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THE SORROWS OF THE
ALSTONS* Part 13.
Henrietta Green Alston died in March
1844 at the family’s plantation near Tallahas
see. She was 59 years old, had been married
to her stepbrother Robert West Alston for 43
years, and had outlived seven of her 13 chil
dren, including all six of her sons.
Three years after the matriarch’s death,
her widowed daughter-in-law, Elizabeth
Howard Alston of Macon, Ga., gave birth to
a son whose father was unknown. No ac
counts survive of the crisis Elizabeth's preg
nancy provoked among her relatives, but it
was about this time that her
oldest child, Robert A.
Alston, 14, left school in Mid
way, Ga. and went to Charles
ton, S.C., to work in the of
fice of E.W. Bancroft, a
wholesale merchant.
Charleston was the home
of Robert’s distant and distin
guished Allston cousins, and
also of his unfortunate aunt
Ann. Ann’s husband John
Floyd had been shot dead in
her presence a few weeks af-
-te.
A properly
conducted
duel was an
elaborate
affair...
ter their marriage, and it was Anr^vhoTaa
the bullets cut from her brother Augustus’s
body and sent them to Robert's father Willis,
demanding that he take vengeance for
Augustus’s death. Ann remarried in 1837; her
second husband was D. A. Gaillard of Charles
ton. In 1847, the same year Robert came to
Charleston, Mr. Gaillard went tc Florida on
a hunting trin « , some friends and was ac
cidentally shot to death. Ann had now lost
two husbands and three brothers by gunshot
in 17 years. We do not know how much time
Robert spent with his stricken aunt, nor how
much influence she had on him in his
Charleston years, but there is no doubt that
the mild Methodist schoolboy was yielding
to the gentlemanly world of “chivalry” and
“honor” that had sent his father and uncles
to their graves.
It was said of South Carolina on the eve
of the Civil War that it was too small for a
public and too large for an insane asylum.
The Palmetto State was, in
fact, about the right size for
the bariacks and parade
ground of a militia consisting
of nearly every adult white
male in the state, including
young Robert Alston. The
duties of the citizen-soldiers
were mostly confined to
close-order drills and fancy-
dress balls, but their services
were sometimes called tor.
West of Charleston in
Colleton County in 1854 a
white man was sentenced to death for the
murder of a slave, an unheard-of verdict,
probably unique in antebellum Southern ju
risprudence. A riot was expected at the gal
lows and the governor called out the Charles
ton militia to attend the execution, probably
assuming that the Colleton troops could not
be trusted. The hanging passed without in
cident; it was the first of many singular his
torical moments to which Robert Alston
^ Happy Holidays from
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1676 S. Lumpkin St. • 549-0829
would be an eyewitness.
Military service was one mark of the
ideal young gentleman in the antebellum
South; another was participation in some
capacity in a duel. A properly conducted
duel was an elaborate affair: Besides the
principals there were the seconds, who
functioned much like best men at a wed
ding, with the difference that each was
expected, if need arose, to fill in for his
principal. Each principal had to bring
along a surgeon and was usually attended
by one or more “friends.” The “friends"
served as a kind of jury to help the seconds
arrange a conci'iation or decide an ambigu
ous point of etiquette. They were also of
practical assistance as lookouts and bear
ers of the dead and wounded.
In the fall of 1856 the Charleston Mer
cury published a series of anonymous letters
insulting to Judge Magrath, a candidate for
Congress. The Judge’s younger brother, Ed
ward, approached editor William Taber de
manding to know the name of the author,
which Taber refused to give out (the author
was Taber’s cousin Robert Barnwell Rhett Jr.).
Magrath then challenged Taber to duel. The
two met at Charleston’s Washington race
course, the city’s traditional duelling ground,
on the afternoon of Sept. 29. Among those
present was Robert A. Alston, attending as a
friend of Taber. Magrath’s third shot struck
Taber in the head; Robert Alston stood near
enough to see his friend’s brains fly out. Tech
nically all those present were liable to crimi
nal penalties, but, as usual, no charges were
made.
Robert Alston was now in his mid-20s,
handsome, wealthy, possessed of a glorious old
name, and indisputably a man of honor; it
was time for him to find a gentlemanly occu
pation and a wife.
CONTINUED NEXT WEEK
©1996 John Ryan Seawright
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