The Southern Plantation

The Southern Plantation

A large plantation was not just cotton fields and a stately mansion approached along an oak-lined drive. A plantation included many other buildings: the smokehouse where meat was preserved, the henhouse where poultry was raised, stables where thoroughbreds were tended, the barn where dairy cows and work animals were housed, and sheds and silos for tools, grain, and other farm necessities. In workshops scattered near the barnyard, slave artisans might craft barrels, horseshoes, furniture, and cloth for use on the plantation. Gardens were cultivated to supply herbs and vegetables. Larger plantations might also maintain a schoolhouse for white children. Some planters built chapels for family worship, and some allowed religious services for slaves as well. More commonly, large plantations included slave infirmaries and nursery facilities where older slave women tended the children of women who worked in the fields. As a safety precaution, almost all plantations had kitchen structures separate from the "big house," the main mansion that housed the planter family.

The big house, usually a two or three-storied mansion, was a visible symbol of the planters wealth. Coming in from the front porch, a wide entrance hall might lead into a dining room, a parlor, a library, and one or more sitting rooms. In these rooms a planter could display his wealth with European furnishings and imported artwork. On the upper floors, bedrooms for family members and guests were maintained with the most comfortable and luxurious decor available. Nurseries for planters children were located on the uppermost floors and could be reached by the servants stairs at the back of the house.

The big house, the centerpiece of the entire plantation, might have formal flower gardens, like the famed plantings at Middleton Place outside Charleston which took nearly ten years to complete. A separate office for the planter or overseer might be attached to the main house. Slave cabins were often built not far from the big house. Overseers sometimes lived on the plantation, in which case their modest homes might also be found nor far from the slave cabins, especially in the case of absentee planters. But economic studies indicate that fewer than 30 percent of planters employed white supervisors for their slave labor. Although nor all plantations contained every element listed above, the crucial components were the masters home and the slaves domiciles, reflecting the difference in status between the black and white worlds on the plantation.

Plantations Mobilize For War. From Abraham Lincolns election onward, secession fever propelled the South into war. Once South Carolina broke with the Union and the rest of the Southern states fell like dominoes in the early part of 1861, war appeared inevitable. Mary Boykin Chesnut saw the handwriting on the wall: "These foolish, rash, harebrained southern lads . . . are thrilling with fiery ardor The red-hot Southern martial spirit is in the air," she wrote in her diary.

Southern gentlemen, especially the young, knew their choices and, buoyed by secessionist bravado, enlisted when the war broke out. Confederate manhood ironically required husbands and fathers to leave the very home and loved ones they were pledging to protect. Slave-owning patriarchs had to abandon their beloved plantations. Loyal Confederate plantation mistresses had to hammer home the necessity of fighting, in case men might falter in their duty. The press and private correspondence overflowed with parables of strident patriotic females: the belle who broke an engagement because her fiancй did not enlist before the proposed wedding day, the sweethearts who sent skirts and female undergarments to shirkers.

The formation of many Confederate units demonstrated the resolve of the planter class to serve. In Selma, Alabama, the Magnolia Cadets assembled, manned entirely by local gentry. In Georgia, the Savannah Rifles, the Blue Caps, the Rattlesnakes, and many other colorful groups closed ranks against the charge that the battle would be a "rich mans war and a poor mans fight."

Class solidarity was built on the bedrock of white superiority to which most white Southerners subscribed. As contemporary Southerner William Cabell Rives proclaimed, "It is not a question of slavery at all; it is a question of race." Therefore planters necessarily blurred class lines for whites by engaging in cooperative ventures during wartime. Parthenia Hague described the way in which Alabamians forged alliances during war: "We were drawn together in a closer union, a tenderer feeling of humanity linking us all together, both rich and poor; from the princely planter, who could scarce get off his wide domains in a days ride, and who