Charles Alfred DeSaussure, son of planter Louis McPherson DeSaussure, grew up on his family's plantation in Beaufort County, S.C., at the family's summer home in McPhersonville, S.C., and in the town of Beaufort, S.C. In 1863, he joined the Beaufort Volunteer Artillery Company and fought with them until the end of the Civil War. The collection includes an undated 22-page typed transcription, source unknown, of the memoir that Charles Alfred DeSaussure wrote sometime after the Civil War at the request of his children. The memoir deals primarily with DeSaussure's childhood experiences as a planter's son in antebellum Beaufort County, S.C. He wrote in great detail about the daily plantation life at Woodstock, including crops, how the slaves lived, relationships between slaves and masters, jobs and positions on the plantation, how the southern elite socialized, and what he called DeSaussure wrote about the differences between life in Beaufort County and at his summer home in the McPhersonville, S.C., pinelands. He also wrote about the role of Episcopal Church in daily life and about the education and pastimes of young men in South Carolina. As a student at the College of Beaufort, he learned as much out of class as in class, including how to swim and sail. Also included are two photocopied maps showing the locations of many of the places mentioned in the memoir. southern hospitality.
