The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1909-05-12
They Are MYTHS
EVENTS THAT DID NOT HAPPEN
MAY BE
Represented on the Silver Service
That the State is to Give the Bat
tleship South Carolina.


tleship South Carolina.
In letter to The Sunday News Of
Charleston, Mr.. A. S. Salley, Jr.,
secretary of the South Carolina His
torical Commission, criticises the de-
cision of the Commission appointed
to select silver service for the bat
tleship South Carolina. He says:
only a few days ago commis-
sion, composed of some of the ablest
and most honored men of this State,
met in Columbia and selected the
design to go on the silver service that
the State of South Carolina is go
ing to present to the battleship South
Carolina of the United States navy.
1t was decided to engrave on the
service number of historic scenes
and portraits of distinguished char
acters. Not one Of the scenes Sc
lected can be depicted save from
imagination; one of them cannot
be authentic at all, and another can
be fully disproven by the very best
Of evidence.
''The story of Marion inviting the
British officer to dine on sweet pota-
toes cannot be authenticated. It
first appeared in Weems' Life Of
Francis Marion in 1909. Gen. Hor-
ry, one of Marion's officers, at once
pronounced the book fiction, and
Weems admitted in letter to Hor-
~ that he had written his book in
the form of military romance.
From cover to cover the book can
be shown by the best evidence to
be absolutely false. The ancestors
of Marion were manufactured by the
enterprising romancer, and every 9TH
eT story in the book bears the true
Weems trade mark. Judge W. D.
James, another of Marion's former
officers, also gave the stamp Of falsity
F.. to Weems' book in his account of
Marion's brigade. Gen. McCrady's
history shows the incident could not
have occurred; that Marion and the
British officers did not exchange mill
tary civilities; that when Marion
first sent flag of truce to a British
officer he imprisoned him and Marion
retaliated and put an end to all
such intercourse. There are q half
dozen volumes of memories by Brit
ish officers who served in South Car
olina and an equal number by Amer
lean officers, and not one has a word
about such an episode; nobody tells
the story of the noble British Of
fcer who resigned rather than fight
people who lived on roots before
they would forego independence.
The laws of war would make the act
punishable by death, and there is in
evidence no record of such case
among all the thousands Of docu-
ments that have been handled by his
torians in all these years. The only
authority is Weems, and he has been
discredited as to everything else, and
the facts are against him in this
case.
ssThe same Of Mrs. Motto at the
burning of her house will be a re-
versing Of established fact. Every
single reputable historian who has
ever written of the episode Of Mrs.
Motto and the arrows, asserts that
the house was not burned. Col.
Lee and Judge James were eye-wit-
nesses who so state. Mr.. G.. G.
Pinckney. Mrs. Notes grandson. the
Rev. DR.. C. c. Pinckney, her great
grandson. and Mrs. Harriet Horny
Ravenel. her great great-granddaugh-
| ter, have all written accounts IN
which they say that the house was
not burned. A newspaper in the
Charleston library contains men
tion of the accidental burning Of the
house a few years after the close Of
the Revolution.
"Several times in the past I have
cited the Greene-Sumter correspond
ence to show that the alleged ride
of Emily Geiger could not have taken
place: that those two officers never
having occupied at the same time
the relative positions assigned to
them by the story, it would have
been physically impossible for the
ride to have taken place; that there
is no contemporary record in evil
dence to show that Emily Geiger ever
took ride at all. After years OF
search I have not been able to ind
the scratch Of contemporary pen
70 show that such person ever ex-
isted. and. therefore, would be glad
to have Mr.. Davis or any one else
furnish the slightest proof that she
did before I can believe that she
s1eeps in a secluded spot up near
where the Congaree creek mlnsles
its clar waters with the muddy tide |
of the Congaree.
''The writer has been particularly |
critical of the people Of Mecklen-
burg county for their adherence to an
exploded myth; he has won high
praise from many of the ablest and
hest known historical writer's and
critics in America for his work on
that mooted question: he will not
Law himself open to criticism for IN
consistency by not protesting against
the perpetuation OF long discredited
myths as part of the history of South