Clearfield Republican. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1851-1937, 1861-12-04
A VISIT TO BEAUFORT.


Commodore Dupont and General Sherman
accompanied by Captain Davis, the fleet
captain, Captain John Rodgers and Capt.
G. P. r. Rogers, of the Wabash, and 9th
er officers of the navy, on the gunboat
Seneca, Capt. Ammen, to Beaufort, on the
10Th. The correspondent accompanied
the party, and he thus tells about the
place and what he saw:
at is a small place, occupied in summer
by many of the wealthiest planters in 5.
Carolina, who resort to it 70: its delicious
ocean air ; 1000 or more are usually there
as late in the season as November, but in
the winter the population is not more
than five hundred. The houses are most
ly wooden, with succeed fronts, spacious
verandahs and high porches they stand
along the shores in gardens crowded with
orange and lemon trees, fragrant jessa-
mines, magnolias and huge cactuses,
gorgeous in crimson and yellow.
No sooner had we put foot on shore
than the melancholy experiences of the
day began. A warehouse on the wharf
had been broken in and its contents pill
laged the relics of stores Of food were
strewn around, empty barrels, broken
doors and windows, cases of liquor or oil
overset and wanton destruction OF every
sort perpetrated upon the property, and
this was but sample of what we were
to meet at every step. All the
thops and stores were riiled; the postoi-
flee despoled, and on the dUorsteps some
fragments only told what had once been
written. Not white man was to be seen.
besides those of our own party. Captaia
Rodgers, of the Wabash, immediately
distributed his men around 50 as to guard
against surprise, and gave strict orders
that not an article should he removed
from the village. Negroes who we had
seen before landing had got ava,
with their plunder, but other groups
lounged around, touched their hats to US,
or in default OF hats, pulled their shaggy
wool and seemed anxious to talk. We
asked where we're the white people: "All
gone, massa, gone the day OF the fight -
;, lett we behind" Their story was uni
form. Their matters had fled with the
greatest precipitation so soon as the firing
commenced at Po:t Royal, Some indeed
had left even earlier, but not one now re-
mained. They endeavored TO persuade
or force the blacks to accompany them.
but in vain. the negroes had remained,
and Others had come from the surround
ing country, and an !ndlscrlmnate pillage
of the town had commenced. The testi>
monv of the blacks was unanimous that
the niggers were robbing and destroying
everything they could lay their hands on,
until on the 10th, Capt Ammen, OF the
Seneca, had arrived, and his officers
threatened to shoot them unless they de-
! sisted.
We went through spacious houses where
on a week ago families were living in lux
ury, and saw their costly furniture des"
poileu books and papers thrown out on
the floors. mirrors broken, safes smashed,
picnoes on the sidewalk, feather beds
ripped open, and even the filth of the ne
groes left lying about in parlors and bed
Chambers The destruction had been
wanton in many instances no purposes
of ,hunder could have been served, but
simply love Of mischief gratItied. The
flight mast have been very rapid, tor the
curtains were sometimes at the windows,
and in nearly every house the private pa
ters and letters remained. Wedding
cards and invitations TO dinner sometimes
,ay on n drawing room table, while the
walls were defared and the furniture bro.
ken all around 10y the slave population
MANY of the Off GERS went into houses OF
their friends, some into mansions, even,
where they had dined and slept in other
6ays Mr. Nat. Heyward's house was one
of the finest we entered another was
that of Edward Rhett, where Barnwell
Rhett himself had often resided.
The blacks told us that the rebels re
turned nearly every day. but only early
in the morning before sunrise, and N
small numbers. Gems. Drayton and Con.
zales we're said to have been in Beaufort
that morning with thirty or forty horse
men.
We came down the river slowly, having
left two gG1 boats near the town. and
stopped on the way to examine the re-
mains of an old Spanish fort, on the
property of lohn Joyner Smith, and a
live oak grove said TO be the finest in
South Carolina. The grove is spacious
and magnificent teyond an, thing of the
sort TO be seen elsewhere. The great
branching oaks stand each apart, so that
their growth is not obstruc,ed, and broad
promenades between them lead out 10 the
cotton fields. Pendant from the boughs
hangs the parasitical moss which clusters
so thickly on the orarge, the lemon, the
live oak and the fig tree; and heee and
there, on the green sword beneoth, the
little niger babies were at play. Beyond
the grove which was pronounced by those
most familiar with the South, superior to
any IN Florida or Georgia. stretched out a
plantation of Gotten, partly picked. We
visited the store house, where thirty or
forty bales were found, as yet unginned ;
two of McCarthy's gins and steam engine
were there ready to our hands, and a
crowd of negroes offered their services in
ginning. In the quarters of the blacks
we bought turkeys and poultry, and eggs,
and saw two men grinding corn at a mill,
exactly as the Egyptians ground it 2 90
years ago. The planters house was de-
serted by its owner, but we did not enter,
70. the slaves had apparently left its con-
tents undisturbed cnly at Beaufort has