Birth and Life Prior to War
Born in Charleston on August 6, 1828, William Gilbert Whilden was the youngest of seven children of newspaper editor Joseph Whilden and his wife, Elizabeth Gilbert Whilden. Young William's ancestral roots in the South Carolina coastal region, or lowcountry, ran deep. His Whilden ancestors had settled in the Charleston area before 1700, and an ancestor on his mother's side, the Rev. William Screven, had constituted the First Baptist Church of Charleston in 1683, the South's oldest Baptist church. Like many Southerners who came of age in the late antebellum period, William took pride in his ancestors' role in the American Revolution, especially his grandfather, Joseph Whilden, who, at 18, had run away from home to join Brig. Gen. Francis "Swamp Fox" Marion's forces fighting the British. Another colonial kinsman dear to William Whilden was the Rev. Oliver Hart, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Charleston, who traveled the South Carolina backcountry during the Revolution, exhorting the settlers to support American independence.
In the closing decades of the antebellum period, when William Whilden was growing up in Charleston, the city was the commercial and cultural center of the lowcountry, South Carolina's manufacturing center and its most cosmopolitan city. Only New Orleans was more populous than Charleston among the cities of the Old South. Part of the nascent Southern urban middle class, the family of Joseph and Elizabeth Whilden lived simply but comfortably in their home on Magazine Street, attended by their only slave, Juno Waller Seymour, a diminutive, energetic black woman known as "Maumer Juno" whom Joseph Whilden's stepfather had purchased about 1800 as a hand maiden for his wife. Before reaching manhood, William Whilden would develop a strong attachment to both Maumer Juno and the Baptist faith of his forebears. Little is known about William's schooling, but the polished prose of his surviving correspondence and published articles reflects a practiced hand and a cultivated intellect. William's four elder brothers pursued careers in the law, insurance and the Baptist ministry, though none would experience the financial success of their youngest brother. Eschewing the learned professions of his brothers, William embarked upon a business career. By the mid1850's, William G. Whilden was a name recognized among Charleston's retail merchants.
As the decade of the 1860's dawned, William Whilden was a partner in the thriving mercantile firm of Hayden & Whilden, importers and retailers of fine English and Northern jewelry and silverware as well as swords, pistols and other military gear. (Nowadays, swords bearing the "Hayden & Whilden, Charleston" stamp are among the most prized antique Confederate edged weapons.) William had married Ellen Amelia Taylor, a minister's daughter, on Christmas Day 1850, and by 1860 the couple lived happily with their three daughters in a large, rambling white house at 9 Rutledge Avenue, only a few blocks from the King Street offices of Hayden & Whilden. William's unmarried elder sister, Ellen Ann, a teenaged nephew and three domestic servants filled out the household. Maumer Juno lived next door in the home of William's elder brother, Joseph, and she shuttled back and forth between the two households, helping bring up William's daughters as well as Joseph's offspring.
As a successful young man about town, it is not surprising that William Whilden had joined the Washington Artillery of Charleston prior to South Carolina's secession from the Union. Organized in 1844, the Washington Artillery was one of a number of militia companies formed in Southern cities during the prewar years by men with a serious interest in military matters. Like their counterparts who made up the Richmond Howitzers and the Washington Artillery of New Orleans, the officers and men of the Washington Artillery of Charleston were generally well educated and of considerable social standing. The esprit de corps of these volunteer artillery companies partially compensated for their lack of modern guns, battlefield experience and competent soldiermechanics. Perhaps anticipating sectional hostilities, the Washington Artillery began drilling in earnest in June 1860 under Capt. Walter. By Independence Day, the company's muster roll counted 120 officers and men. Capt. Walter worked his command hard, drilling the men at least three evenings per week, both as artillerists and heavy infantry. One veteran of the Washington Artillery proudly recalled that, by the time his company was called to active service, "Capt. Walter commanded a company which was certainly second to none in the state."
Secession
That call came on December 27, 1860. In response to the occupation of Ft. Sumter in Charleston Harbor by Maj. Robert Anderson's U.S. regulars, the governor of South Carolina, Francis W. Pickens, called up the Charleston militia, ordering the Washington Artillery to occupy Ft. Moultrie on Sullivan's Island. Separated by just over a mile of open water, the garrisons of these two forts glowered at each other, neither firing a shot.
Relieved from duty at Ft. Moultrie after about a month, the Washington Artillery took charge of a light ship at the mouth of Wappoo Cut, about four miles southwest of Charleston, to prevent the reinforcement of Ft. Sumter from that direction. Afterwards the company relocated to Morris Island to man the Stevens Iron Battery confronting Ft. Sumter. Commanded by Maj. Peter F. Stevens, this ironclad land battery was within 1,300 yards of Ft. Sumter, closer than any other Rebel guns. While on Morris Island, several younger members of the Washington Artillery, weary of the monotony of their duties and impatient with the military stalement in Charleston Harbor, fired a pot shot towards Ft. Sumter, striking its wharf. A quick disavowal of any intentional attack by Maj. Stevens prevented any serious consequences, however.. On March 20, 1861, the Washington Artillery was detailed to Battery Island at the southwestern tip of James Island, taking it out of action during the bombardment of Ft. Sumter on April 12 and 13. Shortly afterwards, to accommodate men eager to serve outside the state, the Washington Artillery split into two separate batteries (or companies). One company would win fame in Virginia as Hart's Battery, Hampton's Horse Artillery; the other, Walter's Light Battery, with Jr. 1st Lt. William Whilden the third in command, was destined to spend the war in relative obscurity, guarding the South Carolina coastal area.
Wartime Service
Initially, Walter's Light Battery remained in state service, posted mostly in and around Charleston. During these early months of the war, Lt. Whilden was able to keep tabs on the business affairs of Hayden & Whilden. Business must have been good as South Carolina's mobilization for war demanded every available small arm, sword and other piece of military equipment that could be brought to market. As an example of the firm's dexterity in outfitting South Carolinians for war, in both April and October 1861 Hayden & Whilden supplied a custommade silk regimental flag to the 1st South Carolina Volunteers (Gregg's), having subcontracted the fine needlework to the wife of another King Street merchant.
Also early in the war, perhaps when in Charleston to attend to business interests, Lt. Whilden dropped in to the photographic studio of Quinby and Company near his offices. The resulting carte de visite shows Lt. Whilden, resplendent in a doublebreasted frock coat, as slender and prematurely bald.
The successful establishment of a Federal enclave on the lower South Carolina coast at Port Royal during November 1861 forced the enlistment of several militia units into regular Confederate service. One such unit was Walter's Light Battery, Washington Artillery, which was mustered into regular Confederate service at Adams Run on February 28, 1862, with Capt. Walter, Jr. 1st Lt. Whilden and three other lieutenants making up the company officers, and 119 enlisted men comprised of nine sergeants, nine corporals, three artificers (blacksmiths and saddlers), and 98 privates, who functioned as cannoneers and drivers of the battery's horses and mules. Adams Run, a hamlet on the vital Charleston & Savannah Railroad, about 25 miles southwest of Charleston, thereafter became the hub from which the men and guns of Walter's Light Battery radiated, shifting rapidly from one place to another to oppose the landing of enemy troops or to block the progress of a Federal gun boat inland up a river. Later in the war, when Confederate cavalry had been largely withdrawn from the southern reaches of South Carolina's coast, the men of Walter's Light Battery were deployed frequently as pickets or on reconnaissance missions. Perhaps the most formidable enemy that Walter's Light Battery would face in the marshy environs of Adams Run was not Yankees but the stifling heat and generally unhealthy climate. The men dubbed one camp between two swamps as "Quinineville", because of their need for taking daily doses of quinine to ward off malaria. Cpl. Anthony Riecke, who compiled a brief history of Walter's Light Battery in the early years of this century, records more company deaths from disease or accidents (a total of three) than from combat (a total of only two).
After shifting their base of operations from Charleston to Adams Run, Lt. Whilden and his battery mates continued to see only limited, sporadic action, as the Federals made no serious attempt to take Charleston overland from the southwest. To relieve the tedium of camp life, during the winter of 18621863 the men of Walter's Light Battery formed a brass band, a glee club and a historical society, which, in combination, gave several creditable performances in an improvised theater at Adams Run. Brig. Gen. Johnson Hagood, who was in command of Confederate forces at Adams Run during the middle years of the war, recalled in his memoirs that service there "had all the monotony of garrison life, with something of its advantages. The families of the officers to some extent were enabled to visit them from time to time, the ladies finding shelter in the unoccupied summer residences of the planters...." He further recalled that the surrounding countryside was "fine fish and game country, and, with railroad facilities for drawing supplies from home, our tables were fairly furnished for Confederate times." Probably during his first year at Adams Run, Lt. Whilden leased an unoccupied house in the village, and for a short period his family lived there. Capt. Walter was dining with Lt. Whilden and his family one day during this period when an errant shell from a Yankee gunboat caused the house to shake, sending Maumer Juno and the children scurrying to the basement. The next morning Lt. Whilden reluctantly put his family back on the train to Charleston.
Lt. Whilden's prewar merchandising training was put to good use by Capt. Walter, as Lt. Whilden functioned, for all practical purposes, as quartermaster for his company. Lt. Whilden requisitioned forage for the company's horses and mules as well as everything from nails to shoes for the officers and men, signing scores of special requisition forms, vouchers and receipts during his term of service. With both of the partners away in Confederate service, by the end of 1862 the business affairs of Hayden & Whilden were not in such good hands, however. In January 1863, Lt. Whilden obtained a month's furlough to return to Charleston, and on February 27, 1863, he wrote a letter to Capt. Walter from Charleston requesting a 15day extension to his furlough and noting that he found his business in a "more disorderly condition" than he had anticipated. Despite additional furloughs to Charleston, Lt. Whilden was unable to reverse the downward slide in his business, perhaps because of the reduced supply of European goods reaching Charleston through the tightening Union naval blockade. In any event, Lt. Whilden and his partner, Augustus H. Hayden, determined to dissolve Hayden & Whilden. On May 26, 1863, the partnership's remaining stock of goods was sold at auction. Duty did not permit Lt. Whilden to dwell for long on the loss of his business, because about the same time a section of Walter's Light Battery under the command of Lt. Whilden was ordered to John's Island, a large coastal island southwest of Charleston, with one of the battery's 10 pounder Parrott rifles to counter a threatened Federal invasion of that island from neighboring Seabrook Island. This Parrott gun was one of a pair that Walter's Light Battery had received from Richmond in December 1862 in exchange for four 6-pounders as part of a general reduction of Confederate light batteries to four cannons. The 10 pounder Parrots, made of cast iron with a distinctive wroughtiron breeching tube around the breech, added to the overall longrange fire power and accuracy of the battery, despite the reduction in the number of its cannons from six to four. Lt. Whilden's section of the battery would remain on detached duty on John's Island for about six months. On November 15, 1863, Lt. Whilden's command, joined by elements of the 3rd South Carolina Cavalry Regiment under Maj. John Jenkins, repulsed a Federal demonstration on John's Island, after which the section returned to Adams Run. In his report on the action, Maj. Jenkins noted that Lt. Whilden "with his Parrott gun...returned the fire and made good practice...."
Federal bombardment of Charleston by longrange artillery began on August 22, 1863, while Lt. Whilden was commanding his section on John's Island. It would continue for 587 days. The Whilden home was located south of Calhoun Street, within the range of Union batteries. If Ellen Whilden had not evacuated her household before the bombardment began, she did not delay much longer, because by late September 1863 she and her children were refugees in Graniteville in the South Carolina upcountry; they would not return to Charleston until war's end. Before leaving her Rutledge Avenue home, Ellen Whilden removed several prized possessions, including her daughter Julia's miniature china set, to a deep trench scooped out of the earth at the rear of her home; and, to divert attention from the cache, Mrs. Whilden heaped a mammoth pile of kindling atop the freshly turned earth. Reluctant to bury the family silver in the trench, where it would have been safe, Ellen Whilden dispatched it to Columbia for safekeeping, where, ironically, it would be stolen by one of Sherman's "bummers" late in the war.
The evacuation of his family from Charleston placed new demands on Lt. Whilden. In a letter written from Graniteville to Department Headquarters in Charleston on December 13, 1863, Lt. Whilden requested an extension to his leave of absence to complete the obtaining of supplies for his family.
Despite his probable frustrations with his battery's lack of action and the failure of his business, and the distraction of providing for his refugee wife and young children, Lt. Whilden dutifully remained with his command to the bitter end, marching with his comrades into North Carolina when Confederate forces withdrew from the Charleston area in midFebruary 1865. A reserve position at the Battle of Bentonville in late March was as close as Walter's Light Battery would come to participating in a major engagement in North Carolina, continuing a trend that began four years earlier when Capt. Walter's men had narrowly missed aiding in the reduction of Ft. Sumter. After the surrender of the Army of Tennessee at Greensboro on April 26, 1865, Lt. Whilden trudged wearily homeward in the company of his teenaged nephew, Pvt. De Leon Whilden, whose name also appears on the last muster roll of Walter's Light Battery. Remarkably, that last muster roll shows a total of 139 officers and men, 15 more than when Walter's Light Battery mustered into regular Confederate service in February 1862. The numerical strength of the battery at its surrender reflects not only its low rate of casualties but also the sustained high morale and devotion to duty of the officers and men.
Despite the economic devastation that defeat had brought to Charleston, William Whilden determined to remain in the city of his birth and to rebuild his mercantile business. By 1869, Wm. G. Whilden & Co. was importing and retailing jewelry, silver and plated ware from an outlet on King Street, and the firm was selling crockery and glassware at wholesale from a second outlet on Meeting Street. William relocated his family to the Greenville area about 1880, becoming an insurance agent. Despite her advanced age, Maumer Juno came along, refusing to be left behind in the lowcountry.
In his later years, William published several historical and genealogical articles, though none dealt with his war time experiences. No doubt proud of his Confederate service, William joined the United Confederate Veterans, Camp Pulliam, in Greenville. Some of William's UCV compatriots could boast of fighting at Manassas, Gettysburg or Chickamauga, but surely none could claim a longer term of armed service to the Southland. Part of the first Southern military units called to active duty on December 27, 1860, Walter's Light Battery, Washington Artillery, was one of the last to lay down its arms, surrendering on April 26, 1865. With that battery, from start to finish, was Lt. William G. Whilden. He died June 8, 1896, and was buried at Springwood Cemetery in Greenville.
1. Wm. A. Albaugh III, Confederate Edged Weapons (New York, NY: Harper & Brothers,Record Group 109, 1960), pp. 65-66, 197.
2. E. Milby Burton, The Siege of Charleston 1861-1865 (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1970).
3. E. Milby Burton, South Carolina Silversmiths 1690-1860 (Charleston, SC: The Charleston Museum, revised ed., 1991), at pp. 46-48.
4. Compiled Service Record of William G. Whilden, Capt. Walter's Company, Light Artillery (Washington Artillery), South Carolina Volunteers, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of South Carolina, War Department Collection of Confederate Records, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, DC.
5. "The Last Roll," Confederate Veteran Magazine, vol. 19 (1911), p. 38.
6. Richard N. Current, ed., Encyclopedia of the Confederacy (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1993).
7. Greenville Chapter of South Carolina Genealogical Society, compiler, Greenville County, S.C. Cemetery Survey (Greenville: A Press, 1980), vol. 3, p. 73 (reciting tombstone inscription of William G. Whilden).
8. Johnson Hagood, Memoirs of the War of Secession (Germantown, TN: Guild Bindery Press, 1994 reprint). 9. Richard B. McCaslin, Portrait of Conflict: A Photographic History of South Carolina in the Civil War (Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press, 1994).
10. John Hammond Moore, editor, "Letters From a Santa Fe Army Clerk, 1855-1856, Charles E. Whilden," New Mexico Historical Review , vol. 40, no. 2 (April 1965), pp. 141-164 (relating to letters from Charles E. Whilden to his brother, William G. Whilden, or Mrs. William G. Whilden).
11. "Neither Yankees Nor Quakes," Columbus, MS TimesPicayune, July 31, 1949 (relating Mrs. William G. Whilden's evacuation of Charleston).
12. Recollections of Lt. Whilden's daughter, Ella Whilden Hard (1855-1942) (typescript, n.d. [c. 1936]), Manuscript Collection of the South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC.
13. Recollections and Reminiscences 1861-1865 through World War I (South Carolina Division, United Daughters of the Confederacy, 1994), Vol. 5, at pp. 192-195 (reprint of an undated newspaper sketch of the Washington Artillery).
14. Anthony W. Riecke, "Record & Rolls of the Washington Artillery, 1st Regt. Artillery, 4th Brig. S.C. Militia later Walter's Light Battery, C.S.A.," (typescript, 1904), South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, SC.
15. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Eighth Census of the United States, 1860, Ward 8, City of Charleston, Charleston District, S.C., Schedule 1-Free Inhabitants, National Archives Microfilm Pub. No. M-653, Reel No. 1216, p. 494, and Schedule 2-Slave Inhabitants, National Archives Microfilm Pub. No. M-653, Reel No. 1232, p. 491.
16. U.S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 128 vols. and atlas (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1880-1902), Ser. I, Vol. 14, p. 701, and Vol. 28, Part I, p. 737.
17. [Ellen Whilden,] Life of Maumer Juno of Charleston, S.C., A Sketch of Juno (Waller) Seymour (Atlanta, GA: Foote & Davies, 1892).
18. The genealogical information in this article derives chiefly from several of the published sources cited above as well as from unpublished genealogical research compiled by Lt. Whilden's kinswoman, the late Petrona Royall (Mrs. William Whilden) McIver of Mt. Pleasant, SC. Copies of Mrs. McIver's research as well as the CDV of Lt. Whilden were made available to me by Sarah McIver Townsend and Mary Julia Royall of Mt. Pleasant.