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| (Courtesy of Daniel Library, The Citadel) |
Charles
Courtenay Tew wielded the sword metaphor several times during his address to
fellow Citadel graduates in 1846. Only 18 years old, Tew spoke eloquently of
the glory and horror of war, saying the sword could be “dazzling" in its
influence and the patriot soldier should use it only for “God and country.”
“There are no
aspirations to imminence over the slaughtered bodies of his fellow men,” he
told two dozen peers at the military academy in Charleston, S.C.
The school’s
first honor graduate concluded his remarks with encouragement to fulfill one’s
responsibility: “The same principle which impelled him to arms, sustains him in their unsanguined use. Strongly attached to life, he is yet willing, ready, eager to
lay it down for the public.”
Sixteen years
later, Tew, 34, would lay down his life for the Confederacy. He died amid the
carnage on the Sunken Road, or Bloody Lane, at the Battle of Antietam
(Sharpsburg) in western Maryland.
The colonel’s
sword was taken by a Federal soldier, as were other items as trophies of war.
Now, 153 years later, the sword is being given by a Canadian military regiment
and foundation to The Citadel in ceremonies next week. Descendants had long looked for the sword, which ended up in
Ottawa.
The loss of
Tew, who led the 2nd North Carolina State Troops, was felt keenly by
loved ones and his home state. Before the war, he was known as an erudite
academic who instilled discipline and duty in cadets on three campuses in the
Carolinas. Students were grateful for his dedication, and in 1858 they
presented him the sword at the Arsenal Academy in Columbia, S.C.
Great-great-granddaughter
Caroline Sloan of Portland, Ore., says the graduation speech shows Tew was a “product
of his time.” A soldier was trained to take up arms, when necessary.
In his 1893 “History
of the South Carolina Military Academy,” John Peyre Thomas wrote:
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| Tew's sword will be displayed at The Citadel library |
"Col. Tew was no
ordinary man. In temper he was cool and equable. His tastes were literary and
yet practical. His intellect was trained and disciplined for almost any work.
With mathematical and scientific attainments, he was also conversant with the
dead languages; had acquired several of the Continental Languages, as to
French, he was an accomplished scholar of that tongue. The power of mental
concentration he possessed in large degree and what he attempted he mastered
thoroughly. As a friend he was steady and loyal; as a man direct and upright;
as a husband and father, tender and devoted. Among The Citadel dead, no other
graduate has done more honor to the Academy then Charles Courtenay Tew."
Tew’s father
was from a French Huguenot family and his mother had Irish ancestry.
While not all
that prominent or wealthy, the Tews ensured Courtenay (pronounced Courtney), as
he was known, would get what they considered an ideal education for a South
Carolina lad.
“He wanted to
be an educator,” Sloan said.
After
graduation, the professor taught and led students at the Arsenal Academy for
five years, spent a year in Europe and returned to The Citadel as second
officer in rank. He enlarged and expanded his department before returning to
Columbia in 1857.
He then
followed his own dream, moving to North Carolina with his wife, Elizabeth, and
children to start a new school: The Hillsborough Military Academy.
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| !937 view of Hillsborough barracks, now gone (Library of Congress) |
“It was
modeled on The Citadel,” said Richard Barnes of Raleigh, N.C., who has
researched the 2nd North Carolina State Troops, the unit Tew led
during the Civil War. “He was a good tactician. He was an academic man. He
loved to instruct young men.”
Tew didn’t
get to lead the North Carolina academy for long. While apparently not a slave
owner, Tew sided with the Confederacy and led troops during a number of Virginia
and Maryland campaigns, ending at Antietam.
The officer
won admiration for tactics from his peers, including Maj. Gen. Joseph B.
Kershaw and Lt. Gen. D.H. Hill, who described Tew as having “no superior as a
soldier in the field.”
But Tew felt he
could help the cause most by returning to North Carolina to turn young students
into prospective soldiers. His resignation was forwarded to the government in
Richmond, but it had not been acted upon when the battle at Sharpsburg was
fought.
The academy
in Hillsborough did not last long after the war’s end and Tew’s widow died in
1870, leaving the care of their three surviving children to her father-in-law.
Sloan, who will speak about Tew and the sword during a Sept. 17 event on The Citadel campus, has
taught her 7-year-old son that it is best that the South did not prevail.
Still, she
said, “I am proud of (Tew). The Civil War was a terrible, terrible thing. The
family loved him and never got over his death.”
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