South Carolina Fire-Eater

The Life of Laurence Massillon Keitt, 1824-1864

Holt Merchant

• Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781611173505
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military Biographies
• Index: History

The first book-length biography of the controversial congressman, secessionist, and Confederate colonel

South Carolina Fire-Eater is the first book-length biography of Laurence Massillon Keitt, one of South Carolina's most notorious advocates of secession and apologists for African American slavery. A politician who wanted to be a statesman, a Hotspur who wanted to be a distinguished military leader, Keitt was a U. S. congressman in the 1850s, signed the Ordinance of Secession, and represented his rebellious state in the Confederate Congress in 1861. Through this thoroughly researched volume, Holt Merchant offers a comprehensive history of an important South Carolina figure.

As a congressman, Keitt was responsible for no legislation of any significance, but he was in the midst of every southern crusade to assert its "rights": to make Kansas a slave state, to annex Cuba, and to enact a territorial slave code. In a generation of politicians famous for fiery rhetoric, Keitt was among the most provocative southerners. His speeches in Congress and on the stump vituperated "Black Republicans" and were filled with references to medieval knight errantry, "lance couched, helmet on, visor down, " and threats to "split the Federal temple from turret to foundation stone."

His conception of personal honor and his hot temper frequently landed him in trouble in and out of public view. He acted as "fender off" in May 1855 when his fellow representative Preston Brooks caned Charles Sumner on the Senate floor. In 1858 he instigated a brawl on the floor of the House of Representatives that involved some three dozen congressmen. Amid the chaos of his personal brand of politics, Keitt found time to woo and wed a beautiful, intelligent, and politically astute plantation belle who after his death restored the family fortune and worked to embellish her late husband's place in history.

After Abraham Lincoln was elected president, Keitt and the rest of the South Carolina delegation resigned their seats in Congress. He then negotiated unsuccessfully the surrender of Fort Sumter with lame-duck president James Buchanan, played a major role in the December 1860 Secession Convention that led his state out of the Union, and a lesser role in the convention that formed the Confederacy. Bored with his position as a member of the Confederate Congress, Keitt resigned his seat and raised the 20th South Carolina Infantry.

Keitt spent most of the war defending Charleston Harbor, sometime commanding Battery Wagner, the site of the July 18, 1863, assault by the 54th Massachusetts Regiment of African American troops, made famous by the movie Glory. Keitt took command the day after that battle and was the last man out of the battery when his troops abandoned it in September 1863. In May 1864, his regiment joined the Army of Northern Virginia and Keitt took command of Kershaw's Brigade. Inexperienced in leading troops on the battlefield he launched a head-long attack on entrenched Federal cavalry in the June 1, 1864, Battle of Cold Harbor. Keitt was mortally wounded advancing in the vanguard of his brigade. With that last act of bravado, Keitt distinguished himself. He was among the few fire-eater politicians to serve in the military and was likely the only one to perish in combat defending the Confederacy.

NOTES

Introduction

1. Schultz, Nationalism and Sectionalism, 3–25; Barney, Road to Secession, 85–100; Barney, Secessionist Impulse, 88–95; Takaki, Pro-Slavery Crusade, 10–22.

2. Barney, Road to Secession, 85. For an effective demonstration that there was no “typical” fire-eater, see Walther, Fire-Eaters.

Chapter 1: “See that you rear a new Union”

1. Herd, “Chapters from the Life,” 187–88.

2. Herd, “Chapters from the Life,” 9–10; U.S. Census, 1850, Agriculture, Orangeburg District, South Carolina; U.S. Census, 1850, Population, Orangeburg District, South Carolina, both microfilm, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; unidentified newspaper clipping, December 18, 1952, Keitt Collection South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia.

3. Unidentified newspaper clipping, December 18, 1952, Keitt Collection, South Caroliniana Library. The author visited “Puritan Hall” in 1973, and has described it from photographs he made at that time.

4. F. H. Foster to L. M. Keitt, January 26, 1859, Laurence M. Keitt Papers, Duke University, hereafter cited as Keitt Papers, Duke.

5. Charles Moore, comp., Alumni Records, University of South Carolina, vol. 6: n.p.

6. Hollis, University of South Carolina 1: 264–69; Schultz, Nationalism and Sectionalism, 8. Thornwell was professor of sacred literature and Christian evidences. LaBorde taught logic, rhetoric, and belles lettres; Henry taught metaphysics, moral and political philosophy. See also Sugrue, “ ‘We Desired Our Future Rulers to Be Educated Men,’ ” 91–114; Pace, Halls of Honor.

7. Hollis, University of South Carolina 1: 269.

8. Hollis, University of South Carolina 1: 181–87; Berry, “Francis Lieber,” 31; Herd, “Chapters from the Life,” 10–11; Freidel, Francis Lieber, 115–288.

9. Hollis, University of South Carolina 1: 230–54; “Subjects for Debate,” Euphradian Society; McKissick, Clariosophic and Euphradian Societies, 60.

10. Hollis, University of South Carolina 1: 234, 244; “Treasurer’s Book, 1838–1840” and “Treasurer’s Book, 1841–1842,” Euphradian Society; McKissick, Clariosophic and Euphradian Societies, 37.

11. Clipping, [Charleston Courier?], June 6, 1864. One contemporary recalled many years later that Keitt graduated third in his class (Dickert, History of Kershaw’s Brigade, 374). A biographical sketch published during the secession crisis noted that he had “graduated with Highest Honors” (Harper’s Weekly, December 22, 1860, 1). The author has been unable to confirm either statement.

12. O’Neall, Biographical Sketches of the Bench and Bar of South Carolina 2: 38–44, 609. Dickert, History of Kershaw’s Brigade, 374. Hamilton, “James Louis Petigru,” 314–15. Charleston Mercury, April 30, 1849, 2; June 20, 1864, 2. L. M. Keitt to John C. Calhoun, October 25, 1848, Papers of John C. Calhoun, ed. Wilson and Cook, vol. 26: 109–10.

13. Barrett, Sherman’s March Through the Carolinas, 58–59 and passim.

14. Charleston Mercury, October 13, 1848, 2.

15. Journal of the House of Representatives of South Carolina, 1848, 110, 187; 1849, 35, 58, 82, 198; 1850, 104, 133–34; 1851, 6, 21, 120–21; 1852, 5–6, 42.

16. Smith, Economic Readjustment, 201–2; Sharp, Jacksonians versus the Banks, 277–79.

17. Sharp, Jacksonians versus the Banks, 279.

18. Charleston Mercury, August 5, 1848, 2.

19. Charleston Mercury, August 5, 1848, 2; L. M. Keitt to Sue Sparks, January 20, 1855, Keitt Papers, Duke.

20. Charleston Mercury, December 13, 1849, 2.

21. L. M. Keitt to Sue Sparks, January 20, 1855, Keitt Papers, Duke.

22. Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of South Carolina, 1850, 56–58; Reports and Resolutions, South Carolina General Assembly, 1850, 158.

23. Keitt, Address of Lawrence M. Keitt, Esq., on Laying the Corner-Stone of the Fire-Proof Building at Columbia, Dec. 15, 1851, 7–9.

24. Keitt, Address of Lawrence M. Keitt, Esq., on Laying the Corner-Stone of the Fire-Proof Building at Columbia, 9; Charleston Mercury, December 18, 1851, 2; Black River Watchman, February 7, 1852.

25. Boucher, “Secession and Cooperation Movements in South Carolina, 1848 to 1852,” 67–70; Hamer, Secession Movement in South Carolina, 22–37; Potter, Impending Crisis, chap. 2. For recent accounts of the war with Mexico, see Eisenhower, So Far from God; Wheelan, Invading Mexico; and Clary, Eagles and Empire. Rhett’s congressional district included Beaufort, Colleton, Barnwell, and Orangeburg districts. In 1852, when South Carolina lost a seat in the House of Representatives, the district remained intact but was renumbered. Keitt represented the Third District from 1853 to 1860.

26. In the Federal Census of 1850, Orangeburg District had a total population of 23,582: 8,120 whites, 78 free blacks, and 15,384 slaves (U.S. Census, Population and Slave Schedules, South Carolina, 1850).

27. Charleston Mercury, November 9, 1848, 2; November 17, 1848, 2; December 7, 1848, 2; December 11, 1848, 2. Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of South Carolina, 1848, 60, 95, 122. Boucher, “Secession and Cooperation Movements in South Carolina,” 71–74.

28. Boucher, “Secession and Cooperation Movements in South Carolina,” 83–84; Nevins, Ordeal of the Union 1: 247–50.

29. Charleston Mercury, November 29, 1849, 2; December 1, 1849, 2; December 5, 1849, 2; December 10, 1849, 2; December 20, 1849, 2.

30. Charleston Mercury, December 8, 1849, 2; December 2...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• One “See that you rear a new Union”
• Two “Trample upon your hosannas to the Union”
• Three “He who dallies is a dastard”
• Four “Shake the Federal temple from turret to foundation stone”
• Five “Like mildew and blast, like pestilence and famine”
• Six “Lance couched, helmet on, visor down”
• Seven “Take the fetters from your heart”
• Eight “Style, beauty, and high training”
• Nine “Fidelity to the Union is treason to the South”
• Ten “True liberty is won by the blood of the brave”
• Eleven “Proudly the Southern Cross still floats to the breeze”
• Epilogue: “I will not lose my land”
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index