Columbia, South Carolina

“ Thus Columbia, the beautiful capital of a once haughty State, became a blackened waste. The convention which passed the ordinance of Secession, when called together on the 17th of December, 1860, met in Columbia, but after organizing adjourned to Charleston, as the city was infected with small-pox. (p. 442) But it was the more poisonous virus of Secession which finally laid their proud city low.
The people of South Carolina are bitter in their hatred of General Sherman. They charge all the devastation committed during his march from Atlanta to Goldsboro' upon him. ”

“ Kohn Collection of Pamphlets, owned by August Kohn of Columbia, South Carolina. About 50 bound volumes of miscellaneous ante-bellum pamphlets. Perry (B. F.) Collection of Pamphlets, in the State Department of History and Archives, Montgomery, Alabama. 44 bound volumes, with from one to sixty pamphlets to the volume. They contain a great variety of material on the economic, political, financial, industrial, social, religious, and educational phases of South Carolina and southern history from 1800 to 1860. ”

“ South Carolina College Library, Columbia, South Carolina, has the files from January 12, 1833, to December 25, 1834. The paper was a weekly, of four pages and five columns.
Camden and Lancaster Beacon. Moved from Lancaster to Camden and new series was started, Vol. I, No. 1, Whole No. 21, March 15, 1831. The file owned by David R. Williams, of Camden, South Carolina, ends with Vol. I, No. 43, Whole No. 62, December 27, 1831. Weekly; edited by J. D. Cooke.
Charleston Carolina Gazette. Weekly edition of the Charleston City Gazette, published for country circulation. ”

“ They employed only four men in their work. We crossed the State line into South Carolina, and traversed Lancaster County, passing over the scene of Sumter's and of Gates' military operations in the Revolution. The soil was light and sandy. Lofty pines were here first encountered. In this region we met the first advocates of secession. Some of them warned us that it would be dangerous for us to approach Columbia. We replied that we would continue our journey until we saw signs of danger.
Camden we found an attractive town of between two and three thousand inhabitants. ”

“ On November 7 the Charleston Association recommended that the auxiliary associations scattered over the state appoint delegates to a convention to be held at Columbia in December to adopt a more efficient plan of publishing and distributing among the people information in regard to the American system, the interests of the South, and its constitutional and confederate rights. During the fall the state seems to have given itself up to the business of politics. ”

“ I have always 'spected that am just de way they set de houses when Columbia was burned in a single night. Some of de houses in Fairfield was burned, some in Winnsboro, and others in de country, but Columbia was de only place that was wiped out. As de army pass, we all stand by de side of de road and cry and ask them not to burn our white folks' house, and they didn't. ”

“ Columbia, S.C. Her father was an Indian and her mother a mulatto. She was born in Columbia in 1860 and was five years old, when General W.T. Sherman's Federal troops captured and burned the city in 1865.
"When I gits big 'nough to pick up chips for de cook stove, we was livin' in de rear of Daniel Gardner's home, on Main Street, and my mammy was workin' as one of de cooks at de Columbia Hotel. De hotel was run by Master Lowrance, where de Lorick & Lowrance store is now.
"My daddy, like de general run of Indians, love to hunt but de game not bring much cash in. ”

“ The Columbia Telescope did not rest so quietly on its oars as did other papers of the state, and in its comments on the Independence Day celebration took occasion to remark that the government since its establishment had changed very materially for the worse. ”

“ The streets of the city are wide, and of course arranged as usual to run at right angles; there has been no hurry or confusion in the building of it, the spirit of the designer is visible everywhere, and the design has been carefully carried out with harmonious effect; every vista is pleasant and refreshing to the eye. Like most other southern cities the thoroughfares are shaded with magnificent old trees, thickly planted, and of prodigious size, on both sides of the road; and yet Columbia has a character peculiarly its own. ”

“ The scenery of the Columbia, between Fort Vancouver and the Dalles, is a sublime monotone. Its banks are basaltic crags or mist-wrapt domes, averaging below the cataract from twelve to fifteen hundred feet in height, and thence decreasing to the Dalles, where the escarpments, washed by the river, are low trap bluffs on a level with the steamer's walking-beam, and the mountains have retired, bare and brown, like those of the great continental basin farther south, toward Mount Hood in that direction, and Mount Adams on the north. ”

“ South Carolina must be a devil of a State: every thing seems captivated with its greatness: I'd like to live in Carolina if I didn't get licked.”
“By scissors! that you would, Captain; you ha'n't an idee what a mighty site our people can do if they're a mind to! All South Carolina wants is her constitutional rights, which her great men fought for in the Revolution. We want the freedom to protect our own rights and institutions—not to be insulted and robbed by the General Government and the abolitionists.” ”

“ Here is room in South Carolina alone for all of New England, and in no State could the spirit of New England work such marvels. But so long as the fogs of slavery and misgovernment and ostracism and social hatred hang over them like the malaria of their own rice lowlands, so long South Carolina will be a prostrate State, crying for sympathy and help. Let us trust that the time has come for the people to help themselves, and in doing so, raise their Commonwealth to a pinacle of grandeur and prosperity such as even its proud history has never known. ”

“ The beauty of the climate and the freedom which then prevailed made South Carolina a chosen refuge for the oppressed and the discontented of all lands. Several Dutch families of New York went to South Carolina when that city passed into the hands of the English, and settled on the southwest side of the Ashley, near the English colony, from whence they spread over the state, and were joined by many from "fader-land." ”

“ Winding up from the south comes the Willamette, its fine valley narrowed here by the hills, where the river forms Portland's harbor, and is lined on either side with mills and shipping. Ten miles beyond, the Columbia flows down from its canyon on the east, and turns northward, [58] an expanding waterway for great vessels, to its broad pass through the Coast Range. In every direction, city and country, farm and forest, valley and mountain, stretches a noble perspective. ”

“ Columbia in Carolina—every state in the union has, I believe, a city which is called Columbia or Columbus—is beautifully situated on a height near the river Congoree.
I have derived great pleasure through the kindness of a Mr. Gibbs here, a natural historian, who has shown me much attention. In his collection I have seen the remains of those antediluvian creatures, the Megatherium and Mastodon, the bones of which have been dug up here. These remains belong to Titanic creatures. A single tooth is as large as my hand. ”

“ English settlers from Virginia had already established themselves on the north of it, at Albemarle, at the mouth of the Chowan River in North Carolina, and in 1670 the earliest settlement of the southern part of this territory was effected on the banks of the Ashley and Cooper Rivers, under William Sale, to be moved in 1680 to the site of what is now the city of Charleston, South Carolina. There, with such inviting climate and fertile soil, newcomers were easily lured. ”

“ New York City has about the same relation to New York State as a goldpiece has to a large table-top on one corner of which it lies. Charleston, on the other hand, harmonizes into its state setting, as a beautiful ancient vase harmonizes into the setting afforded by some rare old cabinet. Moreover, Charleston's individuality amongst cities is more or less duplicated in South Carolina's individuality amongst States. South Carolina is a State as definitely marked—though in altogether different ways—as Kansas or California. It is a State that does nothing by halves. ”

“ By the walnut hearth-fires in many a home of the prairie States and at the corn-huskings and quilting bees the talk of Oregon and the forests of the Columbia, and the rich pasture lands of the Willamette, and the salmon and game, and genial climate and majestic mountains, went the rounds. Interest grew into enthusiasm, enthusiasm waxed hot, and in the early spring the great immigration of 1843 set forth from Westport, Missouri, for the Columbia waters. ”

“ Here the Columbia is joined by the Spokane, a large river with heavy fall, and enters the “Great Plain of the Columbia,” an area of some 22,000 sq. m., resembling the “parks” of Colorado, shut in on all sides by mountains: the Moses range to the north, the Bitter Root and Cœur d’Alène on the east, the Blue on the south, and the Cascades on the west. The soil is rich, yielding great harvests of grain, and the mountains rich in minerals as yet only slightly prospected. After breaking into this basin the river turns sharply to the west and skirts the northern mountain barrier for about 105 m. ”

“ In fact, Captain, they are points of law upon which all our domestic quietude stands; and as such, we are bound to strengthen our means of enforcing them to the strictest letter. Our laws are founded upon the ancient wisdom of our forefathers, and South Carolina has never traduced herself or injured her legal purity. We have reduced our system almost to a practical science, so complete in its bearings and points of government as to be worthy the highest and noblest purposes of our country. ”

“ Few movie stars have ever been called to twinkle upon shorter notice.
One is usually told that the source of the Columbia is in Canal Flats, a hundred and fifty miles above Golden, and immediately south of a wonderfully lovely mountain-begirt lake that bears the same name as the river. This is true in a sense, although, strictly speak [Pg 21] ing, the real source of the river—the one rising at the point the greatest distance from its mouth—would be the longest of the many mountain creeks which converge upon Columbia Lake from the encompassing amphitheatre of the Rockies and Selkirks. ”

“ The State, therefore, became an engine of political power, managed and worked by a few men from Charleston, Beaufort, St. Helena, Edisto, Colleton, and other parishes along the sea-coast.
Nature gave South Carolina sunny skies and a genial clime. The sea contributed an atmosphere which gained for Edisto and St. Helena islands the monopoly in the world's markets for cotton of finest fibre. Wealth increased with the gathering in of each new crop, and with wealth came additional power. ”

“ South Carolina is much better cultivated; the people are more civilized, and the commerce more important. The capital of this province, called Charles Town, is finely situated at the confluence of two navigable rivers, having the advantage of a commodious harbour. Their trade, exclusive of the articles we have already mentioned as common to this government and that of North Carolina, consists of two chief staple commodities, rice and indigo, which they cultivate with great success ”

“ A will to do as it pleases and act as it pleases, without national restraint, is the great drawback under which South Carolina sends forth her groaning tale of political distress. Let her look upon her dubious glory in its proper light-let her observe the rights of others, and found her acts in justice!—annihilate her grasping spirit, and she will find a power adequate to her own preservation. ”

“ With South Carolinians, nothing is done in South Carolina that is not greater than ever was done in the United States-no battles were ever fought that South Carolina did not win-no statesman was ever equal to Mr. Calhoun-no confederacy would be equal to the Southern, with South Carolina at its head-no political doctrines contain so much vital element as secession, and no society in the Union is equal to South Carolina for caste and elegance-not excepting the worthy and learned aristocracy of Boston. ”

“ Its whole air is massive, commanding, and formidable.
Eighty or a hundred citizens, volunteers, cadets from the military academy, policemen, and negroes, greeted the arrival of the Columbia at her wharf. It was a larger crowd than usual, partly because a report had circulated that we should be forced to bring to off Fort Sumter and give an account of ourselves, and partly because many persons in Charleston have lately been perplexed with an abundant leisure. As I drove to my hotel, I noticed that the streets showed less movement of business and population than when I knew them four years ago. ”

“ Storm-swept White-bark Pines on Mount Hood.
STAND upon the icy summit of any one of the Columbia's snow-peaks, and look north or west or south across the expanse of blue-green mountains and valleys reaching to the sea; your eyes will rest upon the greatest forest the temperate zone has produced within the knowledge of man. Save where axe and fire have turned woodland into field or ghostly "burn," the mantle is spread. Along the broad crests of the Cascades, down the long spurs that lead to the valleys, and across the Coast Range, lies a wealth of timber equaled in no other region. ”