December 27, 1860
Catherine Edmondston lived with her husband in North Carolina, and they operated a plantation there. During a visit to Aiken, South Carolina, to see her parents, she became a witness to the action surrounding South Carolina’s secession from the Union.
She wrote that the visit to Aiken was “disturbed only by exciting news from Charleston and the passage of Troops, which was so new to us it excited the liveliest forebodings.”
Preparing for their uncertain future required South Carolinians to come together for their common cause. Edmondston saw that the women in South Carolina “displayed an enthusiasm & earnestness in their preparations for War that was almost sublime in its unity & self devotion.” Those women “spent their whole time scraping lint, making bandages, & even learned to make Cartridges. One lady in Aiken made 500 with her own hands. Never was known such unanimity of action amongst all classes.”
This universal effort was necessary. In Edmondston’s view, South Carolina had seceded and “amidst the jeers & laughter of the whole country calmly organized her own government & prepared for War singly and alone.” Whereas South Carolinians were first amused to see reporters in Washington then filing South Carolina’s news under “Foreign News,” that did not last: “all disposition to it was soon taken away by the sight of the terribly earnest way in which all looked at & spoke of it.”
It was during these days that Edmondston often thought to herself: “Have we indeed come to this?” She had hoped South Carolina would “go her own way” but also held onto the longshot wish that “when she sees that Mr Lincoln does not meddle with Slavery, she may return & this threatened dismemberment of our country may be prevented.” “But,” she wrote, “God ordained otherwise.”
Last Best Hope of Earth 
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