The Story Behind the Story

 

            In The Culps and Allied Families, by Benjamin Dudley Culp, on pages 94 – 100, he tells the story of his ride through Sherman’s Army to warn the family group of the danger.  This recounting by my grandfather is appended at the end of this note.  I decided to reconstruct the telling of this adventure as accurately as possible, and write it as the story of this eleven year old boy and his heroic ride.  The people named are real and accurately portrayed.  The troop movements are exact.  The geography is precise, and the timeline is correct.  I researched many books and manuscripts, visited all the area personally, and interviewed people in the Carolinas who had family stories that related to this.  Of course, I took some liberties in filling in the conversations and thoughts of the people.  I list here just a sampling of the sources and efforts that went into this writing.

 

            For background on plantation life before and during the Civil War, the division of Manuscripts, Western History Collection, at the University of Oklahoma was valuable.  In particular, the B. S. Stafford manuscript about the Stafford Plantation (home of John and Mary Stafford) near Sister’s Ferry on the Savannah River in South Carolina provided a detailed description of life on a plantation similar to the Culp’s Home Place.

 

            In the University of South Carolina Library collection, Slave Narratives in South Carolina (republished in 1976 by Scholarly Press, Inc.) provided more details of life there.  This collection also contained detailed reports of both North and South military activities in the area during the war.  There were many other useful books and old maps there, including Mills Atlas 1825, Mills Atlas 1850, the Mouzon Map 5, Section A, of 1775, and the Cork Map, 1773.

 

            At both the University of South Carolina Library and the Rock Hill Library a valuable book is A City Without Cobwebs, A History of Rock Hill, South Carolina.  There were many other good books and manuscripts at these and other libraries of the area.  Many courthouses in the area have valuable documents which I found useful.

 

            The most valuable resource which gave exact movements and activities of both armies was War of the Rebellion, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies.  This record consists of more than fifty volumes.  The part covering this story is found in Series I, Volume XLVII, part II (Correspondence, etc., Operations in North Carolina (from February 1), South Carolina, Southern Georgia, and East Florida, January 1, 1865 – March 23, 1865).  This contains incredible detail of every day, every troop movement and activity.

 

            Civil War Leaders and Battles has good maps of the Carolina campaign.  Mary Boykin Chesnut’s book, A Diary from Dixie, gives a woman’s view of home life during the war, and corroborates that her husband, General James Chesnut, was indeed at Peay’s Ferry when Dudley crossed.

 

            In a trip to South Carolina in January, 1980, with my brother Bill, we visited Chief Arthur Saunders, of the Catawba Tribe, who lives on the old Home Place.  He told me how the ferry worked.  He actually ran the ferry at one time.  He remembers both Ashe Ferry and Indian (Cureton) Ferry.  He was a wonderful storehouse of information about the Home Place and the Culps and the history of the area.

 

            We interviewed several others who have family stories of that time, including Mrs. Jean C. Agee, Fannie Lee Sparks, Lloyd Gibbs and Max Culp and Bob Hill of Fort Mill.

 

            The itinerary of our trip (Robert Dudley Culp and William Combs Culp) in January, 1980, included Charlotte (home of Rose Ellen and Wiley Van Wagner), the home site near Rock Hill, Union, the Benjamin Dudley Culp (Dudley’s uncle?) house in Union, Old Friendship Church, Rock Hill Library and Court House, courthouses in York, Chester, and Lancaster, the original homestead on Fishing Creek and many family cemeteries in the vicinity, the Library in Columbia, other state archives in Columbia, many local people , and all the route Dudley took down the Catawba River, past several ferries, to Peay’s ferry, back to the railroad bridge and much of the area I fail to list.

 

            Following is Grampa’s story.  I have also attached photos of him in 1860 (at age six) and in 1875 (at age 21).  These are the only photos of him during his youth known to exist.

 

 

From The Culps and Allied Families

A History of Their Origin and Activity in America

By Benjamin Dudley Culp

 

Pages 94-100:

 

 

The Civil War-Mother a Widow at Thirty-Six

 

My mother was left a widow at the age of thirty-six, just at the beginning of the Civil War, with nine chil­dren, seven of them girls and the two boys under eight years of age, too young to be of any help to her in managing a large plantation and negroes. She met and overcame many serious difficulties during the four years of war.

 

Most of the negroes were old family servants who were faithful to "Miss Martha," as they liked to speak of her. She looked after their health and comfort as carefully as she did her own children. With the help of the old family negroes, she managed the others fairly well and got along about as well as the average until the close of the war.

 

I was her oldest living son, though I was less than thirteen years old. I was expected to and generally did a man's work. She depended entirely on me to manage the place and do much of the work after her old slaves left. I was better fitted to do this than most boys of my age, for I had been with her, helping in many ways to manage the farm from the time I was ten years old and was pretty well schooled in what should be done and how to do it.

 

When Sherman burned Columbia we hired an Irish­man to help the negroes dig pits in which to conceal provisions of all kinds. A 'pit was filled nearly full then covered with fence rails, the rails covered with leaves, and the leaves with a foot of earth. The pit was in the center of a ten-acre field; the field was sowed with oats and plowed in over the pit. Another pit was dug in a small floorless house on a hillside, and after the pit was filled and covered as described above, the house was filled with whe3.t straw. The cotton was hauled into the woods and laid flat against a large chesnut log with some small brush thrown over the bales. This was not nearly all we hid, but it will give an idea how we worked to save something from the Yankees. From what we could hear they were destroying everything of value they could not take with them. We expected all the buildings to be burned, except perhaps the negro cabins.

 

After the work of hiding was completed, the negroes, except some house servants, were packed in the wagons with a large supply of provisions and mule feed and sent off to a deep swamp on the east side of the Catawba River. This was done to save the mules and wagons and prevent some possible traitor among the negroes from informing the Yankees where we had hidden our stuff. After Columbia was burned and sacked by Sherman's army, the main body con­tinued their march through the state east of Catawba River.

 

They sent General Kilpatrick with about ten thousand cavalry and light artillery to sack the country on the west side. The Confederate General, Wade Hampton, informed of this, immediately followed Kil­patrick with a strong force. Information reached Kil­patrick that due to heavy rains up the country in the mountains of North Carolina the rivers were rising rapidly up country; and Hampton gaining on him, he determined to cross the river to get in touch with the main army before Hampton could overtake him

and before the river got too high to cross, so he changed his course.

 

A Battle and Case of the Shivers

 

Hearing by wire that he was marching directly to the river and that our negroes and mules would be safer at home than on that side of the river, my mother sent me to get Mr. Young to bring them home at once by way of the railroad bridge at Nation Ford. I rode fast to Curetous Ferry and found the river already too deep for ferrying, but the ferryman told me the rise was from up country and very slow and if I would ride fast I could beat the rise to Peay's Ferry. I got there and across but I found a force of Confederate cavalry under General Chestnut entrenched to defend the ferry to prevent Kilpatrick from crossing until the river would rise too much to be crossed, and Hamp­ton would overtake Kilpatrick if Kilpatrick could not outrun him.

 

I crossed all right but did not know the road. When I wanted to go on, an officer told me they would not permit me to go until the battle was over, for if they could hold the ferry until it was too deep to cross, the Yankees would probably continue their march on the west side, and the mules and negroes would be safer where they were. Instead of the Yankees' marching down to engage the Confederates with rifles, they stopped on the hill, got their artillery in position and opened fire on the Confederates, and the Confederates, having no artillery, soon retired and the Yankees took possession of the ferry and began crossing.

 

I was then permitted to go. It was a chilly day in March and the cold or nervousness got me to shivering and when night came on I was still shivering. When

I reached the road that turned off into the swamp, it was getting dark on the open highway, and when I got into the swamp I couldn't see my hand before my face. The mare I was riding had been there before, so I gave her the reins and soon came to the camp. My teeth were chattering so I could scarcely tell what I had come for. They gave me supper and put me to bed but that didn't stop the shivers. I soon got warm but couldn't stop shivering. I was so completely exhausted I soon fell asleep.

 

Mr. Young put the negroes to work soon after midnight getting ready to leave as soon as it was light enough to see to drive. They waked me about four o'clock and told me to get ready for breakfast. To my surprise I found the camp torn up and every­thing ready to move. We started before daylight and reached the railroad bridge at Nation Ford before noon. The only possible chance for us to cross the river was over this bridge which had no floor on it except a couple of planks between the rails and one outside of the rails.

 

They unhooked the mules from the wagons, pushed the wagons over by man power, and led the mules in single-file across. I went over with the first wagon. All the negroes crossed with the first wagon leading the mules ahead, so they could be hooked to the wagons to pull them off the track at the end of the bridge. They had pulled the other wagons onto the track so that no mules would be needed to bring them over. It was getting nearly train time when they started across for the last wagon. I began to think of what would happen if the train should come before they could get across, and developed another bad case of shivers, but they made it in good time.

 

There was another wagon waiting its turn when our last one crossed, and they attempted it, but the train appeared before they were halfway over. They hurried and the train ran slowly across the bridge, so they made it over all right, but in their excitement and hurry led two mules off the embankment as soon as they were clear of the bridge. A hind foot of one of the mules slipped under the steel rail and the dump was too steep for him to step back and pull it out, so the engine cut the leg off just below the knee. The mule released went down the bank on three legs. The river was higher than the oldest people had ever seen it. We drove fast from the camp to the bridge looking back continually expecting the Yankees to overtake us and this naturally made me nervous again. They rushed across for the same reason and the big river all over the bottoms and talk of danger of the bridge going out any minute gave older people than I the shivers. We ate and fed the mules before starting home, where we arrived about five that afternoon.

 

Safe, But No Mention of the Shivers

 

I had expected a joyful reception but to my aston­ishment I found them all in tears and some of them howling like wolves. I soon found out it was tears of joy, a reaction from what they had gone through the last two days. They had heard of my going on to Peay's Ferry and of the battle; so when we arrived safe and sound, the reaction completely unnerved them.

 

I had bad dreams and felt jumpy for a week. The family seemed to think Dudley was a brave and smart boy but I didn't think so; for I was scared into a blue funk half of the time and had only done what mother sent me to do. Mr. Young was a careful, thoughtful man and I am sure it was largely due to his care and management that everything went well. Mother seemed to think I was due the credit for bringing them home safely because of my rushing to Peay's Ferry and getting across before the Yankees. The truth was I had little to do with it after reaching camp that night.

 

The next day the negroes were allowed to wash up and get their homes in shape. Then began a very strenuous job. Everything we had hidden from the Yankees had to be dug out and hauled home to be dried and put away. It was no small undertaking. It had rained most of the time for over a week and the ground had soaked up so much water the pits were full. Everything that water would injure was damaged and many things ruined.

 

Mother had a bountiful supply of sugar, salt, and spices at the beginning of the war. She realized those things could not be replaced as long as the war lasted, so she took care of them. When the pits were emptied she found both the sugar and salt dissolved and lost, and the spices and many other things ruined. The corn had been hauled out into the forest and thrown into pens without covers and after soaking for a couple of weeks in water was badly damaged. The negroes were put to work shucking and shelling and drying corn but most of it was too musty for bread and very little of it was sound enough for seed. This was guarded as something very precious.

 

After the ground was dry enough to plow, the negroes got busy and soon had the crop planted in good shape. I went to work with them and my school days were over. This was the last crop ever planted by our negroes for "Old Missus" and the beginning of real work for me. The unprecedented rise in the river is what protected our place from the Yankees, and of course all our side of the river. The old-timers in that country still speak of it as the Sherman Flood.

 

I realized that my school days were over but I did not let it go at that. I studied at night especially in the winter by the light of pine knots, and not only did I keep up with others of my age but was soon far ahead of them in some studies. The habit of studying without a teacher in that way has helped me throughout life.

 

 

Benjamin Dudley Culp, “Dudley”, at age six (1860)

 

 

Benjamin Dudley Culp, at age 21, (1875)