James Henry Rion: Son of South Carolina

By Kitt R. McMaster

Until now the life of James H. Rion (1828-1886) has been known only in fragments. Many in South Carolina know of him only through the legend, told in countless variations throughout the 20th century, that he was the son of a Montréal dauphin and thus the grandson of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette;

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
• Release date: Oct 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781638376729

Book preview

Preface

I

t was the fate of James H. Rion (1828-1886) to live in legend throughout the 20th century while the story of the life he actually lived slowly drifted into obscurity. The legend, told in countless variations, was that he was the grandson of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and that as the son of the lost dauphin of France John C. Calhoun was his guardian in America. It was hardly the first report of the dauphin's transatlantic sojourn but its uniqueness and romance – conspiratorial intrigue involving two continents and a famous American statesman – captured the imagination, and its 20th century elaborations proved to be irrepressible. The result was that the legend ultimately had the effect of effacing the memory of Rion's real life, a life which ironically had little to do with the content of the legend. The fact is that James H. Rion was a famous South Carolinian during his day, a matter all the more remarkable in that he had chosen to pursue the life of a public-spirited private citizen rather than a politician (and thus has tended to fall beneath the radar of the historians). Yet politics was unavoidable during the decades after Appomattox and since all of his major concerns – law, education, transportation, and commerce – had political implications Rion took up his post in that world as well. He travelled in the circles of Kershaw, Hampton, Hagood, Youmans, and Thompson, all of whom could at times be found seeking his advice on matters political and otherwise.

Of course Rion's legacy was not entirely lost on the historians. Through scattered references in various historical and biographical works one learns a few specifics of his life: that he spent a portion of his youth living with the Calhoun family at Fort Hill, that he was a first honors graduate of South Carolina College, that he was a well known Confederate colonel, that after the war he was involved in Reconstruction politics, and that he later became a famous railroad attorney and Thomas G. Clemson's lawyer. Yet these scattered references hardly paint a meaningful portrait of the man, and his substantial influence and accomplishments during the most productive period of his life receive little or no treatment. Moreover, and importantly, the vague picture which emerges is often misleading, sometimes false.

Who was the real James H. Rion? What were his contributions? What were his politics? And what was the origin and substance of the dauphin narrative? These and many other questions have thus far remained unanswered. The present work is an attempt to reconstruct a life, to tell the complete story of that life in its proper historical context. Rion was not a native South Carolinian but once he adopted the Palmetto State as his own he spent his entire life devoted to its welfare. His life coincided with what was perhaps the most exciting and controversial period of the nation's history and he was a conspicuous player in every phase of it. Indeed, since it is impossible to tell his story without a healthy dose of background history, we offer what can only be called a life and times biography. While it is the author's contention that it is time to put the Rion legend aside in favor of the life actually lived, it turns out that an in-depth analysis of the legend itself has its own contributions to make. Indeed it is in Rion's biography that we will find the why and wherefore of the legend. The latter will therefore find its proper place in our narrative.

The author wishes to acknowledge the work of two of his predecessors in the pursuit of Rion's biography. James A. Gabel of Rapid City, South Dakota, and Nelle McMaster Sprott of Winnsboro, South Carolina, both (like the author) descendants of Rion, collaborated over a number of years to put together a short but meaningful sketch of our subject's antebellum years, and Colonel Gabel, primarily interested in Rion as a soldier, was instrumental in documenting his war activities. Throughout her long and productive life Nelle Sprott, a native of Winnsboro, accumulated much valuable information on the life and activities of James and Mary Catherine Rion and without access to her extensive notes and papers (collated by the author as Nelle Sprott Papers) this project could not have even begun. Personnel at the South Caroliniana Library and the Fairfield County Museum have been exceptionally helpful in giving access to their respective Rion Papers and photo images, and newspaper searches have been facilitated by Chronicling America's excellent search engine (https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/). Finally, the author wishes to thank Ellen Nicholson for her periodic assistance in proofing the text and especially for her many helpful suggestions along the way.

Part I

Antebellum and War Days

To catch dame fortune's golden smile,

Assiduous wait upon her,

And gather gear by ev’ry wile,

That's justified by honor,

Not for to hide it in a hedge,

Nor for a train attendant,

But for the glorious privilege,

Of being independent.

Robert Burns

Epistle to a Young Friend

CHAPTER ONE

From Montréal to Savannah

J

ames H. Rion made his journey through life as a South Carolinian but he had not always been such. Born in Montréal in the late 1820s he was about seven years old when his mother decided to put her past behind her in order to carve out a new life in the American South. Mother and son first settled in Savannah, Georgia, and it was in that most remarkable of southern cities that James received his first education and then began to wonder what he might do with his life. It was not until he was fifteen years old that the two ex-Canadians moved from Savannah to the small but thriving upstate South Carolina town of Pendleton Village. Here the young Rion hoped to use Pendleton Male Academy, a military prep school, as a stepping stone to his ultimate dream: to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point. We first get an image of the teenager from the following reminiscence written fifty years after the fact –

"How well I remember the first time I ever saw Jim Rion, sitting alone on the root of a great oak in front of the old Pendleton Academy, with a yellow ribbon band around his plain straw hat. I was struck with the peculiar whiteness of his skin, his delicate and girl-like appearance. I spoke to the boy and learned from him that he and his mother were Irish Canadians, but recently from Savannah, Ga. His mother had come to keep house at the Old Pendleton Hotel. He wanted to witness the examination then going on, but was too timid to venture in alone. I conducted the stranger boy in and shared with him my seat… Soon after this he entered school, becoming my classmate and we afterward became devoted friends, he spending his Saturdays and vacations with me at my father's beautiful home, Tranquilla, on the Seneca River, and in the Blue Ridge Mountains, hunting."

In calling the young Rion timid, the author must have been giving a mere first impression, for few would ever describe him thus, as a youth or as a more mature man – reticent and reserved, yes; timid, no! There was a quiet restlessness about the young Rion and he was not lacking in determination as can be seen from the fact that within a year of arriving in Pendleton he had made the personal acquaintance of the town's foremost citizen, John C. Calhoun, and would be asking him for a letter of recommendation towards the end of attending the United State Military Academy. As we will see that aspiration would never come to fruition, but thanks to his mother's remarkable domestic and managerial talents, James Rion would become closely associated with the Calhoun family and ultimately owe his chance at a top-level education to them. In fact it was to explain the nature of his well known association with the Calhoun family – in an attempt to dispel floating rumors that more than friendship and chance association might have been involved – that Dave U. Sloan, a native of the Pendleton area and author of the above description of the fifteen year old Rion, included it in his 1891 Fogy Days, and Now, or, The World has Changed, a delightful collage (in poetry and prose) of reminiscences of the days before governors Chamberlain, Hampton, and Ben Tillman: Jim Rion received every kindness from the Calhoun family, and it is believed to this day, even in South Carolina, that he was of blood relation to the Calhouns, but it is not true. Jim Rion was fifteen years old when he came to Pendleton, and sixteen when he went to Fort Hill.

In his retrospective, Sloan describes how the great South Carolina statesman may have first come to know of Rion: My father first noted his brilliancy of intellect and spoke of it to Mr. Calhoun, and through his influence, and the efforts of young James E[dward] Calhoun, who was then in college, he was entered as a beneficiary and graduated with great distinction, winning the first honors of his class, though some of his competitors belonged to the wealthiest and most aristocratic families of the state. He also captured a more precious prize from the President of the College, then the Hon. W[illiam] C. Preston.i

We will learn the identity of the more precious prize in due course, but for now we should note that the move to Fort Hill was due more to the talents of the mother than the brilliancy of the son. Margaret Hunter Rion was an immensely talented and strong-willed young woman, and procuring the job as head of housekeeping at the Old Pendleton Hotel must have come easily, for she had strong credentials indeed. She had managed the entire housekeeping staff at the famous Pulaski House Hotel in Savannah, temporary home of sophisticated travelers up and down the eastern seaboard and center of Savannah's emerging cosmopolitan character. She was thus well equipped to assist Floride Calhoun, John C.'s temperamental and often incapacitated wife, in the household management of the by now famous Fort Hill, a position she would retain until the death of the statesman in 1850. Margaret Hunter, keenly aware of her son's brightness and studious character, had always looked to his education and the move to Fort Hill would ultimately work towards that end in a way no one had anticipated. We will return to the teenage Rion's Pendleton and Fort Hill years in the next chapter, but let us first backtrack to the experiences of mother and son in Savannah and at least make an attempt to begin at the beginning, as obscure as that beginning will turn out to be.

Margaret Hunter Rion brought her son from Montréal, Canada, to Savannah in the mid-1830s when James was about seven or eight years old, and it was in that extraordinary city near the mouth of the Savannah River in Georgia that the young Rion was first exposed to southern life and culture. We are fortunate to have several first-hand accounts of these Savannah years such that the sojourn of mother and son there can be reconstructed with reasonable certainty, but such is not the case with the earlier years in Canada. For whatever reason, Margaret Hunter was loath to give us (or her son) much meaningful information related to her former life, and we are left with only a bare sketch gleaned from the little she did relate and a few recorded dates and facts from the family Bible, and even these lack any real confirmation in the historical record despite the efforts of many to discover such confirmation. What has generally been received as known (in a minimalist sense of the term) can be presented in outline in a brief paragraph or two.

James Henry Rion was born a posthumous child in Montréal, Canada, on April 17, 1828. His mother, born in Liverpool, England, on December 1, 1810, was the daughter of James Hunter and his wife Margaret Hunt (sic), the father apparently being an officer in the English army. Precisely when and where Margaret met her future husband – in England or Canada – is unclear, but assuming the accuracy of her date of birth she was only sixteen and a half years old when she married Henry Rion, an English army officer in the corps of engineers, on May 28, 1827. It seems likely that the marriage took place in Montreal, for it would last only ten months as Henry Rion died of unknown causes on March 27, 1828, a month and a half before the birth of his son. Of Henry Rion, the father, we know very little, for as already indicated Margaret Hunter more or less closed the door on her marital past. James Rion, the son, would himself never learn much about his father beyond the fact that he thought of himself as of French extraction and had considerable mathematical and engineering talents (a probable truth as the son would excel in the same). But exactly who he was – when he was born, where he grew up, who his parents were, where he/they had lived, when and why he came to Canada – all this remained shrouded in mystery and opaque to the enquiries of James Henry Rion.ii

Nor would there ever be a clear indication of the motivation for the migration south. To be sure, Montréal was in the midst of great economic and social change during the 1830s, primarily associated with massive waves of immigration following the end of the Napoleonic wars and economic hard times in Ireland. This had resulted in a striking increase in population – from 9000 at the turn of the century to 23,000 in 1825, and even greater growth during the following decade. Such a rapid influx of English, Scots, and Irish Catholics – added to the preexisting mixture of Anglicans, Dissenters, and French Canadians – was attended by significant social and ethnic tensions as well as marked economic transformation and competition. Moreover, the city's sanitation was deplorable and there were devastating cholera epidemics in the early 1830s.iii As a young widowed mother with little means of support and a son to raise and educate, Margaret Hunter had ample reason to look for a better life elsewhere, particularly after the death of both of her parents not long after the birth of her son. Yet we simply have no real insight into her motivations, whether they were general as just described or more personal in nature. But one thing is certain, and we have already alluded to it: Margaret Hunter was a strong and independent young woman who must have come to realize during the early 1830s that she had an extraordinary talent for organization and supervision. Perhaps she got into the hotel housekeeping business in Montreal and realized this might be her ticket to a new life in the young nation just south. Whatever her motivations, it was when she was about twenty-five years old that she decided to close the book on her past and set out with her young son for a new life in the American South – whatever that might bring.

Why Margaret Hunter Rion chose Savannah as her southern destination is yet one more unknown about which we can only speculate. It may have been nothing more than a passing recommendation by a stranger on a southern bound steamship, yet one suspects that Margaret Hunter was the kind of person who knew precisely what she was looking for. It would have to be a city in which she could see to the education of her now eight year old son, and one where she could make a living plying her own special domestic skills, perhaps one with an active hotel or inn business. She did well in choosing Savannah, for this first city of Georgia had shown an interest in educating its citizens – rich and poor alike – since its colonial days, and as a port city well positioned for trade and commerce, was sure to play host to an abundance of travelers and visitors from up and down the American seaboard and even from across the Atlantic. She was not disappointed. Exactly how she started out is uncertain, but within a couple of years of her arrival in Savannah, Margaret Hunter's talents had come to the attention of an enterprising entrepreneur who had just monopolized Savannah's hotel business, and she had become head of housekeeping at the city's foremost hotel, a demanding position requiring considerable organizational and management skills. Moreover, her son would be well on his way to a decent primary and middle school education. The young Rion proved to be a serious student, but as we will see, Savannah was to give him quite an education outside of the classroom as well.

The just mentioned hotel entrepreneur was a stern old sailor who was destined to play a significant role in the lives of our two Rions, and a survey of his earlier life will not only familiarize us with a fascinating character but also provide some insight into the Savannah that the Rions made home when they arrived in the mid-1830s. Of the earlier life of Peter Wiltberger, born in Philadelphia in 1791, little is known except that he became a master seaman involved in the China trade and that he was convicted at some point in the 1810s by a Pennsylvania U.S. Circuit Court of the crime of manslaughter on the high seas somewhere in the Chinese Empire. The homicide had actually occurred on one of the rivers of China and the case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where in a mind-numbing dissertation on the definition of high seas, Chief Justice John Marshall had ruled that a river could not be considered high seas – the conviction was thrown out on the basis of lack of United States jurisdiction. Meanwhile Captain Wiltberger had met a Savannah belle whom he married in 1821, making Savannah his permanent home. Giving up the high seas, he nonetheless continued his captainship by organizing a line of steamers negotiating the trade between Savannah, Augusta, and Charleston, and up the Altamaha River to Macon and Milledgeville. Thanks largely to the invention of the cotton gin in the 1790s, the upcountry piedmont regions of Georgia and South Carolina had been transformed from an inconsequential backcountry into a land of prosperous slave-owning planters eager to export cotton, timber, and naval stores out of Savannah. The years after the War of 1812 had indeed been an age of prosperity for the port city, but precisely for this reason there had been undue speculation in cotton, land, and slaves, the end result being the economic crash of 1819. This was the first of a number of periodic panics followed by economic slumps that would plague America throughout the 19th century and it made for a significantly depressed economy in Savannah for most of the 1820s.iv

Perhaps for this reason Captain Wiltberger turned to more land-based enterprises, taking on the management of Savannah's finest hotel during the 1820s. Located on Bay Street between Whittaker and Bull, City Hotel served as the most favored gathering spot for Savannah's governing and commercial elite, as well as visiting planters, seamen, and river traders who enjoyed the Captain's welcoming hospitality, good cheer, and of course food and drink.¹ So successful was Wiltberger that he began buying up properties in the city, the most important of which was just around the corner from the City Hotel on Johnson Square, commercial and mercantile center of the city. This would be the site of the huge and soon famous Pulaski House Hotel on the corner of Bull and Bryan Streets and extending westward along Bryan Street for a considerable distance. The exact date of the opening of the Pulaski House is unclear, but Wiltberger bought the property in the early 1830s and the hotel was definitely operative by 1837. With the purchase of the Mansion House, Savannah's next best hotel, Wiltberger had clinched his monopoly on the city's hostelry. Thus, in spite of a sluggish economy Wiltberger had done well for himself, and his successes accrued to the benefit of Margaret Hunter Rion. She probably acquired her job as head of housekeeping at the Pulaski House soon after 1837, and she and her son took up lodging there no later than 1839 or 1840. The Pulaski Hotel quickly became the cosmopolitan heart of the city, hosting many of its gala social events and serving as meeting place of its many societies and some of its political events. Visiting dignitaries, American and foreign, were frequently lodged there, surely giving the young Rion much excitement and exposing him to the larger world beyond Savannah.v

Wiltberger's hotels continued to do well in spite of another economic Panic in 1837. Indeed, Savannah had managed to pull through the difficult 1820s with a spirit of relative optimism, thanks to some enlightened city politicians and business leaders. There had also been progress on the educational front. Mention was made earlier that the Georgia colony had emphasized education almost from its beginning. A long-standing charitable and social organization, the Union Society, had become associated with the city's first academy shortly after the Revolution. Chatham Academy was chartered as early as 1788 but it had difficulty procuring the funds necessary to build a schoolhouse until just before the War of 1812. At that time a three-story building was erected at the southern end of Bull Street, just northeast of Chippewa Square, and the fledgling academy opened in 1813.² Chatham, active from that time until the outbreak of war in the early 1860s, was always forced to operate as a private institution requiring tuition, but the Union Society offered support for the primary education of poor children in a wing of the new building. It also helped cover tuition and supplies for students at the academy. It is probable that the young Rion first received his primary education with the help of the Union Society, later entering the Academy's middle school grades when he was about eleven or twelve years old, by which time Margaret Rion could cover most of the tuition. The Academy seems to have had a well planned curriculum consisting of studies in English, Latin, and Greek, as well as writing, arithmetic, grammar, book-keeping, geography, drawing, and painting. The building was spacious and well-equipped, and there were usually about 200 students of variable backgrounds. Children of Savannah's elite were educated there, but there were also students from less affluent families. The higher classes were upgraded in the early 1830s and a notice published in 1832 stated: The classical and mathematical departments will be specially attended to, with a view to full preparation for any of the classes in the colleges of the United States.vi

James Rion's entry into the upper grades of Chatham Academy was or was not spectacular, depending on the interpretation one chooses to put on it. As related by one of his fellow classmates, the young teenager did look rather queer. He was small, his pants were too short, his coat skirt shorter, and he wore a cap, well, it looked something like a cocked hat, and there were a couple of rubber bows, one at each end. The boys, of course, not knowing the material he was made of, were inclined to have their fun out of him, but it was of short duration. Charley T. commenced, during recitation hours the second morning after his appearance, to be a little smart at Rion's expense, and said something about the country bumpkin, when, to his utter consternation and amazement, the country bumpkin rose from his seat, and let [him] have on the side of his head a blow with an Ainsworth's [Latin] Dictionary that brought him to the floor. How the teacher reacted to this performance was not recorded, but it did have its effect: Rion had no more trouble and was ever more respected, not alone for showing his manhood, but it was not many days before he was at the top of the list in his studies.vii

By all accounts Rion was indeed a model student, and if the just related incident suggests an excitable temperament that would require some self-disciplining in the future, little coaxing was needed when it came to his studies. Learning seemed to come natural to him, especially in mathematics, and he was from the beginning attracted to all things scientific and technological. But he also excelled in the classics department. The author of the above incident, Barnard E. Bee, later Clerk of Superior Court of Chatham County, comments that the professor of classics at Chatham, Henry M. Spofford, thought a great deal of Rion, who was already showing signs of an impressive memory.³ The principle of Chatham Academy when Rion was in attendance was Edward E. Pynchon, descendent of a well known family in Massachusetts who spent his life as a teacher in the South, and when Rion left Savannah, he would carry with him a glowing letter of reference from the principal, one he presented to Mr. Calhoun when seeking an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy. In that letter (to be quoted later) Rion listed his prior scholastic achievements, and if these are any indication of the curriculum at Chatham Academy, it was a substantial course of study.viii

Barnard E. Bee's comments are incorporated in an important sketch of Rion's life by S. P. Hamilton, who also knew Rion in Savannah and who would later become a practicing attorney in Chester, South Carolina, and his good friend and colleague. Hamilton was about Rion's age and the son of a plantation owner upriver about three miles from Savannah. His father frequently did business in the port city, always lodging at the Pulaski House Hotel where the two teenagers got to know each other. Hamilton described the Pulaski House as the best kept hotel in the South and attributed this both to the fact that the servants there stood in mortal dread of Wiltberger and that Mrs. Rion kept everything in perfect order. He described the hotel's proprietor as an enormous man, both in height and breadth, and the most taciturn and sternest of mortals. [Nonetheless], upon such a rugged nature, Rion made an impression as a boy, such as no one else had ever done. He won the entire confidence of the old sailor, and became his friend and [eventual] advisor. Hamilton remembered that Wiltberger always referred to his young friend as little Jimmie Rion, considering this quite appropriate as he was at that time the frailest of mortal boys in figure.

The description of Rion as little was no doubt appropriate, but the epithet can sometimes be applied with a touch of irony, suggesting that smallness of frame is not tantamount to smallness of ability. Such appears to have been the case with Peter Wiltberger who eventually had such confidence in the fourteen year old that he put him in exclusive charge of his icehouse business on Drayton Street, another of Savannah's enterprises he had monopolized. Exactly why Rion left the Academy in the spring of 1842 is not clear. It may have been at Wiltberger's coaxing, but Hamilton thought it probable that he had mastered everything to be taught at the Academy, but added that equally likely was the irrepressible teenage desire for independence.⁴ Be that as it may, it seems that leaving the Academy did not mean relinquishing his love of learning and study. Commenting on Rion's fascination with chemistry, Barnard Bee reported that during the period when Rion was running the icehouse, he would frequently accompany him to Lovell's gunsmith shop on St. Julian Street, near the market, where he used to experiment in dissolving metals, &c. Rion seems to have run the ice house efficiently, but it was not interesting enough for the fourteen year old and he soon took employment (with a small salary) at an auction house on Bay Street run by a bombastic New Englander named Samuel Philbrick. Not much is otherwise known of Philbrick, but he was said to be quite a character, particularly distinguished for his stentorian method of haranguing the buyers at his auction sales. Rion served as outdoor clerk and collector at the auctions, a position one would assume required careful attention to detail and accurate accounting. He must have enjoyed this new venture and those he met in this capacity for he stayed there about a year before leaving Savannah. Hamilton relates that when he and Rion were older, they would occasionally reflect on the old Savannah days. He once inquired "how it was with his love of books and studious habits, he quitted [sic] school and consented to become a drudge with such a rough old fellow as Philbrick." A perfectly sensible question and one to which we would like to know the answer, but Rion was not in the mood to give one and simply dismissed the question. Hamilton leaves us with the impression that he and others had learned to accept this kind of response from their friend who was never given to self-talk and had little inclination to share his motivations with others.

Rion's year of independence probably brought home to both mother and son the need for a change of course. James’ education had always been front and center for Margaret Hunter Rion, but it is also unlikely that he himself thought of his years outside formal schooling as anything other than a temporary diversion. He had intellectual ambitions and was not one to sit on the sidelines of education. Indeed, there can be little doubt that he continued his studies on his own during his time at the ice and auction houses. Perhaps Hamilton was right: he had simply concluded that the academy in Savannah had nothing further to offer him and he was biding his time until he could find another way to pursue higher education. This was surely behind the move to Pendleton, and there is no doubt that he had already developed the aspiration to attend the U.S. Military Academy before leaving Savannah. We have already noted Rion's mathematical aptitude and his fascination with science and technology, and before leaving Savannah we should note two major construction and engineering projects that were likely to have had an impact on the impressionable teenager and given some direction to his later life, projects that were ongoing throughout the time he spent there.

The first of these was the construction of Fort Pulaski on Cockspur Island, just inside the mouth of the Savannah River about ten miles from the city. Cockspur had been chosen by the United States Board of Military Engineers as the site for one of a string of forts intended to protect the Atlantic coastline. Construction began in 1829 under the direction of Major Samuel Babcock (a West Point graduate) of the U.S. Corps of Engineers, but it took more than fifteen years to complete and was thus a much discussed event-project in Savannah during the entire time Rion was there. It is well to remember that in its early years the United States Military Academy was oriented more towards the education of civil and military engineers than to the production of high-ranking military officers, and the carrying out of such engineering projects as Fort Pulaski drew heavily on West Point graduates. In fact, Rion may have heard much talk of Major Babcock's primary assistant in the early 1830s, a young graduate of West Point by the name of Robert E. Lee, then a lieutenant. In any case, the building of Fort Pulaski was an important event in the life of the city, as it served to stimulate its smoldering economy, and it was sure to engage the budding mathematical and engineering mind of the young Rion. Although he would never get to West Point, he would soon develop considerable skills in both surveying and engineering and would have occasion to apply them in the future.ix

The second project was the construction of the Central of Georgia Railroad which received its state charter just about the time Rion and his mother were arriving in Savannah. Railroading was a new technology in the 1830s and was beginning to replace the canal fever of the 1820s. The progressive state just to the north had already constructed a line from Charleston to Hamburg on the South Carolina side of the Savannah River, just opposite Augusta. This was sure to siphon off much of the cotton and lumber trade not only from South Carolina but from Georgia as well, thus lessening the importance of Savannah as a commercial hub – hence the push for a railroad inland from Savannah. Constructing the 191 miles of track from Savannah to Macon, begun towards the end of 1835, suffered many setbacks due to the Panic of 1837 and constant labor problems but the line was finally completed in 1843. This major railroad project thus coincided almost exactly with the time Rion was in Savannah and we can be sure he was fascinated by it and closely followed its progress. It might also be noted that Major William W. Gordon, prime mover towards the completion of the Central of Georgia, was himself a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy.x

Before leaving Savannah we should note one aspect of the city our two Canadians had not previously encountered, viz., southern racial slavery. The Rions would come face to face with plantation or agricultural slavery at Fort Hill, but their first exposure to the peculiar institution was to the more integrated urban variety. Slaves were ubiquitous in Savannah, generally accounting for up to 40% of the city's population. Peter Wiltberger owned slaves and it is not unlikely that Rion's first lesson in the nature of the southern institution came from him. There were slave quarters in the Pulaski House Hotel, and it is probable that Margaret Rion supervised at least some slaves in the course of her management duties. Like their counterparts in the countryside, Savannah's whites had become accustomed to living with the fear of slave insurrections (and more minor threats and disturbances) long before the Rions came South, but the rise of militant abolitionism and the Nat Turner revolt in Virginia in the early 1830s had significantly heightened tensions across the South. Though a distinctly minority view throughout most of the 1830s, abolitionism was gaining ground by the end of the decade and anyone in Savannah suspected of holding such views was likely to be treated roughly. Wiltberger himself saved one Rhode Islander suspected of distributing anti-slavery pamphlets when he notified the city police that a mob of barroom ruffians in his City Hotel was about to lynch the northerner. It turned out to be a false alarm and the intended victim was allowed a direct tack northward, not likely to return anytime soon. Nothing inflamed white southerners more than the zealotry of the abolitionists, and the more the latter preached the more the former entrenched themselves in what they saw as a natural development. By the time the Rions left Savannah, the two geographic sections of the country were already growing apart to an ominous extent. It would all come to a head after the war with Mexico when extensive new territories were added to the growing nation.xi

Meanwhile, little Jimmie Rion had had quite an education in Savannah, not merely in Virgil, Cicero, Euclid, algebra, trigonometry, and the sciences (including chemistry), but also in life. Wiltberger was an education in himself, not to mention Philbrick, the ice house, and the auction firm, and then there were the ideas Fort Pulaski and the Central of Georgia Railroad had implanted in his brain. These were valuable experiences, but it was time to move on to bigger things and more challenging endeavors. Rion would return to Savannah in 1849 to visit his old mentor Wiltberger who had just then purchased the huge Tattnall estate east of the city with the idea of making a part of it into a cemetery. He was interested in little Jimmie's opinion on it and wanted some suggestions as to how he might proceed. But that is a story for another day.

And Margaret Hunter Rion? She had reason to feel satisfied about her decision to come South. She had not only proven herself but had provided for her son's welfare and launched him on an educational path that at least had the potential to give him a bright future. It may have suited her to remain in Savannah, but she knew her son needed a new life elsewhere. It was not the first time she had felt the need to pull up roots in order to break out and start anew – and it would not be the last.

1 City Hotel was positioned on the south side of Bay Street and at the time enjoyed an unobstructed view of the river. The brick building still exists, unoccupied, sandwiched between more modern structures. The architect William Jay, who arrived in Savannah in 1817, may have had a hand in City Hotel (Fraser, pg. 193-195).

2 The building burned in 1899 and the site is occupied today by the Chatham County Board of Education building inside which is a plaque which reads in part: On this site the Chatham Academy, the first academy in Savannah and the second oldest in Georgia, was established, February 1, 1788. It opened January 5, 1813, with 219 pupils.

3 Henry Spofford was an impressive figure in his own right. Fresh out of Amherst, he was quite a young man when he taught at Chatham Academy. He would later become a Judge on the Louisiana Supreme Court, and towards the end of his career Senator-elect from that state (Wikipedia contributors, Henry M. Spofford, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Henry_M._Spofford&oldid=956945452 (accessed August 29, 2020)).

4 After quoting from Robert Burns’ Epistle to a Young Friend (see epigraph to Part I), Hamilton parenthetically noted that this matter of independence was no passing phase with Rion but rather the very key-note of his after life and success.

CHAPTER TWO

Pendleton and Fort Hill

M

argaret Hunter and James Rion arrived in Pendleton in late May or early June of 1843 and took up lodgings in the Old Pendleton Hotel where Mrs. Rion had secured the position of head of housekeeping before leaving Savannah. After getting settled Margaret Hunter began the task of reorganizing housekeeping at the Hotel while her son wandered down to Pendleton Male Academy where he hoped to supplement his Savannah education in quest of an appointment to U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Pendleton Male Academy was both a classical and military institution which had evolved from an earlier circulating (lending) library the town had established soon after the turn of the century. Here both local and boarding students were prepared to enter college as a sophomore, and it was one of the reasons John C. Calhoun had decided to make Pendleton his permanent home in 1826, hoping to educate his sons there. In her book, The Pendleton Legacy (1971), Beth Ann Klosky gives a good description of the school which James Rion and most of the Calhoun boys (at one time or another) attended: The Pendleton Male Academy was a military institution. Students wore gray uniforms with brass buttons, and they drilled regularly. The school building had two large rooms with … the latest equipment, including a static electricity machine … and there was a good library which included classical and English literature, history, science and travel books… All students studied the classics and gained a thorough knowledge of Latin, Greek, and higher mathematics – including geometry, trigonometry, and surveying.i It was in front of this school building that Dave U. Sloan had first encountered James H. Rion sitting under an oak tree contemplating his next move. Dave was a native of the area, the son of Colonel William Sloan who owned a plantation celled Tranquilla located just across the Seneca River from Fort Hill. Colonel Sloan was a friend and associate of the famous Carolina statesman, and Dave was himself the bosom friend of Calhoun's youngest son, William Lowndes, known to all as Willie, who along with his older brother, James Edward, was currently attending the Academy. In all likelihood Dave introduced the newcomer to the two Calhoun boys the same day he conducted the stranger boy in, and in the weeks and months to come this foursome – Dave, James Edward, Willie, and James Rion – became fast friends. Dave U. Sloan later recalled how they would often gather at Tranquilla on Saturdays and from there hike into the Blue Ridge Mountains where they would spend the weekend hunting and fishing.ii

We do not know for certain how much time James Rion spent at Fort Hill during his first year in Pendleton, but it was often enough to at least make the acquaintance of all the Calhoun family members residing there at the time, including the elder Calhoun himself who was at home for the entire year under unique circumstances. Just two months before the Rions arrived in Pendleton he had resigned his U.S. Senate seat in order to make one last run for the U.S. presidency. Calhoun was 61 years old at the time and had had his eye on the presidency since the controversial election of 1824. Most (but by no means all) of his illustrious career lay behind him in 1843: U.S. Congressman, Secretary of War under Monroe, Vice President under both John Q. Adams and Andrew Jackson, and U.S. Senator since the confrontation with Jackson and the Nullification Crisis in 1832-33. Getting the nod in 1844 would be a long shot since ex-president Martin Van Buren had already emerged as the Democratic favorite, but the convention was a year down the road and anything could happen. But why would running for president bring Calhoun home from Washington and keep him there until March of 1844, his longest continuous stay in Pendleton since moving there seventeen years earlier? The reason is that although the practice of campaigning throughout the country had already begun, Calhoun refused to embrace it, adhering to the older tradition of staying at home, receiving visitors and supporters, and giving interviews or writing campaign pamphlets. Old-fashioned in this respect, he considered groveling for votes on what came to be known as the campaign trail as unseemly, a view that probably cost him the nomination since the wily Van Buren had long since perfected such electioneering.iii But it all worked to the advantage of James Rion who at least made the acquaintance of Calhoun and many members of his family in addition to James Edward and Willie during his first year in Pendleton. It was in fact a happy year for Calhoun, for no one enjoyed being at home among family and friends more than he. Here he was no longer the cast-iron man he was known to be in Washington, but the planter/farmer and indulgent father aptly described by one of his biographers: By and large… Calhoun was primarily known in the village [of Pendleton] as a planter, friend, and neighbor. People in the village remembered how the Presbyterian Calhoun dutifully accompanied [his wife] Floride to the small clapboard Episcopal church which meant so much to her. They recalled the Senator picking up his voluminous mail at the tiny post office and then electing to walk the six or seven miles past tilled fields and along wooded roads to one of the three large gates leading to Fort Hill. And they remembered him not only as a member of Pendleton Farmers Society, an almost purely republican institution designed to foster agricultural enlightenment in the region, but as the man who first introduced contour ditching and Bermuda grass into the region, the man who, like his father, could run his own survey line and was once seen at the head of his slaves fighting a fire in the woods.iv This was the man Rion met in 1843, and as we will see, the man he got to know better about a year and a half later.

Of course Calhoun was kept busy with his political campaign, but he always made time for his sons and their friends. Dave Sloan once commented on how much Calhoun enjoyed talking to young men and how he would adapt his conversation to entertain and instruct them.v Also living at Fort Hill in 1843 were Calhoun's two beloved daughters, Anna Maria and Martha Cornelia. Anna, about eleven years Rion's senior, had married Thomas G. Clemson in 1838 and the couple already had two small children. Clemson was a mining engineer with an interest in scientific agriculture and a man Rion came to admire because of his great learning and culture. Cornelia suffered from a chronic back problem requiring braces, but she was intelligent and had a good disposition in spite of her tribulations. John C. Calhoun, Jr., James Edward's older brother, had been attending the University of Virginia but a recurrence of the tubercular infection from which he had suffered since childhood brought him home to Fort Hill in the late summer or early fall. John was about five years older than James Rion but the two got to know each other well after the Rions moved to Fort Hill in 1844.¹ And of course there was Floride, Calhoun's sometimes difficult wife. Mrs. Calhoun shared none of the political or intellectual interests of her husband, but she had traits that made her the consummate plantation mistress and manager. Floride was a take-charge type of person (in the words of one of Calhoun's biographers, [t]here was no patriarch at Fort Hill) but she was often incapacitated because of health problems. Margaret Hunter Rion would obviously get to known Floride quite well in the future and we will have more to say about her shortly.vi

After about six months of study at Pendleton Academy, fifteen year old James Rion felt comfortable enough with the elder Calhoun to write him a formal letter concerning his dream of attending West Point –

Pendleton, Nov. 18th 1843

Sir, Being desirous of obtaining an appointment to the United States Military Academy,

I take the liberty to ask your assistance to procure it, if you should deem my recommendations, such as, entitle me to the fostering care of the government.

I will be 16 years of age, on the 17th of April next. I have studied [Jeremiah] Day's Algebra, Euclid's Geometry, and Day's Mathematics comprising Logarithms, Mensuration of surfaces, solids, h[e]ights and distances, Trigonometry, Surveying and Navigation; and [Charles] Anthon's Caesar, Virgil, Sal[l]ust, and Cicero's Orations and a part of Anthon's Greek Reader, together with several French works under Mr. E[lliott] Pynchon, Savannah; and also Conic Sections, Legender[‘]s Geometry, and French under Mr. [Robert M.] Renick[,] Pendleton, letters from both of which gentlemen I have enclosed. Very Resp[ec]t[fully y[ou]r Ob[edient] s[e]rvant, J.H. Rion.vii

This letter was probably delivered by hand since Calhoun shot off the following missive to Colonel Joseph G. Totten, Chief Engineer of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, War Department, a mere three days later:

Fort Hill, 21st Nov[embe]r 1843

Dear Sir, I transmit the enclosed [letter from James H. Rion, dated 11/18/1843] to you, because I am personally acquainted with the applicant, and Mr. Renwick [sic; Robert M. Renick], writter [sic] of one of the accompanying letters. He is the teacher in our Academy, himself a graduate of the Military Academy, and a gentleman of intelligence & worth. From what I know of Master Rion, he is entitled to all Mr. Renwick says of him. He is the son of a widow in very humble situation, who devotes most of her means to the education of her son.

I feel assured, that the patronage of the Gov[ernmen]t could not be better bestowed, than by giving him an appointment. With great respect, I am & &, J.C. Calhoun.viii

Rion was not yet age-eligible for admission to the Military Academy, but with Calhoun's letter of endorsement he was ready to spend the next couple of years in preparation at Pendleton Academy.

Exactly when and how John C. and Floride got wind of Margaret Hunter Rion's managerial talents is not known for certain. Dave U. Sloan took credit for it: One morning, calling at the mansion, Mrs. Calhoun mentioned to me that she wanted a good house-keeper, when I told her of Mrs. Rion, whose cakes and pies I had so often enjoyed…ix That may be true, but reports of her good performance at the Pendleton Hotel probably got around town easily enough. Perhaps Rion himself was the source. Be that as it may, we do have a good idea why they were looking for assistance. Over the past five to ten years Floride had become subject to increasingly frequent episodes of nervousness and agitation and was often ill and incapacitated, during which times she demanded constant attention. For all of her many good qualities, Floride was a difficult person and a constant source of stress to family members. She seems to have suffered from high blood pressure, and many of her episodes may have been exacerbations of chronic hypertension. In 1842 she had a stroke which required constant nursing by Anna Maria, herself in the midst of a difficult pregnancy.x But Floride took her household responsibilities seriously, and by the end of 1843 she and her husband agreed that some reliable assistance was needed, the result being the employment of Margaret Hunter Rion as Housekeeper in early 1844.

BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF FORT HILL PLANTATION. ETHEL MITCHELL COLLECTION, CLEMSON UNIVERSITY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVES.

Mrs. Rion, now in her early 30s, had good credentials indeed but surely had much to learn about plantation household management. That she met expectations is indicated by the fact that she was soon considered a true friend of the family and remained in her position until after the death of Calhoun in 1850. She not only proved to be a good assistant to Floride but brought management continuity through periods when the latter was either ill or forced to attend to matters elsewhere. Indeed the more immediate reason Rion's mother was brought to Fort Hill in February was that Floride was scheduled to be away from the estate during March and April to assist in her sister-in-law's confinement and the delivery of her first child.xi

Thus did the Rions move to Fort Hill in February of 1844. Where they initially lodged is not certain. The house had grown with the family over the years, but it was (and remained) relatively modest when compared to most plantation homes. Most likely they made first accommodations in an adjacent building, but as Mrs. Rion became increasingly indispensable – she not only managed the household but was soon taking care of plantation business as well – mother and son probably moved into the main house, especially as more space became available (as it soon would).xii But hardly had Mrs. Rion been at Fort Hill for a month when her presence there appeared almost providential, for Calhoun's life was about to take an abrupt turn. He had just formally withdrawn his name from the presidential contest, but whatever his future plans might have been they all had to be changed as a result of a tragic accident which affected the nation as a whole. On February 28, a new and powerful cannon called the Peacemaker was being demonstrated onboard the USS Princeton on the Potomac River before President Tyler and many of his cabinet members. On that occasion the gun exploded, killing among others the current Secretary of State, Abel Upshur. Tyler was a Whig president who had been disowned by his party, but he hoped to gain some political traction by pushing for the annexation of Texas. Upshur, a Virginian who was a passionate annexation advocate (as was Calhoun), had been chosen to replace Daniel Webster as Secretary of State specifically for this purpose. The Secretary and Calhoun were friends and allies, and even as Calhoun was running for president the previous year, the two together had written the script for annexation. Hence, Calhoun was a natural replacement to complete the task and Tyler quickly offered him the post.xiii

Events moved rapidly – Calhoun was scheduled to take office on April 1, the same time Floride was slated to leave Fort Hill for at least two months. Such was Margaret Hunter's initiation into the workings of Fort Hill! On March 17, just before leaving home for Washington, Calhoun wrote his son Andrew concerning his recent appointment and concluded by commenting, "Your mother leaves home…day after tomorrow… It is very inconvenient for both [of us] to be absent at the same time, but fortunately we have got an excellent Housekeeper, Mrs. Ryan [sic], who will take charge of the establishment during the [the rest of the letter is missing]."xiv Two days earlier he had penned a similar letter to Anna Maria, "Your Mother…has got Mrs. Ryan [sic] for a House keeper. She seems to me to understand her place and business well, and thus far has given much satisfaction, and there is, I think, good [reason] to hope she will continue to do so. Thus far, it has been a happy change. Every thing [sic] has been going on with great harmony about the House."xv

For James Rion the removal of the elder Calhoun to Washington just as he arrived must have come as a disappointment, but the unfolding of subsequent events would give him the opportunity to get to know the statesman and political philosopher much better; and becoming a resident of Fort Hill would give him the opportunity not only to strengthen his friendships with the three youngest Calhoun boys but to become better acquainted with other family members as well. There would be further changes at Fort Hill over the course of 1844, but the spring and summer were a happy time for the new Fort Hill resident. John, Jr., James Edward, and Willie were all at the estate during the spring and John seems to have attended Pendleton Academy for at least part of this time. Dave U. Sloan was recalling this period when he wrote many years later, I rode [a pony] to school at Pendleton, joining the boys at the big gate… Jim [Rion] then formed a part of our cavalcade to the Pendleton Academy. Our party consisted of Mr. Calhoun's three sons, John C, James E, William Lowndes, and Jim Rion from Fort Hill, Ransome Calhoun, from Keowee, and my Uncle John Hackett and myself from Tranquilla.xvi John's health had improved since being home at Fort Hill, but he unfortunately suffered a late winter relapse and his doctors recommended a change of scene. Just as he and James Rion were becoming close friends, John left Fort hill in late April to visit his brother Patrick (stationed out west) and then Andrew and his wife in Alabama, hoping to regain his health. But Jim Rion, James Edward, and Willie continued to join the cavalcade into Pendleton every morning to attend classes at Pendleton Academy.xvii

Another change came in July when the Clemsons left South Carolina not to return for more than six years. Before marrying Anna Maria, Clemson had studied geology, chemistry, and scientific agriculture, and had been trained as a mining engineer in Europe. He had at times expressed an interest in diplomacy, and when Calhoun became Secretary of State he managed to get an appointment for his son-in-law as U. S. chargé d’affaires to Belgium, even though that would mean his beloved Anna would have to leave the country. After debating the matter for some time, the two Clemsons decided to take the offer and left America for Europe in July. Like Anna's father, Rion hated to see them go, for he had become genuinely fond of both. Further changes came in the fall. Just before the election of that year Calhoun managed to return to Fort Hill for about a month, and after assessing James Edwards’ educational progress (or lack thereof), determined to send him to the University of Virginia. Moreover, expressing satisfaction in Mrs. Rion's performance over the past eight months, Floride accompanied her husband back to Washington, taking Cornelia with her. This left only Margaret Hunter, her son, and Willie at Fort Hill, an arrangement that would persist until March/April of the following year.xviii

It was probably during this autumnal return to Fort Hill that Calhoun mentioned the possibility of an at large appointment to West Point for James Rion. As it turned out, Van Buren had failed to secure the nomination the previous May at the Democratic National Convention when he had been forced to declare his opposition to the annexation of Texas. Instead, a dark-horse candidate, James K. Polk of Tennessee, had been nominated to take on the Whig nominee, Henry Clay. Calhoun had never liked Van Buren and was ecstatic at this turn of events. Moreover Polk sorely needed Calhoun's support in the general election, and after securing various promises from the Tennessean – Texas, the tariff, and other matters – Calhoun agreed to throw his weight behind the Democrat. Whether or not Calhoun mentioned his young friend back home to Polk by name is not known, but getting the appointment for Rion does seem to be what Calhoun had in mind if he were asked to continue as Secretary of State in a Polk presidency. In any case, as a result of Calhoun's support Polk managed to pull off a victory in November, defeating the inconsolable Clay in a razor's edge election.xix

However, things did not go as planned. Calhoun's politics during the 1840s was centered on the quest for Southern unity, the protection of the institutions and economic viability of the slave states in the face of growing opposition in the North. The new president he had helped elect was himself a southern slaveholder, and it was Calhoun's hope that Polk's agenda would fall in line with his own and that he might continue as Secretary of State in the new administration. But in meetings with the president-elect in February, he could see that Polk was more focused on geographic expansion of the country – ending the joint occupation (with Britain) of Oregon in favor of the United States and acquiring California from Mexico – than on Southern unity. Calhoun thought these policies risked simultaneous war with Great Britain and Mexico and would ultimately further divide the country. Polk also showed signs of reneging on promises he had made on the tariff issue. The fact is that Polk wanted loyal lieutenants and cabinet officers he could control, and Calhoun was definitely not one of these. In a meeting toward the end of February the president-elect informed Calhoun of his choice of James Buchanan – a man of far lesser character and stature than Calhoun – as Secretary of State. Calhoun left disappointed on many fronts, but agreed to support the new administration as far as possible.xx

After attending Polk's inaugural (which further dismayed him), Calhoun returned to South Carolina, arriving at Fort Hill the last week in March to find everything in good order. Floride and Cornelia had gone to Philadelphia for a medical consultation and the only two children at Fort Hill to greet the solitary returnee were Willie (with a severe case of measles) and James Rion. Calhoun always enjoyed the physical translation from Washington to Fort Hill with the accompanying transition of himself from statesman/politician to gentleman planter and man about Pendleton. Rion may have been remembering this very moment when he wrote five years later, "When his public