South Carolina first knew Lucy Petway Holcombe of Texas in 1857 when she chose money and power to become the bride of the long time politician, Francis Pickens of Edgefield. Twenty- five years her senior...rich...arrogant...malicious...typically and perfectly Southern mannered...Francis had and would do anything necessary to satisfy his unrelenting ambition. Until his death after the Confederate War, Lucy played her role, perfectly. Lucy was thrilled by the elaborate words of her would be governor husband when he endorsed Secession: "I would appeal to the god of battles - if need be, cover the state with ruin, conflagration and blood rather than submit." Then, as First Lady she embraced "the Cause" and the War that led to the destruction of slavery...the state... and the planter class. Loved by the people, and some said the Confederate Treasurer Menninger as well, her portrait was placed on one hundred and one dollar Confederate bonds while a unit of soldiers bore her worshipped name: The Holcombe Legion. In defeat Lucy and Francis returned to Edgefield. For ten years the entire state was ruled by Carpetbaggers and Scalawags and unleashed slaves. White people lived in terror. Rebellion came in the blood letting election to name the Governor when the Confederate/Hero/General/One Time Aristocrat Wade Hampton -- now a widower - fulfilled his destiny by rescuing the state from Reconstruction Government. Long admired by Lucy - even as he was her husband's enemy - Lucy and her daughter were part of the revolt and Hampton's victorious campaign. Lucy lived the entire Confederate saga...the joy...the defeat...the terrible fear...the gaining of personal strength. This is the story of what made the South the "South" as we know it today - the story of what became of that "lovingly remembered" and longed for world, and a very beautiful woman who was a vital part of that world. It can only be a Southern story.

WHO IS SHE ...

The Very Real Life Of Lucy PickensBy PHYLLIS PHILLIPS

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2011 Phyllis Phillips
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4567-1456-7

Contents

History/Legend................................................................xiChapter 1: Prologue...........................................................1Chapter 2: Remembering: Mrs. Pickens..........................................13Chapter 3: Remembering: Russia Of The Romanovs................................31Chapter 4: Remembering: Governor Pickens And Lady Lucy........................55Chapter 5: Remembering: Charleston, War, And Wade Hampton.....................69Chapter 6: Remembering: Soldiers..............................................87Chapter 7: Remembering: Columbia..............................................99Chapter 8: Remembering: The Return............................................125Chapter 9: Reality: War.......................................................139Chapter 10: Realty: Edgefield After The War...................................151Chapter 11: Reality: Edgewood.................................................173Chapter 12: Reality: Revolution Prelude.......................................205Chapter 13: Reality: Revolution:..............................................221Chapter 14: Reality: Doushka..................................................237Chapter 15: The Covenant......................................................255End Piece.....................................................................263Bibliography..................................................................267

Chapter One

Prologue

Lucy Pickens despised Edgefield. Absolutely! And could she have escaped her gentle mother's pious teachings, she would have screamed, "Hate! Hate! God ... God ...I hate Edgefield, South Carolina!" Instead, she muttered in quiet anger, "How did this happen? How did I allow this return to living hell?"

"Mss Petty, you need to take some tea," Lucy's maid/companion who knew her "Missy's" every mood, tried to soothe. "A nice Porter bring it to our compartment. He say he honored to have such a great lady on his train."

Lucy answered weakly, "No, Cinda. No tea," realizing she no longer tried to teach the slave to speak correctly. It was just another useless effort since their return to America. "No, dear Cinda, I must face what is before me. There is no way out of this misery. I am lost in the dark dread of returning to Edgefield."

"Oh, Missy ... things seem bad 'cause the war goin' on. You still young ... just thirty-two ... still beautiful ... still married to a rich man. The war goin' to be over one day. We had happy times. They's comin' again."

"No, Cinda, no. Not in Edgefield. Hope has abandoned Edgefield," Lucy spoke numbly as she looked blankly from the train windows. "My life is like this bleak country we pass. Look. Look at the hunched over forms of trees the leafless, winter, Kudsu vines have climbed and overpowered and bent to the dull earth. That's what Edgefield is to me. Those envious, treacherous vines have strangled life from me just as they have broken the wills of the straight, proud, struggling trees. Terrifying ..."

"Terrifyin'" The slave had a habit of repeating words, as though Lucy's feelings were her own.

"Those grotesque ... ugly ... trees and vines are as legions of old, gray men. They come for me. Come across the drab, winter landscape of fields and pastures. They search for me, Cinda. There is no escape. Reaching out their long, entangled arms, they try to strangle life from me, just as they have the trees."

"Now, Mss Petty," Cinda said, using the family's affectionate name for Lucy, taken from her middle name, Petway. "You know that ain't so. You makin' things up again."

"Is not so," Lucy's educated mind rallied enough to correct Cinda.

"Yes, Missy," Cinda said, not repeating the correction. "Let's me and you talk about happy times. Talk about Texas and your daddy, who love you too much ... and your sweet mama ... and your sister, Anna. That make you feel good. Make us both feel good."

"Yes ... Cinda. Texas," Lucy responded a little to the thought. "Home to you too, Cinda. Yes, Texas. My loving ... irresponsible ... father ... my precious mother," she said, murmuring the words, lovingly. "And Anna. My dear sister, Anna—," her voice trailed in sweet memory.

Cinda was only ten when she first went to the "big house" with her father, "Uncle" Ned Hood—the Holcombe's butler—to help raise "Missy Petty." And the slave woman stayed with her charge, still, because she had been given to Lucy as a wedding gift from the concerned family. The dark, dark black woman left the secluded world she had known to travel strange lands in the company of her "white child." In the course of their long travels, Cinda had learned that thoughts of Mama, Anna, and home meant comfort and pleasure, but she also knew that in the darkest times, those thoughts could bring unwanted memories of Lieutenant Crittenden. In fear, she watched "her Petty" form his name on her lips—the name Cinda never dared to say aloud.

"John ... John ..." Lucy whispered the words. "New Orleans is where life changed for me and sent me on this God forsaken route to Edgefield." Cinda could see "her Missy" returning in memory to the Creole city—lost in that lovely time when she first knew John Crittenden.

Lucy's mind again pictured her lover's handsomely chiseled, Kentucky-angular face, his virile and muscular body. She saw again the sun on rich, thick black/brown hair he would not let curl. She knew again his deep, dark blue eyes that proclaimed his love for her. She heard again, the lieutenant's sparkling wit, saw the wide, easy, white smile that accompanied it—accompanied all things in his charmed life.

Lucy spoke quietly, deep in pleasant memory. "It was that sweet spring when Anna and I returned home from the Moravian school in Pennsylvania—the LaGrange Female Academy. We could not afford to be sent abroad, as we should have been, so Mama and Daddy surprised us by taking us to visit New Orleans. You remember ... you went, too, Cinda."

Cinda murmured that she did, careful to not break the spell of Lucy's pleasant memories.

"Oh, Anna and I were so educated, Cinda. We thought we knew everything that was worth knowing." She looked directly at Cinda and spoke assuredly, "Unlike so many schools for girls, the Moravions taught their daughters to think, you know? Very different from the 'fluff' of French schools."

"Thinkin' that gets you in trouble," Cinda murmured inaudibly.

"The world waited for us—Anna and I. Waited for us to sample everything wonderful in it." And Lucy's mind escaped again.

"Ever'thin' wonderful," the servant echoed quietly.

"Shortly after we arrived in that beautifully wicked city—and it really was wicked, you know, with men's Quadroon lovers right out in public, while patient wives pretended not to notice the exquisite women and their riches—Daddy's friends learned we were there."

"Lots of friends ..."

Lucy remembered the pride she felt for her father and his courtesan ways. At such times, she could forgive his inability to manage money. Bred of Virginia's gentlemen, Beverly LaFayette Holcombe knew an easy, self-assured grace.

"And wasn't your daddy handsome ...?"

"Mr. Maddox, the publisher of the New Orleans Crescent, invited us to a party at his...