Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1857-09-24
From the Marion American.
THE PALMETTOEs IN MEXICO

From the Marion American.
THE PALMETTOES IN MEXICO.
BY>ONR OF THE TWO HUNDRED.
NEW sERlEs-NQ. H..
It. was about the Goth of December, 1916,
that the Palmettoes rendezyoused at Charles
ton. They encamped at the race course,
three miles above, the city, where they re-
mained about ten days. They were visited
every day at their camp by the ladies and
citizens of Charleston. I remember with
what interest the ladies came round our
camp.fres to witness our awkward attempts
at cooking, and with what grace they conde
scended to eat our fried potatoes cooked by
soldier hands.
The city of Charleston gave us the regi-
mental flag, which was presented to Colonel
Butler, in presence of the regiment, by 7.
Leger Hutchinson, Mayor of Charleston
Upon our flag CLEANED not the stars Of union,
and the stripes for foes, but upon its blue
folds stood out a-single tree-the sad, desc
late and solitary palmetto-a speaking, his
torical memorial of ancient history. Every
people has its national armorial siguets
fraught with an aninspiration or memory, and
its armies go to battle under banners in.
scribed with them.
The traveller who has sailed along the
coast of South Carolina, has seen along the
margin of the sea the bleak and sad palmet-
to, marking the blue outline with its branch
less, leahess and barren trunk. There are
few landscapes that look so desolate as the
sandy coast of Carolina, fringed with groves
of palmettoes. The palmetto grows from
thirty to forty feet high, audresembles moth
ing so much as tall cabbage. 1t has no
limbs or leaves, and has nothing but a
bunchy, thick, short excrescence of blades
at the top. The bark is rough and ugly
Such is the exterior of the tree, but the in
terror yields soft, pleasant and nutritious
substance, which is very good for the table.
1t yielded much of the food upon which the
soldiers of the Revolution kept body and
soul together. Such is the palmetto, but it
has history which consecrated it in South
Carolina as sacred tree, an armorial signet
of her soldiery, and an emblem Of her SOW
ereignty.
In May, l776, before the Declaration of
Independence, Sir Peter Parker, with large
feet, came bearing down on Charleston
Without any help, but from themselves, the
Caroinians prepared to give him battle
With nothing but militia, unframed and un-
skilled, they threw up rude fort of palmet-
to logs, on Sullvan's Island, and with ap-
preheusion, but without fear, awaited the
unequal conflict. The quaint and simple
historian, who was one of the combatants,
thus describes it
"The island of sand no longer seemed a
dreary waste. Brighter rolled the blue Wa
ters of the ocean beneath the golden beam,
and sweeter murmured the billows on their
sandy beach. My heart rejoiced with the
playful fishes, as they leaped high, wanton'
ing in the air, or with sudden hounce re-
turned again, wild, darting through their lu'
cid element. Our work went on in joy.
The palmetto trees we're brought to US by the
blacks in large RATS, of which we construc'
ted for our fort, an immense pen, two hun
drcd feet long and sixteen feet wide, filled
with sand to stop the shot"
Such was the palmetto fort, the only bull
wark between brave men and their graves ;
the only barrier that opposed the entrance
of the invader to the only maritime city in
the South. And how we'll the palmetto logs
stood the shock and concentrated fire of three
hundred cannon, let our historian tell US:
"Such sudden burst of fame and thun-
der, could not but make US feel very queer
at first, especially as we were young hands,
and had never been engaged in such an aw-
full scene before. But few rounds present.
ly brought US all right again, and then, with
heads bound up, and stripped to the buff,
we piled our bulldogs like heroes.
"The British outnumbered us in men and
guns, at least three to one, but then our
guns, some of them at least, were much the
heaviest, carrying balls of two and forty
pounds weight; and when the monsters,
crammed to the throat with chained shot and
internal fire, let out, it was with such hide
GUS peals as made both earth and ocean trem-
BILE. At one time it appeared as though, by
strange kind of accident, all their broad
sides had struck up at once, which made the
fort tremble again. But our p lmettoes
stood the fire to miracle, closed up without
sign Of splinter, on their shot, which was
stopped by the intermediate sand; while, on
the other hand, every bullet that we fired
went through and through their ships, tim
Der heads, and iron anchors, in their furious
course. And thus was the order Of our bat