Chapter II: Part 2

We lived in a cabin of two rooms not more than twelve by fifteen feet, for whenever my husband was stationed at any special hospital he would tell the convalescent patients that if they would put up a little log cabin he would send for me. The officers would have their tents stationed around our little cabin and we had some pleasant times, though many anxious ones, for we never knew when we would be obliged to flee. Thus I experienced the pleasures and terrors of camp life. Your great-aunt Agnes, whom you met at the South as an old lady, was then a young lady visiting us. She was a beautiful girl with a voice like a bird. She was a great favorite with the officers and married Colonel Colcock, who was acting brigadier general of the coast. The time for her wedding was appointed and invitations sent out for a country wedding. The day came, and hour after hour we heard heavy cannonading. We knew a battle was being fought near us, but could learn no particulars. Evening came, and the wedding guests assembled, but no groom arrived. There was great uneasiness among the guests, and I persuaded Agnes to change her gown and come downstairs to see if her presence would not cheer the party. Although filled with anxiety herself, she followed my persuasion and behaved most admirably, but we had the wedding feast served as soon as possible, and the guests quickly departed. Everyone was anxious, and at two o'clock in the morning we heard the galloping of horses beneath the windows and a soldier called to us that he had some dispatches for us.

It proved as we thought; there had been fighting all day and Colonel Colcock was not wounded, but would come as soon as possible. Two days afterwards he appeared in the morning and brought a minister with him. He and Agnes were married at once, and he took his bride away with him; not to the camp, but to a place where she would be more comfortable, and he could sometimes see her. Their bridal trip was spent within fortifications along the coast.

Those were days of constant excitement and unrest, as you can well imagine. Husbands and sons were all away, giving their lives in defense of their "hearth fires." The trusted negroes were our only protection and they took every care of us.

I well remember a scene that occurred about this time of the war. My youngest brother was a prisoner near Old Point Comfort, and finally received his liberty through the kindness of a fellow Southern soldier. They had been in prison six months together suffering all the hardships of prison life during war. Many times starvation stared them in the face, and upon some of the prisoners the death penalty was inflicted when the men playing together would accidentally slip over the so-called "death line." My brother was only about nineteen and the Benjamin of our family. The soldier with him had consumption and could live only a short time. He came to my brother and said he was going to be released because they knew he would soon die. He then offered to change clothes with my brother and take his place and name, thus letting my brother go free while he remained in prison.

I heard one day cries of joy and great excitement among the negroes; hurrying to the back piazza I saw about fifty darkies, men and women crowded together bearing my brother on their shoulders, "Massa Luther, Massa's youngest boy, God bless him, God bless him," they shouted.

You can imagine the scene. We hastened down to join in the jubilation, but father and mother could scarcely get near their son, as the servants had taken complete possession of him.

When they finally made way for the master and mistress, my parents found that my brother's condition was such that he could not come into the house; he was covered with vermin. He was taken to an outhouse where he bathed, and his clothing was burned. Then he told us of his many adventures and his hard time in prison, where he would indeed have starved had it not been for kind friends at the North, who sent him money which enabled him to buy food, and he told us of the great sacrifice the Southern soldier had made for him. My father immediately forwarded a check for a thousand dollars to the poor family whose husband and father never returned to them.

Another war incident in our family was that connected with a brother's son. At the early age of fifteen, he ran away to go into the Southern army. His mother could not make him return, so she called a young colored man, who was a devoted servant of the family, to her and said to him, "John, go with your young master, and whatever happens to him, bring him back to me, wounded or dead, bring him back to me."

This young man's bravery made him known throughout the regiment. He was finally wounded, and died in North Carolina in a hospital, John never leaving him. After his death, John put him in a pine coffin roughly knocked together and started home with him. In the month of August the devoted servant reached his mistress, having been two weeks on the way. He would tell his story and beg for help to take his young master home, according to his promise to his mistress.

In spite of many misrepresentations by those who can never comprehend the tender attachment existing in those days between master and slave, I want you to have a clear idea of it, and I want you to know that the Southerner understood, and understands to this day, the negro's character better than the Northerner, and is in the main kinder to, and more forbearing with him. There were countless incidents during the war of love and loyalty shown by the negroes to their former owners, which you will read of in the many stories written now by those who know the truth.

The year 1864, in the month of December, found me still in the old homestead.

Sherman had passed on the Georgia side of the river, to Savannah, which was taken. We wondered what would be his next move, but never for an instant thought he would retrace his steps, and go through South Carolina.

The Southern troops which had guarded Savannah retreated to our neighborhood, and we cared for them for several weeks. There were at least five thousand troops on our plantation of nine thousand acres. Barbecues of whole beeves, hogs, and sheep were ordered for them. The officers were fed in the house, there being sometimes two hundred a day. The soldiers had their meals in camp.

All planters in South Carolina were restricted by law in planting cotton. Only three acres were allowed to the negro worker, thus causing a large amount of corn and other such grain to be raised, because the Confederate Government wanted this to provide for the Southern army.

Thousands of bushels of corn could not be housed, but were harvested and left in pens in the fields. Father had ten thousand bushels of corn on our plantation.

We did not sell cotton during the war. For money we had no use, as everything was grown or manufactured on the plantation. We had a steam mill for sawing lumber, and mills for grinding corn and wheat. Sugar was made in quantities for negroes, but there was no way of refining it.

Everything was bountiful and we lacked nothing, but coffee and tea. Every known and unknown substitute was used for these drinks, but none were satisfactory; otherwise we never lived with greater abundance.

Our swamps yielded us all game bountifully, venison, wild turkeys, partridges, and reed birds. It was a rich country and could feed an army.

I met and conversed with many of the chief officers, and consulted them about the advisability of sending my father, who was then seventy years of age, away from his home. The officers urged us to do so, as they feared the Northern army would invade our State and township. So very reluctantly father and mother left their loved home, which they were destined never to see again. They went to live with a married daughter, who had a home in an adjoining county. Some of their negroes pleaded to go with them, and about fifty followed with wagons filled with their effects.

It was a wise provision that father was spared the sight of the destruction of his house and property, and possibly personal violence from the hands of the Northern soldiers, for during the raid, my uncle, an old man who was reputed to be wealthy was asked by the soldiers where he had buried his gold; and twice was he hung by them and cut down when unconscious, because he would not confess its hiding place. My child, he had no gold, his wealth lay in his land and negroes.

Shortly after father and mother's departure, one morning, early, the remaining negroes came running to the house in a state of wild excitement, and said that Sherman's army was crossing the Savannah River at the next landing below my father's. I was picking oranges when the news came. Green oranges, blossoms, and ripe fruit all hung together on the tree. It was a favorite tree grown to an unusual size by the care given it, as it was always protected in winter. I have only to close my eyes at any time and see plainly the beautiful tree in all its glory of fruit and flower. We had picked from it that day a thousand oranges, the most luscious fruit, but they were left for Sherman's army to devour, for we were thrown into a panic by the news the negroes brought us, and hastily got into our carriages and fled. The negroes followed us in wagons, and we left our lovely home as if we had gone for a drive.

Our flight has always reminded me of Jacob's going down into Egypt, a caravan of people, for as we fled we first took with us our dear father and mother, then as the panic spread, one married daughter with all her children joined us, and then another, until we finally numbered about forty persons journeying northward. In order that you may understand how our numbers increased so rapidly, I must tell you that father gave each of his children at marriage a plantation with negroes and a house. These homes were in an adjoining county, that of Barnwell, and as we passed through this county different members of the family would join us.

On the second day of our journey your mother was taken with a sore throat and high fever, and as we had no bed to lay her on we took turns in holding her in our arms. Thus we traveled to the upper part of the State fleeing from the army of invaders at whose hands we expected no mercy of any kind.

An old school friend of mine, Georgiana Dargan, daughter of the Chancellor of South Carolina, had written me repeatedly during the war to come to her. She had never married and lived in a large Southern colonial mansion situated on a beautiful estate. We, in our need, thought of her and pushed on, hoping she could receive us all. We were not disappointed, the house was thrown open to us and we received a warm welcome.

It was a strange fate that Sherman followed us in our flight passing through Columbia and within ten miles of us. His scouts came in and stole all our horses, except a few which we had time to hide in the swamps. The soldiers ordered many of the negroes, choosing the best young men, to mount the horses and go with them. All of them returned to us that night; they had broken away from camp, but were on foot. But let me tell you here, Sherman's army burned Columbia. He denied it, but we know he did it for my husband's sister, Mrs. Thomas Clarkson, who lived there, was ill, and the soldiers lifted her out of bed and laid her in the street while the torch was put to her home. Then, too, only three years ago, the burning of Columbia was admitted to me by a Northern general, General Howard. These were his words: "Sherman did not burn Columbia, but I am sorry to say his troops did." They got hold of liquor and so became mercilessly destructive. Sherman may not have given the order, but he was undoubtedly responsible for the plunder and destruction engaged in by those under his command. The people of Columbia were left without shelter or food, "Only women and children to wage war against," as a venerable judge, Judge William De Saussure, an uncle of Dr. De Saussure, told Sherman in pleading for clemency.

We were about fifty miles above Columbia, and as the army passed us they went on to Cheraw, a town lying on the northern border of South Carolina, forty miles above us.

There your great-grandfather De Saussure, who was an old man, had fled from his home in Charleston with his five daughters. In a few days news was brought us that Cheraw had been burned, and everybody was starving.

I was naturally eager to go to the assistance of my husband's people, and I went to one of my sisters-in-law asking her if she would be willing to accompany me to Cheraw, a drive of forty miles. She said she would go with me. Joe, my butler, to whom I was very much attached, agreed to drive us. We borrowed a pair of mules and started in the early morning with corn meal and bacon and flour for my husband's people. We had driven only a few miles when we came to the road passed over by Sherman only four days before. Such sights as we beheld along that road; dead horses, disemboweled cattle, dead dogs, and as it was in spring they were all decomposed because of our hot climate. At every turn of the road we expected to meet outriders from the Northern army. It was a day of great fatigue and fear. Our mules were lazy and would not move out of a walk. Joe mounted one of them, and strove in vain to urge them on faster.

The day seemed endless to us, but the hours wore on, and the sun was just setting as we crawled up a final hill, when we were startled by seeing a number of men on horseback approaching, who we were sure were soldiers. My heart sank, for I expected our carriage would be confiscated as well as the mules, and we left to spend the night unprotected in the woods.

As the horsemen drew nearer, I saw to my joy that there was a mixture of blue and gray uniforms. The men were evidently of our army, for Southerners often wore at this stage of the war any kind of clothing they could get hold of to cover them. One of the officers rode up to us, and to my great surprise and delight, I found he was Major Colcock, whom I well knew, as he was a brother of Colonel Colcock, sister Agnes's husband.

Our surprise was mutual. He exclaimed, "Why Mrs. De Saussure, what are you doing here?" I replied, "Trying to reach Cheraw to take provisions in to the aid of my husband's father and sisters."

"To Cheraw," he exclaimed, "a most difficult journey, madam; the roads are in a dreadful condition and the little flat boat that crosses the river is in such demand I doubt if you can get it."

"I will not turn back, Major Colcock," I replied. "I must go on." So we parted, he going his way and I mine.

After two hours of weary travel, we reached the river and were fortunate in finding the boat could carry us over the river. We crossed and reached the town of Cheraw at ten o'clock at night. A scene of desolation greeted my eyes the next morning; all the public buildings had been burned, houses alone were standing amid desolate surroundings. The De Saussure family and others had been living on scorched rice and corn, scraped from the ashes. Officers as well as soldiers had gone into houses and taken all food that could be found and burned it in the yards of the various houses; leaving the women and children to starve. My beautiful harp, which after cutting the strings, I had sent to Cheraw for safety in care of Mr. De Saussure, had narrowly escaped being taken by some officers. They asked to have the box opened for them, but Mr. De Saussure told them the harp was out of order, so they passed it by. My harp was safe, but your great-aunt Agnes was not so fortunate with her piano. It was a gift from her father when she left school, and a beautiful Steinway. When she married Colonel Colcock, he said to her: "Ship your piano to Charleston; it will be safer there than in the country." Colonel Colcock was from Charleston and had relatives to whom he wrote asking them to care for the piano, when it arrived. It reached Charleston just about the time the city fell into the hands of the enemy. Colonel Colcock's uncle went down to the station to get it, when he learned that an officer had taken it and shipped it off to the North.

Twenty years after the war, this notice published in the _News and Courier_ of Charleston was sent me from different parts of the South:

NOTICE

A RELIC OF THE WAR

Miss Nannie Bostick's Music Book in the
Hands of a Federal Soldier.

To the editor of the _News and Courier_: Will you insert the following in your paper, as it will be of benefit to one of South Carolina's ladies:

If Miss Nannie Bostick will communicate with Captain James B. Rife, Middletown, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, she will learn something to her advantage.

I have in my possession a music book which was captured or stolen by some one during the war, and I would like to return it to her if she still lives. By so doing you will greatly oblige,

Yours very truly, JAS. B. RIFE,
Late Capt. U. S. A.

MIDDLETOWN, DAUPHIN COUNTY, PA.,
January 26, 1889.

The Miss Nannie Bostick above referred to afterwards married Dr. Henry De Saussure, of this city. After his death she was for a long time employed as an instructor at Vassar College, N. Y., and is now a resident of Brooklyn. The home of Colonel Bostick, the father of Mrs. De Saussure, on Black Swamp, in Beaufort (now Hampton) County, was burned by General Sherman's army in the grand "march to the sea."

On reading it I was of course, much excited and wrote immediately to the gentleman in Meadsville, telling him I was the person he was looking for. I waited three weeks most anxiously, and then received a letter from his sister saying that for years her brother had been trying to find me, and that he had something to tell me which was communicated to him by a dying soldier. The sister further wrote that her brother had advertised in New York and Southern papers before, and the cause of his doing so again was that a young niece visiting them, in looking over some old books had come across a music book with my name on it. She went with it into his room, and said, "Uncle, who is Miss Nannie W. Bostick?"

He sprang from his chair exclaiming, "What do you know about her?"

When he learned that she knew nothing and had merely seen my name on the old music book, he said, "I will try once more to find her," and sent off the notice to the _News and Courier_ of Charleston.

As fate would have it the next day, on his way to Harrisburg to make arrangements for a Cleveland procession, his horse took fright from a trolley car, and in the accident he was instantly killed.

The music book was returned to me by his sister, but whatever the secret was that he had carried so many years, it died with him, for no one else knew it.

After his death his sister asked me to visit her. She said my name was so often on her brother's lips, and she only knew he wanted to communicate something of importance, but what it was he had never told her. He was a prominent man in the army. She sent me his photograph and the notice of his death.

You can imagine this incident brought back many memories. What could have been the dying soldier's communication that Captain Rife wished so much to tell me, and which he never intrusted to any other member of his family? And where had this very heavy, old music book, in his possession, been found? My sisters, when I met them, talked the matter over with me, and Agnes said: "I remember putting a lot of books, among them some of yours, with my piano to pack it tightly." When it was shipped North the book was found with the piano, as I have since ascertained.

We wondered that the music book had ever come back to me, its rightful owner, but since I have lived at the North, even family Bibles, which were taken from the old homes, have been returned to me. Looting was the order of the day during the Civil War, and wanton destruction followed.

I once went South with old Captain Berry, who for twenty years had charge of a steamer plying between Charleston and New York. Your mamma and myself were the only ladies on board, as the time was in July when the tide of travel was northward. The officers of the steamer were exceedingly kind to us, and told us many interesting stories of their seafaring lives.

Captain Berry told me of a trip he made from New Orleans to New York, when General Ben Butler was there in command. A division of the army was being transferred and Captain Berry said that besides soldiers the vessel was laden with all kinds of handsome furniture, with pictures, pianos, and trunks filled with women's clothing, from a lady's bonnet to slippers. That division of the army which Captain Berry was bringing North belonged to one of the generals under Butler's command.

The vessel was laden, the last soldier had stepped aboard, when just before the gangplank was lowered, a jet-black pony was hurried aboard, a perfect beauty. Then a lady was seen rapidly riding along the wharf; she quickly jumped from her horse, and went on board inquiring for the general; when he was pointed out to her she stepped up to him and said: "General ----, you have taken my husband's last gift to his little boy, the pony; I have come to ask you to return him to me." The general turned a deaf ear to her request, and as he did so, she drew her whip across his face with a stinging lash. Had he lifted his finger to her in return, Captain Berry said, the soldiers would have shot him dead.

During that trip North in the silence of the night, the soldiers went down into the hold of the vessel, opened every box, cut strings on pianos, ruined pictures and other things with ashes and water, then nailed up every box carefully and put it in place again. This was done by the Northern soldiers on board who knew of and resented the wrong done to the people of New Orleans. The poor little pony never reached his destination, for he was found dead the next morning; a mysterious death, but the soldiers knew, and had had a hand in his taking off. Thus they avenged the lady to whom their sympathy had gone out.

Captain Berry was a Northern man, but his frequent visits to Charleston had thrown him into intimate relations with the Southern people and he admired them greatly.

We spent six months, from December, 1864, until June, 1865, at Darlington, our place of retreat. It was a hard winter; food was scarce, and little but the coarsest kind could be bought.

By spring we had grown hopeless, and well I remember that while walking in the garden some one called out to me, "The war is over, Lee has surrendered." My feelings were tumultuous; joy and sorrow strove with each other. Joy in the hope of having my husband and the brothers and friends who were left, return to me, but oh, such sorrow over our defeat!

In the course of time, the men of our family returned with the exception of your great-uncle Edward, my brother, who had gone through the war, but was finally killed in the last two weeks of fighting around Petersburg, Va.

As one after another of the family came back to us, worn out and dispirited, our thoughts turned to the dear old home on the Savannah River, and we longed to go back. Before yielding to our desires, it was considered wise for the men of the family to go first and investigate. They found only ashes and ruin everywhere in our neighborhood, and father's place, except a few negro cabins, was burned to the ground. There were thirty buildings destroyed.

The steam mill, blacksmith's shop, carpenter's shop, barns, and house--nothing was left standing except chimney and brick walls to mark the place of our once prosperous, happy home. There was but one fence paling to indicate the site of our little village. The church, too, was burned, and now negro cabins are standing where it once graced the landscape. Our beautiful lawns were plowed up and planted in potatoes and corn by the negroes, who were told we would never return.

Sherman left a track of fire for three hundred miles through the State. When you hear the war song "Marching through Georgia," which stirs the hearts of the Northerner, think of the scenes of desolation and heartbreak the song recalls to the Southerner.

When I left my own home in Robertville, I took the daguerreotypes of my old schoolmates, Northern girls, of whom I was fond, and opening the clasps I stood them all in a row on the mantel, hoping that should some commander find among them the face of a relative, he would spare the house for the sake of friendship. It was a vain hope, for my lovely house was destroyed with all the others. However, a soldier, brother of one of the girls, did find among the pictures the likeness of his sister and he wrote me after the war about thus seeing amid the roar of battle the likeness of his angel sister, for she was then dead.

You will often hear of the "reconstruction period," the period when the situation had to be faced by the beaten Southerner, and everything had to be managed on a new and strange basis. That period in my life had now come, for we all resolved to return home and do the best we could with what we had left.

Father had loaned the Confederate Government fifty horses and mules; twenty-five were returned to him, good, bad, and indifferent. We took the journey home by the aid of these animals, and our carriage was drawn by one large "raw-boned" horse helped by a little pony. We camped out at night, and drove all day. Sometimes we were able to get shelter for our parents. It was very rough traveling; the roads were destroyed, and trees had been cut down blocking the way. We finally reached the only house left standing near our former home, at eleven o'clock at night, after ten days of travel. This house was far off from all plantations, situated in a pine forest. It was used by our family for a summer retreat. It had large airy rooms; one measuring twenty-five feet, and one fifty feet. In this house, bereft of all its furniture, our family gathered. We found our negroes scattered and completely demoralized.

Starvation seemed imminent. The men of our family went to work to cut timber, to be shipped to Savannah on rafts. In the meantime, before we could expect any monetary return from this industry, what else could we do to better our condition? was the question we asked one another.

One of my brother's former negroes came to me and said, "I think you could make money by baking pies and bread for the colored Northern troops."

Those soldiers were quartered on my father's plantation. My dear, war was nothing compared to the horrors of that reconstruction period. For six months we never went to bed without bidding one another good-by, not expecting to be alive the next morning. We sold our jewelry, all that was left, to the soldiers, and they would come to the house, march around it with bayonets drawn, and curse us with the vilest oaths. We would gather the little ones around us, bar the door, and wait, for we knew not what.

When you are old enough, Dorothy, dear, read "The Leopard's Spots," which gives a better description of what we endured, than I ever can write.

However, we needed money to buy food with. I, therefore, set to work making bread, and any number of green-apple pies. Tom, a negro, built us a clay oven and we secured a negro's service for the baking; I got up at four o'clock in the morning, and by ten o'clock Tom was off with the pony and wagon, to sell articles for us. We had enough to live on, but no meat except bacon.

By request of every white person the Government removed the colored troops six months after the war, and sent white troops in their place.

Poor grandpa would sit all day with bowed head and say over and over, "My poor daughters, my poor daughters." We tried to appear brave and cheerful and would say in reply, "Why we can manage; do not trouble about us." But father's heart was broken and though he appeared well, he instinctively felt that his days were numbered and asked to have our former pastor called.

When the minister came, we and some neighbors gathered together in a little supply store that was "thrown up" after the war, and there we stood, or sat on the counters, during service. It was a touching scene. Your mother was a little girl of five years, and she feeling the sadness of it all, wept through the whole service. Father gathered her in his arms and tenderly wiped her tears away.

As service closed an old church member and father advanced to shake hands with each other saying simultaneously: "We shall drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until we drink in our Father's Kingdom."

It seemed in the nature of a prediction, for three days afterwards father passed peacefully away, without apparent illness.

Mother lived until her eighty-seventh year, weary, sad years for her. She lived with her children, but none were able to make her comfortable. Poverty reigned everywhere, and still exists in that once luxurious country. We thanked God that father had not to endure, for long, the sight of our want and distress. Before he died, however, we left the large house in which we first took refuge, and started housekeeping separately in outhouses or cabins in the pinelands, which were formerly used for storerooms, kitchens, laundries, etc.

We fitted up one of these cabins as comfortably as we could for father's and mother's use, and in another little house situated about three and a half miles from them, I lived a while with your mamma and Dr. De Saussure. In this little house we had to endure great hardships for many years, and led the most desolate lives.

Your precious mother was our only comfort; she was always happy. She had few books, no school, and as my husband was an invalid, he was often too ill to see her, or to be left alone. She would study her lessons and sit outside the door of his darkened room, and when I could leave him she would recite to me what she had learned.

Another time we lived in a little cabin, part of which was curtained off for the accommodation of a sister of Dr. De Saussure's and her baby. Our kitchen stove was under an open shed built against the side of the house. Heavy rain would flow over the dirt floor, and remain standing several inches deep.

At this time your mother's one delight was her pony Brownie. She would drive the cows up from the swamps, and Brownie soon learned to give them a bite on their backs when they stopped to graze.

"Jeff Davis" was also a great pet; he was a young calf we never allowed to leave the yard for fear the negroes would take him. Poor Jeff was sacrificed for food, but your mother's heart was broken for her pet, and she could not be induced to taste any portion of the meat.

Before I undertook to make pies and bread for the colored troops, and when we were very hard pressed, as I said before, I went and spent a night with my parents. My adopted sister, the housekeeper of whom I told you, called me out of the house and taking me some distance away so we could not be heard by them, said: "We have but a pint of corn meal in the house, and if I cook that for our supper I have nothing to give father and mother for breakfast." We cried together, and wondered what we could do. One of our negro men from the plantation approached me and said, "Miss Nancy" (they called me by that name, and the grandchildren of our old negroes still use it), "the steamboat has just landed at the dock, and there are lots of boxes for you." Amazed, I exclaimed, "Why, who has sent me anything?" I looked then upon all Northern friends as enemies. I had not heard from any of them in years; the war had separated us. I told the man to take a cart and hasten to the dock. He returned laden. Still in amaze I had the boxes opened, wherein we found all sorts of provisions: hams, sugar, tea, coffee, crackers, etc., etc., and better than all a letter from a gentleman, who wrote that he had read in the papers of the great distress of Southern people; he knew nothing of my condition, but judged of it by what he read of the pitiful state of others, and he wished me to draw whatever amount we needed from his agent in Savannah to relieve our necessities. To me the heavens had opened and from them came these gifts. I saw in this relief when we most needed help the kind care of our heavenly Father, who had put into the heart of this generous man to come to our assistance. We drew enough money to enable us to buy food and to begin work on our own place. With the account of my acquaintance with this gentleman my story will close.

He was an Englishman, who had settled with his family in the Bahamas. When I met him I was in my sixteenth year, and was on my way to school in Philadelphia. Agnes and three brothers were with me, one brother going to Princeton to finish his theological course, one to Lawrenceville to school, and the third to Colgate University.

On the steamer was this gentleman, taking his son to Philadelphia to school. My eldest brother became acquainted with him, and introduced him to me. It took much longer in those days to make the trip, the journey comprising three and a half to four days.

Agnes and I saw a great deal of the father, and the son was with my brother most of the time, so that when we reached Philadelphia, we felt well acquainted. Mr. Saunders, for that was the name of our new friend, said to my brother upon landing: "I shall be in Philadelphia a fortnight, or until my son becomes acquainted in the city. If you will allow me, I will be pleased to take your sisters driving with us, and show them the places of interest." Many pleasant drives we had together, and grew better acquainted each day.

At the end of his visit he came to bid us farewell, and said to me: "Miss Nannie, I have a request to make of you, will you grant it?" I replied, "If I can, I will gladly." He had often spoken of his elder son who was studying at Oxford, England, and he continued: "In two years my son will graduate, I want you to promise me that you will wait until you see him before engaging yourself to anyone." I laughingly promised him to wait the two years.

When I was seventeen years old I returned home. I had been there perhaps three years, when I went on a brief visit to a friend who lived about twenty miles away from us. My visit ended, I returned home, and as I drove up to the door, my young brother ran out to meet me and said, "Guess who is here to see you," and when I failed in guessing he said, "Mr. Saunders's son."

I then met the young gentleman, a handsome, fine young man, who brought letters of introduction from leading men in his own home, and one from his father, who wrote that he had not forgotten my promise to him, but that he had been delayed in fulfilling his desire in having us meet by his son's failing to find me.

He had lost the address of my home, and thinking Charleston the nearest town, his son was sent there to inquire for us. The next winter he sent him to Savannah to find me, and from there the young man was directed to my father's home.

Mr. Saunders wrote that it had been his dearest wish to have me for his daughter, and he had talked so much to his son about me that he was quite willing to fall in with his father's wishes in the matter.

In the meantime I had met your grandfather, and had decided that I would marry him, or no one. My father was bitterly opposed to my marrying at all, as he did not want to part with me, and therefore, I was waiting until he gave his consent.

We made Mr. Saunders's visit as pleasant as possible, and I told him at once of my affection for your grandfather, as I did not wish to deceive him.

The young man spent some weeks with us, and upon his return home I received another letter from his father saying he could not give up his cherished hope of having me for a daughter, and as his son had fallen in love with me, he hoped I would reconsider my decision. At the same time his son wrote of his attachment, offering himself to me. But it was useless to urge me, and though I felt grateful to be looked upon with so much affection I declined the offer.

This was the beginning of a very remarkable friendship which sprang up between the father and myself.

Upon receipt of the letter expressing myself as steadfast to Dr. De Saussure, he wrote in reply asking that he might consider himself as a father, and to me and your mother, who always called him grandfather, he was like a father.

During the latter part of the war, I wrote to him asking if he would receive cotton through the blockade and arrange to send us in return many necessary things. We were without shoes, and were wearing clothes made from our gay silk dresses carded up and spun with cotton, thus woven into cloth by our own people. We then had an abundance of food, but other things were not to be bought. In reply he said: "Do not send your cotton, you will run a double risk; I will send you all you need, for I have more than enough for my family and yours."

Never dreaming we would ever be in a position where we could not repay Mr. Saunders, I wrote to him and sent a list of needed articles, pieces of linen, merino, and silk, and stockings and shoes for us all. He sent us two thousand dollars worth of goods in gold value, thus generously supplying every child and grandchild in our family with clothes.

Alas for us, the war ended disastrously, and forgetting all he had previously done for me and mine, he now sent money and provisions to aid us, which help arrived in our darkest hour.

I am glad to tell you that these debts were paid, though it took us years to do it.

Until Mr. Saunders's death, we corresponded regularly, and fifteen years after the war he came to see me at Vassar College, for after your grandfather's death, I came North with your darling mother who was fifteen years of age, and went first to Philadelphia, placing her in the same school where I had been educated, with the same principals still in charge, the Misses Bonney and Dillaye. I kept house in Philadelphia in a quiet way in two rooms, and had been there two years when I learned that the gentleman whom your grandfather had left in charge of my affairs had speculated and lost every cent I had in the world.

Immediately I tried to find some work by which I could support your mother and myself, and through one of my former teachers, Miss Morse, who was then assistant to Dr. Raymond of Vassar College, I was offered the position of assistant principal. There I remained for five years. While at Vassar your mother took up a special course at the College and graduated from the Art Department.

One day my dear old friend Mr. Saunders was announced. The last time we met, I was fifteen and he forty-five years old. This latter meeting took place twenty-five years later. It was a sad meeting for both of us. He had lost most of his property, and was comparatively poor. He took me in his arms and said; "My child, if I were able to take care of you and your daughter you would not be here one minute, for I would take you home with me and take care of you both." The last letter I received from him said: "I am nearly home and when I get there I shall watch for your coming."

ADDENDUM

BEAUFORT, S. C., January 8, 1906.

MY DEAR AUNT NANNIE:

I fear you have by this time lost all hope of hearing from me, but I have not forgotten my promise. I am afraid, however, you will be very much disappointed, as I have so little information to give about family history, and that little is very scrappy. Our branch of the family have been criminally careless about preserving records.

While I have not what we lawyers would consider strict evidence of the fact, still I am quite satisfied from circumstances and inferences, which I shall not undertake in this letter to detail, that our family and the Northern family of Bostick were one and the same. Our American progenitor landed in Plymouth, Mass., sometime about the middle of the seventeenth century, coming from Chester County, England, and being probably a political refugee. His wife also came with him from England. In England the family history was both ancient and distinguished, the founder landing on English soil with William the Conqueror, in whose service he was of distinguished rank, both military and social. In England he became one of the barons of the realm. The title remained for centuries in the family, and may be still in existence, and has been adorned by many distinguished representatives in the English wars especially. The original stock in Massachusetts seems to have migrated, mine northward and some gradually drifting southward. The intermediate links I cannot supply, but finally these brothers settled, two in Carolina, the youngest being our great-grandfather Richard, and one in Georgia. In Jones's history of Georgia mention is made of Captain Littlebury Bostick, a wealthy rice planter near Savannah. He, I think, was the brother, or son of the brother who settled in Georgia. Richard was the youngest of the three. The other brother, John, bought a large landed estate near Columbia on which he lived and died quite an old man. During his life he maintained the style and reputation of a man of great wealth, but at his death it was found that his affairs were financially involved. He never married, but was known as a cultured man of decidedly literary tastes, and was a leading figure in the social life of his section. His most intimate friend was General Hampton, father of the Confederate general of same name.

Richard settled in old Blackswamp, where he married three times, the last two wives being sisters, both Roberts. The last, first married Singleton, and at his death our ancestor. By the last marriage there were no children; by the second marriage to Miss Robert, we are descended through your father Benjamin Robert Bostick; by the first marriage the other Blackswamp Bosticks are descended.

I have not a copy of the Bostick coat of arms, but the motto is "Always ready to serve," bestowed, or adopted, I presume, in recognition of their martial spirit exhibited on many great battlefields. The Robert family, of whom your grandmother was a member, settled in Sumter. The progenitor, Rev. Pierre Robert, led a colony of Huguenot refugees from France. Many other Huguenot families in the State claim descent on maternal lines from him. He seems to have been a man of wealth and ancient lineage. I have a copy of the French coat of arms.

Your mother, who was a Maner, came of no less distinguished line. They were of Welsh descent, and probably more remotely of Norman French descent, as the progenitor was Lord de Maner.

Grandma's mother was a May from an old Dutch family. The original May came to Charleston, and founded the first large importing house (tea chiefly) in copartnership with the famous Dutchman, Admiral Gillon.

I presume you know, of course, that your great-grandfather, William Maner, and his brother Samuel were both captains in the famous Marion Brigade in the Revolution. Your grandfather was a captain at eighteen years of age.

I may mention also, that grandma's mother, who was a May, was on her maternal side a daughter of an English Colonel Stafford. The English Staffords are also of ancient stock, I believe.

I am afraid the foregoing very meager account of the family connections will give you very little that you do not know already. While I have stated the main features of the family history, as I know them, the statement is very general. If you desire more of detail with reference to any individual or any part of the family history, I may be able to give you a little more, and will take pleasure in answering any inquiries on this line. I have had to write this very hastily.

With love from us all, I remain,

Affectionately,

A. MCIVER BOSTICK.

End of Project Gutenberg's Old Plantation Days, by Mrs. N. B. De Saussure