Chapter 1 – Pen Pals
In 1856, political tensions were high in all 30 of the United States of America and its territories. Many issues were involved, including tariffs and the rural culture of the South versus the industrial population growth of the North. The tipping point of these other concerns was slavery. As territories applied to become states, decisions as to whether they would be admitted as “slave” or “free” become more and more divisive.
Neither Annie Proctor, living on a family farm in South Carolina, nor Sarah Barnes of rural Illinois had any idea of what changes those unresolved problems would bring to their lives and the lives of those tey loved.
Annie Proctor took a pen in hand, dipped the nib into the inkwell and struggled to write the words she wished she could say out loud to Sarah. As she began, she clumsily dropped a glob of ink onto the precious bit of paper and swiftly blotted it with sand. Then she wrote:
Dec. 1, 1856
Dear Sarah,
Your brother, Joshua Barnes, is my new teacher. He says I should write to you to help me practice my penmanship.
My name is Annie. I am 9 years old. We live on a farmstead in Marion District, S.C. Our post office is at Little Rock, about a mile away from our farm.
Professor Barnes says you live on a farm near a small town called Tioga in Illinois. He says you like to fish and wade in a nearby creek.
I don’t like to wade in the Little Pee Dee River. It's more like a swamp. Lots of snakes. Sometimes we do splash around in the spring branch near the house when my stepmother isn’t looking. She likes to keep the water clear for drinking and washing and gets upset when we muddy it.
Professor Barnes says you like to go to school. So do I, but not all the time. Last week, Fred Samson dipped one of my braids into an ink well. He made me so mad. Wish I had an older brother who would beat him up for me.
I’m the oldest of three girls. My little sister, Hattie, is 6. She’s the youngest student in this one-room schoolhouse.
Neil Tate is the oldest student here. He is growing a mustache and looks like a villain in a play. He is 15 years old and wants to quit school but his daddy says he has to get an education.
Neil says he hopes a war starts so he can go fight. He doesn’t come to school very often anyhow. He has to help his father with the farm.
Your brother says you help around the house. I do, too.
Do you like to cook? I do. I help our slave, Dilcy, all the time. I stir the kettle for her so the food doesn’t stick. I knead bread and wipe the washed dishes and sweep the floors.
My new stepmother says that on the big plantations along the coast, the mistresses don’t have to do much but out here on the smaller farms, everyone has to work hard. It takes a lot of work to feed a family with three children and four slaves like ours.
I’m reading “Treasure Island” now when I get time. What an exciting story.
My real mother died last year, not long after my little brother. I think her heart was broken when she lost her only boy.
I have been very sad since then. So has Hattie, although she doesn’t remember our mother very well.
Our father, Aaron Proctor, has remarried. His new wife’s name is Harriet but she says we should call her Mother. She’s nice but I still miss my real mother.
I hope to hear from you soon. Professor Barnes says Illinois is a long way from here so it may take a while before I receive an answer from you.
Your friend (I hope)
Annie Proctor
P.S., Your brother helped me with the words to write this letter. But it still took me most of the afternoon to finish.
Professor Barnes smiled at Annie as she handed him the finished letter and promised to address an envelope and mail it at the local post office.
“My sister will be happy to receive such a letter, Annie. You girls may learn a great deal about how similar your lives are in some ways and how different in others.”
“Professor, does your sister talk funny like you do?” Annie asked.
“You would think she does. But where she lives, they would think that you and your friends talk funny.”
“Me?” Annie questioned. “No, I just talk normal like everybody else in these parts.”
Professor Barnes smiled.
“Time to resume our lessons, students,” he announced, opening a book.
LOOK IT UP
Little Rock, S.C., was the first settlement in the area of Marion District (now Dillon County). It began as a trading post at the time of the Revolutionary War.
The Little Pee Dee River (named for a local Native American tribe) runs nearby. The land is close to sea level and often swampy. The newly drained, sandy soil was productive in the early 1800s, enabling farmers to grow plenty of food and in later years cash crops such as cotton and tobacco.
The Little Pee Dee River is 116 miles long. Little Rock is located toward the northern end. The upper part of the river is navigable only by canoe or small boats. Alligators, large turtles, otters and beaver thrive in the warm waters.
A farmstead in South Carolina might include barns, an outdoor kitchen, smokehouse, wash house, outhouse and one or more slave cabins.
Chapter 2 – Birthday greetings
Feb. 7, 1857
Dear Annie,
Happy 10th birthday, although I know your birthday will be long passed before you receive this letter. Did my brother tell you that we share the same birthday? Same year, too.
I’m so glad my brother asked you to write to me. I am the youngest child in my family, nearly 10 years younger than my only brother. With Joshua away, I get lonesome sometimes.
Right now it is very cold. The snow is so deep that there is no school today. The land around here is kind of flat so the wind piles the snow into deep drifts against anything that gets in the way like houses, bushes, barns and fences. Today the snow is sifting into cracks around the windows of our house and into the drafty barn.
I’m writing this letter sitting by the new cast-iron stove. My face is hot but my back is cold. I hope you can read this because my fingers are getting stiff. Still, this new stove heats better than the old fireplace, so I’m not complaining. Do you have snow, too?
My father is the only blacksmith in town. When he isn’t farming our land, he’s fixing farming equipment for the other farmers around here.
Please excuse the shaky writing here. One of the new kittens was trying to sit on my letter and knocked my hand away.
Do you have any cats? This kitten is not even supposed to be inside the house but it’s so cold in the barn now that I brought her in. We keep cats in the barn where they can chase the rats away from the corn. Do you grow corn?
Do you speak German? Lots of people do around here. My mother does but my father doesn’t like it very much. He says we are all Americans now and should forget where our parents came from.
I’ve read “Treasure Island” too. It’s one of my brother’s favorite books. Don’t you wish sometimes that you could be part of a great adventure like that?
Right now, I have just started reading another book called “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
Mother just came in and said I have to stop writing and peel potatoes.
I've hidden the kitten in my stocking drawer. Hope she doesn't mew too loud.
Please write back soon.
Your friend,
Sarah
Sarah watched the snow pile up even higher as she helped her mother fix supper.
“Annie’s family owns slaves. Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone to help us?”
Her mother frowned: “No, it wouldn’t. Would you like being a slave to someone for the rest of your life?”
Sarah thought: “No, I don’t think I would,” she replied.
April 15, 1857
Dear Sarah,
We don’t get much snow here in South Carolina. West of us, in those high mountains in Virginia and North Carolina, people do.
It’s not very cold here today. We haven’t needed the fireplace all afternoon but we might again tonight.
A lot of plantation owners grow rice in the swampy areas east of here. My stepmother and I are busy cooking cornbread and dried peas today, but the peas don’t taste as good as usual. We’ve used up all our ham and bacon grease and won’t get any more until butchering time in the fall, so they don’t have much flavor.
I can’t understand why your parents would allow you to read that bad book, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” My parents are so upset about it. Daddy says there are a pack of lies in it. I’m not allowed to read it.
Daddy says you folks from the North just don’t understand about slavery. These people like being slaves. Dilcy and her boys don’t have to worry about a thing. Daddy makes sure they have clothes and food and something productive to do with their time. And If they get sick, we take care of them or call a doctor if it’s real bad.
It is my Daddy that has to do all the fretting about the price of cotton and whether we’ll get enough rain and how to pay our taxes and all that stuff.
You folks sure do have some funny ideas sometimes. But I think I’d like to meet you someday anyhow and see where you live and show you how nice it is down here in the springtime.
Best regards,
Annie
LOOK IT UP
Tioga, Ill., is a farming community in western Illinois, located north of Quincy and closer to Keokuk, Iowa. The area once included many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Then their leader, Joseph Smith, was killed and most of his followers joined the long trek to Utah.
Many German and Alsatian immigrants bought land from these Mormons and settled in the area, which contains rich alluvial soil.
Corn (or maize) has been a major crop since cultivation by Native Americans began in prehistoric times. Families like Sarah’s also grew cash crops such as wheat, oats and sorghum.
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. The book about slavery was first published in 1852. It became an instant classic with 10,000 copies sold the first year.
Many readers in the North were confronted for the first time by the evils of slavery. As the book’s popularity grew each year, more readers joined the Abolitionists in questioning the “peculiar institution” of slavery.
Southerners reacted against the book with fear and anger. They countered that slaves, like cattle, were rarely abused. Who could get milk from a cow that had been badly injured? Who could force a badly injured slave to do the necessary work? It was just good business to take care of their laborers.
By 1850 the population of the U.S. was 23,054,152. Slaves represented about 14 percent of that number. In South Carolina and Mississippi, more than half the total population was made up of people of color.
Chapter 3 – Words can hurt
Oct. 2, 1857
Dear Annie,
We are so worried. My father fell down in the pasture last week and now he can’t walk very well. His mouth hangs funny and his left arm sort of drags along with him. Momma cries a lot. I wish the folks in your town would let Joshua come home. Josh says he can’t because he has a contract for another school year.
My uncle says Father got sick because he wore himself out trying to make a living. I know that he has worked hard all the years. I think he’d try to protect us from anything if he could. But now he can’t. We have to look after him.
Sometimes I wish I could wear britches when I get older. Momma always gets her hem dirty when she goes outside to feed the chickens or to work in the garden.
It would be easier riding a horse, too. When I ride Charlie, I throw my legs on each side of him if no one else is around. It’s much more fun to ride that way. Besides, the only saddle we own is the man’s kind.
Momma and I have been putting up apples and making cider. My uncles are harvesting our corn for us and storing it in the corn crib. If we can keep the pesky rats out, we’ll have enough to eat this winter. The cats will be busy.
Momma says my father will feel better by next spring. Would you please say a prayer for him?
What kind of crops do you grow? We grow potatoes and carrots, cabbage and rutabaga, turnips and parsnips in our garden. We grow corn in the bottomlands and wheat where it’s drier.
I don’t understand why you said Mrs. Stowe’s book is bad. People around here say what she wrote is true. I told my friends you said you aren’t mean to your slaves, but they don’t believe me. Anyhow, I believe you.
Have you heard of a man named Sen. Charles Sumner? Folks around town keep talking about what happened to him. He got beat up real bad by a man with a cane right in front of everyone in the Senate. Mr. Sumner isn’t well yet and that happened two years ago. Anyhow, the man that did it was from South Carolina, too, so I thought you might have heard about it.
Have to stop writing now. Mrs. Schiller’s cow has wandered into our garden again. I don’t know how that big cow manages to jump that fence.
Sarah
Feb. 7, 1858
Dear Sarah,
Happy 11th birthday. Nothing very exciting happening around here except that Neil Tate and some of the other older boys snuck into the schoolhouse and left a dead skunk in the corner. Only don’t tell your brother I said who did it. His little sister told my sister Hattie in confidence.
Your brother was trying to take the skunk outside on a rake when Hattie and I got to school. And he had a clothespin on his nose!
Those boys are always tormenting Professor Barnes with something. One time during the winter, they snuck a wasp’s nest into the schoolhouse. When the room warmed up, the wasps flew all over and everyone yelled and screamed and ran outside.
Neil Tate says that senator man, Mr. Sumner, said some really nasty things about people who live in the South and particularly about that fine gentleman, Sen. Andrew Butler.
One neighbor said it was a shame Mr. Sumner didn’t die, since he was trying to set our slaves free. Daddy says we couldn’t afford to pay Rufus, Joel and Sam Junior for their work because we trade for most of the things we need.
Yes, we do keep a garden like you do. We also keep pigs and chickens.
I’m shocked that you would even think about wearing britches. Have you seen what they call a bloomer suit? My mother is so scandalized that she could hardly speak when one of our church friends showed her a picture. No proper lady would wear them.
Since it is my birthday, my stepmother took time to check the length of my church skirt. We have to wear our best clothes, to church, you know. She says I have to add a ruffle to it before I can wear it again.
Sometimes I wonder if I am pretty.
Annie
LOOK IT UP
The bloomer suit was designed by a New England woman named Libby Miller. She hoped to popularize a modest way of dressing that was more sensible for the average woman.
Loose trousers were gathered at the ankles. These were topped by a short-skirted dress or skirt and blouse. Fashion editor Amelia Bloomer publicized the cause and the fashion soon became known as the bloomer suit. The idea was met with such scorn that the fashion did not become popular.
Charles Sumner: Incidents such as the caning of Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner during a session of Congress in 1856 highlighted the tension between the states. In May 1856, Sumner delivered a speech attacking slavery supporters in the Senate and Sen. Andrew Butler of South Carolina in particular. Two days later, South Carolina Rep. Preston Brooks, a nephew of Butler, attacked Sumner on the Senate floor. Butler gave him such a thorough beating with a cane that he took three years to recover. Hot anger erupted throughout the Northern states, because the members of the House of Representatives neither expelled nor censured Brooks for his violent actions.
Supporters of slavery emphasized Sumner’s verbal attack on the Southern senator’s honor while abolitionists protested Sumner’s physical beating as intolerable.
Chapter 4 – Scandalous behavior
Dred Scott
Gretchen: This comfortable way of life in the Old South was available only to a privileged few.
Farm women’s daily dress.
March 29, 1858
Dear Sarah,
I was shocked by your last letter. I can’t imagine that you would ride so unladylike. No English gentlewoman would think of doing such a thing. Daddy says we girls aren’t allowed to ride the horse, since we don’t own a sidesaddle, either. We have to ride in the wagon or else walk.
Down here, we pay attention to what English ladies do and read and how they entertain. Even those of us who lived on farmsteads try to behave like gentlewomen.
I wish I could dress like the wealthy ladies who live in Charleston. Most of them wear silk dresses with what we call hoop skirts. We saw a picture in Godey’s Lady’s Book. Those dresses take 25 yards of material.
About the only silk dresses around here are black. Women wear them when their husbands die. Working around the farm, we mostly wear plain cotton or linen.
Did you know that your brother is sweet on Charlotte Samson? She’s Fred’s older sister. She is almost 19 years old and still not married. That’s a scandal around here. She is kind of quiet and reads books and doesn’t flirt and laugh at the boys’ jokes the way the other girls do.
Those two are so funny together. They think no one notices but the truth is that everyone knows. He loans her books and then they talk after church and at parties and just about anywhere they can get by with being together. She has the dreamiest look on her face when she talks to him and he looks about the same.
Daddy says they had better be careful because Mr. Samson wouldn’t ever let his daughter marry a Yankee.
I hope your brother keeps on being careful of what he says. A few people at church are beginning to whisper against him even though he is the best teacher we ever had. He avoids talking politics but he does seem to spend more time with the men who don’t think slavery is worth a war. These men have sons who do the work. If there comes a war, those boys would have to go fight, too, and their fathers would lose their help.
Daddy says that bad people are stealing our slaves away from us and taking them all the way to Canada. Don’t they know the Bible says: “Thou shalt not steal”?
Daddy is working as a magistrate at the county courthouse now. He is probating wills and other estate papers. Sam Jr. is old enough to lead the other two boys in doing the farm work, so he has more time to be away from the farm.
Annie
Aug. 3, 1858
Dear Annie,
Good news. My father is getting better. He can walk with a cane.
Momma thinks I am about as grown up now as I’ll get. I’m about a head taller than the other girls at school and even the boys have to look up at me.
We’re seeing pictures of those women like you were talking about wearing wire cages to make their skirts flare out. My mother says no sensible woman would wear one. Why, what if you have to bend over to pick up your child?
No, I guess I don’t understand about slaves. They are people, aren’t they? I’ve never seen a real person with black skin but I’ve heard my brother say that they can learn to read and write just like we can.
I’m a young girl and right now I have to do what my parents tell me. But when I grow up, I want to be a teacher like my brother. I don’t want someone to tell me I will always have to do farm work. I think dark-skinned people feel the same. Don’t you?
If not, I hope we are still friends. Friends can disagree, right? That’s what my Momma always says.
Have you heard about someone named Dred Scott? That’s a funny name, isn’t it?
One of our neighbors said that he has to stay a slave even though he had lived for a long time in a free state. So see, your parents don’t have to worry about your slaves running off. Someone will make them stay or come back.
Would you please ask my brother to write more often? We miss him.
Sarah
LOOK IT UP
In the Missouri Compromise of 1820, Congress mandated that for each free state that entered into the Union, a slave state had to enter as well, keeping an even balance.
By 1850, there were 15 slave states and 15 free states amount the United States. When California petitioned to join the union, Congress had to face once again the problem of balance.
The Compromise of 1850 was an attempt to address the problem. California was allowed to become a state but at the same time, the territories of New Mexico and Utah were allowed to organize with no restrictions on slavery.
The Fugitive Slave Act, written in 1793, was modified to allow slaveholders to retrieve slaves who had escaped to Northern states and free territories. Before 1850, slaves became free if they escaped into a free state. By the early 1850s, fugitives were being caught in free states and returned to their masters in the South. Confusion reigned.
Dred Scott was the slave of an Army surgeon from Missouri named John Emerson. During the 1830s, he lived in the free state of Illinois and later the free territory that is now Minnesota.
In 1846, Scott sued for his freedom on the grounds that he had lived in free parts of the country for several years. The initial case was tried at the Old Courthouse in St. Louis. From that first trial, it took 11 years for the case to come before the Supreme Court.
The court ruled that living in free territory did not make Dred Scott a free man. As a person of color, Scott was excluded from citizenship and therefore not part of the population the Constitution protected.
Five of the judges on the Supreme Court were slaveholders. Many who opposed slavery, including Abraham Lincoln, feared that the court would swiftly decide that no state could exclude slavery regardless of the wishes and laws of that state.
Chapter 5 – A War of Words
Feb. 7, 1859
Dear Sarah,
Happy 12th birthday to you.
It is a sad time for us. Mother finally had a baby boy a few weeks ago. He was puny from the start, and he died last week. She cried and Daddy looked really sad but he didn’t cry, even at the funeral.
The cotton crop was poor again this year. Cotton wears out the soil. Daddy says we need to plant other things that replenish the soil, like indigo. But we would have to flood the fields to do that. Daddy gets so much more money from the English for cotton and it is easier to grow.
Two of my best friends have moved away this year. Many of our neighbors have started new farms or plantations in Georgia or Alabama, where they have newly-cultivated soil. My father envies them the yield in cotton they get from each acre. But he loves our home, so we stay and do our best and work hard.
Yes, I’ve heard about Dred Scott. My daddy says that he and my stepmother are happy about what the Supreme Court said about Dred Scott.
I don’t understand why that slave wanted to leave his master. We love Dilcy and her boys. They are like family. We take them to church with us and they sit in the balcony with the other slaves. Daddy doesn’t want some agitator coming around and talking them into leaving us.
Daddy bought Dilcy and her husband Sam before I was born. Sam drowned a couple of years ago while he was out fishing after work was done. We think an alligator got him because they found his body about five miles upriver and he was all chewed up. We never could figure out why his body was upriver, though.
That was a sad time and Daddy even paid the parson to come pray over his grave.
Don’t states have the right to make their own laws under the Constitution? I asked your brother. He says that although they do, the Declaration of Independence says all men are created equal and are promised life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I looked it up in one of his books and he's right.
But when I told my Daddy, he said he’d have to have a talk with the professor. Now he’s keeping a closer eye on Rufus, Joel and Sam Junior.
Annie
Sarah slowly reread the lines about finding Sam’s body upriver. Don’t they suspect the obvious? she wondered. Maybe Sam was trying to escape. But I guess it would make her really mad if I suggested that.
April 28, 1859
Dear Annie.
Boys are so mean! I wish I never had to look at one again. There is this handsome older boy named Virgil. I’ve always admired his pretty blue eyes. He kept smiling at me during a barn dance that was held last week. I kept smiling back. Then he walked over and yelled at me real loud, “You sure are ugly.”
I cried and ran home. I hope I never see him again. Momma says not to mind, that boys like to play tricks like that. At least it showed he’d noticed me.
I don't really understand why there is such a fuss about politics. And I’d rather go play on my rope swing than think too much about it.
People are doing a bunch of yelling about things around here, too. When Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Douglas were running for senator last summer, our uncle took Momma and me to see the debate in Quincy. I didn’t like it much and neither my mother. There were too many men yelling really impolite things at each other.
Mr. Lincoln told Mr. Douglas that he had been responsible for making extra slave states. Then he told us that Mr. Douglas would keep doing it if he was elected again. Some people clapped and some yelled “boo.”
Mr. Douglas said Mr. Lincoln didn’t really care about slaves, he was just telling each group of us what we wanted to hear so he’d get elected.
Then Mr. Lincoln said that the United States couldn't survive divided as it was between free and slave states.
Mr. Douglas argued that if we changed things too fast, there would be a war.
I guess your family is happy that Mr. Lincoln has lost the election for senator.
Sarah
LOOK IT UP
In 1854, Kansas and Nebraska were still territories, but had begun to petition for statehood. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 had attempted to settle the question of slavery by allowing the population of each territory to decide about slavery for themselves.
Those who favored slavery and those who opposed it both began helping settlers who agreed with their cause to move into those territories.
Soon the border area between Kansas and Missouri had become a battle ground as pro-slavery raiders from Missouri terrorized settlements of anti-slavery settlers. Newspaper writers coined the phrase “Bleeding Kansas.”
By 1859, some Abolitionists from the North were exerting great pressure on the U.S. government to abolish slavery. Others had set up an effective “Underground Railroad” system for assisting runaway slaves to safely escape to Canada.
Harriet Tubman was one of many escaped slaves who returned south many times to assist others in escaping their slavery. She is credited with making 19 trips to the South and bringing out more than 300 people.
Lincoln-Douglas debates: During the campaign season of 1858, the candidates for the U.S. Senate from Illinois were involved in seven debates in various locations around the state.
Douglas, the incumbent, had been elected first in 1847. He had been involved in enacting the Compromise of 1850. Douglas believed in “popular sovereignty,” the right of the citizens of a state or region to decide what laws they wanted instead of allowing the federal government to set the laws of the land. By 1859, with continued violence erupting in Kansas, many were beginning to question how effective such divided laws could be.
Indigo is a plant source of blue dye for clothing.
Chapter 6 – Quitting school
July 7, 1859
Dear Annie,
I’m so unhappy, Annie. Today my Momma told me I won’t be able to go back to school. Through church, she has arranged for me to be “let out for service.”
Soon, I will be moving in with a prosperous German couple who are very old. I’m to cook and clean and take care of them and their farm animals from now on for as long as they live.
Their farm is about five miles from town, so it will be lonely out there. All their children have died. They pay farmhands to do the field work.
Momma says I’ve learned enough at school already. Says that she and my father don’t need my help around the farm as much as they need the cash money I can bring in by working. She explained that the money the old couple will give my parents can be used to take in an apprentice to help my father with his smithy work and maybe get a part-time farmhand.
Father still can’t do the farm work. My uncles have farms of their own to run so they can only help a little.
I wish I were a man. Then I could help him myself.
I will miss school so much. And I will miss my friends. So please keep writing.
Sarah
Nov. 12, 1859
Dear Sarah,
Sorry it has taken me so long to write. I’ve had to do a lot more work lately.
A new sister was born in our family this week and I helped Dilcy with the delivery. My stepmother is really weak from having two babies in a year.
Abbie’s such a cute little thing. I’d like to spend my days holding her.
Time is passing by quickly. Many of my friends are marrying at age 15 and 16. And the boys are starting to notice me.
I’m sorry you don’t live in the South. If you did, that German couple would buy a nice slave girl to take care of them. Then you could keep on going to school.
People around here are really worried. At church, people are talking about some man named John Brown. He got caught trying to steal guns from somewhere and then free the slaves so they could have a revolution and come and kill us all.
Father’s friends are worried about that man named Lincoln, too. Afraid he might win the election and become president.
You’ve told me you never saw anyone with black skin. Around here, there are as many people like them as there are like us.
I’m not afraid of them. Not most of them, anyhow. Our slave, Dilcy, has been helping around the farm since I can remember. She delivered me. She was a great comfort to me when my mother died. She and my stepmother get along well. I can’t believe that she or her boys would hurt us.
I don’t understand all this. I just understand that all those men shouting gives my stepmother a headache and makes my father frown and sometimes curse under his breath.
Hope you are finding some good things about living with the old folks, even with all the problems. Do you get any time to yourself at all?
Sarah, I’ll always be your friend. However, my stepmother now insists on reading your letters. She says there’s been a lot of disrespectful talk coming from northerners. So far she’s satisfied that our letters do no harm, but she and my father look worried and I heard them say that if Mr. Lincoln is elected, your brother will immediately be dismissed as our teacher. I hope that doesn’t happen.
Neil Tate and some of the older men are practicing marching and using rifles and such. I watched about 20 of them marching down the road in a company yesterday. They are saying the war will come soon.
My stepmother says “nothing is worth going to war for; that women always lose when men go to war. They lose their husbands and sons and many times they also lose their lives. It was true in the 1770s when Francis Marion led his volunteers against the British. It was true in 1812 when the British burned the White House and it will be true again today if cooler heads don’t prevail.”
Do you think that is true?
Annie
LOOK IT UP
By 1859, many Abolitionists (people who strongly believed that slavery should be abolished in all the United States) were still peacefully promoting their beliefs. Some had organized the Underground Railroad, some lobbied Congress.
Others were more impatient for change. One was a man named John Brown. He had actively and sometimes violently opposed the pro-slavery settlers in Kansas.
By 1859, John Brown had convinced himself and a few followers that if the Southern slaves had enough guns and ammunition, he could lead them into a successful full-scale insurrection.
In October, Brown attempted to storm the armory at Harpers Ferry, Va., to take the arms needed for his plans. Robert E. Lee, then a federal Army regular, led the troops that captured Brown.
Brown was quickly tried, convicted and then hanged on Dec. 2, 1859, at Charles Town, Va. (now West Virginia) along with two of the black members of his band.
Many Southerners believed that Brown was just one of many violent abolitionists and that more attacks would come from the others if someone from the new Republican Party was elected. They became convinced that more such attacks would occur if they did not secede from the Union.
Even today, some see John Brown as a martyr while others consider him a madman.
Chapter 7 – An explosive situation
Feb. 7, 1860
Dear Annie
Happy 13th birthday. I hope this letter gets through to you. I haven’t heard from you since November. Hope you had a good Christmas.
Have you heard anything about my brother? Is he still teaching? My parents are worried and hoping he will come home soon. People at church are even more worried that there may be a war.
The snow is getting heavy around here. I bundle up tightly to go to the barn and milk the cows. Two have gone dry. But we should get enough milk from the other two to get us through the winter.
The German lady I keep house for, Mrs. Schatz, is teaching me how to make cottage cheese. We're also making a rag rug together. She cuts the strips of cloth. I braid them and then we take turns sewing them into an ever-widening oval.
I miss the sunshine. I miss my family. I'm lonely out here. Mr. and Mrs. Schatz are really old and take a lot of care. But at least they do have a whole shelf of books. I can't read German very well, but late at night I go through the books and look at the pictures and try to figure out what the words mean.
They let me use their horse so I can ride to church on Sunday. And sometimes I get to visit my parents on Saturday afternoon. My father looks old and tired. Mother is well.
The young man they hired to help is very good-looking. I've never actually spoken to him. He takes his hat off to greet me when I come over to be with my parents. He has a nice smile.
Everyone is saying there might be a war. What would you do if there is a war? Is there somewhere you can hide?
Mrs. Schatz has been making me clean out the root cellar in case we need somewhere to hide. We have tornadoes around here, so even if there is no war it could be useful in a bad storm.
I can’t imagine that war would come this far north. However, Mrs. Schatz came from Germany in 1849 when they were having a rebellion and she remembers hiding in their cellar while there was fighting all around them, so she is afraid.
God help us all.
Sarah
April 14, 1860
Dear Sarah,
Your brother wasn’t badly burned, but it was a close call. Just as he went to light a match to the fire in the fireplace at school, a school board member, Mr. Alexander, came knocking at the door. Your brother dropped the match and went to see who was knocking. There was a loud explosion and lots of smoke.
I grabbed the water bucket and poured the water onto the fire. It hissed and smoked a lot. Mr. Alexander dipped out some more from the well and put out the rest of the fire. Now we have a big hole in the floor of the school. And no one has said they are sorry.
Everyone says the explosion was probably black powder someone had hidden under the pile of wood set out the night before. The older boys have always played mean tricks on your brother, but nothing that could have hurt him real bad like this.
Charlotte Samson’s father told your brother and Charlotte they couldn’t see each other anymore. I see them watching each other from a distance at church on Sunday. They look so sad. I think your brother would go back home to your family right now if it wasn’t for Charlotte.
No, we don’t have any good places to hide like a cellar. Our land is so low to the water table that all we have to do is dig a few feet down to build a well. A cellar would flood. Most of the fields are cultivated so no place to hide in them but we do have many trees around the swampy areas. Guess that would be our best chance if we had to run.
Daddy says we are so far south, he doesn’t think federal troops would be able to get this far. Ships might attack Charleston’s Harbor, though. All anyone can do is guess. This is not a very happy time for either one of us, is it?
Annie
LOOK IT UP
The price of a slave varied as greatly as the price of a horse and both were evaluated in the same ways. A slave woman might have cost $200 to $300. Her value depended on how much labor it was assumed she could provide.
Recorded is the price of one 17-year-old young man. Because he could be expected to provide labor for many years, his cost in 1850s dollars was $925. An average young horse might have cost $150 at that time.
Chapter 8 – Too late to turn back
Nov. 15, 1860
Dear Sarah,
I’m writing this short note now because I’m not sure how much longer I'll be able to write to you. The news that Mr. Lincoln has won the election has caused such a furor around here. I’m not sure folks will ever stop talking.
Some neighbors say Lincoln is the devil come to destroy good Christian folks. My parents don’t like that kind of talk but they are loyal to South Carolina. Many folks are calling for a special meeting of the legislature to decide what to do now.
My friend Andy Tate, who is 14, brought a sword to school yesterday. His great-grandfather used it in the Revolutionary War. He’s got it sharpened up and polished. Says he’s going to start killing Yankees real soon.
He started poking us with the tip of it when your brother wasn’t looking. But then your brother saw what he was doing and took it away from him. Boy, was Andy mad. Your brother told him he’d give it back when school was out.
Andy up and walked out of school and about an hour later he came back with his pappy. Boy, was Mr. Tate mad, too. Guess Andy never had told him that he would get the sword back after school. Mr. Tate threatened to shoot your brother if he didn’t turn it over.
I up and told Andy’s father what Professor Barnes had said. He gave me the meanest look and they both walked out after your brother handed them the sword.
The other boys are all saying there will be a war and we will throw out Mr. Lincoln in three months or less. The preacher says it might be smart to get in some extra food and supplies just in case it takes longer, but not many people are doing so because they are so sure we’ll win right off.
We are pretty sure the South Carolina legislature is getting ready to vote to secede from the Union. We all pray at church that Mr. Lincoln will let us go in peace when he takes over.
As soon as our folks get a new government organized, they are going to take over the mail delivery, so I don't know if this letter will even go though. Some other states are ready to follow our lead, Mississippi and Alabama for sure. There’s talk that Jefferson Davis might lead the new government.
For goodness sake, will you please tell your Yankee friends to leave us alone? We just want to keep living the way we’ve been living.
I hope your brother has arrived home safely. I pray for him even though he did a bad thing by leaving and taking Charlotte Samson with him. They are not even married.
Mr. Samson says he has his shotgun ready if he ever sees Professor Barnes again. But I know Charlotte well enough to know that if she went with him, it was because she wanted to.
Your friend,
Annie
Dec. 26, 1860
Dear Annie,
I want you to know that Joshua and Charlotte have arrived here in Tioga safely and are living with my mother and father. They were married yesterday in our church.
Josh is going to stay here in Illinois and run the farm from now on. He says he hopes by next fall that the harvest will be good. Then I can come home and go back to school.
Annie, I really don’t understand any better than you why there has to be war between my state and yours. Seems like there ought to be a better way to settle such quarrels.
Until better days, may God bless all of us and keep us safe.
Your friend,
Sarah
Epilogue:
On Nov. 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected president. By Dec. 20, 1860, a special convention of the South Carolina legislature had voted to secede from the Union. On Jan. 9, 1861, an unarmed merchant vessel secretly carrying federal troops and supplies to Fort Sumter was fired upon by South Carolina artillery at the entrance to Charleston harbor.
As of Feb. 1, 1961, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had followed South Carolina’s lead and seceded from the Union.
Delegates from seceding states meet in Montgomery, Ala., to form a government and then elected Jefferson Davis as president of the Confederate States of America.
In April 1861, the federal troops at Fort Sumter surrendered after being shelled for three days.
Also in April, the Confederate States took over the delivery of their mail service. After that, only business letters were received from the North and the price for delivery was very high. Sarah would not hear from Annie again for many years.
Annie’s family would live in relative safety until nearly the end of the war. Then Gen. Sherman’s forces would invade South Carolina. After Sherman was victorious in Atlanta and Savannah, Ga., he would turn his troops north. Their next objective was Richmond, Va., and South Carolina was an obstacle in his path.
That story will be told in the later series “Annie’s Confederate Gold.”
