“FOR GOD’S SAKE LADIES GO HOME!” EYEWITNESS, ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF WAR AND RUIN IN CHARLESTON
Sarah Lewis Simons Lesesne (1819–1886). The Old Palmetto City: A Description of Life In and Around Charleston During the Siege and a Portrayal of the Stirring Scenes on the Night Before Evacuation. By a Lady of Charleston. Unpublished manuscript submitted to The Charleston News and Courier, n.d. 27 pages, 12 x 7 1/2 in., accompanied by a rejection letter from the newspaper dated 31 May 1884, reading in part: “The rejection of this story does not imply lack of merit, as the number already accepted exceeds the required number of War Sketches. We are therefore compelled to decline many that it would otherwise give us much pleasure to accept.” A detailed eyewitness account, rich in vivid description and harrowing scenes of life in Charleston during the Civil War.
Lesesne opens by reflecting on the patriotism and civic pride of her fellow Charlestonians. While many of the city’s men enlisted, she remained among the large number of women who stayed behind, where they could “help the sick and wounded brought home to the Hospitals.” During the early years of the war, her observations remained hopeful and morale in the city ran high: “The City was full of life. On the Battery, the scene was beautiful, the white tents, the long line of soldiers, the officers passing to and fro, the bright young faces all hope and expectation...”
Describing the efforts of Charleston’s women on the home front, Lesesne writes: “The ladies formed an association for receiving and distributing comforts of all kinds for the soldiers: handsome curtains and carpets were sent to be cut up and made into shirts and blankets; and the shelves were well stored with clothing to be sent to those in camp and with wine, preserves, and all kinds of delicacies.”
By the end of the summer of 1862, however, the mood in the city had shifted. “In August...there was a sudden announcement that the City was about the be shelled...it was a time of great anxiety.” Reluctantly, many women and children left Charleston for country plantations during the fall. By November, the danger seemed less immediate, and Lesesne planned to attend a service at St. Philip’s Church. During the service, however, there suddenly came a “horrible sound, as of a laughing Demon, then a fearful crash, and we were enveloped in Smoke!...then a man rushed up waving his arms and crying ‘For God’s sake ladies go home! They are shelling down the street!’”
The increasingly perilous conditions in Charleston eventually prompted Lesesne to remove to the plantation of a relative outside the city. There she records the routines of everyday labor, including candle making, cobbling, and gathering wool, while also describing what she presents as loyal and devoted relations between enslaved workers and white residents. Although she writes that “[among] the Negroes...there was no sign of discontentment among them,” she also recounts that a group of enslaved men and women ran away from the plantation one night during her stay. Of those who remained behind, she writes that they “made a very proper lament over their bad conduct...I should like to bear testimony to the value of those faithful ones whose minds had not been poisoned” by the Union’s call for abolition.
Lesesne later returned to the “northwestern portion of the City which had not yet been breached by the shells,” where, she writes, “church after church [had been] abandoned and the remnants of the congregations assembled in St. Paul’s which was considered comparatively safe. Every day prayers ascended from that church for the Army, the Prisoners, and the success of the cause.” Shortly after her return, she and a group of women ventured down to the Battery to witness the destruction that had overtaken their city: “The Church [St. Philip’s] was covered with a rank growth and many stores were injured...in some of the side streets, the growth of weeds was so high as to reach nearly up to the shoulders. Everywhere was profoundly quiet...in Broad Street but one light was seen and that in a Doctor’s office orders having been left to keep it burning for the protection of the premises.”
Yet war damage alone did not define Charleston’s ordeal. Disease, too, ravaged the city during the summer of 1863. As Lesesne recounts: “To add to the sufferings of the inhabitants a virulent type of yellow fever appeared...[also] the smallpox had broken out.” She further describes the efforts of women who risked their own safety by venturing into the stricken city to care for the sick.
When General P.G.T. Beauregard issued the final evacuation order on 15 February 1865, Lesesne was among the first to hear the news: “Just as we sat down to dinner, a young soldier was announced, he was on his way to camp and brought the sad intelligence that Charleston was to be evacuated, a great deal of ammunition had been removed and he had left he Hospital to return to camp, as the enemy might enter that night.” She also witnessed the Confederates’ own destructive measures, undertaken to prevent looting and disorder: “The ‘New Bridge’ which crossed the Ashley [River] was seen distinctly marked in flame. They were burning it keep out the Negroes and disorderly people who might rush in a pillage before the Federal Army had taken possession of the city....there were masses of flame on the water. They were burning the blockade runners...they were blowing up the gunboats.”
After the evacuation, Lesesne returned to the country house, where she “lived as those whose home had fallen into the possession of the enemy.” A stirring and meticulously written account of life in wartime Charleston.
[Civil War, Union, Confederate] [Manuscripts, Documents, Letters, Ephemera, Signatures, Autographs]
