Part 11 (2/2)

NOTE ON POE

TO ACCOMPANY ”EDGAR ALLAN POE” AND ”ALCHEMY”

In May, 1828, Poe enlisted in the army under the name of Edgar A. Perry, and was a.s.signed to Battery ”H” of the First Artillery at Fort Independence. In October his battery was ordered to Fort Moultrie, Charleston, S.C. Poe spent a whole year on Sullivan's Island. Professor C. Alphonso Smith, the well-known Poe authority, says, ”So far as I know, this was the only tropical background that Poe had ever seen.”

That the susceptible nature of the young poet was vastly impressed by the weirdness and melancholy scenery of the Carolina coast country, there can be very little doubt. The dank tarns and funereal woodlands of his landscapes, or at least the strong suggestion of them, may all be found here, and the scene of _The Goldbug_ is definitely laid on Sullivan's Island. Here are dim family vaults, and tracts of country in which the House of Usher might well stand.

”Dim vales and shadowy floods And cloudy-looking woods Whose forms we can't discover, From the tears that drip all over”

was written while Poe was in the army at Fort Moultrie, and appeared in his second volume in 1829. There are later echoes.

”Around by lifting winds forgot Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie.”

H.A.

”MARSH TACKIES”

”Marsh Tackies” is the name given by the negroes to the little, wild horses of the Carolina coast country's swamps and sea islands. Early traditions say that these horses were found by the English when they first came and that they are the descendants of runaways from the Spanish settlements to the South about St. Augustine, or horses turned loose by DeSoto upon his ill-fated march to the Mississippi. These horses pick up a precarious living in out-of-the-way sections along the coast, and are occasionally taken and broken in by the negroes. They are the ”poor horse trash” of the section.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alstons and Allstons of South Carolina S.C. GRAVES Annual Report of the Am. Hist. a.s.s. 1913 Aaron Burr, Memoirs, Life, and Letters Charleston Courier OLD FILES Charleston Mercury OLD FILES Charleston the Place and the People RAVENEL Colonial History of South Carolina LAWSON Defense of Charleston Harbor JOHNSON Diary from Dixie CHESTNUT Edgar Allan Poe WOODBURY Edgar Allan Poe, How to Know Him SMITH Edgar Allen Poe HARRISON Mobile Mercury OLD FILES Proceedings of the American Philos. Soc. VOL. XXVI Pirates, The Carolina HUGHSON, JOHNS HOPKINS PRESS PAMPHLET Submarines PAMPHLET, SMYTHE, A.T., JR.

South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine VOL. XIV Theodosia PIDGIN

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