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THE DRAPERS OF
EARLY VIRGINIA
Tracing the first known generations that planted in the Northern Neck when Jamestown was young
THE EVACUATION
OF CHARLESTON
The last days of William Henry Suder and his wife Lizzy Skipper Suder - and the city of Charleston
SEARCHING HALIFAX
FOR JOHN MARTIN
Many unrelated Martin families in Halifax County, Virginia, existed at the time of the Revolutionary War, but few can be traced
ALLEN & BIGGS CLANS
OF KIDDERMINSTER
How did families from an ancient English town of weavers and sawyers end up in America
THE CHEROKEE ROOTS
OF MYRA ELLEN KING
Some Cherokee families remained in Georgia after the Trail of Tears, but the questions are how many, and how, and why
DANGEROUS FLIGHTS
OF FLEMING COBBS
The frontier forts stood alone against attackers, surviving only if supplies arrived in time
THE ELEVEN FAMILIES
OF JONATHAN MARTIN
The father of many Hall County, Georgia, families is mostly forgotten
THE GLADE GUARD
VOLUNTEER RIFLES
Residents of the Glade District of Hall County joined the reserves and many survived the worst battles of the Civil War
THE FAMILIES OF
MARGARET DENNING
GO TO WAR
Some of the children of Margaret Martin were Winston County Unionists while others fought for the South
SCOTCH IRISH CRAIGS
OF PENNSYLVANIA
These fighting frontier Presbyterians carved out a settlement, a history and a nation
RootsWeb Trees
THE DRAPER AND ALLEN FAMILIES
THE PETER SUDER
FAMILIES OF S.C.
JONATHAN MARTIN’S
FAMILIES
MARGARET MARTIN’S
FAMILIES
THE SOPHIA KING
FAMILIES
WILLIAM CRAIG’S
SCOTCH IRISH FAMILY
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Who Destroyed Charleston?
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Who was responsible for the devastating explosion at the Wilmington Railroad Depot in Charleston, South Carolina, on February 18, 1865? Almost 200 men, women and children instantly died around eight o’clock that Saturday morning. It was the type of Civil War catastrophe the South normally blamed on the Union army and its evil generals, but not this time. It is rarely discussed.
The loss of the depot marked the very last hours of the Confederate military evacuation of Charleston, South Carolina, just weeks before the end of the Civil War. The city’s final destruction couldn’t be blamed on Sherman, so it simply was never discussed.
Southern institutions like the Charleston Museum positioned the explosion and fire as an accident caused by panicky civilians. But that doesn’t match eyewitness accounts, the strange official story, or explain all of the explosions and fires that morning. While it was most certainly an accident that so many died, the destruction of the station was certainly planned. In fact it was ordered.
The Confederate soldiers were told to leave the city defenseless and escape capture to the northeast with all they could carry. They were told to destroy all the remaining weapons, supplies, ships and cotton, and leave nothing of value for the Yankees. If they had left the evening before, as planned, it might not have been as rushed as it was the next day when the Federals were already entering the city.
As the military evacuation reached its apex, the defenders were forced to move portable provisions to the last working train depot – the Wilmington on Chapel Street. Trains shipped out with all that could be loaded. William Henry Suder, my great, great grandfather, is said to have engineered the last train out of Confederate Charleston.
When time ran out for the defenders, orders to destroy the leftovers were carried out across the city, creating huge fires stretching from river to river. An advanced Federal unit was already in the city with orders to save the military provisions for the Union. After capturing the US. Arsenal before it could be destroyed by defenders, they were heading for the depot.
After the last cars pulled away, the depot was still packed with provisions. Company F of the 15th South Carolina Volunteer Infantry was stationed at the depot with orders to exit last. The packed cotton storehouse at one end of the station was now burning. One room was loaded with explosives and a trail of gunpowder led back to the burning storehouse.
The delay gave Company F barely enough time to assemble a safe distance away. Once lined up on the street, the soldiers watched as civilians rushed into the unguarded, burning depot just before a huge blast tore through the building, killing everyone near it and for blocks burning homes and businesses.
Suder’s young wife, Elizabeth Kirk Skipper Suder, my great, great grandmother, was one of the 200 civilians who died that morning as she watched her husband from the station platform help rebels escape to relative safety. She had brought Suder his lunch as she did every morning.
The only working newspaper in the city, the Courier, quoted “all reports” as claiming two boys were playing in the cotton fire with handfuls of gunpowder from a nearby storeroom, and maybe that was how the trail got there. Some later stories claim it was a boy with a candle. But every excuse devised by southerners ignores the thoughtless horror of the delayed military evacuation.
Official Confederate military reports said the soldiers were all evacuated by midnight and the catastrophe happened around three o’clock in the morning, but that doesn’t match any eyewitness account detailing a late morning explosion. Hardee was reprimanded for not evacuating Savannah on time, but the record claims this time he was ill and delegated the task to subordinates.
Charleston’s last blazing hours are surprisingly all but forgotten. Instead, the painful fall of the city just weeks before the end of the war became a quiet, hated footnote: the American flag flew once more over Fort Sumter.
Sources: Eyewitnesses, military records, media reports and family history
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TRAGEDY AT THE VETS’ REUNION
The Glade Guard Volunteer Rifles of Hall
County, Georgia, met after the Civil War
Click the photo for more information
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The Murder of Edward Biggs
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On the cold evening of 11 December 1832, Edward Biggs ventured out to find his seventeen-year-old son, Richard, and bring him home safely. He crossed the Town Bridge over the Stour River and headed for the Bull Ring. No teenager should be in town at nine o’clock on a dangerous night like this.
The ancient village of Kidderminster, England, was facing the Industrial Revolution and all of its problems. Progress was causing too much change. Finding new tools to increase productivity was eliminating more and more good jobs. Cutting quality for efficiency was increasing wealth for a few and draining the life away from many others. And it was election time.
The boy spent that Wednesday attending the hustings where political candidates stumped, and enthralled or enraged voters on the day of the big vote. The hustings was often the match that lit the fuse for the rioting that accompanied almost every election. And the public houses provided the fuel; lots of fuel.
The Black Horse Inn sat one hundred yards away from the Bull Ring, with the Town Bridge between the two. The Fox Public House sat at the other end of the ring on Swan Street. These were just two of the many local taverns in the depressed factory town of Kidderminster in Worcestershire, England, not far from Birmingham.
The town was known as a center for carpet weaving, and employed an entire industry of independent weavers. They were now being replaced by factories run by a few wealthy carpet masters who controlled jobs and wages. The proud weavers tended to want their families fed and clothed, and at times brought it to someone’s attention.
Elections were often violent anyway, but the people of Kidderminster were electing its first Member of Parliament since 1294. The failure of the Great Strike of 1828, just three years earlier, divided the town into two very emotional camps. It was not safe that night.
The Black Horse was the headquarters of George Phillips, a candidate for MP and an opponent of the more popular Robert Godson. Godson gained hero status for his role in defending the organizers of the strike. Only one went to prison, and that was one year for libeling the color of a carpet master’s front door.
Edward Biggs, 46, was a local sawyer, a specialized timber cutter, with a pregnant wife, Ann, and a family of ten. One child was still an infant, and the Biggs lost one son already. He was not about to lose another. He came to town with a single purpose and carried nothing with him. As soon as he found the boy, they started for home. They would cross the bridge again before passing the Black Horse Inn where some were said to be fighting with the constables.
Special Constable Charles Johnson, 32, rushed into the Fox Public House on Swan Street about that time and shouted, “All hands to the Black Horse.” About a half dozen men and one woman joined Johnson as he raced through the Bull Ring toward George Phillips’ headquarters.
About a dozen townspeople were on or near the bridge, but witnesses said there was no threat of rioting here. Special Constable Peter Meredith, 23, was at the bridge, and claimed that the people ignored him when he told them to move along.
As Johnson and his supporters reached the bridge on their way to the pub, they heard Richard and Edward, who were already there, shout, “Godson forever!” Meredith rushed across the street to confront the father and his son. He fired back at the boy, “What’s that you say?” When the boy answered, Meredith immediately bludgeoned Richard across the face, knocking him to the ground and leaving him unconscious.
The unarmed father reacted, but Meredith swung back at Edward, smashing him in the right temple and eye. Edward fell to the ground, dazed and bloody. Then witnesses
watched in horror as Johnson and a third Special Constable, Henry Haywood, 23, kicked and pummeled the injured man as he coiled on the ground.
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The Bull Ring was Kidderminster’s heart; a medieval marketplace in the center of town. In 1832 it was still a major intersection of Church, Swan and Vicar Streets. It was home to the imposing white statue of the town’s famous English minister, Richard Baxter.
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Edward rose up to the crowd and tried to cry, “Murder,” but Meredith brought his heavy club down onto the back of Edward’s head and silenced his victim. The people on the bridge were too unconcerned or too scared to intervene. Nobody tried to help Edward or his son.
Richard woke to find his father lying face down in the dirt as the crowd walked away. He helped Edward stand up, and supported his father as they stumbled home. Edward’s left side was limp and he couldn’t speak. Meredith and the others beat the Biggs as if to prove that disruption would not be tolerated by the temporary, untrained officers of the law.
The older Johnson was an experienced town watchman. Meredith and Haywood were simply young carpet weavers, just two of the 400 citizens deputized as Special Constables that day to carry clubs and keep the peace during this one election. This was a thug’s dream since they were allowed to use the clubs whenever they decided things were out of hand.
As Meredith and the others walked away, all the witnesses overheard him say, “Damn him. I floored the bastard and made a skylight of his skull.” None of the constables did anything to help. Doctors were called to the Biggs home two days later and tried to help, but Edward died in bed the following Monday of severe brain injury.
A year later, Peter Meredith was brought up on the charge of Murdering my great great great grandfather, and Henry Haywood and Charles Johnson for Aiding & Abetting. Most of the witnesses testified to the beating by Haywood and Johnson, and the doctors proved multiple bruising about the neck and chest, but the two were acquitted as fine, upstanding citizens.
The Judge interrupted the proceeding and told the Jury that he didn’t believe it to be Murder. He said they should only find Meredith guilty of manslaughter, so they did. The earlier two-day Corner’s Inquest decided Manslaughter so the judge saw no reason to consider a change to that opinion.
Even though Meredith brutally clubbed Biggs on the ground so hard that it broke the skull into pieces, Meridith only served one year in prison, and according to the Judge, only as a warning to other untrained deputies who might decide to overstep their authority.
The trial of Peter Meredith received media coverage from newspapers as far away as the London Times. Because of trials like these, interference by judges began to wane in 1830s England, and attorneys started controlling more equal and more lawful proceedings.
Richard Godson won the election that day, but proved to be more aligned with the carpet masters. He lost the next election to George Phillips.
Edward’s widow, Ann, raised ten children by herself and died alone in her Cement Row home in 1859. The job of sawyer died away as well. Most of the sons and daughters of Edward and Ann Biggs found their way to America looking for a better life than they suffered in 1800s Kidderminster.
Sources: Media reports of the murder trial, vital records and historical documents
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