Fine Old Mansions Lined The River's Banks, But
The Families Had Been So Reduced By The Ravages
Of War, That I Saw Refined Ladies, Who Had Been
Educated In The Schools Of Edinburgh, Scotland,
Overseeing The Negroes As They Worked In The
Yards Of The Rice-Mills.
The undaunted spirit of
these southern ladies, as they worked in their
homes now so desolate, roused my admiration.
A light, graceful figure, enveloped in an old
shawl, and mounted on an old horse, flitted about
one plantation like a restless spirit.
"That lady's father," said a gentleman to me,
"owned three plantations, worth three millions
of dollars, before the war. There is a rice-mill
on one of the plantations which cost thirty
thousand dollars. She now fights against misfortune,
and will not give up. The Confederate war
would not have lasted six months if it had not
been for our women. They drove thousands of
us young men into the fight; and now, having
lost all, they go bravely to work, even taking the
places of their old servants in their grand old
homes. It's hard for them, though, I assure
you."
On Tuesday, January 25th, I paddled down the
Peedee, stopping at the plantations of Dr.
Weston and Colonel Benjamin Allston. The latter
gentleman was a son of one of the governors of
South Carolina. He kindly gave me a letter of
introduction to Commodore Richard Lowndes,
who lived near the coast. From the Peedee I
passed through a cut in the marshes into the
broad Waccamaw, and descended it to Winyah
Bay.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 213 of 310
Words from 58280 to 58542
of 84867
