Another set of ladies proposed it to me; I interviewed those who had given it up, and they generously gave consent. Miss Matilda Ehrlich, Mrs. Edward Ehrlich and Mrs. Plummer and others carried out the plan effectively, and as the first little girl was lifted off the truck to the platform and stepped up to General Hampton, presenting her bouquet, she was taken up and kissed by him, the other children. all on the platform.

Mr. Julian Selby told me that as the truck with the thirty-two little silver-winged girls was about entering the gate the negroes, women and men, threatened and insulted them, and a soldier (from Edgefield) cried: "Have we got to take this?" "Keep the peace," was the General's order, and he obeyed.

A child on horseback had been roughly handled near the State House, but that was a boy, and the marshal of the day had righted it, and nothing worse than invective bitterness was exhibited by the negroes.

When the campaign was closing all about were men equipped for camp. Several camps were in the environments of Columbia—one at the Fair Grounds, and the cavalry horses were the "stock on exhibition for the Fair." Days before the final parade, passing along the streets men would be seen lounging on the pavement, strapped and canteened, as with sore hearts we remembered to have seen them in '60 to '65. Scarcely breathing the words, we would ask: "Have you eaten? If not, go to such a point, all is ready for you." There was more mystery than when we were getting our men to the front of the Yankees. There was adverse strength right in our midst—we knew it and were feeling our way. When the women transferred their garland shop to the Main street, young negroes would peer in the windows and jeer, not speaking to, but at our children as they passed in and out. "Look at the Rebs”—and they would sing their songs. We charged the boys and girls going out from the workshop to neither look at or speak to them. The last day approached. My experience the evening before is one to itself. Five of the ladies suddenly determined after lamplight to walk up the street together, and seem at ease, and look at the effect of our plan of decoration. We started at the Gates of the City, and passed under the State arch at the corner (but we never got to the United States arch), for we felt, rather than heard behind us, tramp, tramp, increasing, and then a voice began to chant: "John Brown's bones lie mouldering in the clay," and others joined in, till a chorus of 20 or more negro youths, not violent but steady, were almost touching

us. I completely lost my sense of identity and the five women caught hands and swung along as one-crossed the street, followed still, until we reached on our return Fisher's drug store, into which we plunged with the feeling that a weird spell had been broken. We got some of our gentlemen to see us to our homes and felt safer when daylight came.

Our forces, negro convicts and red-shirts, marched next day through the streets, and under our emblematic arches, with Bayard of Delaware and Gordon of Georgia, who had come to see us win; and win we did, by the masterful reticence, the glorious power held by the spirit of one man over the spirits of our other men, who would have taken that State House with their finger nails, being without weapons, if only Hampton had said the word. When they asked for orders, expecting again and again at certain points in the progress of affairs that he would release their energies into action, he held them still; like a giant in thongs. The words never changed. "General, what shall we do?" "Keep the peace." A giant loosed does not feel the gash of a sword—a giant bound feels the prick of a pin.

I have always been pleased to think (with a race pride) that Chamberlain was not a coward. He rode down from the Arsenal Hill in his coupe, alone; and our red-shirts and clubs being massed for a block in front of the State House, he bent forward, looked out and spoke to his negro driver, who turned out of Main street at Muller's corner, where I viewed him from the gallery; and he got to the State House by the back street.

Still, we were not in possession. I was at my sister's on Taylor street when a great boom startled us. At the gate three young negro women faced me. One exclaimed, "What's that for?" Another answered, "Just some of those damned white Democrats' foolishness." I ran over to Dr. Lyles' bareheaded (and I see now a big pile of sweet potatoes on the hearth in the room into which I burst) with the inquiry of the meaning of the noise. A number of young men were collected there for dinner. Another rushed in, gasping, "Hampton is acknowledged. The Wallace House is the government. News from Washington."

I did not know a man of those who stood in the room, but hands were wrung, and as I left the house I saw them swinging around and around in a circle like children going round the rosemary bush, hysterically saying words "fondly.”

And this was the way it was begun to get the State home again.

A long while after this paper was written I turned over some States, rolled and labeled "Hayes and Hampton," which caught my eye, and I found this letter of General Johnson's, written in 1893.

It gives with a man's vigorous style what I have set forth in a womanly way.

"The morning the Rifle Clubs were ordered to Columbia you had only to raise your hand and Ruger's garrison would have been swept off the face of the earth. But you held them back, and I know no more remarkable illustration of moral force than your control—and their obedience-honorable to both. You had only to say, 'There they are take them!' and the firing on Sumter would have been repeated. I remember the great meeting before the Democratic headquarters at Columbia, the day it was attempted to pack the State House with roughs. I remember how the wires were hot that night with orders to the clubs to report at once, and how by 9 a. m. we had 2,500 old soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia on the spot, and by sundown there were 5,000 of them and then they were all brought up before the headquarters, and your speech was to this effect:

I

""I am glad to see you all here, come to see the State Fair. There is very good stock out there, and I hope you will all go to see it, and be very particular to behave in an orderly and quiet manner. want you all to remember that I have been elected Governor of South Carolina, and by the God above, I intend to be Governor! Go home and rely on that. I'll send for you whenever I want you.' "That speech, and the yell that responded to it, made you Governor, and no huckstering for advantages, no trading for benefits, was part or cause of your success. Let South Carolina and South Carolinians remember until the last syllable of recorded time that manliness and courage bore her through the ordeal of 1876, ten thousand times more trying than Cornwallis' or Tarleton's raids, or Sherman's dragonnade. No man or woman or child will ever blush for the means by which the redemption of South Carolina was achieved, but will always say, with crest erect and face to heaven, 'My blood was there; my people took part in that heroic achieve

With these words we close the record of how Wade Hampton won!

Columbia, S. C.

MRS. THOMAS TAYLOR.

History of the Orangeburg County Monu. ment Association.

In the spring of 1887, The Times and Democrat, through its columns, published an article urging upon the people of Orangeburg to bestir themselves, and not let the names and fame of our Confederate dead rest in oblivion.

At once the matter of raising the necessary funds for a monument was taken in hand, and on June 3, 1887, twenty-one young ladies met with Mr. John A. Hamilton in the Edisto Armory and organized the Orangeburg Confederate Monument Association, with the following officers:

President-Miss F. Agnes Dibble.

Vice-Presidents-Misses Fannie Moseley, May Salley, Delle

Raysor.

Secretary and Treasurer-Miss May Postell.

Subsequently Miss Lizzie Dexter and Mrs. Mortimer Glover served as Vice-Presidents, and Miss Ella Fairy as Secretary and Treasurer.

This association then organized two companies, for the purpose of giving an entertainment, which consisted of a "waiter drill," which was given July 20, 1887.

As soon as the Orangeburg Association was in working order, it was deemed advisable to try to get the County organized, with local associations in every section, and letters were written by the President of the Orangeburg Association to ladies in every part of the County, inviting and urging them to organize associations and raise funds in whatever way they saw best to aid in this noble work. It was not long before responses came from many parts of the County in the shape of entertainments.

There being eight local associations, a call was made March 14, 1888, by the presidents of these associations for a meeting to be held on May 10, 1888, for the purpose of organizing a County Association. On the appointed day the following delegates met at the residence of Hon. Samuel Dibble:

Orangeburg Association-Miss F. Agnes Dibble, Mrs. Samuel Dibble, Mrs. W. J. De Treville Jr., Mrs. C. G. Dantzler, Miss May Postell.

Penn Branch Association-Miss Leila Livingston, Miss Belle Livingston.

Zion Association-Miss Mary McMichael, Mrs. E. Hughes.

Middlepen Association-Mrs. Carrie Stroman, Miss F. R. Edwards.

Middle St. Matthews Association-Mrs. J. W. Sellers, Mrs. A. H. Beckwith.

A constitution was adopted and the following officers elected: President-Mrs. D. E. Glover.

Vice-Presidents—Mrs. John A. Hamilton, Mrs. J. W. Sellers, Mrs. Carrie Riley, Mrs. Geo. Dannerly, Mrs. E. H. Housers, Miss Rosa M. Dantzler, Mrs. A. S. Salley.

Corresponding Secretary-Mrs. F. R. Edwards.
Recording Secretary-Miss Mary McMichael.
Treasurer-Miss F. Agnes Dibble.

Executive Committee-Mrs. C. G. Dantzler, Mrs. C. L. Stroman, Mrs. Wesley W. Culler, Mrs. M. L. Neuffer, Miss Leila Livingston, Mrs. B. Williamson, Mrs. A. H. Beckwith, Mrs. E. F. Slater.

There was also an advisory committee of gentlemen appointed. After the organization of the County Association, other local associations were organized. In those sections where no local associations were formed, local committees were appointed. All of these associations and committees did efficient work in raising funds for the monument.

The Philharmonic Orchestra, under the leadership of Mr. Henry Kohn, enlivened almost every entertainment in the city of Orangeburg. Every orchestra and band in the County give their services when called on. The Edisto Rifles tendered their armory, which was used by the County Association on various occasions. The County papers, The Times and Democrat, The Enterprise, and The Spectator, each put their columns at the disposal of the ladies, and proved of inestimable value in aiding the noble work.

Mention should not be omitted of the "Daisy Chain," an organization in the city of Orangeburg of about fifty young girls, with Mrs. M. L. Neuffer as President; Mrs. Hayne Wannamaker, Vice-President; Miss Hattie Wannamaker, Secretary and Treasurer. No workers did more for the monument than this faithful little band. It had been determined that the last effort for the monument should be a fair, given by the ladies of the whole County, and at the annual meeting, held October 5, 1891, the 8th of December was selected as the opening day. Mrs. E. F. Slater was selected as chairman. The fair continued from the evening of December 8th to the 12th, 1891, inclusive. The amount raised was $2,356.83, being the largest amount ever realized at any entertainment in Orangeburg County.