The Washington Light Infantry Charitable Association, 1866.
“The affair of the ‘
Leopard and
Chesapeake’ involved no desecrated homes, no abandoned altars, no social insults, no unspeakable injuries—what wrongs perpetrated by
England, can compare in results, with the storm of fiery desolation, that swept over our country, and left us, in 1865, from the seaboard to the mountains, in fettered destitution, without a home, without a country, and almost without a hope.
The question of duty in 1860 repeated the demand of 1807; that of 1865 combined them both!
What do my people need?
Arms and a life!
Let them be given!
This was the question of 1807 and 1860—what do my people need?
Bread and hope!
This was the great question of 1865.
Bread and hope were given, and something more was added.
The bivouac of the dead was marked with a shaft of honor, that the stranger might know that the men who slept there died for their country!
What heart and hand could do for the widow and orphan, was done; and in the charter of the ‘Charitable Association,’ was laid the corner-stone of this ‘Reorganization of the old corps of 1807.’
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1
The war ended in the spring of 1865, and
Generals Lee and
Johnston, in final orders, so announced to their respective armies, and advised the soldiers to return to their homes and resume their citizenship.
Charleston had kept a protracted and successful defense, had ‘been kept virgin to the last,’ but at untold cost and sacrifice.
With most of the city for many months within reach of hostile guns, and shot and shell, a large part of the population had become refugees in the interior of the
State.
From
Appomattox to
Greensboro, from prison camps and hospitals, the
Confederate soldiers from
Charleston slowly made their way homeward during the summer
[
4]
and fall of 1865.
Many found their families elsewhere, and did not return to the city.
Those who finally did so, saw it desolate and uninviting, grass growing in its deserted streets; conflagrations had destroyed large sections of the city; shot and shell had done much dsmage to property.
To many it seemed that—
On the tomb of Hope interred,
Stood the spectre of Despair.
These were the conditions which the W. L. I. survivors had to face in their former happy and well-appointed homes; poverty was on every hand; the currency of the country had dropped out of sight and use. Ofcourse no military organization was permissible.
The first thought was an organization of W. L. I. survivors to help the destitute families of the ‘unreturning brave.’
With the coming in of the new year, on January 1, 1866, a meeting of W. L. I. survivors was held in the parlors of the
Charleston Hotel.
Captain James M. Carson presided, and
Sergeant W. M. Muckinfuss acted as secretary.
The object of the meeting was announced by
Captain Carson to be the organization of the ‘
W. L. I. Charitable Association,’ to assist the families of those W. L. I.'s who had fallen or were disabled in the late struggle.
This was voted unanimously, and the following committee elected to prepare the necessary papers, draft of constitution, &c.:
Captain J. M. Carson, Colonel C. H.
Simonton,
Lieutenant H. B. Olney,
William E. Holmes and
William E. Proctor.
This committee reported to a meeting held at the
Masonic Hall on 22d February, 1866, and proceeded to organize ‘The
W. L. I. Charitable Association,’ and elected the following officers:
