Chronicles of Chicora Wood. Elizabeth W. Allston Pringle
contribute an agreeable diversion to the minds of gentlemen habitually engrossed in the discussion of grave concerns of state.”—(“Journal of the (Secession) Convention,” p. W225, April 1, 1861.)
I can quite imagine that this invitation was a source, to some of the members of that convention, of great amusement, as being most unsuitable to their frame of mind.
My father’s full sympathy with the convention is shown by the following extract from Brant and Fuller’s “Eminent and Representative Men of the Carolinas”:
“Robert Francis Withers Allston, South Carolina statesman, scholar, and agriculturist, was born April 21, 1801. … During the nullification era and for many years afterward Mr. Allston was deputy adjutant-general of the militia, and from 1841 to 1864 was one of the trustees of South Carolina College at Columbia. … In politics he belonged to the Jefferson and Calhoun school, believing in the complete sovereignty of the States.”
During his prolonged absences in Columbia my father did not like to leave my mother alone on the plantation, with no one but the negroes to care for the children, so he secured a good, reliable Irishwoman to take charge of the children and the nursery, with the others under her. Strange to say, this was never resented, and Mary O’Shea stayed with us about fifteen years, when some of her kinfolk called her away. We called her “May” and were devoted to her. She had her trials, for my father did not approve of fire in the room where the children slept, and this, along with the open window, was a terrible ordeal to May. The day-nursery, with its roaring open wood-fire, only made the contrast more distressing to her; she never became reconciled to it, and I only wonder that she stayed all those years. As soon as the older children were big enough, we had an English governess—Miss Wells first, and afterward Miss Ayme.
I have asked my brother, Charles Petigru Allston, to write for me what he remembered of my father, and I will insert here what he has written for me.
CHAPTER III
MY BROTHER’S NARRATIVE
MY holiday, the months of December, 1863, and January, 1864, were passed with my father on the coast, where he had planting, salt boiling, and freighting up the rivers, to look after. Salt was a very scarce article at that time, and my father had it boiled from sea-water on the salt creeks of the Waccamaw seashore, behind Pawley’s Island. The vats were made chiefly of old mill boilers, cut in half and mounted on brick, with furnace below for wood, and a light shed above, to protect from the weather. A scaffold was built out in the salt creek, and a pump placed there to lift the water about twenty feet, and from the pump a wooden trough carried the water to the boilers, some 300 yards away, in the forest. At flood-tide, when the water came in from the sea, was the best time to pump, as the water had then more salt and less of the seepage water from the marshlands. Sometimes, when a man was upon the scaffold, pumping, a federal gunboat, lying off the coast, would throw a shell over the island, which cut off the sight of the works, in the direction of the smoke from the boiling vats; when this happened the man came down in wild haste and made for the brush. These interruptions became so frequent that finally the boiling had to be done at night, when the smoke was not visible. My father sent me over to inspect the salt-works and report to him more than once, so that I was familiar with the situation. Wagons came long distances from the interior to buy or barter for salt. This work was carried on entirely by negroes, without any white man in charge. My father had the faculty for organization, and his negro men were remarkably well trained, intelligent, and self-reliant. Another work which he instituted and developed was the transporting of rice and salt up the rivers to the railroad. The ports, being blockaded, and no railroad within forty miles, it became necessary to make some outlet for the rice-crop to get to market and to the army. He had two lighters built, which were decked over and secured from weather, and carried from 150 to 200 tierces (600 pounds each) of clean or marketable rice. On each lighter he put a captain, with a crew of eight men. These lighters were loaded at the rice-mill and taken up the Pee Dee River, to the railroad bridge near Mars Bluff, to Society Hill, and sometimes to Cheraw. It was a long, hard trip, and when the freshet was up it seemed sometimes to be impossible to carry a loaded barge against the current, by hand—but it was done. At such times the only progress was made by carrying a line ahead, making fast to a tree on the river-bank, and then all hands warping the boat up by the capstan; then make fast and carry the line ahead again. The crew were all able men. They had plenty to eat and seemed to enjoy themselves. I have often been with my father when the boats returned from a trip and the captain came to make his report; it was worth listening to; the most minute account of the trip, with all its dangers and difficulties. There was seldom a charge of any serious character against any of the crew; each knew that such a charge made by the captain meant the immediate discharge from the crew and a return to field work.
My father also sent rice up the Black River to the Northeastern Railroad at Kingstree, and finally built a warehouse, making a new station, which is now Salter’s; here he put a very intelligent negro, Sam Maham, in charge; he received the rice from the captains of the river-craft, and delivered it to the railroad on orders, and I have never heard a word of complaint against him. Black River, however, had to be navigated by smaller craft than the Pee Dee, open flats, boats square at each end, and 50 feet long by 12 feet wide. I well remember the report made by the captain of the first crew sent up Black River. It was thrilling in parts. He had to cut his way through after leaving the lower river, which was open for navigation. The river had never been used high up for that sort of craft, and was full of logs, etc.; besides, in places it was difficult to find the right channel, and his description of going through a section where the river was broken up by low islands, or shoals into several apparent channels, all of which were shallow, except one, was most exciting. None of these men had ever been on this river or in that locality before, and only the drilling and direction given them by my father could have carried them through; but they went through, and after that there was a regular line going. But these flats being smaller and open and no decks, were much more liable to damage the cargo; still very little was lost, strange to say. They had good sailcloth covers, and the crews took an interest in the work. The captain and crew making the best record were always well rewarded.
I became familiar with all this work during the winter of 1863–64. My father wanted me to learn as much as possible of each branch of the work, and knew how to direct my attention to the chief details to be studied and worked out.
At night we sat together and had milk and potatoes, with sassafras tea for supper, and it was very good. One who has never had to depend on sassafras tea does not know how good it is. My father had many opportunities for getting in all the supplies that he wanted, as well as for making a good deal of money by exchanging his rice and salt for cotton, and then sending the cotton out by the blockade-runners to Nassau; but he was opposed to the running of the blockade for private gain. How often as we sat by the fire in the evenings did he talk to me on that and other subjects of public interest. His idea was that the Confederate Government should control the cotton; buy it up at home, pay for it in gold, ship it out by blockade-runners, sell it in Europe for the government, and bring in such supplies as were most needed—medicines, shoes, clothes, as well as arms, etc. In this way, he said, the government would be free from the horde of speculators who were making fortunes out of our misfortunes, and thus be able to build up a financial standing in Europe that would go far toward deciding the status of the Confederate States. He was most earnest on this subject, and I know that he made more than one trip to Richmond for the purpose of urging some such measure on President Davis, but he returned disappointed, and I remember after one trip he seemed entirely hopeless as to the outcome. Feeling, as he did, he would never avail himself of the many opportunities which offered, except to get such things as were prime necessities. In February, 1864, I returned to my school in Abbeville district. I drove away from the Chicora house on my way to the railroad, forty miles distant, leaving my father standing on the platform at the front door. That was my last sight of him. He died in April, 1864, and though I was written for, the mails and transportation were so slow that he was buried before I got home.
I returned to school after being at home a few