It stands alone, on the north side of the road, and is, indeed, a curiosity.
It appears to be a concretion of the soil around, being composed of precisely similar material; or the soil may be disintegrated rocks of a similar character. In its sides are cavities from which large pebbles have apparently fallen, and also furrows as if made by rains. Its height above the ground is about twelve feet; its form suggested its name.
I reached the Lancaster and Camden high-way at noon, and, on inquiry, ascertained that the celebrated Hanging Rock, near which Sumter and his companions fought a desperate battle, was about a mile and a half eastward. Thither I went immediately, notwithstanding the temptation of a good dinner, freely offered, was before me, for I desired to get as far on toward Camden, that night, as possible. The roads were now generally sandy, and in many places soft and difficult to travel, making progress slow. Along a by-road, across the high rolling plain upon which (at Coles's Old Field) tradition avers the hottest of the battle was fought, I rode to the brow of a deep narrow valley, through which courses Hanging Rock Creek, one of the head waters of Lynch's Creek, the western branch of the Great Pedee. The mingled sound of falling waters and grinding mill-stones came up from the deep furrow, while from a small cabin by the road side, upon the verge of the steep bank, I heard a broken melody. Alighting, I entered the cabin, and there sat an aged negro dining upon hoe-cake and bacon, and humming a refrain, he was the miller. His hair was as white with the frost of years, as his coarse garb was with flour. To my question respecting his family, he said, shaking his bowed head, "Ah, massa! I lives all alone now; tree years ago dey sole my wife, and she's gone to Mississippi. Hab to bake my own hoe-cake now. But neber mind; needn't work 'less I'm a mind too; 'nough to eat, and pretty soon I die?" He told me that he was more than eighty years old, and remembered seeing "de red coats scamper when Massa Sumter and Jacky M'Clure pitched into 'em." Pointing to the celebrated Hanging Rock upon the opposite side of the stream, "Dar," he said, "a heap o' red coats sleep de night afore de battle, and dar I hid de night arter." From
The Hanging Rock.—Disposition of Troops there.—Preliminary Skirmish.—Sumter's Attack.
the venerable slave, whose memory appeared unclouded, I learned the location of several points mentioned in the accounts of the engagement.
Leaving Charley to dine upon the verge of the stream, I proceeded to Hanging Rock, of whose immensity I had heard frequent mention.
It is a huge conglomerate bowlder, twenty or thirty feet in diameter, lying upon the verge of the high east bank of the creek, nearly a hundred feet above the stream. Around it are several smaller bowlders of the same materials. It is shelving toward the bank, its concavity being in the form of the quarter of an orange paring, and capacious enough to shelter fifty men from rain. Beneath its canopy, let us turn to the record of history.