Coastal Heritage VOLUME 25, NUMBER 3 SPRING 2011

Carolina Diarist The Broken World of Mary Chesnut

Spring 2011 •  3

Carolina Diarist: The Broken World of Mary Chesnut Her compelling journal describes the four-year Science Serving South Carolina’s Coast Confederate rebellion, which aimed to preserve slavery but led to its extinction in North America. Coastal Heritage is a quarterly publication of the S.C. Sea Grant Consortium, a university- based network supporting research, education, 13 and outreach to conserve coastal resources and enhance economic opportunity for the people A rich man’s war, a poor man’s fight of South Carolina. Comments regarding this or future issues of Coastal Heritage are welcome at Why did poor Confederates fight? [email protected]. Subscriptions are free upon request by contacting:

14 S.C. Sea Grant Consortium 287 Meeting Street NEWS AND NOTES Charleston, S.C. 29401 • University of South Carolina student awarded Knauss fellowship phone: (843) 953-2078 • College of Charleston student secures research fellowship e-mail: [email protected] • Litter cleanup a success Executive Director • Blue crab populations decline in saltier water M. Richard DeVoe Director of Communications 16 Susan Ferris Hill

Ebbs and Flows Editor John H. Tibbetts • 2011 National Aquaculture Extension Conference • Coastal Zone 2011 Art Director th Sara Dwyer • 4 National Conference on Ecosystem Restoration Sara Dwyer Design, LLC  Board of Directors The Consortium’s Board of Directors is composed of the chief executive officers of its member institutions:

Dr. Raymond S. Greenberg, Chair President, Medical University of South Carolina James F. Barker President, Clemson University Dr. David A. DeCenzo President, Coastal Carolina University Dr. P. George Benson President, College of Charleston John E. Frampton ON THE COVER: Executive Director S.C. Department of Natural Resources Mary Chesnut belonged to the slaveholding southern elite but hated slavery. PHOTO/THE GRANGER COLLECTION Dr. George E. Cooper BACKGROUND IMAGE/SOUTH CAROLINIANA LIBRARY, President, S.C. State University UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA Lt. General John W. Rosa President, The Citadel Dr. Harris Pastides President, University of South Carolina COPYRIGHT © 2011 by the South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium. All rights reserved.

 • Coastal Heritage Perspective. Photographed with her husband, James, in 1840, Mary Chesnut became the Confederacy’s most brilliant chronicler. PHOTO/THE GRANGER COLLECTION

Carolina Diarist The Broken World of Mary Chesnut by John H. Tibbetts ary Chesnut studied her and as profoundly indifferent. So are ern femininity (“Our women are soft Mfamily’s slaves while Fort they all. They carry it too far. You and sweet—low-toned, indolent, Sumter burned a few miles away in could not tell that they even hear the graceful, quiescent.”), but at times she Charleston Harbor. In the predawn awful row that is going on in the bay, couldn’t meet her own standards of hours of April 12, 1861—150 years though it is dinning in their ears day ladylike comportment. Mary Chesnut, ago—Confederate batteries thundered and night. And people talk before when provoked, could be hot-tempered down shells on federal troops bun- them as if they were chairs and tables. and sarcastic, but in public she held kered in the fort. And they make no sign. Are they her tongue on one subject—slavery. In her celebrated Civil War jour- stolidly stupid or wiser than we, silent Although her wealth and privilege nal, Mary Chesnut wondered what her and strong, biding their time?” were built on slavery, she loathed the family’s slaves were thinking and Over the next four years of war, South’s peculiar institution. feeling. Did they know that the new Mary tried to plumb the mysteries of “God, forgive us but ours is a Confederate government claimed Fort Africans who surrounded her, but they monstrous system, and wrong and Sumter? Did they hear freedom in remained inscrutable. Their apparent iniquity,” she wrote in a March 1861 those booming cannons? self-control troubled her. Did they plan entry. “Not by one word or look can we to rebel? Flee north? “Their faces,” she An aristocratic insider living in detect any change in the demeanor of wrote, “are as unreadable as the the heart of the Confederacy, Mary these negro servants,” Mary wrote. sphinx.” Chesnut was the daughter and the “Laurence [her husband’s valet] sits at Mary Chesnut was not always wife of U.S. senators from South our door, as sleepy and as respectful composed herself. She extolled south- Carolina who argued for states’ rights

Spring 2011 •  over slavery. slaves. The Confederacy, meanwhile, Charleston, the capital of southern During South Carolina’s sesqui- was desperate for additional troops. extremism, all 169 delegates voted for centennial commemorations of the Mary Chesnut wrote in her diary: “We secession. South Carolina became the Civil War, there is no better time to have lost nearly all of our men, and we first southern state to leave the Union, acknowledge the greatest literary work have no money . . . Our best and eventually followed by 10 more. of the Confederacy—Mary Chesnut’s brightest are under the sod.” In February 1861, South Carolina journal of 1861-1865, which she later Confederate leaders at times joined the new Confederate States of expanded into an epic of 400,000 considered enlisting slaves and offering America. And two months later, in words. them emancipation as a reward. But April, the Confederacy began the Her book offers insights about the that idea was quickly discarded. Civil War by firing on Fort Sumter. planter elite who overwhelmingly According to southern doctrine, black Serving as an aide to Confederate dominated South Carolina politics and men—free or slave—lacked the cour- General P.G.T. Beauregard, James culture, leading the state into secession age and intelligence to cope with the Chesnut, Jr., set out at night across the and catastrophic war. It drives home demands of disciplined military action. harbor to relay evacuation demands to (sometimes intentionally, sometimes One Confederate leader, Howell Major Robert Anderson of the fort’s not) the moral and intellectual failures Cobb, put it bluntly, “The day you occupying Union force. Anderson of the southern master class. make soldiers of them is the beginning refused to surrender, and Chesnut, Mary Chesnut’s diary illuminates of the end of the revolution. If slaves after consulting with his superiors, will make good soldiers, our whole gave orders to open fire. theory of slavery is wrong.” “I knew my husband was rowing The southern secession crisis was about in a boat somewhere in that sparked on November 6, 1860, when dark bay,” Mrs. Chesnut wrote. “And Abraham Lincoln, nominee of the that the shells were roofing it over— anti-slavery Republican Party, was bursting toward the fort.” Mary, dread- elected president. South Carolina’s ing war, made reference to elite, believing that slavery was directly Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the Scottish threatened, responded almost immedi- king who killed for power in a blood- ately. Mary’s husband, James Chesnut, bath that ended with his death: Jr., was the first U.S. senator in the “Sound and fury, signifying nothing. A South to resign in protest. delusion and a snare.” In Columbia, the S.C. General After a day and half of shelling, Assembly remained in session and Major Anderson surrendered the fort, called for elections to a state secession and no one was killed—a bloodless Mary Chesnut wrote her original convention. On December 20, 1860, in battle in what would prove to be diary during the Civil War and extensively revised it years later. PHOTO/SOUTH CAROLINIANA LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA

the great irony of the rebellion. Southern secession hastened events that the rebels had initiated the war to prevent, events that the planter elite most feared—slave emancipation and the arming of black men. Confederates fought their revolution of 1861-1865 against the Union for one goal: to sustain mastery of the white over the black. The Civil War, however, un- leashed energies among black Americans that had been suppressed for many generations. By 1864, Union armies had BesIeged. When Confederate batteries fired on Fort Sumter, Mary Chesnut swelled with black soldiers, the large worried about her husband in a “boat somewhere in that dark bay.” majority of whom were emancipated IMAGE/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

 • Coastal Heritage America’s bloodiest war. that occurred years before, adding Mary Chesnut and her husband details apparently from memory. lived among the South’s political and Her journal was published in 1905 military elite in Richmond, Virginia, and 1949 in aggressively edited ver- the Confederate capital, during a long sions. Finally, in 1981, a full scholarly stretch of the Civil War. James began edition by historian C. Vann the war as a colonel and served as an Woodward, Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, aide to Confederate President Jefferson was published in a massive volume of Davis, and later was promoted to 835 pages. It drew on her original brigadier general. The Chesnuts also journal and her many revisions, addi- entertained the southern elite at their tions, and emendations. Nearly a family’s plantations near Camden century after Mary Chesnut’s death, where 450 slaves lived and worked. readers for the first time gained a full The Chesnuts belonged to the picture of this talented, morally torn planter aristocracy that ruled the Deep South Carolinian living at the center South with unchallenged authority, of Confederate power, and her book and her diary captures their finer won a Pulitzer Prize. qualities—elegance, playfulness, In Mary Chesnut’s original 1860s physical bravery, and wit—but also journal, she is a woman of relatively their hubris and self-absorption. progressive views about slavery consid- In Richmond, Mary and her ering her time and place, although her friends enjoyed day after day of gossip, racial attitudes coarsened, turning flirtation, sumptuous meals, and ama- ugly, in later revisions. By all accounts teur theatricals—until their circle of she treated slaves well. “Two-thirds of privilege was broken by losses of loved my religion consists in trying to be ones on the battlefield. Grief-devoured good to negroes because they are so in families might collapse around her, but my power, and it would be so easy to Mary tried to go on. “It was awfully be the other thing.” near—that thought of death—al- Slaves, she understood, made her ways—always—No—No—I will not Hear Ye. This Charleston elegant life possible. “They save me all stop and think.” Mercury Extra heralded South thought as to household matters, and Mary’s friends admired her sly, Carolina’s Ordinance of Secession they are so kind and attentive and quicksilver intelligence and her con- passed unanimously on December quiet.” She viewed Laurence, her versation that flowed with warmth and 20, 1860. husband’s valet, with particularly high humor. “Laughter,” she wrote, “is my IMAGE/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS regard. But she called Africans whom forte.” But her ambitions always had to hold], but those in her own she seems she did not know “horrid brutes— be filtered through her husband’s to think drop from the clouds, or savages, monsters.” opportunities, and she seethed when pretends so to think.” She knew she was a tangle of Confederate hotspurs commanded Mary’s father-in-law, a Camden paradoxes. Although she dreaded war, females to keep quiet in salon debates: planter, would not acknowledge his she called herself a “fire-eater” seces- “Silence—What do you know about own mistress and mixed-race children. sionist, impatient for South Carolina war, woman?” A devout Christian, Mary wished to to leave the Union. She thrived on Although she never doubted her obey the commandments and honor pampering by slaves yet despised loyalty to the Confederacy, she bitterly her husband’s father. “How can I slavery as a corrupting institution. criticized southern slave owners for honor,” she asked herself, “what is so Under such crosswinds, her emo- dishonoring marriage and corroding dishonorable or respect what is so little tional weather could change in an family relationships. respectable, so disreputable—or love instant. In late June 1861, just weeks Her gravest indignation was what is so utterly unlovely.” into the war, her entry said: “Slavery targeted at planters who had mistresses Mary Chesnut wrote her original has to go, of course—and joy go with and “whitey brown” children living in journal in spare moments during the it.” Mary seemed reconciled to losing slave quarters. “The mulattoes one sees war, and then set it aside. In the late her way of life if slavery disappeared. in every family exactly resemble the 1870s, she picked up her manuscript Yet the next moment she turned white children—and every lady tells again, revising, polishing, expanding, defiant. “These Yankees may kill us you who is the father of all the mulatto and embellishing. Until she died in and lay waste the land for a while, but children in [everybody else’s house 1886, she continued to write of events conquer us? Never!”

Spring 2011 •  1807-08 1820 1833-38 1854 1857 1859 1860 1860 Britain bans its Missouri Britain outlaws Kansas-Nebraska U.S. Supreme John Brown’s November 6: December 20: transatlantic Compromise slavery in its Act repeals the Court issues Dred raid. Lincoln is elected South Carolina slave trade and prohibits slavery colonies, freeing Missouri Scott decision president of the secedes from the United States in Louisiana 800,000 men, Compromise and that blacks are United States. Union, and six bans slave Purchase territory women, and allows popular not citizens of the other states soon imports. north of latitude children. votes in territo- United States and follow, joined 36º 30'. ries to decide that Congress by four more whether they lacks authority to in May 1861. will be slave bar slavery from territories or free. any territory.

For decades before the Civil War, read their books and periodicals and World. cooler heads in the South managed to debated their ideas. In 1822, there was Denmark keep fire-eaters under control. But two Mary Chesnut was a close student Vesey’s alleged plot in Charleston. events changed that. The first was and critic of abolitionist literature. In Vesey, a free black man, was charged John Brown’s famous raid. The second a November 1861 journal entry, she with planning a slave rebellion and more important was Abraham denounced those who live in “nice throughout the city, and was hanged. Lincoln’s election to the presidency. New England homes—clean, clear, Some historians now argue that Vesey sweet-smelling—shut up libraries, was not a plotter but a victim of white John Brown’s raid writing books which ease their hearts hysteria. In 1831, moreover, the Nat of their bitterness to us, or editing Turner-led slave uprising killed at least Financially backed by a secret newspapers, [all of] which pays better 55 whites in Virginia. band of northern abolitionists, John than anything else in the world… The bloodiest slave uprising in Brown and 21 heavily armed white What self-denial do they practice? It’s the New World began in 1791 in the and black followers captured part of the cheapest philanthropy trade in French sugar colony of St. Domingue the federal weapons arsenal at Harpers the world—easy. Easy as setting John (now Haiti). Caribbean sugar planters Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) Brown to come down here and cut our were notoriously savage slaveholders, on October 16, 1859. throats in Christ’s name.” working slaves to death. On St. Brown, a violent abolitionist who To southern planters, John Domingue, slaves rebelled against had fought to keep slavery out of Brown’s raid was a reminder of past their masters, and subsequently fought Kansas, aimed to ignite a slave revolt threats to their security and order. invading armies of Spain, Britain, and in Virginia and establish a refuge there Slave revolts were rare but they terri- France. Bloodshed continued in a civil for escaped slaves. It was an inept plan fied whites throughout the New war until 1804, when Haiti finally in conception and execution. After gained independence and peace. two days, Brown and his followers On St. Domingue, there were surrendered to federal troops. He was unspeakable atrocities committed by tried for conspiracy, treason, and Europeans and rebels alike, but only murder, and hanged on December 2. those by Africans were remembered Some northern newspapers ex- among planters of the American tolled John Brown as a martyr to the South. cause of abolition. That set off howls Mary, in her Charleston schoolgirl of indignation among slaveholders. days, heard stories of St. Domingue Were abolitionists recruiting more violence from her émigré teachers. raiders to start slave rebellions? Did a And Mary describes her mother-in- majority of northerners sympathize law’s deep fear of slaves, having “in her with John Brown’s raid? In modern youth the St. Domingo stories… parlance, was there a network of indelibly printed on her mind. She “terrorists” preparing further attacks? shows her dread now by treating This was a time when the North’s [slaves] as if they were a black Prince leading intellectuals—Ralph Waldo Albert or Queen Victoria.” Emerson, Horace Greeley, Henry To southern planters, John Brown’s David Thoreau, Harriet Beecher raid was an alarm that slaves, armed or Stowe—were eloquent, full-throated An 1856 daguerreotype of John inspired by abolitionists, could rise up. abolitionists. They were small in Brown, the abolitionist who led This fear was especially strong in South number and politically marginal, even the ill-fated raid on Harpers Ferry, Carolina where blacks outnumbered in New England, their home base, but Virginia. whites, especially along the coast and serious people around the country PHOTO/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS the midlands. On many isolated plan-

 • Coastal Heritage 1861 1861 1863 1863 1865 1865 1865 February 4: April 12: January 1: May-July: April 9: April 11: April 14: Seceded states meet Confederate attack Lincoln issues Black Union soldiers General Robert E. In his last public Lincoln mortally in Montgomery, on Fort Sumter Emancipation participate in battles Lee surrenders at speech, Lincoln wounded in form the begins Civil War. Proclamation and at Fort Wagner on Appomattox Court supports limited assassination; Confederate States authorizes enlist- Morris Island, South House, Virginia. black suffrage in the dies following of America, and ment of blacks in Carolina, and in South. morning. elect Jefferson Davis Union armed forces. Louisiana. president.

tations, slaves outnumbered whites 10 orderly elimination of slavery in the to one, 100 to one, or more. South with financial compensation to In October 1861, Mary Chesnut slaveholders. It was a movement em- wrote anxiously, “Now we are here at braced by artisans and other skilled Sandy Hill [her family’s summer re- workers who understood that they treat outside Camden]—half a dozen couldn’t compete against slave labor. of whites or dominant class, sixty or Allowing human bondage to spread seventy Negroes—miles away from the would undercut free workers’ wages, rest of the world.” freedoms, and opportunities—and, just as important, their dignity. The Lincoln, The Republican new Republican Party became the political home for a new “free soil, free When Abraham Lincoln won the labor, free men” cause. presidency in 1860, the southern elite A free market for labor—that was regarded it almost as an act of war, Lincoln’s core belief throughout his although Lincoln repeatedly declared political life. It was central to his that he did not intend to harm slavery conception of human rights. An in the South. President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 American should have the right to Lincoln’s Republican Party was after two bloody years of war. own his labor and sell it where and PHOTO/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS founded in 1856 with the primary goal how he wants, Lincoln declared. of keeping slavery bottled up in south- would become a free state. In free states, Lincoln said, “the ern states where it might eventually The industrializing North was man who labored for another last year, die a natural death. already gaining ground in the U.S. this year labors for himself, and the The North and South were each House of Representatives because of next year he will hire others to labor fighting for political advantage by its rapidly expanding population, for him.” trying to spread its labor system—free while the South’s white population Of course, the plantation regions or slave—into U.S. territories faster was stagnant. Each new state would of southern states lacked free labor than its adversary could. After all, send at least one representative to the markets. In the South Carolina low- each new state entering the Union House, the number depending on the country, for instance, many slavehold- would have two new U.S. Senate seats. state’s population size, which gave the ers hired out their slaves as carpenters, The balance of power in the Senate— North a crucial advantage in the bricklayers, and other occupations, and eventually among U.S. Supreme House. driving down wages for free workers Court justices, who were confirmed by Northern skilled workers and and inhibiting new enterprises. the Senate—would be decided by farmers increasingly joined the anti- Forty years before the Civil War, which region had the most states, free slavery movement, which was distinct the number of slave states in the or slave. from the abolitionist movement. In Union had already threatened to Leading Republicans argued that the decade before the Civil War, outstrip the number of free states. In if slavery became further established abolitionists demanded an immediate, 1820, Congress passed a law known as in western territories, slaveholders uncompensated end to slavery the Missouri Compromise to maintain would fight to protect their invest- everywhere. a balance of power between North and ments and prerogatives there just as The anti-slavery movement, by South, establishing a border separating they did in the South. It seemed contrast, opposed the expansion of slave and free jurisdictions in the virtually certain that any U.S. terri- slavery and slaveholders’ rights beyond West. The compromise prohibited tory allowing slavery within its borders the South into U.S. territories and slavery in most of the Louisiana would eventually become a slave state, northern states. The anti-slavery Purchase territory north of latitude and that any territory outlawing it movement also supported a gradual, 36º 30', a region that eventually be-

Spring 2011 •  came states or parts of states from Iowa west to Montana. In 1850, an- other compromise created a similar border farther west to the California line. Under southern pressure, how- ever, Congress in 1854 passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed these compromises. It allowed for a popular vote in each territory to determine whether slavery should be legally allowed there. Many northern- ers realized that it was an attempt to spread slavery throughout the entire West, including territories that had long been considered the domain of free labor. The Kansas-Nebraska Act pro- voked Lincoln’s first forceful public statements against slavery. In a series of 1854 speeches, he condemned “the monstrous injustice of slavery,” adding “no man is good enough to govern another man, without that other’s consent.” Still, Lincoln was a savvy politi- cian with moderate instincts, and like many other men of the West, he was wary of abolitionists and criticized their “self-righteousness.” The South’s increasingly aggres- sive tactics in courts and legislatures, however, continued to alienate many moderate Republicans. In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court, dominated by southerners, decided in the Dred Scott case that blacks were not U.S. citizens and that Congress lacked constitutional authority to prevent This stance seemed a distinction America, or the Caribbean. Many racial slavery from any U.S. territory. without a difference to fire-eater politicians had promoted colonization President James Buchanan, in turn, secessionists who knew that the since the 1830s, though it had little declared that slavery existed in all the southern slave society had to expand practical traction. Few free blacks in territories “by virtue of the into new areas to survive politically in the United States would agree to Constitution.” the Union over the long term. leave their native country. Lincoln considered Dred Scott a Lincoln’s view of blacks in 1861 Still, Lincoln said in 1858, “What travesty of justice, a “burlesque upon was typical of many critics of slavery. I would most desire would be the judicial decisions.” He could not imagine a time when separation of the white and black In the years leading up to the millions of freed slaves would be fully races.” As late as his 1862 annual Civil War, Lincoln repeatedly asserted integrated into American life. Blacks address to Congress, Lincoln declared, that he opposed slavery in the territo- could never be social and political “deportation [of blacks], even to a ries and northern states—but not in equals with whites, he said. Indeed, it limited extent, enhanced wages to the South. He would stand his ground was Lincoln’s position that slave white labor.” When he spoke of de- on the spread of slavery but would not emancipation should be considered in portation, he presumably meant interfere with slavery where it already concert with voluntary black coloni- voluntary colonization. existed. zation abroad to Africa, South Abolitionists, black and white,

 • Coastal Heritage Captives. The 1860 Census was the last time the federal government counted the South’s slave popula- tion. Later that year, the U.S. Coast Survey, which eventually became part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), issued this map of slavery in the South, and it captured the attention of President Abraham Lincoln, according to Susan Schul- ten, a historian at the University of Denver. In the map, each county displays its proportion of slave population to its overall population in two ways: numerically and in shading (the darker the shading, the higher the proportion of slaves). Note that South Carolina enslaved a majority of its population. With this map, Lincoln could visualize, region by region, the Confederacy’s greatest economic and labor asset: slaves. MAP/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

attacked Lincoln for his colonization ideas during the first years of the Civil War. “Pray tell us, is our right to a home in this country less than your own?” wrote one black man to the president. “Are you an American? So are we.” Why did many southerners, espe- cially those in South Carolina, react violently to Lincoln’s election in 1860? Slave interests had dominated bill. Lincoln’s election, however, broke Indeed, Lincoln gained only 2% of the federal government for genera- the southern grip on national govern- the entire southern vote in 1860. To tions. Fourteen of the first 18 presi- ment at a critical moment. fire-eater secessionists, the rise of the dents had been southerners or sympa- The Republican Party was Republican Party showed that the era thetic to slave owners. Southern states America’s first successful sectional of compromise between slave states had always held enough seats in the political party, its members living and free states was finished, and that U.S. Senate to block any anti-slavery almost exclusively in the North. slavery would be doomed if the South

Spring 2011 •  Black Warriors..In December 1865, Company E, 4th U.S. Colored Infantry, Fort Lincoln, guarded the District of Columbia. PHOTO/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

remained in the Union. hated slavery. And earlier than most, capacity to house and feed them. South Carolina’s planter aristoc- both believed that slave emancipation Some northern officers actually sent racy was bitterly anti-Lincoln, al- would be a beneficial result of the war. runaway slaves back to their owners in though the new president was not an To her maid soon after Fort the South. abolitionist as he stepped into office. Sumter fell into Confederate hands, This crisis moved many moderate In February 1861, Mary Chesnut Mary Chesnut declared: “Now listen. Republican lawmakers in Congress to condemned the president-elect and Let the war end either way, and you consider an action that had seemed his political supporters as “that ogre will be free. We will have to free you impossible a year before—universal Lincoln and rampant black before we get out of this thing.” The slave emancipation. The war was Republicanism.” South, she believed, couldn’t hold increasingly bloody, the South a fierce Days after South Carolina se- slaves in captivity while also battling and capable enemy. Perhaps slave ceded from the Union, Lincoln asked an invading Union army. Indeed, in emancipation was the only way to Alexander H. Stephens, who would the first months of the war, she was undermine the South’s slave-based later become vice president of the surprised that more slaves didn’t run economy and win the war. Confederacy, “Do the people of the away to northern lines and perhaps In July 1862, Lincoln told his South really entertain fears that a join the Union effort. Cabinet that he was near to a conclu- Republican administration would, But by the spring of 1862, a sion to “free the slaves or be ourselves directly, or indirectly, interfere with growing number of slave refugees did subdued.” their slaves, or with them, about their seek protection behind the Union In January 1863, Lincoln issued slaves?” Lincoln added, “There is no battle lines, overwhelming the North’s the Emancipation Proclamation, cause for such fears.” which freed slaves in Confederate Lincoln was not yet the Great states and authorized black enlistment Emancipator whom Americans cel- in Union armed forces. Lincoln soon ebrate today. dropped his emigration ideas, realizing that he could not ask black men to How they changed fight for the Union and press them later to leave the country. At least Mary Chesnut and Abraham 180,000 black men served in the Lincoln might have enjoyed one Union army during the war. another’s company if they’d had a In July 1863, black soldiers of the chance to meet in another time and 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry place. Despite their sorrows, both Regiment spearheaded an assault at were fond of jokes, tall stories, and Fort Wagner, on Morris Island, South wordplay. Both were passionate read- Carolina. The assault failed to take ers and exceptionally skillful writers. the fort, but the regiment’s soldiers They could laugh at themselves. They Frederick Douglass urged President were widely hailed for their courage, enjoyed warm friendships and family Abraham Lincoln to authorize black as were black fighters in other notable feeling. Each was a devoted spouse. enlistment in the Union Army. battles. Moved by their sacrifices, Each was a steely adversary. Each PHOTO/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS Lincoln called them his “black war-

10 • Coastal Heritage riors” and acknowledged their contri- refused to do so, and he attacked those butions to Union victories. Lincoln’s who “have proposed to me to return to “sense of blacks’ relationship to the slavery [these] black warriors … to nation began to change,” writes Eric conciliate the South. I should be Foner, a historian at Columbia damned in time & in eternity for so University. doing.” Lincoln by then was reaching out Two days after Confederate to black leaders, including the author, General Robert E. Lee surrendered at editor, and orator Frederick Douglass, Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, to ask their advice. The president concluding the war, Lincoln spoke to conferred with Douglass on how to an interracial crowd on the White increase recruitment of blacks into the House lawn. There he offered a star- Union army. tling proposal, calling for the enfran- Douglass, early on, had bitterly chisement of literate blacks and black criticized Lincoln for failing to attack Union military veterans in former the South and slavery with sufficient Confederate states under control of force and intensity. But by 1864 the federal government. Douglass came to realize that Lincoln Lincoln’s public endorsement of was experiencing a profound transfor- limited black suffrage was unprec- mation in his view of blacks’ abilities. edented by an American president. At Douglass came to admire Lincoln that time, blacks could not vote in Living History. About 180,000 as a man. Reflecting on a visit to the most northern states. Did Lincoln black soldiers joined the Union army White House, Douglass wrote that the foresee a time when all black men in during the Civil War. Jules Washing- president’s personal behavior and the United States could vote? ton, of the 54th Massachusetts Volun- demeanor expressed an “entire free- The actor John Wilkes Booth was teer Infantry Civil War Reenactment dom from popular prejudice against in the crowd on the White House Unit, commemorates their service. the colored race.” lawn. A radical southern partisan, PHOTO/WADE SPEES As the war reached a new stale- Booth and a group of conspirators had mate that year, Lincoln was under planned to kidnap Lincoln and other discarded in favor of assassination. intense pressure to retreat from aboli- top administration officials and de- Booth was scandalized by Lincoln’s tion as a precondition for peace nego- mand release of southern prisoners of speech on the White House lawn. “That tiations with the Confederacy. He war. Later, the kidnapping plot was means [black] citizenship,” he supposedly said. “Now, by God, I’ll put him through. That is the last speech he will ever make.” Three days later, on April 14, 1865, Booth mortally wounded the president, who died the following morning. News of Lincoln’s assassination softened Mary Chesnut’s view of her old enemy. In a journal entry in May 1865, she wrote, “Look at Lincoln now. How we used to hate him—abuse him, any- way. And now who is so base as to utter a word against the murdered president? No.” Martin Luther King, Jr., once said, “The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.” Did Mary Chesnut realize that she was a witness to history bending toward justice? In regard to slavery, yes. She was relieved by slavery’s demise. But she saw Combat. This 1890 print depicts the storming of Fort Wagner on Morris injustice in the Confederacy’s defeat. Island, South Carolina, by the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. She could only watch “our world, the IMAGE/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS only world we cared for, literally kicked

Spring 2011 • 11 to pieces.” The war was a catastrophe for southern planters who lost everything they fought for—and more. The Confederate elite aimed to preserve a society based on slaveholders’ rights and white superiority. The war, of course, concluded with slave emancipation throughout the United States and its territories, southern families and com- munities devastated, towns and farms in ruins, planters financially broken, and the South’s influence in the wider world gone up in smoke. In Mary Chesnut’s journal entry of May 1865, she wrote, “We are scattered —stunned—the remnant of heart left Devastation. A bird’s eye view, looking south, of Circular Church on Meet- alive within us, filled with brotherly ing Street (right) in Charleston at the close of the Civil War. hate.” PHOTO/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS Hatred was Mary’s weakness. he embraced most abolitionist principles at home—quiet, orderly, respectful, and During the war, she recognized the by the end of his life, inspired by his at their work. In point of fact things injustices of slavery, and she was justifi- admiration of black soldiers who helped looked unchanged. There was nothing ably proud of her kindness toward men save the Union. to show that anyone of them had ever and women who lived under her thumb. “I think we have reason to thank seen a Yankee or knew that one was in But when she revised her manuscript God for Abraham Lincoln,” wrote existence.” years after the war, she condemned abolitionist Lydia Maria Child one week But Mary knew her world had died; blacks as a race, attacking them with before he was assassinated. “With all his plantation slavery was finished. She was crude, vitriolic language. As she aged, deficiencies, it must be admitted that he impoverished now. The long war had she became more sophisticated as a has grown continuously, and consider- sobered and hardened her. She felt old, writer, but some part of her humanity ing how slavery had weakened and exhausted, at age 42. shriveled. perverted the moral sense of the whole Many of her friends and family, Lincoln did not hate anyone. country, it was great good luck to have though, clung to a ghostly past. She Instead, the Civil War broadened his the people elect a man who was willing closed her book with a July 1865 entry: empathy, awakening him to the human to grow.” “Eliza Lee describes various manners of rights of all Americans. Born in Weeks after Lee’s surrender, Mary bows. James Chesnut takes off his hat Kentucky, a slave state, Lincoln did not Chesnut visited her Camden plantation, grandly, like a prince of the blood. overcome every racial misconception of the Hermitage, which had largely sur- Edward Boykin bows and smiles so his era, yet as president he advanced vived damage from Union troops. She cordially—you feel he is your friend… equality further than any before him. was surprised to find her former slaves And—and the weight that hangs upon He was not an abolitionist in 1861, but still at their posts. “Our people were all our eyelids—is of lead.”

Reading and Web sites

Davis, David Brion. Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery Muhlenfeld, Elisabeth. Mary Boykin Chesnut: A Biography. Baton in the New World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981. Foner, Eric. The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. New York: Norton, 2010. South Carolina’s Civil War Sesquicentennial sc150civilwar.palmettohistory.org Grant, Ulysses S. Personal Memoirs. New York: The Modern Library, 1999. Stern, Julia A. Mary Chesnut’s Civil War Epic. Chicago: University of Keegan, John. The American Civil War: A Military History. New York: Chicago Press, 2010. Knopf, 2009. Woodward, C. Vann, Ed. Mary Chesnut’s Civil War. New York: Book- Lowcountry Civil War Sesquicentennial Commemoration www.sccivilwar.org of-the-Month Club, 1994.

12 • Coastal Heritage A rich man’s war, a poor man’s fight

hy did so many impoverished “Slave owners domi- Wsoutherners fight for the nated southern Confederacy? The majority of politics, and it was Confederate soldiers, including those by buying slaves from South Carolina, didn’t own slaves. that a southerner Indeed, many were subsistence farmers moved up the social from sandhills and upland regions where tree, went from the land was unsuitable for plantation being a small to a slavery. Yet they felt patriotic kinship large farmer and with slave owners. perhaps eventually a By the Civil War, slaveholders had plantation owner.” created an ideology that they spread Some slaveholders across the South in sermons, speeches, had indeed begun newspapers, and schoolbooks. It was as poor farmers and based on a notion that all blacks were used the slave children and that whites were responsible system to their under God’s plan to watch over them. advantage. Slavery, in short, was required to Many southerners, rich and poor, Plucked. An unidentified Confed- protect Africans from themselves. joined the war effort in 1861 because erate soldier. Although they did not Whites who failed to live up to their they thought it would be easy. own slaves, many men from impover- ished parts of the South fought for the responsibilities were considered Southern men argued they would be Confederacy. negligent. braver and more skilled in battle than PHOTO/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS “Slaveholders claimed that owning their Union counterparts. In his classic slaves always entailed a duty and a bur- Personal Memoirs, published in 1885, black soldiers comprised about one-tenth den—a duty and burden that defined the Ulysses S. Grant recalled southerners’ of the Union military manpower. moral superiority of the South,” wrote lobbing insults over the Mason-Dixon Toward the end of the war, Mary David Brion Davis, a historian of slavery, line. “They denounced northerners as Chesnut, living in Columbia, heard in a 2006 book. “And this duty and cowards, poltroons, negro-worshippers, rumors of disgruntlement among soldiers burden was respected by millions of claimed that one southern man was from poor districts. “All of the troops nonslaveholding whites, who were pre- equal to five northern men in battle, that from the mountainous parts of South pared to defend it with their lives.” if the South would stand up for its rights, Carolina, and from North Carolina’s Physical violence, in the form of the North would back down.” mountains, too, were disaffected. They whippings and beatings, was considered After a shaky start, however, Union wanted peace—said this was a rich man’s necessary to maintain order over chil- armies proved resilient and determined, war—they had no part nor lot in it, dren and slaves. “I hate slavery,” the and they had huge advantages in man- would gladly desert in a body.” South Carolina diarist Mary Chesnut power. In the 1860 census, the nation’s There were large-scale desertions wrote in 1861. “I even hate the harsh white population of military age (men from Civil War armies, particularly on authority I see parents think it their duty under the age of 30) was about 2.5 mil- the Confederate side in the later years of to exercise toward their children.” lion in the North and about 900,000 in the war. Even so, thousands of impover- Many poor whites supported slavery the South. About 360,000 Union men ished southerners fought to the end. because it seemed to offer a ladder to and 200,000 Confederate men died of John Keegan notes that it was fear of wealth and power. They “aspired to slave battle wounds or disease during the war. being called a coward—a prospect more ownership, which was the mark of south- Confederate losses hit its ranks hard horrible than death—that kept some ern prosperity and success,” writes British while the Union supplemented its forces soldiers, Confederate and Union, in the historian John Keegan in a 2009 book. with 180,000 black soldiers. By 1865, ranks year after year.

Spring 2011 • 13 Program, bringing a select group of search with the two NERRs. University of South graduate students to the nation’s Hein will study and compare the Carolina student capital, where they work in the federal impacts of an invasive parasitic species awarded Knauss government’s legislative and executive on American eel populations in each fellowship branches. of the two NERRs and the more devel- The students learn about federal oped Cooper River. The invasive Sierra Jones, a doctoral candidate policy regarding marine and Great parasite, originally from East Asia, in the Department of Biological Lakes natural resources and lend their infects the swim bladder of American Sciences at the University of South scientific expertise to federal agencies eels. Carolina, has been awarded a John A. and congressional staff offices. Hein will study eels collected by Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship for Each of the nation’s 32 Sea Grant the S.C. Department of Natural 2011. She is serving as a congressional programs can nominate up to six Resources from the three sites. She affairs specialist in the National students to the Knauss fellows pro- speculates that the NERRs are healthy Oceanic and Atmospheric gram each year. Selections are then ecosystems that maintain healthier eel Administration (NOAA) Office of made competitively from among those populations, which are more capable of Legislative and Intergovernmental nominations. Visit www.scseagrant. resisting infections by this invasive Affairs. org/Content/?cid=56 for more infor- parasite. Her task mation about this program. Her hypothesis is that eel popula- is to facilitate tions from the three different sites, communica- representing a range of development tions between College of Charleston impacts, will exhibit different abilities NOAA student secures to resist infection. scientists and research fellowship “I am very excited about this Congress on project,” Hein said, “especially because a range of Jennifer Hein, a candidate in the I will be collaborating with so many Sierra Jones issues, includ- Master of Science in Environmental different groups, including the S.C. PHOTO/Sally Woodin ing invasive Studies Department of Natural Resources, the species, harmful algal blooms and Program at NERRs, and Sea Grant. It’s a great hypoxia, education, and oceans and the College of networking opportunity and an excel- human health. Charleston, lent chance to learn from experienced “I am greatly enjoying my current has been scientists and professionals.” position at NOAA, primarily because awarded a For more information about the of the interaction I have with both Coastal NERR-Sea Grant fellowship, contact scientists and legislators,” Jones said. Research Denise Sanger at Denise.Sanger@ “I would like to continue working in Jennifer Hein Fellowship for scseagrant.org or (843) 953-2078. PHOTO/S.C. SEA GRANT NOAA because I feel that it is an CONSORTIUM 2011. agency where there are opportunities The two South Carolina National to be involved in both research and Estuarine Research Reserves (North Litter cleanup a policy. I love the mission of NOAA, Inlet-Winyah Bay and ACE Basin success and think that the work the agency NERRs) and the S.C. Sea Grant conducts is vitally important to the Consortium established this new Nearly 4,700 volunteers statewide nation.” fellowship for South Carolina-based participated in the 22nd annual Beach To further the education of graduate students with significant Sweep/River Sweep litter cleanup on tomorrow’s leaders, the National Sea support provided through North September 18, 2010, clearing 24 tons of Grant Office sponsors the John A. Carolina Sea Grant. The fellowship is debris from beaches, marshes, and Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship designed to foster collaborative re- waterways. Organized by the S.C. Sea

14 • Coastal Heritage best in a zone of brackish estuary lations decline throughout estuaries? between higher salinities of ocean To answer such questions, water and lower salinities farther up Childress developed a computer coastal rivers and creeks. model called the South Carolina Blue Over the past decade, however, Crab Regional Abundance Biotic the state’s estuaries have turned saltier, Simulation (SCBCRABS). This and blue crabs are finding it more model attempts to address complex difficult to adapt to new conditions. interactions between various habitats Sea Grant researcher Michael and life stages of the blue crab. Childress, a marine ecologist at Childress uses the model to Clemson University, is studying how follow simulated individual blue crabs environmental changes are influenc- through time as they occupy habitats ing this multi-million-dollar fishery in and encounter changing environmen-

College of Charleston students cleaned the South Carolina. tal conditions. The model is based on marsh at Waterfront Park in downtown The salinity of estuaries is the theoretical principles of population Charleston during the 2010 Beach Sweep/ River Sweep. most important factor in predicting biology and environmental data. PHOTO/S.C. SEA GRANT CONSORTIUM abundance of crabs in South Carolina, In computer simulations, the Grant Consortium and S.C. Childress said. When salt concentra- population densities of blue crabs Department of Natural Resources, the tions increase in estuaries, crab popu- decreased in higher salinity waters. Sweep is held in conjunction with lations fall. This has implications for The animals had less prey to eat and Ocean Conservancy’s International the future as sea-level rise continues to greater crowding in the fewer sites of Coastal Cleanup. drive salty ocean water farther inland. optimal salinity, so more crabs ate Beach Sweep/River Sweep is Droughts, coastal development, and each other. funded primarily from private sources, upland water usage also affect estua- Do crabs permanently escape the and major sponsors include Applied rine salinity. fishery by swimming upriver? Technology and Management, BP From 1995 to 1998, South Probably not, Childress said. Cooper River Plant, Charleston City Carolina experienced higher-than- “There is only a two to three Marina, Charleston Water System, average rainfall totals, and crab land- month period during the late summer Coastal Expeditions, Mt. Pleasant ings increased to a peak of 7.5 million and early fall when crabs move far Waterworks, S.C. State Ports pounds. But over the next four years, enough upriver that they can’t be Authority, The Duke Energy 1999 to 2003, the state experienced a caught,” he said. Usually by Foundation, and Walmart Market #34. severe drought, and crab landings fell December, they move downriver to The next statewide Sweep is scheduled to 4.2 million pounds. Crab landings locations where they can be legally for Saturday, September 17, 2011. still have not recovered to pre-drought harvested. levels. In 2010, the S.C. Sea Grant Childress is studying two hypoth- Consortium awarded Childress a two- Blue crab populations eses to explain the relationship be- year research grant to conduct quar- decline in saltier tween increased salinity in South terly surveys of the blue crab popula- water Carolina estuaries and crab catches. tion in the ACE Basin National Crabs seasonally migrate upriver Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR). Although blue crabs (Callinectus to find optimal salinity in locations The project is a collaboration be- sapidus) are tough, hardy predators, beyond the state’s regulatory boundary tween Clemson University, S.C. they don’t thrive in all coastal waters. for the commercial fishery. So do crab Department of Natural Resources, Blue crabs prefer a certain amount of landings decrease because commercial ACE Basin NERR, S.C. Sea Grant salt in their habitats—not too much fishermen can’t catch them? Or do Extension Program, local fishers, and but not too little, either. They grow landings decrease because crab popu- the public.

Spring 2011 • 15 NON-PROFIT ORG U.S. Postage Paid Charleston, SC Science Serving PERMIT #248 South Carolina’s Coast

287 Meeting Street Charleston, S.C. 29401

Coastal Heritage is printed on recycled paper using soy-based ink. Web site: www.scseagrant.org

2011 National Coastal Zone 2011 4th National Aquaculture Conference on Extension Conference Chicago, Illinois Ecosystem July 17-21, 2011 Restoration Memphis, Tennessee Since 1978, Coastal Zone has been June 5-7, 2011 the premier international symposium on Baltimore, Maryland coastal, ocean, and Great Lakes issues. August 1-5, 2011 This conference is the only oppor- The conference is the largest gathering tunity for extension aquaculture pro- of coastal professionals, drawing 800- Mark your calendars for this in- fessionals nationwide to plan, organize, 1,000 attendees. Presentations and terdisciplinary conference on large- implement, and evaluate a professional discussions will center on four major scale ecosystem restoration, presenting growth and enhancement program themes: Planning for Resilient Coasts, state-of-the-art science and engineering, that aims to improve personal perfor- Healthy Habitats, Great Lakes and planning, and policy in a partnership mance and effectiveness. Many topics Ocean Observing, and Vibrant environment. The conference brings will be covered, including the new Economies. Focus areas include gover- together nearly 1,000 scientists, engi- round of extension projects that were nance and policy, implementation, neers, policymakers, and planners from funded through the Aquaculture measuring success, and outreach and across the country involved in ecosystem National Strategic Investment in 2010. engagement. Visit www.doi.gov/initia- restoration. For more information, visit For more information, contact Gene tives/CZ11/index.htm for more conference.ifas.ufl.edu/NCER2011 or con- Kim at [email protected]. information. tact Beth Miller-Tipton at [email protected].

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ATTENTION SCHOOL TEACHERS! The S.C. Sea Grant Consortium has designed supplemental classroom resources for this and past issues of Coastal Heritage magazine. Coastal Heritage Curriculum Connection, written for both middle- and high-school students, is aligned with the South Carolina state standards for the appropriate grade levels. Includes standards-based inquiry questions to lead students through explorations of the topic discussed. Curriculum Connection is available on-line at www.scseagrant.org/education.

16 • Coastal Heritage