Upheaval in Charleston by Susan Williams Stephen Hoffius

Author:Susan Williams, Stephen Hoffius [Susan Williams, Stephen Hoffius]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, 19th Century, State & Local, South (AL; AR; FL; GA; KY; LA; MS; NC; SC; TN; VA; WV), Nature, Natural Disasters
ISBN: 9780820344218
Google: -SvMAAAAQBAJ
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Published: 2012-09-01T16:05:22+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

THE OLD JOY OF COMBAT

PEOPLE WHO HAVE experienced the unthinkable become conditioned to expect the worst. After a month of living in the ruins and feeling the ground shiver under their feet, the residents of Charleston were so traumatized that even chalk marks seemed like harbingers of doom. In early October “certain cabalistic signs” began appearing on sidewalks, curbs, and walls. The marks looked like “a cross between an Algebraic formula and an example in short division.” Whites wondered if this mysterious graffiti might be a way for blacks to broadcast plans for an insurrection. One of Dawson’s reporters asked around to find out what the scrawls meant, and a member of the Knights of Labor told him, “I don’t know as there’s any secret about it. It’s the way we summon the Knights to a Lodge meeting.” He explained how to read the formula, which included the number of the lodge, the date, and the time. The answer calmed no one.1

Union membership in Charleston had been growing by leaps and bounds, and as the city struggled to clean up and rebuild, workers could command double or even triple wages. The Bricklayers’ Union wordlessly demonstrated its new strength by marching through the heart of the city on November 3. The News and Courier pointed out that a “remarkable” percentage of the two hundred members were black, and that the parade drew a large and enthusiastic crowd of black spectators.2

AS IF TO ENSURE that the earthquake was not forgotten, another aftershock hit just after noon on Sunday, November 5. At Jedburg, where the shock was strongest, chimneys that had withstood the August 31 quake were “torn to pieces.” In Charleston, 150 black parents stormed the Shaw School and refused to leave without their children. The News and Courier reported that both the students and their teachers had remained calm, but the New York Freeman countered that several children were seriously injured when they scrambled for the doors. There was talk of instituting “earthquake drills” so that students could practice what to do when buildings started shaking. The black-owned Charleston Recorder saw the tremor as retribution: “Charleston seems to be doomed. And why not there is so much election frauds?”3

In the midst of all this turmoil, Dawson took time to reflect in the pages of the News and Courier on his twenty years in Charleston. He remembered arriving on November 10, 1866, nineteen months after the end of the Civil War, to a burned-out wasteland where the streets were paved with rotted planks. The ladies wore no color but black, and the young women never seemed to “chirp” or “chatter” as modern girls did. The long, fond, good-natured piece ended on a note of triumph. “Charleston lives,” Dawson declared, even after the earthquake.4

He would not be the only one to remember the anniversary. Early on the morning of November 10, a large, heavy wooden chest was delivered to his house on Bull Street. Inside was a solid-silver tea service, ornate and clearly expensive.

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