he described himself as a “moderate” and was confident and hopeful that secession would not lead to war.3 2. Charlotte Ann Allston to Robert F. W. Allston, Nov. 1, 1820, in R.F.W. Allston Papers, South Carolina Historical Society, Charleston (hereafter SCHS); De Bow’s Review 12 (May 1852): 574. 3. Biographical Directory of the Senate of South Carolina, comp. Emily Bellinger Reynolds

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In his capacity as state senator and later as governor Allston labored assiduously, albeit unsuccessfully, to establish a comprehensive public school system in the state. Specifically, he called for centralized control of free schools through the appointment of a state superintendent, an increase in the state appropriation for free schools, local taxation to supplement the state money, the creation of a normal school to train teachers, and an expansion of female education. The quintessential exemplar of noblesse oblige, Allston believed that education should be available to the children of all white citizens of the state regardless of their socioeconomic status. As he stated in his annual message to the legislature in 1858, “The education of the people is the appropriate means of raising mankind to the proper rank of freedmen—but to educate the people implies a system that comprehends the whole society.” Allston’s efforts to promote education were more successful on the local level; for many years he served as president of the Winyah Indigo Society, which operated a school for the poor in Georgetown District. In addition, as a longtime trustee of South Carolina College, he endowed a scholarship for boys studying for the ministry and funded a prize for the best historical essay based upon primary sources.4 Allston made other notable contributions to his community and state as well. A deeply religious man, he was an important lay leader in the Protestant Episcopal Church. He served for many years as one of the two wardens of his home church, Prince Frederick’s Chapel, Pee Dee, and was regularly elected to represent the church at the Diocesan Convention. The members of this gathering in turn annually elected him as a lay deputy to the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church. As a member of a lay committee appointed at the General Convention held in Richmond in 1859, Allston made several recommendations designed “to increase the number of faithful and judicious ministers.” In addition to his contributions as an educational and religious leader, Allston was a member of, and held offices in, a host of cultural, social, and fraternal organizations, among them the Carolina Art Association, the South Carolina

and Joan Reynolds Faunt (Columbia, 1964), 171–72; R.F.W. Allston to John A. Allston, Sept. 5, 1838; Allston to son Charles, Feb. 16, 1861; Allston to son Ben, Apr. 11, 1861, in Allston Papers, SCHS. 4. Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 15; Charleston Daily Courier, Nov. 23, 1858; De Bow’s Review 12 (May 1852): 575.

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Historical Society, the St. Cecilia Society, the South Carolina Jockey Club, the Order of Masons, the Howard Association, the Winyah Bible Society, the Hot and Hot Fish Club of Waccamaw, the Winyah and All Saints Agricultural Society, and the Agricultural Association of the Southern States.5 If Robert Allston was an impressive figure, so too was his wife of thirty-two years. Adele Petigru was a younger sister of the distinguished and universally respected unionist and Charleston attorney James Louis Petigru. Described by historians Jane and William Pease as “a ravishing Carolina belle,” Adele was intelligent, articulate, well-read, and deeply religious. Although she was sincerely devoted to her husband and theirs was generally a happy marriage, she eventually began to chafe over the subordinate position imposed upon her by her patriarchal and frequently imperious husband. Long muted, this resentment flared up in an acrimonious exchange between the two in 1856, but her open discontent soon subsided. Following the death of her husband in the spring of 1864, Adele found herself the head of the family, and she met the challenge by displaying remarkable strength of character and astute business judgment in leading it safely through the trials of the postwar period.6 The Allstons had nine children in a span of twenty years, but only five of them lived to maturity. All were destined to occupy respectable stations in life. The eldest, Benjamin, like his father a graduate of West Point, served four years as a dragoon officer in Utah and on the Pacific coast before returning to South Carolina to assume the management of Guendalos, a plantation purchased for him by his father in 1858. The war soon intervened, however, and Ben immediately entered the Confederate service, first as an aide to General P.G.T. Beauregard in Charleston and then as a major in command of the Fourth Alabama Regiment in Virginia. He later saw extensive action in Tennessee and Kentucky and was briefly captured and then wounded during Confederate general Braxton 5. Pee Dee Times, Apr. 13, 1853, Apr. 18, 1855, May 19, 1858; “Contributions to the Lay Committee of the General Convention [of the Protestant Episcopal Church]” (Philadelphia, 1860), 21; Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 15–16; Elizabeth W. Allston Pringle, Chronicles of Chicora Wood (New York, 1922), 23, 35. 6. Jane H. and William H. Pease, A Family of Women: The Carolina Petigrus in Peace and War (Chapel Hill, 1999), 18, 115–16; R.F.W. Allston to Adele Allston, June 2, 1856; Adele Allston to Louise Porcher, Oct. 17, 1856, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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Bragg’s unsuccessful Perryville campaign in the late summer and early fall of 1862. After recuperating from his wounds, he was ordered to the Trans-Mississippi Department, where he served until the end of the war as colonel and inspector general under General E. Kirby Smith. Ben returned to Georgetown after the war and assisted his mother in managing the remaining Allston properties during Reconstruction. Later he studied theology and became an Episcopalian rector, first at his father’s church, Prince Frederick’s, Pee Dee, and subsequently at three other churches in the state.7 Of the three Allston girls the middle one, Elizabeth (or Bessie), had the most illustrious career. Educated, like her sisters, at Madame Acelie Togno’s French boarding school, first in Charleston and then during the war at Barhamville near Columbia, she taught at her mother’s school after the war and returned with her to Chicora Wood after the school closed in 1869. The following year she married John Julius Pringle, scion of a wealthy Georgetown family that owned the White House and Greenfield plantations some twelve miles downriver from Chicora Wood. Bessie’s marital bliss was cut short six years later, however, when her husband died unexpectedly of malaria. After a brief period of deep mourning, Bessie, motivated by the strength of character inherited from her parents, resolved to move forward with her life. She moved back to Chicora Wood, purchased White House on credit from the Pringle heirs, and operated both plantations until 1918. Meanwhile, to augment the income necessary to pay off the mortgages on her two properties, she turned her talent to literary endeavors shortly after the turn of the century. Her first book, entitled A Woman Rice Planter, essentially an autobiographical account of her early-twentieth-century planting career, was published in 1913 under the pseudonym Patience Pennington. The second, Chronicles of Chicora Wood, an account of her youth before the war, appeared nearly a decade later. Charles Joyner has compared her literary work to that of the celebrated diarist Mary Boykin Chesnut in the sense that each was “simultaneously 7. R.F.W. Allston to C. A. Kearny, Jan. 9, 1858; Ben Allston to “My dear Mother,” Oct. 10, 1862, in Allston Papers, SCHS; The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 128 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1880–1901), ser. 1, vol. 15, 1009; vol. 16, pt. 1, p. 892; vol. 53, supp., 171, 176; ser. 2, vol. 4, 457; Joseph A. Groves, The Alstons and Allstons of North and South Carolina (1901; rpt., Easley, S.C., 1986), 43.

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novelist, journalist, social satirist, memorialist, and autobiographer.”8 The remaining Allston children had less eventful lives. Adele, the eldest daughter, became engaged during the war and in June 1863 married Arnoldus Vanderhorst, a major in the Confederate army and the son of Elias Vanderhorst, who owned two plantations, most of Kiawah Island, and a wharf in Charleston. The Vanderhorsts survived the war and Reconstruction in relatively comfortable circumstances, and Adele gave birth to seven children before her husband was killed in a tragic hunting accident on Kiawah Island in 1881. Charles Petigru Allston, only thirteen years old when the war began, was schooled at Octavius Porcher’s Willington Academy in Abbeville District until 1864, when he joined the Confederate army. After the war he assisted his brother with planting operations at Chicora Wood while attending the College of Charleston, from which he graduated in 1869. Five years later he married into the prominent Lowndes family. His younger sister, Jane Louise, attended Madame Togno’s school with her sister Bessie during the war. Apparently another Carolina belle, she was inundated with suitors after the war until she married Englishman Charles Hill in 1877 at the age of twenty-seven.9 Impressive as were the accomplishments of Robert Allston and other members of his family, they were not sufficiently important to merit inclusion in general histories of the state. Somewhat surprisingly, neither David Duncan Wallace’s older history of South Carolina or Walter Edgar’s much more recent work mention Robert Allston in either the index or text. Edgar refers to Elizabeth Waties Allston but erroneously places her in Madame Ann Mason Talvande’s French school in Charleston rather than in the competing school operated by Madame Acelie Togno.10 For8. Charles Joyner, intro. to Elizabeth Allston Pringle, A Woman Rice Planter (1913; rpt., Columbia, 1992), xvii–xviii, xxviii, xxxi–xxxii, xl (quotation), xliii–xliv; Pringle, Chronicles of Chicora Wood, 126, 176, 307; Jane Louise Allston to “Dear Mama,” Oct. 4 [1876]; Elizabeth Allston to “Dearest Mama,” Oct. 21, 1876, in Elizabeth W. Allston Pringle Papers, SCHS. 9. Pease and Pease, Family of Women, 180; Pamela J. Clements, ed., “ ‘Great Events Have Taken Place’: The Civil War Diary of Adele Allston Vanderhorst,” South Carolina Historical Magazine 102 (Oct. 2001): 313–14; Groves, Alstons and Allstons, 43; Adele Allston to Adele Vanderhorst, Aug. 22, Oct. 24, 1869, in Allston Papers, SCHS; various letters, 1860s–70s in folder 4, Elizabeth W. Allston Pringle Papers, SCHS. 10. David Duncan Wallace, South Carolina: A Short History, 1520–1948 (Chapel Hill, 1951); Walter Edgar, South Carolina: A History (Columbia, 1998), 298.

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tunately, however, other historians have devoted considerable attention to the Allstons. The obvious starting point for any study of the Allston family is J. H. Easterby’s 1945 edition of Allston papers. Professor Easterby was given unprecedented access to the 8,000 items that constitute the Allston collection, but only 475 papers, or approximately 6 percent, were included in the Easterby edition. That massive collection is now housed with the South Carolina Historical Society in Charleston and represents the most important source of information for this book. Several later historians have also contributed to our knowledge of Robert Allston and his family. Chief among them is local Georgetown historian Anthony Q. Devereux, who in 1976 published a useful, but not definitive, biography of Allston, based largely on the papers at the South Carolina Historical Society. Six years earlier George C. Rogers Jr. illuminated important aspects of Allston’s political and agricultural career in his splendid history of Georgetown County.11 More recently, three other historians have focused upon more limited aspects of Allston and his family. In his excessively critical account of slavery on the Carolina-Georgia rice coast, William Dusinberre devotes nearly a third of his book to Allston’s plantation empire. What emerges is a very unflattering portrait of the Georgetown rice baron. Dusinberre charges that Allston was an imperious master, who was hated by his slaves and was motivated solely by the desire to maximize profits through the ruthless exploitation of his helpless chattels. Only grudgingly does he admit that “Allston’s regime, stern though it was, was a despotism tempered by rays of humanity.” Much more balanced is the treatment of the Allstons in two books on the Petigru family by Jane H. and William H. Pease. They are especially effective in humanizing the members of both families and in illuminating the strong ties between James L. Petigru and the Allstons despite their political differences.12 Originally conceived simply as a biography of Robert F. W. Allston, I 11. Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 4–6; Anthony Q. Devereux, The Life and Times of Robert F. W. Allston (Georgetown, S.C., 1976); George C. Rogers Jr., The History of Georgetown County, South Carolina (Columbia, 1970). 12. Dusinberre, Them Dark Days, 302, 315 (quotation), 367, 384; Pease and Pease, Family of Women; William H. and Jane H. Pease, James Louis Petigru: Southern Conservative, Southern Dissenter (Athens, Ga., 1995), 72.

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decided midway through my research to extend the scope of my study to include other members of the family, especially the fascinating and strongwilled Adele Petigru Allston, as well as to explore the period beyond the death of Robert Allston in 1864. This book is designed to be a family biography of one of the most influential families in the South Carolina Lowcountry, the Allstons of Chicora Wood.

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 the early years West Point and Return to Carolina It is my wish and desire for you to be Emminent, and excel in all You undertake, which you cannot do . . . unless the Blessing of God is with you, which I daily pray for through Christ. —Charlotte Ann Allston to son Robert, August 30, 1818 I know you will determine to be a Useful Member of Society and reflect Honour to the Name you bear—which is to keep up the Reputation of two Families. —Charlotte Ann Allston to son Robert, June 24, 1820 It is probable I will not be commissioned, as the army is to be reduced. I dont care much about it but I should like to have one, as tis a kind of Diploma here [West Point]. —Robert F. W. Allston to his aunt, Elizabeth F. Blyth, February 16, 1821

obert Francis Withers Allston was born on April 21, 1801, at Hagley plantation, a short distance below Waverly, his father’s Waccamaw River plantation in Georgetown District, South Carolina. He was the second son and fifth child of Benjamin Allston Jr. and his wife, Charlotte Ann Allston. Benjamin and Charlotte Ann, who were second cousins, were members of the fourth generation of Allstons to settle in Carolina. The progenitor of the Allston family in America was John, who came to Carolina in 1682 as an indentured servant to a Charles Town merchant. After receiving his freedom in 1689, he became a merchant in his own right. Two of his sons, John and William, ventured north to the future Georgetown District, where they accumulated thousands of acres of land and intermarried with the Belins and

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LaBruces. Robert Allston was a descendant of both John and William, for his paternal grandfather, William Allston Jr., who had served as an officer under Francis Marion in the American Revolution, was the son of John, and his maternal grandfather, William Allston Sr., was the son of William. So confusing did the constant repetition of first names become that about 1811 William Allston Sr. dropped one l from his name in order to differentiate himself from all other Allstons. Thereafter, there were two branches of the family, the single-l Alstons and the double-l Allstons. Robert was a member of the latter branch of the family.1 Robert’s father, Benjamin Jr., had two half-brothers, both of whom settled in the North and one of whom was the celebrated painter Washington Allston. Benjamin Jr. apparently inherited from his father the Waccamaw plantation later known as Waverly, and he also owned Matanzas, a plantation on the Pee Dee River, but both were heavily mortgaged. In 1800 he owned 67 slaves in Georgetown District, a number that increased to 105 over the next decade. He apparently lacked a strong work ethic, however, and, judging from his widow’s constant admonitions to her son Robert to avoid strong drink, probably had a problem with alcohol as well. “Your poor Father was an older man at 41 than my Father was at 67,” she wrote on one occasion, “and none of your Fathers Relations ever lived to be more than 45—except Cousin Ben—and Dr Allston, and they have made up their Minds to live regularly and not tast [sic] Brandy or Rum.” In any event, when her husband died in 1809 at age forty-three, he left an estate heavily encumbered in debt.2 Following the death of Benjamin, Jr., Robert’s mother struggled to keep the estate intact until her eldest son, Joseph Waties, who had left South Carolina College as a teenager to serve in both the War of 1812 and the Seminole War, reached his majority in 1819 and assumed primary responsibility for the management of the properties. A year later the number of 1. Devereux, Life and Times, 1–4; Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 11–12; South Carolina Genealogies: Articles from the South Carolina Historical (and Genealogical) Magazine, 5 vols. (Spartanburg, 1983), 1:2; Pringle, Chronicles of Chicora Wood, 3–4; Allston Miscellaneous Genealogy / Research Files, SCHS. 2. Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 12–13; Devereux, Life and Times, 3; MS census returns, 1800, 1810, Georgetown District, S.C.; Charlotte Ann Allston to Robert, Sept. 29, Dec. 19 (quotation), 1821; June 24, 1820, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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Allston slaves in Georgetown under Joseph’s control had risen to 140. Even after Joseph became involved with the direction of the Allston plantations, Charlotte Ann continued to complain bitterly about her life.3 Meanwhile, young Robert received his early education at home from a governess, and then, after his father’s death in 1809, he was schooled at a classical academy in Georgetown operated by John Waldo. Finally, prodded by his mother, he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point in November 1817, at the age of sixteen. As might be expected of a young, strong-willed South Carolinian, Robert had a difficult time adjusting to the demanding regimen at West Point. Just four months after his arrival, he was placed briefly in the Guard House and tried for an incident in which his carelessness with a candle had resulted in a fire in the barracks. In the summer of his second year at the Point he sought to return home for a brief respite from the routine at the academy, but his mother discouraged him. “Stay where you are my Dear Son,” she urged, “your studies and Duties are no Doubt Irksome—but think how soon a few Weeks or Months pass away—and then when you reap the advantage how much better you will feel.” Instead, Robert took his summer leave in New York, but his morale did not improve. By the end of the year he was threatening to leave West Point, but once again he was dissuaded by his mother. “Never leave a Place under disagreeable circumstances,” she wrote. “Where will be the Honour and where will be the advantages of all your former sacrifices to leave it abruptly . . . . think well my Dear Son before you act,” she implored. “The Glory of a Man is his Reason.”4 Robert remained at West Point, but his dissatisfaction with the place continued. During his last year there an incident occurred that caused his discontent to bubble to the surface, though he revealed it not to his mother but to his aunt. It seems that a cadet had died and had been interred near a monument on the campus that had been erected by the cadets in 1818 at a cost of thirteen hundred dollars. Robert had made drawings of the 3. Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 13; Devereux, Life and Times, 3; Groves, Alstons and Allstons, 39; MS census returns, 1820, Georgetown District, S.C. 4. Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 13; Devereux, Life and Times, 10, 22; R.F.W. Allston, “Address before Members and Pupils of the Winyah Indigo Society,” May 5, 1854, in Allston Papers, SCHS, 15; Charlotte Ann Allston to Robert, Mar. 24, 1818; Apr. 5 (first quotation), Dec. 23 (second quotation), 1819, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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ceremony attending the burial and had presented them in a portfolio to the authorities at the academy. Much to his consternation, he received no credit for them. “So it is with the proceedings of this place,” he charged, “if one does not cringe to his superiors, & become the fawning sycophant, he is very apt . . . to fare badly.” Four months later, on the eve of his graduation, he continued to lament his inane life at the Point. Yet, thanks largely to the cajoling of his mother, he remained to earn his commission.5 Not only did Charlotte Ann play a crucial role in persuading her son to remain at West Point, but, throughout his three and a half years there, she continually bombarded him with advice designed to strengthen his character and to instill in him traditional capitalistic virtues. Just after Robert arrived at West Point, his mother urged him to comport himself with dignity and honor. She would much rather learn that he “had died and gone to Eternity” than to hear that he had become a “Deshonorable or a Disgraceful Character.” This was particularly important to her because his father had “been impeached, and every act of his Family particularly his Son” that would reflect poorly would be “a proof or Coroboration [sic]” of the family’s disgrace. Two years later, as Robert was vacationing in New York, she returned to the same refrain, this time referring to her own unexplained youthful indiscretions. “Establish a good name,” she advised, “and then you may even take a Frolick now and then. . . . I wish you to avoid the Rock that I split upon. I got a Bad name in youth—and with all my care . . . I have never in the Minds of some been able to do it away.” 6 Two other themes that resonate in Charlotte Ann’s letters to Robert at West Point are injunctions to cultivate a strong work ethic and to refrain from intemperate behavior. She repeatedly encouraged him to apply himself diligently, to persevere in his studies, and to excel in all that he undertook. Once again, she invoked the unfortunate example of his father. The lack of such qualities, she reminded him, “was the rock on which he split.” It was his dying wish, she averred, that his sons be industrious and find useful employment and that she should “insist upon it—and not let them have their property unless they did so.” Moreover, in order to attain the 5. Robert Allston to “My Dear Aunt” [Elizabeth Blyth], Nov. 9, 1820 (quotation); Apr. 26, 1821, in Allston Papers, SCHS. 6. Charlotte Ann Allston to Robert, Nov. 24, 1817, and July 17, 1819, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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goals that his parents desired for him, it was imperative that he avoid such temptations as gambling and strong spirits. She urged him to overcome such “Evil Propensaties before they become Habbits—and confirmed. men of Success,” she reminded him, “keep sober . . . [and] have not time to triffle away. they Eat Hearty Sleep Sound—and Drink only when dry.”7 Robert’s mother was also a deeply religious woman, frequently invoking the power of the Almighty to direct and protect him. This religiosity doubtless had a profound influence upon Robert as he grew to manhood. Certainly, it was his mother’s intention to promote his spiritual growth. “Oh my Dear Son,” she wrote during his first summer at West Point, “how happy it would make me, if I could make a lasting impression on your youthfull [sic] mind of these things.” Arguing that every pursuit in life would be “better” and “more lasting with the Blessing of God upon it,” she urged young Robert to obtain that blessing through faith and prayer. “I have always tryed [sic] my Dear Robert to teach you these things,” she continued, “but you were too young to Reason on them. now you must see things in a Different light from what you did. . . . Read your Books on these subjects. go to Church if you can attend to what is said, and never omit your Private prayers.” There is every indication that Robert followed this advice as he grew to maturity.8 Although Charlotte’s letters to her son at West Point contained much beneficent advice, they were also filled with a litany of complaints as she strove desperately to preserve her late husband’s estate for her children. Robert had been at West Point only two months when the complaints began. She was without an overseer, and Joseph had just returned from a four-year absence in the army. She feared that the estate would have to be sold, “or Joseph and myself must stay there [Waverly] and make the Negroes exert themselves to do better.” It would be a great sacrifice, “but something must be done.” Joseph did, indeed, assume the management of Waverly in the fall of 1817, but the crops of rice and corn were extremely disappointing—“not the half of what such an Estate should make,” complained Charlotte. Her depression deepened as Robert neared the end of his first year at the academy. Acutely cognizant of her own mortality, she 7. Charlotte Ann Allston to Robert, Apr. 16, 18, June 25, Aug. 30, 1818; June 24, 1820 (quotations). 8. Charlotte Ann Allston to Robert, Aug. 30, 1818.

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expressed the fear that she might die before he returned, and then it would be his responsibility, as a memorial to her, “to stand in your Father’s place, to Transact Business for yourself for me, and your Sisters.” “We are helpless People,” she concluded pitifully. A year later her despondency had not lessened. Lamenting that she had been obliged throughout her widowhood “to Battle with an unfriendly and Deceitful World,” she confided to her son that, if it were not for her unflinching spiritual faith and the hope that her younger children would do better with their lives, she would be inclined “to give up in Dispair.”9 Meanwhile, as Robert contemplated his approaching graduation from West Point, he boasted that, when he completed his course of study in June, he would have “graduated in six months less time” than any other member of his class. Concerned that he might not be commissioned upon his graduation because of a rumored reduction in the size of the army, he affected some indifference but hoped that he would receive a commission “as tis a kind of Diploma here.” As it turned out, his fears proved to be baseless.10 Robert Allston graduated from the United States Military Academy on July 1, 1821, standing tenth in a class of twenty-four, and received an appointment as brevet second lieutenant in the Third Regiment of Artillery. A week later he was ordered to report for duty to the Ordnance Office in Washington, D.C. There he requested a posting to either Washington or Richmond, but, as those billets were filled, he was assigned instead to an arsenal near Pittsburgh. Two weeks later he was detailed to the Topographical Service and ordered to report to a Major Kearney, topographical engineer, in New York. His first topographical assignment was to survey the harbors at Plymouth and Provincetown, Massachusetts, and then, in early November, he was sent to Alabama to survey the entrance to Mobile Bay. But his active duty service was destined to end shortly thereafter.11 9. Charlotte Ann Allston to Robert, Jan. 16 (first quotation), Mar. 18, 24 (second quotation, May 5 (third quotation), 1818; June 5, 1819 (fourth quotation); Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 50 n. 3. 10. Robert Allston to “My Dear Aunt,” Feb. 16, 1821, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Devereux, Life and Times, 31. 11. John C. Calhoun, secretary of war, to Robert W. Allston, July 9, 1821; George Bomford [?], Lt. Col. Ordnance Department, Washington, D.C., to Lt. R. W. Allston, July 26 [?], 1821; S. Kirby, Adjutant General’s Office, Washington, D.C., General Order No. 29, Aug. 8, 1821; Lt. R. W. Allston to “My Dear Aunt,” Jan. 28, 1822, all in Allston Papers, SCHS; Groves, Alstons

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Ever since his graduation, the young lieutenant had been under increasing pressure from his family to resign his commission and return to South Carolina. Even before he left West Point, his mother had made it clear that she expected him to remain in the army only until October. Then it would be his duty to come home and assist her with the burden of managing his late father’s estate. But it was his sister, Mary Pyatt, who exerted the most pressure on her brother to abandon his military career and return to Carolina. In a lengthy epistle, written less than three months after he reported for active duty, she pleaded with him to resign his commission and return to his family. She had never expected him to remain in the army later than December. If he were defending the country against a foreign invasion or if he were poor and friendless, his decision to remain in the military might be understandable. “But situated as you are,” she wrote, “I can accept of no excuse; you are not compelled to hold your commission.” She reminded him that he had been absent from home for four years and that it was now time to end the separation: “Must your brother again enter the marriage state and you not be present at his nuptials? Must his Son grow up without knowing you as his Uncle? Must the servants look in vain for a master and a friend to defend and provide for them? Must your Mother who is now old and grey go with sorrow to the grave without beholding once more the Son of her hopes? No my brother you who are so formed for the enjoyment of domestic happiness must not live abroad. Send in your letter of resignation immediately to Washington, come home [and] attend to your own concerns.”12 Although most other members of the family shared his sister’s sentiments, Robert’s aunt Charlotte Blyth was the exception. Just before Christmas she expressed support for his decision to remain in the army. “I glory in your firm and Manly Conduct,” she wrote, “and am thankful that you Merit the good will of your Fellow Citizens, and are in a fair way to do

and Allstons, 41; Devereux, Life and Times, 36, 38; Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the United States Military Academy, vol. 1 (1891). I am indebted to my former colleague Kevin Dougherty, himself a graduate of West Point, for providing me with information on the biographical register. 12. Charlotte Allston to Robert, Apr. 13, Nov. 2, 1821; Mary Pyatt to Lt. Robert W. Allston, Oct. 2, 1821, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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Honor to yourself your friends and your Country.” Urging him to take advantage of the opportunity to see other parts of the world, she remarked that any hardships he might suffer in the military would be preferable to being “here in idleness” or worrying “with the complaints of Negroes.” Two weeks later she sounded the same refrain, encouraging him to “see as much of the World as you can now that you have an opportunity [and] keep from the trials and tribulations of Negroes as long as you can,” for, she added, “you cannot avoid [them] as soon as you return home.” Despite his aunt’s encouragement, the pleas of his mother and sister ultimately prevailed, and on February 1, 1822, Allston resigned his commission.13 Robert returned to South Carolina to claim his modest personal inheritance of sixteen slaves and half a plantation and to assist his mother with the management of Matanzas. His homecoming was bittersweet, however, for three members of his immediate family—two siblings and his mother—died within two years after his return to Georgetown. The first to succumb was his oldest sister, Elizabeth, the wife of John H. Tucker, a wealthy Georgetown District rice planter. She had traveled to the North during the summer of Robert’s graduation in hopes of improving her health, but the trip apparently had no lasting salutary effect, and she passed away in mid-September 1822. A year later Robert’s younger brother William died at age nineteen after suffering for some time with intermittent fever. Finally, in 1824 Charlotte Ann Allston died, leaving full control of Matanzas to Robert.14 Yet it was another three years until Robert began to devote his primary attention to the management of his Pee Dee plantation. Much rice land at Matanzas remained to be cleared, and he needed to augment his income from other sources. He may have offered his services as a private surveyor during the first year after his return to Georgetown.15 What is certain is 13. Charlotte F. Blyth to “My Dear Robert,” Dec. 19, 1821; Jan. 4, 1822; Adjutant General’s Office, Washington, D.C., General Order No. 2, Jan. 8, 1822, in Allston Papers, SCHS. 14. Charlotte Ann Allston to Robert, Nov. 19, 1819; Nov. 1, 1820; Apr. 21, 1821; Mary Pyatt Allston to Robert, Sept. 26, 1823; Joseph W. Allston to “My Dear Robert,” Sept. 4, 1820 [sic—1823], in Allston Papers, SCHS; Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 13–14. 15. Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 13–14; Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of USMA, vol. 1, pt. 3, p. 270. The biographical register lists Allston as a civil engineer and land surveyor in South Carolina from 1822 to 1833.

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that on November 30, 1822, he was elected by joint ballot of both houses of the legislature to a four-year term as surveyor general of South Carolina, and he assumed his new duties in mid-February 1823. He soon became depressed, however, and within six months of his election he was thinking of resigning his office. A friend sought to dissuade him from taking that step, arguing, “Should you at any future period of your life wish to become a candidate for public favors . . . your having resigned will be a deathblow to it.” Persuaded by this wise counsel, Allston remained at his post and the next year recommended certain reforms in the office to a special legislative committee.16 Upon completing his term as surveyor general, Allston turned his attention to planting. He assumed full responsibility for the management of Matanzas in 1827 with a total of forty-two slaves. The following year he began to expand operations at the Pee Dee plantation by purchasing an additional sixty-four slaves in two lots.17 But Allston had other aspirations as well. In 1828 he was elected to the legislature and soon found himself embroiled in the first bitter controversy between his home state and the federal government. Thus, in two areas—planting and politics—Allston’s star was beginning to ascend. 16. Commission dated Feb. 13, 1823, Charleston; John J. James to “Dear Allston,” Sept. 13, 1823; Robert F. W. Allston, surveyor general, to John G. Brown, chairman, Special [Legislative] Committee, June 20, 1825, in Allston Papers, SCHS. 17. Rogers, History of Georgetown County, 328.

2

 politics and marriage 1828–1840 My political creed is based on the principles of Thomas Jefferson “as expressed during the discussions in Virginia in 1798 and the subsequent Canvass which resulted in his election as President in 1801. I adopted this creed some where about the year 1825 from a conviction of its virtue & purity, regarding the peculiar nature of our Polity, and the character of the elements of this great Republic.” —R.F.W. Allston to John A. Allston, September 5, 1838 In relation to politics—since the decision of the Convention there ought now be but one party in the State & that comprising the whole State. —R.F.W. Allston to Adele Allston, December 5, 1832 The extreme unhealthiness of this country makes me think often of the back country and of the great contentment to be enjoyed there but I have little hope of ever calling it my home again. Fate has decreed this as my abiding place, and I hope ever to acquiesce therein with cheerfulness. —Adele Allston to “My dear Emma,” October 20, 1835

lthough Robert Allston occasionally seemed to manifest an almost casual attitude toward his contests for public office, it is clear that from an early age he courted public favor. Members of the family had long been active in politics, and the current generation was no exception. His cousin Benjamin George had been elected in 1822 to represent St. Luke’s Parish in the South Carolina House of Representatives, and his older brother, Joseph Waties, followed suit two years later when he was elected as a representative from All Saints Parish, one of the two election districts in Georgetown. Robert’s first op-

A

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portunity to hold elective office came in 1828, when, at age twenty-seven, he was elected as one of three representatives in the lower house from Prince George Winyah, the other Georgetown election district. Thus began a political career that was destined to last three decades, culminating with his election as governor in December 1856.1 Allston outlined his general political principles in a lengthy epistle to his cousin John A. Allston in the summer of 1838. Styling himself a Jeffersonian strict constructionist, a creed he had adopted in the mid-1820s, he asserted his belief “that a plain, honest, common-sense reading of the Constitution is the only true one, and that in legislating for the government of the United States, nothing absolutely nothing of authority should be allowed” to take precedence over that document. Consequently, like Jefferson, he found no authority in the Constitution for Congress “to incorporate a Bank of the United States,” and he lauded President Andrew Jackson, whom in other respects he detested, for vetoing the bank recharter bill in 1832. Indeed, like Jackson, Allston was opposed in principle to any form of banking. In accord with Article I, Section 10, of the Constitution, he also contended that “gold & silver” constituted “the only legal currency of the United States” and that neither Congress nor the state legislatures had the power “to make any citizen receive in payment for a debt due the bill of any Bank, however constituted.” 2 As a firm adherent of the states’ rights philosophy elucidated by Jefferson in the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, Allston supported that position in each of the three crises in Federal relations confronted by South Carolina in the decades before the Civil War. Thus, he acted with the nullifiers in 1830–33 and supported secession in both 1850 and 1860. Yet in all three instances his overriding concern was to promote unity within the state. In October 1830 Allston was easily reelected to his House seat, polling 227 votes to 288 for the leading vote-getter, Peter W. Fraser, and 217 for Solomon Cohen Jr., who claimed the third seat from Prince George Winyah. At the same time, his brother Joseph was elected to the State 1. Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 8, 14; Biographical Directory of the Senate of South Carolina, 171. 2. R.F.W. Allston to “Dear Cousin” [John A. Allston], Sept. 5, 1838, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Winyah Observer, July 12, 1843. See also Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 78–80.

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Senate from All Saints Parish.3 During his second term in the legislature Allston soon became embroiled in the nullification controversy that had begun to divide the state in 1830. Outraged by the passage in 1828 of the so-called Tariff of Abominations—a political maneuver by the Jacksonians that backfired—many South Carolinians were ready to nullify the tariff in accord with the procedures outlined by John C. Calhoun in his famous South Carolina Exposition and Protest. The state was soon divided into two camps—the nullifiers, who sought to call a state convention to implement Calhoun’s doctrine, and the more conservative unionists, who opposed such a radical step. The Allston brothers led the nullification forces in Georgetown, and in December 1830 both voted for a series of seven resolutions submitted by the legislative Committee on Federal Relations. The last and most important of those resolutions called for a popularly elected convention to meet after the adjournment of the ensuing session of Congress “for the purpose of taking into consideration the said violations of the Constitutional Compact.” The resolutions carried by a vote of twenty-three to eighteen in the Senate and sixty to fifty in the House but lacked the constitutional majority required to convene a convention.4 The controversy simmered during the ensuing year as both parties within the state awaited action by Congress. Both of the Allstons were active members of the Free Trade and State Rights Association of Georgetown. In early December the two brothers, along with Solomon Cohen Jr., represented Georgetown at the convention in Columbia of the Free Trade and State Rights Associations of South Carolina. Two weeks later the legislature debated two opposing resolutions relating to the upcoming presidential race. One, introduced by Allston’s future brother-in-law, James L. Petigru, supported the reelection of President Jackson, while the other declared that it was “inexpedient at this time to make any nomination for the Presidential election.” After much debate the joint session adjourned without taking a vote. A call was then made for all those opposed to the immediate nomination of Jackson to meet in the hall of the House of Representatives. Among those in attendance were Senator Joseph W. Allston and Representative Robert F. W. Allston. Of the original 152 members at 3. Charleston Mercury, Oct. 15, Nov. 2, 1830. 4. Rogers, History of Georgetown County, 238; Charleston Mercury, Dec. 22, 1830.

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the joint session of the legislature, 27 senators and 69 representatives (or a total of 96) attended this rump meeting. The body then approved the following resolution: “Resolved, that the State of South Carolina being engaged in a contest for great constitutional principles, and in the assertion of rights and interests of paramount importance, it is inexpedient at this time to involve her in the struggles of the Presidential question, or to pledge her to any particular candidate.” Thus ended the year 1831 with the state badly divided on its future course of action.5 The following year proved to be an especially eventful one for Robert Allston. It began auspiciously with his marriage in April to the beautiful and accomplished Adele Petigru, a younger sister of prominent Charleston attorney James L. Petigru. Adele had grown up at Badwell, the small family farm in Abbeville District. Following the death of her mother about 1825, she had moved to her brother’s residence in Charleston. It was there that she met Allston, who had engaged Petigru’s legal services as he endeavored to protect his inheritance after the death of his own mother in 1824. Little is known of their courtship, but by the end of January 1832 Allston was pleading with his fiancée to set a wedding date. Although apparently deferring to her wishes, he suggested in true patriarchal fashion that they be wed on either February 28 or March 1, as such an arrangement “would add very much to my convenience.” Exhibiting an unusual degree of independence even before their wedding, Adele delayed their nuptials for a month. Finally, on April 5, 1832, Robert and Adele were married at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Charleston, with the Reverend Dr. Dalcho officiating.6 As was the case with most families of that period, it was not long before the Allston family began to grow. In what surely must have been a debilitating experience, both physically and emotionally, Adele had eleven pregnancies and bore nine children, only five of whom lived to maturity, within a span of twenty years. The decade of the 1830s was a particularly difficult time for Adele. She suffered severely after giving birth to her first 5. Charleston Mercury, Dec. 5, 10, 19, 1831. 6. Pease and Pease, Family of Women, 18; Devereux, Life and Times, 58, 61; Brent H. Holcomb, comp., Marriage, Death, and Estate Notices from Georgetown S.C. Newspapers, 1791–1861 (Greenville, 1979), 96; Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 65; R.F.W. Allston to Adele Petigru, Jan. 30, 1832, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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child, a son named Benjamin, in February 1833. Two years later little Ben had a serious attack of scarlet fever, “but thanks to a merciful providence his fever left him” after a week. The experience, however, led his distraught mother to register her concern about the “extreme unhealthiness” of the Lowcountry. “Fate has decreed this as my abiding place,” she wrote resignedly, “and I hope ever to acquiesce therein with cheerfulness.” Yet, if allowed to choose, she would “most certainly make a change for the summer months at least” because “from the first of June to the first of November we have the same cause for apprehension as those who are in the midst of yellow fever or cholera.”7 Difficult pregnancies and the specter of death continued to stalk the Allstons during the second half of the decade. In January 1835 Adele gave birth to a second son, Robert, who as an infant survived the attack that had impacted his brother but later succumbed to the fever in March 1839, at the age of four years and two months. Adele apparently suffered her first miscarriage in 1836 and then nearly died when her first daughter, Frances Ann, was born in November 1837. For several weeks both mother and daughter were in a precarious state of health. Adele suffered another miscarriage less than three months after the death of Robert, and in 1843 five-year-old Fanny and her infant sister died within a few months of one another. Happily for the Allstons, the four children born to them during the next decade all survived to adulthood.8 Meanwhile, as Robert Allston’s family grew, so too did his involvement in politics. His political fortunes in the fall of 1832 closely paralleled those of his new brother-in-law two years earlier. James L. Petigru, an outspoken opponent of nullification, had been defeated in his bid for a State Senate seat from the parishes of St. Philip and St. Michael (Charleston) in the October 1830 legislative elections. Under the banner headline “Triumph of Principle” the Charleston Mercury, the leading nullifier organ, jubilantly reported that the states’ rights candidate, Colonel Richard Cunningham, 7. Pease and Pease, Family of Women, 25, 27; Adele Allston to “My dear Emma,” Oct. 20, 1835, in Allston Papers, SCHS. 8. Pease and Pease, Family of Women, 25–29; Holcomb, Marriage, Death, and Estate Notices, 109; Elizabeth F. Blyth to R.F.W. Allston [1837]; James L. Petigru to “Dear Allston,” Nov. 30, 1837; Alexander Glennie to Allston, Jan. 8, 1838, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Lewis and Robertson to Allston, Dec. 9, 1837, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 405.

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had defeated Petigru by the slim margin of 23 votes out of 2,575 cast. Two months later, however, Dame Fortune smiled on Petigru when he won a special election to fill a vacancy in the representation of St. Philip’s and St. Michael’s caused by the appointment of an incumbent representative to the post of state attorney general. Embarrassed by the outcome of this election, the Mercury concluded that the result could only be construed as a personal rather than a “Partisan triumph” for Petigru.9 After waiting four years for Congress to lower the objectionable Tariff of Abominations, the patience of the nullifiers was exhausted when that body enacted a new tariff in July 1832 that retained the protectionist principle. Accordingly, spearheaded by Governor James Hamilton Jr. and Robert Barnwell Rhett, they mounted a spirited campaign to pack the legislature with sufficient supporters to call a state convention. In mid-August a large meeting of the State Rights Party in Prince George nominated John Hays Allston, R.F.W. Allston, and Solomon Cohen for seats in the legislature. After his nomination Robert Allston addressed the crowd, pledging to support the call for a popularly elected state convention and asserting “the utter fallacy of any hopes to be entertained from Congress” unless the state pursued a “firm and unyielding” course of action. The Mercury confidently predicted “the complete success of the State Rights ticket” in Georgetown District.10 As summer turned to autumn, however, the enthusiasm for nullification apparently began to wane in Prince George, and in the October legislative elections the State Rights ticket went down to defeat. Only Cohen survived, as the two Allstons trailed unionist candidates P. W. Fraser and A. W. Dozier for the three places in the legislature. Robert Allston lost by only one vote to Dozier, who polled the fewest votes among the victorious unionist candidates. Notwithstanding their disappointing showing in Allston’s election district, the nullifiers won a sweeping victory in the state, and on October 24 both houses of the legislature voted overwhelmingly to call a state convention to address the tariff issue. Among the thirty-one senators who voted aye was Joseph W. Allston, Robert’s brother. Joseph was also elected to the convention, but he did not participate in its pro9. Charleston Mercury, Oct. 14, Dec. 16, 1830. 10. Charleston Mercury, Aug. 17, 22, 1832.

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ceedings; he resigned his seats in both the convention and the Senate in early November to accept an appointment as president of the Georgetown branch of the State Bank. Joseph obviously did not share his brother’s antipathy toward banking institutions.11 Although Robert Allston had been defeated in his bid for reelection to the House and was not a member of the South Carolina Nullification Convention, his political fortunes soon began to ascend in a scenario strikingly reminiscent of the path taken by his unionist brother-in-law two years earlier. In mid-November 1832 he captured a seat in the State Senate in a special election, defeating unionist John Harleston Read by a single vote. Read, however, challenged the result on the basis of alleged voting irregularities, and on December 19 the seat was declared vacant. In a subsequent election in mid-January 1833 Allston again defeated Read, this time by the comfortable margin of 200 to 178. In the meantime the convention, meeting in Columbia, adopted an Ordinance of Nullification on November 24 by a vote of 136 to 26 and threatened to secede if the Federal government attempted to use force against South Carolina. As the controversy between his state and the Jackson administration intensified, Allston urged the state to unite behind the decision of the convention. “Since the decision of the Convention,” he confided to his wife, “there ought now be but one party in the State & that comprising the whole State.”12 The nullification crisis reached a climax early in 1833 following President Jackson’s strongly worded condemnation of South Carolina’s course in December. The Mercury termed Jackson’s proclamation “the edict of a dictator.” Finally, in early March Congress passed both Henry Clay’s Compromise Tariff and President Jackson’s Force Bill, which authorized him to use military force if necessary to collect the tariff duties. Although mollified by the reduction in the tariff, many South Carolinians were infuriated by the second measure, which they termed the “Bill of Blood.” Accordingly, the convention reassembled in Columbia on March 11, withdrew its nullification of the tariff acts, but a week later, in a last defiant gesture, it 11. Charleston Mercury, Oct. 12, Nov. 29, Dec. 4, 1832; June 18, 1833; Rogers, History of Georgetown County, 242–43. 12. Charleston Mercury, Nov. 16, 27, 29, 1832; Devereux, Life and Times, 66–67; Rogers, History of Georgetown County, 247; R.F.W. Allston to Adele Allston, Dec. 5, 1832, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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nullified the Force Bill by a vote of 132 to 19. The enmity against Jackson and the division between nullifiers and unionists would not soon recede in the Palmetto State.13 During his first year in the Senate Allston remained aligned with the nullifiers, although he broke with that party over the contentious Militia Bill that dominated legislative proceedings during the 1833 session. The debate revolved around section 10 of the Militia Bill, which required every officer of the militia to take an oath of paramount allegiance to the state before assuming his duties. The State Rights Party strongly supported the oath, but, when the measure finally passed the Senate in late December by a margin of 23 to 18, Allston was among those voting nay. Yet it is clear from letters to his wife during the same period that he still considered himself to be a member of the Nullifier Party. In one such letter, in which he denounced the ineptitude of the post office, he complained that “it is by means of this Department of the Genl Government more than any other, that the proscription & Tyrany [sic] of President Jackson are visited upon the hated ‘Nullifiers.’ ” 14 Although senators in South Carolina were elected for a term of four years, Allston was obliged to seek reelection in October 1834 because he had been elected two years earlier to fill the unexpired term of the previous incumbent. When the votes were counted, it appeared that unionist A. W. Dozier had defeated Allston in his bid for reelection by a count of 223 to 200. It soon became apparent, however, that Allston had been the victim of blatant voter fraud. At the Carver’s Bay or Small Hopes poll, one of the six polls in the election district, Dozier had received 104 votes to none for Allston. It was alleged that numerous poor people from adjacent and unionist Horry District had been paid a dollar a day to go to Small Hopes and vote at a poll where no more than 42 votes had ever been cast before. John W. Coachman, a State Rights candidate for the House, charged that he had been threatened at the poll and warned that no member of his party should be present. Under these circumstances the board of managers for the parish lodged a formal protest with the legislature. When that body convened on November 24, Dozier was temporarily denied his 13. Charleston Mercury, Dec. 17, 1832; Mar. 8, 14, 21, 1833. 14. Charleston Mercury, Dec. 20, 23, 27, 1833; R.F.W. Allston to Adele Allston, Nov. 27, Dec. 6 (quotation), 1833, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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seat, and the dispute was referred to the Committee on Privileges and Elections. After examining numerous witnesses, the committee submitted a report recommending that Allston be declared the winner of the senatorial election in Prince George Winyah. A resolution to adopt that report was approved on December 12 by a count of 28 to 10, and Allston finally took his seat more than two weeks after the beginning of the 1834 legislative session.15 Robert Allston would never again face a serious challenge in the senatorial elections that followed. Taken as a whole, one might characterize his service in that body as solid but not spectacular. He was rarely mentioned in legislative debates that attracted extensive press coverage. Nevertheless, he was a man of ability, honor, and integrity—qualities that endeared him to his fellow senators and eventually resulted in his election as Senate president and then governor. During his first full term in the Senate Allston served on at least four different committees—Finance, Banks, Lands, and Federal Relations. In general terms his votes during this and later periods in the Senate reflected an anti-bank bias and, above all, his determination to improve the deplorable free school system of the state, which would culminate in 1846 with his “Report on the Free School System,” presented to the State Agricultural Society and, the following year, the legislature. His hostility toward banks was manifested in 1835 when he was only one of seven senators to vote against a bill to incorporate a bank at Hamburg and the following year, when, as chairman of the Committee on Banks, he joined the governor in opposing a proposal to grant banking privileges to the South Carolina Railroad Company.16 As his term drew to a close in 1838, Allston appeared to show some reluctance to stand for reelection. “I am ashamed to tell you,” he confided to his aunt, “that they have again drawn me into the field for the Senate & I have consented to it as the only way of preventing another party contest.” Any misgivings he might have had soon disappeared in the wake of his reelection without opposition, and he even speculated briefly that he might 15. Charleston Mercury, Oct. 20, 24, Nov. 28, Dec. 5, 16, 1834; Rogers, History of Georgetown County, 248–49. 16. Charleston Mercury, Dec. 23, 1835; Dec. 5, 1836; R.F.W. Allston to Adele Allston, Nov. 29, 1836, in Allston Papers, SCHS; R.F.W. Allston, “Report on the Free School System” (Columbia, 1846).

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be promoted to the presidency of the Senate if the incumbent, Patrick Noble, were elected governor. He cautioned Adele, however, that two more senior members would have to “yield their pretensions before I can be supposed to have any.” As it turned out, Noble was elected governor, and Angus Patterson of Barnwell District was elected president of the Senate, serving in that capacity until 1850, when he was succeeded by Allston.17 Following his election to a second full term in the Senate, Allston immediately inaugurated a vigorous campaign to reform the free school system of South Carolina. He launched his opening salvo on November 28, 1838, when he submitted a resolution calling for an investigation of the free school system as then constituted. Ten days later the Senate endorsed the resolution and named a committee consisting of one member from each parish in the state to revise the free school system. Not surprisingly, Allston was chosen to represent Prince George Winyah on the committee. Governor Noble formally constituted the committee in March 1839, and, under the chairmanship of professors Stephen Elliott Jr. and James H. Thornwell, it submitted its report to the legislature that November. Observing that two fundamental difficulties—the sparseness of population and “the carelessness of the poor about the education of their children”—impeded the development of an effective free school system, the committee did not suggest any radical changes to the present system. It did, however, make several important recommendations. Chief among them were the appointment of a superintendent, who would gather “useful information” from “actual observation” and report to the legislature; an increase in the state appropriation to fifty thousand dollars; joint authority over expenditures in each district between the state superintendent and the commissioners of free schools; the incorporation of religion into the course of instruction; and finally, and more hesitantly, the establishment of a seminary for the training of teachers.18 Despite the efforts of Allston and other political leaders, these worthy recommendations were never fully implemented in South Carolina, which continued to 17. R.F.W. Allston to “My Dear Aunt” [Elizabeth F. Blyth], Sept. 6, 1838; Allston to “My Dear Adele,” Nov. 26, 1838, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Charleston Mercury, Oct. 15, 1839. 18. Charleston Mercury, Dec. 1, 1838; Dec. 4 (second quotation), 5 (first quotation), 1839; printed document from Governor Patrick Noble, Mar. 6, 1839, in Allston Papers Accession, SCHS.

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have the most backward public school system in the South until after the Civil War. Robert Allston’s public service was not confined to the legislature or to his efforts to reform the free school system. In light of his military training and experience it is not surprising that he became an officer in the South Carolina militia shortly after his return to the state. Thus, in the spring of 1829, seven years after he resigned his commission, Allston was appointed deputy adjutant general for the Fourth Division. Two years later he was named deputy adjutant general of the state, a position he held until 1838. Early the year before, he had become embroiled in a controversial election to choose the major general of the Fourth Division. That division was composed of two brigades, the Seventh and Eighth. Although Allston defeated his opponent, future congressman John McQueen, by a majority of 69 votes in the Eighth Brigade, consisting of men from Horry, Marion, Georgetown, and Williamsburg districts, he did not fare as well with the Seventh Brigade and lost the election by a scant 13 votes. Contending that the vote was not “a fair & full expression of the wishes of the 8th Brigade,” largely owing to confusion incident to a draft for the Second Seminole War in Florida, Allston lodged a protest with the governor. Although sympathetic, Governor Pierce Butler declined to overturn the election results despite the obvious improprieties because there was “not sufficient legal ground for a successful Protest.” Two months later Allston received a conciliatory letter from McQueen. “I have not the vanity to attribute my success to superior worth in myself,” he wrote, “but rather to the fate of War, which does not always award greater fortune to corresponding merit.” After winning the election, McQueen ended his service in the state militia later in the year, apparently remaining only long enough to earn the title of general.19 As Allston’s public duties increased during the 1830s, so too did his personal responsibilities. After all, his primary occupation was rice planting, and the obligations associated with that enterprise increased substan19. James C. Coggenville [?] to Allston, Apr. 26, 1829; Gen. E. B. Wheeler to “Dear Colonel,” Jan. 30, Feb. 11, 1837; Allston to Wheeler, Feb. 2, 1837; Governor P[ierce] M. Butler to Col. R.F.W. Allston, Feb. 15, 1837; John McQueen to Col. R.F.W. Allston, Apr. 15, 1837, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of USMA, vol. 1, pt. 3, p.270. Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774–1961 (Washington, D.C., 1961), 1315.

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tially following the untimely death of his brother Joseph in the summer of 1834. Already the sole proprietor of Matanzas, he then assumed control of Waverly until his infant nephews, Joseph Blyth and William Allan, attained their majority. Initially, there was considerable friction between Allston and his widowed sister-in-law. Indeed, so profound was her dissatisfaction with his management of the property that in 1837 he threatened to terminate his oversight of the estate if the court of equity would release him from the executorship. That threat was never consummated, however, and Allston continued to supervise operations at Waverly for another twenty years. During the same period he would acquire a number of additional plantations in his own right.20 Because of the threat from malaria and other noxious diseases, most Lowcountry planters left their plantations during the summer months and sojourned in the pinelands, at the seashore, in such healthful environs as Flat Rock, North Carolina, or in the resort cities of the Northeast. They generally remained absent from their plantations from early May until mid-October. The Allstons were no exception to this general exodus. The family normally spent their summers at the seashore, first at Canaan, a small tract on Waccamaw Neck, and later at a newly constructed summer residence on Pawleys Island. Both locations were relatively close to their Georgetown plantations.21 Although Allston took a number of business trips by himself, most notably to attend the annual general conventions of the Protestant Episcopal Church, his family only accompanied him on five extended excursions outside the state between the time of his marriage and the outbreak of the Civil War. Three of these trips were to the Northeast, including one following son Ben’s graduation from West Point in 1853; another was a sojourn in Western Europe during the summer of 1855; and the other was a lengthy visit to the Virginia Springs in 1860. One of the earliest such trips occurred in 1838. Members of the traveling party included Allston, wife Adele, sons Ben and Robert, infant daugh20. Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 19, 74–75; R.F.W. Allston to J. W. Cheesborough, Mar. 27, 1835; Allston to “My Dear Sister” [Mary Allan Allston], Oct. 1, 1837, in Allston Papers, SCHS. 21. William K. Scarborough, Masters of the Big House: Elite Slaveholders of the Mid-Nineteenth Century South (Baton Rouge, 2003), 35–37; Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 22–23.

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ter Frances Ann, and two nurses. Accompanied by Mrs. James L. Petigru and her two daughters, the Allstons departed Charleston on board the steamer Neptune in mid-June and arrived in New York City on June 23. There they secured accommodations at the Astor House on Broadway, directly opposite a park. Although their quarters were comfortable, Allston grumbled about the “extravagant rate” of seventy dollars a week for a parlor and two rooms. He and Adele also complained of the constant hubbub resulting from the myriad activities in the bustling city. “There is such an incessant din of noise on the rough pavement,” observed Allston, “that it is almost impossible to sleep or do any thing but stare at all the curious people & strange sights.” Nevertheless, he conceded that New York was “a beautiful city,” brightly illuminated by gaslights at night, with shop windows “nearly as large as the side of a house” and “fill’d with all sorts of fancy articles.” The Allstons apparently spent some of their time in those fancy shops, for Adele remarked that the city was not only “an awful place for noise and bustle” but also “an awful place . . . for getting rid of ones [sic] money.”22 After spending some time in New York, the Allstons resumed their itinerary, proceeding first to West Point and Utica and then to Saratoga Springs, where they remained until the end of July. The next stop was Niagara Falls, where they procured accommodations on the British side on July 28. After only a few days at the falls, the party resumed its travels, going first to Montreal via the lakes and the St. Lawrence River and then to Newport. They enjoyed the amenities of that resort for the social elite until late September before beginning their homeward journey. The Allstons stopped briefly in Boston so that Robert could visit his sixty-year-old half-uncle, the celebrated painter Washington Allston. Washington, who appeared “much older” than when Robert last saw him during his years at West Point, showed Allston two sketches, one of “a storm and shipwreck at sea” and the other of “Titania’s Court,” which the younger Allston described as “one of the most beautiful conceptions that I ever saw.” After leaving Boston, the family, doubtless weary by this time, made additional 22. Adele Allston to “My dearest Aunt” [Elizabeth F. Blyth], June 17, July 1 (quotation), 1838; R.F.W. Allston to “My Dear Aunt,” June 23, 27 (quotations), 1838, in Allston Papers, SCHS; receipt, Astor House, New York, June 30, 1838, in Allston Papers Accession, SCHS; Devereux, Life and Times, 86–97.

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stops in Albany, Philadelphia, and New Brunswick, New Jersey, before returning to Carolina in mid-October.23 Allston took advantage of his extended excursion to the Northeast to engage the services of a German educator, the Reverend C. B. Thummel, to take charge of a parish school for students of both genders on Waccamaw Neck. The school, to be named All Saints Academy, would be under the jurisdiction of the Reverend Alexander Glennie, Episcopal rector of All Saints Parish. Allston initially contacted Thummel by mail while in Newport and scheduled an interview with him at Albany in early October. He advised Thummel that he would be expected to instruct some twelve to fifteen children of planter families between the ages of four and thirteen in the subjects of English, French, the classical languages, music, and dancing. Thummel immediately expressed an interest in the position, noting that he was a German by birth and education but had been “actively engaged in teaching” in New York for the past ten years. He admitted, however, that music and dancing were “accomplishments, which I do not profess to teach.” After meeting with Thummel and consulting his All Saints neighbors, Allston hired him at an annual salary of two thousand dollars, with the additional stipulation that a comfortable residence would be provided for him and his family. Unfortunately, the Hunmmels were apparently displeased with their new residential quarters, and they left soon after their arrival in Carolina.24 The Allstons took no similar trips during the next decade, as Adele bore more children and her husband became increasingly involved with the acquisition and management of additional plantations. Instead, they passed their summers closer to home, first at Canaan and after 1845 at their new summer house on Pawleys Island. 23. Devereux, Life and Times, 86–97; Adele Allston to “My dearest Aunt,” July 1, 1838; R.F.W. Allston to “Dearest Aunt,” June 27, July 29, 1838, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Allston to Elizabeth F. Blyth, July 11, Sept. 25 (quotations), 1838; Allston to Rev. C. B. Thummel, Sept. 12, 1838; Abram Cruger to Allston, Oct. 8, 1838, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 76–85. 24. Devereux, Life and Times, 93–94; R.F.W. Allston to Rev. C. B. Hummel, Sept. 12, 1838, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Thummel to Allston, Sept. 18, 1838; Joshua J. Ward to Allston, Sept. 28, 1838; Allston to Adele, Dec. 15, 1838, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 81–83, 86.

3

 constructing a pl ant ation empire You are quite right to have the Chapel open’d. . . . It is good for the people to assemble themselves together, if it is only to hear the word of God read. —R.F.W. Allston to Adele Allston, December 1, 1844 I like to be kind to my people but I imperatively require of them honesty, truth, diligence and cheerfulness in their work, wherever and whatever it is. —R.F.W. Allston to Sarah Carr, January 17, 1859 I have Brista again in confinement for more than a week past for stealing rice. I am much concerned what to do with him. Do let me have your opinion. As I remember it once, it was to sell him at once if he gave any more trouble. . . . I fear he is a bad case. —Benjamin Allston to R.F.W. Allston, February 12, 1860

owever important were his contributions in the realms of politics, education, and religion, it was as a rice planter that Robert Allston achieved his greatest distinction. With his political star ascending and a growing family to support, Allston turned his attention in the 1840s to the development of a plantation empire in the South Carolina Lowcountry. Already the proprietor of Matanzas and the administrator of Waverly at the beginning of the decade, Allston began his first period of expansion with 220 slaves. That number nearly doubled to 401 over the next ten years as he purchased three additional Pee Dee River plantations: Exchange (which he retained initially for only three years), Nightingale Hall, and Waterford.1 The most significant of these new acquisitions was Nightingale Hall, a tract of 1,219 acres, which Allston purchased together with 100 slaves in

H

1. Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 19–21; MS Census Returns, 1840, 1850, Georgetown District, S.C.

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1846 for $80,000. To facilitate the purchase of Nightingale Hall, he sold the much smaller Exchange unit the same year only to reacquire it seven years later as his planting fortunes improved. Located some six miles downriver from Matanzas (Chicora Wood), Nightingale Hall remained one of the principal Allston plantations until the end of the Civil War. Three years after his purchase of Nightingale Hall, as he contemplated the possible sale of his new plantation, Allston listed the improvements he had made during his brief proprietorship. They included new slave houses; a steam thresher, sawmill, and grist mill; improved banks and the leveling of uneven fields; good provision crops; and the trimming and renewal of hedges. He estimated that the property was then worth more than $100,000. Unfortunately, given his reliance on slave labor, the slave population on Nightingale Hall had not increased in proportion to the other improvements made on the place. During his three years of ownership surviving births exceeded deaths by only one.2 When Allston assumed control of Nightingale Hall, he implemented a six-tier system of punishments for slave infractions. In ascending order of severity they were: (1) private reprimand; (2) public reprimand; (3) denial of some desired privilege; (4) denial of rations for one to four weeks, depending on the nature of the offense; (5) confinement Saturday night until allowance on Sunday, one to four times; and (6) whipping on the buttocks with a leather thong within a range of twelve to twenty-five lashes, to be administered by the driver. Allston’s general managerial philosophy was reflected in the following directions to his overseers on Nightingale Hall: 2. Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 21, 43; R.F.W. Allston to Alonzo J. White, Dec. 15, 1849; Nightingale Hall Plantation Book, 1846–59, both in Allston Papers, SCHS. The task of comparing nineteenth-century dollar amounts with present-day monetary equivalents is exceedingly complex and may involve as many as six different economic indicators. I have chosen to use the Consumer Price Index (CPI) as the closest approximation to the conversion of nineteenth-century values into current monetary equivalents. Using the CPI, the value of Nightingale Hall in 1849 would be the equivalent of $2.9 million in current dollars. I will use the same method of conversion on selected other monetary sums in this chapter, placing the 2009 equivalent in parentheses. See Samuel H. Williamson, “Six Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a U.S. Dollar Amount, 1790 to Present,” MeasuringWorth, 2009, www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/. I am indebted to my colleague Louis Kyriakoudes and to one of my doctoral students, Christian Pinnen, for assisting me with these computations.

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“Be kind to all, all attentive to the sick, but be familiar with none. Remember the old law familiarity breeds Contempt. Any thing that excites disrespect or lessens respect for you, will surely undermine your authority. And authority is absolutely necessary to discipline, & discipline is absolutely necessary to good management. And good management is absolutely necessary to success.”3 The third plantation acquired by Allston during the 1840s was Waterford, a 363-acre unit situated adjacent to Nightingale Hall on the peninsula between the Pee Dee and Waccamaw rivers. Purchased from Miss Charlotte Pyatt for $25,000 in 1847, Waterford remained in Allston’s possession until 1858, when he sold it to fellow Georgetown rice baron Plowden C. J. Weston for $200 an acre. In a second round of expansion Allston purchased two additional plantations in the early 1850s, bringing his total number to five exclusive of Waverly, which he administered for his nephew Joseph Blyth Allston until 1857. First, in 1851 he purchased Ditchford (or Ditchfield, formerly Rose Bank) from Hugh Fraser for $23,100 together with fifty-one of Fraser’s slaves at $410 each, for an additional outlay of $20,910. A tract of 477 acres, Ditchford was located adjacent to and just north of Chicora Wood. Two years later Allston again acquired Exchange at a cost of $25,000. Thus, by 1853 Robert Allston presided over a rice plantation empire that historian J. H. Easterby estimated to be worth $230,000 (equivalent to nearly $6.6 million in current dollars).4 Despite his apparent prosperity, Allston became over-encumbered later in the decade when he added two more plantations, one for son Benjamin and the other from his sister-in-law Mary Ann Petigru, as well as an expensive residence on Meeting Street in Charleston. As a consequence of these expenditures, he contracted a debt from which he never recovered. His chief object in acquiring additional plantations and slaves was to help his son Benjamin embark upon a career as a rice planter following his resignation from the army in 1857. Accordingly, the following year Allston purchased Guendalos, a 1,253-acre plantation situated just below Chicora 3. Plantation Rules, Regulations, and Directions, Nightingale Hall Plantation Book, in Allston Papers, SCHS. 4. Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 21, 43; Rogers, History of Georgetown County, 266, 275–76; receipt for purchase of slaves, R.F.W. Allston to Alonzo J. White, Mar. 14, 1851; Adele Allston to “My dearest Ben,” June 10, 1851, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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Wood on the Pee Dee, for $75,000, of which $21,500 was paid in cash and the remainder in bonds and mortgage. To supply Benjamin with a workforce sufficient to cultivate 215 acres of rice land, Allston purchased a gang of forty-one Negroes from the estate of the late Francis Withers in January 1859 for $20,500 (or $500 each). After concluding this transaction, he remarked to wife Adele that his new slaves were “very well on the whole” although there were “some rogues among them . . . & all (so near Georgetown) love liquor.”5 In the same month, seeking further to augment his son’s slave force, Allston purchased from his wife’s sister-in-law, the former Mary Ann La Bruce, 116 slaves together with her Pipe Down plantation for $78,000, the entire amount paid in bonds and secured by a mortgage on the property. The acquisition of Pipe Down, located on Sandy Island, a narrow strip of land rising above Waccamaw Neck just east of Chicora Wood, increased Allston’s holdings by nearly three hundred acres. Thus, on the eve of the Civil War Robert Allston was the largest rice planter on the Pee Dee, the proprietor of seven plantations containing at least four thousand acres, one-fourth of which was in rice, and worked by a force of more than 600 slaves. This made Allston the third largest slaveholder in Georgetown District, trailing only John Izard Middleton and the estate of Joshua John Ward, and the eighth largest in the entire state of South Carolina. It is estimated that in 1860 his plantations produced approximately 1.5 million pounds of rice, yielding gross proceeds of $48,000 (equivalent to nearly $1.3 million in current dollars). Despite this income, however, he was never able to overcome the liabilities incurred by the purchase of Guendalos and Pipe Down and exacerbated by the departure of his son for military service in the spring of 1861. At the end of that year Ben placed everything at Guendalos at his father’s disposal, “to do with as he sees fit.” Consequently, when he died in 1864, the outwardly prosperous Allston left his family heavily in debt.6 5. Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 22, 45, 351–52; Rogers, History of Georgetown County, 329; [Jane G. North] to “My Dearest Carey” [Caroline Pettigrew], Dec. 29, 1858, in Pettigrew Family Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill (SHC); R.F.W. Allston to “My Dear Adele,” Jan. 25, 1859, in Allston Papers, SCHS. 6. Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 22, 45, 352–54; Jane G. North to “My dear Carey,” Dec. 24, 1859, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC; MS Census Returns, 1860, George-

The Allston Plantations, Georgetown District Map by Mary Lee Eggart

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The rice planters were among the wealthiest of the wealthy in the antebellum South. Of the fifty-two South Carolina planters who owned more than three hundred slaves in 1860, thirty-seven (or 71 percent) were Lowcountry rice planters. Indeed, of the forty-nine planters in the entire South who owned more than five hundred slaves in that year, fourteen (or 29 percent) were South Carolina rice planters. The explanation is that rice culture required an enormous capital outlay, and the crop was grown most efficiently on large units with a large labor force.7 Following the introduction of the tidal flow system of rice culture by Georgetown planter McKewn Johnstone in 1758, the bulk of the rice was grown upstream on rivers flowing into the Atlantic whose height was controlled by the ocean tide. The land surface had to be low enough to allow flooding of the fields at high tide and sufficiently high to drain the fields at low tide. Those Georgetown rivers best suited to the water culture of rice included the Black, Pee Dee, Santee, and Waccamaw. In addition to Georgetown, three other Lowcountry counties—Beaufort, Charleston, and Colleton—were major rice producers in the antebellum years.8 The rice lands bordering the rivers were divided by embankments into fields of about twenty acres, though the size could vary slightly depending on the course of the river. Each field in turn was subdivided by ditches into rectangular plots of a quarter-acre each. The large embankments along the rivers, creeks, and canals were kept one to two feet above the highest spring tides in order to prevent overflows. These outer embankments were usually about five feet high and fifteen feet wide at the base. The banks dividing the different fields were kept above the highest point of the field so that the field could be flooded without overtopping the enclosing banks. These interior banks were about three feet high and seven to eight feet wide at the base. Each field was provided with a separate trunk, or water gate, so that it could be flooded independently of the other fields. The heavy wooden

town District, S.C.; Rogers, History of Georgetown County, 329, 339; Bill of Sale, Mary Ann Petigru to Robert F. W. Allston, Feb. 1, 1859, in Allston Slave Papers; Ben Allston to “My dear Mother,” Dec. 2, 1861, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Scarborough, Masters of the Big House, 475. 7. Scarborough, Masters of the Big House, 456–84. 8. Ulrich B. Phillips, Life and Labor in the Old South (Boston, 1929), 116–17.

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trunks, which contained both an outer and inner door, controlled the flooding of the fields. When it was desired to flow the field, the outer door was raised and the inner one lowered so that at high tide the external water pressure would open the inner door until the water levels inside and out were equal. When the tide receded, the beginning of any return flow would promptly close the inner door, and the field would remain covered. When it was desired to drain the field, the process was simply reversed. The trunk minder, an intelligent slave chosen for the purpose of flooding the fields at the proper times, was one of the most important functionaries on a rice plantation and was frequently given rewards and privileges commensurate with his important responsibilities.9 The planting cycle usually began in late March or early April and might last until mid-May. The premier variety of rice in South Carolina was the gold seed rice, which had been introduced into the Waccamaw region just after the Revolution. According to Allston, it was the “most highly esteemed and therefore universally cultivated” rice in Georgetown District. The seed was sown in trenches three to five inches in width and twelve to fifteen inches apart. It was a common practice after 1826 to clay the seeds so that they would adhere more easily to the earth and not float away when the field was flooded. There were several variations regarding the number and timing of the various floodings during the growing season, but Allston recommended the following procedure: after the seeds were planted at the rate of two and one-quarter to two and one-half bushels per acre, the fields were flooded immediately for eight to twelve days in what was known as the sprout flow. About three weeks after the end of the sprout flow, the crop was hoed twice at intervals of about twelve days. Then the long flow was put on, overtopping the plants at first but after two or three days lowered to a general level of about six inches, or half the height of the plants. After some two to three weeks the long water was gradually drawn off, and during the next fifteen to eighteen days the crop was hoed for the third and last time. Finally, about ninety days after the rice was sown, the lay-by flow was introduced at the same depth as the 9. Frederick Law Olmsted, A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, 2 vols. (New York, 1904), 2:58; David Doar, “Rice and Rice Planting in the South Carolina Low Country,” Contributions from the Charleston Museum, 12 vols., ed. E. Milby Burton (Charleston, 1910–55), 8:9; Phillips, Life and Labor, 117.

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long flow and remained on the fields for sixty to seventy days until the crop matured in early September. Thus, the growing season for rice lasted about five months from the time the seeds were planted until the crop was harvested.10 Shortly after the water was drained from the fields, the hands began to cut the rice with sickles. It was then tied in sheaves, stacked on flats, and transported to the threshing yard, where the husks were separated from the chaff by an Emmons threshing machine. After the grain was threshed, it was taken to the winnowing house, a structure about ten feet square erected on four large columns with slatted sides to permit the wind to blow through freely. There the grain was taken up a series of steps to the top floor and dropped through an opening in the middle of the floor when the wind was blowing hard enough to separate the “tailing” and other dirt from the rice. Finally, the rice was taken to a pounding mill, where the husk was removed from the grain and the crop was prepared for market. By the end of the antebellum period many Lowcountry planters were sending their rice to commercial mills in Charleston or Georgetown. Allston, however, erected a mill on Winyah Bay at Waverly plantation in 1837, and, after it was converted from water to steam about 1850, he earned as much as fifteen thousand dollars a year from the operation of this mill. He declared in 1846 that “at present almost every planter of four hundred acres and upward, is provided with a tide-water or steam-pounding mill for preparing his own crops for market.”11 With respect to labor organization, the task system was employed almost universally on the rice coast. Under this system each hand was assigned a specific task, and when it was completed satisfactorily the slave was free to do as he wished for the remainder of the day. The drainage ditches that divided the fields into half- or quarter-acre plots offered convenient units of performance in the successive planting, cultivating, and 10. R.F.W. Allston, “Sea-Coast Crops of the South,” De Bow’s Review 16 (June 1854): 609– 12; R.F.W. Allston, “Memoir of the Introduction and Planting of Rice in South-Carolina,” ibid. (Apr. 1846): 335–37 (quotation); Doar, “Rice and Rice Planting,” 14–15. 11. Allston, “Sea-Coast Crops,” 611–12; Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 32; Doar, “Rice and Rice Planting,” 16–21; Olmsted, Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, 2:109; Ernest M. Lander Jr., “Ante-Bellum Milling in South Carolina,” South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 52 (1951): 131; Allston, “Memoir of Planting of Rice,” 345 (quotation).

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harvesting operations. The task system had two major advantages. First, it enabled the overseer to delegate more easily routine duties to a driver. Perhaps more important, it also gave some stimulus to rapidity of work by its promise of leisure time to those who finished their tasks early. On the other hand, in order for the incentive to be effective, the task had to be sufficiently limited to enable the slowest field hand to complete his task in a timely manner. Frederick Law Olmsted was impressed with the system when he toured the South Carolina rice districts. Remarking that the tasks “certainly would not be considered excessively hard, by a Northern laborer,” he reported that some of “the more industrious and active hands” actually completed their tasks as early as 2:00 p.m.12 The calculation of appropriate tasks for the workers required considerable judgment on the part of the planter or overseer. It was not desirable for any hand to be given a task that he could not finish with relative ease. In general the ordinary winter task in the rice districts required eight to nine hours for the slowest hand to complete and ten hours during the summer months. These tasks were assigned to each hand in proportion to their age, gender, and physical ability. Thus, they were labeled quarter-, half-, or full hands. The tasks throughout the rice region were relatively standardized. In an article that appeared in De Bow’s Review in 1858, Benjamin Allston listed the daily tasks for a full hand on the Allston plantations: turning up rice land with a hoe—¼ acre; listing (making alternating beds and furrows)—½ acre; bedding up or ridging—⅜ acre; trenching—¾ acre containing 180 rows; sowing (by women)—1½ acres; hoeing rice, corn, and potatoes—½ acre if land in good order; ditching—600 cubic feet. Other common tasks included the following: threshing—600 sheaves for males, 500 for females; making rice barrels—three full or four half-barrels per day; splitting rails—100 rails, 12 feet in length, for an able-bodied man; cutting wood—one cord, 4 feet long.13 12. Ulrich B. Phillips, American Negro Slavery (New York, 1918), 247; Olmsted, Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, 2:64. 13. Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 346; Benjamin Allston, “Notes on the Management of a Southern Rice Estate,” De Bow’s Review 24 (Apr. 1858): 324–25; “Highly Valuable Information for Rice Planters,” De Bow’s Review 18 (Mar. 1855): 351–52; “Estimate of the Daily Labour of Negroes; by a Member of the Agricultural Society of South-Carolina,” Southern Agriculturist 6 (Nov. 1833): 587–90.

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These tasks were not unreasonable, but they did not mitigate the severe health risks to which slaves on rice plantations were exposed. Because of the noxious atmosphere of the rice swamps and the effect of working in muddy and partially flooded fields, rice planting was an intrinsically dangerous occupation, much as coal mining is today. Consequently, the slave mortality rate was exceedingly high, much higher than on those units on which tobacco, cotton, and even sugar were cultivated. On his visit to an unidentified rice plantation on the South Carolina coast, Olmsted commented on the debilitating health problems faced by the slaves. “The negroes do not enjoy as good health on rice plantations, as elsewhere,” he observed, “and the greater difficulty with which their lives are preserved, through infancy especially, shows the subtle poison of the miasma is not innocuous to them.”14 Unfortunately, no systematic record of births and deaths on the Allston plantations has survived. The only extant evidence indicates that at Nightingale Hall, during the first three years of Allston’s ownership, there were thirteen births and twelve deaths. Six of the nine children born in 1847 survived, but the following year only three of six survived. In his highly critical account of the rice planters William Dusinberre estimates that two-thirds of the slaves on nineteenth-century rice plantations died before reaching the age of sixteen. These figures may be accurate for two of the three estates upon which Dusinberre focuses—Butler Island, an absentee Georgia estate with only minimal proprietary supervision, and Gowrie, the Savannah River plantation of Charles and Louis Manigault. According to Dusinberre, slave deaths on Gowrie exceeded births by a margin of two to one during the period from 1833 to 1861. Most died of disease, especially cholera, which proved fatal to eighteen hands in the fall of 1834 and another dozen in December 1854. Similarly, the slave lists for James B. Heyward’s Cooper River plantations Copenhagen, Hamburg, and Rotterdam, indicate a steady decline in the number of slaves from 394 in 1850 to 332 in 1861. Obviously, the natural increase on these plantations lagged behind the death rate.15 14. Olmsted, Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, 2:45–46. 15. Nightingale Hall Plantation Book, 1846–48, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Dusinberre, Them Dark Days, 50–51, 80; Slave Lists for Gowrie and East Hermitage, 1833–61, vols. 1–4, in

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Perhaps more representative and closer to the death rate on the Allston plantations are the figures for the Middleton family’s Weehaw plantation, a well-managed unit of nearly three hundred slaves in Georgetown District. Despite the unusually high number of forty fatalities in 1857, one-fifth of them from dysentery, births exceeded deaths on Weehaw by an average of five per annum during the six years from 1856 through 1861. In addition to dysentery there were numerous deaths from lockjaw, and many infants and children succumbed to unidentified maladies. Despite the relatively high mortality rate, the increase on Weehaw was slightly higher than the decennial growth rate on the Butler plantations and more than four times as great as Dusinberre’s estimate of 4 percent per decade for the rice districts as a whole. The high death rate on rice plantations was likely attributable more to the conditions under which they lived and worked than to any alleged callous disregard for the welfare of their human property by their paternalistic masters.16

 In his unflattering portrait William Dusinberre describes Allston as an imperious master whose system of management was hated by the slaves. Only grudgingly does he admit that “Allston’s regime, stern though it was, was a despotism tempered by rays of humanity.” He cites no evidence to support this highly subjective interpretation, mentioning only that “the slaves’ feelings became crystal clear during the turbulent early weeks of 1865,” when they celebrated their freedom by ransacking the Allston plantations—a pattern of conduct certainly not unique to the Allston slaves. This conduct was in marked contrast to the slaves’ reaction to their master’s death the previous year. “It was pitiful to see the people,” reported daughter Bessie, “as they came in one by one to take a last farewell of him who was so much to them. They followed him to his last resting place with respectful & solemn silence.” Actually, it is unlikely that either of these

Manigault Plantation Records, SHC; Slave Lists for Rotterdam, Copenhagen, and Hamburg, 1850–61, vols. 2, 4, and 9 in Heyward-Ferguson Papers and Books, SHC. 16. Henry A. Middleton Jr., Plantation Journal, 1855–61, in Cheves-Middleton Papers, SCHS; Dusinberre, Them Dark Days, 237–38, 415.

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quite different scenarios reflected the true feeling of the Allston slaves toward their master.17 It is true that Allston displayed a patriarchal attitude toward both family and slaves, but among the total constellation of slaveholders the treatment of his bondspeople can be characterized more accurately as one of relative benevolence. He was kind and compassionate toward those servants who labored faithfully and obediently to promote his interests. Those who violated plantation rules and regulations were punished accordingly. His philosophy was revealed most clearly in an exchange of correspondence in 1859 with Sarah E. Carr, who had entreated Allston to buy a young male slave owned by her mother in order to alleviate the elder woman’s financial embarrassment. In declining to purchase the slave, who had evinced dissatisfaction with his current owner, Allston explained that “a servant must be willing & industrious as well as capable, or I dont care to have him serve me.” Several days later he stated succinctly his understanding of the mutual obligations between master and slave: “I like to be kind to my people but I imperatively require of them honesty, truth, diligence and cheerfulness in their work, wherever and whatever it is.”18 In support of this philosophy Allston adopted an elaborate system of rewards and punishments to govern the slaves in his vast plantation empire. As on most plantations throughout the South, the most common form of punishment was whipping. On the Allston plantations such chastisement was administered by a leather thong on the buttocks with a maximum limit of twenty-five lashes when wielded by the driver and thirtynine when carried out by the overseer. On one occasion Allston delayed the Christmas celebration on one plantation until his slaves revealed the identity of the culprit who had stolen a hog out of the pen. This action had the desired effect, and the two guilty slaves were forced to run the gauntlet between two lines of male slaves facing each other, who beat them with sticks or other objects as they passed through.19 17. Dusinberre, Them Dark Days, 302 (second quotation), 315 (first quotation); Bessie Allston to “My darling Brother,” Apr. 11, 1864, in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS. 18. Allston to Sarah E. Carr, Jan. 12, 1859, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Allston to Carr, Jan. 17, 1859, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 152. 19. “Plantation Rules, Regulations, Directions,” in Nightingale Hall Plantation Book,

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In addition to such disciplinary measures, Allston employed a variety of incentives to promote good order and positive work habits among his bondsmen. Thus, he allowed each family to keep a garden and raise poultry. The slaves then bartered eggs, chickens, and pumpkins to their master in return for such items as molasses, tobacco, and homespun cloth. This arrangement allowed them to supplement the regular allowances of food and clothing provided by their owner. After returning from the governorship in 1859, Allston also began the practice of purchasing hogs from his slaves. He agreed to give each head of family one hog, preferably a sow, with the stipulation that each recipient was to produce two yearling hogs, “fit for killing during the ensuing winter,” to be delivered to the overseer by the first of November each year. The two young hogs were then weighed, and the slave was paid for the smaller hog at the rate of five dollars per hundred pounds. The family was allowed to keep the balance of the litter provided they did not sell any of the remaining hogs off the plantation without the written consent of either Allston or the overseer.20 It was also customary for Allston to award prizes for exceptional work by his field hands in the various processes conducted on the plantation— for example, best plowman, ditcher, sower, or hoe hand of the year. Typical prizes included calico frocks for the women and fancy knives for the men. He also paid coopers, blacksmiths, and other artisans for extra work. Finally, in an effort to discourage malingering Allston distributed extra portions of rice at Christmas to those hands who had not missed a single day of work during the year. Thus, in 1859 no fewer than fifty-three slaves at Chicora Wood and twenty-nine at Nightingale Hall received extra allotments of small rice, ranging from a half-bushel to one and a quarter bushels each for their perfect work attendance.21 The Allston slaves occasionally found some relief from the brutal work regimen of the rice plantation in the festivities attending their infrequent Allston Papers, SCHS; Dusinberre, Them Dark Days, 307; Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 454; Joyner, Down by the Riverside, 54. 20. Nightingale Hall Plantation Book, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 350; Joyner, Down by the Riverside, 52. 21. Pringle, Woman Rice Planter, 8; Pringle, Chronicles of Chicora Wood, 15; Rogers, History of Georgetown County, 348; Dusinberre, Them Dark Days, 323–24; Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 454–55.

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holidays, most notably Christmas and the Fourth of July. Ironically, Elizabeth Allston Pringle recalled that the Fourth was “the most celebrated holiday for the Negroes” before the war, with all hands donning their finest garments to celebrate the occasion. Christmas, however, was the lengthiest and by far the most festive holiday at Chicora Wood, the Allston’s residence plantation. It was customary to give the hands on all of the family’s plantations three days at Christmas and often an additional three at New Year’s. Amid the drudgery and travails of the daily routine on the rice coast, the Allston slaves looked forward with great anticipation to this year-end celebration. Thus, in late November 1841 Adele Allston reported to her husband that “the servants have a fiddler going and are dancing at a great rate in the wash kitchen—preparing I suppose for Christmas.”22 As Elizabeth Pringle recounted, the holiday began on Christmas Eve with the tradition of “setting up,” reflecting the slaves’ belief that they should not be found in their beds on the night that Jesus was born. Then, shortly before daybreak on Christmas morning, all of the slaves at Chicora Wood trooped to the Big House to wish their master and mistress a Merry Christmas and to receive modest gifts in return. After the initial exchange of greetings and gifts, there was a general distribution of whiskey to the men, molasses to the women, and extra rations of rice to all. The festivities then continued with dancing on the piazza from breakfast until late evening, accompanied by “the music of fiddle, tambourine, bones, drum, and sticks.” To ensure that this tradition would continue, Allston reportedly sent off several young men each year to learn to play the fiddle so that they could lead the dancing. Sometime during the day the hands were treated to a hearty dinner replete with a beef that had been freshly killed for the occasion. Christmas in 1856 was a particularly festive holiday at Chicora Wood because Allston had just been elected governor. Adele reported that the servants “made a great noise and drank the Governor’s health with many a stout glass of whiskey.” These Christmas celebrations at Chicora Wood continued long after the war, albeit with a sharply reduced workforce.23 22. Pringle, Woman Rice Planter, 86, 274; Pringle, Chronicles of Chicora Wood, 152; Ben Allston to “My dear Father,” Dec. 9, 1861; Adele Allston to “My dearest Friend” [husband Robert], Nov. 23, 1841, in Allston Papers, SCHS. 23. Pringle, Woman Rice Planter, 272–74; Pringle, Chronicles of Chicora Wood, 150–52;

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Apart from these festive events, the Allstons sought to make the general living conditions of their slaves as comfortable as possible. At Chicora Wood the seventy-five slave houses were divided into three settlements, each containing about a dozen houses on each side of a broad street. These houses were situated about fifty yards apart, and each had a small garden patch in the rear of the dwelling. Allston’s daughter recalled that it was customary for her father to give light task on Saturday and then to require each family to devote the remainder of the day to such household chores as scouring, washing, raking, and burning trash so that “everything should be tidy and clean” on the Sabbath. In that way Allston hoped to instill in his black charges a sense of pride in their living quarters.24 Clothing was normally distributed in May and November on plantations along the South Carolina rice coast. Yet, according to Elizabeth Pringle, clothing was frequently given out on the day following New Year’s in a highly organized manner that consumed nearly the entire day. Shortly after daybreak the head seamstress began to pile on the large piazza of the mansion large rolls of the various types of cloth to be utilized in making garments for the people. Each woman received a red flannel roll, two white and two colored homespun rolls, and two calico rolls. Each male received one flannel and two white homespun rolls along with two jeans and two white plains. The last two items had been imported from England. Each roll of cloth contained the necessary sewing utensils. The children received their allotment of cloth the following day, the amount of fabric depending upon their height. The house servants fared somewhat better than the ordinary field hands. Female servants were clad in cotton plaids, while their male counterparts were provided with coats of gray mixed cloth and tweed trousers.25 Shoes were distributed separately on the Allston plantations, usually on the third day of the new year. The process by which measurements R.F.W. Allston to “My Dear Adele,” Dec. 3, 1836, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Adele Petigru Allston to Benjamin Allston, Jan. 1, 1857, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 136; Joyner, Down by the Riverside, 101–2, 135–36. 24. Pringle, Chronicles of Chicora Wood, 63; Joyner, Down by the Riverside, 117; Pringle, Woman Rice Planter, 112. 25. Adele Allston to “My dear Friend” [husband Robert], May 17, 1857, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Joyner, Down by the Riverside, 110–11; Rogers, History of Georgetown County, 348.

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were calculated was imperfect at best. Each slave was required to place his foot on a thin strip of wood, which was then marked in pencil for the proper length, conveyed by the overseer to the proprietor, and then sent to a Charleston factor, who arranged with a shoemaker for the finished product. Unfortunately, no measure of width was taken, thereby rendering many of the shoes quite uncomfortable. The expense of having shoes supplied to all slaves on the plantation was not inconsiderable. Thus, in 1841, when Allston was managing only two plantations, he purchased from a Charleston supplier 169 pairs of brogans at a dollar each. Doubtless the amount spent on other articles of clothing was much greater, especially after Allston’s slave force tripled over the next two decades.26 Although the slave mortality rate in the rice districts was exceedingly high, primarily because of the miasmic conditions prevailing in the rice swamps, most planters sought to provide the best medical care available to their bondsmen. Robert Allston was no exception. Like most other large planters, Allston employed physicians on a regular basis to treat all residents of his plantations, slave and free alike, as circumstances required. Although he expended more for the care of members of his immediate family than he did for the treatment of individual slaves, the cost of collective slave medical care on the Allston plantations could be quite expensive. In the single year 1847, for example, Allston spent more than five hundred dollars for the treatment of his slaves on the Nightingale Hall and Matanzas plantations. The normal charge for a single visit was two dollars, but some slaves required more extended treatments. Thus, Dr. Andrew Hasell charged Allston forty-five dollars for “medical Attendance on Ser t Amy from July 18th to Sept 5th 1840 including medicines &c.” The cost of vaccinating slave children against smallpox, a customary practice on the Allston plantations, was one dollar for each child vaccinated. Although the master’s concern for the health and well-being of his black charges was motivated in large measure by economics, owners such as Allston were by no means devoid of humanitarian concern for the health of members of their so-called black family. Thus, when informed by his wife of the painful circumstances attending the terminal illness of one of his servants, 26. Joyner, Down by the Riverside, 115; account with S. Farrow & Son, Mar. 22, 1841, Allston Papers Accession, SCHS.

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Allston responded that “your letter . . . has given me great concern for the poor negroe [sic] who suffered the agony you describe so well. I would it were in my power to have relieved him.” Doubtless all was done to alleviate his misery that could have been done, he concluded.27 The Allstons exhibited similar humanitarian concern for the spiritual health of their bondspeople. Devoutly religious themselves, both Robert and Adele strove to introduce their servants to the basic tenets of Christianity. When she first arrived at Chicora Wood as a bride of nineteen, Adele instituted the practice of instructing all the slave children in the catechism. Then, when the lessons were over, she treated each of the youngsters to a slice of cake. Many years later an elderly former slave remembered with nostalgia those Sunday evenings when the children of the plantation gathered to learn their scriptural lessons. Allston constructed a chapel on the plantation to accommodate the spiritual needs of his people, young and old alike. While attending the legislative session in Columbia in 1844, Robert wrote approvingly to Adele that she was quite right to open the chapel for preaching on alternate Sundays. “It is good for the people to assemble themselves together,” he remarked “if it is only to hear the word of God read.” In the late 1850s the rector of Prince Frederick’s Chapel, Allston’s home church, made regular visits to Nightingale Hall and Chicora Wood, and the bishop periodically accompanied him to confirm a number of the servants. On one such occasion Adele reported that she had gone down to Nightingale Hall and “was much interested in the service.”28 Not all slave owners and certainly not all overseers were as enthusiastic as the Allstons about offering religious instruction to their slaves. Some feared that the spiritual empowerment promoted by religious instruction might adversely affect slave discipline. In 1849 a member of the prominent Trapier family precipitated a controversy when he announced that 27. Medical accounts with Dr. James R. Sparkman, July 12–Dec. 30, 1838, and 1847; Allston to “Dear Adele,” Feb. 23, 1850 (second quotation), in Allston Papers; Medical Accounts with Dr. James R. Sparkman, 1839; with Dr. Andrew Hasell, July 22, 1836; Feb. 23, 1841 (first quotation); with Sparkman & Lesesne, 1840–41; with Dr. William B. Johnson, Jan. 15, 1841, in Allston Papers Accession, SCHS. 28. Pringle, Woman Rice Planter, 309–10; Allston to Adele, Dec. 1, 1844, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 92–93; Adele to “My dear Adele” [her daughter], Apr. 1, 1857; Reverend Joseph Hunter to Gov. R.F.W. Allston, Feb. 14, 1859, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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he would make “preaching to the Negroes” the chief object of his ministry. Observing that the legislature might intervene to prevent it, Allston’s brother-in-law James L. Petigru declared that “if there was evidence of mischief being done by it, I would concur in the policy of suppressing Mr. Trapier’s ministry.” He concluded, however, that “experience [had] not furnished such proof yet,” nor did he believe that “the imparting of religious instruction to the negroes” would prove to be dangerous. Indeed, Allston and others like him believed that exposure to religion would have a salutary effect on the conduct of their bondspeople. Allston attributed his slaves’ improvement in intelligence, morals, and domestic relations to their attentiveness to religious instruction. But, as he argued in his “Essay on Sea-Coast Crops,” it was not enough “that the preaching of the Gospel is provided for our negroes; they must be induced to seek an interest in it—they must be won to obedience to the Divine law.” To attain this end it was imperative that the master lead by example and establish “a just, consistent, systematic administration of domestic government.” 29 If Allston exhibited paternalistic benevolence with respect to the physical and spiritual health of his slaves, his concern for the integrity of slave families, while apparently genuine, was tempered somewhat by a desire to operate his vast agricultural properties with maximum efficiency and profitability. Thus, when counseling his nephew Joseph Blyth Allston about the purchase of a large slave parcel in 1859, Allston advised him not to buy slaves at inflated cotton prices. “If you meet with an orderly gang of some planter neighbor or otherwise who would sell you at $500 rather than send away and seperate [sic] his people at a higher figure then in such a case you might adventure.” Less than a week later Joseph purchased a gang of sixty-one slaves belonging to the estate of Dr. Edward T. Heriot for an average of $575 each. A codicil attached to the bill of sale and endorsed by Robert Allston contained the following stipulation: “Tom the driver and Molly are assign’d to this lot No. 1 . . . in order to go with their children. 29. Bishop John Early, “A Fortnight among the Missions to the Blacks,” in Charles F. Deems, ed., Annals of Southern Methodism, 1856 (Nashville, 1857), 205, 207; James L. Petigru to Robert Allston, Aug. 21, 1849, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Michael O’Brien and David Moltke-Hansen, eds., Intellectual Life in Antebellum Charleston (Knoxville, 1986), 267–69; Joyner, Down by the Riverside, 159; R.F.W. Allston, “Sea-Coast Crops of the South,” De Bow’s Review 16 (June 1854): 615.

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They are never to be sold out of the family. Under the [Heriot] Will they are to be provided for as long as they live.” Several weeks later Allston implored Joseph to buy “old Charles” and his family of nine so that they could remain united with one of Charles’s daughters, whom Allston had just purchased.30 During the decades in which Allston was expanding his agricultural empire, he invariably purchased slaves in substantial lots, usually at estate sales. Only rarely did he buy individual bondsmen, such as in 1856 when he purchased a twenty-five-year-old cooper for fourteen hundred dollars. Although Allston acquired hundreds of slaves during the course of his agricultural career, he sold very few. He disposed of slaves under only two circumstances: when he sold entire plantations with their attached slave forces or when he felt compelled to divest himself of individual servants who had committed serious and repeated disciplinary infractions. Consequently, the slave communities on the Allston plantations, as on other large rice plantations in Georgetown District and elsewhere in the Lowcountry, remained relatively stable over time. The greatest threat to slave families on the rice coast was not the fear of sale but the omnipresent specter of death.31 Perhaps the most objective measure of Allston’s reputation as a slave owner was the way he was perceived by slaves on neighboring plantations. On several occasions slaves who were accorded some measure of control over their own destiny chose to accept Allston as their master. Early in his planting career, for example, a female slave named Minda decided to accept 30. Allston to Joseph Blyth Allston, Jan. 13, 1859; Joseph B. Allston to R.F.W. Allston, Jan. 18, 1859, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 151–52; “Copy of Words added to Lot No.1, assyn’d to F[rancis] W[ithers] H[eriot],” signed R.F.W. Allston, Jan. 18, 1859, Slave Papers; Allston to “Dear Adele,” Feb. 10, 1859, in Allston Papers, SCHS. 31. Slave Bills of Sale, Feb. 1, 1828, 48 slaves from Estate William & Sarah Allen; Feb. 27, 1828, 16 slaves from Estate Robert Francis Withers; Jan. 5, 1830, 17 slaves from Estate Thomas Carr; Feb. 8, 1831, slaves Sam and Betty from Edward A. Benjamin; Feb. 1, 1836, 8 slaves from Executors John Coachman Estate; May 19, 1842, 10 slaves from J. Eleazar Waterman; Apr. 6, 1847, 4 slaves (2 male, 2 female) from Joseph Stucks; Feb. 16, 1846, 6 slaves from Benjamin S. Gibbes, trustee for T. Waring & wife; Mar. 14, 1851, 51 slaves from Hugh Fraser; May 19, 1856, Cooper Aaron from Thomas Hemmingway; Feb. 1, 1859, 116 slaves from Mary Ann Petigru, all in Slave Papers; Benjamin Allston to “My dear Father,” Feb. 12, 1860, Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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Allston as her master rather than to move from Georgetown to Darlington, where she would be employed as a house servant. “A gentleman from Darlington has offered the same money and to keep her in his kitchen— and in his presence,” explained her current owner, “but she prefers going to you.” Many years later Allston reluctantly agreed to purchase Pipe Down plantation, with its thirty-four hands, from his recently widowed sister-inlaw only after a delegation of Pipe Down slaves led by driver Philip Washington pleaded with Allston to become their new master. Thus, although slaves labored under horrific conditions in the rice fields of the Lowcountry, incurring an exceedingly high mortality rate, paternalistic planters such as Allston frequently evinced genuine compassion for their black charges and did all within reason to alleviate their pain and suffering.32 In operating his vast plantation empire Allston and others of his class relied heavily on two vitally important functionaries: overseers, who supervised the workforce on each plantation, and factors, who marketed his crops and furnished him with supplies. Unlike their counterparts in the cotton South, where rapid overseer turnover was the norm, plantation managers in the rice districts frequently enjoyed lengthy tenures and closer personal relationships with their employers. The overseers on Allston’s plantations were no exception. Indeed, the seventeen Allston overseers between 1822 and 1866 for which information was available enjoyed an average tenure of seven years, approximately twice the average tenure of other plantation managers on the rice coast. With the assistance of his veteran overseers, Allston personally supervised plantation operations from his residence at Chicora Wood from early November until late May, and even during the miasmic summer months the proximity of his summer home at Canaan and later Pawleys Island enabled him to make periodic visits to his plantations.33 Of all the Allston overseers perhaps the most noteworthy was Jesse Belflowers, the rather eccentric but very effective and much beloved over32. E. Waterman to “Col. R.F.W. Allston,” Feb. 2, 1837, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Joyner, Down by the Riverside, 31. 33. William K. Scarborough, The Overseer: Plantation Management in the Old South (Baton Rouge, 1966), 38–39. The figures on length of tenure are based upon a seminar paper on South Carolina overseers that I wrote for Fletcher Green at the University of North Carolina in 1958.

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seer of Chicora Wood from 1842 until his death in 1866. A man of uncommon industry and faithfulness, Belflowers began his tenure with Allston at an annual salary of three hundred dollars, a figure that increased incrementally until it reached a thousand dollars in the years after 1852. Although Allston once described Belflowers as “a crooked stick” because of his taciturn demeanor and solitary habits, he had great respect for him. Thus, when approached by an acquaintance for financial assistance, Allston scolded the man for his inability to secure employment and cited the example of Belflowers, who, despite his humble beginnings, was “now a man of some Capital.” He owned several slaves, from whom he derived an annual income of eight hundred dollars by 1856. His death in the spring of 1866 was a blow to the surviving members of the family. “He is one of our true friends, and a link connecting us with the past,” observed Adele. “He is a great loss,” she lamented.34 Other notable Allston overseers included William T. Thompson, who managed the properties of Allston and his aunt, Elizabeth Blyth, from 1822 to 1838; Gabriel L. Ellis, the overseer at Matanzas from 1831 to 1838; and Nightingale Hall overseers Harman Pitman and W. Sweet. Like Belflowers, Pitman was receiving a handsome salary of a thousand dollars in the late 1850s. He too owned several slaves, valued at four thousand dollars in 1860. Allston was so appreciative of the services of Belflowers and Pitman that he made modest bequests to both men in his will. Sweet, who began managing the slaves at Nightingale Hall and Guendalos before Allston’s death, was conscripted into military service in mid-June 1864, but Adele was able to procure a substitute for him by paying five hundred dollars, and he remained in the employ of the family until 1866.35 The role of the overseer assumed critical importance after the outbreak of war and the departure of tens of thousands of able-bodied white males for the fighting front. The necessity for the continuing presence of white 34. Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 23–27, 278; Adele Allston to Benjamin Allston, Apr. 22, 1866, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 218; Robert Allston to John Smith, Nov. 25, 1859, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Scarborough, Overseer, 163–64; MS census returns, 1860, Georgetown District, S.C. (Schedule 1, Free Inhabitants). 35. Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 24–27; Harman Pitman to Robert Allston, Dec. 1, 1857, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 261; W. Sweet to Adele Allston, June 18, 1864, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 286; Adele to “My dear Ben,” June 30, 1864, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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overseers was especially pronounced in the black majority state of South Carolina and more particularly in such rice-producing districts as Georgetown, where blacks outnumbered whites by an overwhelming margin. In recognition of this need the South Carolina Convention adopted an ordinance in January 1862 exempting from military service overseers on plantations with fifteen or more working hands if no white male was left on the plantation and if any portion of the state was occupied by Federal forces. Three months later the Confederate Congress passed the first general Conscription Act in American history, inducting white men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five but exempting overseers on plantations with twenty or more slaves. As the military situation worsened, the act was revised several times, and the number of exemptions was reduced. Thus, by 1864 the Georgetown planters were desperately trying to retain their overseers. Shortly before his death, Allston petitioned the Confederate secretary of war to exempt from military service the fiftyseven-year-old Belflowers; James M. Thompson, then twenty-one and managing Guendalos for Colonel Ben Allston, who was serving in the transMississippi West under General Edmund Kirby Smith; and J. C. Yates, who had been engaged to superintend Allston’s recently acquired holdings in Anson County, North Carolina. Allston’s petition was successful for all but young Thompson, who was replaced by Sweet after his induction into the army. When Sweet was also conscripted, in June 1864, Adele was able to procure a substitute and to keep the military authorities at bay for a few more months. The threat to the retention of overseers, however, was not over. In mid-November magistrate F. W. Heriot informed the increasingly apprehensive Adele that he had protested to the governor “the abstraction of overseers from the superintendence of our interests” in Georgetown and that the latter had forwarded his petition directly to President Jefferson Davis “with an earnest request that the further abstraction of men from your district be suspended.” The question soon became moot as the war ground to a close and conditions in the rice districts degenerated into chaos in the wake of emancipation.36 36. Scarborough, Overseer, 139–41; Charleston Daily Courier, Jan. 15, 1862; Petition for the Exemption of Overseers from Military Service, 1864, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 278–79; Adele Allston to “My dear Ben,” June 30, 1864; F. W. Heriot to “Dear Madam,” Nov. 14, 1864, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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Just as the relations between Allston and most of his overseers were marked by stability and mutual respect, so too were those between Allston and his factors. Indeed, members of the Allston family conducted their business affairs primarily through a single Charleston factorage house for more than a half-century. Following the death of Allston’s father in 1809, his mother, Charlotte Ann, relied almost exclusively on a firm headed by Charles Kershaw for financial counsel and assistance. The year before her death in 1824, Kershaw took in a new partner, J. Lewis, and for the next decade the business was known as Kershaw and Lewis. As the years passed, the name of the concern changed several times as senior partners died or retired and others were employed in their place. Thus, the firm was called Lewis and Robertson from 1835 to 1838 and then Lewis, Robertson and Thurston after Robert Thurston became a junior partner in October 1838. Eventually, Lewis and Thurston passed from the scene, and, from at least 1858 until the end of the Civil War the business was known as Robertson, Blacklock and Company. The books of that firm were destroyed by fire in February 1865, during General William T. Sherman’s occupation of Columbia, where they had been sent for safekeeping. After the war Benjamin Allston transacted his business through Thurston and Holmes, whose senior partner, Edward N. Thurston, was presumably the son or nephew of Robert Thurston.37 These factorage houses provided a number of vital services for the rice planters. Their most important functions, of course, were to market the crop, extend credit throughout the year, furnish supplies, and in general handle most of the planter’s financial affairs. The usual commission for selling the rice was 2.5 percent of the gross proceeds. Other fees such as freight, insurance, landing and weighing, and the cost of barrels and coopering usually reduced the gross proceeds by some 15 to 20 percent, perhaps more. In times of financial distress factors were equally at risk with those in the banking community. Fortunately for Allston, the managers of his Charleston factorage house were sound businessmen. Thus, in the summer of 1837, when many Charleston merchants were failing and the news from abroad was increasingly grim, commission merchant Alexan37. Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, esp. 357–439; Lewis and Robertson to Robert Allston, Sept. 1, 1838, Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 407; Thurston and Holmes to Benjamin Allston, Apr. 23, 1866, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 433–34.

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der Robertson declared flatly that “factors have no right to fail.” Expressing gratitude that his firm had “stood the Blows,” he informed Allston that the company would have “as good an average business year . . . as any other.” 38 The factors often performed other functions as well. When Robert was admitted to West Point in November 1817, for example, his mother’s factor, Charles Kershaw, arranged for a friend in New York to advance the young man $150 to purchase furniture and other necessary items for his room. Such personal services for their clients were not uncommon among commission merchants in the antebellum South. Occasionally, factors diverged from their rather dry accounts of financial matters to convey information on other events within their purview. Thus, in January 1864, as Federal guns on Morris and James islands escalated their shelling of Charleston, Allston’s factor, who had remained in the city, provided a vivid description of the ensuing chaos: “You will no doubt have heard that the Shells have reached as high as John Street . . . and also Charlotte St. . . . The cars for the last 3 evenings have been filled to overflowing . . . with men women and children who have been shelled out [of] their homes. It is truly sad.” Sad, indeed, but unfortunately for Allston and his neighbors, the destructive projectiles pounding Charleston were but a prelude to the calamities that would soon befall Allston, his family, his state, and his fledgling nation.39 The collaborative efforts of slaves, overseers, and commission merchants combined to produce handsome profits for Allston and many of his fellow Georgetown rice planters. The records concerning acreage, crop yield, and net profits for the Allston plantations are spotty at best, and one can only draw conclusions for scattered individual years. Further complicating efforts to develop a meaningful analysis is the fact that production figures were given variously in pounds, bushels, and barrels.40 In his “Memoir on Rice Planting,” published in 1846, Allston calculated the value of a rice crop 38. Account Sales, Robertson, Blacklock & Company, for Benjamin Allston, 1860; Account Sales, Robertson, Blacklock & Company, for R.F.W. Allston, Aug. 4, 6, 1863, Factors’ Letters, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Alexander Robertson to Robert F. W. Allston, July 14, 1837, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 393–94. 39. Charles Kershaw to Charlotte Ann Allston, Dec. 30, 1817, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 366; Scarborough, Masters of the Big House, 157–59; Robertson, Blacklock & Company to R.F.W. Allston, Jan. 19, 1863 [sic—1864], Factors’ Letters, in Allston Papers, SCHS. 40. In calculating dry measurements for rice, there were forty-five pounds in a bushel and twenty bushels in a barrel.

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at $140 per hand per annum. The average annual price of Carolina rice remained relatively stable during the first six decades of the nineteenth century, ranging from a low of 2¢ per pound in 1814, when trade was cut off during the War of 1812, to highs of 7¢ a pound in 1817 and 6¢ a pound in 1805, when Nathaniel Heyward laid the foundation for his vast rice empire by reaping a profit of $120,000. The average price during the 1850s was between 2.9 and 4.3¢ per pound. These are average figures and do not take into account the unusually high quality of the rice produced on the Allston plantations. Thus, in 1839, in the midst of the most severe antebellum economic depression, Allston sold one lot of 3,500 bushels of rough rice for 8¢ a pound, yielding net proceeds of just over $3,000 (equivalent to $71,400 in current dollars).41 Although Allston never approached the fabulous profits realized by the legendary Nathaniel Heyward during the first two decades of the century, he fared very well. William Dusinberre has estimated that his net income in 1853 was $35,000 (equivalent to $1 million in current dollars). Six years later, when all six of his plantations were in operation, Allston’s rice crop was estimated at 1.5 million pounds, which, at 3.2¢ per pound, yielded gross proceeds of $48,000. This represented a dramatic increase over the 840,000 pounds he had produced a decade earlier and led historian George C. Rogers Jr. to characterize him as the largest rice planter on the Pee Dee. The only plantation for which complete data is available is Nightingale Hall for the year 1858. On that plantation there were a total of 625 acres under cultivation, 370 in rice and 255 in such provision crops as peas, potatoes, corn, oats, and turnips. From the 370 acres planted in rice, Allston made between 17,000 and 18,000 bushels, or approximately 47 bushels per acre.42 It should be noted that in any given year the profits from rice planting were subject to the vicissitudes of both the weather and the market. The 41. Allston, “Memoir on Planting of Rice,” 338; Duncan Clinch Heyward, Seed from Madagascar (Chapel Hill, 1937), 43n; Scarborough, Masters of the Big House, 13; Rogers, History of Georgetown County, 339; Lewis, Robertson and Thurston to R.F.W. Allston, Dec. 31, 1839, in Allston Papers Accession, SCHS. 42. Dusinberre, Them Dark Days, 285; Rogers, History of Georgetown County, 301, 339; Statement of Crop, Nightingale Hall, 1858, R.F.W. Outgoing Correspondence, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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decade of the 1830s was a particularly difficult one for the Georgetown planters. Thus, in August 1830 a newspaper in Georgetown reported that a severe gale had materially damaged the rice and corn crops in the area. “Many of our planters, we are informed, will not make more than half a crop and some not more than a fifth.” According to this source, “The tide at some places in the Waccamaw, rose four feet above the ricefield banks,” thereby flooding the fields with saltwater. Two years later the crops in Georgetown were adversely affected by an attack of worms together with a prolonged drought. As a consequence of the latter, saltwater had encroached “as high up as the confluence of the Black and Waccamaw Rivers.” Later in the decade it was not the weather but market conditions that caused problems for the rice growers. Writing from Charleston in October 1839 in the midst of the financial chaos engendered by the Panic of 1837, Allston’s factor declared that the rice market was in “a most wretched condition.” Not a single buyer had appeared for some time. “Parcel after parcel is landed and stored,” he continued, “and we begin to feel considerable fear and dread that the new Crop will interfere materially with the remainder of the old, not yet disposed of.” Happily, the market rebounded by the close of the year, and, as noted earlier, Allston was able to sell one parcel at the record price of eight cents a pound. In other years conditions were more propitious for Allston and his neighbors. In the summer of 1846 a correspondent from Georgetown reported that the crops in that area were very promising, citing as an example “a head of very fine rice plucked on Col. R.F.W. Allston’s exchange plantation.” Some years later Ben Allston announced optimistically that he had just commenced a promising harvest on his recently acquired Guendalos plantation. “We watch the heavens with anxious eyes,” he observed cautiously, “and devoutly wish for good weather.” So too did all the planters in Georgetown District.43 The rice produced on the Allston plantations was of such exceptional quality that Robert Allston earned an international reputation as one of the premier rice growers in the United States, receiving awards for his superior rice at fairs and exhibitions on the local, state, and international 43. Charleston Mercury, Aug. 16, 23 (quotation), 1830; July 25 (quotation), Aug. 3, 1832; Robertson and Thurston to R.F.W. Allston, Oct. 2, 1839, in Allston Papers Accession; Benjamin Allston to “My dear Henrietta” [Simons], Aug. 28, 1860, Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Winyah Observer, July 15, 1846.

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levels. Most notable was his showing in 1855 at the Universal Exhibition in Paris, where he won two medals for his outstanding rice samples. In a report to the governor William Elliott, the South Carolina commissioner to the exhibition, singled out Allston for special commendation. Expressing profound satisfaction with the agricultural products from South Carolina exhibited in Paris, Elliott noted that “the long grained rice grown and prepared by Col. Allston of Chicora, obtained a premium . . . and the sea island cottons, were only equalled, if equalled at all, by the cottons of Algeria grown from the Carolina seed.” A decade earlier Allston had received the premium for rice at the annual meeting of the State Agricultural Society in Columbia. Shortly before the war he claimed another prize, this one an honorable mention for a sample of rough rice submitted to the Ninth Annual Fair of the South Carolina Institute, also held in Columbia. Thus, Allston was a consistent prizewinner during the last two decades of the antebellum period.44 Allston received premiums for other agricultural products from local and state societies of which he was a member. He was particularly active in the Winyah and All Saints Agricultural Society, serving as its curator and corresponding secretary in the 1840s and as its vice president in the 1850s. In 1844 he was awarded three silver medals by the society: for best milch cow, best ram, and best pair of lambs. The following year he won a premium for the best pair of pigs and presented reports on the culture of rice and potatoes, both of which were recorded in the journals of the society. His rice experiment yielded a rate of 78.75 bushels per acre, and his potato experiment on a field measuring 150 by 300 feet yielded 283 bushels of yams. Both of the experiments were conducted at Chicora Wood.45 Allston was also an active member of the State Agricultural Society, which held its annual meeting in Columbia each November while the 44. R.F.W. Allston to William Elliott, Jan. 8, 24, 1855; William Elliott to Governor J. H. Adams, Nov. 22, 1855; in Elliott and Gonzales Family Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill; James L. Petigru to R.F.W. Allston, Apr. 3, 1855, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 123; William M. Mathew, ed., Agriculture, Geology, and Society in Antebellum South Carolina: The Private Diary of Edmund Ruffin, 1843 (Athens, Ga., 1992), 298; Charleston Mercury, Dec. 5, 1844; Winyah Observer, Dec. 7, 1844; Charleston Daily Courier, Nov. 30, 1859. 45. Winyah Observer, Apr. 27, 1844; Apr. 26, 1845; Apr. 22, 1846; Pee Dee Times, Apr. 25, 1855; Apr. 22, 1857; May 19, 1858.

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legislature was in session. At the 1840 meeting he was named to the committees on cattle and rice. The following year, when Edisto Island cotton planter and future governor Whitemarsh B. Seabrook was elected president, Allston was chosen as one of the five vice presidents of the society. As his reputation grew, he was selected to deliver the principal address at the society’s semiannual meeting in Aiken in July 1846. Allston continued to play a leading role with the society throughout the remainder of the antebellum period. He also served as a judge of agricultural products at the annual fairs of the South Carolina Institute in the late 1850s.46 Allston’s participation in agricultural societies and fairs extended far beyond the borders of the Palmetto State. In the fall of 1843 he was invited to chair the horse committee and to deliver a supper speech at the State Agricultural Fair in Rochester, New York. He was apparently quite a hit. A correspondent of the Spirit of the Times reported that “his speech was most beautiful—most beautifully delivered” and “was received with thundering applause.” He concluded that the Carolinian “was a marked favorite of the company” as well as with “every one who had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with him at the Fair.” Doubtless the conciliatory tone of his address contributed to his popularity with the New Yorkers. In extending a warm “Carolina welcome” to his audience, Allston pleaded for “more frequent mutual intercourse” between people in both sections of the country. “We shall think better of each other, better of the institutions under which we respectively live,” he continued, “and, if need be, with a free and firm will, we shall unite heart and hand in repelling . . . insidious hostile approaches against them.” It is unlikely that Allston would have been as amicable a few years later as sectional tensions intensified. Still, while attending the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Philadelphia in the fall of 1856, he took time out to explore with interest what he termed the “grand Exhibition” of the United States Agricultural Society.47 Allston also gained great renown as an agricultural essayist. His first notable essay, “Memoir of the Introduction and Planting of Rice in South46. Charleston Mercury, Dec. 11, 1840; Nov. 29, 1841; Dec. 2, 1845; Charleston Daily Courier, Nov. 1, 1855; Oct. 28, 1857; Nov. 15, 1859. 47. Winyah Observer, Nov. 11 (first quotations), 22 (second quotations), 1843; Allston to “My dear Adele,” Oct. 11, 1856, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Allston to Adele, Oct. 19, 1856, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 134.

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Carolina,” was prepared at the request of the noted Virginia agricultural reformer Edmund Ruffin, who had been commissioned by Governor James H. Hammond to conduct an agricultural survey of the Palmetto State in 1843. When he presented the essay to Ruffin that November, Allston confided to his wife that the reformer seemed “to be pleased with it” and had promised that he would include it in his report to the legislature. Basically a comprehensive discussion of the introduction, cultivation, price, and milling of rice in South Carolina, the tract was subsequently published in De Bow’s Review. According to one writer, Allston’s essay on rice culture “is still considered the best scientific treatise on the subject of the tidal cultivation of rice.” Several years later, in response to an inquiry from Thomas Eubanks, commissioner of patents, Allston elaborated on the system of fallow and rotation that he had inaugurated in 1837–38. This system, employed principally by Allston and neighboring Georgetown planters Joshua John Ward and Edward T. Heriot, had been greatly improved by “manuring the fallow with Rice-straw, Rice-chaff, & even Rice-flour” and was “one of the chief means of producing the beautiful ‘Long-grain’ rice,” which commanded a higher price than the ordinary small-grain type and was “the choicest variety now cultivated” in the region.48 Allston’s other important agricultural treatise, “Sea-Coast Crops of the South,” was read before the Agricultural Association of the Planting States in 1854 and, like his essay on rice culture, was later published in De Bow’s Review. In this piece Allston called for an agricultural and geological survey of each state, offered an excellent description of rice and sea island cotton culture, and concluded with a spirited defense of slavery. After discussing in detail the five-month cycle between sowing in early April and the beginning of harvest in early September, Allston estimated that a well-run rice plantation should yield an average annual profit of 8 percent. With respect to those who labored in the rice fields, Allston contended that they were well fed, clothed, and housed and were well cared for in sickness and old age. “They are for the most part healthy and cheerful,” he 48. R.F.W. Allston, “Memoir of the Introduction and Planting of Rice in South-Carolina,” De Bow’s Review 1 (Apr. 1846): 320–57; William M. Mathew, ed., Agriculture, Geology and Society in Antebellum South Carolina, 298; Devereux, Life and Times, 114; Allston to “Dear Adele,” Nov. 30, 1843; Allston to Hon. Thomas Eubanks, Commissioner of Patents, Jan. 4, 1851 [misfiled in folder 21], in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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asserted, “and, when well trained, are very efficient laborers.” Above all, he argued, the optimal system of management should be one of “justice, tempered by kindness.” Several years later Allston’s son Benjamin, then commencing his own career as a rice planter, wrote a short piece for De Bow’s in which he outlined the daily tasks and weekly food allowances for adult hands on a rice plantation. The younger Allston claimed that “industrious” workers could complete their tasks by 3:00 or 4:00 p.m. each day. Little did father and son realize that the idyllic portrait they painted would soon be shattered forever as their plantation empire came crashing down.49 49. R.F.W. Allston, “Sea-Coast Crops of the South,” De Bow’s Review 16 (June 1854): 589–615; Benjamin Allston, “Notes on the Management of a Southern Rice Estate,” De Bow’s Review 24 (Apr. 1858): 324–26.

4

 church and school Robert Allston’s Religious and Educational Contributions I . . . beg you to unite with me in beseeching our common Father in Heaven so to train us both, by gentle . . . discipline, to keep the paths in which he would have us walk, and so to conduct ourselves in this life, as ultimately to meet & rejoin each other, in the Heaven of that better life to come. —R.F.W. Allston to Adele Allston, October 12, 1850 [Education] begins with the dawn of sense, when the cherub infant is affected by a frown of displeasure, or a smile of approbation, & lisps the first word intelligible to the mother’s heart. . . . In all civilized countries this subject excites the liveliest interest & prompts the most anxious enquiry. —R.F.W. Allston, Address to Winyah Indigo Society, May 5, 1854 I hope you find your school life tolerably pleasant and that you endeavour to improve your time. It is a great privilege to have it in one’s power to acquire a liberal education and to form a taste for liberal pursuits. There is a great difference between the educated man and the uneducated as you will readily see by using your own observation. —Adele Allston to son Charles, February 26, 1861

n addition to his role as a planter-politician, Robert Allston was also a prominent lay leader in the Protestant Episcopal Church and a strong proponent of free schools for children of all social classes. His service to the Episcopal Church, the preferred denomination of planter aristocrats on the Atlantic coast, is scarcely surprising, but his lifelong crusade in support of public education in the Palmetto State is more difficult to explain. Because of his latter commitment, together with his perennial leadership of the Winyah Indigo Society, which had for many years operated a school for the poor in Georgetown District, Allston has been cited by at least one distinguished historian as the premier exemplar

I

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of the quality of noblesse oblige among members of the upper class in the Old South.1 There is no doubt that the Allstons were a deeply religious family. Both Robert and Adele exhibited their piety on numerous occasions, and after the war their eldest son, Benjamin, abandoned a planting career to study theology and enter the Episcopalian ministry. Chief among those who exerted a positive influence on Robert was the Reverend Alexander Glennie, a native of England, who served for many years as rector of All Saints Parish. When, for example, Allston expressed concern in 1843 about a void in his spiritual life following the tragic deaths of two of his children, Glennie offered this advice: “The good Lord grant that your eyes may be continually more open to the extent of these dangers. And that it may be so, take always with you our Saviours charge, ‘watch & pray lest ye enter into temptation’ . . . if we would make sure progress in the spiritual life, & pass unharmed thro’ the temptations of this world, the flesh, & the devil, sufficient time must be set apart daily for reading, meditation, selfexamination, & prayer.”2 Robert and his family endeavored to follow the counsel of Reverend Glennie. Daily prayer, meditation, and readings from the Bible became routine activities in the Allston household. Even when absent from home, Robert did not neglect his religious obligations. Thus, while still mourning the loss of his beloved five-year-old daughter Fanny on a visit to New York in the fall of 1843, he turned for solace both to his “saviour” and to his wife. “Having gone to church this morning, although it rain’d, and communed with my saviour—Thank God for the privelege [sic]!” he wrote, “I turn to you as the next object of my affections.” While at church, he had encountered a familiar face that reminded him of “our dear child . . . with all her winning childishness in almost lifelike reality.” The experience was quite emotional for the grieving father. “My heart was melted,” he concluded sadly, “and I loo’k for your eyes and felt for your hand, desiring sympathy.” Several years later, while attending a church convention in Cincinnati, Allston again manifested his deep religious faith in an affectionate 1. Scarborough, Masters of the Big House, 53–54; Clement Eaton, A History of the Old South: The Emergence of a Reluctant Nation, 3rd ed. (New York, 1975), 393. 2. Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 81n; Alexander Glennie to R.F.W. Allston, Sept. 5, 1843, Robert Francis Withers Allston Paper, in SHC.

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letter to Adele. “Oh! My sweet wife,” he began, “how invaluable a habit to acquire is that of cheerful acquiescence, certain submission & resignation to [the] will of God.” He begged her to join him “in beseeching our common Father in Heaven” to guide both of them along “the paths in which he would have us walk, and so to conduct ourselves in this life, as ultimately to meet & rejoin each other, in the Heaven of that better life to come.”3 As peace gave way to war in the early 1860s, the faith of the Allstons and other believers was severely tested. Nevertheless, despite an escalating series of military reverses, they continued to rely upon prayer and on the conviction that an omnipotent God would ultimately crown their cause with success. Particularly illuminating was Allston’s reaction to a day of fasting proclaimed by President Jefferson Davis shortly after the twin disasters at Gettysburg and Vicksburg in the summer of 1863. “Is not the President’s proclamation of a fast that of the submission in prostration of a nation thro’ its Chief, under the chartering hand of almighty God?” he asked. “I cannot but think,” he added optimistically, “that if the people submit and pray in the like spirit & faith the wrath of our Governor will be appeased & a blessing granted, to our relief.” As Allston saw it, the fate of the Confederacy clearly rested with God. Nor did the emotional trauma engendered by the war deter Adele Allston from impressing upon fourteen-year-old Charles the importance of religious commitment. After admonishing her young son to be diligent in his studies, she urged him “to remember God in all your ways. Let your daily prayer be ‘Give me a clean heart & a right mind,’ ” she counseled, “and when you pray for it strive to attain it.”4 If Robert Allston exhibited sincere piety in his private life, he put his principles into practice by making substantial financial contributions to his church and by serving in a variety of church offices on the parish, state, and national levels. In addition to regular donations to his home church, Prince Frederick’s Chapel, Pee Dee, he made periodic contributions to support the minister of that church. In 1841, for example, he paid $650 to support J. B. Gallagher as the minister for that year. In the same 3. Robert Allston to “My Dear Wife,” Oct. 1, 1843; Allston to “My Dear Adele,” Oct. 12, 1850, in Allston Papers, SCHS. 4. Scarborough, Masters of the Big House, 63–64; Robert Allston to “My Dear Wife,” Aug. 2, 1863; Adele Allston to “My dear Charles,” Aug. 10, 1862, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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year he contributed $127 to the “Bishop’s Fund.” A year earlier Allston gave $50 to Trinity Church in Society Hill, to be used “in such way as the Vestry and Wardens may think will be for the interest of the Church.” Records for later years are missing, but Allston doubtless continued this pattern of sustained giving throughout his life.5 More important than Allston’s financial contributions to the church was his longtime service as an Episcopal lay leader. That service began at least as early as 1841, when he was chosen as a warden and as one of four delegates from Prince Frederick’s Chapel, Pee Dee, to the annual Diocesan Convention in Columbia. In the Protestant Episcopal Church the church officers in each parish consisted of two wardens and a variable number of vestrymen, usually about six, who were elected each April by the church members. These officers, together with the rector, constituted the vestry, which had general oversight over the temporal affairs of the parish. At the annual meeting, in which church officers were chosen, delegates were also elected to represent the parish at the Diocesan Convention. For more than two decades Allston and his friend and neighbor Dr. James R. Sparkman were routinely elected by their parishioners to both the office of warden and as delegates to the state convention. Allston’s son Benjamin joined him as a convention delegate in 1860.6 By the 1850s Allston had achieved such stature as a church leader that he was elected annually by the Diocese of South Carolina to represent that body as a lay delegate at the triennial meetings of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church. The national conference met in October in major cities throughout the country. Accordingly, Allston was chosen as a lay deputy to the General Convention at Cincinnati in 1850, New York in 1853, Philadelphia in 1856, and Richmond in 1859. He was also one of three lay delegates from the Diocese of South Carolina elected to the 1862 General Convention, but the war precluded his partici5. Receipts dated Waccamaw, Sept. 15, 1839; Charleston, Feb. 6, 1841; Pee Dee, May 6, 1841; Oct. 20, 1840 signed John Dewitt (quotation), in Allston Papers Accession, SCHS. 6. Winyah Observer, Apr. 28, 1841; Apr. 13, 1842; May 6, 1846; Pee Dee Times, Apr. 13, 1853; Apr. 18, 1855; Apr. 22, 1857; May 19, 1858; Charleston Daily Courier, Apr. 20, May 17, 18, 1860; Feb. 14, 15, May 5, 1862; Feb. 12, 14, 1863; All Saints Church, Waccamaw Vestry Journal, 1844–71, SHC; Mary North Allston to Caroline Pettigrew, Oct. 19, 30, 1861; Jane G. North to “My dear Carey,” Oct. 22, 1861, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC.

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pation. These trips to major Northern cities during the 1850s frequently afforded Allston an opportunity to attend other meetings and to take care of personal affairs outside the convention. Thus, in 1850 he went first to West Point to counsel Ben, then completing his first year at the U.S. Military Academy, before proceeding to Cincinnati, where he visited the State Fair and Horticultural Exhibition during his free time. Three years later Adele accompanied her husband to the convention, which was held at Trinity Church in New York with twenty-six bishops and nearly six hundred clergymen in attendance. The Allstons took advantage of this trip to visit the celebrated Crystal Palace in New York. While attending the Philadelphia conference in 1856, Allston not only found time to attend the exhibits of the United States Agricultural Society but he also spent a day in Lancaster with Democratic presidential nominee James Buchanan. Much to his delight and surprise, he was favorably impressed with both Buchanan and other members of the Democratic Party whom he met on this excursion.7 But of all the national Episcopal conventions attended by Allston in the 1850s, the Richmond meeting in 1859 afforded him his most conspicuous role. At the convention the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies appointed a committee of one from each diocese “to consult together, and suggest the proper means and modes by which the Laity of the Church might cooperate with the reverend Clergy” in supporting the efforts of the church to promote “the cause of Christ.” Allston represented the Diocese of South Carolina on that committee and outlined his suggestions in a three-page letter directed in December 1859 to Samuel B. Ruggles, the original chair of the committee. In response to a resolution introduced at the Richmond convention that emphasized the importance of expanding “the number of faithful and judicious ministers” in order to advance the cause of the Gospel, Allston suggested that this goal might be attained by the “intelligent and faithful home-training” of boys, the employment of “honest, faithful, and judicious teachers in the schools,” and the endowment of scholarships 7. Allston to “My Dear Adele,” Oct. 3, 5, 12, 1850; Adele to Ben, Oct. 10, 29, 1853; Allston to “My Dear Adele,” Sept. 27, Oct. 11, 1856, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Allston to Adele, Oct. 19, 1856, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 134–35; Certificate from General Episcopal Convention in Richmond, House of Clerical & Lay Deputies, Oct. 20, 1859, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Charleston Daily Courier, Feb. 15, 1862.

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“in every university and college for the education of young men, who will devote themselves to this sacred calling.” 8 Allston then proceeded to elaborate on each of these proposals. With respect to the first practice, he argued that “lessons of Christian philosophy and charity” must be taught in the home “by a sensible, just, and cheerful father” and by a “tender, devoted and intelligent mother.” Next, he asserted that the cardinal principles in school governance should be “truth among all, and under every circumstance, justice to all, both high and low, and a habitual reference to the will of God” in all cases involving discipline. Finally, he urged the creation of scholarships and endowed professorships to educate “promising young men for the ministry,” and he lauded the “new design” of Sewanee, the college in East Tennessee that had just been established for that purpose. He also recommended that a “training school” be formed in each diocese “to prepare young men to profit most by education at the universities.”9 It is not surprising that Allston’s emphasis upon education in promoting the development of a more effective ministry within the Episcopal Church should extend to secular education as well. For more than a quarter-century he labored zealously and unceasingly, first as a state senator and later as governor, to establish a comprehensive free school system in the Palmetto State—all to no avail. Thus, despite his efforts, South Carolina lagged far behind other Southern states in constructing a viable public school system before the end of the Civil War. Both Robert and Adele Allston were strong advocates of what would be termed today a liberal arts education. They emphasized the importance of cultivating within the youth of the state such meritorious qualities as truth, industry, virtue, taste, and critical thinking. As was the case with many other members of the Southern elite, they placed an additional emphasis on the classics. Thus, while conceding to son Ben, a recent graduate of West Point, that he need not be “ashamed” of the education he had received there, Allston observed that his own experience in life had taught him that “however thorough a man’s scientific education may be, a sub8. Charleston Daily Courier, Oct. 26, 1859; “Contributions to the Lay Committee of the General Convention” (Philadelphia, 1860), 1, 21–22, annotated by R.F.W. Allston. 9. R.F.W. Allston, in “Contributions to the Lay Committee of the General Convention,” 22–23.

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sequent acquaintance with the classics, and especially daily & familiar intercourse with literary gentlemen gifted with classical taste & refinement imparts a polish to the manners and a style to the conversation that is universally acknowledged to be an advantage through life, particularly in high life, to which all educated gentlemen aspire.” Several years later, in declining an invitation to attend a Fourth of July celebration at a neighboring church, Allston revealed more about his attitude toward education when he conveyed his hope for the children of the congregation: “Let us educate our sons & daughters to rely, under Providence, on their own intelligence & truth—to cherish habits of thorough investigation, industry and virtue.” Adele clearly shared her husband’s views on the value of education. Thus, when counseling her youngest son, Charles, on the eve of the Civil War, she reminded him that it was “a great privilege to have it in ones power to acquire a liberal education and to form a taste for liberal pursuits.” She urged him to “do nothing half way.” “In whatever you undertake,” she continued, “be in earnest and do it with all your might.”10 Unfortunately, most children in the Palmetto State did not have the opportunity to benefit from the type of education envisioned by the Allstons. The most comprehensive statement of Allston’s views on the deficiencies of the free school system in his state and on his proposals for reform was contained in a report that he presented to the State Agricultural Society in Columbia in the fall of 1846. In this report Allston first reviewed the history of free schools in South Carolina, beginning with the activities of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and such eighteenth-century private associations as the South Carolina Society (chartered 1751), the Winyah Indigo Society (chartered 1757), and the Charleston Fellowship Society (organized 1762). It was not until 1811, however, that the legislature formally established a free school system in the state, but that law was never implemented. A second act, entitled “An Act Concerning the Free Schools,” was passed in 1835, but, according to Allston, it had proved to be “comparatively inoperative.” At the time of this report the South Carolina free school system was administered by a board of commissioners, ranging in number from three to thirteen members in each election district. Members of the board were chosen for three-year terms by joint resolution 10. Robert Allston to “My Dear Ben,” June 20, 1856; Allston to “Gentlemen” [G. L. Strait, O. Barber, and W. A. Pedling], May 30, 1859; Adele Allston to “My dear Charles,” Feb. 26, 1861, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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of the legislature. State support for the system was minimal, amounting to a paltry annual appropriation of thirty-seven thousand dollars in the mid-1840s.11 As Allston saw it, there were at least four major deficiencies in the present system: the lack of centralized control, inadequate financial support from both state and local governments, the absence of a normal school to train teachers, and the lack of any means to supply books to the schools. As a consequence of the meager public support, there were only nine thousand students enrolled in the free schools of the Palmetto State, while the number of white school-age children was eight times as great. Moreover, census figures revealed that there were more than twenty thousand illiterate whites in the state.12 Allston then proceeded to list a series of measures that he believed would, in large part, remedy these deficiencies in the state’s public school system. First, he proposed that instruction in orthography, reading, writing, English grammar, geography, and arithmetic be made mandatory in all elementary schools and that “the books and other means for teaching them, should be procured at a Press Within the State, at the expense of the district fund for the Schools of that district.” Second, after noting the paucity of professional teachers, he urged the establishment of a normal school with a model school attached to it. Next, observing that the current state appropriation for school support was woefully “inadequate to carry out the system as herein proposed, or indeed as at present existing,” he recommended that the several boards of commissioners levy taxes upon the inhabitants of each district to raise “a sum equal to that which its Commissioners received from the State at large” to fund free schools in that district. Finally, in order to ensure the success of his proposed system, Allston urged the appointment of a full-time, well-compensated superintendent of education, “an active, intelligent, discreet and efficient officer,” who would “examine the System in all its features, compare it with others, observe the results of its operation in all parts of the State,” and then communicate his findings and recommendations to members of the legislature.13 11. R.F.W. Allston, “Report on the Free School System,” presented to State Agricultural Society, Columbia, Nov. 26, 1846, 4–8, 14. 12. Allston, “Report on the Free School System,” 10–11, 14. 13. Allston, “Report on the Free School System,” 11 (first quotation), 14–15 (second quotation), 16 (last quotation).

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For more than twenty years Allston sought, largely in vain, to implement these and other educational reforms while serving in the state legislature and ultimately in the office of governor. But he was not alone. Just two days before Allston submitted his report on the free schools, Governor William Aiken, also a wealthy rice planter, pleaded with the legislature to address the flaws in “the very imperfect, and I might almost add, useless system, under which our Free Schools are at present conducted.” More specifically, Aiken called for the “appointment of an officer, whose duty it shall be to exercise a direct and vigilant superintendency” over the public school system. Another member of the planter elite, Allston’s fellow Georgetown rice baron Plowden C. J. Weston, also recognized the crucial importance of universal public education. Writing to Allston in the summer of 1862, while still serving in General P.G.T. Beauregard’s Army of the Mississippi and just before his election as lieutenant governor, Weston defiantly asserted that there should be no peace “except on the basis of independence.” Once that was attained, he considered “a system of education which would give every girl & boy the right to instruction gratis” to be “a sine qua non” of the new society. Nevertheless, despite the efforts of such members of the elite as Aiken and Weston, it was Allston, more than any other, who campaigned persistently for educational reforms in the state during the last two decades of the antebellum period.14 Allston’s crusade to improve the public school system in the Palmetto State began at least as early as 1838, when he introduced a resolution in the State Senate proposing an inquiry “into the Free School System.” He was subsequently appointed to a legislative committee charged with revising that system, and in the summer of 1839 he submitted the committee’s report, which was later published in successive issues of the Charleston Mercury. In preparing his report, Allston had solicited information from prominent individuals throughout the state concerning the operation of free schools in their districts. In response to such an inquiry Congressman John Campbell of Marlborough District wrote that, as far as he could learn from his constituents, he was “disposed to think that the Free School System does not in its operation equal either the probable expectation of 14. Winyah Observer, Dec. 2, 1846; Plowden C. J. Weston to Robert Allston, June 30, 1862, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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its friends at the time of its institution or the wishes of the Community.” Campbell placed much of the blame on parents, many of whom did not allow their children “to remain at school but a few days at a time.” Nevertheless, he praised Allston for his initiative in seeking school reform. “The general diffusion of education among the children of the poor,” he observed, “is one of the most interesting objects that can occupy a benevolent mind, or give energy to the exertions of a patriot statesman.” “Most cordially do I wish success to the cause,” he concluded emphatically.15 Beginning in 1840, Allston regularly introduced bills calling for the appointment of a state superintendent of education, but these bills were just as regularly rejected by the legislature. The excuse in 1840 was that, as a consequence of the economic depression of 1837, the state treasury was “at a low ebb,” and members were afraid “to vote away any money, lest they be call’d to account by their constituents.” The following year Allston met that objection by proposing to fund the new officer through a deduction of twenty dollars “from the [education] fund allowed to each district and Parish in the State.” This bill passed the Senate “by a very large majority,” but it was defeated in the House, where opposition to educational reform was more pronounced. In 1843 Allston’s “favorite measure—namely the appointment of a Superintendent of the Free schools,” was again rejected after a lengthy and spirited debate, this time by a vote of twenty-seven to sixteen in the Senate and seventy-one to forty-one in the House. The following year his school bill was tabled in the Senate even before a vote could be taken. The same pattern was repeated year after year.16 Allston’s other educational initiatives fared no better. In 1848, while serving as chair of the Education Committee, Allston sharply criticized the quality of teachers in the free schools and introduced a bill to train twentyfour teachers at two of the leading academies in the state. Pointing out that Massachusetts educated some two hundred teachers at its normal schools each year, Allston asked only that his plan be tried. As usual, however, the 15. Charleston Mercury, Dec. 1, 1838; printed document from Governor Patrick Noble, Mar. 6, 1839; John F. Reid to Robert Allston, July 26, 1839; Hon. John Campbell to Allston, Aug. 23, 1839, in Allston Papers Accession, SCHS 16. R.F.W. Allston to “My Dear Adele,” Dec. 12, 1840; Dec. 10, 1843 (quotations), in Allston Papers, SCHS; Charleston Mercury, Dec. 9, 14 (quotations), 1841; Dec. 12, 1843; Dec. 14, 1844.

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bill failed, and it was not until 1857 that the legislature finally authorized the establishment of a normal school in the state. Allston’s other major educational reform, that of empowering school districts to levy taxes to match the state appropriation to each district, met a similar fate. Such a bill was defeated in 1855. Three years earlier Allston had actually voted against a proposal to increase the state appropriation for the Free School Fund, explaining that he was opposed to any increase in that fund “until the citizens of each District raise, by taxation levied on themselves, [an amount] equal to that which they receive from the State Treasury.” 17 Allston continued his efforts to reform the free school system of South Carolina after his election as governor in 1856. He enjoyed one immediate success the following year, when the legislature authorized the commissioners of free schools in Charleston to establish and conduct “a Normal School for the training of female teachers for the State at large, in connection with a Female High School” for the parishes of St. Philip’s and St. Michael’s. The school would be erected and furnished through matching grants of ten thousand dollars each from the state and the two parishes and maintained thereafter by annual contributions of five thousand dollars each from the same two entities. The school would be free for up to fifteen qualified females from each congressional district. Aided by a donation of three thousand dollars from the Fellowship Society of Charleston, the commissioners purchased a lot on the west side of St. Philip Street, and construction soon began. Finally, in mid-May 1859 the Female High and Normal School opened amid much fanfare with just over forty students, far below the number authorized. It had two separate departments, one for the general education of girls and the other to train them as teachers. Although others had also supported the concept of formal training for teachers, Allston could well feel gratified that one of his long-sought goals had finally been realized.18 Governor Allston devoted a significant portion of his last annual message to the legislature to the subject of education. He began by applauding the spread of academies and high schools, many of them for girls, “upon whose moral and mental, as well as physical development, depend 17. Charleston Daily Courier, Dec. 18, 1848; Dec. 15, 1852; Devereux, Life and Times, 210. 18. Charleston Daily Courier, Jan. 6 (quotation), Apr. 30, 1858; May 7, 18, 20, 1859.

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so much the future welfare of society.” He also praised the greater support for free schools and pointed particularly to “the improved system of instruction which is successfully pursued under the direction of the Board of St. Philip’s and St. Michael’s.” The first public school in Charleston had opened in June 1856 on St. Philip Street, the same street on which the normal school was located. Funded by a local annual tax of ten thousand dollars, it was designed to accommodate seven hundred pupils. In announcing the opening of Charleston’s first free school, Christopher G. Memminger, chairman of the board of commissioners for St. Philip’s and St. Michael’s, had explained its purpose. “The fundamental principle of this system,” he declared, “is that the children of the entire community shall be educated in public schools at public expense, that there shall be no discrimination between rich and poor, and that the same thorough education shall be given to all classes so long as they remain in school.” Remarking that the Charleston free school was worthy of emulation, the governor invited teachers from throughout the state to visit the port city during the first week in June to observe the practical operation of the school. At the invitation of Memminger, always a strong proponent of public education, Allston later served on the board of visitors of the Charleston free schools.19 In his message to the legislature Allston also recommended the establishment of a second normal school, this one to be located in the upper or middle part of the state. Next he turned his attention to higher education. Observing that South Carolina College was now in a “flourishing condition” following student unrest the previous March, he called for greater diversity in higher education. In the past education had been limited to the learned professions, but individuals engaged in the arts, agriculture, and commerce should also be trained for those pursuits. Reflecting the views expressed five years earlier by James H. Thornwell, president of South Carolina College, in a letter to Governor John L. Manning, Allston believed that boys should be educated for the professions at the college, while The Citadel, the South Carolina Military Academy, would prepare its graduates for more practical callings. Finally, the governor reiterated 19. “Governor’s Message to Legislature,” Charleston Daily Courier, Nov. 23, 1858; Charleston Daily Courier, June 26, July 15 (quotation), 1856; R.F.W. Allston, “Proclamation on Free Schools,” Apr. 2, 1858; C. G. Memminger to Allston, June 21, 1859, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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his conviction that all members of society should enjoy the benefits of an education. “There is nothing which contributes so much to the elevation of the American character; nothing which proves to strangers the superiority claimed for our progressive and growing country,” he declared, “as the unanimity with which the cause of education is everywhere embraced by all descriptions of our people. . . . but to educate the people implies a system that comprehends the whole society.”20 Allston’s herculean efforts to improve the educational system in South Carolina did not go unnoticed or unappreciated. Shortly after Allston left the governor’s office, prominent Charleston attorney Mitchell King prepared a report on the free school system in that city in which he credited Allston for his role in creating it. After reading the report, the overly modest former governor asked King to delete the passage relating to him. King reluctantly acquiesced but protested that his “sole design in writing it was to do justice & honor to you in putting on record the fact that you years ago earnestly recommended to the adoption of our State, the system of Education which is now received with so much well deserved favor, a fact which, I respectfully think, ought not to be forgotten.” 21 Not only did Allston exert his influence as both state senator and governor to promote educational reforms, but he also made substantial financial contributions in the form of scholarships and essay prizes to deserving young college students. Thus, in 1854 Allston granted to the trustees of South Carolina College the sum of $6,000 to fund an annuity of $425 as a scholarship for “one poor scholar” aged seventeen to twenty-one, with preference given to boys studying for the Episcopalian ministry. The selection was to be made by Allston and his heirs upon the recommendation of the president of South Carolina College, the bishop of the diocese, the rector of Trinity Church in Columbia, and the Reverend Dr. Robert Henry, professor of Greek at the college. Allston became the fourth benefactor to endow a scholarship at the college, joining Wade Hampton III, John L. Manning, and H. Hutchinson in that worthy endeavor. One editor praised Allston’s 20. “Governor’s Message to Legislature,” Charleston Daily Courier, Nov. 23, 1858; J. H. Thornwell, “Letter to His Excellency Governor Manning on Public Instruction in South Carolina” (Columbia, 1853). 21. Mitchell King to R.F.W. Allston, June 29, 1859, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 160.

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“handsome contribution to the education of the poor” as an example of his long-held interest in education. “We know that he has long and ably advocated the importance of popular education,” he continued approvingly, “and he only adds proof that ‘actions speak louder than words.’ ”22 Recipients of the Allston scholarships were properly appreciative of the former governor’s beneficence. Early in 1859 Edward H. Buist, a recent recipient of the Allston scholarship and currently a student at the Columbia Theological Seminary, wrote to Allston to offer profuse thanks for financial assistance and also to apologize for his tardiness in repaying a subsequent loan from Allston. Allston responded with encouragement: “Go on Sir & qualify yourself in character & conduct for this high mission & you will have made me the fullest return.” Seeking to allay Buist’s concern about the loan, Allston advised him not to “let the thought of the borrowed money trouble you. When you succeed in life will be time enough.”23 In addition to scholarships and loans, Allston also sought to reward students for outstanding essays based upon research in primary sources. In March 1857 a notice appeared in the Charleston Daily Courier announcing the Allston Prizes at South Carolina College. Essays would be received until the first Monday in October, and awards of one hundred dollars each were to be given for the best lecture on the “Stability of Governments” and for “the History of the Revolution in South Carolina with especial reference to unpublished materials.” It appears that Allston was particularly fascinated with the history of the Palmetto State during the Revolution, which was designated as the only subject for the Allston Prize essay in 1858. All alumni of South Carolina College were invited to compete for the prize.24 Allston may have derived the greatest personal satisfaction in his promotion of education from his role as the perennial president of the Winyah Indigo Society in his home district of Georgetown. Organized in 1757, the society was a charitable organization whose entire income was devoted to the education of the poor in Georgetown District. Each year 22. Indenture providing scholarship for a poor scholar at South Carolina College, May 10, 1854; newspaper clipping, May 10, 1854 (quotation), in Allston Papers, SCHS; Charleston Daily Courier, Dec. 5, 1855. 23. Edward H. Buist to “My Friend & Benefactor,” Jan. 13, 1859, in Allston Papers, SCHS. 24. Charleston Daily Courier, Mar. 9, 1857; Apr. 13, 1858.

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twenty-five children were housed at the school. Occasionally, a limited number of extra scholars were admitted to the school in addition to the twenty-five whose tuition and board were paid by the society. In addition, a committee on which Allston served recommended in December 1840 that the Winyah Indigo Society “admit upon its bounty, children of the earliest age” who were “Orphans of Indigent persons” resident in Georgetown District and place them in the care of “a skilful [sic] and worthy matron,” who would rear and prepare them “to receive, when old enough, the full benefits to be derived from the Society’s School.”25 The rules of the society required a quarterly examination of the school by a select committee of the society and an annual evaluation by the full membership. The school purportedly offered “as thorough and extensive English education” as could be obtained anywhere, and it also offered instruction in the Latin and Greek languages “to those desiring it.” The featured speaker at the society’s ninety-first anniversary meeting in 1846 asserted that there were “but few, if any associations in the United States, which have for so long a succession of years perpetuated the blessing of educating the children of the poor.”26 Allston was elected president of the Indigo Society in 1842, and for at least the next sixteen years he was continuously reelected to that office. The society always held its annual anniversary meeting in Georgetown during the first week in May.27 It was customary for one of the members to deliver an appropriate address at the business session, usually held at a church or the Masonic Hall, before attendees adjourned to one of the local hotels for a sumptuous dinner and numerous standing toasts. After moving from one site to another for many years, the society finally acquired its own meeting hall in 1857 on the 102nd anniversary of its founding. According to the Pee Dee Times, the members “turned out quite strong” for the meeting. Accompanied by the children of the school, they formed a procession “at their new and spacious Hall on the corner of Prince and Common streets” and proceeded to the Masonic Hall, where an oration was delivered by B. H. Wilson, one of the officers of the society. They then 25. Winyah Observer, Apr. 21, 1841 (quotations); Jan. 11, May 6, 1843; Oct. 28, 1846. 26. Winyah Observer, Jan. 11, 1843 (first quotation); May 6, 1846 (second quotation). 27. Winyah Observer, May 7, 1842; May 6, 1843; May 4, 1844; May 3, 1845; May 6, 1846; Pee Dee Times, May 11, 1853; May 10, 1854; May 6, 1857; Charleston Daily Courier, May 8, 1857.

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returned to their new hall “for the transaction of the usual business and the election of Officers.”28 When President Allston gave the principal address at the 99th anniversary meeting of the society in 1854, he seized the occasion to elaborate once more on his philosophy of education. After observing that “in all civilized countries” the subject of education “deservedly excites the liveliest interest & prompts the most anxious enquiry,” he turned his attention to female education and, more particularly, the critical role occupied by women in society. “If ever the energy, skill & ability of American citizens, now so marvellously exemplified in accumulating wealth, be modified, purified & partially diverted to the pursuit of higher ends,” he declared, “the reform is destined to be effected by the influence of American women.” It was they who served as the moral compass of society, who trained the impressionable youth, and who mitigated the “sterner nature of man.” Consequently, continued Allston, it was “our interest . . . as well as our duty” to provide woman with “the highest improvement of which she is susceptible.” This was not to imply, however, that she should venture out of her peculiar female sphere. “Let her be thoroughly educated,” he emphasized, “not to become masculine in deportment . . . but to exercise kindly and judiciously the peculiar chastening, winning power with which God has endowed her.”29 Allston next reviewed briefly the history of the Indigo Society, noting that it had been established by “certain public spirited gentlemen” on March 7, 1755, and incorporated two years later with “royal approbation.” There were ninety-five original members, including two of Allston’s greatgrandfathers, and subscriptions and dues were paid in indigo, hence the name. For many years the society’s school was the only public school in Georgetown and one of only a few within the entire state. “I will not say that it has instructed more boys & girls than any other school in the State,” acknowledged Allston, but “it has probably been in operation as a school as steadily & continuously as any other.” Allston closed his oration by enjoining both members and pupils “to strive habitually . . . to learn some28. Winyah Observer, May 4, 1844; Pee Dee Times, May 11, 1853; May 6, 1857. 29. Pee Dee Times, May 10, 1854; R.F.W. Allston, “Address before Members and Pupils of Winyah Indigo Society,” May 5, 1854, in Allston Papers, SCHS. Original pamphlet published in Charleston by Walker, Evans & Co. Steam Power Presses in 1859.

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thing which will enable us to be more useful to others” as well as ourselves; “to think more justly of men & things, & more kindly” to one another; “to be more considerate of the peculiarities as well as the wants of individuals, more blind to their failings, less disposed to find fault, & more willing to serve them”—in brief, a state of mind that “will render us more intelligent of human responsibility, less selfish, & better fitted for a more exalted state of existence.”30 Commendable advice indeed. Allston sought to apply the same values expressed in his public addresses to the education of his own children. Thus, as early as 1838, when Ben, the eldest of the three siblings living at that time, was only five, Allston began to instruct Adele on her responsibilities as the initial mentor of their children. “Take care of your precious charge,” he counseled, and do not fail “to cultivate in them such habits of self-control and denial, as will come to their aid by and by, at a time when they must take their own stand against men, choose their own principles of action, and think, & act and manage for themselves.” A week later he delivered additional advice to his wife, beginning with a query. “Does Ben say a lesson every day?” he asked. “I hope he does & does not wait . . . for Mama to call him to his book—but comes & asks her to hear him spell & read.” “The true art of teaching,” continued the Carolina patriarch, “is to induce the child to regard his lesson not as a task” but as a pleasant experience. Many years later Allston offered advice directly to twelve-year-old Charles, then a student at Willington Academy in Abbeville District. The key to success in life, he asserted, was nothing more complex than hard work. “Whatever you learn—learn thoroughly,” wrote the elder Allston. “That is the way to make a useful man,” he continued, “and this cant be done without hard study.” Charles would find in later life that nothing worthwhile could be “accomplished without labor.” Consequently, Allston advised his son to learn this lesson while still young so that “when it shall become necessary, it wont hurt you, or find you unprepared.”31 The Allston children were schooled first at home under the watchful eyes of their mother and a governess and later in private academies for the boys and a French boarding school for the girls. In view of Robert Allston’s 30. R.F.W. Allston, “Address before Members and Pupils of Winyah Indigo Society,” 7–8, 13, 16. 31. Allston to Adele, Nov. 29, Dec. 4, 1838; Allston to “My Dear Son” [Charles], Feb. 16, 1861, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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emphasis on the importance of female education, it is not surprising that he and Adele were committed to providing the finest available education for their daughters, whose instruction began at an early age. Young Adele was introduced to French in the summer of 1849 at the age of nine, just after her brother Ben departed for West Point. Frustrated because she had not been able to devote sufficient time to her daughter’s education, Mrs. Allston persuaded her husband to engage a governess early the following year. The first to occupy that position, Miss Wells, lasted only four months, however, before returning to England to visit relatives. She was succeeded by Mary Ayme, a forty-seven-year-old Englishwoman, who tutored Adele and her younger sister, Bessie, for the next two years at an annual salary of five hundred dollars. Bessie later recalled that a tworoom cottage about three hundred yards from the Chicora Woods mansion served as their schoolhouse. There Miss Ayme instructed the Allston girls in music, drawing, French, Italian, and elementary Latin. Although the elder Adele was at first displeased with Miss Ayme because she seemed too lenient with her daughter, she concluded in the end that the “simpleminded honest-hearted woman” had been a relatively good teacher.32 Following the departure of Miss Ayme, the Allstons enrolled Adele, then aged thirteen, in a French boarding school that had just been opened by Madame Acelie Togno on Tradd Street in Charleston. Nine-year-old Bessie joined her sister the following year and remained at the school off and on until 1863. There were about twenty boarding students at the school when Bessie arrived. When she returned for her second year in October 1856, the school had been moved to a large house on Meeting Street, just a few doors from the magnificent Charleston mansion that the Allstons purchased the following year. Instruction at Madame Togno’s was in French, and the curriculum included French, history, geography, arithmetic, music, and English “in all its branches.”33 The two youngest Allston children, Charles and Jane Louise, enjoyed 32. Adele Allston to son Ben, June 14, Sept. 8, 1849; Feb. 10, Mar. 19, 1850; June 10, 1851, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Adele Allston to Mrs. R. Hamilton, May 19, 1853, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 115 (quotation); Pringle, Chronicles of Chicora Wood, 123; Pease and Pease, Family of Women, 45. 33. Pringle, Chronicles of Chicora Wood, 125–26, 129, 139, 141; Pringle, Woman Rice Planter, xvii–xviii; Pease and Pease, Family of Women, 45–46; Clements, “ ‘Great Events Have Taken Place,’ ” 313; [Adele Allston] to Miss Jennie Decker [1856], in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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similar educational opportunities. In a letter to a prospective governess in 1856 their mother summarized their progress to that date, reporting that eight-year-old Charles was reading and “beginning to write” and sixyear-old Jane had learned the alphabet. Like her older sisters, Jane also attended Madame Togno’s French boarding school, joining Bessie there after it was relocated to Barhamville during the war. Charles was a student at Octavius T. Porcher’s Willington Academy, a military school in Abbeville, before he was called into the army in the fall of 1864. Finally, the oldest of the Allston children, Ben, attended a private boys’ school in Charleston, operated by Englishman Christopher Coates, before he entered West Point in the summer of 1849. The education thus provided to the Allston children by their concerned and engaged parents prepared them well for later life, for they all enjoyed useful and productive lives upon reaching adulthood.34 34. [Adele Allston] to Miss Jennie Decker [1856]; Jane Louise Allston to “My dear Papa,” Apr. 25, 1863; Jane Louise to “My dear Mamma,” Mar. 7, 1863; Feb. 13, Mar. 12, 1864; Robert F. W. Allston to “My Dear Son” [Charles], Feb. 16, 1861; Ellen Allston to “My Darling Husband” [Ben], Nov. 18, 1864, all in Allston Papers, SCHS; Mary B. Pettigrew to “My dear Carey,” July 11, 1859; Mary B. Pettigrew to “My dear Brother,” July 14, 1859; Jane [Mrs. James L.] Petigru to unknown correspondent, Nov. 22, 1862, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC; Robert F. W. Allston to Adele Allston, Dec. 10, 1846, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 96–97.

Robert F. W. Allston. Portrait by William Kurtz. Courtesy Historic Charleston Foundation

Adele Petigru Allston. Portrait by Thomas Sully. Courtesy Mr. and Mrs. Preston Wilson, Charleston

Chicora Wood, Georgetown District From the Collections of the South Carolina Historical Society

Exterior, Nathaniel Russell House, Charleston. Photograph by Louis Schwartz. Courtesy Historic Charleston Foundation

Staircase of the Nathaniel Russell House. Photograph by Louis Schwartz. Courtesy Historic Charleston Foundation

Elizabeth Allston Pringle with “Bonaparte” From the Collections of the South Carolina Historical Society

Charles Petigru Allston From the Collections of the South Carolina Historical Society

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 politics and family Senate President, the Nashville Convention, and Ben at West Point, 1840–1855 Our friend Allston covered himself with honor at Columbia by refusing the Government, because it was tendered to him at the last hour. It was a delicacy more remarkable than the merit to receive votes enough to elect one. —James L. Petigru to Henry D. Lesesne, December 1842 A dissolution of the Union would be a most disastrous event to us, as well as to the North. —Adele Allston to Ben Allston, March 19, 1850 The right of secession . . . must be maintained. It is a right inestimable to us, and formidable to those only who meditate injustice through the medium of the common government. —R.F.W. Allston to Gentlemen in Kingstree, October 11, 1851

he decade and a half preceding his term as governor proved to be an eventful period for Robert Allston and his family. After serving continuously for seventeen years in the South Carolina Senate, Allston was elected president of that body in 1850, a post he held until he was elected governor in December 1856. In the same year that he became president of the State Senate, Allston was chosen as one of the seventeen delegates that the Palmetto State sent to the Nashville Convention, which convened in early June to develop a common Southern strategy in the midst of the emotional congressional debate over the Compromise of 1850. Just the previous summer, the Allston’s eldest son, Ben, had entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, following the path taken by his father thirty-two years earlier.1

T

1. Charleston Daily Courier, June 8, 1850; Adele Allston to “My dear Ben,” June 20, 1849, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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As his family grew, his eldest son reached maturity, and his business responsibilities claimed more of his attention, Allston nevertheless became increasingly engrossed in political affairs in the turbulent years before the Civil War. After surviving several close electoral contests early in his political career, he had little difficulty retaining his seat in the State Senate after the disputed election of 1834.2 Reelected without opposition in 1838, Allston defeated Peter W. Fraser by a vote of 224 to 108 in 1842, ran unopposed in 1846, and easily won reelection in 1850 despite the fact that some of his “enemies tried to defeat him by getting up an opposition to him at the last.”3 Allston very nearly captured a much more prestigious political prize in December 1842, when he was narrowly defeated for the governorship by James Henry Hammond although he had not even declared his candidacy for that high office. After losing an extremely contentious gubernatorial campaign in 1840, Hammond, with the support of both John C. Calhoun and the influential Rhett family, seemed poised to claim the governor’s chair in 1842. Yet many legislators, resentful of both Hammond and the Rhett machine that now backed him, looked for an alternative candidate. They found that person in Allston. Consequently, much to the consternation of the controversial candidate, Hammond escaped with a narrow eighty-three to seventy-six victory over his reluctant opponent. As a Georgetown paper reported, it was the general consensus that Allston “would have won the Executive mantle, had he not risen in his place in the Senate and . . . said he was no candidate.” Allston, who disliked Hammond personally and admitted that he harbored designs on the governorship at some future date, nevertheless expressed relief that his honorable gesture had enabled him to escape from an embarrassing situation. “I can sleep,” he confided to Adele, “but the late strenuous effort to bring me out contrary to repeated protestations to the contrary” had caused considerable mental anguish. Allston’s noble self-denial was widely applauded. As his brother-in-law James L. Petigru remarked, “He has the honor of refusing high office on a scruple of delicacy. . . . I hope that he will never regret 2. See discussion in chap. 2. 3. Charleston Mercury, Oct. 14, 1842; Winyah Observer, Oct. 15, 1842; Oct. 14, 1846; Charleston Daily Courier, Oct. 16, 1846; Oct. 19, 1850; Adele Allston to “My dear Ben,” Oct. 22, 1850, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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the sacrifice he made, and I should be prouder of it than of a score of elections.”4 Because Allston had come so close to the governorship in 1842, it is not surprising that he would be considered a leading candidate for the office in the next election. Accordingly, when the legislature met in December 1843, his friends circulated a letter to the press that was designed to promote his candidacy for the post in the election to be held a year hence. Pointing out that when he had stepped aside gracefully in the preceding election “from motives and considerations that did him great credit,” it was generally understood that he “would be a candidate for the next vacancy.” Arguing that Allston’s claims were “at least as strong” as those of the other prominent contenders, William Aiken and Francis Pickens, his supporters emphasized his fifteen years of legislative service and especially his efforts “to ameliorate the condition of the poor—to diffuse learning and religion through the land [and] to maintain, unsullied, the honor and integrity of the State in all her relations.” Allston himself was hopeful but pessimistic about his prospects as the legislative session opened. “I confess,” he admitted, that “it would afford me satisfaction to receive” the office, not only because “a portion of the people look to me for it” but also because it would enable “[me] to retire from public life after completing the term of service.” Ten days later, however, it had become clear to Allston that he would again be denied the governorship in 1844 thanks to what he termed a conspiracy involving, among others, William McWillie of Chester, William Aiken, and the members of the Charleston delegation. Nevertheless, he resolved, as “a point of honor,” to press on in the face of “their well order’d battery” even if “I be sacrificed.”5 When the legislators met the following year to cast their ballots, it seemed almost certain to Allston that the election would go to Aiken. “I shall have to submit with the best grace I can,” he confided to Adele. Nev4. Drew Gilpin Faust, James Henry Hammond and the Old South: A Design for Mastery (Baton Rouge, 1982), 212–23, 234–35; Winyah Observer, Dec. 14, 1842; Allston to Adele, Dec. 10, 1842, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 90; James L. Petigru to daughter Susan Petigru, Dec. 17, 1842, in James Petigru Carson, ed., Life, Letters, and Speeches of James Louis Petigru, the Union Man of South Carolina (Washington, D.C., 1920), 223. 5. Charleston Mercury, Dec. 22, 1843; Winyah Observer, Dec. 30, 1843 (quotations in both papers); Allston to “My Dear Adele,” Dec. 3, 13, 1843, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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ertheless, as the balloting began on December 7, he retained a slim hope that he might be elected. “If greater responsibility is to be thrown on my shoulders,” he wrote, God must “sustain me with his Grace.” But Allston’s prayer was not answered. Aiken won the election on the fourth ballot with eighty-eight votes, followed by Edisto Island cotton planter Whitemarsh B. Seabrook with fifty, and Allston a distant third with twenty-three votes. Disappointed in the outcome, Allston announced to Adele that he would return home to his family and business and “leave fame to others, who are more of fortune’s favorites.” The runner-up, Seabrook, was elected governor in 1848, but it would be another dozen years before Allston finally claimed the prize that had eluded him in 1844.6 As the decade progressed, however, Allston’s political star continued to ascend. On at least two occasions, once in 1843 and again in 1848, he declined the pleas of his friends to be a candidate for Congress, apparently content to wield his increasing influence in the State Senate. That influence rose temporarily in December 1847, when he was elected president pro tempore in place of the ailing Angus Patterson, who had served as Senate president since 1838 and who would be succeeded in that office by Allston in 1850. An elated Allston confided to Adele that “this accidental indisposition of our amiable President has afforded me a triumphant opportunity of appearing before a Columbia audience, consisting of old & young men, women & children in a manner which has extorted their universal . . . approval.” As he reminded Adele, he had been reluctant to mingle in Columbia society because of his aversion to the “log-rolling & intrigue” associated with both public offices and measures. But now he could claim the spotlight with honor. The new office paid immediate dividends when he was called upon to introduce Mexican War hero James Shields to both houses of the legislature.7 Meanwhile, as a member of the Senate Committee on Federal Relations, Allston took an increasing interest in the deteriorating relations between his state and the government in Washington, D.C. While con6. Allston to “My Dear Adele,” Nov. 26, 1844, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Allston to Adele, Dec. 6, 1844, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 93–94; Charleston Mercury, Dec. 9, 1844; Winyah Observer, Dec. 11, 1844. 7. Winyah Observer, Nov. 4, 1843; Charleston Daily Courier, Dec. 1, 1848; Dec. 16, 1847; Allston to “My Dear Adele,” Dec. 17, 1847, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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templating his possible election as governor in 1844, he had declared that “our Federal relations are critical to a high degree” and lamented that his unionist brother-in-law did not share his views on the subject. The principal issues exciting South Carolinians in that year were the presidential contest between Democrat James K. Polk and Whig Henry Clay, the annexation of Texas, and repeal of the gag rule in the United States House of Representatives. In early April Allston chaired a public meeting of the Democratic Party in Georgetown in which, after heated debate, those in attendance declined to endorse any presidential candidate at that time. Two months later, however, as the views of the two presidential nominees became clearer, a similar public meeting in Georgetown, also chaired by Allston, passed resolutions supporting Texas annexation and endorsing Polk for the presidency. Following the election of Polk, politicians in the Palmetto State became incensed at the repeal in early December of the gag rule, first adopted in 1836, which provided for the automatic tabling of all antislavery petitions or resolutions presented to the House of Representatives. Thanks to the persistent efforts of Massachusetts representative John Quincy Adams, that rule was finally repealed. Two weeks after its repeal, the South Carolina Senate passed without dissent a series of resolutions denouncing that action and terming it “a flagrant outrage upon our rights, and a decided step towards the subversion of our Institutions, and the dissolution of this Union.”8 Two years later South Carolina reiterated its determination to oppose at all costs any measure that threatened its cherished institutions when the Senate, in similar fashion, castigated the Wilmot Proviso. Initially introduced in August 1846, the proviso sought to ban slavery in all new territory acquired from Mexico. Defeated in the Senate, the Wilmot Proviso represented the extreme Northern position on the question of slavery in the territories, and its introduction in subsequent sessions of Congress only served to inflame sectional tensions. It was in this atmosphere that Richland senator Joseph A. Black submitted a series of six resolutions to the South Carolina Senate in November 1847. That body endorsed the resolutions unanimously before sending them to the Committee on Federal 8. Allston to “My Dear Adele,” Dec. 6, 1844, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Charleston Daily Courier, Nov. 28, 1846; Winyah Observer, Apr. 13, June 8, 1844; Charleston Mercury, Dec. 18, 1844.

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Relations, which, in turn, included them in its report on December 14. The last of the resolutions declared that, if Congress enacted any law depriving citizens of the slave states of the “equal enjoyment of all the rights and privileges in any territory which may be acquired from Mexico, or any other power,” by prohibiting “the introduction of slave property into such territory,” then the governor should immediately convene the legislature with a view toward taking appropriate action in concert with other concerned slave states.9 The issue of slavery in the territories nevertheless continued to fester. As the legislative session of 1848 opened in Columbia, Allston predicted that “we are to have a stormy Session” owing to “differences of opinion as to our Federal Relations.” He was soon appointed to a five-member joint legislative committee “to confer on the subject of the Wilmot Proviso, and the agitation of the Slavery question.” As such, he was instrumental in securing the unanimous adoption of the report of the Committee on Federal Relations, which was transmitted by the governor to all state legislatures and all South Carolina congressmen. The tenor of that report was that the state was prepared “to resist any action by the General Government, applying the principle of the Wilmot Proviso to the new territories, and to co-operate with her sister States of the South in doing the same.” 10 By the end of the decade the hostility between North and South had reached crisis proportions, and Allston was destined to play an important role in the Palmetto State’s response to that crisis. In December 1849 he reported that there was much excitement in Columbia about the inability of the U.S. House of Representatives to elect a speaker.11 “This difficulty & the excitement consequent upon it,” Allston observed, “will serve to assure our Northern friends of the feeling which pervades the Southern Country on the subject of slavery.” Remarking that the citizens of the Pee Dee country were proposing to send him as a delegate to the Nashville Convention, which was scheduled to convene on the first Monday in June, Allston in9. Charleston Daily Courier, Nov. 27, Dec. 16, 1847. 10. Allston to “My dear Adele,” Dec. 8, 1848, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Charleston Daily Courier, Dec. 12, 14, 1848. 11. Because of a bitter factional fight involving Whigs, Democrats, and Free-Soilers, it took three weeks and sixty-three ballots before Howell Cobb of Georgia was finally elected speaker on Dec. 22.

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dicated that his patience with extremists north of the Mason-Dixon Line had just about been exhausted. “Unless the Northern people now come to be reasonable people,” he exclaimed, “revolution will be unavoidable. It were better to settle the matter now than leave it to our children.” 12 Two months before he set out for Nashville, Allston elaborated upon his views on the sectional crisis when he delivered a eulogy on John C. Calhoun to the citizens of Georgetown District. He began by voicing support for the compact theory of government and the principle of state sovereignty, both of which had been enunciated by Calhoun. Then he turned his attention to the current crisis, asserting that it had been precipitated by the “aggressive claim” of the Northern states to the whole of the territory acquired from Mexico. Their sole object, he continued, was “to prevent the extension of our domestic system.” Allston responded that “the General Government has no power to legislate thus partially, invidiously, oppressively,” and that the citizens of the slave states “insist upon the right of property; the individual right to emigrate with our social institutions, and upon our rights as States, under the Constitution of the Union.” In short the Southern states avowed and pledged to maintain their “Equality or Independence.” Adele, who attended the eulogy with other family members, pronounced her husband’s speech “a very good one.”13 On May 11, 1850, as the dramatic Senate debate over Henry Clay’s compromise proposals raged on in Washington, Allston was selected to represent the Georgetown–Pee Dee district at the Southern Convention in Nashville. He was one of seventeen delegates selected by the Palmetto State to attend that meeting, which was designed to develop a unified strategy for the slave states. Accordingly, Allston departed Charleston by steamer on Thursday, May 22, en route to Nashville. Upon his arrival he was distressed to perceive serious divisions among the delegates, and he predicted “a stormy time” when the convention opened. Nevertheless, he was impressed with the high quality of the assembled delegates. “I have found here a noble body of intellectual men,” he confided to son Benja12. Allston to Adele, Dec. 16, 1849, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 98–99. 13. R.F.W. Allston, “Eulogy on John C. Calhoun, Pronounced at the Request of the Citizens of Georgetown District, on Tuesday, 23d April 1850” (Charleston: Miller & Brown, 1850), 10, 16 (quotations); Adele Allston to “My dear brother” [Ben], Apr. 23, 1850; Mrs. R.F.W. Allston to “My dearest Ben,” Apr. 29, 1850, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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min, “among whom are some sterling characters, men who are to be relied on in any emergency.” Meanwhile, back at their summer home on Pawleys Island, Adele anxiously awaited news of the proceedings in Nashville. Like her husband, she favored the extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific, and she also shared his distrust of Senator Clay. “I really fear Mr. Clay is a traitor to the South,” she declared as the convention opened. 14 When the Nashville meeting convened on June 3, a committee consisting of two members from each of the nine state delegations elected Judge William L. Sharkey of Mississippi as president and Charles J. McDonald of Georgia as vice president of the convention. After some discussion concerning the mode of voting, it was decided that each delegation should be entitled to one vote. A committee on resolutions, also composed of two delegates from each state, was then appointed to “consider and digest” the various proposals submitted by members of the convention. The central issue was whether to endorse immediate secession, as advocated by Robert Barnwell Rhett, or to adopt the more moderate position of extending the Missouri Compromise line of 36°30' latitude to the Pacific coast. Allston joined the moderate majority in supporting the extension.15 Before adjourning, the convention adopted an address drafted by Rhett and a series of twelve resolutions, most of them penned by Judge John A. Campbell of Alabama. In the address members of the convention stated that they would accept reluctantly an extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific Ocean as the permanent dividing line between the two sections of the country. “Although the Northern States would acquire by this compromise three-fourths of our vacant territory,” they observed ruefully, “they will have renounced the insufferable pretension of restricting and preventing the expansion of the South whilst they should extend indefinitely.” After adopting this address by a unanimous vote of the states and with only nine individual members dissenting, the convention ad14. Rogers, History of Georgetown County, 371; Charleston Daily Courier, June 8, 1850; Adele to “My dearest Ben,” May 26, 1850, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Robert Allston to Ben, June 7, 1850; Adele to “My dearest Friend” [husband Robert], June 4, 1850, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 101–2. 15. R.F.W. Allston, “Notes on Nashville Convention,” n.d., incomplete note, pp. 9–12, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Pease and Pease, Family of Women, 126.

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journed until mid-November to await the result of the continuing debate in Congress over the Clay proposals.16 Allston had looked to the Nashville Convention “with some hope as a means of saving the Union under the Constitution & reforming the Federal Government.” But that hope was dashed when Congress ignored what he termed “the reasonable suggestions and firm conclusions of so grave and respectful a body as the Nashville Convention” and instead adopted Clay’s compromise measures, which many Southerners, including Allston, deemed unacceptable. He attributed the failure of Congress to consider the entreaties of the Nashville delegates to the machinations of Clay and several other Southern senators. “I have reason to think,” he declared, “that but for this opposition, a portion of the Pennsylvania delegation” along with “some few other delegates” would have voted to sustain the Missouri Compromise line. Allston’s bitterness deepened in the fall of 1850 after the passage of the last of Clay’s compromise measures in mid-September. During a brief visit to the nation’s capital that month, he castigated the Northern majority, now enhanced by the admission of California, for appropriating for the last fiscal year $75 million “for expenses & improvements” despite the fact that three-fourths of the revenue had been derived from the slave states, which had “only a secondary negative voice in the Government of the U.S.” Declaring the current presidential administration the most hostile to “state rights, and the peculiar tenets of the South” that he had ever known, he exclaimed, “God help us! for so far as Government is concerned vain is the help of man.”17 So disillusioned with politics was Allston that he decided not to attend the second session of the Nashville Convention when it reconvened in mid-November, opting instead to attend the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Cincinnati. “It is in the religious conventions of the several denominations,” he explained, “that the subject of slav16. Allston, “Notes on Nashville Convention,” 9–12; Charleston Daily Courier, June 17, 19 (quotation), 1850. 17. “Remarks by Robert F. W. Allston Concerning the Nashville Convention of 1850,” in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 445–46. Easterby published only a portion of the second note in this manuscript document referred to in the two preceding notes. Allston to “My Dear Wife,” Sept. 22 [1850], in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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ery has been previous to the present year agitated with most effect.” Consequently, he did not think he should be condemned for attending that convention rather than the one in Nashville. Despite his absence, Allston kept abreast of developments in Nashville, and he received firsthand accounts from the South Carolina delegates when they returned to the state. He was particularly mortified to learn that his friend Andrew J. Donelson, a unionist Democrat from Tennessee, had played a “conspicuous part in promoting the disorder of the galleries” by impugning the motives of the secessionists at the end of the convention. Before the delegates adjourned on November 20, they denounced the Compromise of 1850, affirmed the right of secession, and called for the convocation of a “general Congress of the Southern States” to assemble in Montgomery, Alabama, “to maintain the rights of the South, and, if possible preserve the Union.” 18 Although he had sent an alternate to the second Nashville Convention, Allston was fearful that his failure to attend that meeting would have political repercussions when the legislature met. “I presume that some portions of the press will be still more condemnatory of me,” he wrote Adele apprehensively, “now that the Nashville Convention has actually adjourn’d in time for members to reach Columbia for the Legislature.” His fears were realized when strong opposition to his candidacy for the presidency of the State Senate developed. Reflecting a strong anti-Semitic bias, he was particularly chagrined to learn that his opponents had deliberately “set up ‘the jew [Franklin I.] Moses’ ” to run against him. When the Senate was organized on November 25, however, Allston defeated Moses by a count of twenty-seven to fourteen and thus began his first term as Senate president. Despite his victory, he was cognizant of the rebuke reflected in the fourteen negative votes. “It is good for the inner man to be chasten’d sometimes,” he remarked. “It cures vanity.”19 The principal order of business at this session of the legislature was to provide for the election of delegates to both a state convention and to the proposed Southern congress. Accordingly, an act was passed to hold 18. Allston to Adele, Nov. 22 (second quotation), 25 (first quotation), 1850, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 105–6; Allan Nevins, Ordeal of the Union (New York, 1947), 1:357; Charleston Daily Courier, Nov. 21, 1850 (third quotation). 19. Allston to Adele, Nov. 22 (first quotation), 25 (second quotation), 27 (third quotation), in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 106–7; Charleston Daily Courier, Nov. 26, 1850.

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elections on the second Monday in February 1851 for delegates to a state convention for the purpose of considering the state’s response to the Compromise of 1850 and on the second Monday in October for deputies to the Southern congress in Montgomery. Under the terms of the act each election district was entitled to send to the state convention a number of delegates equal to the whole number of state senators and representatives in that district. With respect to the Southern congress each state was authorized to send double the number of their congressmen, which, for South Carolina, was eighteen—four elected by the legislature and the remainder by the qualified voters in each congressional district. The act stipulating this process was passed by both houses of the legislature on December 20, 1850, and signed by Allston in his capacity as president of the Senate.20 Although the sentiment for secession was almost universal in the Palmetto State by 1850, there was a sharp division over tactics. The ultras, led by Robert Barnwell Rhett, favored separate state secession. On the other hand, the more pragmatic cooperationists, who included such prominent Upcountry families as the Chesnuts, Hamptons, and Mannings as well as such wealthy Lowcountry planters as Langdon Cheves Sr., William B. Pringle, and Henry A. Middleton, favored secession only in concert with other slave states. Although Allston was regarded as a leader of the secession party until October 1851, he was no fire-eater. He was sufficiently realistic to understand that, if South Carolina seceded alone, it would be tantamount to committing political suicide. Thus, as the 1850 legislative session began, he assured Adele that the members would act responsibly “unless our young men, hurried on by some rash, bare-faced & exciting act on the part of the Government shall precipitate matters.” He predicted correctly that the legislature would, instead, “recognize a Southern Congress and provide for the State being represented therein.” Above all else Allston wanted the state to be unified as it faced the looming crisis with the federal government. Consequently, he eventually would serve as a mediator between the extreme secessionists and the more moderate cooperationists.21 20. Charleston Daily Courier, Dec. 17, 19, 20, 23, 1850; “An Act to Provide for the Appointment of Deputies to a Southern Congress; and to Call a Convention of the People of the State,” Charleston Daily Courier, Oct. 1, 1851. 21. Scarborough, Masters of the Big House, 270; Rogers, History of Georgetown County, 374; Allston to Adele, Dec. 5, 1850, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 107.

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As the new year dawned, the contest between the two parties for control of the state convention in the February elections dominated the attention of Palmetto State residents. The struggle began auspiciously for the secessionists when they swept to victory in the election of delegates to the convention, although the cooperationists were able to delay the date of the meeting from December 1851 to the following April. Obviously, the cooperationists were playing for time, hoping that tempers would cool sufficiently to block precipitate action by the fire-eaters. During the eight months between the elections to the state convention and those to the Southern congress, prominent cooperationists traversed the state in an intensive campaign to turn the tide of public opinion. On the eve of the October elections Allston, who had supported both the convention and congress bills, declared unequivocally that “the right of secession . . . must be maintained,” but at the same time he pleaded for unity within the state. “A divided people are powerless abroad, unhappy and unsuccessful at home,” he warned. Observing that the prospects for disunion were discouraging in the border states and even in Mississippi, where moderates controlled the convention, he nevertheless called for the election to the Southern congress of “good men and true,” who were firmly committed to the “right of Secession.”22 As the votes began to trickle in from the October elections, it soon became apparent that there had been a stunning reversal of popular sentiment since the February elections. This time the cooperationists easily defeated their more extreme opponents, carrying six of the seven congressional districts in the state and rolling up a majority of 7,334 out of the 42,769 votes cast in the election. The people had spoken, and Allston was prepared to accept their verdict, albeit reluctantly. Thus, when called upon to address a caucus of legislative members of the secession party on November 28, he declared frankly that “the Secessionists, as a party, should abandon their organization.” They had “claim’d to be the Action party,” he continued, whose “only mode of action . . . consistent with State Sovereignty . . . was by State Secession.” But, because this mode had been rejected by “the great majority of our people[,] the opportunity for fairly 22. Scarborough, Masters of the Big House, 271–72; John Barnwell, Love of Order: South Carolina’s First Secession Crisis (Chapel Hill, 1982), 140; Charleston Daily Courier, Dec. 17, 19, 20, 1850; Feb. 17, Oct. 1, 11 (quotations), 1851.

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testing this remedy [peacefully] has been lost—and lost forever!” With respect to the forthcoming state convention Allston advised his fellow secessionists to move immediately to adjourn its deliberations sine die, or, failing that, to resign their seats “and thus leave the honors in the hands of those well-meaning Citizens who have assumed the responsibility of deciding for the interests and the honor of the State.”23 Ten days later Allston’s bitterness and disappointment began to recede as he appealed once again for unity from secessionists and cooperationists alike. In response to complimentary resolutions by the Senate, he took the floor to assert: “Our allegiance is our own. Our interests are the same. Our danger is common.” Accordingly, he pleaded with both factions to “endeavor to assimilate our opinions.” Observing that “secession by separate State action” was “now lifeless” and that secession by cooperative action of the slave states was no longer a possibility “unless our people are prepared to present a united front in advance,” he urged both sides to put aside “discord and personal jealousy” in order to form a united front in defense of Southern rights. If they failed to do so, he warned, “we shall not only be defenceless in fact, but [we] will be placing the State in a condition to invite aggression against her peculiar policy, her institutions, her honor.”24 When the state convention finally assembled on the morning of April 26, 1852, the 147 members authorized a Committee of Twenty-One to draft a statement outlining the position of the Palmetto State in the current crisis. The result was a report that adhered closely to the position taken by Allston in his address to the Senate as well as by Langdon Cheves Sr., an influential and highly respected member of the convention. On the fifth and final day of the convention the body adopted the committee’s report, consisting of a resolution and an ordinance, by a vote of thirty-five to nineteen. The resolution stated that, although the “frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the sovereign States of the 23. Scarborough, Masters of the Big House, 273; Charleston Daily Courier, Oct. 16, Nov. 1, Dec. 3, 1851; “Mr. Allston’s Address, on Occasion of the Caucus of Members of the Legislature of SCa Held at Carolina Hall Columbia 28th Novr. 1851 on Being Invited to Take the Chair,” in Allston Papers, SCHS; Allston to Adele, Nov. 29, 1851, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 109. 24. Charleston Daily Courier, Dec. 18, 1851.

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Union, especially in relation to slavery,” fully justified secession, it was deemed inexpedient to do so at the present time. The ordinance merely reiterated the right of South Carolina, in its sovereign capacity, to dissolve its connection with the Union “without let, hindrance, or molestation from any power whatsoever.” 25 And so the defiant Palmetto State passed safely over the shoals of the first great sectional crisis without relinquishing its steadfast adherence to the principle of secession. Allston’s pragmatic response to the crisis of 1850 did not diminish his popularity with either his constituents in Georgetown District or his colleagues in the State Senate. In November 1852 he was unanimously reelected president of the Senate and also chosen as a Democratic presidential elector from the Fourth Congressional District. Two years later he was again elected by Georgetown voters to the State Senate, also without opposition. It seems clear that his relatively moderate stance in the first secession crisis had earned him support and respect from secessionists and cooperationists alike.26 Allston was held in such high esteem that he was appointed by the governor as a delegate to two successive Southern commercial conventions— the first in Memphis in 1853 and the other in Charleston the following year. Although the impending graduation of son Benjamin from West Point apparently prevented him from attending the Memphis meeting, he was quite visible at the Charleston convention. As the meeting drew to a close, an elegant dinner was held for the delegates in Hibernian Hall, adjacent to the recently opened Mills House on Meeting Street. As was customary, the delegates offered a series of toasts at the dinner. When it was his turn, Allston, who was serving as one of the vice presidents at the dinner, proposed, “Home Manufactures—The best guarantee for the value of home productions, is the creation of a home demand for the purposes of a home consumption.” Allston was clearly infected with the spirit of Southern nationalism.27 After a brief period of relative political calm, sectional animosity intensified once again in the wake of the passage in May 1854 of the contro25. Charleston Daily Courier, Apr. 27, May 1 (quotations), 3, 1852. 26. Charleston Daily Courier, Nov. 2, 3, 1852; Oct. 14, 1854; Pee Dee Times, Oct. 18, 1854. 27. Pee Dee Times, May 18, 1853; Charleston Daily Courier, Oct. 15, 1853; Apr. 10, 12, 18, 19 (quotation), 1854.

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versial Kansas-Nebraska Act. Authored by Democratic senator and presidential aspirant Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, the measure specifically repealed the old Missouri Compromise line and allowed residents in the two newly created territories to decide the slavery question by popular vote. Within weeks after passage of the act, organizations were formed in both sections of the country to finance the emigration of thousands of settlers into Kansas in an attempt to gain control of the territorial government when it was organized. Despite the herculean efforts of the New England Emigrant Aid Society and other Northern groups to flood Kansas with Free-Soil settlers, the proslavery forces, aided by an influx of thousands of so-called border ruffians from the neighboring slave state of Missouri, scored a decisive victory in the elections to the territorial legislature in the spring of 1855. Unfazed, the Free-Soilers organized a rival government in Topeka, and conditions in the territory rapidly deteriorated into chaos. Many prominent South Carolinians, including Allston, began to finance the emigration of young, well-armed Carolinians into the troubled territory in the mid-1850s to counter the growing Free-Soil population. 28 Like many other elite Southerners, Allston viewed Kansas as a crucial battleground in the struggle to preserve slavery and Southern rights. Thus, in a letter to Ben in March 1856 he reported that some $3,000 had been raised in each of the two parishes in Georgetown District to support emigrant companies and that he had personally pledged a total of $430 to support three of the expeditions. “We are disposed to fight the battle of our rights with abolition & anti-slavery on the field of Kansas,” he declared. “If beaten there,” he continued, our “equality in the Union will be lost forever, and we must prepare for organization & defence out of it.” Allston was so concerned with the Kansas question that he was reluctant to support James Buchanan, the Democratic nominee for president in 1856, until the candidate clarified his position on both Kansas and the protective tariff. “We have spent money in Kansas, and have sent them some fine young men to settle and to be sacrificed too,” he wrote, “in opposition to the iniquitous schemes” of the pro-Free-Soil governor Andrew H. Reeder, like Buchanan a native of Pennsylvania. “If those schemes are to succeed on Buchan[an]’s elevation to power, I say S. Carolina should not aid in secur28. Scarborough, Masters of the Big House, 278–79.

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ing such elevation. Let us have some guaranty on this head,” he concluded. In the end, however, the Allstons supported Buchanan in his race against Republican candidate John C. Frémont. Several months later Allston would have an opportunity to influence more directly the Palmetto State’s relations with the federal government after being elected governor.29 In addition to his service in the legislative and executive branches of state government, Allston was also a member and frequent head of a whole host of civic, cultural, educational, and social organizations. Beyond his role as the longtime president of the Winyah Indigo Society,30 for many years he was a member of the board of trustees of South Carolina College, serving as president of that body in 1857 by virtue of his position as governor. That year a dispute between the faculty and students, on the one hand, and the president of the college, on the other, led the board to request the resignations of both the president and faculty, although both parties were acquitted of any “imputation on character or honor.” Three of the dismissed faculty members, including the celebrated scientists Joseph and John LeConte, were subsequently reelected. Allston was also a frequent member of the board of visitors of the college during the 1850s.31 Allston was involved in a number of other nongovernmental activities and organizations as well. In his home county of Georgetown he manifested his continuing commitment to education by serving as a trustee of All Saints Academy, a preparatory school that offered instruction in Greek and Latin, among other subjects. He was also an officer and frequent president of the Winyah and All Saints Agricultural Society and a director of the Winyah Bible Society. In 1856 he was elected to membership in the Howard Association of Georgetown.32 As he became increasingly involved 29. J. H. Means to Robert F. W. Allston, Feb. 8, 1856; E[ugene] B. Bell to Allston, Feb. 11, Mar. 3, 1856; Robert Allston to Benjamin Allston (first quotations) [Mar. 1856], in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 129–33; Charleston Daily Courier, Jan. 30, Feb. 4, 1856; R.F.W. Allston to “My Dear Sir” [James Johnston Pettigrew?], June 16, 1856 (second quotations), in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC; Adele Allston to “My dearest Ben,” Nov. 4, 1856, in Allston Papers, SCHS. 30. See discussion in chap. 4. 31. Charleston Mercury, Dec. 12, 1845; Charleston Daily Courier, Mar. 4, Nov. 15, 1854; June 13, 15 (quotation), 1857; Allston to “My Dear Wife,” Nov. 28, 1855, in Allston Papers, SCHS. 32. Winyah Observer, Apr. 13, 1842; Jan. 3, 1844; Jan. 7, Apr. 22, 1846; Pee Dee Times. Aug. 27, 1856.

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in the social life of Charleston, he eventually joined both the South Carolina Jockey Club and the St. Cecilia Society. He was initiated into the Order of Masons while still in his early twenties, and much later in his life he held memberships in the South Carolina Historical Society and the Carolina Art Association, serving as the art association’s president in 1859–60.33 Of all his memberships, however, Allston perhaps derived the most pleasure from his fellowship with other rice grandees in the Hot and Hot Fish Club of Waccamaw. The club began informally during the second decade of the nineteenth century when Allston’s brother-in-law, John H. Tucker, began to host fishing parties at his plantation on the Waccamaw River. Allston later recalled these festive occasions, to which he was first exposed as a boy of fifteen: after a morning of fishing on the Waccamaw and its tributaries, all filled with bream, perch, and trout, the president of the club called in all of the boats by raising a flag; the members and their boat hands then proceeded to enjoy a hearty seafood dinner. After the original clubhouse was damaged by a storm, the group moved its venue several times before finally locating about 1845 on a ten-acre plot obtained from T. Pinckney Alston on “Midway sea shore.” After constructing a clubhouse on the site, the members adopted a series of rules to govern what was by then essentially a social organization, far removed from its original emphasis on fishing. According to these rules, meetings were to be held at noon each week from the first Friday in June until the penultimate Friday in October. Each member agreed to furnish “at least one substantial dish for dinner” together with one bottle of wine.34 Allston and his brother Joseph became members of the club at least as early as the 1820s, and the family remained active in the organization throughout the antebellum period. Thus, the roll of thirty-seven members in 1860 included Robert Allston, his nephews Joseph Blyth and William Allan, and his son Benjamin. Without a doubt the most notable event in the history of the Hot and Hot Fish Club was a dinner given in honor of 33. Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 15–16; Pringle, Chronicles of Chicora Wood, 35; David E. Wilson to Robert F. W. Allston, Oct. 2, 1824; F. D. Lee to Allston, Jan. 29, 1859, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Charleston Daily Courier, Feb. 16, 1860. 34. “Rules and History of the Hot and Hot Fish Club of All Saints Parish, South Carolina” (Charleston: Evans & Cogswell, 1860), in Allston Papers, SCHS; Rogers, History of Georgetown County, 269–70.

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Robert Allston on April, 21, 1857, on the occasion of his election as governor. Coincidentally, that day was also Governor Allston’s fifty-sixth birthday. In the words of fellow member Plowden C. J. Weston, “About forty gentlemen met together to celebrate the highest honor the State could bestow on one of its citizens.” “The whole day,” he concluded glowingly, “was one of pleasure & satisfaction.”35

 As Allston’s involvement in public and civic affairs grew during the decade and a half before his election as governor, so too did his family responsibilities. Following the tragic loss of three children to scarlet fever, Robert in 1839 and Fanny and her infant sister in 1843, the Allstons welcomed three more children into the family over the next decade. Elizabeth (Bessie) was born on May 29, 1845, at their Canaan beach house. Three years later Charles was born, and finally, in December 1850, Adele gave birth to Jane Louise (Jinty), the last of the Allston children. When informed of Jinty’s birth while away in Columbia attending to his legislative duties, the jubilant father exclaimed to Adele: “Honor to your sex for its . . . wonderful & admirable perfection in fullfiling [sic] the responsibilities of nature.” When Allston magnanimously deferred to his wife in naming the infant, Adele named her for her two sisters, Jane North and Louise Porcher.36 Despite the debilitating effect of frequent pregnancies, Adele did not seem to resent them, as some other planter women did. Instead, she reveled in her role as a mother. In a letter to her niece Carey North Pettigrew, shortly after Pettigrew gave birth to her first child, Adele extolled the virtues of motherhood. “I have read some where that womans maternity is the greatest event that can ever happen to her,” she wrote. “I surely believe it is the event that has most influence on a womans heart mind and whole character tho’ the influence is not always immediately felt. Perhaps in most instances it is of gradual development, but in all worthy women it is an influence for good, for great good.”37 35. “Rules and History of the Hot and Hot Fish Club,” in Allston Papers, SCHS. 36. Pringle, Chronicles of Chicora Wood, 94–95, 99, 102; James L. Petigru to “My dear Allston,” June 4, 1845; Robert Allston to “My Dear Adele, Dec. 8, 1850 (quotation); Adele to “My dearest Ben,” Jan. 1, 1851, in Allston Papers, SCHS. Pringle erroneously gives Charles’s birth date as July 31, 1847, when in fact it was 1848. 37. Adele to Carey North Pettigrew, July 11, 1854, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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One of the principal responsibilities of planter women was to nurture and educate their young children. Adele took this obligation very seriously, but occasionally she could become frustrated. Thus, in the fall of 1850 she complained that her ten-year-old daughter, also named Adele, seemed to lack ambition and was not making proper progress with her lessons. “Dear little Bessey,” at that time only five, “appears to be the only one of our children who really desires to excel,” she confided to Ben, then a cadet at West Point. Two years later, however, young Adele’s attitude had improved dramatically. She “begins to feel a zeal in improving,” observed her mother, “and shews a good deal of taste and appreciation.” Adele continued to receive advice and encouragement from family members after she enrolled in Madame Togno’s French boarding school. When she complained to her mother that she did not understand grammar, the elder Adele urged her to apply her mind fully to the subject. “Do not for one minute say to yourself I can not understand grammar,” she counseled her daughter. “Persevere and make yourself . . . well acquainted with all the rules and their application.” In like manner Ben had earlier advised his young sister to pay greater attention to her “hand writing and composition”—two skills that were as “essential to a Lady—almost as much as anything else.” Adele did not confine her motherly advice solely to intellectual matters. Thus, after her daughter had gone to the races and then attended a gala party at her aunt’s, Adele wrote disapprovingly: “My dear Adele I do not quite approve of your going to parties where you meet only grown persons, or indeed going to parties at all. You are too young for a young lady and too large to pass for a child. Few persons would believe you to be only 13 years old.”38 Above all else Adele Allston stressed the importance of reading and the values to be derived therefrom. She herself was an avid reader, whether devouring the printed word in quiet solitude or reading aloud to her children on cold winter evenings at Chicora Wood or on quiet summer nights at their beach house on Pawleys Island. Other members of the Allston and Petigru families shared Adele’s love of reading. According to historians William H. and Jane H. Pease, “Whatever their individual preferences, 38. Adele to “My dear Ben,” Sept. 17, 1850; Adele to “My dear Sue” [niece Susan King], Dec. 6, 1852; Adele to “My dear Adele,” Jan. 18, 1855; Ben Allston to “My dear Sister” [Adele], Nov. 30, 1852; Adele to “My darling daughter,” Feb. 6, 1854, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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almost all the Petigru women valued books and enjoyed reading.” Among Adele’s favorite works were Thomas B. Macaulay’s History of England, which she pronounced “as interesting as a novel”; the plays of William Shakespeare; The Spectator by Joseph Addison; Plutarch’s Lives; the poetry and novels of Oliver Goldsmith; and Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray. She particularly valued the importance of history, urging Ben even before he entered West Point to read works of that genre in his leisure time. “It is a shame,” she wrote, “for a young gentleman to be ignorant of history either of his own country, or others.” She was no less successful in introducing her other children to the fascinating world of books. Thus, on the winter evenings at Chicora Wood in 1852, she reported that her twelveyear-old daughter Adele was reading the poems of Sir Walter Scott to her and would soon “take up Goldsmith.” Clearly, Adele Allston had a salutary influence on the education of her children.39 Adele not only had a profound effect upon her children but on her husband as well. Allston explicitly acknowledged his dependence on Adele as he sat in the Senate chamber in December 1844, anxiously awaiting the outcome of the balloting for governor. “I have been communing with you, my best treasure!” he wrote, for “I shall need” your “support and counsel . . . even more, if I should be elected than if I fail. You must remember that you have more influence with me than any [other] human being.” The previous year, after communing with God in a New York church, Robert, still mourning the loss of his two young daughters, wrote: “I turn to you as the next object of my affections, and one with whom next I can commune most freely . . . . I would you had been with me or near to share the fulness [sic] of my heart.” Three years later, as they were once again separated, this time by his legislative duties in Columbia, the two exchanged mutually affectionate letters. Proclaiming that her missives gave him “the greatest pleasure I enjoy when absent,” he assured her that she did not entertain “a sentiment . . . that is not gratifying to me to hear—not a thought, that is not pleasing to me to have express’d by yourself.” Adele responded with an 39. William H. and Jane H. Pease, “Traditional Belles or Borderline Bluestockings? The Petigru Women,” South Carolina Historical Magazine 102 (Oct. 2001): 301, 306, 307 (first quotation); Adele to “My dearest Ben,” July 17, 1849 (second quotation); May 26, 1850; Nov. 4, 1856; Adele to “My dear Ben,” Jan. 30, 1849 (third quotation); Adele to “My dear Sue” [King], Dec. 6, 1852 (fourth quotation), in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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equally tender letter. “I am sure dearest I ought to be a better woman after receiving such a letter as this,” she wrote. “I know that I am a happier one, and I hope and pray that I may every day and every year become a better one for your sake and our children.” Although Adele occasionally chafed at the patriarchal constraints imposed upon her by the society in which she lived, she and Robert had a close and generally affectionate relationship as well as a mutual respect for one another. In short theirs was a good marriage.40 Benjamin, the eldest of the Allston children, followed in the footsteps of his father, receiving his higher education at the United States Military Academy at West Point, probably at his father’s behest. After successfully passing the entrance exam, he entered the academy in June 1849 as a member of the class of 1853. He was soon bombarded with motherly advice from Adele. She urged him to take advantage of the fine library at West Point, warned him against procrastination, and advised him to apply his mind “earnestly during study hours.” Despite this wise counsel, Ben, like his father before him, had difficulty adjusting to the strict military regimen at the Point. He soon began to accumulate demerits at a rapid rate, and in August he was confined to his tent for a week as punishment for his infractions. “If you go on getting so large a number” of demerits, warned his mother, “it will affect your standing very injuriously.” A month later her tone became even sharper after his father received a letter from the War Department reprimanding Ben for outbursts of temper. Pointing out that in a period of escalating sectional tension it was the obligation of the youth from Carolina “to do their state credit,” she reminded him caustically that “this is not done by giving way to an irritable, querulous, captious spirit.” Toward the end of the year, after Ben had complained about the food at the academy, she exploded: “Unless you make up your mind to abide by the regulations, and do so willingly, you had better have never gone there.” To his father, however, Ben presented quite a different face. Writing on the eve of his examinations, about which he admitted some trepidation, he assured his father, “I still like the Point, and I expect 40. Robert Allston to Adele Allston, Dec. 6, 1844, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 94; Allston to “My Dear Wife,” Oct. 1, 1843; Dec. 13, 1846; Adele to “My own dear one” [Dec. 1846], in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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to continue to do so,” adding that he had not found the duties as difficult as he had expected.41 As he had feared, Ben did not do well on his end-of-term examinations, and his troubles continued to mount. In late January 1850 Adele expressed profound disappointment with Ben’s performance thus far at West Point. She was particularly mortified to learn that his standing was so low and his demerits so high. “I did not expect you to stand high in mathematics,” she wrote, “but in english studies and conduct I did expect you to stand well.” She had grown tired of hearing that he would strive to do better. “I begin to fear you are of a weak vain mind without any perception of true excellence,” she concluded bitterly. In ensuing letters she cautioned him to abstain from tobacco and reiterated that she would not send money to supplement his military allowance, which she asserted “ought to be sufficient.” When the standings were announced at the end of Ben’s first year, both Robert and Adele were very disappointed with their son. “The general standing is too low,” declared Adele. “Why can you not be diligent and get fewer demerits?” she asked. Her husband was so concerned that he stopped at West Point in September to counsel Ben while on his way to Cincinnati to attend the national convention of the Episcopal Church. He found that Ben was so deficient in math that he was in imminent danger of being dismissed from the academy in January. The concerned father advised Adele that her role as his mother should be “to cheer & comfort him, by writing in a confiding, hopeful encouraging manner.” At about the same time her brother, James L. Petigru, cautioned Robert to give his son “the benefit of a stay of Judgment.” If Ben’s deficiencies in mathematics prevented him from attaining a high standing at the Point, his studies there would likely prove advantageous in other pursuits. The Allstons could only hope for better results as the new year dawned.42 Happily, Ben’s standing had improved when the scores from the January 1851 examinations were tallied. His mother sought to encourage him by remarking that, in a general discussion about education among her 41. Adele Allston to Benjamin Allston, June 20, July 17, Aug. 10, 17 (first quotation), 29 (second quotation), Sept. 30 (third quotation), Oct. 14, Dec. 9 (fourth quotation), 1849; Benjamin Allston to “My dear Father,” Dec. 5, 1849, in Allston Papers, SCHS. 42. Adele to Ben, Jan. 23 (first quotations), Mar. 19, Apr. 15 (second quotation), Aug. 1 (third quotation), Oct. 15, 1850; Allston to “My dear Adele,” Oct. 3, 1850; James L. Petigru to “My Dear Allston,” Sept. 2, 1850, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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Georgetown neighbors, “it seemed to be the general opinion that the education acquired at West Point is the best our country affords.” Shortly after the beginning of the new term, however, Ben once again began to slip in his studies. His subjects that term were calculus, French, and drawing. Upon receiving the depressing news of his most recent academic shortcomings, Adele could only urge the “importance of industry in every thing you undertake.” His father took more direct action. In May he wrote a letter to Jefferson Davis, a member of the board of visitors for the upcoming examinations at the academy, and asked him to meet briefly with his son to emphasize to Ben the importance of making the best use of his time and the advantages at West Point so that he would “be able to render valuable service” to his state “whenever it shall be needed.” Whether or not Davis had any influence on the young cadet, Ben was able to report to his father in November that he was “getting on tolerably well” with his studies, achieving a respectable standing in philosophy and chemistry despite a woeful showing in drawing. He had also received what he regarded as undeserved demerits, which he planned to appeal to the superintendent. 43 The second term of Ben’s third year at West Point proved to be an especially difficult one, personally as well as academically. He continued to experience difficulty submitting to authority—an absolute necessity in any military environment. Thus, in February 1852 he was disciplined for taking some books without previous authorization. In an unusually spirited letter to his father he denounced what he termed “the tyranny and despotism” of West Point. “Oh how glad I shall be when the time comes for me to leave the Academy,” he exclaimed. His stern but understanding father responded that he was merely expressing “the feelings of impatience & disgust which all men feel after 2 years sojourn at the Point, who do not occupy either a high position in the class or an office in the Corps.” He went on to say that his son had been wrong in the incident concerning the books, and he urged him to curb his “rebellious spirit.” It was not wise, he observed, to alienate those whose friendship he might later need.44 Ben’s other major concern that month was of a far more personal and 43. Adele to “My dear Ben,” Jan. 29 (first quotation), Feb. 16 (second quotation), 1851; Robert Allston to Hon. Jefferson Davis, May 17, 1851; Ben Allston to “My dear Father,” Nov. 16, 1851, in Allston Papers, SCHS. 44. Ben Allston to “My dear Father,” Feb. 11, 1852; Robert Allston to “My Dear Son,” Feb. 25, 1852, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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intimate nature. This time he confided only in his father. More specifically, Ben sought advice from his father about how to conquer what the younger Allston labeled “an obstinate degrading habit” that he had acquired during his third year at the Point. Although never explicitly identified, it is clear from the context of the extant letter that the habit referred to was masturbation. There had been little concern about this practice until the first half of the eighteenth century, when two quasi-medical texts heralded the beginning of a massive anti-masturbation campaign that lasted more than 150 years. It was thought by many that the habit could produce numerous physiological and psychological debilities, including a loss of control that threatened manliness, excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures, premature health problems, and, in extreme cases, insanity and even death. Because the anti-masturbation literature was aimed primarily at upperand middle-class boys, especially those away in boarding schools, it is not surprising that the Allstons and others like them would be particularly affected by the ideology surrounding this taboo subject.45 Upon receiving Ben’s letter seeking counsel about this potentially devastating habit, his father reprimanded him for inserting his discussion of such an intimate private subject in a regular letter, which was “read to, or by” other members of the family, and he promptly burned it. Having said that, the elder Allston evinced great concern over Ben’s habit of self-gratification, observing that “it will be a serious trial to you to correct it, but correct it you must, and forthwith.” Unless he acquired “complete mastery” over himself, continued his distressed father, he would “not be able to mingle with safety with either men or women, and must become therefore a solitary misanthrope with solitary habits, constantly fearing exposure.” What, then, was to be done? Robert urged his son to observe three cardinal rules: “1. allow no license to your imagination—2. occupy the mind constantly whilst awake and 3. use cold water freely.” But these recommendations would be to no avail unless Ben looked to God, “prayerfully 45. Robert Allston to “My Dear Son,” Feb. 25, 1852 (quotation), in Allston Papers, SCHS; Alan Hunt, “The Great Masturbation Panic and the Discourses of Moral Regulation in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Britain,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 8 (Apr. 1998): 575–76, 579, 586, 589, 595–96, 601; Gail Bederman, Manliness & Civilization (Chicago, 1995), 81–87. I am indebted to my colleague Professor Amy Milne-Smith for calling my attention to these sources.

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& in faith, for a blessing on your efforts.” It is not clear whether these suggestions enabled Ben to curb his “degrading” habit, for there is no further extant communication on the subject between Ben and his father. What is certain, however, is that Ben warned his younger brother Charles to avoid the same habit when Charles was a student at Willington Academy in 1861. Observing that Charles was at an age, nearly thirteen, when it might be tempting to handle one’s own “private member,” Ben admonished him to refrain from doing so himself or allowing “others to do so for you, for it is a wicked and very pernicious habit, & produces all kinds of evils.”46 As Ben entered his final term at West Point, his mother chastised him once again for his excessive demerits, then approaching two hundred, the maximum number allowed before dismissal. She also exhorted him to give himself “unreservedly to study during the months that remain to you at the Academy.” “Make up your mind to do your best,” she concluded. The following month, as his commissioning date drew near, Ben informed his father that his first choice of a duty assignment was the dragoons, with the infantry second. Although most of those with “any experience in the Army” recommended the infantry as “by all odds the best arm to go into, “ Ben opted for the dragoons, explaining “it is not my intention to remain long in the Army.” As it turned out, his class standing was not sufficiently high to enable him to be assigned either to the dragoons or the infantry. Instead, the faculty recommended him for the artillery.47 Benjamin Allston graduated from the United States Military Academy on June 17, 1853, standing 26th in general order of merit in a class of 52. According to his mother, “he passed a very creditable examination and would have stood higher in the class but for his large demerits,” only ten shy of the maximum number of two hundred allowed in any one year and exceeded by only 14 of the 225 cadets in the academy. His order of merit in specific subjects was twenty-one in engineering, twenty-eight in ethics, eighteen in mineral and geology, thirty in infantry tactics, and twenty-one in artillery. Among the most notable members of Ben’s class were future 46. Undated scrap [Allston to son Ben] referring to a degrading sexual habit; Robert Allston to “My Dear Son,” Feb. 25, 1852, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Ben Allston to “My dear Charly,” Mar. 9, 1861, in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS. 47. Adele Allston to “My dear Ben,” Feb. 1, 1853; Ben Allston to “My dear Father,” Mar. 20, 1853; Adele to “My dear Brother” [James L. Petigru], June 20, 1853, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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Union generals John M. Schofield of Illinois and Philip H. Sheridan of Ohio and future Confederate general John Bell Hood of Kentucky. Like Allston, all three scored very low in conduct. Following the graduation exercises Robert and Adele, together with their four younger children, remained in West Point until the end of August. A week before their departure they had the pleasure of dining with General Winfield Scott, whom they found “very cheerful tho’ . . . still a cripple.” 48 After his graduation Ben reported initially to Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, where he served as adjutant of the post as well as a company commander. His next post was Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, which he reached in early March 1854, after a harrowing eight-day trip from Nashville. Subsequently, he saw extended service in Utah, where the army was monitoring the activities of the Mormons, before proceeding to northern California by way of Fort Lane in the Oregon Territory, where he was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant with an effective date of September 8, 1855. While in California, he purchased some stock in the French Town Canal and Mining Company, an investment that apparently never yielded any significant dividends.49 It is not clear exactly how long Ben intended to remain in the army, but, as early as the summer of 1855, he was beginning to feel pressure from his father to resign his commission and return to Carolina. Robert denied, however, that he was exerting any pressure. As the family prepared to depart for Europe in May of that year, Robert assured his son that he had no intention of trying “to control your own reasonable inclination, and best judgment as to your own course for the future.” He added, “I would not wish you to quit the Army until you are tired of it, and deem it best to do so.” A year later his father reiterated that he was not directing Ben to end his military service. “It is long since I have commanded you to do any48. Adele to “My dear Brother,” June 20, 1853 (first quotation); Adele to “My dear Ben,” Aug. 30, 1853 (second quotation), in Allston Papers, SCHS; Official Register of the Officers and Cadets of the U.S. Military Academy, June, 1853: Order of Merit, Class of 1853; Roll of Cadets arranged according to merit in conduct; Ben Allston Report Card, June 29, 1853, in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS. 49. Ben Allston to “My dear Father,” Sept. 4, 1853; Mar. 5, 1854; Aug. 11, Nov. 12, 1856; Adele Allston to daughter Adele, Jan. 18, 1855; Robert Allston to “My Dear Son,” Dec. 5, 1855, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Ben Allston to sister Adele, May 17, 1855; Nov. 1, 1856; P. A. McRae to Ben Allston, Jan. 17, 1859, in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS.

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thing but that which is right in the sight of God our common Father,” he wrote. If not commanding his son to come home, the Carolina patriarch was certainly encouraging it. Observing that there was “plenty of work for you at home,” for which he would be “well paid,” Robert informed his son that after he grew “tired of roving, and of the alternately exciting & indolent life of garrison & the field, or when you see its emptiness and unprofitableness,” then would be the time to “come home & help us.”50 Whether of his own volition or because of parental pressure, Ben announced as early as August 1856 that he intended to resign his commission. At first he planned to end his service at the beginning of the next year, but he delayed his resignation until July 1, 1857, thereby completing four full years of active duty in the regular army. He then returned to Carolina to embark upon a new career as a gentleman rice planter. Little did he know that in less than four years he would be back in the army— this time the Confederate army, waging war against his former classmates and comrades.51 While Ben was traveling throughout the West on military duty, Robert and Adele took their eldest daughter on two extended summer excursions, the first to the Northeast in 1853 and the second, two years later, to Western Europe. After spending the summer in West Point following Ben’s graduation, the Allstons left their three youngest children with a nurse and then proceeded with thirteen-year-old Adele first to Niagara Falls and then to Carlisle, where they remained for nearly a week in the barracks. Next they went to Philadelphia and finally to New York for the opening of the Episcopal Convention on October 5. After securing accommodations at the New York Hotel, they remained in that city until the end of the month, before returning home in early November. While Robert was occupied most of the time at the convention, Adele and her daughter, joined later by her brother James L. Petigru, who had arrived from Philadelphia, made numerous visits to the newly opened Crystal Palace. Adele could 50. Robert Allston to Ben, May 29, 1855 (first quotations); June 20, 1856, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Robert Allston to Ben [Mar. 1856], in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 132–33 (second quotations). 51. Ben Allston to “My dear Father,” Aug. 11, 1856; Robert Allston to “My Dear Wife,” May 3, 1857, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Ben Allston to “My dear Sister” [Adele], Nov. 1, 1856, in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS.

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only marvel at the “splendid specimens” of sculpture, china, silver, silks, carpets, paintings, and other items exhibited in that “beautifully lighted” building.52 In 1855 the Allston’s summer destination was Europe. After visiting Badwell, Adele’s former home, for nine days and leaving the two smallest children with her sisters at Badwell and Bessie with Madame Togno, Robert, Adele, and their eldest daughter departed Charleston on May 17 en route to the Washington Navy Yard. From there they took passage to New York, where on May 30 the three boarded the steamer Baltic for the voyage to England. On the eve of their departure Robert penned a farewell note to Ben stating that if anything happened to the Baltic his son was to “come home forthwith . . . and assume with industry, dignity and moderation your position” as the new head of the family. Fortunately, the steamer navigated the stormy waters of the Atlantic safely, and the Allstons spent the next four months in Europe, principally in England and France, before returning to Carolina in early October.53 These two trips were the exception rather than the rule for the Allstons. After 1845 the family preferred to spend the summers at their new beach house on Pawleys Island. Before then they usually summered at Canaan, a tract on the eastern shore of Waccamaw Neck, a mere four miles from their Waverly plantation. The Allston’s third surviving child, Bessie, was born at Canaan in May 1845, just before the family moved into their new summer residence on Pawleys Island. Constructed in 1845 on land acquired the previous year from Peter W. Fraser, the house was ideally situated and easily accessible to the mainland by a causeway built across the marsh by Robert Allston the following year. The house was only four miles by land and seven by boat from Chicora Wood. There the Allstons formed part of a summer colony of Georgetown rice planters that, by the 1850s, included such prominent families as the La Bruces, Nesbits, Tuckers, Wards, 52. Adele Allston to Ben Allston, Aug. 30, Oct. 10 (quotations), 29, 1853, in Allston Papers, SCHS. Patterned after the original Crystal Palace constructed in London’s Hyde Park in 1851 to house the first modern world’s fair, the New York Crystal Palace was built for the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations in New York City two years later. Constructed of iron and glass, it featured a dome one hundred feet in diameter. 53. Adele Allston to “My dear Ben,” May 25, 1855; Robert Allston to “My dearest Ben,” May 29, 1855 (quotation); W. E. Sartres [?] to “My dear Colonel Allston,” July 8, 1855, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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and Westons as well as the rector of All Saints Church, Waccamaw. The Allston house, which fronted the beach, was large enough to accommodate both the family and guests, with two large high-ceilinged rooms with numerous doors and windows on the first floor and two equally large rooms above. There was also a wide piazza surrounding the ground floor.54 It was in this idyllic setting that the Allstons and their neighbors spent most of their time each year from late May until the first week in November, when the threat of fever had abated on the rice plantations. Occasionally, there were minor annoyances. As Adele prepared to leave the island for Chicora Wood at the end of October 1849, for example, she registered a complaint against some of the neighbors with whose principles she disagreed. “I am naturally very fond of company,” she confided to Ben, “but it must be company I like.” “I prefer solitude to company with whom I have no sympathy,” she concluded. The following summer was much more pleasant despite the absence of her husband, who traveled first to the Nashville Convention in June and later to the Episcopal Convention in Cincinnati. On the eve of the Nashville Convention she described for Robert a typical day at the beach: “I walk the causeway every morning after breakfast, and stroll upon the beach and sandhills in the afternoon.” She was particularly delighted to have as a guest throughout that summer her niece, Caroline North, who was not only a pleasant companion but also a mentor for young Adele, then age nine. During that summer Carey spent a total of six hours each day instructing Adele in music, French, and history.55 It was also Carey who left the most vivid depiction of the life of the Allston family on Pawleys Island in the summer of 1850. After characterizing the weather as “very charming,” she painted this idyllic portrait: “Never have I seen anything so beautiful as the Ocean spread out like a great blue lake, the long waves breaking slowly in shore, and sipping at our feet as we take our afternoon walk.” She also derived pleasure from read54. Pawleys Island Historically Speaking (Pawleys Island Civic Association, 1994), 15, 19–21, 34, 36; Pringle Chronicles of Chicora Wood, 37, 69, 71, 113; All Saints Vestry Journal, Mar. 24, 1845; Apr. 17, 1854, SHC. 55. Adele Allston to Benjamin Allston, Oct. 29, 1849 (first quotation); Apr. 29, May 12, 1850, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Adele Allston to Robert Allston, June 4, 1850 (second quotation), in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 100–102.

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ing aloud to her aunt—historical works in the mornings and one of Scott’s novels in the evenings. In addition, she and her aunt enjoyed horseback riding on the beach in the afternoons. But her favorite month on Pawleys was “brown October,” when “the brilliant sky, the beautiful water, the bracing weather, the Beach for riding or walking, all combine to render it most pleasant and leave one of those bright remembrances one always recalls with pleasure.” This was probably Carey’s last summer at the beach, for she soon married Charles L. Pettigrew of North Carolina and began to raise her own family. The Allstons continued to spend their summers on Pawleys Island until 1861, after which the encroachment of Union military forces obliged them to seek refuge in less desirable locales.56 56. Caroline North to Benjamin Allston, Oct. 22, 1850, in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS.

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 governor and the approach of armageddon, 1856–1861 In preserving and protecting the property of our fathers in Negro slaves, we deem ourselves entitled to the respect and aid of all good men and wise statesmen. Our ancestors . . . bought the negro from the capitalists of England and New England, whose thriving trade, however abused in many instances, was overruled by the Providence of God, to convert the barbarian bushman of the African coast, into the orderly domestic, the Christian black-laborer of America. —R.F.W. Allston, First Annual Address to Legislature, November 23, 1857 I have no hope of ever seeing Mr. A come out of the narrow bounds he has placed for himself. . . . I once and for years looked forward to our childrens influence when grown up to sooth and molify [sic] a naturally defective temper. But character deepens as age increases and all such hope is delusive. We must endeavour to take up our cross and do our duty in the station in life in which it has pleased God to place us. If my dear children can be trained to virtue and piety, if they can bear patiently the trials of life and endeavour to be cheerful and content I shall be thankful and happy. —Adele Allston to Louise Porcher, October 17, 1856

n view of his narrow defeats in the gubernatorial elections of 1842 and 1844 and his long tenure as president of the State Senate, it is not surprising that Robert Allston should view his prospects for the highest state executive office in 1856 with cautious optimism. In early November, as the legislature met to cast its ballots for president and vice president of the United States, his close friend and relative James Johnston Pettigrew declared flatly that “Col. Allston will probably be the Governor,” which, he added, “will give us all great pleasure.” Allston himself, how-

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ever, was not as sanguine. “I regard nothing of the kind as certain until accomplished,” he confided to Adele. Nevertheless, when the ballots were tallied on December 9, 1856, Allston emerged as the victor by a margin of seven votes more than the eighty-one needed to elect. The Georgetown oligarch received eighty-eight votes to forty-three for J. Duncan Allen of Barnwell and twenty-nine for Benjamin J. Johnson, who was later killed at First Manassas while serving as lieutenant colonel in the Hampton Legion. Allston’s election was a popular one. The editor of the Daily Courier, the more moderate of the two Charleston newspapers, applauded his selection: “The esteemed and distinguished citizen, who is called to the helm of State, had for many years presided with universally admired acceptance and satisfaction over our Senate, and had so long and worthily identified with that dignified and venerable Council of State, that we can regard the present change as a transfer rather than a promotion to a higher grade.” 1 Two days after his election to the highest office in the Palmetto State, Allston delivered his inaugural address to the legislature. With respect to sectional relations he expressed hope for the future but was fearful of what he termed Northern fanaticism. He emphasized the difference between a federal union and a national union and asserted that the South must preserve its equilibrium in the Senate by balancing the admission of California by the admission of Kansas as a slave state. He then issued this warning: “Whenever it shall become the settled policy of the Federal Government, that States which adhere to the institution of domestic slavery shall no more be admitted into the Union, then the Southern States . . . making common cause for a common interest, will combine to throw off that Government, or will prove themselves unworthy of a wise and brave ancestry.” That point, however, had not yet been reached. He applauded the victory of the Democratic Party in the recent presidential election and was hopeful that this triumph would alleviate sectional tension. On state matters the new governor reiterated his strong support for public education and called for state-funded internal improvements, mentioning specifically a railroad through the Blue Ridge Mountains. A Georgetown editor was “pleased with the tone of the address,” characterizing it as “bold and 1. James Johnston Pettigrew to “My dear Annie” [sister Anne B. S. Pettigrew], Nov. 3, 1856, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC; Robert Allston to “My Dear Adele,” Nov. 29 [1856], in Allston Papers, SCHS; Charleston Daily Courier, Dec. 11, 1856.

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manly yet peaceable and courteous.” It was an auspicious beginning for the man who would guide the most radical of the slave states through the troubled waters that lapped against its shores during the next two years.2 Allston soon entered upon his new duties with energy and enthusiasm. In South Carolina, as in many other states, the governor had little real power and was basically a ceremonial figure. Consequently, when the legislature was not in session, one of the principal functions of the governor was to travel throughout the state in his capacity as commander in chief of the state militia to review the local militia units in each district. Just after his inauguration Allston appointed James Johnston Pettigrew to serve as his senior aide-de-camp with the rank of lieutenant colonel of the militia. It was Pettigrew’s responsibility to plan the itinerary for these annual inspections of the various military units within the state. With the exception of three months at the beginning of 1858, when he was granted a three-month leave of absence, Pettigrew held this office throughout Allston’s term as governor. After Benjamin Allston’s resignation from the army in the summer of 1857, he also served as a senior aide-de-camp on his father’s staff.3 Allston “made his field debut as commander-in-chief ” on February 11, 1857, when he reviewed the Charleston brigade in a display that the Daily Courier described as “favorable and gratifying.” A month later the governor made his inaugural inspection of the militia in his home district on the Pee Dee. Allston normally began his inspection tour of the Lowcountry districts in the spring and then, after a brief respite, turned to the units in the Upper Districts in July, ending his journey in late October, about a month before the beginning of the legislative session. Thus, in 1858 the governor, accompanied by his two senior aides, departed for the spring reviews on April 20. Three months later Allston and his entourage began their “grand rounds” of the Upper Districts, inspecting regiments in Yorkville, Glenn Springs, Spartanburg, and Greenville, before returning to Columbia at the end of October. Wherever they went, they were received 2. Charleston Daily Courier, Dec. 13, 1856; Pee Dee Times, Dec. 17, 1856. 3. Lacy K. Ford Jr., Origins of Southern Radicalism: The South Carolina Upcountry, 1800– 1860 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 303; Clyde N. Wilson, Carolina Cavalier: The Life and Mind of James Johnston Pettigrew (Athens, Ga., 1990), 117; Jane G. North to “My dear Carey” [Pettigrew], Feb. 25, 1857; General Order, Jan. 4, 1858, from Ben Allston, Lt. Col. and Aide-de-Camp, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC.

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with high esteem and gracious hospitality. As James Johnston Pettigrew remarked, “The governor & staff are big people on such occasions, and always entertained at the house of the gentry.” 4 The governor had other public functions to perform as well. In June 1858, for example, Allston and his staff headed the procession in Charleston that commemorated the American victory over the British in the Battle of Sullivan’s Island (renamed Fort Moultrie) on June 28, 1776. First celebrated in 1777, the holiday, now known as “Carolina Day,” is still observed in the Palmetto State. A week later, while still in Charleston, the governor had an especially busy day. After reviewing the Charleston Brigade at 6:00 a.m., he took breakfast with some of his staff officers at 9:00 and then went by himself to the city’s public school to view an exhibition “to which he had been specially invited.” He returned about noon, rested briefly, “dressed and went after 4 to dine with the Cincinati [sic] Society,” where he expected to remain until at least 8:00 p.m. Shortly after this full day, the governor departed for Columbia, where he prepared to embark on his round of summer reviews.5 As governor, Allston also hosted a number of lavish social affairs, most notably the annual Governor’s Ball in February. A niece of Adele Allston who attended the 1858 ball termed it “very brilliant and successful.” The venue was so crowded, however, that many of the pretty dresses worn by the elite ladies of Charleston “were rather crushed.” The governor’s wife wore “black velvet and her beautiful lace shawl,” while seventeen-year-old Adele “was exquisitely dressed in a Paris garment” festooned with puffs and garlands of tiny white daisies. It was clearly an event that endeared the Allstons to their aristocratic Charleston neighbors.6 Governor Allston had more important duties claiming his attention, 4. Charleston Daily Courier, Feb. 12, Sept. 2, 1857; July 23, Aug. 28, Oct. 9, 1858; Pee Dee Times, Mar. 25, June 17, 1857; J. J. Pettigrew to “My dear Annie,” Sept. 14, 1857 (quotation); July 28, 1858; Jane G. North to Carey Pettigrew, Apr. 21, 1858; Ben Allston to “Dear Johnston” [Pettigrew], Aug. 30, 1858; Jacob Streman to Governor Allston, Apr. 19, 1858, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC. 5. R.F.W. Allston to Benjamin Allston, June 25, 1858, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 144–45; Adele Allston to “Dear Ben,” July 5, 1858, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Carologue 25 (Summer 2009): 5. 6. [Niece of Adele Allston] to “My dearest Carey,” Feb. 4, 1858, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC.

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of course, than hosting social events and reviewing militia troops. At the end of his initial year in office he delivered his first annual message to the legislature. In that address he took a moderate position with respect to federal relations. Asserting that there was “no disposition on the part of this State to either fanaticism or isolation,” he pledged that South Carolina would “unite as heretofore with the general Democratic party in the Electoral College, and in the Federal Councils also,” as long as the federal government “respected in practice” the states’ rights principles that had been “illustrated by the history of Carolina during the last thirty years.” On the subject of slavery, however, there could be no compromise. “In preserving and protecting the property of our fathers in Negro slaves,” he declared, “we deem ourselves entitled to the respect and aid of all good men and wise statesmen.” He emphasized particularly the benefits to the nation of the South’s system of slave labor—“a labor which could no more be dispensed with by America now, than could the commerce and manufacturers so dependent on its production.”7 As might be expected, the governor also used the occasion to promote his education agenda. After observing that the free schools were “doing more good than they have been allowed credit for,” he praised “the excellent public school” that had been organized in Charleston by the commissioners of St. Philip’s and St. Michael’s. He then made two major recommendations. First, he urged the immediate establishment of one or more normal schools in which promising students from the free schools could be trained as teachers. Second, he recommended that the “several Boards of Commissioners of Free Schools” be authorized to raise through taxes “in their respective election districts, a sum of money equal to that appropriated by the State” for the support of public education in that district. Had it been approved by the legislature, this measure would have doubled the monetary support for public education in each district of the state. Finally, Allston advocated the establishment of a marine school in Charleston. On other matters he urged the legislature to repeal the laws against usury, arguing that “money is entitled to the benefit of a market as well as every commodity”; he denounced the illicit traffic in liquor among Negroes; and he expressed his support for stronger penalties for such crimes 7. Charleston Daily Courier, Nov. 25, 1857; Rogers, History of Georgetown County, 381.

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as embezzlement. On the whole Allston’s message was well received. As the editor of a Georgetown paper remarked, most of the governor’s views “will be received with approbation.” 8 A year later, as his term of office drew to a close, Allston delivered his second and last annual message to the legislature. This time the tone was a bit more strident than in his previous address. Responding to resolutions denouncing slavery and the Dred Scott decision that had been transmitted to the South Carolina legislature by their counterparts in several New England states, Allston asserted that those resolutions did “not merit a response.” Such divisive agitation, he observed bitterly, “proceeds from persons who seem to be incapable of entertaining just sentiments towards their neighbors, the people of the Southern States.” The members of a legislative body that could pass such resolutions, he continued, were guilty of desecrating “the name of freedom” and perverting “its meaning.” By attacking their neighbors simply because they sanctioned the institution of African slavery, he charged, “they expose themselves to the imputation of being faithless to the Constitution.” Still on the subject of slavery, Allston decried the seizure of the slave ship Echo by an American warship off the coast of Cuba in the summer of 1858.9 Reflecting a strong sense of Southern nationalism, the governor urged that the estimated forty million dollars spent annually by Southerners in the North in the form of investments and pleasure be kept at home. “Let us contribute what we can, collectively and individually, towards the power of the State,” he argued, “by its improvement in knowledge, in agriculture, and the useful arts, in internal commerce with the West, by railway and public roads, as well as fostering a direct export and import trade.” Reiterating his state’s long opposition to the protective tariff, Allston denied that there was any excuse for the government to raise “the scale of imposts, so long as the States hold on deposit, a large sum of money at the credit of the United States Treasury.” History, he claimed, had validated the warning about high tariffs issued nearly thirty years earlier by the venerable John C. Calhoun.10 8. Charleston Daily Courier, Nov. 25, 1857; Pee Dee Times, Dec. 2, 1857. 9. Charleston Daily Courier, Nov. 23, 1858; Manisha Sinha, The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina (Chapel Hill, 2000), 159. 10. Charleston Daily Courier, Nov. 23, 1858.

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As in his previous message to the legislature, Allston devoted a significant portion of his remarks to education. He applauded the spread of academies and high schools, many of them for girls, “upon whose moral and mental, as well as physical development” the future welfare of the state depended so much. He was also gratified by the increased support for public schools, and he singled out for special commendation the successful free school in Charleston that had opened in the summer of 1856. In the realm of higher education he pronounced South Carolina College to be in a “flourishing condition” following a period of student unrest the previous spring. Other topics addressed by Allston in his farewell address to the legislature included railways, the militia system, finances and banks, and the legal system. Doubtless influenced by his brother-in-law, he advocated a general revision and codification of the criminal laws of the state.11 During his term as governor Allston decided to purchase a commodious residence on Meeting Street in Charleston more befitting his elevated social and political status and also more convenient than his country house in Georgetown District. Accordingly, sometime during the summer of 1857 he purchased the magnificent Dehon Mansion at 37 (now 51) Meeting Street, just a few blocks from the Battery, for the sum of thirtyeight thousand dollars. Described by Henry Lesesne as “beyond all comparison, the finest establishment in Charleston,” the house was completed in 1808 for Charleston merchant Nathaniel Russell at a cost of eighty thousand dollars. Before the end of the year the Allstons were domiciled in their handsome new home, situated on a lot 224 feet deep with a front of 130 feet adjacent to Meeting Street. The interior of the dwelling was highlighted by a magnificent spiral, free-flying staircase and featured two spacious parlors on the ground floor, one furnished in green and the other in blue. It was a fitting setting for the debut of young Adele, who was rapidly blossoming into a beautiful Carolina belle. The Allstons continued to divide their time between this courtly residence and Chicora Wood until the Federal threat to the coast forced them to seek refuge inland during the second year of the war. After that conflict the widowed Adele operated a girls’ school in the home until the summer of 1869, when she returned 11. Charleston Daily Courier, Nov. 23, 1858. For a more detailed discussion of this portion of his address, see chap. 4.

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to Chicora Wood. The following year the residence was sold for nineteen thousand dollars—precisely half what Allston had paid for it thirteen years earlier.12 A year before the Allstons acquired their Charleston residence, there was an acrimonious exchange between Adele and her husband sparked by her mounting resentment against his patriarchal demeanor. In earlier years Adele had submitted quietly to her husband’s patriarchal instructions. Representative of those instructions was a letter of December 1843, in which he gave explicit directions regarding her daily routine in order to promote her good health and an active mind. “Remember,” he wrote, “that due exercise of the Physical System and agreeable occupation of the mind, are both essential to health and therefore it is incumbent on you to seek them.” Reminding her that his own happiness was invested in her person, “as guarded & administered by your mind,” he cautioned her not to be “alarmed” or “offended” because he was supervising “so narrowly” her “daily routine.”13 By the summer of 1856, however, Adele had had enough. In a blistering letter to her husband she complained bitterly of what she termed his “arbitrary will” and his tyrannical management of family and household affairs. Allston responded angrily that “in respect of our domestic affairs and those things pertaining to your department particularly I have for years past exercised no ‘Will.’ ” When he had offered an opinion, he charged, “It was met too often by a ready counter-opinion on your part, & I have prefer’d leaving the matter in question to your especial direction.” Finally, he reminded her tartly that, “if Providence has endow’d me with some judgment & firmness in the management of affairs, you certainly have enjoy’d the benefits, common to my family, derived from their exercise.” Consequently, he believed that he deserved “some respect from you in 12. Henry D. Lesesne to Adele Petigru Allston, June 18 (quotation), July 2, 1857, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 137–39; Louise Porcher to [a sibling], Jan. 18, 1858, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC; Adele Allston to “My dear Friend,” May 25, 1858, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Pease and Pease, Family of Women, 220. This house, located at 51 Meeting Street and now known as the Nathaniel Russell House, is owned by the Historic Charleston Foundation, which conducts daily tours of the mansion and its elaborate gardens. 13. Allston to “My Dear Adele,” Dec. 13, 1843, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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common with the rest.” Thus ended the first open challenge to her husband’s authority, but Adele’s resentment continued to smolder.14 Four months later, in a letter to her sister Louise, Adele clarified some of the reasons for her unhappiness with her husband. She complained that he did not have the “suavity or evenness of temperament” to “come out of the narrow bonds he has placed for himself.” For years she had hoped that the influence of their mature children would “sooth and molify [sic] a naturally defective temper.” But, alas, that was not to be the case. “Character deepens as age increases,” she concluded. Consequently, “we must endeavour to take up our cross and do our duty in the station in life in which it has pleased God to place us.” She would derive such happiness as she could through the successes and contentment of her children. Adele’s resignation to her assigned status in life surfaced once again three years later, when she confided to Ben, in words almost identical to those she had used in her letter to Louise, that “the earnest desire to do ones duty in the station of life in which it has pleased God to place them will produce a certain degree of content, which is the best substitute for happiness.” Such sentiments vividly exemplify the true feelings of many intelligent and strong-willed planter women toward the subordinate status assigned to them in the patriarchal society of the nineteenth-century South.15 Meanwhile, the Allston children appeared to thrive despite the underlying tension between their parents. After resigning his commission in the army, Ben returned to South Carolina, where he served as one of the principal military aides to his father and also helped to supervise the operation of the Allston plantations while Robert completed his term as governor. He also found time to engage in two affairs of the heart, one of which resulted in a brief engagement, and in 1859 he toured Europe. Although he exhibited some degree of religious skepticism shortly after his separation from the army, he had apparently overcome his doubts, replac14. Allston to “Dear Adele,” June 2, 1856, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Pease and Pease, Family of Women, 111–16. Portions of this letter are also quoted in Charles Joyner, intro. to Pringle, Woman Rice Planter, xv–xvi; and William W. Freehling, The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776–1854 (New York, 1990), 53. 15. Adele to “My dear Louise” [Porcher], Oct. 17, 1856; Adele to “My dear Ben,” Mar. 17, 1859, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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ing skepticism with faith, by the following spring. Accordingly, at the end of March 1858, with numerous members of his family in attendance, he presented himself for confirmation at Prince Frederick’s Episcopal Church in Georgetown District.16 Ben also tentatively tested the political waters during the years immediately preceding the war. In the same year that Ben was confirmed, his uncle James L. Petigru urged him to run for a seat in the legislature, but Ben declined, admitting, “I am not prepared for any such step, and shall not be for many years to come if ever.” Two years later, however, he seriously contemplated a run for the House seat from Prince George Winyah. But, when prominent rice planter Plowden C. J. Weston was nominated for the same seat, Ben’s father advised him to defer to Weston “in good faith” and to “bide your time.” He even enclosed a letter of withdrawal appropriate for Ben to submit to the press. Accordingly, Ben withdrew from the race a week later and threw his support to Weston, who had been accused by his opponent of being contemptuous of the poor. Despite this class accusation, Weston was elected and two years later was elevated to the office of lieutenant governor. In analyzing his own election prospects, Ben concluded that, while he would likely have received most of the country votes, he would have been defeated in Georgetown “because of [his] supposed hostility to the interests and progress of the town.” Yet another obstacle to his election was the belief by some that Ben “regarded” the legislative seat as his “hereditary right.” Such were the perils of being the son of a prominent father.17 The summer before his abortive entrance into politics, Ben, following the pattern of many other young men of his class, embarked on a grand tour of Western Europe, departing New York in late May and returning to the states in mid-October. Louise North, his twenty-five-year-old cousin, expressed the hope that the trip would “improve him.” While conceding 16. William P. Craighill to “My dear Bob” [Ben Allston], Aug. 7, 1857; Feb. 17, 1858, in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS; Henry D. Lesesne to Carey Pettigrew, Mar. 31, 1858; Jane G. North to Carey Pettigrew, Mar. 31, 1858, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC. 17. Ben Allston to J. J. Pettigrew, Apr. 4, 1858, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC; R.F.W. Allston to Benjamin Allston, Sept. 10, 1860, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 166; Henry F. Thompson to “My dear Allston” [Ben], Sept. 17, 1860; Benjamin Allston to “My dear Henrietta” [Simons], Sept. 18 (quotations), Oct. 2, 1860, in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS; Charleston Daily Courier, Oct. 18, 1860.

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that he had “some excellent qualities,” she complained that he “certainly” failed “to make himself interesting.” Ironically, Louise was destined to become Ben’s second wife twenty-three years later. In true patriarchal fashion Ben’s father had some words of advice for his son on the eve of his departure. He urged him to keep a diary of “interesting events and good thoughts,” the substance of which he was instructed to convey in letters to family members. He also advised him to “keep cool,” act “as others do in general and avoid any appearance of singularity.” 18 Armed with such advice, Ben embarked on his four-month excursion —a journey that had an educational as well as a travel component. Thus, he reported from Paris in late July that he was taking French and drawing, devoting two hours each day to the former. He had intended to leave for Switzerland on August 1 but delayed his departure for several weeks because he had not made sufficient progress in his mastery of French. While in Paris, he saw among other things the tombs of Voltaire and Rousseau and witnessed the spectacular entry into the city of sixty thousand French troops returning from the Italian campaign. Finally arriving in Switzerland, he passed through Geneva and Saint Martin, from which “one gets a most beautiful view of Mt. Blanc,” and then on to Marigny, the hospice of Grand St. Bernard, and Vevay before proceeding down the Rhine River to Baden and Cologne. From Germany he continued on to Holland, where he visited Antwerp and Rotterdam before returning to Paris and finally London. Although he found the scenery in Switzerland especially beautiful, it did not compare with America. Indeed, “in every thing that is grand, that is noble, that is beautiful in Nature,” he declared, America was unsurpassed. “Oh what a Country is ours,” he exclaimed with true patriotic fervor, “and how full of gratitude should we be that our lots have been cast in such pleasant places.”19 Of all the pleasant places at home, few if any could compare with country life at Chicora Wood in the spring. In March of the year following his 18. Louise North to “My dearest Carey,” May 9, 1858 [sic—1859], in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC; R.F.W. Allston to Benjamin Allston, May 28, 1859, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 158. 19. Ben Allston to “My dear Father,” July 24, Aug. 7 (last quotation), 28 (first quotation), 1859, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Ben Allston to “Dear Johnston” [Pettigrew], Aug. 21, 1859, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC.

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European tour, Ben painted an idyllic portrait of the sights and sounds at Chicora. The trees were “beginning to bud and the flowers to bloom and the birds to sing,” thereby making “each day more lively and animated than another.” How different was this from the noise and bustle of city life. “Any one and every one must be pleased to be in the country at this season of the year,” he rhapsodized, for who could not be charmed by “the very freshness of every thing here” and by the “light songs of the many warblers.” 20 Not everyone was as enchanted with country life as Ben, for it was a factor in breaking his engagement later that year to Henrietta Simons, the daughter of a prominent Charlestonian. He had earlier been involved romantically with a young lady in the nation’s capital, but that relationship had never evolved to the point of a formal engagement. As usual, Robert had not been reticent about offering his son advice—this time on the subject of marriage. “Select a woman,” he wrote, “who is qualified . . . to be your best counsellor.” “Should you overlook this requisition,” he continued, “you will find too late your mistake, in taking to your bosom, a help-mate with whom, however meritorious otherwise, you would feel uneasy in leaving the care & training of your children.” Upon returning from Washington in early February 1859, Ben reported that he and the young lady had found that they “did not suit each other as well as people should be, to marry,” and consequently they had agreed “to part” as “friends.” Ever the dutiful son, Ben then expressed his “warmest thanks” to his father—“for your counsel when I asked for it.”21 Later that year Ben began courting Henrietta Simons, and in June 1860 the couple became engaged. Apparently, Ben’s immediate family was “cool, if not cold,” toward Henrietta. Only his aunt Jane North and two of his cousins, Louise Porcher and Minnie Allston, welcomed her “with any cordiality.” Minnie had reservations but on balance thought Henrietta a good match for Ben. “She has character & determination & a will of her own,” Minnie observed, “things quite needful to him in a wife.” For, although Ben had “character,” he was lacking in “determination.” As the engagement lengthened, Robert once again offered his advice. He urged Ben to seek “an early accomplishment of your wishes.” His “experience in life” had 20. Ben Allston to “My dear Mother,” Mar. 8, 1860, in Allston Papers, SCHS. 21. Adele Allston to “My dear Charles, Nov. 9, 1860; Robert Allston to “Dear Ben,” Mar. 15, 1858; Ben Allston to “My dear Father,” Feb. 1, 1859, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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taught him that “an engagement prolong’d more than a month or 6 weeks” usually bred “trouble in some shape.” In the end it was Henrietta who broke the engagement in November, giving as her reason that “she did not like him well enough to live in the country with him.” Twice disappointed in love, Ben remained a bachelor until 1864, when he married a Texas girl while stationed in the Confederate army in that state.22 Like her brother, the blossoming young Adele began to take an interest in the opposite sex after making her debut in Charleston in 1858 at the age of eighteen. She was described by her cousin Louise as “charming unaffected [and] very pretty” and by her aunt Jane North as “a decided belle.” One of her most persistent early suitors was Pinckney Alston, who was “most devoted in his attentions.” Although quite flattered by them, she was “by no means in love,” remarked her cousin Louise, who concluded that “no one for a long time has made as brilliant a debut as Adele.” In the end Adele rejected Pinckney’s pursuit of her affections and, four years later, became engaged to Arnoldus Vanderhorst, whom she married in June 1863. The year 1858 also marked the entrance of Adele’s younger sister Bessie into her teens, and the whole family gathered to celebrate that event with a party on May 28.23 The Allstons became much more active socially during Robert’s governorship and especially after they acquired their Meeting Street mansion in Charleston. Several months after the Allstons moved into that residence, Adele’s brother-in-law Henry D. Lesesne remarked “how handsomely” the Governor and his wife had “done their part in the way of entertaining in their beautiful house this season.” Other members of the family also contributed to the Charleston social calendar. For example, Jane North described a party given by one of her sisters in February 1859 at which Governor and Mrs. Allston mingled with the members of such elite Palmetto State families as the Barnwells, Heywards, Rhetts, and Singletons. Although generally “very nice,” the party was spoiled in the end “by a 22. Adele Allston to “My dear Charles,” June 6, Nov. 9, 1860; Robert Allston to “My dear Ben” [Sept. 1860], in Allston Papers, SCHS; Minnie [North Allston] to “My dearest Carey,” June 18, 1860, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC. 23. Louise North to Carey North Pettigrew, Apr. 2 [?] (first quotation), 5 (last quotations), 1858; Jane G. North to “My dear Carey,” May 18, 1858; Adele Allston [daughter of R.F.W.] to “My dear Cousin Johnston [Pettigrew], May 28 [1858], in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC.

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game of blind man’s buff & third man,” which degenerated into “a mere romp” and proved to be very distasteful to Adele.24 The Allstons’ social activities were by no means confined to Charleston. They also hosted lavish affairs at their country estates of Waverly and Chicora Wood. Thus, in April 1860 the Allstons gave “an entertainment, a dinner & evening gathering” to their newly married young neighbors Dr. and Mrs. Daniel Tucker. Much to their chagrin, however, the bride failed to appear at the dinner, pleading a sore throat. Miraculously, she had sufficiently recovered later that night to make her appearance in a “low neck & short sleeves.” Consequently, Minnie Allston predicted that the Allstons likely would not entertain the young couple again. The following day there was another wedding in the neighborhood. This time, Mrs. Plowden Weston entertained the bridal party, but the governor was miffed because he was invited to the ceremony but not to the Weston home. The wedding got off to a rocky start when the bride’s aunt fainted just as the ceremony was beginning. Ben and young Adele were both attendants at these nuptials, and both stayed the night at Waverly with some of the other young people.25 Although the Allstons usually summered on Pawleys Island in the late 1850s, the family took one last vacation together in the late summer and early fall of 1860. This time the destinations were not as distant as those in 1853 and 1855. After spending most of the summer at their beach house, all of the family except Ben left on August 15 for Charleston, from which they traveled by sea to Virginia, arriving at White Sulphur Springs a week later. There they found seventeen hundred guests and four hundred servants as well as significant improvements to the property. Robert pronounced the grounds “very . . . greatly improved” and noted that the proprietors had placed their kitchen and servants’ quarters in an underground tunnel. After spending three weeks at White Sulphur, the Allston party moved on to the Red Sweet Springs, where they remained until September 26. Adele thought the table there “much better than that at the White Sulphur,” and she and the children particularly enjoyed the company of their fellow Carolinians, the Cheves and Vanderhorst families. Finally, the family began 24. Henry D. Lesesne to “My dear Carie,” Mar. 31, 1858; [Jane G. North] to “My dear Carey,” Feb. 25, 1859; Louise North to “Dearest Carey,” Jan. 28, 1860, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC. 25. Minnie [North Allston] to “My dearest Carey, Apr. 11, 1860; Jane G. North to “My darling Carey,” Apr. 14, 1860, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC.

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their homeward journey, passing through Natural Bridge and Lexington to Old Point Comfort, where they remained several days before proceeding to Baltimore and Washington and finally to Charleston by the end of October. Little did they know at the time that this would be the last vacation they would ever take as a family.26 But the Allstons had more than parties and summer vacations to occupy their attention in the late 1850s as the nation moved inexorably toward disunion. Although Allston held no political office after his term as governor expired and although he was not a member of the South Carolina Secession Convention, he remained an influential figure in Palmetto State politics and an active secessionist. A self-styled “moderate” secessionist, Allston hoped—indeed prayed—that disunion could be effected without war, but he realized that peaceable secession could only be accomplished if the slave states were unified. To Allston the issue was clear by 1859. In a communication to an unidentified former cooperationist he contended that there could now be “no material difference between those who differ’d in 1851—now that we are all alive to the one paramount question the security & protection of property in Domestic Slavery—the equal right.” By the following year Allston’s plea for unity had been realized in his native state, but it was a different story in the border slave states. After touring western Virginia on the eve of the presidential election of 1860, he was frustrated to see that the counties in that region were divided in sentiment between John Bell and Stephen A. Douglas. “They seem to have no idea of the principles for which we contend,” he exclaimed angrily, “and of the disastrous consequences which must flow” from a Republican victory.27 26. Jane G. North to “My dear Carey,” May 18, 1858; Minnie [North] Allston to “My dear Carey,” July 25[?], Aug. 11, 1859; Jane G. North to “My dear William” [Pettigrew], Sept. 13, 1860, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC; Benjamin Allston to “My dear Henrietta [Simons], Aug. 10, 14, 1860; Adele to “My dear Brother,” Sept. 12 [1860], in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS; R.F.W. Allston to Benjamin Allston, Aug. 24 (first quotation), 29, n.d. [Sept.], 1860; Adele Allston to “My dear Ben,” Sept. 17 [?], 1860 (second quotation), in Allston Papers, SCHS; R.F.W. Allston to Benjamin Allston, Sept. 10, 1860, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 166. 27. R.F.W. Allston to “Dear Ben,” Apr. 11, 1861 (first quotation); Allston to “Gentlemen,” Sept. 12, 1859; undated scrap by Allston [1859] (second quotation; my italics), in Allston Papers, SCHS; R.F.W. Allston to Benjamin Allston, Oct. 6, 1860 (third quotation), in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 167; Steven A. Channing, Crisis of Fear: Secession in South Carolina (New York, 1970), 243–44.

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Although Robert Allston’s immediate family was united in its support of secession, there were significant divisions between members of the related Pettigrew family of North Carolina and those of the Petigru family of South Carolina. J. Johnston Pettigrew was the most radical of the three Pettigrew brothers, although he denied being a “fire-eater.” On the eve of Lincoln’s election he echoed Allston’s call for a united South to demand guaranties from the North on the slavery question. He was sanguine that such demands, “if reasonable and supported by the whole South,” would be granted. His more moderate brother William, who had supported the Compromise of 1850 and who remained a conditional unionist until early 1861, had nevertheless exhibited increasing hostility toward the North a year earlier, when he angrily cancelled his subscription to the North American Review because its editors had endorsed the controversial book by Hinton Rowan Helper. “Deceive not yourselves, men of the North!” he thundered. “We will yield no further to your aggressions.” “Be assured,” he continued, “it is the united determination of the South [to] defend itself to the last extremity.” Thus, the Pettigrews found themselves aligned with the Allstons when the crisis came in the spring of 1861.28 The Petigrus, on the other hand, were much more reticent about supporting secession and ultimately the Confederacy itself. Doubtless influenced by the unwavering unionist views of their brother James L. Petigru, two of Adele’s sisters expressed serious misgivings about the course taken by their native state in December 1860. Just a week after South Carolina seceded, Mary Petigru, observing that the Palmetto State had the “unenviable distinction” of being the “first to break the Union,” asked “what greavous [sic] wrongs had she to complain of more than all the rest!” Her sister Jane North, remarking almost apologetically that her political opinions might be considered “demoralizing” to the Allston clan, nevertheless expressed her “amazement” at “the temerity which could break up this august government, and not recoil from an act involving the well being of Millions, and the glory of the nation.” Even Adele, who shared the views of her husband, was fearful of war as the new year dawned. “It makes me sick to think of it,” she lamented to her youngest son Charles. Only God 28. J. J. Pettigrew to “My dear Brother” [William S.], Oct. 24, 1860; William S. Pettigrew to editors of North American Review, Dec. 22, 1859 (copy of rough draft), in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC; Scarborough, Masters of the Big House, 262, 302–3.

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alone, she wrote, “is able to help us, even as he helped David.” Despite their mutual apprehension about war, there was clearly a sharp difference of political opinion between the Allstons and Petigrus. Thus, after dining with the Allstons on an early March evening, James Petigru remarked ruefully to his sister Jane that it was “odd to hear so many Secessionists giving vent to their imprecations on Black Republicans, etc.” He was particularly distressed to see that “the children joined in with as much glee as the parents.”29 Allston too remained hopeful that peace would prevail as the crisis deepened. As late as mid-February, he was encouraged by a rumor that the provisional government of the Confederacy would soon be recognized by the emperor of France, and he hoped that the government in Washington would follow suit. “If not,” he exclaimed, “we must be at War with each other—God forbid!” Nevertheless, Allston was cognizant that his state should be prepared for a military confrontation if the act of secession did lead to war. Consequently, as early as mid-December, even before the Ordinance of Secession was passed, he had equipped two local military units—the Citadel Cadets and the Marion Light Troop—with saber belts and belt plates. Next, on Christmas Day he agreed to provide as many hands as he could spare to construct defensive earthworks in Georgetown District.30 Meanwhile, the crisis in Charleston intensified the following night when Major Robert Anderson secretly moved the Federal garrison from Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island to the less vulnerable Fort Sumter in the middle of the harbor. The South Carolinians responded immediately by beginning to install batteries and fortifications on all the sites within range of Sumter. In early March Adele speculated that “if we are not well prepared to resist re-enforcements to Fort Sumter and other Southern Ports, 29. Mary Petigru to Adele Allston, Dec. 27, 1860; Jane G. North to Adele Allston, Dec. 29, 1860, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 171–72; Adele Allston to “My dear Charles,” Jan. 16, 1861, in Allston Papers, SCHS; James L. Petigru to Jane Petigru North, Mar. 6, 1861, in James Petigru Carson, ed., Life, Letters, and Speeches of James Louis Petigru, The Union Man of South Carolina (Washington, D.C., 1920), 373. 30. Robert Allston to “My Dear Son” [Charles], Feb. 16, 1861; receipts for arms donations, Citadel Academy, Dec. 8, 1860, Marion Light Troop, Dec. 17, 1860, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Allston to C. Williams, Dec. 25, 1860, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 170; Scarborough, Masters of the Big House, 301.

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we will certainly have war or be coerced into obedience to the government of Lincoln.” Yet, she reasoned, “if they find we are really well prepared to resist, to make a desperate fight, I do not think they will attempt it.” As the weeks passed, rumors of Anderson’s impending evacuation circulated repeatedly. As late as April 11, the day before Confederate batteries began their bombardment of Sumter, Robert Allston predicted that Major Anderson “must give up at last,” surmising that the Federal fleet that had recently departed New York was en route to Texas to reinstate recently deposed Governor Sam Houston rather than to reinforce Anderson at Fort Sumter. He was proved wrong the following morning when the Confederate batteries opened a withering fire against the Sumter garrison at 4:30 a.m. as the Yankee fleet arrived offshore.31 Several members of the Allston family, including Ben and Bessie, were in Charleston when the bombardment of Sumter began, and they provided vivid accounts of the historic event. Ben, who was serving on Morris Island as an aide to Brigadier General James Simons during the battle, conveyed to his father on April 14 “the glorious, and astonishing news that . . . the impregnable fortress” of Sumter had fallen. He could scarcely contain his exuberance. “Such a ‘bloodless victory’ has never yet been recorded in the pages of history,” he reported jubilantly, noting that not a single man on the Confederate side had been injured during the thirtysix-hour bombardment. Ten days later he would report to General P.G.T. Beauregard, who would assign him to the post of inspector on Sullivan’s Island. Ben’s sister Bessie was also in Charleston, obliged to remain there because of her attendance at Madame Togno’s school. She witnessed the second day of the bombardment through a spyglass on the upper piazza of her uncle Philip Porcher’s residence on King Street. From that vantage point she was able to see the panoramic spectacle that preceded Major Anderson’s surrender on April 13. According to her mother, “Bessie rejoiced that she was there and saw it all.”32 31. Adele Allston to “My dear Charles,” Mar. 11, 1861; Sister Adele to “My dear Charlie,” Mar. 24, 1861; Robert Allston to “Dear Ben,” Apr. 11, 1861, in Allston Papers, SCHS. 32. Benjamin Allston to “My dear Father,” Apr. 14, 1861, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 174–75; Ben to “My dear Father,” Apr. 25, 1861; Bessie to her Mother, Apr. 13, 1861; Adele Allston to “My dear Mrs. Latrobe” [Apr. 1861], in Allston Papers, SCHS; Mary Petigru to “My dear Carey,” Apr. 12–13, 1861, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC.

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In addition to Louise Porcher, two other sisters of Adele, Mary Petigru and Harriette Lesesne, also viewed the dramatic attack on Sumter on those two fateful April days. Like her niece, Mary viewed the spectacular scene in Charleston Harbor from the piazza of the Porcher home. In marked contrast to her earlier criticism of South Carolina’s decision to secede, she now joyously reported the “good news” that Fort Sumter had surrendered on the afternoon of 13 April. While still deploring the beginning of war and apprehensive about the carnage that might lie ahead, she nevertheless expressed pride in the conduct of Confederate forces. “Our people have shown great magnanimity to Anderson,” she observed to Adele, “& we have reason to be proud of their bravery.” Her sister Harriette Lesesne was equally delighted with what she termed “a glorious” and bloodless “victory,” attributing the result to “the wonderful interposition of God.” She also echoed Mary Petigru’s assertion that Anderson had been treated “magnanimously” and “nobly” by the victors. The euphoria surrounding the capture of Fort Sumter proved to be short-lived as the reality of war soon began to dawn. Little did the Allstons and their relatives and friends realize in April 1861 the calamities that would overwhelm them during the next four years.33 33. Mary Petigru to “My dear Carey,” Apr. 12–13, 1861 (first quotation), in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC; Mary Petigru to “My dear Adele,” Apr. 16, 1861 (second quotation); Harriette Lesesne to “My dear Adele,” Apr. 16, 1861, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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 war and defeat The Deaths of James L. Petigru and Robert F. W. Allston, 1861–1865 We must be prepared to sacrifice our all in this cause, without regard to any thing else. . . . If the Enemy gets into our Country . . . let him find a blackened and hindered Country, with nothing to support himself or ourselves. Let us make it as nearly a desert as possible—even though it be at the sacrifice of our All. This spirit will conquer in the end. —Benjamin Allston to Adele Petigru Allston, May 21, 1862 We used to think it was the vice of Kings to govern with reference to their own fancy and inclinations, instead of the material happiness or true interest of their people. But when the South has achieved its Independence, and I have no doubt it will, how will history treat Secession? As a deliverance from thraldom; or as an instance of popular passion overriding all regard for the permanent interest of the country? —James L. Petigru to James Johnston Pettigrew, October 21, 1862 You say you “acquiesce in the freeing of the blacks,” but you evidently use a form of words which carries with it no relative idea of what is covered and comprised by the freeing of the blacks. . . . Your negroes are I hear perfectly insubordinate. . . . The blacks are masters of the situation, this is a conquered country and for the moment law and order are in abeyance. —Jane Pringle to Adele Petigru Allston, April 1 [1865]

he guns that echoed over Charleston Harbor in April 1861 signaled the beginning of a conflict that would lead to the demise not only of the nascent Confederacy but also of the fortunes of the Allston family. The Allstons gave their unwavering support to the Confederate cause until the very end when the dream of Southern independence was shattered at Appomattox. Although Governor Allston

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was too old for active military duty, he offered his services to General P.G.T. Beauregard a week after the fall of Fort Sumter, consulted with Confederate leaders in Montgomery and later Richmond, and in November 1861 was elected by the South Carolina legislature to be one of the presidential electors from that state. Ben served in the Confederate army throughout the war, Adele married a Confederate officer in June 1863, and even sixteen-year-old Charlie enlisted in the army in the fall of 1864. The elder Adele, widowed in the same year and burdened with the debts of her late husband’s estate, struggled heroically to preserve what she could of the family’s assets amid the chaos that accompanied war’s end.1 The Allstons wasted no time lending their support to the Confederate war effort once the smoke had cleared from the skies over Fort Sumter. After politely declining the former governor’s offer of assistance, General Beauregard announced that he had appointed Benjamin, along with Arthur Manigault, to serve as his acting adjutant and inspector generals, “in which position they will no doubt be of great service to me & to the State.” Ben continued to serve as a voluntary aide to Beauregard in Charleston until the end of May, when he departed for Richmond to seek a more permanent military appointment. Feeling that his talents had been unappreciated in Charleston, he confided to his mother that he was gratified to find himself “somewhat more thought of ” in Richmond “than in some circles at Charleston.” His father, disappointed that Ben could not remain with Beauregard, advised his son not to “be scrupulous about the position you have to occupy, provided you are with & under a good head.” Once one arrived “at the seat of war,” continued the senior Allston, “every one must take the part that is likely to be most useful and inevitably actual service brings every competent soldier into notice very soon.”2 1. G. T. Beauregard to R.F.W. Allston, Apr. 29, 1861; Francis W. Pickens to R.F.W. Allston, Nov. 6, 1861 [printed], in Allston Papers, SCHS; Ellen Allston to “My Darling Husband” [Ben], Nov. 18, 1864, in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS. 2. G. T. Beauregard to R.F.W. Allston, Apr. 29, 1861 (first quotation); Benjamin Allston to “My dear Father,” Apr. 25, 1861; Benjamin Allston to “My dear Mother,” Apr. 29, June 9 (second quotation), 1861; Bessie Allston to “my dear Papa” [May 30?], 1861; R.F.W. Allston to “Dear Ben,” May 29, June 3 (third quotation), 1861, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Benjamin Allston to “Dear Charley,” May 3, 1861, in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS; Louise [North] to “My dear Carey,” Apr. 12, 1861, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC; Official Records, ser. 1, vol. 53, supp., 176.

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Ben was placed in command of four companies of artillery upon his arrival in Richmond and soon received a commission as major of the Nineteenth Mississippi Infantry. On July 6 he arrived in Winchester to join the army of General Joseph E. Johnston, who had been assigned the task of preventing a Union army in the Shenandoah Valley commanded by Major General Robert Patterson from reinforcing the main Union army in the East as it moved toward Manassas. Two weeks later, after Patterson had been driven from the valley, Johnston began shifting his army to the east via the Manassas Gap Railroad, just in time to reinforce Johnston at the first Battle of Manassas on July 21. Ben’s regiment formed part of Johnston’s rearguard. After stopping briefly on the nineteenth to have his horse fed, Ben was galloping up to rejoin his regiment when, to his astonishment and delight, he spied his father “seated down upon the roadside with some soldiers.” After spending several weeks in Montgomery, the elder Allston had gone on to Richmond to discuss the defenses of the Carolina coast with President Jefferson Davis. Learning that Ben was with Johnston’s army in Winchester, Allston had started for that town, only to encounter him on the road to the western rail station.3 Ben and his father were delayed by an accident on the railroad and did not arrive in Manassas until the early morning of July 22, the day after the great battle. Upon his arrival the senior Allston was distressed to learn that two prominent South Carolinians had suffered mortal wounds in the bloody battle of the previous day. The first, Brigadier General Barnard E. Bee, who gave Stonewall Jackson his sobriquet in the desperate fighting on Henry House Hill, had been shot through the stomach and was “suffering awfully.” After a brief visit to the quarters of the Hampton Legion, Allston returned and remained with General Bee until he “died peacefully” later in the day. According to Allston, his last words were “Push on, push on.” The other Palmetto State casualty that particularly affected the Allstons was Henry A. Middleton Jr., a member of the Hampton Legion, son of another prominent Georgetown District rice planter, and an officer with 3. Benjamin Allston to “My dear Mother,” June 15, July 6, 20 (quotation), 1861; Ben Allston to Governor or Mrs. R.F.W. Allston (telegram), June 19, 1861; Ben Allston to “My dear Father,” June 23, 1861; Jane G. North to “My dear Adele,” July 16, 1861, in Allston Papers, SCHS; R.F.W. Allston to Adele Allston, July 15, 20, 1861, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 178–80; Jane G. North to “My dear Carey,” June 10, 1861; M[ary] A. Petigru to “Dearest Louly” [niece Louise North], July 9, 1861, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC.

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Ben the previous winter with a Georgetown troop. Shot through the lungs, Middleton appeared to rally briefly before succumbing to his wounds four days after the battle. On July 23 Allston rode out in search of Ben’s regiment, then on picket duty. As he passed through the battlefield, he saw abundant signs of the carnage that had taken place two days before. “Such a sight I trust I may never see again,” he reported sadly to Adele. There were nearly “700 bodies . . . still lying exposed and nearly as many horses.” Concerned about his son’s welfare, Allston remained with the army for more than a week before returning home in early August.4 Meanwhile, Ben’s responsibilities increased as a consequence of the casualties suffered at First Manassas. Sometime in August he was given temporary command of the Fourth Alabama Regiment, whose commander, Lieutenant Colonel Evander M. Law, had been severely wounded at Manassas. There he remained for several months, reportedly earning the support of his men and establishing “a high reputation as an able officer.” But by mid-October he was growing restless and desired a “more stable” position. “I must try and lose myself however in the cause,” he confided to sister Adele, “and be willing to do my part under all circumstances.” Following a month as an aide to Major General Gustavus W. Smith at Centerville, he was ordered in mid-December to report to Major General Benjamin Huger in Norfolk to take charge of the cavalry. “Whether this means promotion or not I am ignorant,” he wrote his brother, “but at all events I am going in a few days . . . if the jaundice will permit me.” Unfortunately, his condition worsened, and he was obliged to take a fifteenday leave of absence in early January 1862. A month later, on February 9, he represented General Huger in the exchange of prisoners captured by the Federals at Roanoke Island, North Carolina—a performance that won praise from Huger. Ben’s service in the Eastern theater of operations ended in April when he was ordered to report to Major General Edmund Kirby Smith in Knoxville as a colonel commanding a small cavalry brigade.5 4. Adele Allston to “My dear Charles,” July 30, 1861; Adele to “My dear Mrs. [Sarah] Williams,” Aug. 2 [1861], in Allston Papers, SCHS; R.F.W. Allston to Adele Allston, July 23 (quotations), 25, 1861, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 180–83; Minnie [Mary North Allston] to “My dearest Carey,” July 30, 1861, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC; Resolution by Marion Men of Winyah, Apr. 23, 1861, in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS. 5. Benjamin Allston to “My dear Father,” Aug. 14, Nov. 9, 1861; Ben to “My dear Sister” [Adele], Oct. 15, 1861 (second quotation); Ben to “My dear Charly,” Dec. 16, 1861 (third quo-

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While his son was performing his service as an officer in the Confederate army, the elder Allston turned his attention to homeland defense— specifically, to protecting the coast of his native Georgetown District. Even before the war began, Allston had been concerned about the security of the plantations in Georgetown. Indeed, some had blamed him for the failure of a Georgetown company to be organized because he had early opposed the use of Georgetown troops outside the county. Denying that he had “spoken [to] a single man under 50 years of age discouragingly,” he nevertheless feared that he would be blamed “for their failure.” Despite his initial opposition to the formation of a troop for service outside the county, he later acquiesced, contending, “I would have willingly help’d them out after they had formed a camp & help’d them to drill.” But the camp was broken up before Allston could render such assistance. Henry A. Middleton Jr., a member of the camp, attributed the failure of the unit not to Allston but to the “personal unpopularity” and “utter incompetency” of their captain, J. Harleston Read Jr.6 Whatever his role in the demise of the Georgetown troop, there is no doubt that Allston labored assiduously from the beginning of the war to protect the town of Georgetown and the neighboring rice plantations from enemy incursions. In mid-January, as Ben was returning to Norfolk after his leave of absence, his father was appointed a member of the provost marshal’s court for Georgetown District. This court was apparently similar to the old county court “but clothed with far greater power.” One of its first functions was to order coastal planters to remove their slaves to places of greater safety. As the Union established beachheads along the Carolina coast in the fall of 1861 and winter of 1862, Allston continually petitioned Confederate authorities to bolster the Georgetown defenses. Thus, in July 1862 he protested the withdrawal of batteries from Georgetown in light of recent enemy depredations near the town. Major General tation); Ben to “My dear Mother,” Apr. 15, 1862, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Anna [Mariana] to “Dear Cary,” Sept. 6, 1861; Caroline [Carey] Pettigrew to “My dearest Minnie,” Jan. 30, 1862 (first quotation); Jane G. North to “My dearest Carey,” Jan. 6, 1862, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC; Official Records, ser. 1, vol. 5, p. 953; vol. 9, p. 367; ser. 2, vol. 3, p. 803; Groves, Alstons and Allstons, 43. 6. R.F.W. Allston to “My Dear Adele,” June 4, 1861, in Allston Papers; Henry A. Middleton Jr., Plantation Journal, May 24, 1861, SCHS.

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John C. Pemberton responded that he presently had no arms at his disposal, but, he assured Allston, “I will . . . renew my exertions to obtain them, and if successful devote them to this special purpose.” Two months later, with enemy gunboats already in Winyah Bay, Allston pleaded with Pemberton to begin constructing fortifications in the district. Once again, the general’s response was far from satisfactory. “My opinion as to defending Georgetown and the surrounding plantations is unchanged,” he wrote. “Our means are inadequate to do so efficiently,” and there were “no rifled guns to spare from the defences of Charleston & Savannah.” With no assistance from Confederate authorities, many Lowcountry planters began to flee their properties by the end of the year, although Allston himself elected to remain.7 The Allstons, together with their relatives and neighbors, found other ways to support the Confederate war effort. Following the bloody battle at Manassas, the Allston and Petigru/Pettigrew women began collecting and then making clothing for the soldiers. They formed neighborhood associations to knit socks, furnish sheets and pillowcases, and make uniforms for those already in the army as well as for those in new companies being raised. This patriotic fervor seems to have reached its peak in the months immediately after the Confederate victory at Manassas. Thus, after noting recent appeals for winter clothing for the troops, Carey Pettigrew exclaimed to her sister: “Shame to any woman, who is not ready to practice self denial & give all she can to those who will surely require it, & every one of us can help.” And help they did. Carey’s sisters Minnie and Louise, both of whom married into the Allston family, and her mother Jane G. North, the eldest sister of Adele Allston, were active in supplying clothing to Confederate soldiers. “I am getting the loom put up again,” Jane announced to her sister, “& only regret I ever had the good household art of spinning & weaving given up.” Adele was also heavily involved in these supportive endeavors. In the fall of 1861, for example, she collaborated 7. R.F.W. Allston to Governor Francis W. Pickens, Jan. 13, 1862, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 187–88 (first quotation); Minnie Allston to “My dearest Carey,” Jan. 22, 1862, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC; Maj. Gen. John C. Pemberton to James Chesnut Jr., July 26, 1862, in Official Records, ser. 1, vol. 14, p. 589; William F. Nance, AAG, to R.F.W. Allston, Sept. 11, 1862; Adele Allston to “My dear Charles,” Sept. 21, 1862, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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with her English-born neighbor Emily Weston in making twenty-five uniforms for Georgetown soldiers.8 In addition to his preoccupation with the defenses of Georgetown, Robert Allston served on the Board of Relief for Soldiers’ Families in Prince George Winyah Parish, and on several occasions he furnished hands to local and Confederate authorities for various projects. Less than a week after South Carolina seceded, Allston agreed to furnish an unspecified number of hands to the state to construct earthworks in Georgetown. He only required that they be properly directed and well cared for. In the fall of 1862 he sent fifty young male slaves to North Carolina to work on the railroad, apparently at the request of Confederate authorities. The following spring, just a year before his death, he hired out two men and two boys to the Confederate Naval Station at Marion Court House at ninety dollars a month for three months, “with the privilege of keeping them longer—probably six months.” Allston’s support of the Confederacy continued unabated until the end of his life.9 Despite their nearly universal support for the Confederacy, some members of the Allston family, especially the women, began, as early as 1861, to have serious doubts about the course upon which their native state had embarked. Thus, less than a month after the fall of Sumter, Jane North, who would soon resurrect her loom to make uniforms for the troops, lamented the prospect of full-scale war. “I . . . hardly know how to forgive the folly that has rushed the country into it,” she declared, but I still “hope our side will Beat.” A month later she reiterated her opposition to what she termed “this Revolution”: “I do not believe any thing will be gained by having a ‘Southern Confederacy.’ ” Two of her daughters, Minnie Allston and Louise North, clearly perceived the relationship between the war and the future of slavery. Perhaps reflecting a guilty conscience, Minnie, disil8. Minnie Allston to “My dearest Carey,” July 30, 1861; Jane G. North to “My dearest Carey,” Aug. 4, 1861; [Carey Pettigrew] to “My dearest Lou” [Louise North], Aug. 8, 1861, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC; Emily L. Weston to “Dear Mrs. Allston,” Sept. 13 [1861]; Jane G. North to “My dear Adele,” Oct. 3, 1861, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Pease and Pease, Family of Women, 149–50. 9. Charleston Daily Courier, Feb. 14, 1863; E. Williams [?] to R.F.W. Allston, Dec. 24, 1860; Adele Allston to “My dear Charles,” Oct. 19, 1862, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Van R. Morgan, 1st Lt., C.S. Navy, to Governor Allston, Apr. 13, 1863, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 194.

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lusioned by the Confederate debacle at Fort Hatteras in late August 1861, doubted “whether any nation founded upon slavery can be a great nation.” Several months later, in what she described as “a dark moment for our Confederacy,” her sister Louise gloomily observed to Carey Pettigrew that she could not “help feeling as though we [will] live to see the extinction of slavery.”10 Despite their misgivings, the women all gave their unflinching support to the war effort. Jane and Adele’s brother James L. Petigru, the longtime unionist attorney from Charleston, never did. Indeed, of all the AllstonPetigru/Pettigrew clan, he was the most critical of both the decision to secede and the subsequent prosecution of the war. In December 1861, after the Federal landing at Port Royal and as natives of the Palmetto State speculated about the next target of Union naval forces off the Carolina coast, Petigru exclaimed: “God help us! Let us hope for the best.” “But what is the best?” he asked sarcastically. “Perhaps, that Beauregard may whip McClellan, and over-run the whole North, and make Jef Davis Emporer.” If the two generals faced each other, “eating up the substance of the country,” it would not be long before “famine is added to Insolvency.” A year later Petigru offered a retrospective criticism of his state’s ill-fated decision to lead the secession movement: “We used to think it was the vice of Kings to govern with reference to their own fancy and inclinations, instead of the material happiness or true interest of their people. But when the South has achieved its Independence . . . how will history treat Secession? As a deliverance from thraldom; or as an instance of popular passion overriding all regard for the interest of the country?” Although he was never enamored with the Yankees and never doubted that the South would win the war, Petigru remained convinced until the end of his life that secession had been a monumental mistake.11 Petigru’s sister Adele, doubtless influenced by her husband, exhibited quite a different attitude. Although she too decried the prospect of war in the wake of secession, she was quick to castigate the rector of Prince Fred10. Jane Petigru North to Carey Pettigrew, May 7, June 3, 1861; Minnie Allston to “My dearest Carey,” Sept. 13, 1861; Louise [North] to “My dearest Carey,” Dec. 4, 1861, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC. 11. James L. Petigru to R.F.W. Allston, Dec. 1861, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 186; Petigru to “My dear Johnston” [Pettigrew], Oct. 21, 1862, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC.

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erick’s Church, Joseph Hunter, and his wife for expressing pro-Northern views shortly after the bombardment of Fort Sumter. She angrily denounced the Hunters for such apostasy after they had ministered to and enjoyed the hospitality of the Georgetown rice planters for nearly fifteen years. Conceding that the Hunters had “a perfect right” to their “opinions and preferences,” she nevertheless found it “inexplicable” that they would object to the South exercising “the principles of self government” in seeking a peaceful separation from the North. “Our cause,” she asserted, is “the cause of constitutional government in opposition to the will of a mere majority,” which had subverted “all written law.” Consequently, she could not understand “the madness which makes the North engage in a war upon us,” nor could she understand how the Hunters, “who have sojourned among us” for so long, “can join the wild cry against us because we ask to part company in peace.” There is no record of any response by the Hunters to this angry missive.12 Adele’s son Benjamin was even more vociferous than his parents in his defense of the Southern cause and his denunciation of the hated Yankees. Even before the war began, Ben became estranged from one of his former West Point classmates, William P. Craighill, who pronounced the course of action being pursued by South Carolina as “suicidal.” Ben responded that he deeply resented being characterized as an “unchristian traitor” simply because he supported the secession of the Palmetto State. More than a year later, as the fortunes of war began to turn against the Confederacy, Ben exhorted his fellow Southerners to be more resolute in the face of adversity. “Our reverses are sure,” he admitted, “but Nations as individuals must meet with reverses to teach them important lessons.” He feared that “our people all over the land & our Government have not yet realized the intensity of the struggle that we have to sustain.” By the late spring of 1862, following the Confederate defeat at Shiloh, the fall of New Orleans, and the evacuation of Norfolk, Ben declared emphatically that “we must be prepared to sacrifice our all in this cause, without regard to any thing else.” Ever proud of his Carolina heritage, he declared that, because South Carolina had proclaimed at the outset that the state would stand alone 12. Adele Allston to “My dear Charles,” Jan. 16, 1861, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Adele to Mrs. Joseph Hunter, May 15, 1861, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 175–76.

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if necessary, “her children must never be the ones to be excelled in selfsacrifice by those of any State.” If the enemy should invade his homeland, he called for its inhabitants to adopt a scorched earth policy, making the land “as nearly a desert as possible.” Such a spirit, he concluded optimistically, “will conquer in the end.” Ben’s devotion to his native state and to the Confederate cause never wavered despite being captured and then wounded later that year.13

 As the war continued and the danger of enemy incursions grew, the Allstons and other Lowcountry families began to explore safer places of refuge. In 1861 they spent their last summer at their beloved beach house on Pawleys Island, where they kept company with Minnie and Joseph Allston, who occupied an adjacent house. When a rumor circulated in early September that two thousand of the Yankee “fiends” had landed near the island, some of their Charleston relatives expressed great concern for their welfare. Fortunately, the rumor proved to be false, and they remained on Pawleys until early autumn. Following the successful enemy landing at Port Royal Sound in early November, however, panic swept the South Carolina coastal residents. So great was the anxiety in Charleston that, according to Louise North, “had the Federals marched on they would have found our metropolis in the same condition Washington was after Manassas.” By the beginning of 1862 the panic had spread to Georgetown. Young Adele reported from Chicora Wood that “every one about us is preparing to move off at a moments warning, though very few I think have decided where they will go to.” For the time being the Allstons decided to remain at Chicora, although the head of the family soon began making alternative arrangements.14 13. William P. Craighill to “My dear Bob” [Ben Allston], Oct. 7, 1860; Jan. 1 (first quotation), 30 (second quotation), 1861, in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS; Benjamin Allston to “My dear Mother,” Mar. 2 (first quotation), 10 (second quotation), May 21 (third quotation), 1862, in Allston Papers, SCHS. 14. Jane G. North to “My dear Carey,” June 3, Aug. 15, 1861; Minnie Allston to “My dearest Carey,” May 8, Aug. 30, 1861; Anna [Mariana] to “Dear Cary,” Sept. 6, 1861 (first quotation); Louise [North] to “My dearest Carey,” Nov. 18, 1861, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC; [daughter] Adele Allston to “My dear Alice” [Middleton], Jan. 10, 1862, in Harriott Middleton Family Papers, SCHS.

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During the next three years the Allstons found refuge at various times at three new inland sites: a log house in Plantersville, located in the pinelands about sixteen miles from Georgetown; Croly Hill, a modest dwelling near Society Hill in Darlington District; and Morven, a 1,900-acre tract on the Pee Dee River in Anson County, North Carolina. By August 1862 the Allstons were in their small but comfortable new house in Plantersville. Adele described the setting as “quite pretty with the broad expanse of pine trees and green Savannah before us.” This was apparently the only year that the family summered at Plantersville until after the war, although Robert Allston spent a considerable amount of time there in the two years before his death because of its proximity to his plantations.15 As early as July 1861, the widow of recently deceased planter and mill owner John N. Williams of The Factory plantation in Darlington District had offered the Allstons the use of Croly Hill as their summer residence. Although then in a “very shabby” condition, this thirty-year-old house still had “a pleasant parlor,” four rooms on the ground level with fireplaces, and “two very airy tho small chambers in the second story.” Because the danger to the coast was not yet imminent, the Allstons initially declined this gracious offer and spent that summer on Pawleys Island. By the following year, however, the situation had changed, and, when the offer was renewed, the Allstons accepted. In the autumn of 1862 they shipped some of their furniture to Croly Hill from both Chicora Wood and their Meeting Street residence. Then, in February 1863, the two Adeles “left Charleston with the greatest reluctance” after General Beauregard issued a proclamation warning of an imminent attack and urging all noncombatants to leave the city. After a brief stay at Croly Hill, they returned to Charleston to prepare for young Adele’s June wedding. Mrs. Allston had hoped to remain in the port city until at least August, but the Federal landing on Morris Island in early July and the subsequent shelling of the city from that vantage point once again drove her away to Society Hill, this time for the remainder of the year.16 15. Adele Allston to “My dear Charles,” Aug. 10, 1862; Adele to Madame Acelie Togno, Feb. 22, 1863, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 9, 23; Devereux, Life and Times, 258. 16. Sarah C. Williams to Adele Petigru Allston, July 10, 1861 (first quotation); Adele P. Allston to Benjamin Allston, Oct. 30, 1862; Adele P. Allston to Elizabeth Allston, Jan. 11, 1863,

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In order to provide a sanctuary for his slaves if Union forces should threaten his Georgetown plantations, Robert Allston, in October 1862, purchased Morven, a 1,900-acre farm located twelve miles above Cheraw on the Pee Dee River in Anson County, North Carolina. Allston purchased the place from its Mississippi owner for ten thousand dollars. He apparently moved some of his hands to Morven in 1863, but most of them remained in Georgetown. Thus, an inventory of Allston’s personal estate in 1865 revealed that there were only fifty-three slaves at Morven and thirty at Croly Hill, compared to nearly six hundred on his Georgetown rice plantations. Primarily a grain farm, Morven produced a thousand bushels of corn in 1864. Although Adele made periodic visits to Morven after her husband’s death, the farm was under the general supervision of agent J. C. Yates and overseer Duncan Barrantine.17 Not only did the war disrupt the lives of the adult Allstons, but it also affected the education of the youngest children in the family. The two youngest girls, Bessie and Jane, were schooled first at home and then after ages ten and twelve, respectively, at the French boarding school of Madame Acelie Togno, who was forced to move her school from Charleston to Barhamville, near Columbia, in 1862. Bessie received her education at Madame Togno’s, first with older sister Adele and later with younger sister Jane, from 1855 until her eighteenth birthday in May 1863. Jane entered the school in 1862 at age twelve, after Madame Togno had made the move to Barhamville. At that time there were thirty-seven girls enrolled in the school. The following spring Jane described the discipline at Madame Togno’s to her mother. When the girls became lax about rising early in the morning, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 177–78, 190, 192; S[erena] E. Williams to “My dear Mrs. Allston,” Oct. 17, 1862; Adele P. Allston to Madame Acelie Togno, Feb. 22, 1863 (second quotation); Robertson Blacklock & Co. to Hon. R.F.W. Allston, Jan. 19, 1863 [sic—1864], Factors’ Letters, in Allston Papers, SCHS; [daughter] Adele Allston to Alicia [Middleton], July 29, 1863, in Harriott Middleton Family Papers, SCHS; Pringle, Chronicles of Chicora Wood, 189; William K. Scarborough, ed., The Diary of Edmund Ruffin, 3 vols. (Baton Rouge, 1972–89), 2:578. 17. Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 22, 30; Adele P. Allston to Benjamin Allston, Oct. 30, 1862, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 189; J. C. Yates to Adele P. Allston, Nov. 10, 1864, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 314; Adele P. Allston to “My dear Adele” [Vanderhorst], July 28, 1864, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Rogers, History of Georgetown County, 405, 410.

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Madame began to wake them “up every morning ever so long before day break.” Then, she reported, “we have three quarters of an hour to dress in, and then a bell is rung and all of us go down stairs with our candles in our hands . . . and sit down and study without saying a word, for an hour and a quarter just by candle-light all looking very doleful indeed.” Jane endured this spartan regimen for another year until Madame Togno was obliged to close the school because the expenses of boarding the girls had become prohibitive. One former student questioned her teacher’s loyalty in late 1864. Charging that she did “not evince as much kindness for the South as might be expected,” this young lady reported that Togno was preparing “to set up a school in New York.”18 In contrast to his sisters, Charles Petigru Allston received his secondary education at Willington Academy, a military school in Abbeville District operated by Octavius T. Porcher. Charles was enrolled in the academy in the spring of 1860 at the age of twelve. He was soon receiving advice from his mother, who urged him to work on his spelling, take an interest in his books, and choose his friends wisely. When he experienced a period of homesickness the following year, his father offered similar counsel: “The best help for home-sickness is application to your books daily until the lesson is master’d . . . then cheerful association in Company with some friends or Schoolmates.” But above all, admonished his father, “never be idle.” Success could only be attained through hard work. If he learned that lesson early in life, continued his father, “then when it shall become necessary [to labor] it wont hurt you, or find you unprepared.” Ten days later Adele echoed her husband’s advice, as both tried to instill in young Charles the Calvinist work ethic so frequently attributed primarily to Northerners. Lauding the merits of a “liberal education,” she urged her son to apply himself wholeheartedly to his studies. “Do nothing half way,” she exhorted. “In whatever you undertake be in earnest and do it with all your might.” Whether or not Charles followed his parents’ advice is uncer18. Adele P. Allston to “My dear Charles,” Oct. 28, 1861; Aug. 10, 1862; Bessie Allston to “Dear Mamma,” Sept. 19 [1862]; Mary Ann LaBruce Petigru to “My dear Adele,” Sept. 30, 1862; Jane Louise Allston to “My dear Mamma,” Mar. 7, 1863 (quotation); Feb. 13, Mar. 12, 1864; Madame Acelie Togno to “Dear Mrs. Allston,” n.d., in Allston Papers, SCHS; Marion to “Dear Bessie” [her cousin], Dec. 6, 1864, in Elizabeth W. Allston Pringle Family Papers, SCHS; Pringle, Chronicles of Chicora Wood, 176, 187.

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tain, but, if not, he had a ready excuse. Two months later he complained that he was in a room with five other boys, who kept up such a continual chatter that he could “hardly read my Bible or say my prayers.”19 Charles and the other boys at Willington followed the war news closely, and most longed for the day when they would be old enough to join in the defense of their homeland. Four of the older boys left just after the bombardment of Sumter, but the others could only wait. When the Federal shelling of Charleston began in August 1863, Charles lamented that, if boys of sixteen were called out, it would be difficult for him, who had just turned fifteen, to resist the temptation to join them. But “Papa & yourself would never agree to it,” he conceded. The following January, however, Charles was with 120 cadets and 2 officers at The Arsenal, along with The Citadel one of the two military academies in South Carolina. There was some talk of commencing the academic session, but Charles thought it unlikely, “for as soon as Sherman commences his march for Charleston we will be called out to a certainty.” Finally, in November Ben’s new wife notified him that Charles had been taken into the army. “He was called out and went from school and did not come home,” she reported. Apparently, he was enrolled in the army too late to see any significant action.20 While her younger siblings attended their respective schools, the Allstons’ eldest daughter, Adele, prepared to enter a new stage in her life. After a lengthy courtship she became formally engaged in the spring of 1863 to Arnoldus Vanderhorst, a captain in the Confederate army and the son of prominent planter and wharf owner Elias Vanderhorst and wealthy New York native Ann Morris Vanderhorst. The prospective groom’s family owned not only most of Kiawah Island but also a Charleston wharf and plantations on the Ashepoo River and Chickesee Island. Adele’s mother reportedly was not at all pleased with the match, but her father gave his consent in early May, believing Arnoldus, like his father, “to be a man of 19. Adele P. Allston to “My dear Charles,” Mar. 13, Apr. 26, 1860; Feb. 26, 1861 (quotations); R.F.W. Allston to “My Dear Son” [Charles], Feb. 16, 1861; Charles P. Allston to “Dear Mama,” Apr. 21, 1861, in Allston Papers, SCHS. 20. Charles P. Allston to “Dear Mama,” Apr. 21, 1861; Aug. 26, 1863; Jan. 3, 1864, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Ellen Allston to “My Darling Husband” [Ben], Nov. 18, 1864, in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS. Unknown to Charles and other South Carolinians, Sherman’s destination was Columbia—not Charleston—although both cities were evacuated on the same day, Feb. 17, 1865.

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honor & a highbred gentleman of principle.” In consenting to the marriage, Robert Allston described his daughter as “obliging, yielding [and] gentle,” and he required that her husband be “reasonable, considerate, just & kind” in order to ensure mutual happiness. He also proposed to give Adele a dowry of at least five thousand dollars rather than a rice plantation that might be rendered worthless by the war.21 At first the couple planned to be married as soon as peace was restored, but as the war continued they abandoned that idea. Adele’s next choice was an October wedding, but Arnoldus peremptorily rejected that date, opting instead for late June. Thus, Adele was compelled to yield, though with the promise that “in future I am always to do as I please—so he says.” After recounting their disagreement over the wedding date, Adele proceeded to give the following advice to Alicia Middleton, whom she had selected as one of her bridesmaids: “Never be tempted by caprice or temper or any thing else to do that which will put you in the wrong for no man will forget it or fail to take advantage thereof.” Despite the apparent tension between the two over the wedding date, Adele and Arnoldus were married on the evening of June 24, 1863, at the Allstons’ Meeting Street residence in Charleston. It was quite an elaborate affair despite wartime conditions and the proximity of the enemy. After a brief honeymoon, the couple proceeded to Wilmington, North Carolina, where Arnoldus was attached to the command of Major General William H. C. Whiting. There they were quartered comfortably in the residence of Bishop Atkinson of North Carolina, whose family was absent. Adele described her new abode in glowing terms: “It is delightfully situated near the outskirts of the town . . . on a hill where we get the benefit of every breeze that blows and the front & rear of the house being shaded by large trees.” The Vanderhorsts remained in Wilmington until at least May 1864, when General Whiting received orders to take command of Confederate forces in Petersburg.22 Meanwhile, as his eldest sister adjusted to her new life of wedded bliss and other members of the family grappled with the disruptions engen21. Mary B. Pettigrew to [sister Carey?] [Sept. 1862]; Jane G. North to “My dearest Carey,” Apr. 7, 1862 [sic—1863], in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC; R.F.W. Allston to Capt. Arnoldus Vanderhorst, May 6, 1863, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Clements, ed., “ ‘Great Events Have Taken Place,’ ” 313–14; Pease and Pease, Family of Women, 180. 22. Adele Allston/Vanderhorst to “My dear Alicia” [Middleton], May 14, July 29, 1863, in Harriott Middleton Family Papers, SCHS; Henry D. Lesesne to “Dear General” [J. J. Pet-

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dered by the war, Ben Allston faced more severe trials as an officer in the Confederate army. The year 1862 began auspiciously when Ben and his father dined with President Davis in Richmond just before the younger Allston reported to General Kirby Smith in East Tennessee. He found the president and Mrs. Davis “in fine spirits and devoid of show in all their dinner arrangements at least.” A week later Ben arrived in Knoxville and assumed command of a small cavalry brigade. After surveying the scene in East Tennessee, he predicted that the area would prosper under Confederate rule. Small towns would increase in size, farms would become villages, manufactures would thrive, “and a second England may spring forth from these mountains.” But, if the region remained with the North, it would be “very much . . . as it is today” for a hundred years. Ben’s devotion to the Confederacy had obviously clouded his judgment.23 By July 1862 Ben had assumed a much more important military role as the Army of Tennessee, now commanded by General Braxton Bragg, prepared to invade Kentucky. He was now in charge of one of two cavalry brigades in Brigadier General Henry Heth’s Second Division. Allston’s brigade included the First, Second, and Third Tennessee Cavalry, the First Georgia Cavalry, and a howitzer battery. Unfortunately, the day before Bragg began his invasion of Kentucky, Ben was captured at Cumberland Gap. He was riding out with two couriers to inspect his pickets when a party of Yankees suddenly appeared. The couriers fled immediately, but Ben remained for a second look and was soon surrounded and forced to surrender. Intensely mortified by the incident, especially because the enemy force was led by a former chum at West Point, Ben later explained to his mother that he did not in any way feel “responsible for the occurrence.” Fortunately, he remained in enemy hands for only a day. He was paroled the next day and sent to Richmond to await his exchange.24 tigrew], June 23, 1863, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC; Clements, “ ‘Great Events Have Taken Place,’ ” 313–14, 327; Pease and Pease, Family of Women, 183; Mark M. Boatner III, The Civil War Dictionary (New York, 1959), 916. 23. Benjamin Allston to “My dear Mother,” Apr. 9 (quotation), 15, 1862, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Ben to “My darling Sisters” [Adele and Bessie], Apr. 26, 1862, in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS. 24. Official Records, ser. 1, vol. 16, pt. 1, p. 892; pt. 2, p. 719; ser. 2, vol. 4, p. 457; Mary B. Pettigrew to [sister Carey?] [Sept. 1862], in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC; Benjamin Allston to “My dear Mother,” Sept. 6, 1862, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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Little more than a month later, at Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, Ben had a much more serious encounter with the enemy as Bragg’s Kentucky campaign reached a climax. According to Major George R. Gillespie, the assistant adjutant general, Ben—now a colonel—“was badly wounded whilst making a brave gallant & desperate charge upon the enemy at Lawrenceburg” on October 7. He was struck from behind by a ball that lodged between the lower ribs on his right side and could not be removed. The surgeon assured him, however, that the wound was not life threatening. Major Gillespie immediately took charge of his body servant William, his horses, and his baggage. When the army began its retreat from Perryville the following day, Ben remained behind at the home of a Southern sympathizer. There he was well cared for until mid-November, when he was moved to Vicksburg to continue his convalescence. Finally, in March 1863 he returned to active duty as inspector general of the Trans-Mississippi Department on the staff of Lieutenant General Edmund Kirby Smith, a position he held for the duration of the war.25 Although the headquarters of the Trans-Mississippi Department was located in Shreveport, Louisiana, Ben also spent time in Texas and Arkansas during his term as inspector general. His office was obliged to deal with such problems as depredations by cavalry units throughout the vast department and the collection of taxes-in-kind by unauthorized persons. Although Ben clearly enjoyed the confidence of General Kirby Smith, he alienated at least one high-ranking officer in the department. In December 1863 Major General John Bankhead Magruder, commanding the District of Texas, complained bitterly to Kirby Smith about interference by Colonel Allston, “whose presence in this district has been to loosen in many important particulars the discipline of persons of my command.” In short, continued Bankhead, “I think he was sent to report to you, but not to regulate the affairs of my command, except through you.” Notwithstand25. George R. Gillespie, Major and AAG, to Robert F. W. Allston, Oct. 29, 1862; Ben Allston to “My dear Mother,” Oct. 10, 1862; R.F.W. Allston to “Dear Adele,” Nov. 10, 1862; [James L. Petigru] to sister [Adele Allston], Nov. 22, 1862; Ben Allston to “My dear Father,” Mar. 5, 1863, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Adele P. Allston to Benjamin Allston, Oct. 30, [1862], in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 189; Jane G. North to “My dear Brother” [James L. Petigru], Nov. 20, Dec. 10, 1862, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC; Official Records, ser. 1, vol. 15, p. 1009; vol. 22, pt. 2, p. 799.

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ing this complaint, which apparently had little merit, Ben retained his post until the end of the war. He was finally paroled and allowed to return home in mid-June 1865.26 There was at least one happy consequence of Ben’s service in Texas. There he met, wooed, and, on February 25, 1864 (his birthday), married Ellen S. Robinson of Austin. The only child of her mother’s first marriage, she was described as petite, pretty though curiously “without teeth,” and “practically an orphan.” When they were informed of the impending nuptials, both of Ben’s parents were extremely supportive. “I rely very much upon the promptings of your heart,” his father wrote, and, “altho you may have selected a penniless orphan, be assured of my blessing upon your Union as heartily & as much as if she had the wealth of a Princess of the Realm.” His mother was equally receptive to her new daughter-in-law. Her “forlorn” background might prove to be an advantage, for “she will come into our family as tho’ she had been born into it.” If Ellen proved to be “a good wife to him, and he is satisfied we have no more to ask.” The Allstons’ trust in Ben’s judgment was not misplaced. Three months after their wedding Ben described Ellen as his “greatest blessing,” and he longed for the time when his parents could come to “know her—and love her as I do.” As the time of confinement with her first baby drew near, in November 1864, Ellen confided to her mother-in-law that she would name the infant for her if she were a girl, but, if not, “for the Father whom I never saw, but to whose memory I wish to pay the only tribute I can.” The surviving correspondence between Ellen and Ben indicates that the union was a happy one and that they enjoyed a tender, loving relationship until her untimely death in 1875 from a ravaging illness.27 While Ben was finding happiness with his new bride in Texas, the All26. Official Records, ser. 1, vol. 34, pt. 2, p. 849; vol. 48, pt. 1, p. 1311; J. Bankhead Magruder to Gen. E. Kirby Smith, Dec. 24, 1863, Official Records, ser. 1, vol. 26, pt. 2, p. 529; Parole Reported and Registered in New Orleans, June 17, 1865, in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS. 27. Adele P. Allston to “My beloved Ben,” Mar. [1?], 1864; Adele P. Allston to “My beloved daughter” [Adele], Mar. 2, 1864 (first and third quotations); R.F.W. Allston to “My Dear Son” [Ben], Mar. 2, 1864; Ben Allston to “My darling Mother,” May 12, 1864; Ellen [Robinson] Allston to “My Dear Mother” [Adele], Nov. 24, 1864 (last quotation), in Allston Papers, SCHS; Nelly [Ellen] Allston to “My Darling Husband,” Nov. 18, 1864, in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS.

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stons and Petigrus/Pettigrews were grieving over the loss of three important family members during the middle of the war. In addition to these civilian deaths, James Johnston Pettigrew, Allston’s senior aide-de-camp when he was governor, was mortally wounded in the Confederate retreat from Gettysburg. Tragedy struck first in 1863, when Adele Allston lost two of her siblings to the grim reaper. The first to succumb was her brother James L. Petigru, who died on March 9, 1863, after a brief illness. Sadly, Adele, who had come to Charleston to be with him as his condition deteriorated, was forced to leave ten days before his demise in response to General Beauregard’s proclamation warning of an imminent attack on Charleston or Savannah. Consequently, she returned on the evening of his death, “too late for any meeting in this world.” Other family members described Adele as “nearly broken hearted” and especially distressed “at having left the City when he was so ill.”28 Despite his long-held love for the Union and his passionate opposition to secession, Petigru was universally admired and respected in the Palmetto State. As Plowden Weston observed in his letter of condolence to Adele, “Perhaps no higher praise can be given to any man than that having had almost every distinguished contemporary for a political opponent he should have left no personal enemies.” His niece Mary North Allston praised him for “his noble life . . . uninfluenced by any small motive, unsullied by one selfish thought or act.” In his eulogy the editor of the Charleston Daily Courier lauded Petigru for his love of the state and for his tolerance toward those who held different opinions from his. It was in this atmosphere of universal respect and approbation that Petigru was laid to rest on March 10 in St. Michael’s Churchyard, only steps away from his Charleston law office. Among the dignitaries who attended funeral services in the crowded church were former governors Allston and William Aiken, fire-eater Robert Barnwell Rhett, Colonel James Chesnut, Judge Andrew G. Magrath, the Reverend John Bachman, and finally General 28. Jane G. North to “My dear Brother” [James L. Petigru], Feb. 3, 1863; Henry D. Lesesne to “My dear sister Jane” [North], Feb. 25, 1863; Louise [North] to [Carey Pettigrew], Mar. 9, 1863; Mary North Allston [Minnie] to “My dear Johnston” [Pettigrew], Mar. 22, 1863 (first two quotations); Louise [North] to “My dearest Minnie,” Mar. 11, 1863 (last quotation), in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC; Jane L. Allston to “My dear Della,” Mar. 1863, in Elizabeth Allston Pringle Family Papers, SCHS.

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Beauregard and his staff. Such an outpouring of affection for one of its sons was almost unprecedented in South Carolina.29 Eight months after Adele’s brother passed away, her oldest sister, Jane North, suffered the same fate at age sixty-three. She began to fail rapidly during the summer, as her weight dropped to only one hundred pounds in late August. By early October Adele was not sanguine that her sister would ever be better. “I am grieved at the thought of parting with her,” she wrote from the family home at Badwell. Sadly, Jane Petigru North passed away at 6:00 a.m. on Thursday, November 5, with her sister Mary and daughter Carey Pettigrew at her side.30 Painful as was the loss of her two siblings in 1863, Adele experienced an even greater tragedy the following year, when Robert Allston, the family patriarch and her husband of thirty-two years, left this earth on April 7. Allston’s health had not been good for some time. Even during his governorship there had been periods of extreme discomfort and suffering. Then, following his return from Virginia in August 1861, family members expressed great concern about his condition, and sister-in-law Jane North hoped that the sea air on Pawleys Island might “restore him to at least his usual health.” Two years later he was ill once again. After being bed-ridden for several days, he reported that he no longer had a fever but was still “very weak.” In the spring of 1864, however, Allston became gravely ill.31 Debilitated in mind and body by mounting financial woes and the added responsibility of safeguarding his family and property in the face of the deteriorating military situation, Allston began to fail rapidly in mid29. Plowden Weston to “My Dear Mrs. Allston,” Mar. 17, 1863, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Mary North Allston to “My dear Johnston,” Mar. 22, 1863; Louise to [?], Mar. 11, 1863, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC; Charleston Daily Courier, Mar. 10, 11, 1863. 30. Jane Petigru to “Dear Henry” [Lesesne], Aug. 25, 1863, in James L. Petigru Papers, SCHS; Adele Allston to “My dear Adele” [Vanderhorst], Oct. 9, 1863; Mary Petigru to “My dear Adele” [Allston], Nov. 10, 1863, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Henry D. Lesesne to Louise G. North, Nov. 11, 1863, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC. 31. Jane Petigru to “My dear Adele,” Aug. 29, 1861; Jane G. North to “My dear Adele,” Sept. 3, 1861 (first quotation); Adele to “My dear Charles,” Aug. 22, 1861; [Adele Vanderhorst] to “My dearest Momma,” Aug. 4, 1863; Charles Allston to “Dear Momma,” Aug. 8, 1863 (second quotation); Louise G. North to “My dear Aunt Adele,” Apr. 6, 1864; Henry D. Lesesne to “My dear Sister” [Adele Allston], Apr. 7, 1864, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Mary Pettigrew to “My dear Brother” [William S.], Apr. 15, 1864, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC.

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March. After spending the two preceding months alternating between Plantersville and Chicora Wood, Robert and Adele returned to Croly Hill on March 11. Several days later Adele described her husband as “looking very well.” They were joined on March 17 by Bessie, who had spent the last two months with her older sister in Wilmington. After going to Cheraw “to pay his accounts with the government officer there” and to receive a receipt for the tithes of rice at Nightingale Hall and Guendalos that he had furnished the government, Allston was disappointed to learn that the factorage firm of D. Malloy & Company would not give him said receipt. Consequently, he was obliged to return to Georgetown on Friday, March 18, to settle his affairs with the commissary in that town. His wife “tried to dissuade him from making the journey again so soon, but in vain.” Wife Adele and daughter Bessie waited anxiously at Croly Hill in anticipation of his return on the following Saturday. Meanwhile, the weather took a turn for the worse. According to Bessie, on the Monday and Tuesday following her father’s departure “it snowed and sleeted by turns all day and the snow remained on the ground three days.”32 Early on Saturday morning, March 26, the family was awakened by a knock at the door. It was Quash, a trusted servant from Chicora Wood, with a note from overseer Jesse Belflowers “saying that Papa was ‘quite sick’ and that ‘Dr Sparkman thought it necessary that some of his family should be with him.’ ” The two women left Croly Hill in a carriage about 9:30 a.m., spent one night on the road, and reached Chicora Wood about 5:00 a.m. on Easter Sunday, March 27. They were quite relieved to find Allston not “so ill as we had feared.” According to Bessie, he looked “perfectly natural” and was only upset because the doctor and Mr. Belflowers had sent for the family without consulting him. After a sleepless night, however, on Monday he took a turn for the worse. He had difficulty breathing and complained of tightness in the chest. That afternoon he gave Adele his keys and the money he had in different pockets of his trousers. After another 32. Adele [Allston] Vanderhorst diary, Apr. 22, 1864 (first and third quotations); Adele Allston to Benjamin Allston, Apr. 13, 1864 (second quotation), in Allston Papers; Bessie Allston to “My darling Brother” [Ben], Apr. 11, 1864 (fourth quotation), in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS. It appears from internal evidence and from a comparison with Bessie’s letter of Apr. 11 to her brother Ben that the account of Robert F. W. Allston’s terminal illness and death in the Vanderhorst Diary was actually written by her mother, Adele P. Allston.

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“dreadful night without sleep, restless and suffering,” he seemed better the following morning. Yet the doctor held out no hope for his recovery, so Bessie summoned her two sisters and brother Charley “to come at once.” Accordingly, Della, Arnoldus, and Jane arrived on Saturday night, April 2, about 1 a.m. Unfortunately, “Charles came too late to see [his father] even in death.”33 For the next five days family members and neighbors watched over the venerable patriarch as his life gradually slipped away. Dr. Sparkman attended to him day and night until Thursday, April 7, when he became ill and had to go home. The doctor ordered that blisters be applied periodically to the patient’s chest, although they caused excruciating pain, and Allston also received pills every two or three hours as well as gruel and occasionally brandy and water. As his condition deteriorated and his suffering increased, his speech became “so broken that it was almost impossible to understand him.” Allston was so ill on Tuesday, April 5, that both he and the family “thought he would not survive the night.” Sensing that the end was near, he summoned Mr. Belflowers and gave him instructions concerning the coffin and his burial in the cemetery attached to Prince Frederick’s Church, near Chicora Wood. He rallied briefly the following day, however, and that evening, as “he seemed still more easy,” the children persuaded Adele “to lie down as she had been up all the day & night before.” He finally went to sleep shortly after midnight only to awaken about an hour later in great suffering. “The agony lasted until sunrise when he became quiet but the cold sweat bathed him all day & he was very much exhausted.” He lingered until about 2:30 in the afternoon of Thursday, April 7, when, with the family at his bedside, he looked at them and said “God will provide when I am gone.” Moments later, he turned on his left side, took a swallow of gruel, “murmured ‘Lord let me pass’ closed his eyes, and soon all was quiet.” The end had finally come for Robert Francis Withers Allston.34 33. Bessie Allston to “My darling Brother,” Apr. 11, 1864 (first, second, and fourth quotations), in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence; Adele Vanderhorst Diary, Apr. 22, 1864 (third quotation); Adele P. Allston to Benjamin Allston, Apr. 13, 1864; Adele to “My dear Mrs. [Sarah] Williams,” Apr. 17, 1864 (last quotation), in Allston Papers, SCHS. 34. This narrative of Allston’s final days and all quotations in this paragraph are from two sources: Adele Petigru Allston’s account dated Apr. 22, 1864, in the Adele Vanderhorst Diary;

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Allston’s family was devastated by the death of their beloved husband and father, none more so than his widow Adele. Although there had been occasional problems in their marriage, especially during the mid-1850s, when Adele’s dissatisfaction with her subordinate status surfaced briefly, theirs had been a generally happy union. Indeed, just a month before his death, when informed of Ben’s impending marriage, Allston expressed the wish “that your Union may be as happy and prosperous as ours has been.” Conceding that appearances might have seemed otherwise from time to time, he explained that he and Adele had persevered and had achieved a good marriage through mutual “wisdom, patience & forbearance.” For her part Adele described her initial reaction to her husband’s death in these words: “My heart is smitten and withered like grass.” That summer, in a letter to Ben, who had not yet learned of his father’s death, she admitted that she had “never duly appreciated your Father.” She lauded him for his nobility of character, his strength, his business acumen, and “his active mind and clear judgment.” Two years later, on the thirty-fourth anniversary of their marriage, she confided to Ben that “it is almost like a dream to look back to.” Reminding him that “another and a very different anniversary” would take place two days hence, she lamented the changes that had taken place in their lives “since the head of the family was taken.” 35 Adele was not alone in her appreciation of her husband’s beneficent qualities. The widespread respect and affection for Allston was reflected in the numerous letters of condolence from relatives and friends that the grieving widow received in the days following his death. Adele’s sister Mary Petigru lamented the passing of “an excellent man & friend & one . . . who was honourable, in every action noble & generous, to whom I could confide, with perfect safety, both in opinion & action.” Similarly, Caroline Pettigrew mourned the loss of “a friend such as few have been so fortunate

and Bessie Allston’s narrative in her letter to Ben dated Apr. 11, 1864. See also the account of Eleazer Waterman Jr., coproprietor of the Pee Dee Times, reprinted in Charleston Daily Courier, Apr. 12, 1864. 35. R.F.W. Allston to “My dear Son” [Ben], Mar. 2, 1864; Adele Allston to “My dear Mrs. [Sarah] Williams,” Apr. 17, 1864; Adele to Ben Allston, July 2, 1864; Apr. 5, 1866, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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to possess.” Several speculated that the mental and physical strain of the war had contributed to his untimely demise. As Adele’s niece Susan King observed, “Uncle Allston has paid the penalty of an overtasked frame, in mind & body, produced by the exigencies of the situation.” Allston’s devotion to the principle of noblesse oblige was reflected in an incident in which he had refused to accept the repayment of a loan he had made to an elderly woman for the purchase of a slave. Factor E. B. Cheesborough, the woman’s son, later characterized this act as “only one of the many kind deeds, that in the midst of a selfish and self-seeking world, beautified and glorified his character and life.” Such was the reputation achieved by R.F.W. Allston in his sixty-three years on earth.36 After Allston expired, Frank Heriot, Arnoldus Vanderhorst, overseer Jesse Belflowers, and the servants “attended to the last duties.” He was dressed in his usual clothing and “laid on the little french bed stead that always stood in his studdy [sic].” Frank and Arnoldus “made all the arrangements for the funeral,” which was held at 5:00 p.m. the following day— rather too soon in Bessie’s view, but she and the rest of the family “did not interfere.” According to Bessie, the servants “came in one by one to take a last farewell” of the one who had been “so much to them. They followed him to his last resting place with respectful & solemn silence.”37 In his original will, which had been taken to Columbia for safekeeping, Allston had named Adele executrix and Ben and brother-in-law Henry D. Lesesne as coexecutors of his estate. Yet, because Ben was serving with the army in Texas, Allston, while lying on his deathbed, had added a codicil naming Charleston factor Alexander Robertson as an additional executor. An inventory of Allston’s estate, taken in the month of his death, listed plate, china, and furniture belonging to his Charleston mansion; a total of 36. [Mary] A. Petigru to “My very dear Sister,” Apr. 19, 1864; Caroline Pettigrew to “My dear Aunt Adele,” Apr. 26, 1864; Sue [King] to Adele P. Allston, Apr. 13, 23 (quotation), 1864; Henry D. and Harriette Lesesne to “My dear Sister,” Apr. 14, 1864; Ann Vanderhorst to “My Dear Mrs. Allston,” Apr. 18, 1864; E. B. Cheesborough to “Dear Mrs. Allston,” Sept. 23, 1867, in Allston Papers, SCHS. 37. Adele Vanderhorst Diary, Apr. 22, 1864 (first two quotations), in Allston Papers, SCHS; Bessie Allston to “My darling Brother,” Apr. 11, 1864 (last quotations), in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS.

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590 slaves, most of them at Chicora Wood and Nightingale Hall; sundry amounts of livestock and provisions on the same two plantations; and a total of $43,800 in Confederate bonds and notes. Obviously, the estate would be decimated if the Confederacy lost the war.38 Although Lesesne and Robertson offered to do all in their power to help, primary responsibility for managing the estate devolved to Adele. Lesesne had fled to Spartanburg District and was in failing health. As he noted in a letter to Ben in September, “The amount of business that has been thrown upon her [Adele], requiring labor, thought and management, would be very great for any person, under any circumstances. And it is of course aggravated by the existing state of things.” Yet the strong-willed widow was equal to the challenge. With the assistance of veteran overseer Jesse Belflowers, neighbor Francis Heriot, and her youngest son, Charles, she managed to keep conditions on the Georgetown plantations relatively stable during the remainder of 1864. At first she was comforted by the “good behavior of the negroes,” but that soon changed.39 The problems began in July, when Stephen and his family absconded from Chicora Wood. Remarking that Stephen’s conduct for the past two years had been “most trying,” Adele stated that, although she was not surprised by his defection, she was nevertheless “depressed and hurt” by it. Fearing that “the influence of his desertion” would be “very unfavourable,” she advocated decisive retaliatory measures to forestall any further disloyal conduct. Noting that Stephen’s wife, Lizzie, was the third child of trusted house servant Mary to flee to the Yankees, Adele speculated that Mary must have been aware of “their plans and designs” and consequently should be held accountable for their actions. She urged Belflowers to search her house as well as that of James and to send both of them “to some secure jail in the interior and held as hostages for the conduct of their children.” Above all Adele emphasized the need for secrecy in all “consultations 38. Bessie Allston to Benjamin Allston, Apr. 11, June 27, in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS; Adele P. Allston to Benjamin Allston, May 31, 1864, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 198–99; Adele P. Allston to “My dear Mrs. [Sarah] Williams,” Apr. 17, 1864; “Inventory and Appraisement of the Personal Estate of the Late Hon. R.F.W. Allston,” Apr. 1864, Slave Papers, in Allston Papers, SCHS. 39. Henry D. Lesesne to “My dear Ben,” Sept. 26, 1864, in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS; Adele P. Allston to Benjamin Allston, May 31, 1864 (quotation); Adele to Col. Francis Heriot [July 1864]; Charles Petigru Allston to Adele Allston, Nov. 9, 16, 1864, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 198–202.

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and investigations” relating to slave conduct in that volatile atmosphere.40 Several other defections occurred during the summer and fall, but there was no mass exodus from the Allston plantations. At the end of October Charles reported that “the people” had all been “behaving very well” on their Georgetown plantations. Ben, who two years earlier had predicted that many, if not nearly all, of the servants would flee to the Yankees, tried to prepare his mother for future flights. “I anticipated that there would be desertions more or less numerous, occurring after Father’s death,” he wrote in late November. “I am not surprised at it,” he continued, “and you should not feel hurt.” “The poor creatures are more to be pitied than blamed for the desire to get away and try some other mode of life,” he concluded somewhat sympathetically. Nevertheless, Adele continued to call for stern measures to keep the slaves in line. When Chicora Wood hands Frank and George were rumored to be plotting an escape in midNovember, Adele recommended such extreme action that Charles was compelled to protest to his mother that they did not “need to be delt [sic] with as harshly as you propose.”41 As the new year dawned, the Allston slaves remained relatively quiescent, but this state of affairs proved to be the proverbial lull before the storm, as General William Tecumseh Sherman prepared to begin his march through the Carolinas. Even after Columbia and Charleston fell to the Federals on February 17, relative calm prevailed on the Georgetown plantations. Adele did not abandon Chicora Wood until a week after the fall of Charleston. As late as March 2, Jane Pringle, who had remained with daughter Mary on her White House plantation, reported that “the attitude of our negroes is one of entire devotion.” Although several small groups of slaves had absconded from neighboring plantations, she had not heard of any fleeing the Allston properties. The overseers were staying, and she concluded that “we have more to fear from deserters than Yankees” or 40. Adele P. Allston to Ben Allston, July 2, 1864 (first three quotations), in Allston Papers, SCHS; Adele Allston to Col. Francis Heriot [July 1864] (fourth and last quotations), in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 199–200; Adele Allston to Jesse Belflowers, July 16, 1864, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 292. 41. Charles Petigru Allston to Adele Allston, Oct. 30, 1864; Ben Allston to “My darling Mother,” June 5, 1862; Nov. 23, 1864, in Allston Papers, SCHS; C. P. Allston to Adele Allston, Nov. 16, 1864, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 202.

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servants. Within less than a week, however, the situation changed dramatically, and the remaining residents on the Georgetown plantations faced a reign of unprecedented turmoil and chaos.42 On March 5, the first Sunday in the month, two Federal soldiers, accompanied by one Samuel Johnson and several other slaves, raided Chicora Wood, smashed open the doors to the mansion, and proceeded to ransack the house. With the full acquiescence of the Yankee soldiers, the blacks stripped the residence of every article of furniture and clothing, broke the staircase banisters, unhinged the doors, destroyed the mantels, broke all the locks, and plundered the meat house and storeroom. In addition, the mob seized all of the provisions of meat, lard, coffee, and tea on the place. Several days later the colonel commanding U.S. forces in Georgetown arrived “and divided or caused to be divided among the negroes all the cattle and stock.” Similar destruction was inflicted upon other Allston plantations, including Ditchford, Exchange, and Pipe Down. Jesse Belflowers, who remained a virtual prisoner at Chicora Wood, complained bitterly that “no other Plantation of People have done what thease [sic] have done.” From her place of refuge at Croly Hill, Adele appealed to Federal authorities for a guarantee of safe passage to Chicora for herself and Bessie and for at least a partial restitution of her property. “I acquiesce readily in the freeing of the negroes,” she wrote in her appeal, “but surely our other property should not be taken from us and a portion of the crop should come to us as rent for the land planted.” It would be several months before it became feasible for Adele and her family to return to their home plantation.43 Other Georgetown planters suffered the same fate as the Allstons as destruction and chaos spread throughout the district in the closing days of the war. In an extremely disorganized and emotional letter written in mid-March, Adele’s niece Elizabeth Weston described the distress experienced by a number of Georgetown District families. The Pyatts had fled to Georgetown, leaving all their belongings behind. After Henry A. Middle42. Jane Pringle to “Dear Mrs. Allston,” Mar. 2, 1865, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Elizabeth [Blyth Weston?] to Adele P. Allston, Mar. 17, 1865: Adele P. Allston to Colonel Brown [Mar. 1865], in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 206–8. 43. [Elizabeth Blyth Weston] to “My Dear Aunt” [Adele] [Mar. 16, 1865], in Allston Papers, SCHS; Adele P. Allston to Colonel Brown [Mar. 1865] (first and last quotations); Adele P. Allston to Captain Morris [Mar. 1865], in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 208–9; Jesse Belflowers to Adele P. Allston, Mar. 18 (second quotation), 20, Apr. 2, 1865, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 328–29.

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ton was ordered to the same place, his house and buildings were burned to the ground. Jane Pringle’s White House plantation was raided three times in one week, once at midnight, causing her daughter such distress that she fainted. Reese Ford was arrested, held for five hours, and had his bacon and provisions confiscated because a black boy had falsely accused Ford of whipping him. Weston recounted that on her own plantation the hands had divided the land among themselves, destroyed the grain crops, pulled down the fences, ousted the driver, and driven off the overseer. Only five of her servants remained faithful, and they promised to do all they could for her family, “though they incur[red] much ill will thereby.”44 Two weeks later Jane Pringle painted an equally dismal picture of conditions in Georgetown District. After urging Adele to delay any return to her plantation until the situation stabilized, Pringle chided her for acquiescing so readily in the emancipation of the slaves. It is clear, she exclaimed, that you have “no relative idea of what is covered and comprised by the freeing of the blacks.” If she elected to return, all the servants not burdened with such large families as to “compel a veneering of fidelity” would immediately leave. The remainder would be “more or less impertinent” as the mood struck them and basically would do as they pleased. From all accounts the Allston Negroes were “perfectly insubordinate.” The men at Exchange and the women at Nightingale Hall, she reported, “have behaved like devils.” The only consolation was that thus far all of the so-called outrages had been directed against property rather than persons. There was no risk to personal safety unless one tried “to dispossess” the freedmen of the property they had seized. Accordingly, Mrs. Pringle warned Adele “not to stir up the evil passions of the blacks against you and your family if you wish to return here.” For the present, she concluded, “the blacks are masters of the situation . . . and . . . law and order are in abeyance.”45 In addition to the turmoil that prevailed in her home county of Georgetown, Adele faced a severe financial crisis at war’s end. Even before the Allston estate lost the capital invested in more than six hundred slaves and all but one of its Georgetown plantations, it had been reduced to dire straits by the unwise debts incurred by Robert Allston shortly before the 44. Elizabeth [Weston] to Adele P. Allston, Mar. 17, 1865, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 206–8; Rogers, History of Georgetown County, 421. 45. Jane Pringle to Adele P. Allston, Apr. 1 [1865], in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 209–11.

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war. Specifically, Allston’s financial woes were induced by his purchase of the Charleston mansion in 1857, Guendalos and 119 slaves for his son Benjamin in 1858, and the Sandy Island plantation Pipe Down from his sister-in-law Mary Ann La Bruce in 1859. By these acquisitions Allston incurred a total debt of more than $200,000 between 1857 and 1859. At the end of that period Allston admitted that he had “no ready money except for necessary uses.” Indeed, his income was “pledged in advance for ten years to come.” In a letter to his wife the following year Allston lamented: “I dont know what we shall do—to pay debts and interest the ensuing year! Interest never stops.” 46 Had the war not intervened, Allston might have been able to extricate himself from his heavy indebtedness. In the fall of 1860, for example, Adele complained that her husband had not yet been able to sell any of his rice. “No one can get money,” she explained, “owing to the unsettled state of the country.” The following year Allston produced a bountiful crop of rice—“the finest crop that has been made for years.” But not a bushel had been threshed because the men were all working on the fortifications in Georgetown. As Adele recalled after the war, her husband “had been successful all his life in planting,” and, if what she termed “the revolution” had not occurred, he would have been able to pay off all the debts “incurred in the latter years of his life.” But it did occur, and, as a result, in January 1865 the Allston estate was saddled with a bonded debt of nearly $200,000 with an annual interest of $13,815.03. Thus, faced with a mounting debt and increasingly chaotic conditions in the plantation districts, the Allstons entered the postwar years with what could only be described as apprehension and trepidation.47 46. R.F.W. Allston to Adele P. Allston, Jan. 25, 1859; Nov. 7 [?], 1860 (last quotation); Allston to John Smith, Nov. 25, 1859 (first quotation); Allston to Captain Arnoldus Vanderhorst, May 6, 1863, in Allston Papers, SCHS; R.F.W. Allston to Blue Ridge Railroad Committee, Aug. 11, 1859, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 161–62; Dusinberre, Them Dark Days, 359–60; Devereux, Life and Times, 240. 47. Adele P. Allston to “My dear Charles,” Nov. 9, 1860, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Jane G. North to “My dear Charles,” Nov. 30, 1861, in Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC; Adele P. Allston to Caroline Carson, Apr. 13, 1868, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 240–41; Robertson, Blacklock & Company to Adele P. Allston, Jan. 19, 1865, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 430. The list of bonds totaling $197,357.77 is appended to the original letter in the Factors’ Letters, Allston Papers, SCHS.

8

 postbellum travails Adele’s School, Return to Chicora Wood, Bessie as Woman Rice Planter How everything is changed since we last met. What a frightful convulsion has passed over everything—making strange unnatural changes in everything. I feel sometimes [that] I am in a nightmare from which I must awake [to find] things as they formerly were. —Harriette Lesesne to Adele Allston, [?] 15, 1866 It seems truly as if every link connecting us with the past is to be broken. The happy Past! How one strains forward to catch a glimpse of the Future—as it comes stealthily but swiftly on. So terrible is it that as far as possible I live on from day to day allowing the “morrow” small space in my mind. —Adele Vanderhorst to Benjamin Allston, April 22, 1866 I wonder you can love me so well. I suppose you could not if you did not see how devotedly I have loved you since we first met. I have loved and esteemed you more each year that you have been my husband and it seems to be now but half a life a sort of brokenwinged existence without you. —Ellen Allston to Benjamin Allston, February 7, 1875 Every day makes me feel my loss more and more and there is never a waking moment when July [deceased husband John Julius Pringle] is not in my thoughts. . . . It is two months today since he breathed his last, and it seems as tho’ years had passed. —Elizabeth Allston Pringle to Adele Allston, October 21, 1876

he Allstons faced a dismal and foreboding future at the dawn of the postbellum era. The head of the family was gone, their slaves had been emancipated, their plantations were in ruins, and with no immediate source of income they faced the prospect of bankruptcy. But two strong-willed female members of the family, Adele and her

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daughter Bessie, proved to be especially resilient, and together they piloted the family over the shoals of adversity during the years immediately following the war. With Bessie’s assistance Adele operated a girls’ school in their Charleston mansion for three years before she returned to Chicora Wood in 1869 to claim her dower. Bessie assumed primary responsibility for the management of the Pringle and Allston plantations following the untimely death of her husband, John Julius Pringle, in the summer of 1876. After struggling with the unstable labor situation on Chicora Wood and Guendalos in the early years of Reconstruction and coping with the death of his beloved wife, Ellen, in 1875 from a pleuritic disease, Benjamin took as his second wife his cousin Louise North and eventually entered the Episcopalian ministry. Charles graduated from the College of Charleston in 1869 and five years later married into the prominent Lowndes family. Finally, Jane Louise, the youngest of the surviving Allston children and the prototypical Southern belle, married Englishman Charles Albert Hill after rejecting a parade of Carolina suitors. The most immediate problem confronting the Allstons in the aftermath of the war was how to restore some semblance of order on their remaining plantations and to make them once again as productive as possible. To reach this goal they had to establish some accommodation with the freedmen. Just four months after the war ended, Adele emphasized the importance of placing a family member on the plantations to supervise the former slaves. Without a representative at Chicora Wood, she contended, the servants would again seize the bedding and furniture that had been recovered and the sheep and other livestock as well. In the summer and fall of 1865 Ben occupied that supervisory role. Unfortunately, Ben and his mother differed sharply over his management style. Adele complained that her son did “not understand the feeling & condition of the negroes.” She was especially displeased because he had disobeyed regulations established by his father and countermanded orders given by her. She charged that he had displayed undue leniency toward the laborers. “I conclude in giving out allowance at Chicora,” she wrote, “you gave as much as every body claimed or wanted.” “The conduct of the negroes in robbing our house, store room meat house etc and refusing to restore anything,” she declared bitterly, “shows you they think it right to steal from us, to spoil us, as the Isrealites [sic] did the Egyptians.” While conceding that he probably

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did “not design to do wrong,” she concluded, “I have no hope of making any impression on you.” 1 By the end of the year neither Adele nor Ben could see much hope for any improvement in the conduct of the freedmen. Ben dreaded the Christmas season, fearing that “these poor Negroes as the Northern people call them,” might provoke violence unless they received land and voting privileges. Should they be accorded such benefits, he predicted, “we would ere long witness what has recently occurred in Jamaica.” During a visit to Guendalos and Chicora in mid-December, Adele pronounced “the negroes . . . as unsatisfactory as possible” and “the prospect ahead discouraging.” They had deteriorated “in appearance and manners” during the last eight months, had shown no interest in maintaining an adequate supply of hog meat, and those on Nightingale Hall were cutting down a beautiful forest of pine trees. She had scolded them but to no avail. “I see no hope,” she concluded dolefully; “the nigs are so numerous and we have no redress.” They would not even engage for the next year because they were anticipating “some great thing” on January 1. When that did not materialize, fiftyfour of the Chicora hands, many of them fractional, signed contracts with Ben, who prepared to plant nearly two hundred acres in rice on that unit.2 Conditions did not improve appreciably the following year. The freedmen were still restless and reluctant to sign contracts with their former owners. Elizabeth Weston observed in January that freedmen on the Waccamaw rice plantations were refusing to sign contracts, many had been sent away, and it was feared they would settle on the seashore. The story was the same throughout the state. The wife of former lieutenant governor William W. Harllee reported that many planters in Marion District had “not been able to get as many field hands as they desired” because “so many keep their wives playing Lady and will not allow them to do any thing except for their own families.” According to Ben, the principal source of dissatisfaction among the former Allston slaves was the failure of Fed1. Adele Allston to “My dear Adele,” Aug. 1, 1865 (first quotation), in Allston Papers, SCHS; Adele Allston to Benjamin Allston, Sept. 10, 1865 (remaining quotations), in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 212–14. 2. Benjamin Allston to Adele Vanderhorst, Dec. 1, 1865 (first quotations); Ben to “Dear Charles,” Feb. 27, 1866, in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS; Adele Allston to Adele Vanderhorst, Dec. 15, 1865, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 215–16.

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eral officials and officers of the Freedmen’s Bureau to provide them with their promised land. Nevertheless, Ben, with the assistance of his brother Charles, endeavored to operate at least four of the Allston plantations— Chicora Wood, Guendalos, Nightingale Hall, and Pipe Down—in a desperate effort to save the estate, which by 1866 was $200,000 in debt. In that year he had about sixty hands on Chicora, seventy at Nightingale, and only about twenty on Guendalos. As the year drew to a close, Adele, then preoccupied with her school, advised Ben to consider giving the hands such extra benefits as a beef to each plantation “provided they abstain from stealing and work tolerably.” Emphasizing that it would be to his honor “to save the estate,” she expressed the hope that “kind treatment” might secure the requisite number of laborers. She had obviously softened her stance since the previous year.3 Despite the best efforts of Ben and Charles, the rice crops on the Allston plantations proved to be disappointing in 1866. As an economy measure, Adele and Ben decided the following year to dispense with white overseers and use black agents to supervise their individual plantations. As Adele explained, “Negroes will soon be placed upon an exact equality with ourselves, and it is in vain for us to strive against it.” When Ben protested that there was no one at Chicora “who in a sufficient degree Commands the respect of the other negroes,” she advised him to divide the unit and place each half under a trusted hand. She warned him against “yielding to feeling in a matter of business,” adding, “I would not regard the triumph to the negroes if we can turn it to our advantage.” Meanwhile, as the family struggled to survive financially, Adele selected Chicora Wood as her dower, and, although she qualified in the will and thus forfeited her dower, the creditors consented to award it to her anyway “as an act of justice and of liberality to a ruined family.” The creditors would not sign the agreement, however, until they received the proceeds from the previous year’s crop. Consequently, Adele pleaded with her son in June 1867 to send the crop immediately to Charleston so that the rice could be sold and the proceeds conveyed to the creditors. “If it is not done now,” she exclaimed, 3. Elizabeth B. Weston to “My Dear Aunt” [Adele], Jan. 26, 1866; Martha S. Harllee to “Dear Mrs. Allston,” Mar. 7, 1866; C. Petigru Allston to “Dear Mama,” Apr. 2, 1866; Adele Allston to “My dear Sister Mary,” Mar. 28, 1866, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Adele Allston to Benjamin Allston, Nov. 5, 1866 (quotation), in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 223.

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“it never will be done, and I, & we, will get nothing.” Fortunately, the creditors were mollified, and, when the estate was finally settled in 1869, Adele retained not only Chicora but also Canaan and the house in Plantersville. 4 When Congress inaugurated its program of Radical Reconstruction in the spring of 1867, conditions worsened, or so it seemed to the Allstons and other white inhabitants of the Palmetto State. To them it appeared that society had been turned upside down. Disappointed in finding a responsible servant, Adele declared that “demoralization extends to all classes.” It was best, she continued, to “get on as well as we can with such as come in our way.” It was no better in the countryside. Ben complained, for example, that Beeka, the cook at Guendalos, did little that was not directly insisted upon and often not even that. “Today without leave or leisure,” he thundered, “in fact against positive orders she took herself off & has been gone all day.” He vowed that “tomorrow she shall go for good,” although he later relented. Two months later he was called to Nightingale Hall, where the hands had become “quite insubordinate and unruly.” Fortunately, they soon “quieted down . . . & renewed their work.” Despite the labor difficulties, Ben managed to plant 740 acres of rice in 1868, which he hoped would yield twenty thousand bushels, or about thirty bushels to the acre.5 As the whites in South Carolina and elsewhere in the South struggled to adapt to their changed circumstances, wise heads counseled patience. That was the message conveyed to Ben in the fall of 1867 by both Oliver H. Kelley, founder of the National Grange, and former governor Francis W. Pickens. Kelley urged the disconsolate Ben to keep up his courage, and he reassured him that “the people at the North are not more desirous of being ruled by the nigger than you are in the South.” Apparently believing that the radical political tide in the North was beginning to recede, Kelley predicted that Grant would be elected president in 1868 and that he would “do 4. Adele Allston to Benjamin Allston, Dec. 27, 1866 (first quotation), in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 226; Benjamin Allston to “My dear Mother,” Jan. 4, 1867 (second quotation); Adele Allston to “My dear Ben,” Jan. 14, 1867 (third quotation); Adele to “Dear Joe” [Joseph Blyth Allston], Apr. 14, 1867; Adele to “Dear Ben,” June 6, 1867 (last quotations), in Allston Papers, SCHS; Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 23. 5. Adele Allston to “Dear Ben,” June 17, 1867; Ben Allston to “My dear Mother,” July 8, 1868, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Benjamin Allston to wife Ellen, Feb. 9 (first quotation), Mar. 26 (second quotation), 29 (third quotation), 1868, in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS.

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justice to the South.” He urged Ben to be patient, for all would “come out right in the end.” In like manner former governor Pickens sought to bolster the widow Adele’s spirits at about the same time. Although he conceded that the country was presently “in hopeless poverty and ruin,” which he feared might get even worse, he nevertheless was optimistic of a “change for the better.” Hopefully, the political situation would be clarified by the following spring so that they would at least know what to expect and could try to adapt themselves to it. For the present, however, Pickens concluded that “we are bound hand and foot, and our only policy is to keep quiet and silent, and be ready to take advantage of circumstances as they arise.”6 It was in this volatile atmosphere that Ben faced a personal financial crisis even more severe than that of his mother. First, Ben sought to determine whether he was liable for the debt incurred in the purchase of the Guendalos slaves in 1858 in view of the fact that the U.S. government had emancipated them in 1863. A New York attorney advised him in April 1867 that he was clearly liable for payment of the so-called Negro bonds if purchased before January 1, 1863, the effective date of President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Encumbered by a debt of nearly $75,000 excluding the bonds, Ben was advised to declare bankruptcy in order to avoid being “a slave for life.” Such a step, declared prominent Charleston attorney Theodore G. Barker, would enable Allston “to build up an independent fortune by your own efforts” rather “than to exhaust yourself in a desperate struggle to save ‘Guendalos’ or pay off your present indebtedness.” A month later Barker painted an improbable scenario by which Ben might still retain his plantation. If the mortgagees allowed Guendalos to be sold for taxes and if Ben could borrow enough money to purchase the lease from the lender, he might again gain title to the place. But, as Barker remarked, “all this is idle talk,” for he doubted the mortgagees would allow the place to be sold for taxes. His prophecy proved to be accurate, and Ben was unable to recover Guendalos.7 In the meantime, while Ben was striving to keep the remaining Allston 6. Oliver H. Kelley to Benjamin Allston, Oct. 10 (first quotation), Nov. 30 (second quotation), 1867, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 234, 238; Francis W. Pickens to Adele Allston, Nov. 22, 1867, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 236–37. 7. Joseph Blyth Allston to “Dear Ben,” June 3, 1866; George W. Paschal to Col. Ben Allston, Apr. 20, 1867; Simonton & Barker to Col. Ben Allston, Apr. 25, 1867 (first quotation); T. G. Barker to Ben Allston, Apr. 26, 1867 (second quotation); D. Riply to Ben Allston, Sept.

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plantations afloat and at the same time attempting to protect his interest in Guendalos, his mother had opened a girls’ school in her Charleston residence in the hope of supplementing the family’s meager income. In the fall of 1865 Adele began making preparations to open her school in January of the following year. Bessie, who volunteered to be one of her teachers, promised to help “in every way that is possible.” During the first year, which lasted only six months, ten boarders and twenty day pupils were enrolled in the school. In addition to Bessie, Adele employed a French teacher, an English teacher, and four servants. Her youngest daughter, Jane Louise, was a pupil in the school. The initial year was moderately successful. Adele’s sister Mary Petigru praised her for opening a boarding school and rejoiced to learn “you have the prospect of success.” Martha Harllee, whose daughters Florence and Lizzie were among the boarders, declared that the girls were “very much pleased with their pleasant home with you.” When the first term ended in June, Adele concluded that she had earned “a few hundred dollars” and stated that, if the day school could “make enough to pay the daily expenses of the family,” she would be satisfied.8 When the school opened for its second session on October 1, 1866, Adele lengthened the term from six to nine months. The cost to board was $375, to be paid in advance, and tuition was $90 for the senior class and $75 for juniors, due at the end of each quarter. Although she had now employed a native teacher of French, Madameselle Le Prince, and her students included such notables as the daughter of former governor Milledge L. Bonham, the number of pupils in Adele’s school declined during the second year. By November she had only five boarders, and the day school had only about ten students. “I fear our prices are regarded as high,” she surmised. But her expenses were large, owing to the employment of two professors in addition to Madameselle Le Prince.9

11, 1867; T. G. Barker to “Dear Ben,” Oct. 1, 1867 (third quotation), in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS. 8. Bessie Allston to “My dear Mamma,” Nov. 19, 1865; D. W. Jordan to “Madam” [Adele Allston], Jan. 2, 1866; Adele Allston to “My dear Sister Mary,” Mar. 28, 1866; Mary Petigru to “My dear Adele,” Mar. 9 [1866]; Martha S. Harllee to “Dear Mrs. Allston,” Mar. 7, 1866; Adele Allston to “My dear Ben,” July 3, 1866 (quotation); Adele Allston to Mrs. L. O. Green, Aug. 7, 1866, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Adele P. Allston to Adele Vanderhorst, Dec. 15, 1865, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 215. 9. Adele Allston to “Dear Ellen” [Allston], July 30, 1866; Adele to Mrs. L. O. Green, Aug.

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To make matters worse, Adele became embroiled in a controversy over curriculum with Martha Harllee, who had earlier expressed satisfaction with the school. On the eve of the October session Mrs. Harllee complained that the studies pursued by her daughters during the last session were “quite too simple for their years,” with the exception of French and history, and that they had “made no advance.” Consequently, she sought assurance that Adele would have qualified teachers “to carry on the highest branches of an English education.” Specifically, she desired that her girls receive instruction in such subjects as chemistry, logic, rhetoric, and Latin. Adele responded that she had limited the number of subjects because “it is not well to crowd and tax the memory or more properly the brain with a great variety at once.” She had selected algebra and astronomy “as the studies most calculated to expand and elevate the mental, the thinking powers.” Although she agreed that English grammar was very important, she saw little utility in studying Latin. “The mastery of a dead language,” she contended, “demands so much time and hard work, and the results are so inadequate,” that it would benefit only those “devoted exclusively to a literary life.” Apparently still not satisfied, Harllee reiterated that her eldest daughter “should study the highest branches of an English education, which were not taught in the School, last Session.”10 Adele’s school continued on its rocky path for the next two years. Although the pupils included the daughters of such prominent Charlestonians as Christopher G. Memminger, Jefferson Bennett, and the Shackelfords as well as the daughter of Union general Daniel Sickles, their number continued to diminish. In addition to the paid instructors who taught the girls English and French, Bessie offered music and drawing lessons to those who were interested. But, as Adele explained to one inquirer, her school was not intended to be like “an old fashioned boarding school.” Rather, it was “designed more as a home for young ladies, where every attention is given to their social and domestic habits, at the same time that every inducement to study and intellectual improvement is offered.”

7, 1866; Adele to “My dear Ben,” July 3, Nov. 11, 1866 (quotation), in Allston Papers, SCHS; Adele to Benjamin Allston, Oct. 14, 1866, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 222. 10. Martha S. Harllee to “Dear Mrs. Allston,” Sept. 4, 18, 1866; Adele to “Dear Mrs. Harllee,” Sept. 12, 1866, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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The school managed to survive until the spring of 1868, when competition from similar schools and a disastrous crop year that prevented many parents from sending their daughters to any school forced its closure. By mid-January Adele reported that her school was barely making enough to support the teachers. Accordingly, in early October 1868 she asked the Charleston Mercury to discontinue its advertisement of her school, which had been scheduled to resume on October 15. Despite its failure, the school had provided the means to complete the education of her three youngest children.11 After her school closed, Adele, together with daughters Bessie and Jane, began their move back to Chicora in the summer of 1869. In early August Ben helped his mother lay out a garden next to the house, and in November she made the permanent move to the plantation. Thereafter, she spent the cooler months in the country and the summer months at her house in Plantersville or, after 1872, in a house on Pawleys Island that she had purchased so that her children and grandchildren would have a place to enjoy the beach. All that was left of the 4,000-acre rice estate of her husband were the 890 acres at Chicora Wood. Upon her return to Chicora, she found the house “very cold compared with the Meeting St. mansion.” Although the plantation work proceeded satisfactorily with the ditchers earning seventy-five cents a day, the house servants were frequently obstinate and insolent. Adele complained, for example, of an incident involving Milly in March 1870. After paying the servant seven dollars for her services in February, Milly stalked off in a manner that clearly manifested strong discontent. When Adele called her back and threatened to discharge her if she were that dissatisfied, Milly calmed down somewhat. “She is more like her old self,” reported Adele, “but not quite the same.” Several months later Adele dismissed her cook because she “positively refused to scour the 11. Adele Allston to “My dear Ben,” Jan. 7, 1867; Jan. 14, 1868; Mrs. M. E. Sparkman to “My dear Mrs. Allston,” Nov. 11, 1867; Adele to Mrs. J. M. Wilson, Nov. 28, 1867 (quotations); Ellen Allston to “My dear Mother” [Adele], Mar. 15, 1868; Joseph B. Allston to “Dear Aunt Adele,” Apr. 20, 1868; Ben Allston to “My dear Mother,” May 3, Oct. 1, 1868; note from Adele P. Allston to Charleston Mercury, Oct. 6, 1868, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Adele P. Allston to Carolina Carson, Apr. 13, [18]68, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 240–41; Adele P. Allston to George Peabody, July 18, 1868, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 243–44; Joyner, intro. to Pringle, A Woman Rice Planter, xxviii; Pringle, Chronicles of Chicora Wood, 325.

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floor” when ordered to do so. This friction between the white families and their servants continued until at least the end of Reconstruction.12 While Adele and Jane were getting settled at Chicora Wood, Ben began to seek some means to support himself and his growing family in the turbulent 1870s. Initially, he continued to supervise the laborers on the Allston plantations until his father’s estate was settled in 1869. Thereafter he and Charles intermittently assisted their mother in managing Chicora. As late as January 1876, he remarked disgustedly that “all would go well” on that place if he did not have to deal with the “unmanageable Negro.” But the future seemed bleak in the Palmetto State in the early 1870s, so Ben considered moving to Texas, the home state of his wife, Ellen, or even to California. On a visit to Austin in 1870 he reported that the town was bustling with activity as the legislature was in session. In his view, however, the conduct of the freedmen was no better there than in South Carolina. One Saturday he described the town as “full of Country Negroes, riding and strutting about, breying [sic] and displaying themselves like summer butterflies.” Either during or shortly after his visit, Ben purchased 406 acres of land in Hill County, but he apparently sold this tract in 1872. As late as 1874, Ellen’s family was urging him to settle in Texas. She reported to Ben that “they seem to think we are very benighted people to live in So Ca while Texas can be reached.” But his ties to the Palmetto State were too strong, and Ben never moved his residence to Texas.13 As might be expected, Ben proved to be a vocal and active opponent of congressional Reconstruction. Thus, in the spring of 1868 he campaigned against the new state constitution that had been drafted by a black-majority convention in January. Noting that it was the solemn duty of every man 12. Adele Allston to Adele Vanderhorst, Aug. 10, Oct. 24, Nov. 22 (first quotation), 1869; Mar. 9 (second quotation), Sept. 1 (last quotation), 1870; July 25, 1873; Adele to “My dear daughters Adele & Jane,” May 17, 1870, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Clements, “ ‘Great Events Have Taken Place,’ ” 333; Joyner, intro. to Pringle, Woman Rice Planter, xxix; Pringle, Chronicles of Chicora Wood, 340, 342. 13. Adele Allston to Adele Vanderhorst, Aug. 27, Oct. 24, 1869; July 14, 1873, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Benjamin Allston to Adele Vanderhorst, Jan. 22, 1876 (first quotation); Renick and Frazier to Ben Allston, Jan. 8, 1872; Ellen Allston to “Dearest Husband,” Nov. 5 [1874] (last quotation), in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS; Ben Allston to “My dear Mother,” May 7, 1870; Ben Allston to “My dear Jane,” June 18, 1870 (second quotation), in Elizabeth Allston Pringle Papers, SCHS.

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to vote “against the constitution submitted by the Radical Convention,” he canvassed the neighborhood and was only “repulsed in two instances”— the first by his cousin Francis Weston, whom Ben characterized as “an obstinate creature prone to take the reverse side of almost any question presented to him,” and the other by Dr. B. Clay Fishburne, who, after promising to vote, declared the election “a farce” and declined to cast a ballot. Two years later, when he received the news that a black man had been elected mayor of the capital city of Columbia, Ben declared hopefully that “with all the horrible incubus of negro rule and their occupation of high official position I can but think that the time will come when the power will pass from them to our own people never to return to them.”14 That transition occurred six years later, when racial violence in South Carolina reached a climax on the eve of the momentous gubernatorial and presidential elections of 1876. Harriette Lesesne reported from Charleston in early September that her son, who was out on patrol, had narrowly escaped death when his carriage was attacked by a mob of “yelling brutes,” who pursued him with “shots, brick bats & clubs.” The violence soon spread to the countryside, where barns and gin houses were burned and the white inhabitants began to fear for their lives. “There is no telling how far the spirit of Riot robery [sic] and disorder may spread,” exclaimed an apprehensive Adele in late September. Violence erupted with a vengeance in Charleston on election day. As fighting spread throughout the city, Edward Frost, one of Jane Allston’s former suitors, suffered severe knife wounds when he was brutally attacked by a gang of blacks. As the election returns came in slowly, Arnoldus Vanderhorst was hopeful that the Democratic candidate, former Confederate general Wade Hampton, would be elected governor “by a small majority.” This hope materialized, and when President Rutherford B. Hayes withdrew the last Federal troops from the state in the spring of 1877, thereby enabling Hampton to be seated as governor, the Allstons and their white allies could look forward to a much more salutary environment. Unfortunately, the post-Reconstruction 14. Benjamin Allston to Ellen Allston, Apr. 16 [18]68, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 242–43; Ben to “My dear Sister” [Adele], May 3, 1870, in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS; David C. Roller and Robert W. Twyman, eds., The Encyclopedia of Southern History (Baton Rouge, 1979), 1136.

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era would prove to be a dismal and painful one for the black citizens of the Palmetto State.15 In addition to his interest in politics, Ben, like his father, sought to promote the education of the entire white population of the state. These two interests were wedded in an address he delivered in 1869 at the 114th anniversary meeting of the Winyah Indigo Society. He began by lamenting the absence of education for the general white population. “Has the means of spreading useful knowledge among the masses increased with the increase of wealth?” he asked rhetorically. “We think not,” he responded. Then, after contrasting the free labor system of the North unfavorably with the slave labor system of the South, he attempted to explain how the Southern states could recover from the societal changes produced by the war and emancipation. The great problem to be solved, asserted Allston, was “whether two peoples of not only distinctive but antagonistic traits” could peacefully occupy one country “without the one being held in subordination to the other.” In affirming this principle, he asserted that “education of the Whites, and this only,” was the key to subordinating the black population and thus enabling the two races to live in relative peace with one another.16 During the 1870s Ben’s personal life was marked by periods of happiness as well as hardship and tragedy. Although Adele had expressed some criticism of Ben’s wife, Ellen, in 1870, apparently because of Ellen’s sickly condition and her close family ties to Texas, the extant correspondence indicates that Ben and Ellen had an exceedingly happy marriage. Thus, in a letter written several months before her death, Ellen expressed her undying love for her husband. “I have loved you ever since we first met,” she wrote, and “I have loved and esteemed you more each year that you have been my husband.” Ben clearly reciprocated this affection. The couple had at least three children. The first, a daughter whom they named Mary Duval, was born in 1866, started school in February 1875, and died in October 1877, at the age of eleven. The other two were Charlotte, born in August 15. Harriette Lesesne to “My dear Niece” [Bessie], Sept. 11, 1876; Adele Allston to Jane Allston, Sept. 23, 24 (quotation), 1876; Arnoldus Vanderhorst to “Dear Bessie,” Nov. 10, 1876, in Elizabeth Allston Pringle Papers, SCHS. 16. Benjamin Allston, anniversary address to Winyah Indigo Society [1869], in folder 26, Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS.

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1871, and Robert, born in November 1872. Robert enrolled as a freshman at the University of South Carolina in 1890.17 In October 1874 Ellen and the children traveled to Texas without Ben for an extended visit with her family. Although she had always been plagued with health problems, especially during and after her last two pregnancies, she had not been stricken with a life-threatening disease until about a month after her return to Texas. In November she informed her husband for the first time that she was seriously ill. She was being treated by an army surgeon, Dr. Taylor, for what he termed a “plursitic [sic] attack.” The disease had progressed rapidly, and immediate treatment was imperative. Consequently, he treated her initially with “Cod liver Oil and a series of fly blisters.” The cod liver oil made her sick, so the doctor switched to a combination of lime and iron. Still, her condition continued to deteriorate, and by the end of the year she was spitting up blood from the left lung and taking morphine “every three hours day and night” to relieve the pain. Unable to return home to South Carolina because of her condition, she confided to her husband in late January, “I do not want to die, though I fear dearest I cannot expect a long life anywhere.” Eventually, Ben journeyed to Texas to be with his dying wife before she succumbed to the fatal disease in the summer of 1875.18 Following the loss of his beloved wife, Ben decided to study for the ministry. After serving as a lay reader at the Episcopal Church in Plantersville, he began his theological studies in earnest while residing on Exchange plantation. The path to ordination was a laborious one. First, the 17. Adele Allston to “My precious daughter” [Adele], Aug. 11, 1870; Adele to “My dear Sister Mary,” Mar. 28, 1866, in Allston Papers, SCHS; Ellen Allston to Benjamin Allston, Jan. 8, Feb. 7 (quotation), 12, 1875; Maria H. Middleton to “Dear Mrs. Allston” [Ellen], Dec. 2, 1872; Ben Allston to “My dear Adele” [Vanderhorst], July, 1873; Charlotte Allston to “My Dear Papa” [Ben], Aug. 8 [1883?]; Louise North Allston to “My dearest Ben,” Sept. 3, 1884; Robert Allston to “My dear Papa,” Oct. 7, 1890, in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS; circular announcing funeral of Mary Duval Allston on Oct. 17, 1877, in Elizabeth Allston Pringle Papers, SCHS. 18. Benjamin Allston to “My dear Sister” [Adele], May 3, 1870; Maria H. Middleton to “Dear Mrs. Allston” [Ellen], Dec. 2, 1872; Ellen Allston to Benjamin Allston, Oct. 18, Nov. 5 (first quotations), 21, Dec. 14 (second quotation) [1874]; Jan. 8, 22 (last quotation), Feb. 12 [1875]; Nannie [Hopkins?] to Benjamin Allston, Nov. 29, 1874, in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS; Charles Petigru Allston to “Dear Jane” [Allston], Apr. 25, June 1, 1875, in Elizabeth Allston Pringle Papers, SCHS.

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standing committee of the diocese recommended to the bishop that the applicant be received as a candidate for Holy Orders. The bishop then admitted him as a candidate for Deacons’ Orders and required him to spend a year studying the Old and New Testaments, the Book of Common Prayer, and various other religious books, upon all of which he was to be examined before he was formally ordained as a priest. Ben was apparently ordained in the late 1870s. His first assignment was as rector of Prince Frederick’s Pee Dee. He subsequently served as rector of Prince George Winyah Episcopal Church in Georgetown and later of churches in both Union and Winnsboro, South Carolina.19 Shortly after he entered the ministry, Ben took as his second wife his first cousin Louise North, thereby breaking an injunction issued by his father twenty-five years earlier to “never marry a first cousin.” First-cousin marriages were not uncommon among elite families in the nineteenthcentury South, but it was a bit unusual for the bride to be nearly fifty years old at the time of her first marriage. In any event the two were wed on June 2, 1882. Perhaps because of the many years she had lived as a single woman, Louise proved to be excessively ambitious for her husband, and she could also be overbearing. While vacationing in September 1884, for example, she urged Ben to attend the Episcopal Convention in New York. “You did not go to the Gen’l Convention,” she observed, “& as far as I know you have been no where outside the state to meet yr brethren of the clergy.” It appears from this and other surviving correspondence between the two that Louise had a much more assertive personality than Ben’s first wife.20 Ben’s younger sister Bessie had an equally eventful postwar life, also punctuated unfortunately by the loss of a beloved spouse in the mid-1870s. Less than a year after their girls’ school in Charleston closed, Bessie became engaged to John Julius Pringle, the eldest son of John Julius Izard Pringle and his domineering wife, Jane Lynch Pringle, of the White House 19. W. P. Craighill to “My dear Allston” [Ben], Apr. 6, 1877; Bishop W. B. Witton [?] to Ben Allston, n.d., in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS; Groves, Alstons and Allstons, 43. 20. Pease and Pease, Family of Women, 249; Scarborough, Masters of the Big House, 25–26; R.F.W. Allston to Benjamin Allston, May 29, 1856, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 134; Louise Allston to Benjamin Allston, Sept. 3, 10 (quotation), 1884, in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS.

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plantation. Once the home of planter-politician Joel R. Poinsett, the White House was located several miles downriver from Chicora Wood. The announcement was devastating for one of Bessie’s former suitors, Charleston physician Manning Simons, who was described as looking “dyspeptic” upon hearing the news. Bessie’s mother had mixed feelings about the match. Although Julius professed to have been devoted to his betrothed for the past five years and pledged to make her happy, Adele would have preferred to see her daughter’s “fate linked with a man of more animation, and intellectual elasticity.” She conceded, however, that “it might be worse.” 21 The couple was married at Chicora Wood on April 26, 1870. Bessie’s brother Charlie gave her away, and her sister Jane, looking “very pretty” in her white dress with a “pink sash & pink flower in her hair,” served as her first bridesmaid. The bride “looked lovely in white muslin with illusion veil & orange blossoms.” Her mother, in response to entreaties from the family, dressed “in her black velvet & lace.” The day after the ceremony, which was performed by the Reverend Mr. Trapier, the groom’s mother hosted a reception for the couple and their guests at the White House. At first all went well for the newlyweds. When Adele exchanged dinner engagements with the couple in mid-May, she reported that both looked “well and happy” and that “Bessie appeared devoted to the duties of her new position” at the White House.22 Had it not been for the constant interference of Bessie’s shrewish mother-in-law and the boorish behavior of her spoiled daughter, Mary, Bessie and Juley might have been supremely happy throughout the duration of their brief marriage. Long before her husband died in 1864, Jane Lynch Pringle had been the dominant figure in the Pringle household. She alone controlled their sons’ education, planned family vacations, screened suitors, and supervised domestic affairs at the family’s two plantations. Now she sought to exercise the same degree of control over the life of her favorite son. The difficulties began less than four months after the wed21. Adele Allston to “My dear Adele,” Aug. 27, 1869 (last quotation), in Allston Papers, SCHS; G[eorge] H[erbert] S[ass] to Jane Allston, Sept. 20, 1869 (first quotation), in Elizabeth Allston Pringle Papers, SCHS; Charles Joyner, intro. to Pringle, Woman Rice Planter, xxx–xxxi. 22. Clements, “ ‘Great Events Have Taken Place,’ ” 333–34 (first quotations); Adele Allston to “My dear daughters Adele & Jane,” May 17, 1870, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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ding, when Mrs. Pringle charged that Bessie disliked her other son, Lynch, so much that it would breed trouble between the two brothers. Bessie received a respite when Mrs. Pringle and her daughter left on a brief vacation in late summer. Adele, who saw her daughter daily during this period, remarked that Bessie was “cheerful and happy” in their absence. But she had reason, declared Adele, “to dread the return of Mrs. P and Mary, more particularly the latter who is a jealous and mean spirited woman.”23 The friction between the Allstons and Pringles escalated the following year when Mrs. Pringle blamed Adele for not being sufficiently observant to prevent Bessie’s miscarriage on March 25–26. “It is very disagreeable to me to go to the White House,” Adele declared angrily. “Mrs. P. seems to me to be always in a suppressed rage, and eager to fix some blame on me.” The estrangement continued in subsequent years. When Bessie and her husband proposed to spend the summer of 1873 at Adele’s newly acquired Pawleys Island beach house, Mrs. Pringle became extremely upset, “refused her consent positively (tho’ it had not been asked),” and her weakkneed son meekly deferred to his mother. Eventually, however, they did go, but, when Mrs. Pringle returned from her visit, she did not have the courtesy to send Adele a note thanking her for her hospitality. Once again, Adele exploded, charging that such conduct demonstrated a lack of “good breeding.” A month later, after Mrs. Pringle had apologized for her behavior, she insisted that she, Julius, and Bessie return to the White House for the winter. Adele strongly advised her daughter against accepting this proposal. “She should never return or occupy the same house with Mrs. P.,” she confided to her daughter Adele. Such an arrangement would be “fatal to Bessie’s interest, intellectual spiritual and moral,” for Mrs. Pringle was a “very bad example,” and it was “dangerous to live with a bad example before ones eyes day out and day in for weeks and months & years.”24 Three years later the differences between the Allstons and Pringles became insignificant when tragedy struck the Pringle household. Julius Pringle contracted malaria, apparently during a brief visit to Georgetown, and died at the White House on August 21, 1876. Only his cousin Motte 23. Scarborough, Masters of the Big House, 94–95; Adele Allston to Adele Vanderhorst, Aug. 11, Sept. 8 (quotation), 1870, in Allston Papers, SCHS. 24. Adele Allston to “My dear Adele,” Apr. 6, 1871 (first quotation); Aug. 29 (third quotation), Sept. 22 (fourth quotation), 1873; Apr. 16, 1874; Bessie Allston to “Dearest Dell” [Adele Vanderhorst], Mar. 21 [1873] (second quotation), in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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Pringle and a Mr. Barker were with him at the time of his death. His wife was at the beach attending church services, Adele Allston was vacationing in Flat Rock, North Carolina, and his mother and sister were in Europe. Bessie was absolutely devastated by the loss of her husband. She insisted on viewing his body when it was brought to her, and she later recounted that, as she gazed upon his lifeless form, “he soothed and comforted” her in death just as he had in life. “The years ahead look so dark I feel utterly without interest in any earthly thing,” she wailed. Letters of condolence poured in to her from relatives and friends throughout the Lowcountry. Typical was an elegant note from Louise Tucker in Plantersville, which read: “Accept from me the deepest sympathy for this blight upon your young life, for this heart crushing sorrow, which has made all your flowers fade, all your bright hopes wither.” Her sister Adele could not find the words to comfort her in her pain. She could only “mourn with you” and “weep with you over a noble heart stilled a useful life cut short.” 25 During the next few months Bessie was almost inconsolable as she contemplated a future without either husband or children. Ben and her mother each invited her to make her home with them, but she was reluctant “to break up” her house entirely, and she did not feel that she was psychologically prepared to assume the responsibility of bringing up Ben’s children. At first she thought of purchasing a small house or renting a few rooms, which would enable her to house such treasured mementos of her beloved husband as “his gun & his dog Sandy.” On the two-month anniversary of his death Bessie was still trying to cope with the loss of her husband. “Every day makes me feel my loss more and more,” she wrote, “and there is never a waking moment when July is not in my thoughts.” In the end she accepted her mother’ invitation to spend the winter at Chicora, leaving most of her belongings locked up in a room at the White House.26 Bessie remained at Chicora during the following years to assist her 25. Charles Joyner, intro. to Pringle, Woman Rice Planter, xxxi; Bessie to “dear Mamma,” Sept. 5 [1876]; Lou P. Tucker to “Dear Mrs. Pringle,” Sept. 15 [1876]; Adele Allston to Bessie, Aug. 25, 1876; E[lizabeth] B. Weston to “Dearest Bessie,” Sept. 3, 1876; Adele Vanderhorst to “My dear dear Bessie” [Aug. 1876]; Adele Allston to “My dear Jane,” Aug. 25, 1876; Benjamin Allston to “My darling Sister” [Aug. 1876], in Elizabeth Allston Pringle Papers, SCHS. 26. Adele Allston to Bessie, Aug. 25, Oct. 12, 1876; Bessie to “Dear Mamma,” Sept. 19, Oct. 21, 1876; Jane Louise Allston to “Dear Mama,” Oct. 4 [1876], in Elizabeth Allston Pringle Papers, SCHS.

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mother with the operation of the plantation. In 1879 she purchased the White House from the Pringle heirs for ten thousand dollars, half in cash and the remainder through mortgage. For a time she received some assistance from one of her brothers, but in 1885 she assumed total responsibility for the management of both plantations from her residence at Chicora Wood. She normally planted about two hundred acres in rice and provision crops at White House and about half that amount at Chicora. Most of the laborers were renters, who owned and resided on their own farms. A few were wage hands, who lived on the plantation and worked for Pringle as she needed them in return for a rent-free house and all the wood they needed. Consistent with the white racial ideology of the late nineteenth century, Pringle had a low opinion of the African-American character. She complained that they were deceitful, dishonest, lazy, and universally prone to thievery. In 1896 Bessie’s burden deepened when the Allston estate was again divided, and she determined to purchase Chicora under a mortgage in order to keep it in the family. She continued to manage both plantations until 1918, just three years before her death, although the great hurricane of 1906 washed out the rice banks and trunks, effectively ending rice planting on the Allston plantations and, indeed, on almost all Lowcountry estates.27 In a desperate effort to supplement her meager income, Pringle applied her uncommon talents to the literary field in the waning years of her life. In 1903 she approached the editor of the New York Sun about writing a series of letters depicting her experiences as a woman rice planter. The editor accepted her proposal, and the letters were published continuously until 1912. The following year they were compiled in book form and published by the Macmillan Company as A Woman Rice Planter under the pseudonym Patience Pennington. Bessie’s first book was both a literary and an autobiographical work. As Charles Joyner has noted, although the book purported to be written as a diary, it was “preeminently a literary achievement.” Like Mary Boykin Chesnut’s so-called diary, retitled as Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, Pringle’s book is an amalgam of her daily private diary, her re27. Pringle, Woman Rice Planter, 1–5, 63, 75, 88, 314, 391–99, 446; Joyner, intro., to Pringle, Woman Rice Planter, xxxii–xxxiii.

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vised letters for the Sun, and her transformation of those letters into a book. The result is a work filled with fascinating vignettes of plantation life at the turn of the century, enriched by descriptive passages of the natural wonders of the Lowcountry, and enhanced by more than eighty illustrations from the pen of the gifted Charleston artist Alice R. Huger Smith. Ironically, although Bessie was never able to free herself from the patriarchal world in which she grew to maturity, she nevertheless anticipated the female autonomy that emerged in the twentieth century by emulating the qualities she had so much admired in her father. Basking in the success of her first book, Pringle next sought to honor her parents by writing an account of her life in the Allston household before the Civil War. The result was the publication by Scribner’s in 1922 of her second book, entitled Chronicles of Chicora Wood. Lamentably, she did not live to see its publication, for she died several months earlier at the age of seventy-six. In this book she paints an extremely sympathetic portrait of her parents—especially her father, whom she “adored” and thought to be “the wisest and best man in the world.” She also offers a nostalgic view of the world into which she was born and which, to her profound regret, she would never see again. Thus ended the life of a truly remarkable woman— one who for more than a quarter-century performed the arduous task of managing two rice plantations while at the same time producing two notable literary works.28 The remaining three Allston siblings played less significant roles during the postwar period. Adele, the eldest daughter, had always been a particular favorite of her mother. In August 1869 the senior Adele recalled nostalgically the birth of young Adele twenty-nine years earlier. “I think I never either before or after had such an earnest desire that the life of an infant should be preserved,” she wrote. When Adele bore her first child during the tumultuous period just after the war, circumstances prevented her mother from being present, but Mrs. Allston tried to reassure her daughter by enjoining her “to remember that giving birth is a perfectly natural operation.” In view of the close relationship between the two Adeles, it is not surprising that the younger Adele’s first-born was given 28. Joyner, intro. to Pringle, Woman Rice Planter, xl–xli, xliii–xliv, xlvi; Pringle, Chronicles of Chicora Wood, 6.

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the same name. As the years passed and the Vanderhorst family grew, the elder Adele delighted in playing the role of the doting grandmother. Thus, in the fall of 1871, when their parents were away on a trip, Adele kept the children—now three in number—at Chicora Wood. She remarked that the two older girls, Adele and Anna, particularly enjoyed “seeing the cows milked in the evening and the chickens fed.” She added that she found the two to be “very delightful companions.29 When Elias Vanderhorst died in the spring of 1874, the family’s two Kiawah Island plantations passed to Adele’s husband, Arnoldus. Adele and Arnoldus had a total of seven children before Arnoldus was killed in a tragic hunting accident in 1881. Adele, with the assistance of her black foreman Quash, then became responsible for the oversight of the two plantations, Ashepoo and Chickesee. Thereafter, she divided her time between her mother-in-law’s residence on Chapel Street in Charleston and her plantations on Kiawah, with occasional visits to her mother at Chicora. After raising her children, Adele lived until 1915, when she died at the age of seventy-five.30 Just after the war ended, Adele’s younger brother, Charles, enrolled in the College of Charleston. His mother had sought an appointment for him to West Point, where he would have followed in the footsteps of his father and brother, but President Andrew Johnson doubtless concluded that such an application in July 1865 from a South Carolinian who had so recently worn the Confederate gray was too presumptuous. Charles’s first year at the College of Charleston was a bit disappointing. “I have not come out quite as I expected & I am afraid far below where you & the rest of the family were looking for me,” he admitted to Ben. His performance soon improved, however, and in his third year his mother reported proudly that he stood “well at the College, and is a very good, blameless boy,” well liked and respected by all his friends. As he began his senior year, Charles showed signs of weariness with the college routine. “It is very irksome to look forward to twelve more months before I can get at any” vocation, he complained to his brother. Nevertheless, he successfully completed 29. Adele Allston to “My dear Adele,” Aug. 15, 1869 (first quotation); Aug. 1, 1865 (second quotation); Adele Allston to “Dear Mrs. Vanderhorst,” Nov. 14, 1871 (third quotation), in Allston Papers, SCHS. 30. C. Petigru Allston to “My Dear Jane,” Apr. 14, 1874, in Elizabeth Allston Pringle Papers, SCHS; Clements, “ ‘Great Events Have Taken Place,’ ” 314; Groves, Alstons and Allstons, 43.

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his course of study and graduated from the College of Charleston in the spring of 1869.31 Five years later Charles became engaged to Emma Lowndes, the youngest daughter of prominent Combahee River planter Charles T. Lowndes. In April 1874 Emma made her first visit to her future motherin-law at Chicora Wood, after spending a few days at Greenfield, the other Pringle plantation. At first she was a little apprehensive about meeting the matriarch of the family, which, as Adele observed, was quite “natural.” Adele expressed the hope that all would go well because it was important that Charles should marry. Happily, the romance continued to blossom, for the two vacationed together at Flat Rock in July and were wed in December. The one member of the family who expressed reservations about Charley’s bride was Ben’s first wife, Ellen. Conceding that she might “like her better when I really know her,” Ellen initially found her to be “cold and inclined to be selfish, and also to be fond of her own way.” Obviously, Charles viewed his new wife in an entirely different light.32 The youngest of the Allston siblings, Jane Louise (nicknamed Jinty), was apparently quite a beauty and was courted by a procession of suitors while in her late teens and early twenties. She received numerous invitations to go on walks and picnics, attend concerts, and engage in other activities that would be deemed tame by today’s standards. Ever the quintessential Southern belle, Jane kept her suitors dangling on a tight string. When Henry P. Williams complained in 1870, for example, that she did not respond to his letters, she reminded him that she had never promised to write him. But she would be delighted to receive his letters as long as he did not expect to hear from her “regularly.” If he elected not to write again under this condition, she added petulantly, then “please don’t do it.” Finally, in April 1877 she married Englishman Charles Albert Hill. The sur31. Adele Allston to “His Excellency President Johnson” [July 1865], in Allston Papers, SCHS; C. Petigru Allston to “Dear Brother,” July 30, 1866; Apr. 19, 1868, in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS; Adele Petigru Allston to Caroline Carson, Apr. 13 [18]68, in Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 241. 32. South Carolina Genealogies, 1:120–22; 2:59–60; MS Census, 1850 (Schedule 1), Charleston–-St. Philip and St. Michael; MS Census, 1860 (Schedule 1), Colleton–St. Bartholomew, S.C.; Adele Allston to Adele Vanderhorst, Apr. 16 (quotation) [late Apr.], 1874, in Allston Papers, SCHS; C. Petigru Allston to Jane Allston, Apr. 14, July 22, 1874, in Elizabeth Allston Pringle Papers, SCHS; Ellen Allston to “My dearest Husband,” Feb. 7 [1875], in Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, SCHS.

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viving records shed little light on her married life, although her sister Bessie noted that she was living in Washington, D.C., in 1912. She later moved back to Charleston, and it was there, as the last surviving member of the family, that she gained possession of the massive collection of Allston papers. Thus, it was she who, shortly before her death in 1937, opened this vast treasure trove to Professor J. H. Easterby, thereby providing the basis for his 1945 edition of the agricultural papers of R.F.W. Allston. Subsequently, as stipulated by Mrs. Hill, these documents became the property of the South Carolina Historical Society, where they are still housed.33 While her children were occupied with their respective lives, the family matriarch struggled to cope with mounting financial woes and with the loss of additional siblings. After reading the novel Lothair, which described the atmosphere in an opulent society, Adele Allston recalled with nostalgia the life of wealth and ease that she had enjoyed before the war. “I have a longing to see the days of prosperity return,” she confided to her eldest daughter in 1870, “the days of abundance and ease.” Unfortunately, those days were gone forever, and she labored with difficulty during the next two decades simply to cover the expenses of the plantation. Faced with debts totaling nearly six thousand dollars in the spring of 1876, she authorized her son-in-law Arnoldus and nephew James Lesesne to offer some of her bonds in exchange for these obligations. Displaying acute business acumen, she directed them to select those bonds “that have the longest to run, as when they mature they can be collected in full.” By the early 1880s her nephew was handling most of her financial affairs. Thus, in February 1882 she entrusted four thousand dollars to him to be invested “safely and judiciously,” urging him to make the investment as soon as possible lest they “lose the quarter’s or half year’s interest.” By 1887 Adele’s stock and bond holdings totaled just over six thousand dollars, but she was obliged to liquidate some of these assets to pay plantation expenses for both 1886 and 1888. Thus, Adele engaged in a never-ending struggle to remain solvent during the last quarter-century of her life.34 33. Jane L. Allston to [Henry P.] Williams, Mar. 18, 1870; see also letters in late 1860s and early 1870s to John Fairly, Edwin P. Frost, W. St. Julien Jervey, and George Herbert Sass, in Elizabeth Allston Pringle Papers, SCHS; Pringle, Woman Rice Planter, 340; Easterby, South Carolina Rice Plantation, v, 5 n. 18. 34. Adele Allston to “My dear Adele,” June 28, 1870; Adele to “Dear Arnoldus,” Mar. 15 (quotation), Apr. 3, 1876; Adele to “Dear James” [Lesesne], May 2, 1880; Feb. 19, 1882 (quota-

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Although Adele’s children remained healthy, the specter of death claimed two more of her siblings during the 1870s. She was devastated in February 1872, when her unmarried sister Mary Petigru passed away. Adele had looked forward to joining her in the family home at Badwell after Charles and Jane married. “It is the removal of one important member of the small circle of my early friends,” she lamented, “one whom I truly loved all my life.” Five years later her younger sister Harriette Lesesne died unexpectedly. “It was a great shock to all of us,” remarked Charles Allston. He reported that his mother was “very much shaken & upset by the news,” but she had “recovered from the shock much better” than he had anticipated. Yet another member of the family succumbed shortly thereafter. Adele’s niece Mary North Allston, the wife of Joseph B. Allston, died after a lengthy and painful illness. The last two deaths, coming at about the same time as the tragic deaths of Ben’s first wife and Bessie’s husband, must have placed a great strain on the family. Finally, Adele Allston, the last surviving family member of her generation, passed away at Chicora in November 1896. Funeral services were held at 11:00 a.m. on Friday, November 27, at Prince Frederick’s Episcopal Church Pee Dee.35

 About a year after the war ended, Benjamin Allston contemplated writing a biography of his late father. The task was made difficult because many of the papers relating to the latter’s boyhood and life at West Point had been “ruthlessly torn destroyed & given to the winds of heaven, by the Negroes, his own—during their insanity, for I can call it nothing else.” Consequently, he sought information about his father’s early life from other family members and relatives. As he considered the project, he characterized its importance in these terms: “The history of Fathers life would not only be in part that of the State, owing [to] his public service but it should also be that of the most flourishing and last days, of Slavery—the relation of

tion); notation regarding bonds held and sold to pay plantation expenses, 1887–90, in Allston Papers, SCHS. 35. Adele Allston to “My dear Adele,” Feb. 19, 1872, in Allston Papers, SCHS; C[harles] P[etigru] Allston to “Dear Jane” [Hill], June 8, 1877; Adele Vanderhorst to “Dear Jane,” n.d., in Elizabeth Allston Pringle Papers, SCHS; funeral notice, Chicora Wood, Nov. 26, 1896, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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Master and bondsman—of the landed Gentry of South Carolina especially on the Coast—indeed, the last, of that order of things, under which we grew up—and whatever may have been its faults—to which our memories still cling with love and reverence. . . . It is a work of time and study—but it will be to me, I trust, a labor of love.”36 Despite the subjective nature of his statement, Ben correctly discerned that a study of the Allston patriarch would enhance our understanding of the political forces in the state, the system of plantation slavery and rice culture in the Lowcountry, and the social and cultural milieu in which Ben and his siblings grew to maturity. In his political career, which was always secondary to his agricultural interests, Robert F. W. Allston’s contributions were solid, if not spectacular. His public service spanned three decades, including four years in the South Carolina House of Representatives; twentyfour in the State Senate, the last six as president of that body; and two years as governor. Although he had long coveted the governorship, his honorable behavior in 1842, when he declined to challenge James Henry Hammond, delayed his elevation to that high office for fourteen years. He was also clearly the leading political figure in his home county of Georgetown for more than two decades. With respect to the controversies between his home state and the federal government, he was both a nullifier and a secessionist, though not as extreme as many in both instances. Above all else he sought to promote a unified political front within the Palmetto State. In his agricultural endeavors he proved to be a true capitalist by converting an inheritance of one plantation and 125 slaves into an agricultural empire of seven plantations and 631 slaves by applying the profits derived from the sale of his rice to the acquisition of additional land and slaves. He was noted as much for the quality as for the quantity of his rice, winning prizes both locally and internationally and penning an influential essay on rice culture. As a slave owner, he was firm but fair. He demanded loyalty, obedience, and diligence from his bondsmen, and in return he treated them with relative benevolence. Like others in his cohort, R.F.W. Allston exercised patriarchal control over all within his purview. That was the way it was in the nineteenth36. Benjamin Allston to “My dear Cousin Lynch” [Pringle], May 10, 1866; Ben Allston to “My dear Mother,” May 18, 1866, in Allston Papers, SCHS.

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century South. His daughters seemed never to question his authoritarian regime, but both Adele and son Benjamin occasionally chafed at their enforced subordination. Yet there was another and much more positive side to the patriarch of the Allston family. Perhaps no one in the antebellum South exemplified more clearly the laudable characteristic of noblesse oblige, or the quality of noble and generous behavior toward those of lower status in society. This attribute was reflected in his leadership of the Winyah Indigo Society, his contributions in the form of scholarships and prizes to boys at South Carolina College, and, above all, his lifelong commitment to free public education for children of all classes and both genders. He was also deeply religious, a characteristic shared by all members of the Allston family, and he played an important role as a prominent lay leader in the Episcopal Church. Two other members of the family—wife Adele and daughter Bessie— merit special comment. While their respective husbands were still alive, both acquiesced, albeit reluctantly, in their subordinate position. After the demise of their spouses, however, they assumed a role primarily reserved for males and proved themselves equal to the challenges posed by the postwar world. For the first time in her life Adele assumed responsibility for the financial affairs of her late husband’s estate and successfully weathered the storm, first by operating a girls’ school in Charleston and then by reclaiming the sole plantation remaining to the family. After the tragic death of her weak-willed but beloved husband, Bessie pulled herself together and, in an uncommon display of will and independence, managed both the Allston and Pringle plantations for a quarter-century while, at the same time, making her mark as a literary figure of some note. The achievements of these two women are truly remarkable. Collectively, the Allstons/Alstons were one of the most long-established and prominent families in the South Carolina Lowcountry, ranking with such other families as the Heywards and Middletons in that regard, and the Allstons of Chicora Wood constituted one of the most important branches of that family.

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appendix a The Allston and Petigru Families

benjamin allston jr. ( 1766 –1809 ) —married ( 1788 ) his cousin charlotte ann allston ( 1771 –1824 ) . six children: 1. Elizabeth Ann (b. Nov. 1, 1790; d. Sept. 13, 1822)—married John Hyrne Tucker (1780–1859), wealthy Georgetown District rice planter. 2. Charlotte Atchison (1793–1847)—married John Coachman. 3. Mary Pyatt (1795–1836)—married William H. Jones. 4. Joseph Waties (b. 1798; d. Aug. 13, 1834)—married first Sarah Pride, second Charlotte Nicholson, and third Mary Allan. Served in both the War of 1812 and the Seminole War and became a general in the militia. His two surviving sons were Joseph Blyth (1833–1904) and William Allan (1834–78). *5. Robert Francis Withers (1801–64)—married Adele Petigru. 6. William Washington (1804–23)—died unmarried.

robert francis withers allston ( b. apr. 21, 1801; d. apr. 7, 1864 ) —married ( apr. 5, 1832 ) adele petigru at st. michael’s episcopal church, charleston. five surviving children: 1. Benjamin (b. Feb. 25, 1833; d. Jan. 15, 1900)—married first (Feb. 25, 1864) Ellen Stanley Robinson (1842–75) of Texas; second (1882) his cousin Louise North (1833–96). Graduated from West Point in 1853, resigned his commission in 1857, and served in the Confederate army during the Civil War, rising to the rank of colonel. After the war he engaged in rice planting and then became an Episcopal minister. 2. Adele (b. Aug. 16, 1840; d. 1915)—married (June 24, 1863) Arnoldus Vanderhorst (b. 1835; d. Dec. 1, 1881), a major in the Confederate army, and they had seven children.

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3. Elizabeth Waties (Bessie) (b. May 29, 1845; d. 1921)—married (Apr. 26, 1870) John Julius Pringle (b. June 21, 1842; d. Aug. 21, 1876). Planted at the White House and Chicora Wood after the war and wrote two books on rice planting. 4. Charles Petigru (b. July 31, 1848; d. 1922)—schooled at Octavius Porcher’s Willington Academy in Abbeville District until he joined Confederate army at age sixteen. Graduated from College of Charleston in 1869. Married (Dec. 1874) Emma Rutledge Lowndes. 5. Jane Louise (Jinty) (b. Dec. 1850; d. 1937)—married (Apr. 25, 1877) Charles Albert Hill (1844–1927), an Englishman.

james louis petigru ( b. may 10, 1789; d. mar. 9, 1863 ) — married ( 1816 ) jane amelia postell ( 1795 –1869 ) . Siblings of James Louis Petigru 1. Thomas (b. 1793; d. Mar. 6, 1857)—married (1829) Mary Ann LaBruce (1793– 1869). Captain U.S. Navy but had only a mediocre career and was dismissed from the naval service in fall 1855. 2. Jane Gibert (b. 1800; d. Nov. 5, 1863)—married (1827) John Gough North (b. 1802; d. Feb. 13, 1836). After her husband’s death she resided at Badwell, the Petigru family farm in Abbeville District. She opposed secession but supported the Confederacy. Three children: A. Caroline (Carey) (b. July 16, 1828; d. Mar. 8, 1887)—married (Apr. 19, 1853) Charles Lockhart Pettigrew (b. 1816; d. Nov. 20, 1873) of North Carolina, brother of Confederate general James Johnston Pettigrew (1828–63). B. Mary (Minnie) (b. 1832)—married (Dec. 1857) Joseph Blyth Allston (1833–1904), nephew of R.F.W. Allston. C. Louise Gibert (1833–96)—married (June 2, 1882) Benjamin Allston, eldest son of R.F.W. Allston. 3. Mary A. (1803–72)—never married; lived at Badwell with her sister Jane Petigru North. She was a political moderate. 4. Louise (b. 1809; d. May, 1869)—married (Oct. 13, 1829) Philip Johnston Porcher (1806–71), a Charleston real estate and slave broker.

the allston and petigru families

187

*5. Adele (b. Nov. 11, 1811; d. Nov. 24, 1896)—married (Apr. 5, 1832) Robert F. W. Allston. 6. Harriette (b. 1813; d. June 1877)—married (Apr., 24, 1836) Henry Deas Lesesne (1811–86), Charleston attorney and law partner of James L. Petigru from 1840 to 1850.

Children of James Louis Petigru 1. Caroline (b. Jan. 4, 1820, in Charleston; d. Aug. 15, 1892, in Rome, Italy)— married (Dec. 16, 1841) William Augustus Carson (1800–1856), owner of Dean Hall plantation on Cooper River and an alcoholic. Like her unionist father, Caroline never supported the Confederacy and moved to the North in 1861 and later to Europe. 2. Susan Dupont (b. 1824; d. Dec., 1875)—married (Mar. 30, 1843) Henry C. King (1819–62), son of Judge Mitchell King and law partner of James L. Petigru, succeeding Henry D. Lesesne in 1850. Susan was educated in Charleston and Philadelphia. Her husband served as a captain in the Confederate army and was killed at Secessionville, S.C., in June 1862.

ebenezer pettigrew ( 1783 –1848 ) . five children: 1. Charles Lockhart (b. 1816; d. Nov. 20, 1873)—married (Apr. 19, 1853) Caroline North (Carey). Resided on Bonarva plantation in Tyrrell County, N.C. In 1858 he purchased Cherry Hill plantation in Abbeville District, S.C. 2. William Shepard (1818–1900), proprietor of Belgrade and Magnolia plantations in eastern North Carolina. Was an Episcopal minister after the war. 3. Mary Blount (b. 1826)—married (June 1868) Peter Fielding Browne (d. 1880). 4. James Johnston (b. July 4, 1828; d. July 17, 1863). Elected to South Carolina House, 1856; served as senior aide-de-camp to Governor Robert Allston, 1857–58; brigadier general in Confederate army; killed on retreat from Gettysburg. 5. Anne B. S. (b. 1830; d. Feb. 1864)—married (May 14, 1863) Neil McKay, an Episcopal minister.

appendix b The Allston Plantations

The Allstons had seven plantations that encompassed a total of 4,000 acres, onefourth of which were adaptable to rice culture. 1. Chicora Wood (known as Matanzas, or more commonly Matanza, until 1853): located on Pee Dee River, fourteen miles north of Georgetown. The Allstons’ residence plantation, containing 370 acres on the east side of the river and 552 on the west side. Purchased by Benjamin Allston Jr. in 1806; his son R.F.W. Allston became the sole proprietor in 1832. 2. Nightingale Hall: located on Pee Dee River and purchased, together with about 100 slaves, in 1846 for $80,000. Contained 1,219 acres, 625 of which were under cultivation in 1858. The rice yield in that year was 17,000–18,000 bushels. 3. Waterford: situated adjacent to Nightingale Hall on the peninsula between the Pee Dee and Waccamaw rivers. Purchased in 1847 for $25,000; contained 363 acres. 4. Ditchford (originally called Rose Bank): situated adjacent to and north of Chicora Wood. Purchased from Hugh Fraser in 1851 for $23,100; contained 477 acres. 5. Exchange: located above Chicora Wood just beyond Ditchford on the Pee Dee River. Purchased in 1843, sold three years later, and repurchased in 1853 for $25,000; contained 482 acres. 6. Guendalos: located on Pee Dee River. Allston purchased it along with its 119 slaves in 1858 for $103,000 with the intention of turning it over to son Benjamin, but the war intervened; contained 1,253 acres. 7. Pipe Down: located on Sandy Island. Allston purchased it along with 116 slaves from sister-in-law Mary Ann LaBruce in 1859 for $78,000; contained 294 acres.

188

the allston plantations

189

R.F.W. Allston owned or administered five additional properties: 1. Waverly: located on Waccamaw Neck ten miles north of Georgetown. Administered by Allston, 1834–57, for nephew Joseph Blyth Allston. Had 184 slaves and produced 450,000 pounds of rice in 1860. 2. Woodville: administered by Allston until 1857 for nephew William Allan Allston. In 1860 it had 105 improved acres worked by 151 slaves and produced 500,000 pounds of rice. 3. Pawleys Island: Allston began purchasing tracts on Pawleys Island from Peter W. Fraser in 1844, eventually accumulating 30 acres of beachfront property on which he erected a summer residence in 1845. Located four miles (seven by boat) east of Chicora Wood. 4. Charleston residence, 37 Meeting Street (now known as the Nathaniel Russell House at 51 Meeting Street): purchased in 1857 for $38,000. 5. Morven: a 1,900-acre farm in Anson County, N.C., located on the Pee Dee River, ninety miles upriver from Allston’s Georgetown District plantations. Purchased in October 1862 for $10,000 as a wartime refugee site.

appendix c The Public Career of Robert F. W. Allston

Surveyor General of South Carolina, 1823–27. South Carolina House of Representatives, Prince George, Winyah, 1828–32. Defeated by 1 vote in representative election of Oct. 1832; filed protest. South Carolina Senate, Prince George, Winyah, 1833–56. Elected by majority of 1 vote over John H. Read in Oct. 1832. Election protested. Victim of fraud in election of 1834 and not seated until Dec. 12. Reelected in Oct. 1838 without opposition, receiving 144 votes. Reelected in Oct. 1842, by a majority of 116 votes, over Peter W. Fraser. Although declining to be a candidate, Allston received only 7 votes less than James H. Hammond in the gubernatorial election of 1842. In the gubernatorial election of 1844 Allston received 23 votes, trailing only Whitemarsh B. Seabrook with 50 and William Aiken with 88. Reelected in Oct. 1846 without opposition; elected president pro tem in Dec. 1847. Delegate to Nashville Convention, June 1850. Elected president of the Senate by a vote of 27 to 14 over Franklin J. Moses, Nov. 1850. Unanimously reelected Senate president in Nov. 1852; chosen as presidential elector from the Fourth Congressional District. Delegate to Southern Commercial Convention in Charleston, Apr. 1854. Reelected to State Senate without opposition in Oct. 1854, receiving 277 votes; reelected Senate president. Governor of South Carolina, 1856–58. Results of gubernatorial election held Dec. 9, 1856: Allston 88, J. Duncan Allen 43, B. J. Johnson 29. Chosen presidential elector for president and vice president of the Confederate States of America, Nov. 1861.

190

bibliography primary sources Manuscript Collections South Carolina Historical Society, Charleston R.F.W. Allston Papers Adele Allston Incoming Family Letters, 1860–69. 450 items in 24 folders. Adele Allston Outgoing Family Letters, 1835–92. 250 items in 11 folders. Benjamin Allston Personal Correspondence, 1849–90. 250 items in 26 folders. R.F.W. Allston Incoming Personal Letters, 1817–64. 2 boxes, 46 folders. R.F.W. Allston Outgoing Personal Letters, 1820–64. 250 items in 34 folders. R.F.W. Allston Papers Accession, 1827–51. 38 folders. Factors’ Letters, 1855–68. 100 items in 11 folders. Nightingale Hall Plantation Book, 1846–59. 1 vol. Slave Papers, 1822–65. 100 items in 10 folders. “Address before Members and Pupils of the Winyah Indigo Society,” May 5, 1854. (MS and printed.) “Rules and History of the Hot and Hot Fish Club of All Saints Parish, South Carolina,” 1860. (MS and printed.) Harriott Middleton Family Papers, 1848–1917. 7 linear feet. Henry A. Middleton Jr., Plantation Journal, 1855–61. 1 vol. James Louis Petigru Papers, 1816–63. 175 items in 14 folders. Elizabeth W. Allston Pringle Family Papers, in Allston-Pringle-Hill Papers, 1863– 76. 100 items in 10 folders. Adele Allston Vanderhorst Diary, 1861–64. 1 vol.

Southern Historical Collection of the Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill All Saints Church, Waccamaw, South Carolina, Vestry Journal, 1844–77 (typescript). 1 item. Robert Francis Withers Allston Paper, 1843. 1 item.

191

192

bibliography

Elliott and Gonzales Family Papers, 1698–1898. Ca. 6,000 items. Heyward-Ferguson Papers and Books, 1806–1923 (microfilm). 216 items, including 10 vols. Manigault Plantation Records, 1833–87. 5 vols. William Porcher Miles Papers, 1784–1906. 2,889 items, including 31 vols. Pettigrew Family Papers, 1776–1930s. 9,230 items.

Public Documents United States. Bureau of the Census. Second Census of the United States: 1800. Population Schedule, Georgetown District, S.C. ———. Third Census of the United States: 1810. Population Schedule, Georgetown District, S.C. ———. Fourth Census of the United States: 1820. Population Schedule, Georgetown District, S.C. ———. Fifth Census of the United States: 1830. Population Schedule, Georgetown District, S.C. ———. Sixth Census of the United States: 1840. Population Schedule, Georgetown District, S.C. ———. Seventh Census of the United States: 1850. Schedule 1 (Population) and Schedule 2 (Slave), Georgetown District, S.C. ———. Eighth Census of the United States: 1860. Schedule 1 (Population) and Schedule 2 (Slave), Georgetown District, S.C. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. 128 vols. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1880–1901.

Journals and Newspapers Charleston Daily Courier. 1846–64. Charleston Mercury. 1830–45. De Bow’s Review. 43 vols. New Orleans, 1846–80. Pee Dee Times (Georgetown, S.C.). 1853–58. Winyah Observer (Georgetown, S.C.). 1841–46.

Edited Works and Other Published Sources Allston, Robert F. W. “Eulogy on John C. Calhoun, Pronounced at the Request of the Citizens of Georgetown District, on Tuesday 23d April 1850.” Charleston: Miller & Brown, 1850.

bibliography

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———. “Report on the Free School System.” Presented to the State Agricultural Society in Columbia, S.C., Nov. 26, 1846. Bleser, Carol, ed. The Hammonds of Redcliffe. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. ———. Secret and Sacred: The Diaries of James Henry Hammond, a Southern Slaveholder. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Carson, James Petigru, ed. Life, Letters, and Speeches of James Louis Petigru, the Union Man of South Carolina. Washington, D.C.: W. H. Loudermilk & Company, 1920. “Contributions to the Lay Committee of the General Convention [of the Protestant Episcopal Church].” Philadelphia: King & Baird Printers, 1860. Early, Bishop John. “A Fortnight among the Missions to the Blacks.” In Annals of Southern Methodism, 1856. Ed. Charles F. Deems. Nashville: Stevenson & Owen, 1857. Easterby, J. H., ed. The South Carolina Rice Plantation as Revealed in the Papers of Robert F. W. Allston. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1945. Mathew, William M., ed. Agriculture, Geology, and Society in Antebellum South Carolina: The Private Diary of Edmund Ruffin, 1843. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992. Olmsted, Frederick Law. A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States. 2 vols. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904. Pringle, Elizabeth Allston [Patience Pennington]. A Woman Rice Planter. 1913. Reprint, with new intro. by Charles Joyner. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1992. Pringle, Elizabeth W. Allston. Chronicles of Chicora Wood. 1922. Reprint. Boston: Christopher Publishing House, 1940. Scarborough, William K., ed. The Diary of Edmund Ruffin. 3 vols. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1972–89. Thornwell, J. H. “Letters to His Excellency Governor Manning on Public Instruction in South Carolina.” Columbia: R. W. Gibbes & Company, 1853.

selected secondary sources Books Barnwell, John. Love of Order: South Carolina’s First Secession Crisis. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982. Bederman, Gail. Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880–1917. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. Biographical Directory of the American Congress. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961.

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Biographical Directory of the Senate of the State of South Carolina, 1776–1964. Comp. Emily Bellinger Reynolds and Joan Reynolds Faunt. Columbia: South Carolina Archives Department, 1964. Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the United States Military Academy. Vol. 1. 3rd ed. rev. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1891. Boatner, Mark M., III. The Civil War Dictionary. New York: David McKay Company, 1959. Channing, Steven A. Crisis of Fear: Secession in South Carolina. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1970. Devereux, Anthony Q. The Life and Times of Robert F. W. Allston. Georgetown, S.C.: Waccamaw Press, 1976. Dusinberre, William. Them Dark Days: Slavery in the American Rice Swamps. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Eaton, Clement. A History of the Old South: The Emergence of a Reluctant Nation. 3rd ed. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1975 Edgar, Walter. South Carolina: A History. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998. Faust, Drew Gilpin. James Henry Hammond and the Old South: A Design for Mastery. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982. Ford, Lacy K., Jr. Origins of Southern Radicalism: The South Carolina Upcountry, 1800–1860. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Freehling, William W. The Road to Disunion. Vol. 1: Secessionists at Bay, 1776–1854. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Groves, Joseph A. The Alstons and Allstons of North and South Carolina. 1901. Reprint. Easley, S.C.: Southern Historical Press, 1986. Heyward, Duncan Clinch. Seed from Madagascar. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1937. Holcomb, Brent H., comp. Marriage, Death, and Estate Notices from Georgetown, S.C., Newspapers, 1791–1861. Greenville: Southern Historical Press, 1979. Joyner, Charles. Down by the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984. Nevins, Alan. Ordeal of the Union. Vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1947. O’Brien, Michael, and David Moltke-Hansen. Intellectual Life in Antebellum Charleston. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1986. Pease, William H., and Jane H. Pease. James Louis Petigru: Southern Conservative, Southern Dissenter. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995. ———. A Family of Women: The Carolina Petigrus in Peace and War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999. Phillips, Ulrich B. American Negro Slavery. New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1918. ———. Life and Labor in the Old South. Boston: Little, Brown, 1929.

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Richardson, Katherine H. Pawleys Island Historically Speaking. Pawleys Island, S.C.: Pawleys Island Civic Association, 1994. Rogers, George C., Jr. The History of Georgetown County, South Carolina. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1970. Roller, David C., and Robert W. Twyman, eds. The Encyclopedia of Southern History. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979. Scarborough, William K. Masters of the Big House: Elite Slaveholders of the MidNineteenth Century South. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003. ———. The Overseer: Plantation Management in the Old South. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1966. Schultz, Harold S. Nationalism and Sectionalism in South Carolina, 1852–1860. 1950. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1969. Sinha, Manisha. The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. South Carolina: A Guide to the Palmetto State. New York: Oxford University Press, 1941. South Carolina Genealogies: Articles from the South Carolina Historical (and Genealogical) Magazine. 5 vols. Spartanburg: Reprint Company, 1983. Wallace, David Duncan. South Carolina: A Short History, 1520–1948. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1951. Wilson, Clyde N. Carolina Cavalier: The Life and Mind of James Johnston Pettigrew. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1990.

Articles Clements, Pamela J., ed. “ ‘Great Events Have Taken Place’: The Civil War Diary of Adele Allston Vanderhorst.” South Carolina Historical Magazine 102 (Oct. 2001): 310–34. Clifton, James M. “The Rice Driver: His Role in Slave Management.” South Carolina Historical Magazine 82 (Oct. 1981): 331–53. Doar, David. “Rice and Rice Planting in the South Carolina Low Country.” In Contributions from the Charleston Museum, 12 vols. Ed. E. Milby Burton (Charleston: Charleston Museum, 1910–55), 7:7–42. Haw, James. “ ‘The Problem of South Carolina’ Reexamined: A Review Essay.” South Carolina Historical Magazine 107 (Jan. 2006): 9–25. Hunt, Alan. “The Great Masturbation Panic and the Discourses of Moral Regulation in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Britain.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 8 (Apr. 1998): 575–615. Lander, Ernest M., Jr. “Ante-Bellum Milling in South Carolina.” South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 52 (1951): 125–32.

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Nord, Barbara K. “George Whiting Flagg and His South Carolina Portraits.” South Carolina Historical Magazine 83 (July 1982): 214–34. Ochenkowski, J. P. “The Origins of Nullification in South Carolina.” South Carolina Historical Magazine 83 (Apr. 1982): 121–53. Pease, William H., and Jane H. Pease. “Traditional Belles or Borderline Bluestockings? The Petigru Women.” South Carolina Historical Magazine 102 (Oct. 2001): 292–309. Williamson, Samuel H. “Six Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a U.S. Dollar Amount, 1790 to Present.” MeasuringWorth, 2009, www.measuringworth .com/uscompare/.

index military service of, 131–33, 145–47; proConfederate views of, 138–39; weds Ellen Robinson, 147; warns of slave defections, 155; and management of freedmen, 160–62, 168; declares bankruptcy, 164; on postwar conditions in Austin, 168; opposes Radical Reconstruction, 168–69; addresses Winyah Indigo Society, 170; and relations with Ellen, 170; and death of first wife, 171; ordained as Episcopal minister, 171–72; weds Louise North, 172; on significance of father’s life, 181–82 Allston, Benjamin, Jr. (father of RFW), 9, 10 Allston, Charles Petigru: education of, 6, 80, 142–43; birth of, 98; warned against masturbation, 105; parents counsel, 142; joins C.S. army, 143; helps Adele manage estate, 154, 155, 162; and wedding of Bessie, 173; at College of Charleston, 178–79; marriage of, 179 Allston, Charlotte (daughter of Ben), 170 Allston, Charlotte Ann (mother of RFW), 9, 11–14, 16 Allston, Elizabeth Waties (Bessie): education of, 79, 99, 141; birth of, 98; views Sumter bombardment, 128; attends dying father, 150–51; helps Adele with girls’ school, 165–66; wedding of, 173. See also Pringle, Elizabeth Allston Allston, Ellen. See Robinson, Ellen S. Allston, Frances Ann (daughter of RFW), 22, 63, 98 Allston, Jane Louise (Jinty): education of, 80, 141–42, 165; birth of, 98; attends

Abbeville District, S.C., 21, 142 Aiken, William, 70, 83–84, 148 Allen, J. Duncan, 112 All Saints Academy, 31, 96 All Saints Church (Waccamaw), 109 Allston, Adele: education of, 99, 109; summer trips of, 107–08; suitors of, 123; wedding of, 144. See also Vanderhorst, Adele Allston Allston, Adele Petigru: marriage of, 21; children of, 21–22; religiosity of, 64; educational views of, 67–68, 142; distrusts Clay, 88; revels in motherhood, 98; and rearing of children, 99–100; and relations with husband, 100–01, 118–19; counsels Ben, 101–05; makes uniforms for soldiers, 135; denounces Hunters’ unionism, 138; mourns loss of sister Jane, 149; mourns death of husband, 152; as executrix of estate, 153; acquiesces in emancipation, 156–57; operates girls’ school, 165–67; claims Chicora as dower, 160, 162; and management of freedmen, 160–61, 167; and relations with Pringles, 174; and relations with daughter Adele, 177–78; postwar financial woes of, 180; death of, 181; accomplishments of, 183 Allston, Benjamin (son of RFW): career of, 4–5; birth of, 22; on rice planting, 40, 60; as member of Hot and Hot Fish Club, 97; as West Point cadet, 101–05; U.S. military service of, 106–07; as aide-de-camp to father, 113; European tour of, 120–21; views bombardment of Sumter, 128; C.S.

197

198 Allston, Jane Louise (continued) dying father, 151; as bridesmaid of sister, 173; marriage of, 179; gains possession of Allston papers, 180 Allston, John Hays, 23 Allston, Joseph Blyth (nephew of RFW), 29, 49, 97, 139 Allston, Joseph Waties (brother of RFW): death of, 2, 29; assumes management of Waverly, 10, 13; elected to legislature, 18, 19–20; supports nullification, 20, 23; member of Hot and Hot Fish Club, 97 Allston, Louise North, 172. See also North, Louise Allston, Mary Duval (daughter of Ben), 170 Allston, Mary North (Minnie): makes clothing for soldiers, 135; disillusionment of, 136–37; lauds J. L. Petigru, 148; death of, 181; mentioned, 122, 124, 139, 149 Allston, Robert (child of RFW), 22, 98 Allston, Robert (son of Ben), 171 Allston, Robert Francis Withers: career of, 2–4; as West Point cadet, 11–14; military service of, 14; as surveyor general, 17; elections of, to legislature, 19, 24, 25–26, 82, 94; political principles of, 19; supports nullification, 20; marriage of, 21; legislative service of, 25, 26; on education, 27, 67–69, 71–72, 77, 115, 117; militia service of, 28; as planter and slave owner, 32–35, 43–51; and relations with overseers, 51–53; and relations with factors, 54–55; rice profits of, 55–56; as agricultural essayist, 59–61, religiosity of, 63–64; as Episcopal lay leader, 65–67; as governor, 72–74, 112– 17; as president of Winyah Indigo Society, 75–78; as president of Senate, 81, 90, 91, 94; as delegate to Nashville Convention, 81, 87–89; eulogizes Calhoun, 83; and secession crisis of 1851, 91–94; finances Kansas settlers, 95; and membership in civic and cultural organizations, 96–98; and relations with wife, 100–01, 118–19,

index 152; counsels children, 104–05, 106, 122, 131, 142; reviews militia units, 113; social life of, 114; purchases Charleston residence, 117; supports secession, 125; equips military units, 127; views Manassas battlefield, 132–33; wartime contributions of, 134–36; illness and death of, 149–53; estate of, 153–54; debts of, 158; warns against first-cousin marriages, 172; significance of, 181–83 Allston, Washington, 10, 30 Allston, William (brother of RFW), 16 Allston, William Allan (nephew of RFW), 29, 97 Allston family: settlement of, 9; variant spelling of name,10; summer excursions of, 29–31, 107–08, 124–25; social activities of, 123–24; support war effort, 135; refugee sites of, 140 Alston, Benjamin George (cousin of RFW), 18 Alston, Pinckney, 123 Alston, T. Pinckney, 97 Anderson, Robert (U.S. major), 127–28 Anson County, N.C., 141 Arsenal, The, 143 Ashepoo plantation, 143, 178 Astor House (New York), 30 Atkinson, Thomas, 144 Austin, Tex., 168 Ayme, Mary (governess), 79 Bachman, John, 148 Badwell, 21, 108 Baltic (steamer), 108 Banks, 19, 26 Barhamville, S.C., 141 Barker, Theodore G., 164 Barrantine, Duncan (overseer), 141 Beauregard, Pierre G. T.: warns of imminent attack on Charleston, 140, 148; attends Petigru funeral, 149; mentioned, 128, 131 Bee, Barnard E. (C.S. general), 132

index Belflowers, Jesse (overseer), 51–52, 150, 153, 156 Bell, John, 125 Bennett, Jefferson, 166 Black, Joseph A., 85 Blyth, Charlotte, 15–16 Bonham, Milledge L., 165 Bragg, Braxton, 145–46 Buchanan, James, 66, 95–96 Buist, Edward H., 75 Butler, Pierce, 28 Butler Island, Ga., 41 Calhoun, John C., 87, 116 California, 106 Campbell, John (S.C.), 70–71 Campbell, John A. (Ala.), 88 Canaan, 29, 31, 98, 108, 162 Carlisle Barracks, Pa., 106 Carr, Sarah E., 43 Charleston, S.C.: shelling of, 55, 140, 143; schools in, 72, 73, 115, 117; Southern Commercial Convention in, 94; Allston residence in, 117; civilians warned to leave, 140; falls to Federals, 155; racial violence in, 169 Charleston Daily Courier: announces Allston prizes, 75; applauds RFW’s election, 112; eulogizes J. L. Petigru, 148 Charleston Mercury: as nullifier organ, 22–23; condemns Jackson, 24; RFW’s education report in, 70; discontinues advertisement for Adele’s school, 167 Cheesborough, E. B. (factor), 153 Chesnut, James, Jr., 148 Chesnut, Mary Boykin, 5, 176 Cheves, Langdon, Sr., 91, 93 Chickesee plantation, 143, 178 Chicora Wood plantation: treatment of slaves on, 44, 45, 46, 48; agricultural experiments on, 58; Ben paints idyllic portrait of, 122; social life at, 124; RFW dies at, 151; disciplinary problems on, 154; ransacked by slaves, 156; manage-

199 ment of freedmen on, 160, 161; postwar operations on, 162; Adele returns to, 167; Bessie’s marriage at, 173; Bessie supervises planting on, 176; Adele dies at, 181 Chronicles of Chicora Wood (Pringle), 177 Cincinnati, Ohio, 65, 89, 102 Citadel, The, 73, 127 Clay, Henry, 85, 88, 89 Coachman, John W., 25 Coates, Christopher, 80 Cohen, Solomon, Jr., 19, 20, 23 College of Charleston, 178, 179 Columbia, S.C.: falls to Federals, 155; black elected mayor of, 169 Compromise of 1850, 87, 89 Copenhagen plantation, 41 Craighill, William P., 138 Croly Hill, 140, 150 Crystal Palace (New York), 66, 107–08 Cumberland Gap, 145 Cunningham, Richard, 22 Darlington District, S.C., 140 Davis, Jefferson, 64, 103, 132, 145 De Bow, James D. B., 2 De Bow’s Review, 40, 60 Dehon Mansion, 117 Devereux, Anthony Q., 7 Ditchford plantation, 34, 156 Donelson, Andrew J., 90 Douglas, Stephen A., 95, 125 Dozier, A. W., 23, 25–26 Dred Scott case, 116 Dusinberre, William, 7, 41, 42, 56 Easterby, J. H., 7, 34, 180 Echo (slave ship), 116 Edgar, Walter, 6 Education: RFW’s support for, 3, 27; RFW’s philosophy of, 67; RFW introduces legislation on, 70–72; of Allston children, 78–80; Ben’s views on, 170 Elliott, Stephen, Jr., 27 Elliott, William, 58

200 Ellis, Gabriel L. (overseer), 52 Episcopal Church: RFW as lay leader in, 65–67; general conventions of, 65–67, 89; local offices in, 65 Eubanks, Thomas, 60 Exchange plantation, 32, 33, 34, 156, 157 Factors, 54–55 Fishburne, B. Clay, 169 Flat Rock, N.C., 175, 179 Ford, Reese, 157 Fort Lane, Ore., 106 Fort Sumter, S.C., 128–29 Fraser, Hugh, 34 Fraser, Peter W., 19, 23, 82, 108 Freedmen, 160–61, 167–68 Free Trade and State Rights Association, 20 Frémont, John C., 96 French Town Canal and Mining Company, 106 Frost, Edward, 169 Gag rule, 85 Gallagher, J. B., 64 Georgetown, S.C., 76, 150 Georgetown District, S.C.: Allstons settle in, 1; Allstons lead nullifiers in, 23; electoral dispute in, 24; leading rice planters in, 35; rivers in, 37; unfavorable weather in, 57; RFW chairs public meetings in, 85; summer colony of planters from, 108; provost marshal’s court in, 134; planters flee, 139; turmoil in, 156–57 Gillespie, George R. (C.S. major), 146 Glennie, Alexander, 31, 63 Gowrie plantation, 41 Guendalos plantation: purchase of, 34–35; Allston seeks exemption for overseer of, 53; conduct of freedmen, on, 163, 165; Ben liable for debt to purchase, 164 Hamburg plantation, 41 Hamilton, James, Jr., 23 Hammond, James H., 60, 82, 182

index Hampton, Wade, III, 74, 169 Hampton Legion, 132 Harllee, Martha, 161, 165, 166 Hasell, Andrew, 47 Henry, Robert, 74 Heriot, Edward T., 49, 60 Heriot, F. W., 53 Heriot, Francis, 153, 154 Heth, Henry (C.S. general), 145 Heyward, James B., 41 Heyward, Nathaniel, 56 Hill, Charles Albert, 6, 179 Hood, John Bell, 106 Hot and Hot Fish Club, 97–98 Houston, Sam, 128 Howard Association, 96 Huger, Benjamin (C.S. general), 133 Hunter, Joseph, 138 Hutchinson, H., 74 Jackson, Andrew, 19, 24–25 Jefferson Barracks, Mo., 106 Johnson, Benjamin J., 112 Johnson, Samuel (slave), 156 Johnston, Joseph E., 132 Johnstone, McKewn, 37 Joyner, Charles, 5–6, 176 Kansas, 95 Kansas-Nebraska Act, 95 Kelley, Oliver H., 163–64 Kershaw, Charles (factor), 54 Kiawah Island, S.C., 143, 178 King, Mitchell, 74 King, Susan, 153 Kirby Smith, Edmund (C.S. general), 133, 145, 146 La Bruce, Mary Ann, 35 Law, Evander M. (C.S. general), 133 Lawrenceburg, Ky., 146 LeConte, John, 96 LeConte, Joseph, 96 Le Prince, Madameselle, 165 Lesesne, Harriette Petigru, 129, 169, 181

index Lesesne, Henry D., 117, 123, 153, 154 Lesesne, James, 180 Lewis, J. (factor), 54 Lowndes, Charles T., 179 Lowndes, Emma, 179 McDonald, Charles J., 88 McQueen, John, 28 McWillie, William, 83 Magrath, Andrew G., 148 Magruder, John Bankhead (C.S. general), 146 Manassas, first battle of, 132–33 Manigault, Arthur, 131 Manigault, Charles, 41 Manigault, Louis, 41 Manning, John L., 73, 74 Massachusetts: normal schools in, 71 Masturbation, 104–05 Matanzas plantation, 2, 10, 16, 47, 52. See also Chicora Wood plantation Memminger, Christopher G., 73, 166 Middleton, Alicia, 144 Middleton, Henry A., 91, 157 Middleton, Henry A., Jr., 132–33, 134 Middleton, John Izard, 35 Morven, 141 Moses, Franklin I., 90 Nashville Convention, 2, 81, 87–89 Neptune (steamer), 30 New England Emigrant Aid Society, 95 Newport, R.I., 30 New York City, 30, 66, 107 New York Hotel, 107 New York Sun, 176 Niagara Falls, N.Y., 30, 107 Nightingale Hall plantation: improvements on, 33; punishments on, 33–34; slave mortality on, 41; incentives on, 44; slave medical expenses on, 47; overseers on, 52; crop acreage on, 56; slave insubordination on, 157; conduct of freedmen on, 161, 163; postwar operations on, 162 Noble, Patrick, 27

201 Normal schools, 71–72, 73 North, Jane Gibert: moderate views of, 126, 136; makes clothing for soldiers, 135; death of, 149; mentioned, 122, 123 North, Louise: evaluates Ben’s character, 120–21; makes clothing for soldiers, 135; fears extinction of slavery, 137; marries Ben Allston, 172; mentioned, 123, 139 Nullification, 20 Old Point Comfort, Va., 125 Olmsted, Frederick Law, 40, 41 Overseers: on Allston plantations, 51–53; wartime exemption of, 53; Allstons dispense with after war, 162 Patterson, Angus, 27, 84 Patterson, Robert (U.S. general), 132 Pawleys Island, S.C.: Allstons’ summer residence on, 29, 31, 108–10, 139; Adele purchases house on, 167; Adele hosts Pringles on, 174 Pease, Jane H., 4, 7, 99 Pease, William H., 4, 7, 99 Pee Dee River: Allston plantations on, 32 Pemberton, John C. (C.S. general), 135 Pennington, Patience. See Pringle, Elizabeth Allston Petigru, James L.: opposes nullification, 20; elected to legislature, 22–23; on religious instruction of slaves, 49; applauds RFW’s self-denial, 82; unionist views of, 126, 127; decries secession and war, 137; death and funeral of, 148; mentioned, 4, 21, 102, 107, 120 Petigru, Mary Ann: moderate views of, 126; views Sumter bombardment, 129; laments death of RFW, 152; lauds Adele for opening school, 165; death of, 181 Pettigrew, Caroline North (Carey): describes idyllic scene at Pawleys Island, 109–10; at bedside of dying mother, 149; mourns death of RFW, 152–53; mentioned, 98, 135 Pettigrew, Charles L., 110

202 Pettigrew, James Johnston: predicts RFW will be governor, 111; as aide to Gov. Allston, 113, 114; secessionist views of, 126; death of, 148 Pettigrew, William S., 126 Philadelphia, Pa., 66 Pickens, Francis W., 83, 164 Pipe Down plantation, 35, 51, 156, 162 Pitman, Harman (overseer), 52 Plantersville, 140, 163, 167, 171 Poinsett, Joel R., 173 Polk, James K., 85 Porcher, Louise Petigru, 122 Porcher, Octavius T., 6, 80, 142 Porcher, Philip Johnston, 128 Port Royal, S.C., 139 Prince Frederick’s Episcopal Church Pee Dee: RFW as warden of, 3, 65; RFW supports financially, 64; Ben confirmed at, 120; RFW buried in cemetery of, 151; Ben as rector of, 172; Adele’s funeral at, 181 Prince George Winyah: RFW elected to House from, 19; nullifiers defeated in, 23; electoral dispute in, 24; fraudulent election in, 25–26 Pringle, Elizabeth Allston: describes slave treatment at Chicora Wood, 45, 46; mourns husband’s death, 175; as rice planter, 176; as writer, 176–77; death of, 177; accomplishments of, 183. See also Allston, Elizabeth Waties (Bessie) Pringle, Jane Lynch, 155, 157, 173–74 Pringle, John Julius, 173, 174 Pringle, Lynch, 174 Pringle, Mary, 155, 157, 173, 174 Pringle, Motte, 175 Pringle, William B., 91 Pyatt, Charlotte, 34 Pyatt, Mary, 15 Quash (slave), 150 Read, J. Harleston, Jr., 24, 134 Red Sweet Springs, Va., 124

index Reeder, Andrew H., 95 Rhett, Robert Barnwell: as ardent secessionist, 2, 91; leads nullifiers, 23; at Nashville Convention, 88; attends Petigru funeral, 148 Rice: culture of, 37–39; profitability of, 56; quality of RFW’s, 57–58 Richmond, Va.: RFW attends church convention in, 66; Ben posted to, 131; RFW visits Davis in, 145 Robertson, Alexander (factor), 55, 153 Robinson, Ellen S., 147, 170–71, 179 Rochester, N.Y., 59 Rogers, George C., Jr., 7, 56 Rotterdam plantation, 41 Ruffin, Edmund, 60 Ruggles, Samuel B., 66 Russell, Nathaniel, 117 St. Cecelia Society, 97 St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, 21, 148 St. Philip’s and St. Michael’s parishes: elections in, 22–23; schools in, 72–73. See also Charleston, S.C. Sandy Island, 35 Saratoga Springs, N.Y., 30 Scarlet fever, 22 Schofield, John M. (U.S. general), 106 Scott, Winfield, 106 Seabrook, Whitemarsh B., 59, 84 Sewanee (college), 67 Sharkey, William L., 88 Sheridan, Philip H., 106 Shields, James, 84 Shreveport, La., 146 Sickles, Daniel E. (U.S. general), 166 Simons, Henrietta, 122–23 Simons, James, 128 Simons, Manning, 173 Slavery: Dusinberre’s critical account of, 41–41; RFW defends, 115, 125; war threatens perpetuation of, 136–37 Slaves: number owned by Allston, 1, 10–11, 32; discipline of, 33–34, 43; mortality rate

index of, 41–42; mourn death of RFW, 42, 153; living conditions of, 45–47; religious instruction of, 48–49; abscond from Allston plantations, 154–55; ransack Allston plantations, 156 Smith, Alice R. Huger, 177 Smith, Gustavus W. (C.S. general), 133 Society Hill, S.C., 140 South Carolina: nullification controversy in, 23–25; free school system in, 27; wealthy rice planters in, 37; first secession crisis in, 91–94; Reconstruction violence in, 169 South Carolina College, 3, 73, 74, 75, 96, 117 South Carolina Historical Society, 97, 180 South Carolina Institute, 58, 59 South Carolina Jockey Club, 97 South Carolina Senate: passes militia bill, 25; denounces repeal of gag rule, 85; denounces Wilmot Proviso, 85 South Carolina Society, 68 South Carolina State Agricultural Society, 26, 58, 59 Sparkman, James R., 65, 150, 151 Spirit of the Times, 59 Sweet, W. (overseer), 52, 53 Tariff: RFW opposes, 23, 116 Task system: rice culture under, 39–40 Texas: annexation of, 85; Ellen dies in, 171; Ben contemplates move to, 168 Thompson, James M. (overseer), 53 Thompson, William T. (overseer), 52 Thornwell, James H., 27, 73 Thummel, C. B., 31 Thurston, Edward N. (factor), 54 Thurston, Robert (factor), 54 Togno, Madame Acelie: Allston girls schooled by, 5, 6, 79, 80, 99; regimen at school of, 141–42; closes school, 142 Trans-Mississippi Department, 146 Trinity Church (N.Y.), 66 Tucker, Daniel, 124 Tucker, Elizabeth Allston, 16

203 Tucker, John H., 97 Tucker, Louise, 175 United States Military Academy. See West Point Universal Exhibition (Paris), 58 Vanderhorst, Adele Allston: reaches dying father, 151; consoles Bessie on death of husband, 175; and relations with mother, 177–78; manages Kiawah plantations, 178; death of, 178. See also Allston, Adele Vanderhorst, Ann Morris, 143 Vanderhorst, Arnoldus: marries Adele Allston, 6, 143–44; and death of RFW, 151, 153; hopes for Hampton victory, 169; killed in hunting accident, 178; authorized to sell bonds, 180 Vanderhorst, Elias, 143, 178 Waccamaw Neck, 31, 108 Waccamaw River, 97 Waldo, John, 11 Wallace, David Duncan, 6 Ward, Joshua John, 35, 60 Washington, Philip (driver), 51 Waterford plantation, 32, 34 Waverly plantation, 9, 10, 29, 39 Weehaw plantation, 42 Weston, Elizabeth, 156, 161 Weston, Emily, 136 Weston, Francis, 169 Weston, Plowden C. J.: RFW sells Waterford to, 34; supports public education, 70; laments death of J. L. Petigru, 148; mentioned, 98, 120, 124 West Point: RFW as cadet at, 11–14; Ben as cadet at, 101–05; quality of education at, 103; Allstons visit, 30, 106 White House plantation: raided by Federals, 157; location of, 173; death of Bessie’s husband at, 174; Bessie purchases, 176 White Sulphur Springs, Va., 124 Whiting, William H. C. (C.S. general), 144

204 Williams, Henry P., 179 Williams, John N., 140 Willington Academy, 6, 80, 105, 142–43 Wilmington, N.C., 144 Wilmot Proviso, 85 Wilson, B. H., 76 Winyah and All Saints Agricultural Society, 58, 96

index Winyah Bay, 135 Winyah Indigo Society: RFW as president of, 3, 75–78; history and function of, 77–78; Ben addresses, 170; mentioned, 68 Withers, Francis, 35 Woman Rice Planter, A (Pringle), 176–77 Yates, J. C. (agent), 53, 141