Living a Big War in a Small Place: Spartanburg, South Carolina, during the Confederacy

Seven: A Question of Loyalty

7 a Question of loyalty In 1861 Elihu Toland of Glenn Springs published a handbill entitled the “12 We Wonders” under the pseudonym “Brutus.” According to court documents read in the 1980s but which are no longer accessible,1 a farmer named Benjamin Finch believed himself to be one of the targets of this handbill. The publication was distributed among Spartanburg’s Confederate troops at the front in Virginia by a cabal of Finch’s enemies, among whom was a Dr. Gideon H. King, a resident of Glenn Springs. Finch believed the handbill resulted from rumors that he had restrained his seventeen-year-old son from enlisting. When Elihu Toland, aged 28, returned to Spartanburg from Virginia in 1861, he published another handbill explaining that he had been the person to publish the “12 We Wonders.” The two handbills remain among the trial papers concerning the State vs. Benjamin Finch for the murder of Dr. King, aged 60, and they attest to their importance in Finch’s defense of his confrontation with Dr. King. The handbills are reprinted in full at the conclusion of this chapter. On May 9, 1861, the Carolina Spartan reported: “Dr. G. H. King, who has been absent for some time on duty in Capt. Kennedy’s company of volunteers [Co. K, 3rd Regiment, SCV], has, by petition of the citizens in the neighborhood of Glenn Springs, been honorably discharged by his Excellency Gov. Pickens, that he might return and resume the discharge of his professional duties. The Doctor is again at his post at Glenn Springs.” It appears that both Toland and Dr. King returned to Spartanburg at about the same time. The court summoned Toland as a witness in the Finch case. Toland signed a receipt of the summons on January 22, 1862, well after both his return from Virginia and publication of the second handbill, which stated that he was the person to publish the “12 We Wonders.” In June 1862, Toland joined the Sixth South Carolina Cavalry for the duration of the war, although he was absent on furlough until November 1862.2 The court delayed the trial of Benjamin Finch for the duration of the war, and A Question of Loyalty 85 it finally took place in 1866. The trial record showed that Finch met Dr. King on the road at about eight o’ clock in the morning and that “on the road King drew and presented a pistol on him [Finch] after getting off his horse . . . and that he (Finch) sprang at the head of King’s horse to try to save himself while his gun [Finch was carrying a shot gun] rose and fired and now [after the shooting, Finch] went some distance and turned . . . to see if King was in pursuit . . . [and] saw the horse alone.” Finch returned, saw King’s body lying in the road, and went off to seek help.3 No verdict was recorded in the trial papers. On April 12, 1866, the Carolina Spartan published the following: “Our Last Court . . . Of the three cases of murder, each of the accused was acquitted. It is a remarkable fact that from so large a number of cases, each should escape the penalty of violated law, but we ascribe it more to the excusable circumstances which accompanied each, than to the want of a proper appreciation of the sense of social obligation 12 We Wonders. Courtesy of the South Carolina Department of Archives and History. 86 Individuals or legal acknowledgment. Certainly none can charge our people with a revengeful disposition. Each and every acquittal shows dispassionateness of judgment and coolness of deliberation. The following are the cases alluded to: The State vs. Benjamin Finch.” Ultimately Benjamin Finch was found not guilty of murdering Dr. Gideon H. King whom he had blamed for besmirching his character. The publication of the handbills attests to how seriously some Southerners took loyalty to their new nation. Many of the citizens of the district were concerned about the safety and viability of their newly constituted country, a concern that sometimes verged on paranoia, as seen in the Spartan’s warnings about possible Union spies and saboteurs in the district. Given that the support in the upcountry for secession had been less than total, the supporters of secession seemed ultra patriotic. Dr. King can surely be counted among these, as his service at age sixty early in the war will attest...