While reading the history of my home town, Darlington, South Carolina, I came upon a section of letters regarding the hanging of Amy Spain, a 17 year old slave, on March 10, 1865. It is a truly remarkable story about which I want to compile as much documentation as possible, perhaps for a small volume along the lines of Michel Foucault's Herculine Barbin. Of course, the difference being that Amy Spain never got to speak or write her side of the story. All that remains are the accounts of others. [Note (2026): The account has instead become the prologue to my manuscript War, Reconstruction, and Memory: the Lives and Times of Capt. Paul Whipple and Kate Rains of New Boston, N. H. and Darlington, S. C., 1840-1915.]
The hanging was important enough to appear in
Harpers Weekly of September 30, 1865, with aspects of the account then being disputed in the pages of Darlington's
New Era newspaper. Amy Spain was enslaved by a prominent local lawyer and hero of the invasion of Mexico, Major A. C. Spain, who acted as her counsel at her trial before a rebel military commission. Amy Spain was entrusted with the care of the Major's two daughters, and he wrote that: "Amy's temper was hot, hasty, and ungovernable, yet to me, as her master, she was always dutiful up to the unfortunate time when she exhibited traits of character, adopted a line of conduct, used expressions, and committed acts which contributed to the violent termination of her existence at the early age of seventeen."
A.C. Spain had been called up in the final days of the war and, he said, left the care of his plantation in the hands of his "aged" father. Upon the appearance in town of a scouting party of Sherman's forces (I have almost narrowed down and after a bit more research think that I can identify which Union and Sesech units were in the area at the time), Amy Spain and many others thought that liberation had come. Unfortunately, from what I have read in the Union records, the main body of Federal troops remained outside the town because of flooded river crossings and so only dispatched a small detail to scout and retrieve supplies. The troops then returned and continued on into Florence (the site of a large prisoner of war camp which they were no doubt anxious to liberate) and to pursue retreating forces. Amy Spain had in the mean time declare that she was free and promptly took possession of many of the household goods of the Major, taking them to her own home and declaring that the fruits of slavery now belonged to the freed slaves. Unknown to her, Confederate troops had returned to the town and, to help establish "order," arrested her for her "crime." The
Harper's writer describes what happened next, though this is disputed by some.
Hanging of Amy Spain
Harper's Weekly
September 30, 1865, page 613
One of the martyrs of the cause which gave freedom to her race was that of a colored woman named Amy Spain, who was a resident of the town of Darlington, situated in a rich cotton-growing district of South Carolina. At the time a portion of the Union army occupied the town of Darlington she expressed her satisfaction by clasping her hands and exclaiming, "Bless the Lord the Yankees have come!" She could not restrain her emotions. The long night of darkness which had bound her in slavery was about to break away. It was impossible to repress the exuberance of her feelings; and although powerless to aid the advancing deliverers of her caste, or to injure her oppressors, the simple expression of satisfaction at the event sealed her doom. Amy Spain died in the cause of freedom. A section of Sherman's cavalry occupied the town, and without doing any damage passed through. Not an insult nor an unkind word was said to any of the women of that town. The men had, with guilty consciences, fled; but on their return, with their traditional chivalry, they seized upon poor Army, and ignominiously hung her to a sycamore-tree standing in front of the court-house, underneath which stood the block from which was monthly exhibited the slave chattels that were struck down by the auctioneer's hammer to the highest bidder.
Amy Spain heroically heard her sentence, and from her prison bars declared she was prepared to die. She defied her persecutors; and as she ascended the scaffold declared she was going to a place where she would receive a crown of glory. She was rudely interrupted by an oath from one of her executioners. To the eternal disgrace of Darlington her execution was acquiesced in and witnessed by most of the citizens of the town. Amy was launched into eternity, and the "chivalric Southern gentlemen" of Darlington had fully established their bravery by making war upon a defenseless African woman.
A sort of vindication/sermon letter-to the editor like the following is typical of those offering an apology for the execution of Spain:
Recently, The Fortress on Youtube produced a short video on Amy Spain:
Note that the following story in the issue of the
New Era details the Andersonville-like horrors at the POW camp known as the "Stockade" (officially the "Confederate States Military Prison at Florence") just a few miles away in Florence: "2,802 Union soldiers died there and most were buried in unmarked trenches in what would become the Florence National Cemetery after the war."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Stockade One can draw a line connecting the general system of enslavement to the treatment of POWs in Florence to the system of justice that condemned and executed Amy Spain and to the justifications, forgetting, and rewriting of the stories of all of those events by people such as Rev. Gamewell.
The historical truth is, of course, impossible to finally establish, but I think the story should be preserved.
According to all accounts, Amy Spain was executed and then buried wearing the clothes of Spain's daughters. Though she was supposedly executed by the Confederate soldiers as an example to the the enslaved... the spectacle of the scaffold to preserve the social order. Jim Crow began before the Civil War ended, and there was an attempt to erase her from history, just as her grave was left unmarked. Amy Spain, whose initials were those of her enslaver, revolted against her oppressors and proclaimed her liberty. She spoke of the aspirations of many and for that she got the noose in the central square of the beautiful village of Darlington. The Harper’s account concludes:
She sleeps quietly, with others of her race, near the beautiful village. No memorial marks her grave, but after-ages will remember this martyr of liberty. Her persecutors will pass away and be forgotten, but Amy Spain's name is now hallowed among the Africans, who, emancipated and free, dare, with the starry folds of the flag of the free floating over them, speak her name with holy reverence.
Poetry and Prose Selections from the Works of Ridgway George Rowley, 1868.
Amy Spain
(Amy Spain was a colored woman of Darlington, South Carolina, the center of a rich cotton growing district. At the time of the entrance of the Union army under Sherman into the town, this poor slave, unable to restrain her emotion, in the supreme joy of her heart involuntarily exclaimed: “Bless the Lord, the Yankees have come!” For this, and this alone, immediately after the troops had left, she was taken by the citizens of the town and hung to the limb of an old sycamore tree, which stood in front of the Court House. An auction block used in the monthly sale of “chattels”, served as a scaffold. From this Amy Spain was launched into eternity. She died in the firm spirit of a martyr, with a prayer up on her lips, which was rudely interrupted by the oaths of one of her executioners.)
Oh, stand old sycamore tree!
A long, long life to thee!
And ever keep from harm,
Neath thy sheltering arm,
That Hall of Justice free;
To teach proud Chivalry
That the name
And martyred fame
Of Amy Spain
Shall remain
Till trees shall cease to grow,
And streams of Justice flow.
Let birds above thee sing,
While maids beneath thee bring
Flowers sweet flowers of May,
Around thy limbs to lay;
Thus consecrate, of thee,
A shrine to liberty
That the name
And storied fame
Of Amy Spain
Shall remain
Till songs no more are heard
From maiden or from bird.
In the calm stilly night,
When the stars are shining bright,
Looking down with their eyes
From the mild blue skies,
Amy’s spirit then shall come
To the town of Darlington,
For the name
And quenchless fame
Of Amy Spain
Shall remain
As long as night shall be,
And stars shine brilliantly.
To the watchers of the dead,
To the weary in their bed,
Mid their dreams, and their sleep,
In the hour of midnight deep,
Shall be heard the voice of one,
“God bless them, they have come.”
So the name
And martyred fame
Of Amy Spain
Shall remain
On South Carolina’s shore,
Evermore! evermore!
Oft, that same block of wood
Fore thee in terror stood;
But now its fears are gone
Tis a mercy-seat alone,
Since, through eternity,
It gives thee liberty,
While thy name
And gloried fame
Oh, Amy Spain
Shall remain
A beacon of the past.
To the people of thy caste.
Thou poor old slave to die.
And neath the sod to lie!
Green be the grass that grows,
And lightly lay the snows
Upon the honored grave
Of a most loyal slave.
Yea! the name
And martyred fame
Of Amy Spain
Shall remain
In story and in song
As the ages roll along.
It is often noted by locals of the day that there were no Sycamore trees around the Court House (though there was a Darlington Oak (Quercus hemisphaerica) and other trees) often using this detail to cast doubt upon the accounts of Spain's execution.
The courthouse where Spain was executed was Darlington's second, it was soon destroyed by fire in 1866 and replaced by this similar third courthouse in 1870.
See also:
[Updated May 2021, September 2026]
