A Rebel Against Injustice
Richard Kirkland, Young Humanitian of Kershaw County, South Carolina

By Mrs Harold Hough

On September 20, 1863, Lieutenant Richard Kirkland, died in an unsuccessful spearhead attack before victory at Chichamauga. His last words, "Save yourselves, men and tell Pa I died right," exhibited the same pattern of unselfishness he had shown less than a year before at Fredericksburg when he became known as the "Angel of Marye’s Heights."

Fredericksburg, especially in the sector of Marye’s Heights, was not a battle; it was a slaughter. Safe in a concealed sunken road behind a stone wall on the Heights, the Confederates could scarcely believe that the Federals now engaged insharpshooting , had made six bloody attemps to take Marye’s Heights; but there below them lay the Federal dead and wounded-left for hours, some moaning feverishly for water. As time went on, Kirkland became so outraged at the Federal desertion of their own wounded that family tradition claims he would have gone over the stone wall to give them water even if General Kershaw had not given him permission.

After Kirkland miraculously reached the nearest sufferer and quenched his thirst, soldiers of both sides cheered and ceased fire for the hour and a half it took him to make the dying moments of his enemy a bit easier.

A study of the Kirklands in South Carolina is the study of the very back-bone of Americaism. The Kirklands have always been rebels against injustice. They were descended from the freedom-loving Scotch who fought for centuries against the
encroachments of the English.

The Kirklands were not rice birds-planters from Charleston. They came overland from Farquhar County, VA and settled in the Catawba Wateree Valley where the streams, the falls, the steep hills and giant boulders reminded them of Scotland. They were bred with the individualistic tendency of the self-reliant pioneers - the determination to do what they thought right - yet ready to take the consequences.

When the Kirklands in the back country of South Carolina were plagued by horse thieves and received no help from the government, they took the law in their own hands, led the Regulator Movement, and protected their property from the drifters after the French and Indian War.

Richard Kirkland was reared in an historic community. The Hanging Rock, Rugeley’s Mill and the Battle of Camden were all within a five mile radius of his home. Flat RAock slaves were stolen to help build the British fortifications at Camden. On August 14, 1780, the day before the Battle of Camden, his great grandfather, Daniel Kirkland, signed as a patriot supply sergeant "for one horse pressed by Gen. Gates’s order into the public service." Over a dozen Kirklands fought in South Carolina during the American Revolution.

So in 1861 with this heritage of ever safeguarding hard earned freedoms, the Kirklands again saw their rights being invaded. Young Richard Kirkland became another minuteman - a typical American citizen soldier. He left his father’s Flat Rock plantation and joined the first company to leave Kershaw County. That was April 1861 before his eighteenth birthday in August. Richard, the son of Mary Vaughn and John R. Kirkland, was next to the youngest of seven children, six boys and a girl, Caroline. When he was sixteen, he and a friend helped in mapping a land purchase. The surveyor must have been pleased, for on the plat in the Kershaw County Court House, the surveyor recorded: R. Kirkland and John Sill, chain carriers, 1859. Another recording of that same year reveals a practical way in which Richard spent his money. He bought farm tools at an estate sale. Richard’s five brothers were: James, Jesse, Dan, Billy and Sam. Sam was wounded during the War between the States and, like Richard, died leaving no heirs.

There were over a hundred slaves on the Kirkland plantations-White Oak, Gum Swamp and Flat Rock. It was agreed among the brothers that one must stay home to protect the women and children and to control the slaves, as an uprising was feared. Lots were drawn and the duty of staying home was drawn by James, the eldest brother - much to his sorrow - but he abided by the agreement.

General Sherman’s forces spent three nights and three days in Richard’s father’s home because the freshets of Lynche’s Creek were difficult to cross. During that time the eldest brother was hiding deep in the woods and was supplied food by a few slaves who could be trusted. The rest of the slaves took off with the Northern soldiers. When Sherman’s army fanned out, a later contingent of stragglers "visited" Richard’s father who seated himself at the half-cresent dining room table to watch the barrels of country cured hams, bacon, molasses, flour and cornmeal which were to feed his and the slaves’ families disappear. Richard’s father lost more than food, slaves and two sons. Before the war he owed no money on his plantations. After the war he lost everything through debts incurred to run his and his sons’ plantations during the war. He had borrowed in Confederate dollars and was forced to pay back in Federal dollars with fantastic rates of interests. Richard’s father died two years after the war. His administrator declard "John A. Kirkland’s estate is insolvent due to the fact that the emancipation of the slaves has destroyed all productivity of labor." Much of the hilly, gullied land which the Kirklands controlled by neat bench terraces - some terraces yet visible - has been bought by timber companies. Only pines whisper around the once heavily populated area which in 1860 had five postoffices and supplied several companies to the Confederate Army.

Richard’s brothers, Dan and Billy. served with the Kirkwood Rangers, 7th Cavalry. Brother Billy was a dispatch rider between General Lee and General Jackson.

Brother Billy’s marriage ceremony recorded in 1870 in the family Bible has brought to light a bit of romance concerning Richard’s sweetheart; "at least one of his sweethearts!" adds his closest living kin. Listed in the family Bible as a witness to Brother Billy’s marriage is Susan Evelina Kirkland, the daughter of Major Daniel D. Kirkland, was Richard’s second cousin who someday might have became his bride. Years later Susan told her daughter-in-law that she stood on the top step of the Major’s home and kissed him goodbye, never to see him again. Evidently that was the winter of 1862-63 when Richard was reported absent at the company muster roll call. His superior officer, Captain Lovelace, gave as the reason: "Absent on recruiting service."

In the summer of 1862 Richard Kirkland had been promoted to first sergeant, after transferring from Company E, the Camden Volunteers to Company G. the Flat Rock Guards. Richard had been in the Confederate army a little over a year.He was a seasoned soldier. Even his handwriting had matured, being smaller and less embellished with curliques. To his sister in law, Rosa. First Sergeant R. R. Kirkland penned a surprisingly thorough chronicle of the Seven Day’s Battle to defend Richmond.

Dan was spokesman for the Kirkland family when in 1909 the local John D. Kennedy Chapter, UDC was granted permission for transferring Richard’s remains from the White Oak Cemetery of his family to "Little Arlington" the UDC plot in Quaker Cemetery at Camden, South Carolina for Kershaw County heroes.

The Confederate veterans of Kershaw County so admired Richard Kirkland that they bypassed six Confederate generals born in Kershaw County (Cantey, Chesnut, Deas, Kennedy, Kershaw, Villepigue) and named their organization "The Camp Richard Kirkland."

So nationally outstanding was Kirkland’s humanitarianism that Camden, a city much smaller than those with a National Humane Alliance "loving cup" Ensigh fountain was given one to memorialize the compassion our world rarely sees and never quite understands! The school children of Camden in that same year,1910, bought for this fountain a bronze plaque telling his story. Though antique now for watering horses, the "loving cup" fountain centers Wade Hampton Park which is bordered by the Jefferson Davis Highway, US Number One Route from North to South, as it traverses Camden. At the Carolina Museum in Lancaster, SC is a collection of Kirkland memorabilia on permanent loan by the owners.

In prose, verse, drawings, paintings, ceramics, marble, and song, the benevolent act of one of the South’s finest heroes has been imortalized. Kirkland has become a symbol of our united North and South. In Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, there is a small white marble stone to his memory in the Episcopal Church of the Prince of Peace (completed in 1901). It is a memorial to the war dead of both sides and as a thank offering for our reunited Country.

Mrs Hough is historian for the John D. Kennedy Chapter of the UDC, Camden, SC, the Kershaw County Historical Society and a member of Catawba Wateree Genealogical Society.