One Palmetto, Two Palmetto

February 3-4

There’s a joy in sheer movement. You can feel yourself traveling through real space. And the visual bombardment can feed the imagination. 

Take colorful names, like the Pee Dee River, for instance. It could be a typo. Or the name of an early settler. Or maybe it’s from a myth about a giant relieving himself upcountry. 

When you stop for the night and get a chance to look it up, you find that Pee Dee was the name of a Mississippian culture. 

Mississippians were the mound builders. Even when the guessing stops, the historic facts are colorful.

I’d scheduled a drive of almost four hours to get from Weldon, N.C., to Florence, S.C. That’s a long haul for me these days. There was a time when I would go from North Carolina to North Jersey in one shot. But that misses a lot along the way.

I stopped only at a few rest stops. None of them had whirligigs, but one did have a historical marker about the Battle of Bentonville. It was late in the Civil War and happened about a dozen miles from the sign.

Sherman, having dealt with Georgia and South Carolina, was marching through North Carolina. He was aiming to join Grant outside Petersburg.

Robert E. Lee dispatched one of his leading generals, Joseph Johnston, to stop Sherman.

Johnston had about 30,000 troops, according to the sign, and about 22,000, according to Wikipedia. Sherman had 60,000. But Sherman had divided his army into two columns, marching on parallel routes maybe 30 miles apart.

Johnston attacked Sherman’s left, northernmost column with little success. He tried the other column and made no headway there. Then the rebels withdrew.

The sign calls the battle a stalemate and reports Union losses higher than Confederate. Wikipedia calls it a Union victory and puts Union losses at 1,527 and Confederate at 2,606.

Stalemate or victory, Sherman joined Grant.

It’s an old sign, by the look of it clearly put up when the Stonewall Jackson Death Site was still a shrine.

At the South Carolina Welcome Center, I stood under the photo of the day.

I-95 was mostly clear of traffic, and I made good time. I left Weldon a little before 11 and checked in at the Comfort Inn on Woody Jones Boulevard before 3.

I looked for places to visit and places to have dinner. For me, at least, the pickings were slim. 

I went to a new standby, the LongHorn Steakhouse. As national food chains go, this one is at the top of my list. Joanna and I go to the LongHorn in Parsippany, N.J., whenever we’re in the mood for steak.

We first tried the chain four years ago this month in Montgomery, Ala.

We both like the sirloin, offered in a 6- or 8-ounce portion. The asparagus is terrific. I don’t know how they cook it, but it comes on a plate with a bit of brown sauce, not quite a gravy. Maybe it’s sauteed in butter.

I reached the restaurant around five and it was overloaded. This must be serious date night. There were several people in studded vests and cowboy hats.

Even the bar was full. But when I went in, no one else was waiting for a seat. I had cut ahead of the line, and nobody cared. They all wanted tables. 

I waited maybe ten minutes.

Shortly after I sat down, the man who had been waiting with me took the stool next to mine. He, too, was surprised by the crowd at that hour.

He asked the waitress to estimate the wait time for a table. She said about two hours.

He said the wait was 45 minutes when he arrived and he thought of going somewhere else. 

“Every place around here will be like this,” she said.

Why?

They’re going to the rodeo.

Oh wow, that’s why all the cowboy hats—fans, performers, or both.

And that’s why there’s a corral full of horses and cattle by the side of Woody Jones Boulevard near the Florence Convention Center. They’re not nostalgic decoration. They’re part of the cast.

A little research before dinner turned up a few things to see—but all some distance away from Florence.

One was the site of the Battle of Camden, almost an hour away. It was a debacle for the American cause in the Revolutionary War.

After they lost at Saratoga, the British changed their strategy. The started a southern campaign, whose aim was to subdue the southern colonies and so force the rest to submit.

At first it worked. They won battle after battle and mostly destroyed the southern wing of the Continental Army. 

Horatio Gates, known as the Hero of Saratoga, was sent to organize a new southern army and reverse British successes.

By the time Gates became involved, the Brits had a firm hold on the coast and were moving on the backcountry, which included Camden, S.C.

Gates led a force of about 1,500 Continental regulars from Maryland and Delaware. He also had about 2,500 raw militia recruits from Virginia and North Carolina.

The British under Lord Cornwallis had 1,500 regulars, all of them seasoned, and 600 well-drilled militia.

Tories had tipped off Cornwallis that the Continentals were coming. He just didn’t know exactly where they were.

Gates was in a hurry to surprise the British.

Both armies set off on night marches on the same road at the same time. Advance cavalry patrols met during the night and exchanged fire.

Both sides, reluctant to engage in a night battle, withdrew and waited till dawn.

Gates put his militia on one flank, and when they saw the British troops advancing with bayonets, they panicked. Many didn’t fire a shot, but instead threw down their firearms and started to run.

The confusion was so great that reserve troops couldn’t get to the line fast enough to fill the gap. The British didn’t chase the fleeing militia but turned on the remaining Continentals.

A fearsome unit of dragoons called Tarleton’s Legion created havoc among the collapsing Continental lines.

Gates abandoned his army. He later explained that he had tried to rally the frightened militia, but had been swept away by them. All the way to Charlotte, N.C., I guess, because that’s where he showed up next.

Today, the battlefield is a quiet pine wood that straddles Flat Rock Road between Camden and Kershaw. I walked about a mile on the sandy trails and saw where the militia had broken and run.

One sign suggests that the ground was covered with pine forest at the time of the battle. Piney woods, as they are called, have little underbrush, so an army could move through them will little obstruction.

Next to the modern road, there’s a depression in the sandy soil—much like many unpaved roads in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. According to a sign in the park, it is a remnant of the Great Wagon Road. A map shows the road as a broad arc from Philadelphia, Pa., to Augusta, Ga.

It carried settlers to the frontier in colonial times. It was also the road that the two armies followed to this place.

The example of the militia at Camden may have contributed to a disaster for Tarleton’s Legion a few months later at Cowpens, also in South Carolina. The American militia fired once and retreated.

Tarleton’s troops thought the militia was leaving the field in panic. Instead, they were running as planned to the rear of a Continental Line.

The British broke formation and began to pursue the militia. Then they encountered the Continentals. During the ensuing engagement, the militia returned and attacked the British.

American cavalry had been held in reserve and then entered the combat.

Tarleton and perhaps 150 of his original force of 1,150 managed to escape.

My return to Florence was a surprise. For some reason, I kept thinking that it was Sunday, not Saturday.

At first, I tried to find a shop called Tubb’s that serves Southern specialties. I couldn’t see any street signs and so got lost.

I came back to shopping center land, where my hotel and everybody else’s is. The malls looked like Christmas Eve. There were lines of cars waiting to get in or out of parking lots.

There was a line waiting to get their names on the waiting list at Texas Roadhouse.

I wound up at a Red Lobster. I don’t really care for Red Lobster. Maybe a lot of people agree with me. I got a seat at the bar right away.

So, gang, stay well and happy. And if you’re dining alone, always go for the bar.

Love to all.

Harry