Remembering the Civil War Era Dead from Different Perspectives

Historian Archie Vernon Huff, Jr. includes three inscriptions from monuments erected in South Carolina after the Civil War in his textbook and asks students to read them carefully to identify which group or individual is memoralized. Based on your knowledge of South Carolina's state history and following the BDC's local history related posts over the years, can you figure it out?  

1) These were men

Whom Power could not corrupt,

Whom Death could not terrify, 

Whom defeat could not dishonor; 

And let their virtues plead for just judgment 

Of the cause in which they perished.

2) Unawed by Opinion

Unseduced by Flattery: 

He confronted Life with antique Courage:

And death With Christian Hope: 

In the great Civil War

He withstood his People for his Country: 

But his People did Homage to the Man

Who held his Conscience higher than their Praise.

3) Immortality to Hundreds of the Defenders of American Liberty Against the Great Rebellion. 

Answers: 

The first quote is from the United States Memorial at the Beaufort National Cemetery. 

The BDC has the only known sketch of the monument's design before its installation. Our sketch has the following texts: "Monument to be erected at the National Cemetery of Beaufort, S.C., under the supervision of Mrs. L.H. Potter of Charleston, S.C., to the memory of the soldiers, who died at the "Racecourse," near Charleston, S.C., and are now removed to Beaufort, S.C., May 2nd, 1868" on the right near the bottom of the monument sketch. On the left is a description for the back side of the proposed monument: " On the reverse side a tablet containing the names of 176 soldiers, who died at the hospital at the "Racecourse" near Charleston, S.C. Unionist Eliza Potter was a nurse who bought medical supplies with her own money to help captured Union troops in Confederate prisoner of war camps.   

The second quote was placed on the Monument to the Confederate Dead in front of the South Carolina State House in Columbia erected in 1879. Episode 4 of the Historically Complex podcast features the history of this monument and the Tillman Era.  

The third inscription appears on the tombstone of James Louis Petigru in the St. Michael's Episcopal Churchyard in Charleston. I have not investigated whether Petigru knew or interacted with Mr. and Mrs. Lorenzo Potter. 

SOURCE: The History of South Carolina in the Building of the Nation by Archie Vernon Huff, Jr. Teacher's Manual by Hazel Wiggins Harris (Alester G. Furman III, 1991), p. 304. This was a textbook used by the Beaufort County Schools in the 1990s. 

Reminder: All units of the Beaufort County Library system will be closed on Monday, May 29, 2023 to observe Memorial Day.