The Hammonds of Redcliffe

by Carol K. Rothrock Bleser (Editor)

The riveting saga of an articulate, intelligent southern family blessed with wealth but marred by personal scandal

Drawing on four generations of family correspondence ―reflecting the hopes, fears, desires, frustrations, and failures of an American family touched by personal scandal― this book presents the saga of the Hammonds of Redcliffe from before the Civil War to after the New Deal. Set in Redcliffe, the plantation home of the Hammonds, this sweeping collection of letters, many of them by women, recaptures a way of life that is gone forever as it provides fascinating insights into the reactions of the participants to disaster on the battlefield and on the homefront and into the agony of an eminent plantation family that had to adjust as best it could to a new social order. More than just the story of one family, the book casts in high relief the whole fabric of how all people worked and wept, married and mourned, lived and died.

Genres: History

445 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1997

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of letters written by and exchanged among a local South Carolina family and friends from antebellum days until the latter part of the 20th century. At the center, intentionally or not, is the physical location that symbolized the family's ties to the local area - Redcliffe Plantation in Beech Island, South Carolina. The history of that place, particularly during the ownership of the family's last descendant, began to intrigue me when I discovered it in 2014 shortly after moving to Augusta, Georgia. The last owner, John Shaw Billings, collected much of the correspondence in the book, and he also chronicled his purchase, renovation, and later life on the property through photos and correspondence, which are archived online at the University of South Caroliniana Library. At his death in 1975, Billings bequeathed the property to the state of South Carolina. It is now part of the state park system and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The book itself is divided into four parts, with a particular family member of successive being the central character during that particular time period: James Henry Hammond (he of the quote "Cotton is King" fame) as the founder, his son Harry as the preserver, his daughter Katherine as the belle, and her son John as the restorer and final owner. The book gives good insight into the daily lives of a typical Southern plantation family beginning about a decade before the Civil War, through Reconstruction, and into the 20th century. There's no real groundbreaking revelations, as much of the correspondence includes either internal family issues or their thoughts and interpretations on other events of large scope happening elsewhere. Of the four sections, I found the first to be more informative and interesting from a historical perspective. I was disappointed in the last section, that of Billings himself. I expected a greater and more interesting volume of correspondence based on his extensive activities there. Overall, it was an adequate look into the inner family drama that one would expect, I suppose, but my primary interest initially was based more on the 20th century history of the property itself than in the family history.