Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1866-03-21
THE CHRONICLE.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2I, 1896.
Letter From South Carolina.
Correspondence of the ChrOnicIe.I
BLuFFroN. S. G., Feb. 18th. ,66

BLUFFToN, s. c., Feb. 18th, '66.
FRIEND RITEzEL :-Agreeably to promise
made on leaving, 1 seat myself to indite my
first letter. Leaving Warren, Jan. 29th, l
reached Charleston, s. c., via Pittsburg and
Baltimore the following Sunday, Feb. 4th.
Had wretched trip all the way by cars
and by steamer, and would advise other
southern bound travellers to go by New York
until regular Passenger routes are establish
ed, at least. Incidents on the route would
suffice to fill one letter, but as there is no
lack of better material 1 will consign them
at once to the tomb of the Capulets.
passed ten days in Charleston, and was
most Hospitality entertained by my old friend
Capt. Wall, of the Freedmen's Bureau, who
is doing yeoman's service in that most bene-
fcient agency. That it may be better sup
ported and endowed with greater powers,
must be the prayer of every one who has the
interest and elevation of the freed people at
heart. 1t is doing blessed and glorious
work whose results will extend through etern-
ity. 1t is the only protection between the
freedmen and their lifelong oppressors, now
made ten-fold more hostile by the exaspera-
tion of a justly merited defeat.
Ny first view of Charleston, awoke feel
ings at once new and peculiar-there stood
SumteI-its sea'wall reduced to a shapeless
heap of sand, and north and south faces rag
ged and torn-on either side were Wagner,
where the gallant Col. Shaw fell at the head
of the devoted 54th Mass, the first colored
regiment of the North, and the historic
Moultrie, renowned for its gallant defence
in the Revolution, and prostituted by rebels |
and traitors to inaugurate revolution in be- |
half of slavery. In the bay stood Castle |
Plal-nnv oud har-orI Xha IA
defiant city, where treason had its home and |
lifted its bloody hand against the Govern
ment to whose bounty it owed its life and by |
whose forbearance its existence was pro- /
longed.
Never were the judgements of Heaven
more speedily and terribly visited upon an
offender, than have been rained down upon
this doomed city. In the first year of the |
war the most destructive conhagration that
ever visited the South swept away, it is said,
i've hundred buildings in the very heart of
the city. To this the war had added hun
1red more The shells are estimated to have
made fifty fires besides destroying many
buildings by the mere conclusion which were
not fired. Many of these were pointed out
% me apparently uninjured, which 1 was
old were perfect wrecks, the shell having
entered a window or through the roof, explo-
ling internally, destroying all the wood
work but leaving the walls standing, which
seem to be uniformly two and half bricks
in thickness, making them so solid that in
The "burnt district many buildings still
stand entire. The Cathedral of st. Finbar.
4 massive Gothic structure of stone, stands a
perfect skeleton to the very summit of its
ofty spire, not stone displaced though splin-
.ered and ragged.
The Charlestonians vainly imagined that
secession would make their city the great
emporium of the South. Di-
rect trade was to be opened to all parts of
the world and like a second Tyre she was to
make the nations of the earth tributaries to
her commerce.