Sixteenth South Carolina C.S.A.

"The Faded Pain of Glass"

Sixteenth South Carolina C.S.A.

Private J.J. Black Company C Sixteenth South Carolina "Lorena" Music by Dayle K.

Toby Barton, a descendant of J.J. Black, prompted this story. Toby like J.J. went to off to a war he thought important and served his country well. Toby returned like J.J. to a country that questioned his service. This story is about a small piece of glass Toby showed me. He told me about it and asked if I could write a story about that piece of glass for these pages. This is his story and the story of that piece of glass as I saw it reflected through him. I cannot do either Toby or that piece of glass justice, but this is my vain attempt to do so. This is his story and the story of his family, it represents what I heard, both spoken and hidden close to his heart. It will not be shared with the public until he gives permission to so.

"The Faded Pain of Glass" Steve Batson and Traci Parsons-Holder Over one hundred years ago James Jackson Black, Private, Company C, Sixteenth South Carolina, started a journey with thousands of other men that would become the bloodiest in American History. He left his home in the Mountain Creek Community in Upper Greenville County, carrying with him little more than his absolute conviction that the United States of America had abandoned the pure course of liberty, an uncharted sea set out on nearly one hundred years before. The emerging power in the Northeast and Midwest had by the election of Lincoln brought forth a victory that was not won, but rather lost by the split of the Democratic Party. These cold and dark northern places had made this radical child of Illinois a President in name alone. They had by this act in effect caused Private Black to loose any hope of having a voice within the union. These regions and this split would destroy his past and his present, as well as, his future. The South could not and would not allow the subjugation of their rights as free men to an all-powerful federal government or so thought Private J.J. Black and the men like him. Private Black like many others thought and considered carefully the things he would carry as he headed to Columbia and ultimately the coast of Charleston. Like all men going on a long day’s journey into night he considered what would be important to inspire or help him along the way. He will ponder these things and work with his choices. At Charleston, garrison life would allow him the pleasure of many of the things he loved. He would have his weapon and his extra clothing; he would have a tent, and some blankets, letters and fruit from home, all the accouterments of the soldier in a comfortable garrison. For a year or more these things would provide him both comfort and substance. Then off to Mississippi where life got tougher and and his choices got harder. His rifle, a blanket, a canteen, a cartridge box and blanket rolled up and carried over the shoulder and shoes when he was lucky. In Mississippi, a fire burned most of the extra baggage of Company C, and as always, fire carried away the dross. Through two years now, Private Black had become daily more impoverished, and like the dying nation he served, he would cling to and hold the few precious things that were left to him as close as humanly possible. He and his nation both knew that as they approached Atlanta in 1864, the time for the final winnowing had come. Nothing could be saved, except that which had the most value. "Backs to the wall" the Confederates now had little time for the extras of life, and Private Black was no different. He found himself sitting in the mud in a hole, frying in the humid air of Georgia in July, below the stone visage of Kennesaw Mountain, a mountain that cared little for the things of man, considering both his fate and his future. Hungry and near naked, like most of that battered little army, he sits and decides which things are important to him. Studying every item he considered seriously only those things that are worth keeping. He reached inside the tattered jacket and pulled forth one of two things he would not surrender except in death... a small pane of etched glass carried in a small dark case wrapped in a rag hidden deep in the pocket. . Why such care for something so fragile in this world of harsh reality and soon to be shattered dreams? It carried her image, the image of the lady he had loved for years and would love to the grave. Through all the afflictions of man, he would comfort her and she would comfort him. In spite of the things that war and time could place between them, in spite of the things people do to each other, this small talisman would keep him safe. She would go with him every step of the way back through Atlanta. She would follow him as she had done before and would do again, when with death at its closest he beheld only her image and felt only her touch, and knew only her softness. As bullets screamed and shells roared past on a blind journey of death, when he could think, it would be of her. She would carry him through the hospitals, vast faceless prisons that held only those awaiting the grave. In these places he would see her in the stars that peeked through the bars of the window panes at night. As the wind passed by he could feel her touch with the cool breeze of morning, the time of quiet death. His love of her was like the love the wounded know for water. Only the thoughts of her and the home they would have, a free home, could carry him with the cursed Hood on the last return to Tennessee. Three things, carried and held close to the heart of James Jackson Black gave him the strength to go on; his faith in God, his secure knowledge that his actions were actions that were in the defense of liberty, and this small pane of glass. In his heart of hearts he knew that no matter where he was, she was with him... if only an ever fading image burnt on a piece of glass. The small piece of glass would go down Winstead Hill with him and into the whirlwind of death that was the Locust Thicket at Franklin. It would march on to Nashville and freeze and starve with him back to Mississippi and back across Georgia to the surrender in North Carolina. It would go with him as he was left with no vote and no power in a conquered state. It would plow fields and bear children and see the passage of friends and family. In time it was passed to his children and in turn to their children and in turn to their children until today, with only a fragment of the case intact, the story becomes the property of not just the Black family but the property of all Southerns. A talisman that holds nothing and has no value, yet contains everything and is valued beyond price. She is beautiful for her time, a beauty that may not translate well to this time. In this she is not alone. Rather she is representative of the entire south. We do not translate well to this time, we, the few that are left, even when we do not act on the things we feel, we still believe, in a right and a wrong, in our God, in our family, and in each other and sadly even our government. This government, which branded this man a traitor and looted his land and home and left him with only the pain of glass. The same government he reconciled with, that even today can find no way to value him, his flag, or his service. As Webster said of Calhoun, He may have been wrong, but even if he was, he was still greater than most that have been right. What is freedom and liberty about, if it is not about tolerance of ideas... even ideas you may not agree with or care for? God Vindicates, always and forever, remember this and tremble. You see now don’t you, pain was spelled correctly, wasn’t it?

Photo from Toby Barton Enhancement (Below) - By Traci Parsons-Holder My Thanks to both of you Inscription: "Mrs. James Black - Harold and Grady Barton - Grandmother - This picture was carried through the Civil War in her boyfriends pocket - James Black"

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