On November 13, 1864 Senator Hammond died at the age of fifty six years old. Hammond was lionized in Secessionist circles in the South for his ongoing defense of slavery in the United States Senate during the years before the Civil War. His sexual relations with teenaged girls who were the sisters of Wade Hampton, and his reported rape of an enslaved woman whom he “owned” did not stop him from being selected to represent South Carolina in the Senate.
Virginia Clay-Clopton was staying with Hammond when he died. Years later she wrote of her life with him in the last year of the Civil War. Virginia Clay-Clopton was the wife of another former Senator, Clement Claiborne Clay, who was a high level official of the Confederate government. Here is what she wrote about Hammond’s death, and the effort he made to conceal his grave from Sherman’s Union army:
In this letter, which was dated from Beech Island, I conveyed intelligence to Mr. Clay of Senator Hammond’s death, he being, at the time, a few days less than fifty seven years of age. It occurred while all the affluent colorings of the autumn were tingeing his world at “Redcliffe.” The circumstances attending his decease and burial were unique, and to be likened only to those which, in mediaeval days, surrounded the passing away of some Gothic baron or feudal lord. Mr. Hammond had been failing in health for some time, when, feeling his end drawing near, he asked for a carriage that he might drive out and select his last resting-place. He chose, at last, a high knoll, from which a fine view was to be had of Augusta and the Sand Hills; and, having done this, being opposed to private burial grounds, he bequeathed the surrounding acres to the town in the precincts of which his estate lay, on consideration that they turn the plot into a public cemetery. First, however, he laid an injunction upon his wife and sons, that if the Yankee army penetrated there (the end of the war was not yet, nor came for six months thereafter), they should have his grave ploughed over that none of the hated enemy should see it. Again and again in the remaining days he reiterated his wish. Fears were spreading of the approach of Sherman’s devastating army, and the destruction of “Redcliffe,” conspicuous as it was to all the surrounding country, seemed inevitable. Marvelous to relate, however, when at last the spoiler came, his legions marched in a straight line to the sea, some fourteen miles away from the Hammond plantation, leaving it untouched by shell or the irreverent hand of the invader the funeral of Mr. Hammond was solemn and made especially impressive by the procession of two hundred of the older slaves, who marched, two by two, into the baronial parlors, to look for the last time upon their master’s face. Save for this retinue, “Redcliffe” was now practically without a defender, Mr. Paul Hammond being absent much of the time, detailed upon home guard duty. In his absence, my maid, Emily, and I kept the armory of the household, now grown more and more fearful of invasion with its train of insult
and the destruction of property. There were many nights when, all the rest in slumber and a dead hush without, I waited, breathless, until I caught the sound of Paul Hammond’s returning steps.
Clay-Clopton, Virginia; Sterling, Ada. A Belle of the Fifties (Expanded, Annotated) (p. 203). BIG BYTE BOOKS. Kindle Edition.
Clay-Clopton, Virginia; Sterling, Ada. A Belle of the Fifties (Expanded, Annotated) (pp. 202-203). BIG BYTE BOOKS. Kindle Edition.
Note: Cover Illustration from Harper’s Weekly April 1, 1865 “THE TWENTIETH CORPS ENTERING BLACKVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA” showing Sherman’s march through South Carolina.
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