A National Register Property
City Directories and History: The Chesnut Cottage is significant architecturally as an example of a “Columbia Cottage,” an adaptation of the standard Classical or Greek Revival-based cottage to local conditions and requirements. Historically, the Chesnut Cottage is significant as the home of General James and Mary Boykin Chesnut during the Civil War period. General Chesnut served on Jefferson Davis’s staff. Mary Chesnut provided future generation with eyewitness accounts of happenings during the 1860s with her Diary from Dixie, edited by Ben Ames Williams and published in 1905. In the fall of 1864, Davis was entertained at the Chesnut Cottage and from its front steps made a speech to a large crowd of the citizens of Columbia. Built ca. 1855-1860, the cottage has retained its original appearance. The one-and-one-half-story frame house, with a central dormer with an arched window has an unusual balustrade combining ironwork and wood. The portico, supported by octagonal columns, shelters a front doorway with sidelights and transom. Listed in the National Register May 6, 1971. [Courtesy of the SC Dept. of Archives and History]
Another interesting Columbia Civil War landmark spared the widespread burning of the city was Chesnut Cottage, so named because it was the temporary wartime home of General James Chesnut and Mrs. (Mary Boykin) Chesnut. The general was on the staff of President Jefferson Davis, who once made a speech from Chesnut Cottage front steps to “an immense crowd’’ of
Columbians, and Mrs. Chesnut wrote the well-known Diary from Dixie, inextricably linked with the Civil War era is another famous Columbia landmark, Millwood, the ruins of which are listed in the National Register. Built probably in the 1830s and located near the Garner’s Ferry Road, Millwood was the magnificent Greek Revival mansion built by Colonel Wade Hampton II, who died in 1858 and bequeathed Millwood to his unmarried daughters. Seen by Sherman as a symbol of the outstanding Confederate leader, General Wade Hampton III, the house was burned by Union troops who entered Columbia on February 17, 1865. giving her accounts of the 1860s. This little “Columbia Cottage” is across the street from another National Register property which pre-dated the war and was also spared destruction — the Lorick House, built before 1840 and Victorianized in the late 1800s. Owned since 1877 by the Lorick family, the house had as an earlier owner Governor John Lawrence Manning, who lived there during his term of office (1852-54). From this Columbia home, Governor Manning directed the plans and construction of his elegant country home, Milford (Sumter County National Register site and also a National Historic Landmark). It was Governor Manning, incidentally, who made the suggestion to change the siting of the new State House, then being built, so that it would face Richardson (Main) Street from the center of the two city blocks which should be joined together and not bisected by Richardson as had previously been the case.
(Information from: Names in South Carolina by C.H. Neuffer, Published by the S.C. Dept. of English, USC)
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