Among the Pines; or, South in Secession Time — Background and Themes

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In Category - War Society

Authors: Gilmore, James R. (James Roberts), 1822-1903 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2007 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: War stories; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Fiction; Southern States -- History -- Fiction; Confederate States of America -- History -- Fiction Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 79,339

Reading time 345 min

Text sections 8

For Among the Pines; or, South in Secession Time — Background and Themes, the stored edition analysis reports 79,339 words, 5 hr 45 min estimated reading time, and 8 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 19.6 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “War stories,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #22960

An 1862 narrative by James R. Gilmore (as Edmund Kirke) blending travelogue, plantation sketches, and pro-Union commentary. Excerpts reveal a Northern observer's encounters with enslaved people, a conflicted mistress, and a secessionist planter, with dialogue and scenes that complicate the catalog subjects of war and Southern history.

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Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
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File: pg22960

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Some winters ago I passed several weeks at Tallahassee, Florida, and while there made the acquaintance of Colonel J----, a South Carolina planter. Accident, some little time later, threw us together again at Charleston, when I was gratified to learn that he would be my _compagnon du voyage_ as far north as New York.

He was accompanied by his body-servant, "Jim," a fine specimen of the genus darky, about thirty years of age, and born and reared in his master's family. As far as possible we made the journey by day, stopping at some convenient resting-place by night; on which occasions the Colonel, Jim, and myself would occupy the same or adjoining apartments, "we white folks" sleeping on four posts, while the more democratic negro spread his blanket on the floor. Thrown together thus intimately, it was but natural that we should learn much of each other.

The "Colonel" was a highly cultivated and intelligent gentleman, and during this journey a friendship sprung up between us--afterward kept alive by a regular correspondence--which led him, with his wife and daughter, and the man Jim, to my house on his next visit at the North, one year later. I then promised--if I should ever again travel in South Carolina--to visit him on his plantation in the extreme north-eastern part of the state.

In December last, about the time of the passage of the ordinance of secession, I had occasion to visit Charleston, and, previous to setting out, dispatched a letter to the Colonel with the information that I was ready to be led of him "into the wilderness." On arriving at the head-quarters of secession, I found a missive awaiting me, in which my friend cordially renewed his previous tender of hospitality, gave me particular directions how to proceed, and stated that his "man Jim" would meet me with a carriage at Georgetown, and convey me thence, seventy miles, to "the plantation."

Having performed the business which led me to Charleston, I set out for the rendezvous five days before the date fixed for the meeting, intending to occupy the intervening time in an exploration of the ancient town and its surroundings.

The little steamer Nina (a cross between a full-grown nautilus and a half-grown tub), which a few weeks later was enrolled as the first man-of-war of the Confederate navy, then performed the carrying trade between the two principal cities of South Carolina. On her, together with sundry boxes and bales, and certain human merchandise, I embarked at Charleston, and on a delicious morning, late in December, landed at Georgetown.

As the embryo war-steamer rounded up to the long, low, rickety dock, lumbered breast-high with cotton, turpentine, and rosin, not a white face was to be seen. A few half-clad, shiftless-looking negroes, lounging idly about, were the only portion of the population in waiting to witness our landing.

"Are all the people dead?" I inquired of one of them, thinking it strange that an event so important as the arrival of the Charleston packet should excite no greater interest in so quiet a town. "Not dead, massa," replied the black, with a knowing chuckle, "but dey'm gettin' ready for a fun'ral." "What funeral?" I asked. "Why, dey'm gwine to shoot all de boblition darkies at de Norf, and hab a brack burying; he! he!" and the sable gentleman expanded the opening in his countenance to an enormous extent, doubtless at the brilliancy of his wit.

I asked him to take my portmanteau, and conduct me to the best hotel. He readily assented, "Yas, yas, massa, I show you whar de _big-bugs_ stop;" but at once turning to another darky standing near, he accosted him with, "Here, Jim, you lazy nigga, tote de gemman's tings."

"Why don't you take them yourself?" I asked; "you will then get all the pay." "No, no, massa; dat nigga and me in partenship; he do de work, and I keeps de change," was the grinning reply, and it admirably illustrates a peculiarity I have observed to be universal with the negro. When left to his own direction, he invariably "goes into partenship" with some one poorer than himself, and no matter how trivial the task, shirks all the labor he can.

The silent darky and my portmanteau in the van, and the garrulous old negro guarding my flank, I wended my way through the principal street to the hotel. On the route I resumed the conversation:

"So, uncle, you say the people here are getting ready for a black burying?"

"Yas, massa, gwine to bury all dem mis'able free niggas at de Norf."

"Why? What will you do that for?"

"Why for, massa! you ax why for!" he exclaimed in surprise.

"I don't know," I rejoined; "I'm a stranger here."

Continue Reading →

James R. Gilmore, writing under the pseudonym Edmund Kirke, published Among the Pines; or, South in Secession Time in 1862, during the first year of the Civil War. The book presents itself as a firsthand account of a journey through the pine forests of the South, blending travel narrative with scenes of plantation life. The catalog subjects—War & Society, Civil War fiction, and Southern history—suggest a broad historical canvas, but the excerpts focus tightly on localized encounters: a runaway slave named Moye, a planter known only as “the Colonel,” and his wife, Madam P——, whose authority over the enslaved contradicts her husband’s harshness. The narrator, Mr. K——, serves as a Northern observer, recording dialogue and detail rather than offering sweeping battle scenes or political analysis.

A Northern Observer in a Secessionist Household

The excerpts center on the Colonel’s plantation, where the narrator witnesses a conflict over punishment. When the driver Sam is ordered to whip the runaway Moye, the Colonel commands a hundred lashes, but Madam P—— intervenes, reducing it to twenty and later countermanding a second flogging. The narrator notes that Jim, the enslaved coachman, “had never been whipped” and that the enslaved “obeyed the lady when, which was seldom, her orders came in conflict with their master’s.” This dynamic—where the mistress’s kindness creates loyalty—is explicitly contrasted with the Colonel’s reliance on violence. The narrator’s own stance is ambiguous: he remarks that he “should have given that fellow a hundred lashes,” aligning momentarily with the Colonel, yet he also records the lady’s quiet resistance. The scene reveals a household where authority is negotiated, not absolute, and where the enslaved exercise a degree of practical agency by choosing whom to obey.

Dialogue as a Window into Racial Ideology

The Colonel’s conversations with the narrator are laced with the racial assumptions of the period. When the narrator suggests that enslaved people might benefit from attending a preacher, the Colonel replies, “You can’t make a whistle out of a pig’s tail; you can’t make a nigger into a white man.” This aphorism, delivered during a carriage ride, encapsulates a deterministic view of racial hierarchy. Yet the excerpts also show the Colonel allowing enslaved people to work on Sundays for their own profit, “as I would a white man,” a practice that complicates his stated beliefs. The narrator, for his part, does not directly challenge these statements; instead, he records them without editorializing, leaving the reader to weigh the contradictions. The dialogue thus serves as a primary vehicle for the book’s exploration of secessionist ideology, showing how it operated in everyday speech rather than in formal political debate.

The Landscape as a Stage for Conflict

The physical setting of the pine forest is more than backdrop; it shapes the narrative’s action and mood. The road to the plantation is described as “a mere opening through the pines,” with “tall trees” narrowing the passage until “scarcely width enough for a single carriage” remains. This cramped, enclosed landscape mirrors the social constraints of the plantation system. The runaway Moye uses the forest as cover, and the pursuit of him—referenced in chapter titles like “The Pursuit” and “The Negro Hunter”—turns the woods into a contested space. The narrator’s journey is repeatedly interrupted by natural obstacles: a thunderstorm, a swollen run that must be swum, and a tornado that has felled pines. These events are not merely atmospheric; they force encounters with enslaved people and poor whites, revealing a society in motion. The landscape, in Gilmore’s hands, becomes a narrative engine, propelling the observer into situations that expose the fractures of the secessionist South.

Readers approaching Among the Pines should attend to the tension between the narrator’s professed neutrality and the details he chooses to record. The book is not a straightforward novel nor a pure memoir; it is a hybrid that uses the conventions of travel writing to stage political arguments. The excerpts offer no resolution to the story of Moye or the fate of the plantation, leaving the narrative open-ended. This incompleteness is itself instructive, suggesting that Gilmore’s primary interest lay not in plot but in documenting the contradictions he observed.

That rainy afternoon, Among the Pines left me restless—its captured voices, the mistress’s conflicted drawl, the planter’s certainty, all lingering like wet leaves on glass. I set it down, reached for something closer to myth, and found Strange True Stories of Louisiana — Story, Setting & Ideas instead. Both felt less like history and more like eavesdropping on a half-forgotten conversation about belief.