Abbeville, History in every brick and board

Approaching Abbeville Square.

Drive up to Abbeville's square and you want to find a parking spot. Whether to sit on a bench in the shady park, to see what's showing at the Opera House or to explore what is inside the antebellum and early 1900s buildings, it calls to you.

Pull in and stay awhile.

There never seems to be enough time to do Abbeville justice which requires shifting your pace back 100 or so years.

Abbeville Opera House

Take the Opera House. Since 1908 Broadway's best have sung, danced and acted on its 7,500-square-foot stage. At the turn of that century, road shows traveled by train from New York to Richmond to Atlanta with an overnight stop in Abbeville. City fathers saw an opportunity and had the grand Opera House built. When movies began, it featured those, too, complete with orchestral accompaniment.

Imagine you imagine seeing plays from one of two stage-side boxes?

Today it has been restored to its 1908 glory with two additions, rocking chair seats and air conditioning. Stagehands still use the same rope-pulled rigging as in 1908. Named the official State Theater of South Carolina, Abbeville's Opera House is on the National Register of Historic Places, not to mention showcasing a year-round schedule of live productions.

I hope ghosts are still wandering around the Belmont Inn.

On one side stands the Courthouse and City Hall, across the street on the other side is the Belmont Inn, where those Scandals and Follies performers stayed, although they knew it as The Elysium. The venerable hostelry has been renovated by new owners since I spent a night there and I have to wonder if the ghosts stayed on.

The most notable was the chorus girl who wandered through the rooms looking for her favorite bracelet. She died never knowing it had been taken by another chorine. A colleague swore she had seen the apparition in her room during the night.

Burt-Stark Mansion

There isn't really anything left by the French Huguenots who founded Abbeville in 1764, but the town is rife with Civil War reminders.  It is, in fact, known as the cradle and the grave of the Confederacy. A tour of the Burt-Stark Mansion will explain.

On a hill now known as Secession Hill, the meeting that launched the state's secession from the Union was held on Nov. 22, 1860. According to our guide, the Articles of Secession were written at the Greek Revival mansion which had been built in the 1830s by David Lesley, a planter, lawyer and district judge.

Five years later, April 9, 1865, as the surrender of Richmond was expected any day, Varina Davis, wife of Confederacy President Jefferson Davis, and their children fled and took refuge in the house of their old friends, Armistead Burt, a former U. S. Representative, lawyer and Major in the Confederate Army, and his wife, Martha.

They left at month's end and around noon, May 2, Jefferson Davis arrived with his entourage. After eating, Davis, four of his cabinet members and five Brigade Commanders gathered in the gentleman's parlor for the last Council of War. Davis thought to gather the remains of the army and continue to Texas where they could raise more money and soldiers to fight on. His generals knew better and in the end, Davis was convinced that "All is indeed lost."

Did Judah P. Benjamin hide the Great Seal of the Confederacy here?

Also lost was the Confederacy's Great Seal. One theory has it being buried on the grounds around the mansion.

The Adam fan light of fleur de lis Burt had installed in the 1860s to honor his wife's Huguenot heritage; the red shows she was not of royal descent.

In all, Davis spent about 12 hours here, but they were decisive ones. Following the war, Burt, who had risked his life sheltering the Davises, was broke and in 1868, sold the house. In 1913 it was bought by cotton broker James and Ann Miller Stark. Their daughters were the last residents; in 1987, Mary Stark Davis willed the house to the Abbeville County Historic Preservation Committee.

We  ran out of time and couldn't see the Abbeville Historical Society's 1888 Queen Anne style McGowan-Barksdale House.

Anyone who claims there's nothing worth seeing in these smaller towns has never taken the time to visit one.

You will find what you come for at Andersonville

Andersonville cemetery. Photo © by Debi Lander.

History, military and Civil War buffs. Descendents in search of family, former POWs, their families and soldiers in search of validation. Just curious. Most of the 130,000 to 150,000 who come to Andersonville, this National Historic Site, POW Museum and active cemetery, have a purpose.

As Chief Interpretive Ranger Eric Leonard said, "This is a very, very reflective place. It's not where you come to picnic or play a game. Your experience depends on what brings you here in the first place."

As travel writers, we came to see what was here, to learn what had happened and to experience and share with readers what it's like. What we left wanting was more time to see, learn, experience and reflect.

That 13,000 people died here in 14 months, making it the deadliest place on American soil, is a tragedy but as Ranger Eric reminded us, the real tragedy is that it is not alone; there are more like it all over the world. There were 150 other prisons like it between the Union and Confederacy during the American Civil War.

Outer courtyard sculpture. Photo © by Judy Wells.

After seeing the museum's outer courtyard with its moving statuary of a prisoner with precious water dripping through his hand, we examined the infamous prison site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo © by Debi Lander.

 

The prison

Looking across the expanse that was once Andersonville Prison. Photo © by Judy Wells.

Originally 16 acres, at war's close it had been expanded to encompass 27 acres of hilly ground with a creek running through it. In all 45,000 men were imprisoned here over the 14 months of its operation; the highest concentration some 33,000 in July 1864.

The stories of sorrow, cruelty, kindness, hope, achievement, infamy, bravery and cowardice are endless; we could have listened to our eloquent ranger recount them for hours.

The ironies are as numerous. After the war ended, the last of three hospital buildings where so many men had died was taken over by New England female missionaries who used it as a school for the former slaves those men had died to free.

POW Museum

Clothes worn by a prisoner at Andersonville Prison. Photo © by Debi Lander.

Staring out across at that now empty expanse we tried to mentally populate it but the task was too daunting. We are lucky; such misery is beyond our experience.

Hanoi Hilton cell. Photo © by Judy Wells.

Sadly, it is not beyond the understanding and empathy of thousands of other soldiers who were and are captured and held prisoner during our other wars, which is where the POW Museum comes in. It makes tangible what those men endured from their morale to their torture, the agony of loved ones waiting at home and the indomitable spirit of the survivors.

Gone but not forgotten

One small section of many at Andersonville Cemetery. Photo © by Debi Lander.

The cemetery where the dead of Andersonville are buried along with today's military and their spouses is 27 acres of silent honor and respect, idyllic in its green and treed expanse, silent statuary and row upon row upon row of simple headstones.

Here you learn the story of the brave teenager Dorence Atwater who was responsible for keeping track of the burials as the war raged. He secretly copied the lists of numbered graves and the men buried in them and slipped it out. Clara Barton then used that list to find information for grieving families and to shame the military into erecting headstones identifying them.

One of the few unknowns. Photo © by Debi Lander.

The results are remarkable. Only four-percent of those buried here are unknown vs. the 40-percent unknowns of other campaigns.

Andersonville

To say we left subdued is an understatement. The village of Andersonville, directly across the highway, was the perfect antidote. We were afraid it would be the usual hokey, commercial rip-off attraction that surround so many of our notable sites, but there wasn't a phony thing about it.

Five of many uniforms at Drummer Boy Museum. Photo © by Debi Lander.

We were met at the Drummer Boy Museum by its dedicated and indefatigable director, Cynthia Stormcaller, who took us inside and watched as our jaws dropped. One of the finest collections of Civil War uniforms you will ever see, including one of only two known Confederate Zouave drummer boy uniforms known to exist. We were stunned by this unexpected find.

Confederate Zouave Drummer Boy. Photo © by Debi Lander.

Andersonville Village.Photo © by Judy Wells.

The village it is in is another jewel with its simple antebellum churches and buildings. It is here that the trains came to unload prisoners. Then it was bustling with a hotel and 300 residents, including four families of freedmen. Today it is quiet, with 300 residents proud of their heritage and determined to preserve it.

1843 Andersonville Baptist Church. Photo © by Judy Wells.

Filled with sadness for the past but hope for the future, like all travel writers we hit the road again to see some more.

Of course we had a moment or two of levity. Wouldn't be the Good Girls without it, would we?

Post by Judy Wells