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Summary:
Governor F. W. Pickens effusively thanks Gov. Joseph E. Brown of Georgia for lending gunpowder to South Carolina “at an important time” when “we were… threatened with a powerful fleet & army of invasion, when as a state we stood alone.” Pickens recalls the danger on January 9-10, 1861, when his artillery batteries in Charleston fired upon the Star of the West, a supply ship sent from New York to reinforce the federal troops at Fort Sumter. He asks the governor to thank the brave and patriotic companies of Georgia who offered to come to their sister state’s defense even before Georgia voted to secede from the Union, and he describes other shipments of gunpowder to Southern states, as well as the return of powder to Georgia. Francis W. Pickens. Autograph Letter Signed as Governor of South Carolina, to Gov. [Joseph E.] Brown of Georgia. State of South Carolina, Head Quarters [Columbia]. May 14, 1861. 4 p. Docket. Inventory# 21335 $ 6,000 Complete Transcript:
“State of South Carolina, / Head Quarters,
14th May – 1861.
My dear Sir
I recd yours in relation to 5.000# of powder got in Jany: & 5000# on 13th April. I immediately ordered it to be returned, & now enclose you the within report from Col. Manigault the Ordnance officer. I recollect in Jany: of sending Col. LaMar to Augusta for powder if it could be obtained at the Magazine there; and the report was there was no cannon powder; I then had a Telegram sent to Savannah for 5000# & the reply was there is none to spare.
Please direct the officer in charge at Savannah, or Millegevill to let Col. Manigault know through whom the order was recd. for the 5.000#. I sent 5000# to Florida[?] & 25000#[?] to N. Ca since our Bombardment.
The other 5000# you will see is ordered to be sent. I take occasion to return you my sincere thanks for your kindness and generosity in lending it at an important time. And also through you to your noble state my thanks for the brave & patriotic offers of her various companies to come to our defense when we seemed at one time to be alone. About the 9th & 10th Jany: last immediately after the Star of the West was fired into – we were, as you recollect, threatened with a powerful fleet & army of invasion, when as a state we stood alone, and had been censured for our premature condition. Then it was that our brethren of Georgia came forward immediately & from every town where the Telegraph reached, they sent me offers of their service for our defense with such patriotic and sincere kindness, that it filled my heart with deep gratitude, and I felt that, if nominally alone as a state, yet we had friends & brothers in Georgia who were ready to peril all in defense of our rights. I desire to return to them through you the thanks of this State for their noble conduct. I would have recd. some of them, but I felt a hesitation in doing so, because we had gone out of the Union alone & under a belief entertained by many that we had acted prematurely & without sufficient regard to the opinions & interests of our sister states I shall cherish the brave & patriotic support I recd. from Georgia to my latest days in life, and 1 trust So. Carolina will ever feel still as for our interests are concerned we are one & the same people now & forever.
I have the honor to / be with great / respect yours / truly
F. W. Pickens To His Excellency Govr. Brown / Milledgeville”
[Docket:]
Governor Pickens to / Governor Brown / in relation to powder / May 14th 1861. Historical Background:
Governor Pickens had sent out requests for shipments of powder from neighboring states in January 1861, in his effort to prepare for the defense of Charleston. He assumed that the danger of invasion from federal troops was imminent after South Carolina seceded from the Union on December 20, 1860. As he mentions in this letter, many Southerners thought that Pickens was premature in calling for secession immediately after the election of Abraham Lincoln. In fact, President Buchanan did not respond to the Charleston batteries firing on the supply ship Star of the West to prevent the reinforcement of Fort Sumter but left it to his successor when Lincoln took office. On April 12, the first hostilities of the Civil War commenced in Charleston Harbor. Early in the war President Davis realized that the South needed to manufacture its own supplies of gunpowder. He commissioned Col. George Washington Rains, an engineer and West Point graduate, to design and build a world-class munitions factory in Augusta, Georgia, on the Savannah River. The Confederate Powderworks was the only large-scale industrial building project undertaken by the Confederacy. Construction began in September 1861 and gunpowder supplies were ready to ship seven months later. Francis Wilkinson Pickens (1805-1896) practiced law in South Carolina before serving in the state legislature (1832-1834) and the U.S. House of Representatives (1834-1843), where he supported slavery and states’ rights, and as minister to Russia (1858-1860). He was elected governor of South Carolina in 1860, favoring secession. When the war began, his efforts to defend the state against Union attack were criticized publicly, leading to the creation of an executive council that assumed much of his power. His term as governor ended in 1862, and he died in Edgefield, SC, on Jan. 25, 1869. Joseph Emerson Brown (1821-1894) was one of the most successful politicians in Georgia and served as governor during the Civil War. He was first elected to the governorship in 1857 and became an ardent secessionist. As the strength of the centralized Confederate Government grew, however, Brown increasingly became less cooperative with Jefferson Davis’s efforts. He opposed the Confederate draft in 1862 and struggled to maintain control of a state militia. Even as Sherman’s troops marched through Georgia in the spring of 1864, he still did not support Davis’s policies but called for peace. After the war he resumed his career as an attorney and served in the U.S. Senate from 1880 to 1890.
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