I returned to school after being at home a few weeks in April, and remained until the following October, when the school was dismissed. The call for recruits for the army was now from sixteen years up, and would include many who were at the school. I went to my mother at Society Hill and was to get ready to join the corps of State Cadets.
While I was at Society Hill my mother heard from the overseer at Chicora Wood, that he had some trouble about repairing the freight-lighters. This being a most important matter and requiring to be promptly attended to, my mother decided to send me down to see if I could help the overseer. So I started off on a little brown horse to ride the ninety miles down to the rice country. I arrived safely, and after a few days began to make headway with the work. The largest lighter had been in the water a good long time and was very heavy to haul out, but was badly in need of repairing. It was my first experience of unwilling labor; the hands were sulky. My father’s talks and teaching now came in to the aid of my own knowledge of the negro nature, and before long I had the big lighter hauled up, high and dry. We had and could get no oakum for calking, but my father had devised a very respectable substitute in cypress bark; it was stripped from the tree and then broken, somewhat as flax is, and then worked in the hands until quite pliable; this did wonderfully well, though it did not last as well as oakum. If pitch was freely applied to the freshly calked seams a very good job was made. We got the lighter calked and cleaned and simply painted, and put back in the water ready for work.
I then returned to my mother at Society Hill and remained there until I joined the Arsenal Cadets, and we entered the active service.
My father’s eldest brother, Joseph, while a student at the South Carolina College was appointed lieutenant in the United States army by President Madison and served in Florida in the War of 1812. He attained the rank of general, and all his life was given that title. Though he died at forty-five he had been married three times, his last wife, Mary Allan, only, having children. She had two sons, Joseph Blyth and William Allan. She lived only a few years after her husband, and the little boys were left to the guardianship of my father and the care of my mother, and Chicora Wood was their home until they grew up. Joseph Blyth Allston was a gifted man, a clever lawyer and eloquent pleader. His literary talent was above the ordinary; he has written some poems of great beauty; “Stack Arms” and the longer poem, “Sumter,” deserve a high place in the war poetry of the South. By the merest chance a sketch of my father, written by him, at the request of some one whose individuality is unknown to me, has fallen into my hands at this moment, and I gladly quote from it here, leaving out only the repetitions of facts already stated: