Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1906-11-28
THE STATUE 10 WADE HAMPTON.
SOUTH CAROLINA H0NoRs GREAT SON.
HANDSOME MEMORIAL UNVEILED.

HANDSOME MEMORIAL UNVEILED.
| Columbia, Nov. 20.-The impressive
ceremony of the unwilling Of the hand
some $4,000 bronze equestrian statue OF
Gen. Wade Hampton, one OF the .rorld's
greatest cavalrymen and South Carolina's "a
greatest statesman and most lovable son,
brought 10, 600 people to the city to-day,
the speeial.a regular trains from every
portion Of the State being crowded.
Main street, beautifully decorated in
Confederate colors, was thronged as on q
big day of fair week and the long pro,
cession, representing the Confederate
organizations Of the State, the schools
and colleges, the National Guard organi-
cations, the executive, judicial and leg
islative branches of the State govern
mont, was cheered to the echo as II
moved down Main street from the post
ofRss; thence around the Capitol buiid-
ing opposite the stand erected for spe
cial guests by the side of the statue,
which faces the Capitol building from
the east.
The unwilling ceremony proper opened
with prayer from Bishop Capers. Then
aftor music the unyeiling was done by
the Hampton grandchildren, four girls
and ope boy. A grea. shout went up
from 10000 voices as the folds fell away
from the handsome figure of Hampton
on his steed.
The commission then formally turned
the monument over to Governor Esy-
ward, who received it in behalf of the
State and introduced General Butler, the
orator OF the day. who charmed his audi
ence with . two hours splendid grafton.
General Butler is one of the South's
diction and touching eloqueuce held the
attention of the crowd throughout.
HAMPTON IN HISTORY.
In the crowd assemhled TO witness the
unveiling of the monument to Wade
Hampton and to give q last greeting to
South Cardinals dead ohieftan, there
were old and young. veterans who fol-
lowed him to battle, men who were with
him In 1875, men and women then uu-
born, and strangers from afar caught up
by the spirit of the OCCASION
Significant is the fact that Just thirty
years ago all eyes were turned to Hamp-
ton. AZ every railway station anxious
crowds were assembled to catch any
news that might be afloat. Hourly mes
sages came and went from one end of
the State to the other. Here in Colum.
bia angry crowds surged to and fro. No
man knew what an hour might bring
forth. The one supreme figure, calm
and unruffled, that kept his head through
All the storm, was Wade Hampton. On
his broad shoulders rested the fate of
people.
The people trusted not in vain. He
rose to the occasion, saw that conflict
with the Federal authorities must be
avoided at all hazards, met tho excited
crowd of his feilow-countrymen at Demo-
cratic headquarters and told them to 20
home-that was all.
II have been elected Governor of South
Carolina and by the eternal God / shall
be Governor, or else there shall be none.
Disperse quietly and 90 to your homes"
These were his words aud they stilled
the gravest crisis In South Cardinals
history. No man saw the way out but
Wade Hampton, the chevalier without
reproach.
Now, thirty years after, Wade Hamp.
Trinity churchyard, and what remains
OF him is his memory and the memorials
that peoples love have erected to him.
The handsome equestrian monument
elbows the great ohieftain mounted on q
fiery steed, in the act of greeting his
troops. His hat is in his right hand,
the left !grasping the reins short and the
SuotbOA aiSuihS uOCh 6uOWIuV now uH-
willing the steed is to stop.
The wind of his forward movement is
tanning his hair and the fringe of his
coat is blown back. The expression Ia
one of love, mingled with fatherly pride
in his men.
The statue of Hampton aud of his
horse are cast in hollow bronze and
strikingly handsome. The face of the
hero is turned to the west, whether by
design or accident. In any case, there
ia appropriateness in the selection, since
Hampton spent much of his time in the
west, and 1t was from Mississippi that
he came back to redeem South Carolina.
He was facing the west in 1865 when he
rstreated from Columbia before Sher-
mans overwhelming force. Westward
was the course of the old pioneers, and
Hampton harked back to the old days of
the republic.
HAMPTON, THE MAN.
South Carolina never had more un-
when he was not willing to die for the
State, and even his enemies admitted
that. The State has produced many
more brilliant, many more learned, many
more profound; but never in its history
has there arisen public man who
thought of self less than Hampton.
Born the richest man in the Southern
States, opposing secession to the very
last, the owner Of 40D slaves, with prop
erty enough to have gone to Europe and
been prince for the rest of his life, he
yet threw all in the balance when the
State had acted and never was heard to
utter a single regret. Even after the
war, when his property was swept away,
he had offers from Europe to 60 there,
especially England, where the English
nobility idolized him, but he remained
with his people, showing the same un-
selfish devotion in adversity that had
marked him in the heydey of his power.