“Most of our young writers,” Simms commented in 1862, “have exchanged the pen for the Sword.” Simms wished he was young enough to do so as well. Instead, he offered military advice to Confederate officers, monitored the actions of his son who joined the army, and tried every way possible short of enlisting to boost the Southern cause. He continued writing, and managed some critical essays for De Bow’s Review, poetry for the Charleston Mercury and the Southern Literary Messenger, and poetry and drama for the Magnolia Weekly. His only extended work was Paddy McGann (1863), a short novel about the humorous tales and adventures of an Irish immigrant to the South, serialized in the Southern Illustrated News. But he could not stay focused. “I am literally doing nothing in letters,” he confided to his Northern friend and literary agent James Lawson. “I am so much excited in the present condition of things that the labour of the desk is irksome—I go to it with reluctance, and leave it on the slightest pretext.” Eighteen months later it was much the same: “It will need a year of peace to bring me back to that calm mood which Literature demands.”1
For the most prolific and best-known Southern writer of the day, this was an astonishing admission. Since 1825, when he published his first work, a poem on the death of Charles Pinckney, Simms had produced a huge and diverse body of work. He was a critic, historian, biographer, poet, dramatist, and novelist. He made his reputation, as well as a sizable income, from his historical romances of colonial and revolutionary America. These included, in one brief period, Guy Rivers (1834), The Yemasee (1835), The Partisan (1835), and Mellichampe (1836), and in another, Katherine Walton (1851), Woodcraft (1852), and The Forayers (1855). Admired nationally, Simms regularly traveled north to lecture and renew literary friendships.
The war forced Simms away from his desk because it forced him away from history and romance. He had to think about money—secession meant the temporary loss—and possible confiscation—of his Northern copyrights, worth some $20,000. He had to think about money and loss—Woodlands, his home, burned down once in 1862 and again in 1865. He had to think about loss and death—buried was his daughter in 1862, his wife in 1863, his dearest friend in 1804, and the sons of others throughout the war. He suffered physically and wished that he could take up his old work: “I am far from well myself. I feel jaded & fagged, yet have been doing nothing at the desk. If I could get back into the old traces, my brains & bowels would both be better.”2 But with the start of the war, the old work had become extinct.
Less than a year into the Rebellion he proclaimed he was “sick of hearing & talking of the war, though the terrible anxiety forces all speech in this one direction.”3 All writing was forced in that direction as well. The paradox with Simms, as with so many other writers during the Civil War, is that he characterized himself as a spent and beaten author, but he did so through writings, particularly correspondence, that we must consider, even if he could not, a significant part of the literary output of his day. His letters contemplate and, in themselves, capture the creative and tragic dimensions of the war. His pamphlet, Sack and Destruction of the City of Columbia (1865), reveals a man overwhelmed by the horror that now enveloped his world.
Following the war, Simms tried to revive his literary life, but after five years of writing about war and death, hope and disappointment, his new romances lacked urgency. Few Southerners and even fewer Northerners cared. He was more successful as a booster of Southern letters, compiling and editing a volume of War Poetry of the South (1866). Even Southern reviewers, however, criticized the volume for including too many “ambiguous and inelegant” poems which “might very well have remained unpublished.”4 He edited several newspapers, but like so many former slaveholders and planters he had great difficulty understanding the new order being born around him. He had convinced himself that his slaves were loyal and loving, but after the war, when only three of the remaining fifty freedmen agreed to be hired by their former master’s son, Simms lashed out at Southern blacks and Northern whites and the new economic arrangements that would require a flexibility of which Simms was incapable. He considered writing an autobiography, but he knew now that it could never be the story that he would have wanted, the story of the successful “self-development” of a man’s character and career. Perhaps that is why he never began it. The outline of his life, he thought in 1866, looked something like this: “I have personally known a large number of the chief men of the South, for the last forty years; have been ruined, as a Union Man, by Nullification, and more lately by Secession; & have to commence life de novo, but with youth gone.”5
There is a passage in Paddy McGann where one of the characters proclaims, “It is not all over—our happy life, my friend! … It cannot be that God will deliver us into the hands of these atrocious heathens. As between us and the Deity, there is no doubt a sad reckoning to make; but as between us and these accursed Yankees, no reproach lies at our doors, unless that single one of having too long slept within the coil of the serpent. I have faith in God, my friend.—He may punish us, and we must suffer, for this is the meed of our desert; but he will not let us sink…. After this tribulation, our peace shall return once more—our prosperity—our friends.”6 Maybe for others, but the happy life for Simms never returned.
I have just returned from an eight days’ absence in Charleston, where I witnessed the bombardment of Fort Sumter. I congratulate you on the expulsion of the enemy from the sacred soil of Carolina, now doubly sacred to you since your first-born was one of the first sacrifices in its redemption.8 May his memory blossom anew in your hearts with love, to mature hereafter to a glorious ripeness, while it remains enshrined in the tender regrets of his countrymen! God is surely with us, my dear friend, thus far, in our progress to independence. May we never, by any vain exultation leading to presumptuous confidence, forfeit the powerful favor of the mighty King of all nations who hath thus far been our shield and strength in the day of our trial. But in times like these words fail us, and, as you say, prayer itself sometimes becomes impossible. Certainly, all such prayer as seeks utterance in mere words must be feeble as idle. But silent thought is perhaps the most valuable form of prayer—that thought which blends with feeling and wings its way to God through tears and truthful emotions, through an imagination which soars above the earth, and seeks only to spread its wings of rejoicing directly under the living sunlight, and in the generous smile of heaven. We do not the less pray, my friend—the heart being right, and the purpose just and true—though we speak never a word, and though we breathe with a difficult delight. Rapture, when at the highest, grows dumb, and all our finer pleasures are inarticulate things. Let us only feel how great are God’s mercies to us, and so act as not to forfeit them, and the ordinary thought of our waking hours is prayer sublimed for heaven.
I know not, my friend, if I am capable of giving it, but the position of the country, & of our State, keeps me dreadfully anxious, & though my own family is a subject of anxiety, that which I feel, touching our affairs, will not suffer me to be silent. I have been reasoning, or trying to reason, out the project & plans of the U.S. Govt. It is difficult to reason in the case of a desperate party, which knows that if once the excitement sleeps, the thought of the people awakes. The Black Republicans can only save themselves by keeping up the excitement. How are they to do it. The plea of Washington menaced has been more potent than any thing besides. The vanity of the North has been sorely hurt by the fall of Sumter. In the first rages of the people the mob is in the ascendant. But, meanwhile, they get 25,000 at Washington. What to do with them? As the summer approaches, active operations in the South are almost impossible on the part of Northern men. But their policy will be to quarter their troops in the South, at healthy situations. I have no doubt that Scott has arranged to hurl 10,000 men upon Beaufort, establishing a camp, occupying the country, & giving him a base of operations at once against S.C. and Georgia. A detachment will occupy Bluff-town. In November, they will be prepared with 15,000 more, to act upon Charleston & Savannah, and to ascend to Augusta & Columbia. For the details, you must use your conjectures….
… My heart and head are so full that I cannot help but write, though perhaps I shall say nothing of value. Even now, I have a sick family, & your little God Daughter is down with fever. But not, I trust, seriously. I write at midnight. All are sleeping. I cannot sleep. I have just closed up two large batches of editorials for the Mercury, which, I am sorry to see, is beginning that sort of fire upon the Confederate Govt. in the management of the army, which it kept up, on our own, before the taking of Sumter. This sort of writing, is the cause of great indignation among many here. It is wild, mischievous & idle. I have faith in our officers & soldiers & fear not. Still, my friend, as you know me to [be of] a restless mind, anxious to be doing—not permitted to do—striving to teach some things which may help our poor country, you will understand why I write. I have some suggestions to make, which, if you please, you may empty into the ears of Gen. Beauregard.10 I would have him pick ten men for each company in every regiment, have them well officered, painted and disguised as Indians. They will inspire terror. They should be habited in the yellow Hunting Shirt of Cotton—they should be turbanned,—armed with rifle, bowie knife & hatchet, and each company, thus formed, should be attached to its own regiment as an auxiliary force. Once produce disorder in the enemy’s line or column, & let these fellows put in for close action. But the officer should be a rare fellow, & should know his business. These should be your Seminole Zouaves. It should be made as public as possible that every regiment has its band of Indians. The tumeric will dye the garments—the blood root,—poccoon, or sanguinaria canadensis, the face, hands, arms & neck. If there be any thing which will inspire terror in the souls of the citizens soldiery of the North, it will be the idea that scalps are to be taken by the redmen. Encourage this idea. You will have in your masses thousands, I trust, who will be familiar with the Indian mode of warfare. Beauregard himself, will know all about it. Your Texans should be freely employed in this fashion, and for your officers you should have live, daring, reckless fellows—the boys chosen should be at once bold & expert….
If you can destroy [Scott’s] columns, then you must take Washington, destroy it, expel the conqueror, rouse up Maryland, & penetrate Pennsylvania with fire & sword. A merely defensive war, dealing with the most presumptuous & aggressive people in the world, is simply child’s play. You must dictate a peace, & this you will only be enabled to do, when you have obtained two or three decisive victories, & when the European powers shall be implicated in the war. In less than six weeks, I expect to see Great Britain in the field. There will be an ex tempore sea fight, in which she will not be worsted. Then comes the rest, & the rest will be conclusive…. I need not say to you that I feel like a bear chained to the stake. I can neither ride nor march. I can only pass sleepless nights, fuming to my friends, of what I think may be done. May the Great & Good God shelter you, dear friend, & render you to us in safety.
My House for the last two months has been something of a Hospital. I have had three children down, seriously, with Bilious remittent, in one case running into typhoid. The are now better, but my anxiety & suffering have been great, & I now tremblingly watch against relapse. Half a dozen little negroes sick also, one of whom will probably die tonight. The rest doing well. I, too, have been suffering from (I suppose) both mind & body; with nothing to console & every thing to distract me. No more books to make—no money—some debt,—and plain living. Othello’s occupation is gone for the present, and my copyrights, worth $20,000—the whole of my life earnings—not only temporarily valueless to me but liable to confiscation! The North takes away from me, and the South has never given! …
… [L]iterature, poetry especially, is effectually overwhelmed by the drums, & the cavalry, and the shouting. War is here the only idea. Every body is drilling and arming. Even I practise with the Colt. I am a dead shot with rifle & double barrel, & can now kill rabbit or squirrel with the pistol. Our women practise, & they will fight, too, like she wolves. Your Yankees are converting our whole people to Unionism. If you ask me about myself, I have only to say that I am sad & sick & suffering. Gilmore is feverish to buckle on armour & go to Virginia. We have lost our youngest son, the boy Sydney Hammond, 2 years old, teething,—and, I think, with a spinal affection…. Crops are good—mine never better. We shall make abundance of corn, & the Cotton crop will probably exceed that of last year by 300,000 bales. The seasons have been very favorable. We have been eating at Woodlands, for months, strawberries, green peas, green corn, okra, irish potatoes, snap beans, squashes, radishes, blackberries, June berries, artichokes, &c. &c. My wife sells $2 of butter weekly. Her pocket money. We have milk, butter milk, curds, clabber, spring chickens & eggs in abundance. But we want peace! We are invaded! Every hour widens & deepens the breach between the two sections; and passion is succeeded by Hate, & Hate by Vindictiveness, and if the war continues, there will be no remedy. Your city will be utterly ruined by the Black Republicans who dare not think of peace, and who, if the people once come to their senses, will be torn to pieces. You, perhaps, do not think all this. But you had warning of every syllable a year ago & last summer. The cowardice of your conservatives is the secret of your evil. You have no moral at the North. The mob rules you. If the war is persevered in, it must be a war of extermination. Our people will fight to the last! …
… We should really be glad to see you & Lyde, & all the girls here with us, and, I trust, when this war, at once brutal & ridiculous ceases, we shall have you here again. Oh! how your foolish city has been cutting its own throat. Only think of a people making war on their best customers. What suicide. Your accounts are not such as reach us of the events of the war. Our Government is not one to suppress reports of the action; to seize upon telegraphic dispatches; to alter reports for the press & telegraph—in brief to do what it pleases, in violation of Constitution, law & rights of the Citizen. Whether you will hear the truth until the war is ended, is very questionable. But you ought to be shrewd Scotchman enough to guess it for yourself, when, after all the mighty preparations of the North, they still tremble for the safety of Washington, & every step in Virginia has lost them blood & treasure. We do not exult in this. We wish for peace. We desire no war, but are prepared for the worst. We are resolved on Independence. We have been persecuted for 30 years & will stand it no longer—from our brethren. By this time your thinking men see the sort of game that is before them. Let them grow wise before it be too late. Every battle, thus far, has resulted in a Southern Victory.—Sumter, Bethel, Bull Run, Manassas, Harper’s Ferry & Missouri,—all tell the same tale. Your Generals are cashiered. Your army demoralized. Your papers are at a loss where to cast the blame. They will be at no loss before long. They will see that their cause is bad. We have now 200,000 men in the field, with 250,000 in preparation for it. We can feed our armies from the fields, without buying any thing but guns & ammunition. We shall make 4,500,000 bales of Cotton. We will look at the piles & if need be, burn them. We do not need to sell a bag. Of all this, you, among others, were well warned long ago. I do not blame you for this war. I know that you desired peace. We offered peace. But your people have sacrificed the country for the sake of a party that had no other object in view, than the monopoly of office. Office without revenue! Where are your democrats? Where were they at the passage of the Morrill tariff, for the benefit of Pennsylvania and New England. Between these two, New York is in ruins. We are prepared for a long war—preparing for it. It will fully establish the independence of the South. We are now manufacturing guns, cannon, rifles, powder, shot, oils, machinery, wool & cotton clothing, percussion caps, sewing machines—every thing. Three years of war will be the making of our people; and they are all beginning to perceive it. Not a bale of Cotton will be sent to the seaports. Hardly one off the plantations. Our young men are all profitably employed. Our old men are keeping things straight at home. Our crops are abundant, and we are willing that the vile petty conflict of 30 years, should close, at last, in a final issue of battle. Every day of delay in the conflict strengthens us, & every man feels that our cause is just & that God is with us. Troops for Virginia & our Sea Coast are pouring in daily. New regiments are in constant formation, and such a personnel for war is rarely witnessed in any nation….
For my part, I am literally doing nothing in letters. I am so much excited in the present condition of things that the labour of the desk is irksome—I go to it with reluctance, and leave it on the slightest pretext…. We shall have bread & meat in plenty, but possibly no money. I am already picking Cotton; and we shall pile it up in pyramids, with piles of light wood beneath it, ready to be fired as soon as your fierce Yankees penetrate the country. We shall admire daily the piles as they grow, and they will make a splendid conflagration, lighting up the country for miles, and showing the bright armour of the enemy on his march. But war is a sad subject for jesting upon & to us, old fellows, it is hateful. You & I might have adjusted the whole issue—i.e. if despotic powers for 24 hours had been given us.
… Advise me, as soon as you can, of your whereabouts & the mode of reaching you, in the event of our desiring to send you any thing. See that your provision for clothing is warm & sufficient. Leave every thing that you do not need, with your sister; and remember that nobody is more lighthearted than he who has fewest cares, whether of brain or body. Your bowie knife may be very useful. You are to remember that you are to defend your mother country, & your natural mother, from a horde of mercenaries & plunderers, and you will make your teeth meet in the flesh. The less you fear for yourself, the more your security. “He who would save his life, the same shall lose it!” This is a biblical warning against that lack of firmness, that overcaution, always trembling at consequences, & calculating chances, which was the infirmity of Hamlet, and which is fatal to all heroism. And this audacity & courage are not inconsistent with the utmost prudence and circumspection. All generalship, in fact, is so much military prudence, as reconciles valour with judgment & wisdom. Mere inconsiderate rage is not so much valour as blindness, ignorance, presumption & insanity. Obey orders, do your duty faithfully & cheerfully & patiently, and wait your time, & watch your time, and keep your head so, that where your leader may falter, you shall be able to keep him up, counsel him on, & where he falls, take the lead yourself. A strong will, a brave heart & clear head, in the moment of danger, these constitute the essentials of heroism. Let nothing, at any time, divert your mind, from the immediate duty which is before you. This is first & therefore over all. It will be time enough tomorrow for other matters. But I will not bore you with laws and maxims. Be a man, my son, faithful & firm, and put yourself in God’s keeping. All that the love & confidence of parents can do for you will be done. Yourself, with God’said, must do the rest….
I went to town on Friday last, seeking a Hogshead or a couple of barrels of molasses. Not a gallon was to be had in Charleston, the troops having consumed every thing. And as the troops continue to accumulate, & as we can get nothing except by the slow coach, over the land route, it is almost impossible that things should be more favorable to my wishes a month hence than now. Meanwhile, I wish to feed my negroes, & through sweets, keep them in sweet temper. It is probable that the article may be procurable in Augusta. Will you endeavor to buy me a Hogshead of the cheapest, or a couple of bbls, (which I should prefer) and, as I am not known perhaps, as a man of substance, to the solid men of that town, endorse me as good for the nonce. If you can, do so as soon as possible. I hold it to be important, & suggest it to you, that our negroes should, especially just now, be taught to feel that their owners are their best friends. Mine are very docile. I have 70, and most of them are born on the place, and have grown up with my children. I have lost my overseer—gone to the wars. My son, the only one able to do duty—just 18—is in camp & eager for an opportunity. But for my helpless little ones, I should be very much disposed, though I can neither ride nor march, to set off for the seaboard myself, for I can still see to shoot. What have you done for negro clothes and shoes? Or have you been more provident than your friends & laid in a supply of both while it was possible. Will you let me know whether a good thick cotton stuff, of sufficient weight as a substitute for woollen, can be got from your Augusta factories, and at what prices, and whether I can get credit, to the extent of a couple of hundred Dollars, or whether they will take pay in cotton and at what prices? Do see to these matters for me as soon as you conveniently can. I would run up and see about the matter myself, and visit you at the same time, but that I have nobody on the place but myself….
I was fated like Cassandra to speak the truth with nobody to listen. My plans would most effectually have kept the enemy from breaking in at Port Royal. It is not the Yankee race alone that needs purging & scourging. We too need punishment to destroy the packed jury, & old family systems, the logrolling & the corruption every where…. Do write me. I am very desolate and disconsolate—able to do little—very much curtailed & cut down. My copyrights, worth $25,000 are, I suppose, all confiscate!
…. I believe that England only waits a political necessity, to give her a pretext to elude & escape her philanthropic proclivities. She has been costive, in respect to the Confederate States, simply because she has never regarded the breach as irreparable. We have been mouthing & crying wolf so long—have been so long threatening disruption—that it is now hard to believe it. But, necessitas non habet legem. And England is evidently restive. The capture of our Commissioners is evidently an imbroglio devised for her benefit and digestion.13 It will give her a pretext. I have come to the conclusion that their capture was a profound trap laid for the Yankees by Davis. Were it really of importance to send these Commissioners & send them in safety, then the Confederate Govt. & the Commissioners themselves played the siliest game in the world…. My hope is that Great Britain will be glad to seize upon the ground of quarrel which this outrage offers her. She cannot be desirous of the dismemberment of the late Confederacy—cannot be desirous of the perpetuation of a Union which was in conflict with all her interests—to her shipping, trade, manufactures & institutions—of which she was jealous—which she at once feared & despised—cannot be indifferent to Cotton supply, or regardless of the free trade with 10 millions of people, who do not conflict with her in any way, but on the contrary, as purely Agricultural, are her natural allies. I should not be surprised to find her at war with the U.S. in less than 3 weeks….
Our chief guest, on Christmas Day, was Death. He found his way, without warning, and tore away our precious little one. The dear baby has arisen. I, who have so frequently been made to groan and shudder at his coming, am not a whit better prepared to meet him now, when he thus bears from us, each new bud of promise. No sooner have new tendrils closed over the old wounds, than they are rent away, and the scars reopen, & the old hurt bleeds afresh. This child was very sweet & dear to us. She had served, my friend, as you rightly intimate, to add new chords to those ties which linked you & ourselves so gratefully together even over the still unburied corpses of my two noble little boys. And, in herself, she was so surpassingly lovely. You can have no idea how tall she had grown, & how beautifully. Her form was perfectly developed; her face very fine & her forehead & whole head were cast in a mould of peculiar intellectual strength and beauty! Alas! Alas!—And scarcely had we laid her in the grave before I was again made to shudder with most awful terrors, when her brother, Govan, a year older, was taken down with the same loathsome & cruel disease. But God has been merciful in his case, & the boy has been spared. Yet you can well coneive my own & the agonies of his poor mother. Ah! my friend, to think that of 14 children, we have now buried nine! And all of such wonderful promise. Five are yet left us, but for how long—how long? I have no longer any sense of security. My days & nights teem with apprehension. I wake from fearful dreams. I walk musing with my fears & terrors. It affects my health, my happiness, my habits, my performances. I no longer read or write with satisfaction, or success. Briefly, my dear friend, I am under these successive shocks, growing feebler, rapidly aging, and shudder with a continued sense of winter at my hearth. My occupation utterly gone, in this wretched state of war & confusion, I have no refuge in my wonted employments from the intensive apprehensions engendered by so long & so dreary an experience. Could I go to work, as of old, having a motive, I might escape from much of the domestic thought, and in foreign faring, quiet the oppressive memory. But nobody reads nowadays, and no one prints. My desks are already filled with MS.S. Why add to the number—the mass,—when, I so frequently feel like giving these to the flames? My will is not strong enough, even in obedience to the calls of the mind, to engage in new labours which are so wholly motiveless. I can still continue the work of self-development, though I no longer put pen to paper, or book to print. But I will not press this egotistical matter upon you any further….
… Gladly now would I give my dwelling & all that I have saved, for the restoration of my two boys. And since then, a third boy, & a girl, your own protégé, and, I think, one of the most promising & lovely of my children. Truly, I am pursued by a hungry fate! But I will not succumb. It may crush, but shall not subject me, no more than Yankeedom shall subject our country. I am happy to tell you that I have saved all my MS.S. and nearly all my library. I fortunately built, only the last year, a wing to the dwelling, connected by a corridor, 20 ft in length. The wing was saved. But for this removal of my books, they must have been all lost, and only a few days before the fire, I gathered up all my MS.S.—matter enough for 50 vols. and packed it into trunks, not knowing how soon I should have to fly—thinking more of the Yankees, than of midnight fires, & wishing to be ready. Had I lost my library & MS.S. the blow would have been insupportable. As it is, I mean to die with harness on my back….
…. [B]oth of us have had personal experience which inclines us to believe that there are certain persons who seem to be perpetually pursued by some angry Fate, which haunts his steps, & dogs his career, as tenaciously as ever the Furies clung to the heels of Orestes. It seemed to me, a few months ago, when Death became my guest at Christmas,—the day that is usually hallowed to happiness in every porch—when he tore away one of the loveliest & most promising of my little brood—it seemed to me then, that the insatiate archer Fate, had achieved his crowning victory over me, and would be thenceforth satisfied. It seems not. I am still as bitterly pursued as ever, & can now only await patiently and in expectation for other strokes, each perhaps more heavy & more deadly than the last. Now that my homestead is in ruins, it would seem that the next shaft would properly be aimed at the Master. Well, my friend, I who have been required to endure so much, should, by this time, be prepared for any fate. To a certain extent I am; and perhaps the chief regret which I should feel, at being suddenly summoned to the great account, will be at leaving so many helpless ones for whom I have mostly striven, and who have constituted at once my principal cares & joys. That a Fate has pursued me for more than 30 years of loss, trial, trouble, denial, death, destruction, in which youth has passed rapidly to age, & hope into resignation that is only not despondency. It is my chief consolation that I have been able to endure so well; and if the Fate smites, the God strengthens. Even under this severe calamity, which it would have been terrible to me to anticipate, I am patient. I have lost none of my energy & courage, though I may have lost some of my cheerfulness & elasticity. I am bracing myself to bear, and to repair. To restore is impossible. As you say, there are losses in such a calamity as can never be restored. The accumulations of self & family, for 100 years, in a numerous household like ours—several families amalgamated into one, of which mine was the general store house—were wondrous large. As yet we know not the full extent of our losses…. The negroes had to be summoned from the negro quarter, a third of a mile off. They worked admirably when they came, with the most eager zeal & the most perfect devotion. That fact, my dear H. is to me full of consolation. And when in a moment of personal danger,—for I had to escape from an upper window, while the floor above was falling in—had you heard their passionate cries from below, to save myself, & seen the wonderful efforts which they made to bring a heavy ladder to my relief—you would have been gratified at the tacit proof thus given, that there was no lack of love for their master….
…. [N]ow that I do sit down to write, it is scarcely possible to say anything. All attempts at consolation, from any degree of friendship, must fail in such a case as yours.14 The ordinary language of sympathy is so completely stereotyped that it sinks usually into the baldest common-place; and in an extreme instance, the last loss, the greatest grief, sorrow and sympathy equally find themselves speechless. Were I with you I should probably do nothing more than silently squeeze your hand. To say anything would seem impertinence. One hoods himself in the house of mourning and takes a silent place beside the desolate hearth, or broods for a moment over the face of the dead, and weeps silently with the living mourner, and so goes drooping to his own habitation, dreading the hour when the case shall become his own. I who have buried so many dear ones, know well how idle are all attempts at consolation, and but too frequently how painful and offensive. In your case it is not only your affections that are stricken. Your pride is crushed also. This lost boy was your nephew, and your heart feels the loss of a dear kinsman, the eldest son of the last surviving sister. But he was your adopted son also, chosen to bear your name, to perpetuate it, to maintain your position in society, to gratify your ambitious hopes for the future, and to represent your fortune. In his fate all these calculations are baffled, and these hopes mortified with defeat…. For him who has gone you have a two-fold consolation, in the fact that he dies young, ere he had much suffered, and while he was yet pure; and that he perished gallantly striving in battle for the independence of his country. It may not be amiss to refer you now to the uses, to yourself, of this great affliction. Without undertaking to justify the ways of God to man, it is yet only reasonable to assume that he has a purpose in this, as in all other of his providences which we may not readily fathom. This purpose, no doubt, contemplates your ultimate benefit. You, my friend, are at this very moment in as great peril as ever at any moment in your life. You have reached that dangerous state of which the Gods themselves are said to grow jealous.
… You have well adverted, in your editorial department, to the difficulty of engaging now in literary composition. To do justice to the public, or to one’s self, in letters, implies a perfectly calm mind, much leisure, and freedom from distracting occupation. Your whole mind must be concentrated on your subject. But who can give his whole mind to, or concentrate his thoughts upon abstract topics, when the whole country is heaving with the throes of a mighty revolution—when we are arming our sons for battle—when every dwelling presents daily a scene of parting—and when, from so many thousands, a voice of wailing is sent up from mothers and sisters, weeping for the beloved one, and refusing to be comforted? All our thoughts resolve themselves into the war. We are now living the first grand epic of our newly-born Confederacy. We are making the materials for the drama, and for future songs and fiction; and, engaged in the actual event, we are in no mood for delineating its details, or framing it to proper laws of art, in any province. This must be left to other generations, which, in the enjoyment of that peace and independence for which we are now doing battle, will be able to command the leisure for those noble and generous arts by which nations best assert their claims to independence, and secure a proud immortality for fame! We shall need to leave this labor to them….
… Since our last writing, you see that our poor old city has been & is seriously menaced. Our people, so far as I can learn, have shown, if they do not now exhibit, a singular degree of apprehensiveness, not warranted by the circumstances, and not creditable to their manhood & resolve. They are recovering from it, but there is still too much of doubt & despondency among the citizens not to give us great concern. My trust is that as the pressure begins to be seriously felt, and as anxiety & suspense give way to the certainties of conflict, they will rise above the crisis, and prove successful in the encounter with it. It will probably resolve itself into a final trial with the bayonet on James Island…. I got a letter yesterday from Thompson, who is now editing a paper in Richmond called “The Record”—an eclectic, which embodies the documentary history of the day & country. It affords him no field, for his nice taste & happy talent, unless in the propriety of his selections; and, as he writes me—probably apprehending that I might seek an organ—he has no literary patronage to bestow. But my heart is too full of anxiety to suffer me to write, and though I have a contract for some $200 worth of prose, I find myself unable to divert my thoughts from the crisis in which the country trembles in suspense. What I write is in a spasm—a single burst of passion—hope, or scorn, or rage or exultation. If, where you are, you can abstract your mind from the present, & throw into the far land of the past, or poesy, do so for your own relief. I cannot! I have sent the last instalments of my dramatic essay on “Arnold” to the “Magnolia,” and it will soon be finished. But the business of revision had become a drudgery with me long before it closed, and the horrible corruption & blunders of the press, had disgusted me with every column. I have no news. I have had a child very sick with worm fever, & my wife has been suffering severely with neuralgia in the face. They are now better—but who can be well, while this terrible war lasts, and while so many whom we love are in danger.
… I have been ill, my friend, I may say dangerously ill, from the moment when I was struck down by the heaviest bolt of all that ever shattered my roof-tree.16 I was, I think, insane. I neither slept nor ate for four days and nights. Fever seized me, and I should have gone mad but for the administration of timely opiates. I am once more on my legs, but very weak. Today, is the first that I have given to the desk, and this I could do only in snatches of brief period. I move about the house & try to see things. But every thing seems blank, & waste, & very cheerless. I am alone! Alone! For near 30 years, I had one companion in whose perfect fidelity, I felt sure. To her I could go, and say, “I suffer!”—or “I am glad,” always satisfied that she would partake the feeling with me, whatever its character. Your eulogy is not mere varnish & gilding. She was all that you describe,—a dutiful wife, a devoted mother, and the most guileless of women. Ah! God! And I am lone!
We live too much for the world, my dear Paul. It is a poor affair. This ambitious struggle after greatness, is a vanity. Our sole justification must lie in the will & wish to do, irrespective of the profit and the loss. What does Milton say in Lycidas—I half forget the passage—
“But not the praise,
Phoebus replied, & toucht my trembling ears—
Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil—” …
…. I write (though I trust unnecessarily) to exhort you to a patient submission to the extortion & injustice which we may expect, & which we cannot easily escape.17 You are such a marked man, and, without any miserable flattery, so far preeminent over all your fellows, that every defiance in your case, of the authorities—every denial of help to the cause, however justifiable as a private right, will be made to show enormously odious. This odiousness you might well brave & despise on your own account. You have little to ask & perhaps quite as little to fear. But the worst is the mischief will not fall upon your shoulders only, but will be entailed through life & for generations to come upon your progeny. Your children will be made to feel the odium in all relations of Life. Your sons will be cut off from all the distinctions—nay, from all the associations of society, and this will not be confined to South Carolina, or the little precinct in which you live. It will pass into history, & be made the topic of debate among all that class of persons who grovel at the base of eminence, seeking its overthrow by sap—men who
“Distort the truth, accumulate the lie,
And pile the pyramid of Calumny.”
For the sake of your children & grandchildren, you must not incur this danger, or give occasion for this sort of malignity to work. Nor (however little you may value life) must you incur the risk of losing yours, in a miserable brawl. Better lose the money. It is lucky you can afford to lose it, better than anyone I know. Yield gracefully & loftily. No one better knows how to do this than yourself. And believe me, dear H., I speak from my heart to you. I have never, I believe, counseled you in any way inconsistently with your dignity & honour. I think that I do not now. Refer my letter to your wife. Take the woman’s counsel with that of your friend. I look upon your wife as a rarely good woman, & a rarely good woman is perhaps far wiser in such a case, than a rarely endowed man. Were you as rarely good as you are rarely endowed, you would be one of the most perfect men living. It is your passions, your impetus & too frequently stubborn will, that neutralizes some of your noblest gifts. Forgive me for saying so now, but I have always thought this, & a thousand times said it to yourself. Believe me that this is one of the very cases where I would have you sacrifice your passions along with your interests, to that humbler wisdom which God employs for chastening the one, and keeping the other from getting wholly the better of heart and head. No man knows more thoroughly than myself, the crimes, blunders, indecencies & robberies, of the incompetent, dishonest, and cruelly corrupt character of thousands of the creatures employed in this war, as agents of those in power. But their crimes & blunders must not be suffered to disparage the labour & character of the army, and we must be content to sacrifice interest, even to the spoiler, & to waive a natural & just indignation & resentment, in regard to the safety of paramount interests, which our defiance might endanger. And it is a wise selfishness which makes us fear that unjust odium, entailed upon our children, which we have not deserved ourselves, but from which, in a struggle with the blind passions & prejudices of the multitude, we may not be able to relieve ourselves. Pray, my dear H. take all these things to heart. Let your friend, as I may fearlessly claim to be, prevail with you. Let your wife decide, for once, in a matter, which, while it is business, becomes a question of selfish policy in which she is deeply interested for her children & grandchildren….
… I am tired down, worn out & sickish…. At this moment, Wilmington is menaced by a concurrent attack by land & sea. Beauregard is there in command. All can be saved, if the exempts, detailed men & skulks can be brought promptly into the field, & subjected to timely discipline. Otherwise, we shall die by inches like the tail of a snake. Imbecility in office, civil & military, is tolling on the young life of our country, our youth, to unproductive peril & sure destruction. We are made daily to sup on horrors. The war will probably be of continued duration till both parties are exhausted,—unless God shall more emphatically interpose—how he may, or will do so—we may conjecture, but none can predict….
… My purpose in writing to you, in lessons of economy, were to prevent you from wasting money, or your pay, when you happen to have it. Neither you nor I can afford to be guilty of waste or luxury, having all these children to provide for, and having to provide against the contingencies of an obscure & very uncertain future. In the diseased unrest of your mind, your desultory & purposeless mode of life, it is easy to expend money in the attainment of the means of temporary excitement. It will need that you exert all your will & moral force, to subject your mind to patience, so that you may reach a wholesome condition of the blood,—calming yourself to methodical & regular movements, & so toning down your moods, as to get rid of that feverish impatience of the staid & prosaic, which your present and recent mode of life has naturally engendered. It is a great misfortune to find yourself forever in a hurry—forever seeking change—and feeling as irksome, the restraints of place or duty. Think how monotonous will be any mode of life to you, after the war is over—unless you can now gradually subdue yourself to some method in your daily walks, & to a patient dogged determination, to do the work before you, and this done, fold your hands quietly for such meditations as should naturally occur to one in your situation, having a future purpose of self-development, and cogitating upon its plans. It was painful to me to witness in you, the irritable & feverish restlessness which marked all your movements while here—the impatience of the uniform—the fidgetting & nervous desire for change of scene, place & action—all of which, if indulged, must lead to a frivolous future—unsettled, unmethodical, without aim or purpose, beyond the mercurial impulse of the moment. Of course this habit has been engendered by the life you have been leading; but you must not let yourself be mastered by such a life, or your whole future will be lost….
Language fails me in any effort to embody my feelings in words.18 I will not speak of my loss in comparison with that of your mother—you—all of you. Yet your father was my most cherished friend for near twenty five years. Never were thoughts more intimate than his & mine. We had few or no secrets from each other—we took few steps in life without mutual consultation. We had,—I am sure I had—perfect confidence in him. I believe he had in me. I felt that there was something kindred in our intellectual nature. Certainly, there was much, very much, in common between us. Never did man more thoroughly appreciate his genius—its grasp—its subtlety—its superiority of aim. And most deeply did I sympathize with him, under that denial of his aim, and the exercise of his powers,—which, permitted, I verily believe he would have lived to a mature old age—lived for far higher triumphs even than those which he achieved. But the will of God be done…. This day, I feel doubly alone. I have seen committed to the grave, year after year, children, wife & friends. The fiery circle of Fate is drawing rapidly around me. We shall meet before many days, and, I trust in God, that we shall meet not only for the renewal of old ties, but for the exercise of those faculties, in which I felt proudly that we were kindred. Preserve all his papers. I hope someday to render a proper tribute to his memory. We have no chance for this now. There is no organ. There are no means. Do not suffer his revised publications to be mislaid. Have them carefully preserved, compactly put up & sealed against mischance. With God’s blessing, I hope to put on record my appreciation of his claims and to illustrate them by his works…. I write with painful effort. I have been too much staggered by recent events fully to command the resources of my mind. I cannot will myself to thought. I can only fold hands, & wonder, and perhaps pray. What awaits us in the future, is perhaps foreshown to us by the Past, of trial and loss and suffering. Or it may be that God designs that we should surrender in sacrifice our choicest professions, that we may become worthy of the great boon of future Independence. Yet while I write, and hope, and pray, the day grows more clouded. I trembled & had sore misgivings when Johnson was removed from the army, & Hood put in his place. I predicted evil then to your father & to others. He concurred with me. And when Hood removed from Sherman’s front, I then declared my opinion that if Sherman had the requisite audacity—it did not need Genius,—he would achieve the greatest of his successes, by turning his back on the enemy in his rear, & march boldly forward towards the Atlantic coast. I fear that such is his purpose. If so,—what have we to oppose him? I dare not look upon the prospect before us. It may become necessary for you, for me, & all to prepare as we can, for the overrunning of Carolina! All’s very dark….
… In regard to the poem which you send me now, I would not advise its publication in its present state. As a specimen of very felicitous versification, it is highly creditable; but as a creation, a conception bold & original duly worked out,—you have done nothing with the subject. It is still, as you found it, a naked statement of fact—viz: that Narcissus, a beautiful youth, became so enamored of his own beauty as to pine away to death in consequence. In your effort at musical effects, you have been content with giving this history in a happy collection of rhymes, but the only moral which you work from it, is to be found in that very portion which your friend urges you to omit. I, myself, do not see the necessity of making a poem to illustrate a moral; but every poem must embody thought, conception, & a poem of this class should show design. The earlier efforts of all young writers in Poetry, are designed to acquire mastery in utterance. They naturally strive to make language deliver itself in rhythm. Until this faculty be acquired, thought cannot become malleable in language. Now, it is not infrequently the case that, after a while, the young writer continues his practise, seeking musical effects only. He forgets that these musical effects are only means to an end, and that rhyme & rhythm are only agents for utterance in Poetry. Poetry is winged thought, and flies like an arrow to its mark. Having, as you have done, acquired a sufficient mastery of rhythmical utterance, your aim must be now embody your thoughts in this mode of speech. You are not merely to rhyme, however musical the rhyming may be—you are to design, conceive, think, seek, find & deliver. You are to extort from every subject its inner secret—for the Poet is a Seer. Whatever of problem there be in the story of Narcissus you are to find out—the moral of himself and story, which is its vital principle. Narcissus was passionless. He had no earnest passions. He loved himself only. He could not love women. He had no blood for it. He was probably an onanist, and his story, probably founded on a fact, was a satire…. That Poetry which is simply graceful & harmonious verse, has no vitality. Nothing lives long in literature of any sort but that which is informed by vigorous original thought; & it must be thought beyond the time.
The march of the Federals into our State was characterized by such scenes of license, plunder and general conflagration, as very soon showed that the threats of the Northern press, and of their soldiery, were not to be regarded as mere brutum fulmen. Day by day brought to the people of Columbia tidings of atrocities committed, and more extended progress. Daily did long trains of fugitives line the roads, with wives and children, and horses and stock and cattle, seeking refuge from the pursuers. Long lines of wagons covered the highways. Halfnaked people cowered from the winter under bush tents in the thickets, under the eaves of houses, under the railroad sheds, and in old cars left them along the route. All these repeated the same story of suffering, violence, poverty and nakedness. Habitation after habitation, village after village—one sending up its signal flames to the other, presaging for it the same fate—lighted the winter and midnight sky with crimson horrors.
No language can describe nor can any catalogue furnish an adequate detail of the wide-spread destruction of homes and property. Granaries were emptied, and where the grain was not carried off, it was strewn to waste under the feet of the cavalry or consigned to the fire which consumed the dwelling. The negroes were robbed equally with the whites of food and clothing. The roads were covered with butchered cattle, hogs, mules and the costliest furniture. Valuable cabinets, rich pianos, were not only hewn to pieces, but bottles of ink, turpentine oil, whatever could efface or destroy, was employed to defile and ruin. Horses were ridden into the houses. People were forced from their beds, to permit the search after hidden treasures.
The beautiful homesteads of the parish country, with their wonderful tropical gardens, were ruined, ancient dwellings of black cypress, one hundred years old, which had been reared by the fathers of the republic—men whose names were famous in Revolutionary history—were given to the torch as recklessly as were the rude hovels; choice pictures and works of art, from Europe, select and numerous libraries, objects of peace wholly, were all destroyed. The inhabitants, black no less than white, were left to starve, compelled to feed only upon the garbage to be found in the abandoned camps of soldiers. The corn scraped up from the spots where the horses fed, has been the only means of life left to thousands but lately in affluence….
All the precious things of a family, such as the heart loves to pore on in quiet hours when alone with memory—the dear miniature, the photograph, the portrait—these were dashed to pieces, crushed under foot, and the more the trembler pleaded for the object so precious, the more violent the rage which destroyed it. Nothing was sacred in their eyes, save the gold and silver which they bore away. Nor were these acts those of common soldiers. Commissioned officers, of rank so high as that of colonel, were frequently among the most active in spoliation, and not always the most tender or considerate in the manner and acting of their crimes. And, after glutting themselves with spoil, would often utter the foulest speeches, coupled with oaths as condiment, dealing in what they assumed, besides, to be bitter sarcasm upon the cause and country….
The shocking details should not now be made, but that we need, for the sake of truth and humanity, to put on record the horrid deeds. And yet, we should grossly err if, while showing the forbearance of the soldiers in respect to our white women, we should convey to any innocent reader the notion that they exhibited a like forbearance in the case of the black. The poor negroes were terribly victimized by their assailants, many of them, besides the instance mentioned, being left in a condition little short of death. Regiments, in successive relays, subjected scores of these poor women to the torture of their embraces, and—but we dare not further pursue the subject. There are some horrors which the historian dare not pursue—which the painter dare not delineate. They both drop the curtain over crimes which humanity bleeds to contemplate.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, circa 1860