The argument surrounding the Confederate soldier standing in front of the Robeson County Courthouse continues.
So far pretty much everyone seems to agree that the statue needs to come down.
The question still remains on what to do with it once it is removed.
As a relative newcomer to Robeson County, I don’t know that I can intelligently argue about the statue’s ultimate demise.
However, as the great, great, great-grandson of a Civil War soldier, I can understand the feelings stirred by what the monument stands for.
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| David Kennard |
My grandfather survived the war and eventually migrated to the West.
I was reminded of grandpa Leonidas Hamlin Kennard Sr. during a walk in the woods I made not too long ago.
During my small trek I stumbled across a piece of history.
Sitting on the banks of the Santee River about an hour’s drive from Charleston, South Carolina, is a Civil War site managed by the National Forest Service.
The site is quiet now, disturbed only by the gurgle of the slow moving water pushing along the shores and an occasional hoot owl somewhere in the thick grove of longleaf pines that surround the site.
Battery Warren is a collection of earthen mounds that once concealed cannons and other guns used by Confederate forces to protect a railroad bridge that crossed the Santee.
There’s not much left of the structure now.
Tall pines and thick hardwood trees have grown up between many of the former structures, but it is still relatively easy to see the layout of the old fort.
An informational plaque at the site explains that slaves built most of the structure that is named after Colonel Samuel Warren, a Revolutionary War hero, who once owned the land where the fort is located.
Sitting in a remote part of the Francis Marion National Forest, my guess is the site is preserved in an environment very much like it was when soldiers lived and worked there more than 150 years ago.
The visible history of the area, although almost reclaimed by the forest, added significance to my Saturday afternoon hike.
As I’ve mentioned before, the journalist in me seeks historical context of people, places and things I write about.
The context of this almost forgotten fort still intrigues me.
You’ll notice that most news stories that we write here in the paper contain some piece of history to them. Sometimes the history makes up the bulk of the story.
And, quite often, the history is the most important part of the story.
For instance, you may recall a couple months ago, I launched a series of historical features titled “Our History.”
You can find the latest column on page 3A of today’s Robesonian.
Together, with information about one of dozens of historical markers that dot our county, I’ve enjoyed learning about Robeson County’s history.
And similar to my find while hiking through the Francis Marion National Forest, I’ve found a collection of historical markers that point to Revolutionary War sites here in Robeson County.
For instance, In northern Robeson County you can find two historical markers a few miles from each other.
The Raft Swamp Marker, two miles south of Red Springs tells about a Tory victory in October 1781.
You can find more information about that here: https://bit.ly/3rv9nv4.
“After the Tory victory at McPhaul’s Mill, the Whigs routed the Tories near here on Oct. 15, 1781, and broke their resistance in this area,” the marker reads.
Another marker, this one about 5 miles north of Red Springs, tells an abbreviated story about the battle of McPhaul’s Mill in September 1781. You can find more about that marker here: https://bit.ly/3EfWF8Q.
The markers provide only a peek into the stories that played out there and without the context, they’d be meaningless.
You can find a map that includes all of Robeson County’s historical markers here: https://bit.ly/37hUIwG.
I’ve researched about a fourth of them here in Robeson County, but it’s an ongoing process as I visit and learn the history of these locations.
Likewise, visitors to Warren Battery have little idea what those strange mounds of dirt are along the high banks of the Santee River.
Years ago however, they meant a lot.
The threat of advancing Union forces up the Santee kept the soldiers at the fort on their toes.
The toil of the slaves that built most of the structure will likely never be known, but a visit to the site will testify to the effort they made.
As the great, great, great grandson of a Civil War soldier, I can appreciate better now the conditions that must have existed during that time period. That context added meaning to my short hike in the woods.
You can see my latest discovery, a historical marker dedicated to Hector MacLean, one of Lumberton’s most outstanding leaders, on page 3A of today’s Robesonian.
