Upcountry South Carolina Goes to War: Letters of the Anderson, Brockman, and Moore Families, 1853-1865

Introduction

Introduction Melissa Walker and Tom Moore Craig In the rolling foothills of Spartanburg County, South Carolina, the Anderson and Moore families established themselves on the banks of the North and South Tyger rivers. They carved out new farms on former Cherokee hunting grounds near the present communities of Moore and Reidville. They had arrived in the Piedmont of South Carolina in the 1760s, having made their way earlier from northern Ireland to Philadelphia and to the Pennsylvania backcountry before beginning the long trek south down the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road. Typical of the Scots-Irish settlers, Charles Moore (1727–1805) had come to America in the early 1750s, probably from county Antrim, northern Ireland. His wife was Mary Barry; it is not certain when they married. After a short time in Pennsylvania, he joined the migration south and lived in Old Anson County, North Carolina,where his signature has been found as a witness to deeds in 1752 and 1762. On May 30, 1763, he was granted 550 acres on the North Tyger River by King George III. The survey, completed in July, indicated that the parcel was surrounded on all sides by “vacant land.” He and his wife,Mary,first took up residence under a lean-to shelter near the river while clearing land and constructing a house on higher ground nearby. This latter residence, made of hewn logs covered with clapboards,still stands and is known as Walnut Grove Plantation.It is restored and open to the public. Charles and Mary had ten children, all surviving to adulthood. The oldest daughter, Margaret Catherine “Kate,” born 1752, married Captain Andrew Barry and was a scout and spy for the patriots in the American Revolution. Their seventh child, Thomas (1759–1822), served seven terms in the U.S. Congress, 1801–13 and 1815–17. He was the general in charge of the defense of Charleston in the War of 1812. Charles and Mary’s ninth child, Dr. Andrew Barry Moore (1771–1848),practiced medicine from his small office located on the family plantation for fifty years and is the father of three of the letter writers,Margaret Anna Moore Means, Andrew Charles Moore, and Thomas John Moore. The tenth xii Introduction child, Charles Moore Jr. (1774–1836), went west to Alabama in 1826, settling in Marion, Perry County. His son Andrew Barry Moore was governor of Alabama, 1857–61, and is mentioned in his much younger first cousin Andrew Charles Moore’s letters of May and June 1860. Charles Moore Jr.’s daughter Juliet married Dr. Robert Foster and was the mother of Mary Foster, to whom Andrew Charles Moore was married at the time of his death. William Anderson (1706–ca. 1779) came to America in 1742 from county Antrim, northern Ireland. He lived in Pennsylvania before moving south to the Waxhaws settlement in South Carolina. He lived for a time in Charleston but took up a two-hundred-acre land grant in Laurens County, South Carolina, in 1763. He soon left that land to move farther west, eventually to the South Tyger River in Spartanburg County, near his son Major David Anderson. William Anderson was murdered near the end of the Revolution by a group of Indians and Tories and his house burned.Major David Anderson (1741–1827) was a land surveyor and distinguished patriot soldier. James Mason “Tyger Jim” Anderson and his wife, Mary “Polly” Miller Anderson. From Edward Lee Anderson, A History of the Anderson Family, 1706–1955 (Columbia, S.C.: R. L. Bryan Company, 1955); used with permission Introduction xiii James Mason Anderson (1784–1870) was the fourth child of Major David Anderson and Miriam Mayson. He lived on the South Tyger and was a successful farmer, miller, and wagoner, hauling goods as far north as Washington and Baltimore.He married Mary “Polly” Miller,and they had ten children.He promised each of his eight sons a gold watch and a sizable tract of land if they would “complete a liberal education and study a profession.” Letter writer Captain David Anderson (1811–1892) was James Anderson’s oldest son. He married Harriet Maria Brockman from Pliny, just across the Enoree River in Greenville County, and brought her to live at Pleasant Falls, his plantation on the North Tyger River. Their older children, Mary Elizabeth and John Crawford,are major correspondents in this collection of letters,as are Harriet ’s much younger sisters...