Beyond the Power of Fortune : the Middleton Family 1794 to 1877
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"BEYOND THE POWER OF FORTUNE": THE MIDDLETON FAMILY OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 1784 to 1877 By JUDITH LEE HUNT A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA .2005 Copyright 2005 by Judith Lee Hunt ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This study has benefitted fi-om the expert attention, and extraordinary patience, of my dissertation committee. My thanks go, first and foremost, to Bertram Wyatt-Brown, A valuable mentor and a model historian, his encouragement, generosity, advice, insight, and criticisms have been of the greatest benefit to me. Fitzhugh Brundage, David Geggus, David Hackett, William Link, and Jeffrey Needell read the manuscript with care and offered usefiil suggestions, making this a far better work than it otherwise would have been. Several other historians, including Orville Vernon Burton, Catherine Clinton, Matthew Gallman, and Jane and William Pease, have munificently offered their assistance along the way. A large intellectual and professional debt is owed to them. Many others-far too numerous to name here-have helped me, knowingly or unknowingly, in large and small ways. I am gratefial to the University of Florida not only for its graduate fellowship support but for providing a vibrant intellectual community in which to learn the craft of the historian. I also owe a great deal of thanks to the numerous archivists and librarians who have generously shared their expertise, especially the staff of the South Carolina Historical Society, the South Caroliniana, the South Carolina State Archives, Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina, the Perkins Library at Duke University, the Pennsylvania Historical Society, and the Library Company of Philadelphia. Special thanks are due to archivist Barbara Doyle at iii Middleton Place Plantation Archives and Robert Cuthbert of Summerville, South Carolina. During the writing phase of this project I was fortunate to have a teaching position at Loyola University New Orleans. I could not have asked for a more collegial and supportive environment to complete this project. I thank the numerous members of the staff, faculty, and Jesuit community that have assisted and encouraged me along the way. I happily acknowledge my appreciation to numerous friends including Edward Bailey, Jaycee Rappold, Chip Alexandre, Michael Crutcher, Rosann Adderley, Jacqueline Woodfork, Anna-Lisa Cox, Bland Whitney, and Susan and Marco Turbie. Their unwavering affection and kindness have sustained me for years. A special acknowledgment is due to Randy J. Sparks, Tom Smith, and Michael Ross. By reading this manuscript in its entirety, they have gone beyond the duty of friendship and saved me from making numerous embarrassing mistakes. Despite the fact that this study has made the emotional bonds of family an object of intellectual inquiry, such profound connections are really, to those who experience them, matters of the heart. I have been blessed to know them well for my entire life, and when I think of them, I think not of theoretical constructs, but of the faces and names of those who have nurtured and supported me in ways that could never be adequately described, much less repaid. My words fail to express the depth of my love and gratitude to my parents, Louis and Jane Hunt, and my niece, Emily Hunt Costello. This work is dedicated to them and in loving memory of Mildred H. Sparks. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii ABSTRACT vi INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER: 1. "A STATE OF INDEPENDENCE AND PROSPERITY": MARRL\GE AND THE MAKING OF A NEW GENERATION 22 2. "THE CIRCLE LARGE AND SMALL": A WEB OF CONNECTING HOUSEHOLDS 54 3. "TO THE HEIGHT OF HOPE, AND THE DEPTHS OF DESPAIR": THE BURDENS OF WAR AND THE BONDS OF FAMILY, 1861-1864 88 4. "DRINKING THE DREGS FROM THE CUP OF BITTERNESS": THE COLLAPSE OF THE PLANTATION ECONOMY, 1 862- 1 865 132 5. "RICHES HAVE TAKEN WINGS AND FLOWN AWAY": THE MIDDLETONS FACE DEFEAT 1 57 6. "TO THREATEN US WITH DARKER FATES": RECONSTRUCTION AND THE DECLINE OF PLANTER HEGEMONY 191 CONCLUSION 222 BIBLIOGRAPHY 228 BIOGRPAHICAL SKETCH 248 V Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy BEYOND THE POWER OF FORTUNE: THE MIDDLETON FAMILY, 1784 to 1877 By Judith Lee Hunt August 2005 Chair: Bertram Wyatt-Brown Major Department: History This dissertation offers an in-depth study of the Middleton family of South Carolina, one of the most prominent and powerfijl members of the Lowcountry planter aristocracy, fi'om the revolutionary era through the Civil War and Reconstruction. There is a consensus among scholars of the family that during the late 18* and early 19* centuries, the institution of family was revolutionized and that in the modem era the family became increasingly conjugal and less tied to extended family members. The experiences of the Middleton clan challenges this picture on several fi"onts. Throughout the antebellum era, they remained deeply embedded in a complex kinship network that shaped their social and economic lives. Virtually every major decision, every important event, played out against this backdrop. In part, the peculiarities of the Lowcounty rice culture made it possible, even necessary, for family members to rely heavily on one another. Unlike tobacco or cotton, rice did not exhaust the soil and encourage family vi members to disperse to richer lands to the west. The Middletons' rice plantations continued to support their privileged lifestyle and kept them tied to the land of their birth. The Middleton men retreated from political life with the rise of popular democracy, but they continued to hold considerable economic and social capital. They continued to move in elite nation and international circles-their marriage partners ranged from fellow members of the Lowcountry planter elite to northern elites, to European nobility. A few family members moved away from the Lowcountry or embarked on careers other than planting, but they did not escape the family's complex web of kinship and friendship networks. As northern attacks on slavery intensified during the antebellum era, most family members supported secession and war. That war devastated the Lowcountry, left the family's rice plantations in shambles, and destroyed their extended family networks. It was not until the collapse of the plantation complex that the Middletons retreated into the sort of inward-looking nuclear families that historians have identified. Their story highlights the importance of place and class in understanding the evolution of the family as an historical institution. vii INTRODUCTION In 1 768, shortly after their marriage, Arthur Middleton and his wife, Mary Izard, left the Carolina Lowcountry for an extended stay in Europe. After spending nearly three years touring France, Italy, and England, the couple decided to return home. Before their departure, however, they commissioned a family portrait of themselves and their infant son, Henry, bom in England in 1770. Anxious to have an image that reflected the grandeur of the Middleton and Izard clans, Arthur and Mary entrusted the task to Benjamin West. One of England's most renowned portraitists. West served at the court of King George III and presided over the Royal Academy of Arts.' Not only was West the artist to English royalty, he was a highly acclaimed eighteenth-century historical painter. His dramatic neoclassical style, evident in such works as The Death of General Wolfe (1770), conveyed traditional and conservative aristocratic values that appealed to members of the landed gentry.^ The Middleton and Izard families enjoyed a long- ' For a detailed discussion of the life and career of Benjamin West, see Allen Staley, Benjamin West: American Painter at the English Court (Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1989); Ann Uhry Abrams, The Valiant Hero: Benjamin West and Grand-Style History Painting (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985); Maurie D. Mclnnis, editor. In Pursuit ofRefinement: Charlestonians Abroad, 1 740-1860 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1999). ^ Simon Schama offers a detailed analysis of West's portrait, The Death of General Wolfe, see Schama, Dead Certainties: Unwarranted Speculations (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991), 3-20. Other examples of West's popular renditions of historical events include William Penn 's Treaty with the Indians (1771-1772) and Death on the Pale Horse (1796). 1 2 standing association with the London-based artist, and West happily obliged Mary and Arthur's request. For the next two years, he worked diligently to create an idealized image of family life that would prove pleasing to his patrons.^ Defying the Enlightenment ideals of political and social egalitarianism, West created a domestic scene, ripe with religious undertones, that conjured a timeless image of an ancient aristocracy. [Figure 1] Dressed in "Vandyke" costume, a stylish attire reserved for the great ballrooms of Europe, Mary and Arthur appeared as members of what historian J.G.A. Pocock referred to as a "natural elite," whose wealth, lineage, and social position demanded respect and deference.* In West's portrait, Arthur strikes a gallant pose, appearing as a commanding but benevolent patriarch. His wife Mary, a symbol of feminine virtue and grace, calls to mind a Renaissance master's Madonna as ^ This was not the first time Arthur Middleton had appeared in a West portrait. When he was a student at Cambridge University, his uncle, Ralph Izard, commissioned The Cricketers, a conversational piece that included Arthur, his cousins, Ralph Izard, Jr. and Charles Manigault (also members of the plantocracy studying abroad), and the two sons of Chief Justice William Allen, reputedly Pennsylvania's wealthiest resident. The Middletons' wealth and social connections afforded the family access to the artist. Between 1769 and 1779, West painted at least four different portraits for members of this clan.