The Literary Retrospect: South Carolina and Charleston

John Lothrop Motley was a man of high scholarship and varied attainments, but was late in concentrating his labor on the historical work which was to give him fame, the "Rise of the Dutch Republic." He also wrote the "History of the United Netherlands," and was minister to Austria and England.

Another historian, who, like Prescott, labored under the affliction of partial blindness, and yet achieved memorable results, was Francis Parkman. Descended from the earliest settlers of Massachusetts, he was born in Boston in 1823, and was educated at Harvard College. He studied law, but he had already determined to devote his life to an adequate presentation of the great conflict between the French and English for the possession of North America. In order to understand the background of the subject fully, he resolved to examine the manners and customs of Indians as yet unaffected by contact with the whites. For this purpose, in 1846, he explored the wilderness towards the Rocky Mountains, and lived for several weeks among the Dakota Indians in that region, then just becoming known. Although previously strong and fond of exercise, the privations which he endured rendered him an invalid for life. The immediate results of his observations and experiences were given in his picturesque series of historical writings, of which "Montcalm and Wolfe" is the splendid climax. This list of writers may include the name of Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose "Uncle Tom's Cabin" had so great a reception among the opponents of slavery.

The growing commercial and political importance of New York, its increase of wealth, and the enterprise of its publishers, both of books and periodicals, tended to make it a literary centre before the close of the first half-century. George William Curtis is better known by his "Easy Chair" essays in Harper's Weekly than by his books, graceful though they are. Bayard Taylor wrote much, travelled widely, and translated Faust in the original metres. He was appointed minister to Germany in 1878, and died there soon after.

In the South, before the Civil War, literature was not generally favored. Men of intellectual ability there became statesmen, ministers, orators, and jurists. Yet some of these gave occasional attention to literary work, and a few devoted themselves to it almost entirely.

The principal literary figure of the Old South was William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870), who was born in Charleston, South Carolina, where his father had come from the North of Ireland, shortly after the Revolution. He wrote historical, geographical, and didactic works; but he lives only in his romances, which are numerous and stirring. Albert Pike (1809-1891) studied law, commanded a force of Cherokee Indians on the Confederate side at the battle of Pea Ridge. His "Hymns to the Gods" and other poems showed high lyric power. John Esten Cooke undertook to do for Virginia what Simms had done for South Carolina. He published the novel "Leather Stocking and Silk," which was soon followed and surpassed by "The Virginia Comedians," probably the best Southern novel written before the war. Others of his early stories were "The Last of the Foresters" and "Henry St. John, Gentleman." During the Civil War Cooke served on the staff of various Confederate generals. Afterwards he retired to his farm near Winchester, and wrote biographies of Lee and Stonewall Jackson, and several novels relating to the great conflict. Among those were "Mohun: or, the Last Days of Lee and His Paladins," and "Hilt to Hilt: or, Days and Nights in the Shenandoah."

Paul Hamilton Hayne (1831-1886), bearing a name famous in the annals of South Carolina, was the finest poet of the South. He was a native of Charleston, and edited literary periodicals there until the war, when he served on the staff of General Pickens. His house and property were destroyed in the bombardment of Charleston, and, after the war, he settled at Copse Hill, Georgia, where he pursued literary work till his death. Among his best poems are "The Pine's Mystery," the ballad "The Battle of King's Mountain," "The Lyric of Action." His war lyrics are thrilling, and his descriptive and meditative verses are exquisite in music and thought.

Henry Timrod (1829-1867), also born in Charleston, suffered from ill-health and poverty, yet wrote poems full of ardent devotion to the South and its lost cause. His war lyrics, grand and impetuous, won for him the title of "the Tyrtaeus of the South." His poems were edited by P.H. Hayne.

Abram Joseph Ryan (1840-1886), born of Irish parents, at Norfolk, Virginia, was equally devoted to the Southern cause. He was a Catholic priest, and served as chaplain in the Confederate army. After the war he edited religious and literary papers in New Orleans and Knoxville, and had charge of a church at Mobile. In 1880 he published his "Poems, Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous." He died at Louisville, Kentucky, in 1886. He is best known by his lament over the defeat of the Confederacy, "The Conquered Banner," and the spirited tribute to the Southern leader, "The Sword of Robert Lee."