From the beginning of his residence in this largely unsettled area,
Anderson attempted to impose civility and order on what was
essentially a raw wilderness. He founded the first masonic lodge west
of the Allegheny Mountains in 1784. Indian tribes dominated the
Ohio land tracts and frequently followed game into Kentucky, making
settlement there a risky proposition. Anderson’s surveyors were
especially vulnerable. Mountains of paperwork chained Anderson
to his office most of the time. When he did get out, he often
accompanied
George Rogers Clark, the founder of the Commonwealth
of Kentucky, on hunting expeditions in the deep forest. In 1787,
Anderson married Clark’s sister Elizabeth. Three years later he began
building his dream house, a Georgian-style stone mansion that he
dubbed
“Soldier’s Retreat.”
Anderson waited to occupy his new home until the Indian threat
had lessened. In the fall of 1789, Indians raided Chenoweth Station,
killing several members of that family. When Anderson arrived on
the horrible scene the next morning, he encountered a four-year-old
child, apparently unharmed. “We are all dead here, Colonel
Anderson,” the little girl said. This looked to be true as a servant and
three of the child’s brothers lay dead on the cabin floor. The girl had
been spared when her bed was overturned by the intruders, throwing
her against the wall and sheltering her behind the mattress. Further
investigation of the grisly scene found little Jamie Chenoweth lying
by the wood pile with a tomahawk gash in his forehead. He rose,
fully conscious. Mrs. Chenoweth was found in the woods nearby,
still alive despite her missing scalp. She had played dead when the
Indian tomahawk thrown at her missed its mark; she had endured
the heinous operation without crying out. Both survived. In 1793,
Anderson’s former acquaintance,
“Mad Anthony” Wayne, defeated a
combined force of Indians at Fallen Timbers. Settlement of the countryside
began in earnest.
2
Elizabeth Clark Anderson gave her husband five offspring before
dying shortly after her namesake daughter was born in December
1794. The grieving widower had four surviving children to raise and
a large business and farm to oversee. In September 1797 he married
Sarah Marshall, the cousin of his old friend and Revolutionary
War comrade
John Marshall. Marshall was destined for greatness
in his role as chief justice of the United States Supreme Court. Sarah
Marshall Anderson bore the old colonel’s next twelve children. She
christened her ninth child and youngest surviving son with the name
Charles. The family called him Charley.
One of Charley Anderson’s earliest memories was accompanying his
slave “nurse boy” Frank on an errand to deliver a dinner basket to
his older brothers and sisters at the schoolhouse a few miles away.
Frank held Charley’s hand as they inched their way across the
knee-deep Bear Grass Creek on a long board, just below Uncle Tompkins
spring. The young slave boy stopped abruptly and pointed down at
the waters below. Charley was amazed at what he saw. There, reflected
in the quiet clear pool, was a young boy clothed in a blue and
white calico girl’s gown with a red morocco skull cap, replete with a
cotton knot and tassels. Fine, curly white hair cascaded down from
the comical hat and framed the face of the innocent youngster. Dirty
bare feet and creamy white skin completed the visage. Charley giggled
with glee as he realized that he was gazing at himself for the very
first time. What a delightful surprise indeed. Life on the Bear Grass
for the youngest son of Richard Clough Anderson and his wife Sarah
was languid and luxurious. Charley’s mother and sisters doted on the
bright little tot, and he loved being spoiled.
3
A few weeks later, when the boys were on a similar excursion, the
bucolic bubble that had sheltered young Charley for most of his brief
existence suddenly burst. Before him, under the massive limbs of an
ancient elm, stood his skinny teenaged
brother Robert and a huge,
burly boy named
Ben Dorsey. The boxing tree was known throughout
the county as the appointed place to settle scores. A crowd of
noisy boys, and even a few adult male spectators, had assembled on
the north side of the lane by the elm to watch the pitched battle and
cheer for their favorite. As Robert and Ben stripped off their shirts,
Charley clung fast to Frank, and the two youngsters withdrew out of
sight of the battle, but not beyond hearing distance. The fight raged
on for what seemed like an interminable time. Finally it ended. Frank
and Charley ran home to tell the tale of a contest they had not seen.
It would not be the last time that Robert Anderson, who later surrendered
Fort Sumter, faced overwhelming odds with courage in defeat.
The coddled youngsters realized that life was not always a pastoral
fantasy. Such lessons took years to reemerge to the forefront of
Charley’s consciousness. For most of his
childhood, times were sweet
indeed.
When guests entered the big house at
Soldier’s Retreat, they
understood how hard Charley’s father had worked to replicate some
semblance of Virginia’s colonial elite society in his new environment.
Neighbors and visitors marveled at the sheer size and elegance of
Colonel Anderson’s mansion. It seemed out of place with the rude
log cabins and modest frame dwellings nearby. From its beginning,
the Anderson plantation became a must-see attraction for all who
journeyed to the developing region. The sixteen-room house was
constructed of local gray limestone, with walls three feet thick. Ascending
a five-foot staircase through a pair of folding black walnut doors,
visitors encountered a passage eighteen feet wide, which led due south
to a corresponding set of doors and steps. To either side of the hall
passage were various rooms, each about twenty feet square, including
parlor, office, dining room, and Sarah Anderson’s bedroom. Steps
from the rear of the dining room led outside to kitchen, smokehouse,
bathhouse, and other outbuildings. In this arrangement the residence
was similar to other large dwellings of wealthy plantation owners of
the day.
The stone exterior was certainly an unusual feature in this
frontier area, but it was the second floor that revealed a truly lavish
surprise. The upper hall had a banister staircase to the attic and various
doors to other bedrooms. The unique feature of this private home,
however, was a ballroom twenty by forty-two feet, lighted by five
windows running along the mansion’s south side. Large, high-backed
cherry chairs, carved in the latest fashion, graced the vast expanse.
This room was constructed for one purpose only: dancing. Colonel
Anderson hired a professional master to teach his
children and
neighbors during weekly dancing classes. Slave fiddlers furnished the
music. Regularly scheduled balls drew young men and women from
as far away as Louisville, some ten miles distant. Participants danced
Virginia reels and “contre” dances and often spent the night on the
property. Colonel Anderson, a stern and stoic man, never danced
himself, but his wife Sarah danced as often as she could. In the midst
of this atmosphere of refined frolic, Soldier’s Retreat became the
center of elite social life in Jefferson County.
Despite fathering his first child at age thirty-eight with his first
wife, Elizabeth Clark Anderson, Richard Clough Anderson had
eighteen children in all, thirteen of whom lived to adulthood. His last
child, Sarah Jane, was born in 1822, when the colonel was seventy-one
years old.
Sarah Marshall Anderson, his second wife, was nearly
thirty years his junior. When Charley arrived on the scene on June
1, 1814, he shared the household with his parents, six siblings, various
paid servants, and twenty slaves. Though their father’s important
duties kept him busy, the children had a close relationship with both
parents. This was especially true of the youngest children, who grew
up after their father had retired from his office as surveyor-general.
Colonel Anderson wanted the best for his family, and a little clean fun
was always part of his parental recipe.
The colonel’s sons inherited his love of the hunt. Wild turkeys,
ducks, and other birds were their favorite quarry, but during squirrel
migration season, killing the incalculable hordes intent on devouring
the corn crop was first priority. The object was to shoot the squirrels
only in their heads, so as not to ruin the meat. This practice created
an entire generation of skilled marksmen in Kentucky who would
become famous during the Civil War as “squirrel hunters.” In the fall
the Anderson boys would sometimes beg off the long trip to school
in bad weather only to gladly accompany the slave Stephen in his
efforts to net partridges. In wet weather, partridges abandoned the
field for the safety and shelter of the forest floor, aligning themselves
in circular coveys and mimicking dead leaves. The boys used many
forms of trickery to herd the prey into Stephen’s net. The conquering
heroes usually brought back a delicious dinner. When they arrived
home, the colonel always insisted that a few partridges be released to
ensure a future supply.
Christmas corresponded with the end of hog-killing season on
Bear Grass Creek. Since fresh meat was as rare as hard currency in
this part of Kentucky, bacon was “laid up” in great quantities each
winter after the first frost. In a typical year, more than a hundred
hogs fattened on bluegrass, beech nuts, acorns, and white corn were
killed and processed. Besides the feasting that ensued from all of the
delectable parts not used for bacon, the most treasured remnant for
the children was inedible. Choosing the hogs that would carry the
largest bladders became sport and science among both the children
of Soldier’s Retreat and their slave accomplices. The pig bladder was
the key enabler of their favorite Christmas tradition. Sons, daughters,
and slave children waited impatiently for the butcher to do his
duty. Once they were awarded their treasured organ, they proceeded
to blow air into its lower orifice until it became, in the best cases, a
balloon larger than their own heads. The hard work accomplished,
the proud owner of the inflated pig bladder had their mother, Sarah,
inscribe it with the child’s name and hang it to dry in her special
locked closet. The wait for Christmas morning was excruciating.
When the joyous day finally arrived, the little scamps grabbed their
pig bladders, positioned themselves outside the doors and windows
of the older members of the family, and punctured the balloons. It
sounded like a small cannon. Following the cacophony, the children,
white and black, would cry out, “My Christmas Gift, Sister!” or
“Christmas Giff, my ole Massa!”
Joy was plentiful on the Anderson plantation where innumerable
delights awaited the curious and social Charley. Melon season was
one of the year’s highlights, and Colonel Anderson took especial
pride in his annual bounty of cantaloupes and watermelons. Each
day at exactly noon, Charley’s father assembled family and guests
to enjoy the treats that he had hand-picked himself at first light and
sent by gardener or slave to the springhouse for cooling. Their small
vineyard, like their large apple orchard, produced wonderful fruit
but “abominable wines.” The rural life was one of young Charley’s
earliest passions. As an adult, he would yearn to return to these days
of simple farm pleasures.
After supper, the patriarch of Soldier’s Retreat would take his
customary walk down an allée of locust and walnut trees to a massive
yellow poplar, eight feet in diameter and more than one hundred
feet tall. During these walks, father and children would talk about
far-ranging topics. The colonel loved his children and they
worshipped him. The family’s comfortable lifestyle lent itself to the
sharing of many intimate parental moments during which plenty of
advice was gleaned. Lessons in duty and morality were tops on Colonel
Anderson’s list. His codes were strict, and he enforced the rules. One
such rule was the colonel’s insistence that his children avoid too
frequent or intimate associations with the slaves. Given the daily
interactions between blacks and whites on the plantation and the colonel’s
fairness to all his dependents, heeding this admonishment was nearly
impossible.
Richard Anderson’s
slaves had a life that was better than most of
their peers in the region and substantially better than most slaves
in the Deep South. The colonel ruled his entire household with a
sense of justice that led more zealous slaveholders to remark that the
old soldier was “just ruining all the slaves in the county.” His sons
and their slave counterparts played innumerable games, ran races,
and occasionally fought with each other as boyhood pals often do.
When one of the colonel’s young pugilists tiptoed into the house with
a bloody nose from one of these illicit affairs and sought comfort
from the ladies in the household, the master of Soldier’s Retreat was
called to adjudicate. He usually began his trial by repeating his
oft-broken family law prohibiting close associations with the servants.
Since one of his sons, by playing and fighting with a slave, chose to
place himself as an equal with the servant, “they must stand to the
bitter end by their own chosen colors.” Colonel Anderson would not
treat the offending slave with injustice; nor would he have his boys
“indulged into becoming cowardly tyrants.” After a fair hearing, the
guilty party, slave or son, was taken to a special peach tree near the
family graveyard to endure “whaling” with a tree switch. Fights were
frequent but usually kept secret to avoid the master’s sentence.
Colonel Anderson fought a losing battle against familiar relations
between his brood and his servants. He believed, like most of his
contemporaries, that the system of slavery was warranted by innate
deficiencies in character and ability among the blacks. He forbade
slaves telling ghost stories and traditional tales to his children, as
these “lies” worked against his standards of “good morals, good
manner, and good English.” He tried to avoid what he felt were the
“demoralizing and vulgarizing” influences that close fellowship with
the slaves engendered. Despite his rules, daily life on the plantation
encouraged intimate relations between masters and servants. White
children were wet-nursed by their black “mammy” from infancy.
Patsy was Charley’s nurse. She was one of three black women of
child-bearing age on the property. The birth of Patsy’s son Richmond
in 1817, like the other slave births, were recorded in the family
records. Patsy nursed Charley in her slave cabin bed, loving him, as he
later wrote, “with more than a maternal love.” She was, in Charley’s
opinion, “a woman whom for mental and moral qualities I rate with
any woman of any race or sphere.”