Only Death: Tragedy in Williamsburg

By David Brown

This is a historical-fictional novel based on an actual event that occurred in Williamsburg County, South Carolina, in the year 1870. Some names have been changed, and some events have been embellished and expanded upon. Overall, this is what happened leading up to a very tragic climax. It started out as a friendly competition between two former Confederate soldiers for the hand of a lovely young lady. Over time, the competition developed into a feud and progressed to the point where a challenge to a duel was issued. One of the young men was very intelligent and highly educated. The other was a simple farmer. The challenge led to the death of one of these young men. One was the writer's great-grandfather. The writer was told this story over a half century ago by his grandfather. He feels that the story must be told so that others may learn what arrogance, obstinance, and vanity can lead to.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9781644718773

David Brown

David Brown is the host of the hit podcasts Business Wars and Business Wars Daily. He is also the co-creator and host of Texas Standard, the Lone Star’s statewide daily news show, and was the former anchor of the Peabody award-winning public radio business program Marketplace. He has been a public radio journalist for more than three decades, winning multiple awards, and is a contributor to All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and other NPR programs. Brown earned his PhD in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and his Juris Doctor from Washington and Lee University School of Law. He lives with his wife and two children in Austin, Texas.

Book preview

South Carolina College

A draft of piercing cold air blew forcefully into the parlor turned into a ballroom as the butler opened the double doors and strained to push them closed again after the entourage of demure young ladies entered, each with hands simultaneously securing her wraps while the other hand guided her sweeping full skirt into the room. For a second, the sound of clopping horse hooves could be heard as the carriage moved slowly along the Horseshoe of South Carolina College.

Several young former Confederate soldiers, now students, who had looked up each time the door opened letting in guests, now surveyed this group with interest, especially one tall young man who held his head with a certain arrogance. His raven eyes had fallen on the most beautiful of the group, and while he held his stare expecting her eyes to meet his, she was graciously and regally allowing a servant to remove her wraps while her eyes scanned the room of the college president’s home and the site of the most festive gala of the year, the scholars’ ball. She suddenly and unconsciously emitted a gasp as the coldness met her fair, unblemished shoulders sending shivers through her body.

The young ladies were students from Barhamville Female College, Columbia’s top boarding school for females, and daughters of wealthy planters and landowners from across the state. They continued to follow their shepherding chaperones into the airy room until they had crossed to the fireplace and could feel a token of its warmth. While most young females of their age remained uneducated beyond their limited public schooling, the fortunate were taught by governesses at home while the very fortunate, such as these, were sent to female seminaries like Barhamville, which were springing up across the aristocratic South to provide these future plantation wives in a curriculum of geography, grammar, arithmetic, music, voice, art, embroidery, and foreign languages. Barhamville was looked at with awe for possessing a reputation for having the fairest aristocratic clientele and, with similar awe, was exactly the way several small groups of gentlemen surveyed the clutch of chicks who had just joined the party.

Finally, the focus of the dazzling young lady’s eye made its way across the room and fell on the young man. He had not removed his stare, not even to blink. Afraid by so doing, he would find she had been a mirage and beyond his reach. Her gaze for an instant continued in the circuitous movement around the room but pivoted and returned to his, so intent was his gaze, as if by sheer will, it was beckoning her eyes back to his dark stare, as if his stare commanded her to come back to his powerful vision.

At the very moment Margaret Crawford Peden Tisdale’s eyes succumbed to the dark, powerful stare, an internal stir occurred causing her instinctively to grab the arm of her dearest, closest friend Agnes as if she were in danger. Agnes quickly turned to Margaret and then saw to where Margaret’s eyes were focused.

Margaret, come. Let’s walk over to ask Mrs. Pickrell if she’ll allow introductions.

I don’t recollect that my feet might move, Agnes, said Margaret and only then was able to lower her face and turn to Agnes to say under her breath, "Isn’t that tall gentleman divine? I believe I might swoon if he chances to walk over for introductions. Don’t walk away from me, Agnes. And we certainly may not be so bold as to walk in that direction."

Her grip on Agnes’s arm was steadfast as they stood trying to appear to admire the furnishings of the spacious room, especially the rosewood piano much like the one that sat in her own parlor at home, but Agnes herself had noticed another guest at the ball, one whose face was downcast. Her heart went out to him; his sadness was so evident. She wanted to walk over and offer solace, but for the time being, she knew she needed to support her closest friend Margaret because she sensed the powerful magnetism between the beautiful Margaret and the tall handsome gentleman, who was now speaking sideways to a man standing close to him, never taking his eyes off Margaret.

Presently, he took several steps away from the man who had been hearing his words and began walking toward Margaret. At once, with the quick eye of an eagle’s, Mrs. Pickrell interjected herself between him and her prize pupil. She introduced herself at once indicating that all the young girls under her tutelage were her responsibility and anyone who wished to speak to any one of them necessitated her prior approval following her barrage of questions.

He bent low in a courteous bow to show he was indeed worthy due to his upbringing in the southern aristocratic way even though the South he had fought for so recently had been bulldozed by the North after a bloody but valiant war effort.

"Allow me to introduce myself, my dear madam. I am John James Martin, veteran of the late cause and presently a student of our great soon-to-be University of South Carolina, and upon graduation, I will assume duties as schoolmaster at Rough Branch in the White Oak Community near Cades, South Carolina."

And when might that time be, Mr. Martin? And just who are your parents, and from which section of this grand state do your parents reside? After which, considering him too bumptious for one of her charges, she proceeded to instruct him in her ultimate purpose, the edification of Miss Tisdale and all the other female students, but he ignored her condescending comments and continued to promote himself.

My graduation falls at the end of the coming spring term. At such time, I will be returning to the Lowcountry in the vicinity of Georgetown to become the headmaster of a school in a thriving community, which is some distance from my mother, Eliza McIntosh, widow of Matthew Martin and now wife of James M. Boyd, who has been my stepfather since I was no more than five years old. My home has long been a residence between Black River and Andrews. Surely, you know the locale? Gradually, with an instinctive knowledge and loveliness of the crescendo and pause of language, he was winning the matron over by his loquaciousness and his elegant manner of so doing. Yes, he was getting closer to the prize of which he anticipated.

The two, the tall handsome gentleman and the portly Mrs. Pickrell, continued to chat as cups of punch were brought to them on silver trays reflecting the light from the gas-lit lamp sitting on the Italian marble top gothic revival mahogany table. At the conclusion of their conversation, the tall Mr. Martin again bowed low to the matron and began his course directly toward the lovely Miss Margaret Tisdale.

Agnes, Margaret’s roommate who was a few years older than she, had wasted no time in her seeming distraction to walk toward the sad young man who had snagged her heart’s softer side. She walked pass him and accidentally bumped the chair which he in turn immediately sprang from and to her rescue. Agnes, looking helpless, thanked the young man and was about to walk toward the punch table. Please allow me, he said, reaching for the ladle and pouring.

Why, how kind of you, sir. Are you a scholar here, may I ask? she said, waiting for no introduction.

Before and since the war, I have been in the army stationed here in South Carolina but desire nothing more than to return home.

"Where might home be, sir? I take it you remained after the cause for some purpose?"

My home is the beautiful state of Virginia, and I will return as soon as I am able from injuries and from business adventures. However, peradventure, this evening’s festivities bring cause to find heart, Miss—

My name is Agnes, sir. She lowered her face to avoid assuming too brazen a demeanor. Since Mrs. Pickrell was engaged making other introductions around the room, she assumed it would not be entirely inappropriate. Her heart was beating rapidly as his wretchedness was being replaced with a more pleasant countenance. She was thoroughly convinced her presence had lightened his burden exceedingly, whatever the burden might be.

Over in a corner of the high-ceilinged room was Mr. Robert Woodward Barnwell, his snowy head bent to better hear Dr. Samuel McGill who had thrown back his shoulders and was chatting away. Mr. Barnwell still presented a handsome figure with his thick wavy hair even at his venerable age. This Harvard educated lawyer from Beaufort County had enjoyed an illustrious career indeed, having been a former president of South Carolina College and one who had served as a United States senator for a short time in filling a vacancy. He had picked up a leadership role again during South Carolina’s secession from the union. He was no doubt listening to the ideas Dr. McGill was presenting him to expand the college to its former enrollment since the Honorable Mr. Barnwell had been appointed acting chairman of the school’s faculty in the absence of a president. The war had taken a toll on the college, causing it to close its doors for a time; it had only reopened a year earlier in 1866.

On closer eavesdropping, one would have heard quite a different conversation than he might expect—one of a more casual note, for Dr. McGill was pointing out to the elderly chairman to notice young Martin over there. He has extraordinary mental powers in that giant brain of his. While other scholars are studying before class, Martin sits unconcerned with his books on the bench by his side. He says he learns more by listening to my explanations. Odd, isn’t it? Yet the scholarly Martin can quote pages from the textbook never missing the proper references.

Is that the case? asked the older Barnwell.

Indeed. He is more of an observer—a scientific mind to be sure. And when on the battlefield, he kept up correspondence with me. Yes, he reported to me then on the conditions on John’s Island that our men would in no way give up the cause. Another instance, in fact, he wrote to me he had befriended at least five Irish men, forced to enlist in the Union Army who had come over to our side.

When the evening had waned and the young ladies were back in the dormitory of Barhamville Female College, the lovely Margaret sighed as she picked up the daguerreotype sitting on the armoire beside her tester bed and looking lovingly at the handsome face of the soldier’s image before her. The likeness had been made possible through a process using copper plates and iodized silver and mercury vapor that produced a permanent image. Looking at the image now made Margaret’s heart pine knowing she had not thought of his for several hours. In fact, she had been swooning over quite another man—the man at the ball.

What am I going to do, Agnes?

Agnes had already removed the tortoise shell combs from her hair and was sitting down to unbutton her shoes.

Don’t think about it tonight. Just enjoy the moment, replied Agnes because that is precisely what she wished to do—to think of the young man she’d met at the party: Daniel. His name was Daniel. He was from Virginia. Her mind was filled with sweet thoughts of Daniel’s smile. The mustache above his upper lip curved up as his mouth formed the nicest smile. She harbored a sweet feeling of contentment—she had turned his sorrowful expression into one of pleasantness or, at least, forgetfulness for the time being. She wanted to go to sleep thinking of nothing but his smile. Good night, Margaret.

Margaret replaced the daguerreotype to its sacred place and began unbuttoning her own shoes while still looking upon the face of the young man who looked expressionless back at her. "Sidney, you are the one in my heart. I will forget Mr. Martin by morning, I’m sure. It is you that I love." She continued to gaze at the picture for a long time before turning out the flame in the lamp. She wanted to dream of Sidney and be sure of his features.

Chapter 2

Alice

Margaret waited with uninhibited anticipation, listening for the carriage. Her papa’s correspondence said her brother John would be coming for her and likely bring William because he was hankering to get away from home and it was safer to travel by twos for such a distance. Margaret knew her papa himself would not be coming but would be overseeing the butchering of hogs for the upcoming celebrations around Christmas and New Year’s, and besides, he did not care or dare to attempt the trip at his age. The brothers would lodge the night on the outskirts of Columbia at the Sykes Inn after their long journey and then on to Barhamville to transport their sister home for the holidays. Mrs. Pickrell had already instructed the house girl to remove the hot coals from the night fireplace and wrap them in burlap to be placed beneath Margaret’s feet for the buggy ride home.

As much as he longed to see his daughter, at fifty-six years old, William Isaiah Tisdale couldn’t bear to think of the bumpy ride over muddy roadways and possibly through cold rain showers soaking through to his old bones to aggravate his arthritis and his temperament. He complained on his last trip that he still smelled the ashes from Sherman’s fire even though it had been over a year and a half since the redheaded monster’s destructive march signaled that the war was over. He loudly lamented to anyone who would listen that bridges and railroads and half the state’s wealth of 1860 were now gone and reconstruction had not yet begun in South Carolina. The soldiers were home—at least some of them—one in nineteen young white males were dead and many others maimed by the time of the war’s end.

William Isaiah Tisdale had already suffered much in his life. He had lost his dear Elizabeth Gamble McGill thirteen years earlier when she was only a tender thirty-eight years old. They had lost three of their little girls before they reached their fifth birthday. Now he had seen his dear state of South Carolina splintered like the timber at his lumber mill. It often grieved his heart to look about him or think about all his losses.

Let the boys hitch the most reliable horses and take the best buggy to go for his college-student daughter, he thought. He would prefer to stay as close to home, Kingstree, the county seat of Williamsburg County, as possible. I need to be where I can protect home and those left under my care. More and more, a feeling of trepidation crept into his otherwise jovial spirit, like a thief invading his secret sense of well-being, causing him to doubt he would be able to provide for his own as he had done in the past: his younger children—William, fifteen; and Samuel, thirteen. An apprehension of the future prevailed, and he wondered if it was only the result of the devastating war or was it life itself—was his life running out before his dreams could be completed?

Agnes, I hear them, yelled Margaret like a child from her lookout at the window. I wish you were going home with me. I don’t see why you insist at staying at Barhamville to sup each evening with the Pickrells. She was trying to sound sincere, but she suspected that Daniel would be visiting Barhamville during the holidays and Agnes would not be lonely. And as for herself, her joy at seeing her brothers, especially young Samuel, was all the emotion she could manage. She ran to the carriage as William jumped from the driver’s seat to engulf her in his strong arms and lift her entirely from the street. William’s almost a man, she thought. Samuel had not come. She tried to hide her disappointment, knowing she would see him before the day was over, God willing.

Twenty-six-year-old John had dismounted and was waiting to embrace his sister though not as enthusiastically as his brother William. Next, Margaret rushed to stroke the manes of the horses. Pet. Bay, she said with tenderness. Daddy sent my favorites. Good boys, good boys, she cooed.

Quickly, she was in the carriage, her trunk strapped securely on, and they were off in the morning dew. It was still barely light enough to see. The Barhamville cook had prepared breakfast and made an additional basket of food for the trip for Margaret and her brothers. The faint aroma was a friendly reminder that the journey would be long, but they would not go hungry.

They made their way eastward over the well-traveled rut roads. As the sun began rising higher in the sky, the roads turned into less traveled, more treacherous ones through dense trees and swamps. Several times, a doe or buck darted into view and then quickly disappeared into the woods. At times, the Tisdale trio spotted many herons paused like elegant statuettes at different times and places waiting for their breakfast among the cypress knees in the shallow water. Margaret mused at the beauty of their snowy plumage. As she became reflective, she considered the different halves of her life—school with academics her major focus with interesting conversations with professionals—and on the other side was her life on the Black River section of Williamsburg County, her father and brothers and sisters and the slaves. Life there was totally mundane filled with rural activities—the timber business, the turpentine business, and the plantation life of planting and upkeep of dependent slaves and animals—and yet such beauty.

She smiled. It wasn’t bad. No, her life had never been bad. There was a certain elegance and grace to plantation society, keeping abreast of county functions and providing their fair share of social life. Their role as good Presbyterians was the responsibility to be not so high and mighty that they made other folks feel slighted. The minister was forever bringing sermons on horse racing and gambling and whiskey that made her father squirm in the pew, but she knew he was not going to change, and neither were many of their neighbors. They prided themselves on having the best horses and the best whiskey in the state of South Carolina and probably North Carolina as well.

She banged against the top of the carriage, and the brothers halted the horses.

Please, one of you come sit with me or let me squeeze in between you. I’m dying to talk.

John nudged William who quickly swung himself down and entered the carriage.

"Will, how is everyone at home?" she asked.

Sidney, you mean? He lowered his chin and giggled. You want to know if Alice has stolen him away from you, huh? She makes no bones about it—she wants him. She runs after him all the time, and with you up there in Columbia and both of them back home, I’d say, you’d better be careful, or she’s going to steal your sweet little beau away from you, sister.

Margaret gave no indication of any jealousy but looked away again at a tall heron poised among the swampy water beneath the trailing moss almost touching it. How beautiful and graceful they are, she thought. Nature can teach us. These birds sit elegantly awaiting their delight. We need to follow the examples set in nature. She stiffened her back and drew in her breath. Hearing her brother speak openly about her rival, the ostentatious Alice, and seeing the serene beauty of the herons caused her to remember a poem by Margaret Fuller that a classmate had discovered in an old copy of The Dial magazine. The classmate wanted Mr. Pickrell, their English literature instructor, to discuss it in class, but he absolutely refused. That obscure woman was only trying to rebel against being a woman. She challenges every ideal you and these other young women should strive for. His refusal to teach the poem made her more eager to secure a copy. She had memorized the poem that Sarah Margaret Fuller had entitled Winged Sphinx.

Through brute nature upward rising,

Seed up-striving to the light,

Revelations still surprising,

My inwardness is grown insight.

Still I slight not those first stages,

Dark but God-directed Ages;

In my nature leonine

Labored & learned a Soul divine;

Put forth an aspect Chaste, Serene,

Of nature virgin mother queen;

Assumes at last the destined wings,

Earth & heaven together brings;

While its own form the riddle tells

That baffled all the wizard spells

Drawn from intellectual wells,

Cold waters where truth never dwells:

It was fable told you so;

Seek her in common daylight’s glow.

If Alice can take him, then he is not for me, is he? she said to her brother with such dignity he was at a loss for a response on that topic; therefore, he changed the topic to their mutual sister Agnes Louise and Thomas’s children and their latest happenings. The conversation then advanced to their sister Mary and her husband, her Thomas McCrea, their four children, and her troubles. He wound up the family news by telling of younger Samuel’s latest antics as a jockey in this fall’s racing at the tracks.

Oh, how I miss them all, but we stay constantly with our heads in the books. We did manage a gala event recently where we engaged in an evening of entertainment and dancing with the young scholars in the president’s home of South Carolina College.

Was her inclusion of this news an indirect rebuttal to the admonishment about Sidney’s ardent admirer? Whether the comment was intended to entice William to follow her lead and ask about the young scholars, he did not but continued in the gossipy mode, telling her the fall results of the horseracing business, and then he proceeded to accommodate her knowledge of the new turpentine stills. Finally, he exhausted himself on repeating the usual forecast of doom to the South because of the aggression, especially lamenting on the lack of better railroads due to the dastardly work of the northern redheaded devil.

Just take a look at the damage. It will take years to rebuild if we ever can afford it with all the manpower gone. Thank God ours have chosen to stay on. They would not think of leaving, but others, I’ve heard, have headed north as fast as they can go as if they think the entire situation will suddenly be overturned as if nothing has happened. They run like the devil himself is after them. But like I said, ours are staying. It will mean changes, I’m sure. John up there, he’s worried about how all this is going to affect the plantation, and he still feels bad that he didn’t fight.

I’m so thankful to God that he didn’t fight and that the war ended before either of you or Samuel had to go. Those vile ruffians have crushed our soil but not our souls! Remember that, William. And we still have each other, our family.

Margaret thought of the other Margaret—Margaret Fuller—the editor of the magazine and some of the remarks she had made in that publication that all men should be free. Best not to mention Miss Fuller’s name or her beliefs right now, she thought.

They continued for many more miles on the disastrous road that paralleled the Congaree Swamp before making its way through Manning on toward the Black River and Kingstree. Then the carriage stopped suddenly, and John secured the reins and jumped down. He swung open the carriage door to reveal the muck surrounding them from a quick shower earlier today.

We’ll need to smarten up this stretch, brother. It might be a spell, Margaret. If you want to pull out those victuals, now might be as good a time as any to partake.

After some time, the horses, Pet and Bay, rested from their canter, the wheels of the buggy began to roll again. Both brothers had again assumed the reins, and alone inside the carriage, Margaret laid her head back on the seat allowing dreams to fill her head. Sidney being pursued by Alice, that tidbit of gossip made her lift her head erect and tighten her lips momentarily. Then she rested her head again and thought of the handsome young scholar and the impression of his lips upon her outstretched hand. She could still conjure up the exact feeling—delicate but burning into her flesh.

When she opened her eyes, she realized she was still in the carriage and being rolled from side to side with each indention of the rough terrain below the metal wheels. Her insides felt in turmoil from the exertion. How excited she had been in the carriage with her father as they made their way to the state’s capital city months earlier after he had insisted she would be educated in the way her mother would have wanted. This journey, he had said then, on good days used to take me three days at least by horseback.

The afternoon sun—partially hidden already by dense growth of the tall pines, water oaks, cypress, sycamores, and poplars—was slowly going down. The horses would be spent from two rough days of travel. Don’t worry, Pet and Bay, my daddy will see you get the best hay and rest. Just get us home safely before too much longer, she thought.

Her brother John followed in the line of horsemen after her father and grandfather James and his brother Samuel who owned a racetrack in Cedar Swamp. John had always kept a close eye on the horses and the carriage wheels. Pet