In Decem­ber 1860, South Carolina’s polit­i­cal elite con­vened in Colum­bia, shroud­ed in fog, for a sig­nif­i­cant con­ven­tion amidst ris­ing ten­sions sur­round­ing seces­sion. The assem­bly com­prised 169 promi­nent fig­ures, includ­ing for­mer con­gress­men, gov­er­nors, and sen­a­tors, each with sub­stan­tial wealth, most own­ing slaves. The con­ven­tion’s atmos­phere was charged with both excite­ment for dis­union and anx­i­ety, par­tic­u­lar­ly regard­ing the poten­tial con­se­quences of Abra­ham Lin­col­n’s elec­tion.

The choice of Colum­bia as the meet­ing loca­tion sparked debate, with some fear­ing it might har­bor union­ist sen­ti­ment. Calls to delay the con­ven­tion gained trac­tion among con­ser­v­a­tive del­e­gates wary of hasty action. Despite ini­tial dis­agree­ments, the con­ven­tion com­menced on Decem­ber 17 at the First Bap­tist Church, elect­ing David Flav­el Jami­son as pres­i­dent instead of the expect­ed Robert Barn­well Rhett, indi­cat­ing a divide with­in the seces­sion­ists.

Jamison’s speech, delib­er­ate­ly void of men­tion regard­ing slav­ery’s future, encour­aged patience while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly echo­ing a rev­o­lu­tion­ary spir­it with his ral­ly­ing cry, “To dare! and again to dare!” How­ev­er, fears of a small­pox out­break soon over­ran these ambi­tions, lead­ing to the convention’s swift relo­ca­tion to Charleston, seen by some as an act of cow­ardice.

Arriv­ing in Charleston, the del­e­gates swift­ly unit­ed in sup­port of imme­di­ate seces­sion. Lat­er, on Decem­ber 20, a seces­sion ordi­nance was hasti­ly approved, for­mal­iz­ing South Car­oli­na’s dis­union in a mat­ter of min­utes. The ensu­ing cer­e­mo­ny resem­bled a cel­e­bra­tion, draw­ing com­par­isons with the sign­ing of the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence, devoid of the solem­ni­ty that haunt­ed the orig­i­nal sign­ers. Enthu­si­as­tic crowds wel­comed the del­e­gates, par­tic­u­lar­ly Robert Barn­well Rhett, who basked in recog­ni­tion and adu­la­tion, marked­ly dif­fer­ent from the mut­ed response of the con­ven­tion’s open­ing.

The evening marked a high with­in Charleston, with can­non fire and fire­works cel­e­brat­ing their res­olute break from the Union. Yet, amidst the jubi­lance, fig­ures like James L. Peti­gru expressed a somber acknowl­edg­ment of the day, rec­og­niz­ing the grav­i­ty of their deci­sion even as they par­tic­i­pat­ed in the cel­e­bra­tions.

As South Car­oli­na laid bare its new­found inde­pen­dence, the impli­ca­tions loomed large. Mean­while, with­in Fort Moul­trie, Major Ander­son and his men observed the cel­e­bra­tions from a dis­tance, sens­ing a potent shift in the polit­i­cal land­scape sig­ni­fy­ing an impend­ing con­flict. This chap­ter vivid­ly illus­trates the charged atmos­phere lead­ing to seces­sion, inter­weav­ing the per­son­al and polit­i­cal stakes of the fig­ures involved, as South Car­oli­na took dra­mat­ic steps toward its tumul­tuous future.