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Anna’s world was crumbling around her. By 1858 the estate was in debt to her Savannah factors for approximately $10,000 and Thomas Butler King appeared no closer to returning to Retreat and joining forces with his wife to either make improvements in the existing homestead or move their planting operations elsewhere. He had, with Butler, attempted to buy additional land on the island and in Ware County, but raising capital or finding credit was all but impossible. More important, however, with Butler’s death Anna’s emotional strength faltered and could not be restored. Though she turned to religion and her family for solace, nothing could ease her anguish. She died on August 22, 1859, seven months after Butler’s death. Those closest to her believed she died of a broken heart. Life at Retreat was never again the same. With the coming of war in 1861, the King family was further separated and bereaved. Thomas Butler King was elected to the state legislature and participated in Georgia’s decision to secede from the union. Though initially against secession, he stood with his state and the Confederacy in their bid for independence . Early in the war, Gen. Robert E. Lee asked the inhabitants of the Sea Islands to move inland because he was unable to defend them or their property from the formidable Union navy. While Thomas Butler King journeyed to France and England on behalf of the state of Georgia to solicit aid for the Confederacy, his daughters, grandchildren, and bondpeople moved to Ware County. All the King sons joined the army, leaving William Couper to support and protect the women. Georgia met and married a young officer, William Duncan Smith, who died of pneumonia before the war’s end. Mallery, on leave from his duties in 1862, came home to a newly constructed cottage, The Refuge , and married his childhood sweetheart, Eugenia Grant. In that same year Lord was killed at the Battle of Fredericksburg. Neptune, who traveled with him, ventured out onto the battlefield to retrieve Lord’s body and returned it to his family in Georgia. Thomas Butler King died on May 10, 1864, surrounded by his daughters, grandchildren, and son-in-law. The years following the war brought many changes to the lives of the remaining Kings. In 1866, Florence married Gen. Henry Rootes Jackson. Georgia remarried on June 9, 1870, to John Joseph Wilder; and one month later VirEpilogue 411 ginia married John Nisbet. All three sisters lived in Savannah and remained physically as well as emotionally close. Cuyler remained a bachelor into his late forties, but in 1899 married Henrietta Nisbet (no relation to Virginia’s husband ). Floyd, who never married, followed his father into politics, representing his adopted state of Louisiana as a U.S. congressman for four terms. Hannah and her family eventually made their home in Macon, Georgia.1 Though certainly they were aware of the growing number of self-liberated and emancipated bondpeople moving throughout the South, relatively few of the Kings’ enslaved workers left the family before the end of the war.2 Rhina continued to work for the family into the turn of the century. After Lord’s body was laid to rest, Neptune accompanied the youngest King son, Cuyler, to war. When the King family returned to St. Simons after the war, Neptune was given a piece of land as a reward for his service to Lord. On it he built a house for his wife, Ila, and their children.3 After emancipation Neptune took the last name Small and became a well-known figure on the island and beyond. His grave in the slave cemetery at Retreat bears a bronze plaque with the words: “Neptune belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Butler King of Retreat Plantation . When their son Capt. H. L. P. King enlisted in the Confederate Army Neptune accompanied him to war as his body-servant. Capt. King was killed at the battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia on December 13, 1862. When night fell Neptune went out on the battlefield, found the body of his master and brought it home to rest in the family burying ground at Christ Church, Frederica , St. Simons Island.” A copy of a newspaper article that appears in Old Mill Days: St. Simons Mills, Georgia, 1874–1908 records “Neptune’s Story,” an interview with Neptune Small by J. E. Dart. I reprint it below. Well, genl’mens, Ise b’longs to de King fambly...

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