Waccamaw Civil War

Topic: Early Versions - Waccamaw Neck
The Civil War on South Carolina’s Waccamaw Neck accelerated the unification of plantation cultures into a local one that had been occurring whenever slaves from one locale met those from another. [1]  It began as soon as the state seceded from the Union on December 20, 1861. [2]

On December 30, South Carolina’s governor asked the area to erect “batteries to protect and defend the entrance to Winyah Bay and Santee River.” [3]  Welcome Bees told Genevieve Willcox Chandler that he had “gone to make a battery to Little River and to Charleston and to Florence.” [4]  The carpenter lived at Oatland, which was owned by Martha Allston Pyatt [5] and was located south of Brook Green on the Waccamaw River. [6]

At the same time, the governor was asking for military volunteers. [7]  The state’s Tenth Regiment elected Arthur Middleton Manigault its colonel. [8]  The company defending the Waccamaw Neck was commanded by Thomas West Daggett [9]  Below him was Captain Joshua Ward.  His younger brother, Mayham Ward. was first lieutenant and his youngest brother, Benjamin Huger Ward, was second lieutenant. [10]

Georgie remembered that her father, Define Horry, “have to go.  Have to go ditch and all and tend his subshun.” [11]  As mentioned in the post for 10 September 2023, Georgie appears to be the sister of Ben Horry, who lived on Joshua Ward’s Brook Green plantation.

Late in 1861, on November 11, Union forces took control of Port Royal, including Saint Helena Island in southern South Carolina.  Management of the abandoned plantations and slaves was given over to missionaries from the North, like Laura Matilda Towne and Harriet Ware. [12]

Once the United States navy had a Southern port, it began patrolling the coast.  In December, it stationed two vessels off the mouth of Winyah Bay. [13]  Manigault warned planters in January, 1862, they should prepare to move their slaves inland with provisions for a year. [14]

The need to act became acute on April 14 when Robert E. Lee ordered the movement of South Carolina’s regiments [15] to Richmond to defend the Confederacy. [16]  Manigault left Winyah Bay on March 28, leaving Ward’s local troops to defend the area [17]  As soon as the troops were gone, slaves began fleeing to Union ships. [18]

Willcox did not interview any slaves who fled, for the obvious reason they did not return after the war’s end.  Gabe Lance recalled: “Some my people run away from Sandy Islant.  Go Oaks sea-shore and Magnolia Beach and take row-boat and gone out and join with the Yankee.  Dem crowd never didn’t come back.” [19]

The Oaks [20] was the home of Hagar Brown’s parents.  At nearby Brook Green, Georgie said “Time o’ the war the colored people hear ‘bout Yankee.  Not a one eber understand to run way and go to Yankee boat from WE plantation.” [21]

On May 22, Union boats sailed ten miles up the Waccamaw River where they seized rice and accepted slaves. [22]  They learned more about the plantations and the loyalties of the owners from those who fled. [23]  On June 30, they sailed thirty miles up the river, [24] on July 21 destroyed salt works run by Joshua Ward, and on July 29 targeted the plantation of John D. Magill, who was reported to be an “unkind” master. [25]  By the end of the month, the Navy had 1,700 run-away slaves. [26]

After the first foray in May, 1862, the Union commander reported: “The rebels are just now very much frightened, and are leaving their plantations in every direction, driving their slaves before them to the pine woods.” [27]

Horry told Chandler that: “Two Yankee gun boats come up Waccamaw River!  Come by us Plantation.  One stop to Sandy Island, Montarena landing.  One gone Watsaw (Wachesaw landing).  Old Marsh Josh and all the white buckra gone to Marlboro county to hide from Yankee.  Gon up Waccamaw river and up Pee Dee river, to Marlboro county, in a boat by name Pilot Boy.  Take Colonel Ward and all the Cap’n to hide from gun boat til peace declare.” [28]

Once they had time, planters moved their slaves on flat boats down the Waccamaw to the bay, then up the Pee Dee river.  Sabe Rutledge, who lived on the Ark Plantation [29] north of Murrells Inlet, told Chandler: “Flat boat full up gone down Waccamaw.  Uncle Andrew Aunt the one got his eye shot out (by patrollers) took ’em to camp on North Island.  Never so much a button and pin in my life!  Small-pox in camp.  Had to leave ’em.” [30]

Horry recalled Ward had agents “take all the people from Brookgreen and Springfield—and carry dem to Marlboro” county. [31]  Similarly, Georgie recalled: “They put you in the flat and put you over there.  When they tink Yankee comin’ you take to Sandhole Crick for hide.”  She added: “De Ward didn’t lose nothin’.  They move out the plantation.  Col. Ward took ’em in a flat to Mulbro.” [32]

Ellen Godfrey, who lived on Ward’s Longwood plantation, said it was “Flat ’em up to Marlboro!  (All the slaves)  Ten days or two weeks going.  PeeDee bridge, stop!  Go in gentlemen barn!  Turn duh bridge.  Been dere a week.  Had to go and look the louse on we.  Three hundred head o’ people been dere.  Couldn’t pull we clothes off.  (On flat.)  Boat named Riprey.  Woman confine on boat.” [33]

Hagar Brown was born during the journey.  “Ma say they on flat going to islant (island), see cloud, pray God send rain!” [34]  Her cousin-in-law, Louisa Brown, gave more details: “My husband mother have baby on the flat going to Marion and he Auntie Cinda have a baby on that flat.” [35]

Chandler asked about the trip, but not about life in makeshift camps.  Godfrey did tell her: “Get to Marlboro where they gwine.  Put in wagon.  Carry to the street.  Major Drake Plantation.” [36]  She added, they had a “dirt camp to hide we from Yankee.  Have a Street Row of house.”  She indicated she continued to weave there. [37]

Marlboro County is on the border between South and North Carolina. [38]  Zachariah Alford Drake [39] had land near the Scots settlement of Blenheim where he raised corn, mules, sheep, and hogs. [40]

The movement of slaves, with their owners and overseers, into Marlboro County probably benefitted the landowners whose sons, like Zachariah Jordan Drake, [41] were among the thousand men sent to the front. [42]  Slaves owned by Joshua Ward and Thomas Pinckney Alston [43] had to have stayed there for more than two years, from the time of flight until Union troops liberated them on their march north at war’s end.

One guesses the displaced slaves learned more skills because they had to have had to grow their own food in a different environment.  One suspects slaves from different plantations owned by Ward mingled more, which would have contributed to the developing common culture.

While the slaves were sequestered in Marlboro County, Murrells Inlet was converted into a port by blockaders who were kept from Charleston and the mouth of the Winyah Bay.  They attracted more attention from the Union navy. [44]

By late November of 1864, Joshua Ward had resigned from the Confederate Army and moved to England.  Mayham was left in command of the local troops. [45]  He soon joined his wife and children in the North. [46]

End Notes
1.  This is discussed in the posts for 3 September 2023 and 10 September 2023.

2.  “South Carolina in the American Civil War.”  Wikipedia website; accessed 14 September 2023.

3.  George C. Rogers.  The History of Georgetown County, South Carolina.  Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1970; reprinted by Georgetown County, South Carolina, Historical Society, 2002.  388.

4.  Welcome Bees, interviewed by Genevieve Willcox Chandler.  1–10 in Coming Through: Voices of a South Carolina Gullah Community from WPA Oral Histories Collected by Genevieve W. Chandler, edited by Kincaid Mills, Genevieve C. Peterkin, and Aaron McCollough.  Columbia: The University of South Carolina Press, 2008.  8.

5.  Coming Through.  1.

6.  Charles Joyner.  Down by the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community.  Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984.  Map on page 17.

7.  Rogers.  387, 389, 391.
8.  Rogers.  390–391.
9.  Rogers.  389.

10.  Rogers.  392.  Rogers assumed the “Wards provided the necessary equipment and provisions.”

11.  Georgie, statement provided by Ben Horry.  2:236–238 in Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves – South Carolina Narratives.  Compiled by The Library of Congress from interviews by the Works Projects Administration, Federal Writers’ Project.  Washington: Library of Congress, 1941.  2:236.

12.  Saint Helena Island is mentioned in the posts for 20 September 2018, 25 September 2018, and 27 September 2018.

13.  Rogers.  394.
14.  Rogers.  396.
15.  “Robert E. Lee, Day-by-Day.”  Lee Family Archive website.

16.  Benjamin F. Cooling.  “The Civil War; 1862.”  184–208 in American Military History.  Washington, DC: United States Army, Center of Military History, 1989.  221.

17.  Rogers.  397.
18.  Rogers.  399.

19.  Gabe Lance, interviewed by Genevieve Willcox Chandler.  274–275 in Coming Through.  275.

20.  The Oaks is discussed in the posts for 23 July 2023 and 30 July 2023.
21.  Georgie.  2:237.
22.  Rogers.  400.
23.  Rogers.  398–399, 402.
24.  Rogers.  401.
25.  Rogers.  402.
26.  Rogers.  399.
27.  George A. Prentiss, quoted by Rogers.  402–403.

28.  Ben Horry, interviewed by Genevieve Willcox Chander.  2:219–236 in Slave Narratives.  2:227.

29.  Slave Narratives.  4:49.

30.  Sabe Rutledge, interviewed by Genevieve Willcox Chandler.  4:59–70 in Slave Narratives.  4:51.  North Island is in Winyah Bay. [47]

31.  Horry.  2:233–234.
32.  Georgie.  2:237.

33.  Ellen Godfrey, interviewed by Genevieve Willcox Chander.  2:118–127 in Slave Narratives.  2:119.

34.  Hagar Brown, interviewed by Genevieve Willcox Chandler.  In Slave Narratives, volume 1, no pages in on-line edition.

35.  Louisa Brown, interviewed by Genevieve Willcox Chandler.  In Slave Narratives, volume 1, no pages in on-line edition.

36.  Godfrey.  2:119.
37.  Godfrey.  2:120.

38.  “Marlboro County, South Carolina.”  Wikipedia website.

39.  KesterDV.  “MAJ Zachariah Alford Drake.”  Find a Grave website, 8 June 2013.  His wife, Sophia Alford, was the mother of Agenora Drake, who married James Alexander Peterkin. [48]  Their son, William George Peterkin, married Chandler’s daughter. [49]  Zachariah’s second wife was Susan A. Peterkin.

40.  J. A. W. Thomas.  A History of Marlboro County with Traditions and Sketches of Numerous Families.  Atlanta, Georgia: The Foote and Davies Company, 1897.  192.

41.  KesterDV.  “CPT Zachariah Jordan Drake.”  Find a Grave website, 9 June 2013.

42.  William Light Kinney, Jr.  “Marlboro County.”  South Carolina Encyclopedia website, 8 June 2016; last updated 11 August 2022.

43.  Jose Allston, mentioned in the post for 6 August 2023, lived on The Oaks plantation around 1854.  When he died in 1855, it reverted to his maternal grandfather, William Algernon Allston.  He died in 1860 and The Oaks fell to his half-brother, Thomas Pinckney Allston. [50]

44.  Rogers.  408, 410.
45.  Rogers.  414.
46.  Rogers.  426.
47.  Rogers.  Map on inside back cover.

48.  Herman Ruple Durr.  “Agenora Drake Peterkin.”  Find a Grave website, 12 July 2009.

49.  Herman Ruple Durr.  “William George Peterkin Sr.”  Find a Grave website, 12 July 2009.

50.  James L. Michie.  The Oaks Plantation Revealed: An Archaeological Survey of the Home of Joseph and Theodosia Burr Alston, Brookgreen Gardens, Georgetown County, South Carolina.  Columbia, South Carolina: Waccamaw Center for Historical and Cultural Studies, 1993.  12.