The Beaufort District is not invested with any considerable Revolutionary romance. In 1779, the British forces holding Savannah sent two hundred troops with a howitzer and two field-pieces to Beaufort. Four companies of militia from Charleston with two field-pieces, reinforced by a few volunteers from Beaufort, repulsed and drove them off. The British made marauding incursions from Charleston in 1782, and are said to have levied a military contribution on St. Helena and Port Royal Islands.
There are the remains of Indian mounds and ancient forts on the islands. One of these last, it is said, can be traced on Paris Island, and is claimed by some antiquaries to be the Charles Fort built by Ribault. There are the well-preserved walls of one upon the plantation of John J. Smith on Port Royal Island, a few miles south of Beaufort, now called Camp Saxton, and recently occupied by Colonel Higginson's regiment. It is built of cemented oyster-shells. Common remark refers to it as a Spanish fort, but it is likely to be of English construction. The site of Charles Fort is claimed for Beaufort, Lemon Island, Paris Island, and other points.
The Sea Islands are formed by the intersection of the creeks and arms of the sea. They have a uniform level, are without any stones, and present a rather monotonous and uninteresting scenery, spite of the raptures of French explorers. The creeks run up into the islands at numerous points, affording facilities for transportation by flats and boats to the buildings which are usually near them. The soil is of a light, sandy mould, and yields in the best seasons a very moderate crop, say fifteen bushels of corn and one hundred or one hundred and thirty pounds of ginned cotton to the acre,—quite different from the plantations in Mississippi and Texas, where an acre produces five or six hundred pounds. The soil is not rich enough for the cultivated grasses, and one finds but little turf. The coarse saline grasses, gathered in stacks, furnish the chief material for manure. The long-fibred cotton peculiar to the region is the result of the climate, which is affected by the action of the salt water upon the atmosphere by means of the creeks which permeate the land in all directions. The seed of this cotton, planted on the upland, will produce in a few years the cotton of coarser texture; and the seed of the latter, planted on the islands, will in a like period produce the finer staple. The Treasury Department secured eleven hundred thousand pounds from the islands occupied by our forces, including Edisto, being the crop, mostly unginned, and gathered in storehouses, when our military occupation began.
The characteristic trees are the live-oak, its wood almost as heavy as lignum-vitæ, the trunk not high, but sometimes five or six feet in diameter, and extending its crooked branches far over the land, with the long, pendulous, funereal moss adhering to them,—and the palmetto, shooting up its long, spongy stem thirty or forty feet, unrelieved by [pg 301] vines or branches, with a disproportionately small cap of leaves at the summit, the most ungainly of trees, albeit it gives a name and coat-of-arms to the State. Besides these, are the pine, the red and white oak, the cedar, the bay, the gum, the maple, and the ash. The soil is luxuriant with an undergrowth of impenetrable vines. These interlacing the trees, supported also by shrubs, of which the cassena is the most distinguished variety, and faced with ditches, make the prevailing fences of the plantations. The hedges are adorned in March and April with the yellow jessamine, (jelseminum,)—the cross-vine (bignonia,) with its mass of rich red blossoms,—the Cherokee rose, (loevigata,) spreading out in long waving wreaths of white,—and, two months later, the palmetto royal, (yucca gloriosa,) which protects the fence with its prickly leaves, and delights the eyes with its pyramid-like clusters of white flowers. Some of these trees and shrubs serve a utilitarian end in art and medicine. The live-oak is famous in shipbuilding. The palmetto, or cabbage-palmetto, as it is called, resists destruction by worms, and is used for facing wharves. It was employed to protect Fort Moultrie in 1776, when bombarded by the British fleet; and the cannon-balls were buried in its spongy substance. The moss (tillandsia usneoides) served to calk the rude vessel of the first French colonists, longing for home. It may be used for bedding after its life has been killed by boiling water, and for the subsistence of cattle when destitute of other food. The cassena is a powerful diuretic.
The game and fish, which are both abundant and of desirable kinds, and to the pursuit of which the planters were much addicted, are described in Eliot's book. Russell's "Diary" may also be consulted in relation to fishing for devil and drum.
The best dwellings in Beaufort are capacious, with a piazza on the first and second stories, through each of which runs a large hall to admit a free circulation of air. Only one, however, appeared to have been built under the supervision of a professional architect. Those on the plantations, designed for the planters or overseers, were, with a few exceptions, of a very mean character, and a thriving mechanic in New England would turn his back on them as unfit to live in. Their yards are without turf, having as their best feature a neighboring grove of orange-trees. One or two dwellings only appear to be ancient. Indeed, they are not well enough built to last long. The estates upon Edisto Island are of a more patrician character, and are occasionally surrounded by spacious flower-gardens and ornamental trees fancifully trimmed.
The names of the planters indicated mainly an English origin, although some may be traced to Huguenot families who sought a refuge here from the religious persecutions of France.
The deserted houses were generally found strewn with religious periodicals, mainly Baptist magazines. This characteristic of Southern life has been elsewhere observed in the progress of our army. Occasionally some book denouncing slavery as criminal and ruinous was found among those left behind. One of these was Hewatt's history of South Carolina, published in 1779, and reprinted in Carroll's collection. Another was Gregoire's vindication of the negro race and tribute to its distinguished examples, translated by Warden in 1810. These people seem, indeed, to have had light enough to see the infinite wrong of the system, and it is difficult to believe them entirely sincere in their passionate defence of it. Their very violence, when the moral basis of slavery is assailed, seems to be that of a man who distrusts the rightfulness of his daily conduct, has resolved to persist in it, and therefore hates most of all the prophet who comes to confront him for his misdeeds, and, if need be, to publish them to mankind.
Well-authenticated instances of cruelty to slaves were brought to notice without [pg 302] being sought for. The whipping-tree is now often pointed out, still showing the place where it was worn by the rope which bound the sufferer to it. On the plantation where my own quarters were was a woman who had been so beaten when approaching the trials of maternity as to crush out the life of the unborn child. But this planter had one daughter who looked with horror on the scenes of which she was the unwilling witness. She declared to her parents and sisters that it was hell to live in such a place. She was accustomed to advise the negroes how best to avoid being whipped. When the war began, she assured them that the story of the masters that the Yankees were going to send them to Cuba was all a lie. Surely a kind Providence will care for this noble girl! This war will, indeed, emancipate others than blacks from bonds which marriage and kindred have involved. But it is unpleasant to dwell on these painful scenes of the past, constant and authentic as they are; and they hardly concern the practical question which now presses for a solution. Nor in referring to them is there any need of injustice or exaggeration. Human nature has not the physical endurance or moral persistence to keep up a perpetual and universal cruelty; and there are fortunate slaves who never received a blow from their masters. Besides, there was less labor exacted and less discipline imposed on the loosely managed plantations of the Sea Islands than in other districts where slave-labor was better and more profitably organized and directed.