Bay Street InnWhen the Union fleet appeared, the people of Beaufort took flight. On the front steps of the Bay Street Inn are cracks where trunks were thrown from the upper gallery. General Isaac Stevens occupied the lovely town on December 11, 1861, and to his astonishment found it deserted by the white residents and looted by the freed slaves. Later the town became a rest and recuperation center for Union soldiers and sailors, the mansions used as hospitals, quarters for officers, and commissaries.
This house, built in 1852 by a cotton planter, became a hospital. It is a fine example of Southern Greek revival architecture, and among its defining features are fourteen-foot ceilings, a two-story veranda, and marble fireplaces. Many of the guest rooms have unobstructed water views. Host Peter Steciak likes to point out the inn’s lovely gardens; the story goes that somewhere on the grounds are poinsettias that were planted by Joel Poinsett himself when he visited the mansion before the war.
Address: 601 Bay St., Beaufort, SC 29902; tel: 803-522-0050; fax: 803-521-4086.
Accommodations: Nine rooms, all with private baths.
Amenities: Air-conditioning, off-street parking, phones and cable TV in rooms, wine and cheese at 6:00, afternoon tea, on Intercoastal Waterway, beaches and historic sights nearby.
Rates: $$$. All credit cards and personal checks.
Restrictions: No children under eight, no pets, no smoking.
Fort Sumter
In retrospect, it seems inevitable that the war would have started here. South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union, and no city in the South was more militant than Charleston. The presence of a Federal fort in the harbor was a constant irritant.
Jefferson Davis told General P. G. T. Beauregard to order Major Robert Anderson to surrender the fort. When Anderson refused, thirty guns and seventeen mortars from shore batteries began to bombard the fort while the citizens of Charleston looked on and cheered.
Thirty-four hours later, a fire in the fort raged out of control, threatening the powder magazine. Anderson was forced to surrender. That day, April 14, 1861, the Confederate flag flew over Fort Sumter.
This act of aggression prompted Lincoln to ask the states to send 75,000 troops to put down the rebellion. The South reacted by authorizing the enlistment of 100,000 for a year’s service. The war had begun.
For most of the war, Fort Sumter was occupied by a Confederate garrison. During the siege of Charleston, 1863-65, more than half of the fort was demolished by Federal cannon fire.
Fort Sumter National Monument is on a man-made granite island in the harbor, four miles from downtown Charleston. Open daily except Christmas. Park Service tour boats leave from the City Marina on Lockwood Drive, just south of U.S. 17, and from the naval museum at Patriots Point in Mount Pleasant. During the summer there are three round-trips from each location. The trips cost $10 for adults, $9 for seniors and military personnel, and $5.50 for children six to twelve. For information phone 803-883-3123.
Charleston is a beautiful, aristocratic city where pastel-hued houses peek out from behind lacy iron gates. More than eight hundred of its buildings predate the Civil War. To capture the spirit of the city, see the multimedia presentation, Charleston Adventures, shown continuously at the Visitor Center in the Arch Building, 85 Calhoun St. For information phone 803-724-7474.
Among the prizes at the Charleston Museum, 360 Meeting St., is a full-size replica of the Confederate submarine Hunley, the first submarine to torpedo and sink a warship. Open Monday-Saturday, 9:00-5:00; Sunday, 1:00-5:00. For information phone 803-722-2996.
Charleston Walks, 334 E. Bay St., Suite 186, Charleston, SC 29401, offers two guided walking tours of particular interest. The Civil War Walk visits a slave market, the South Carolina Institute Hall, where the Ordinance of Secession was ratified, and the High Battery, from where rebel artillery fired on Fort Sumter. The other is the Low Country Ghost Tour, which visits cemeteries, houses, and other places where ghosts have been reported over the years. The tour, offered three times each evening, is sufficiently popular to have its own phone number: 803-853-GHOST. Each tour costs $12 for adults, $8 for children seven to fourteen, and no charge for children six and under.
Maison DuPreThe people of Charleston gathered at the Battery in a party mood to cheer when the first shots of the war were fired at Fort Sumter in the harbor. The Battery is just a fifteen-minute walk from the Ansonborough District, where this delightful inn is located.
The Maison DuPre is made up of three restored homes and two carriage houses surrounding a charming courtyard. Two of the structures were moved to the site of this 1801 Federal house. The inn is owned by Robert and Lucille Mulholland and is managed by their son Mark.
The inn is furnished in period antiques, including the unique Charleston rice beds (stately four-posters with carvings of rice plants on each of the posts), and the decoration of each guest room is keyed to one of Lucille’s paintings. An elegant Low Country tea is served every afternoon with sandwiches, cheeses, cakes, and cookies. Beds are turned down nightly and a chocolate left on the pillow. The staff will book dinner reservations, carriage rides, and tours.
Address: 317 E. Bay St., Charleston, SC 29401; tel: 803-723-8691 or 800-844-INNS; fax: 803-723-3722.
Accommodations: Fifteen double rooms, all with private baths.
Amenities: Air-conditioning, off-street parking, afternoon tea, concierge service, nightly turndown.
Rates: $$$, including continental breakfast. Visa, MasterCard, and personal checks.
Restrictions: No pets, restricted smoking.
Two Meeting Street InnFort Sumter, a Federal fort in Charleston harbor, was a bone in the city’s throat. Rather than allow it to be resupplied by Lincoln, Jefferson Davis ordered it seized. When the bombardment began, on April 12, 1861, Charlestonians gathered on the Battery to watch.
Where this inn now stands, at Meeting and South Battery Streets, would have been a perfect vantage point to view the attack. Looking across the small park, which now has a number of Civil War cannon and mortars, Fort Sumter is clearly visible in the distance.
This grand Queen Anne mansion, a wedding present from a wealthy merchant to his daughter, is filled with family antiques and Oriental rugs, and has Tiffany stained-glass windows and intricately carved oak paneling throughout. The rocking chairs on the veranda provide a panoramic view of the Battery and the harbor.
Depending on the weather, the innkeepers, the Spell family, serve breakfast and afternoon tea in the formal dining room or on the veranda. Jean Spell is a licensed tour guide and points the way toward the historic places and pleasures of Charleston.
By any standards, Two Meeting Street is an exceptional inn, and a perfect complement to the Charleston experience.
Address: 2 Meeting Street, Charleston, SC 29401; tel: 843-723-7322.
Accommodations: Nine guest rooms, all with private baths.
Amenities: Air-conditioning, concierge service.
Rates: $$$, including continental breakfast and afternoon tea. Personal checks.
Restrictions: No children under twelve, no pets, restricted smoking.
Greenleaf InnCamden was a Confederate storehouse and refugee center until General William T. Sherman’s troops burned and looted most of it on February 24, 1865. In town when it happened, Mary Boykin Chesnut wrote in her diary: “All the railroads are destroyed, the bridges gone. We are cut off from the world, to eat out our own hearts.”
Alice Boykin, a distant relative of the famous diarist, owns this charming inn. The inn is a compound composed of four buildings: the main inn, built in 1805; a carriage house (complete with carriage), built circa 1890; the McLaine house, built in 1890; and a guest cottage built in the 1940s. The guest rooms are decorated in the classic Victorian style and have four-poster beds, Oriental rugs, and period wallpaper.
Ms. Boykin will direct you to the little village of Boykin, about eight miles south of Camden on Rte. 261, where, in the Battle of Boykin Mill, badly outnumbered members of the South Carolina Home Guard made 2,500 Yankees pay dearly for coming this way. Among those killed in the battle was fifteen-year-old Bur well Boykin.
Address: 1308 Broad St., Camden, SC 29020; tel: 803-425-1806 or 800-437-5874; fax: 803-425-5853.
Accommodations: Eight double rooms, all with private baths, three suites, one cottage.
Amenities: Air-conditioning, ceiling fans, off-street parking, phones in rooms, use of nearby health club.
Rates: $$, including continental breakfast. All major credit cards and personal checks.
Restrictions: No pets, restricted smoking.
South Carolina State HouseThe South Carolina State House is the only structure on Main Street that predates the burning of Columbia. When Sherman’s army arrived outside the city on February 16, 1865, the general allowed that it was a “handsome granite structure.” But when he saw the Confederate flag flying above it, he ordered his artillery batteries to fire on the building from across the Congaree River, a range of one mile. Bronze stars now mark the places where the shells hit.
Before continuing their march through the Carolinas, Sherman’s men looted the state house, and in a mock session of the legislature repealed the Ordinance of Secession.
The State House may be toured Monday-Friday, 9:00-12:00 and 1:30-4:00. From I-26, which becomes Elmwood Ave., turn right onto Main St., which dead-ends at the statehouse at Gervais St. Several Civil War monuments are on the grounds. For information phone 803-734-9818.
Near the campus of the University of South Carolina is the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Museum, 920 Sumter St., where relics include firearms made in South Carolina, sabers, flags, currency, newspapers, photographs, and uniforms. Open Monday-Friday, 9:00-5:00. Admission is free. For information phone 803-734-9813.
On Garner’s Ferry Road is Millwood, once the home of Wade Hampton II and of his son, the Confederate general Wade Hampton III. The mansion was destroyed by fire during Sherman’s occupation of Columbia. Only five front columns on brick bases remain of the Greek revival plantation home. Open dawn to dusk; reservations are suggested. Admission is free. For information phone 803-252-7742.
The Chesnut CottageTo read the diary entries of Mary Boykin Chesnut is to virtually enter the inner circle of the Confederacy. Her husband, James Chesnut, a prominent South Carolina lawyer and wealthy plantation owner, became an aide to Jefferson Davis, and the Chesnuts became part of the social elite in wartime Richmond. Mrs. Chesnut, a gifted writer and born gossip, saw it all and told it all. Excerpts from her diary have been published several times, from 1905 to the present. Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, edited by C. Van Woodward and published in 1981, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
This house was the Chesnuts’ temporary home during part of the war. President Davis stayed with them here in October 1864, and gave a speech from the front steps, a copy of which is on the night tables in the guest rooms. The house, built around 1850, is on the National Register.
The Mary Boykin Chesnut Room is feminine and has a queen-size canopy bed, while the masculine James Chesnut Room features an antique bed and Civil War memorabilia. The owner, Gale Garrett, is a genial host and serves a Southern breakfast worthy of Mrs. Chesnut herself.
Address: 1718 Hampton St., Columbia, SC 29210; tel: 803-256-1718.
Accommodations: Three double rooms in the cottage, and two suites in the carriage house, all with private baths (three have Jacuzzis).
Amenities: Air-conditioning, off-street parking, house tour by appointment.
Rates: $$.
Restrictions: Children at host’s discretion, no pets, no smoking.