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The Finest Antebellum Mansion in the South

By Elton Camp

Windsor was near the banks of the Mississippi River 
Extreme luxury, size, beauty and comfort it did deliver
The manor was completed just before the Civil War 
It’s builder, Smith Daniell, couldn’t asked for more

Only a few weeks after his palatial home was complete
Its wealthy owner became ill and his own death did meet
His heirs were left a four-story house & a huge plantation
It depended on slave labor that was ruining the nation

Windsor had twenty-five rooms, each with a fireplace
And running water and inside baths the house did grace
A rare feature indeed:  that two dumbwaiters were found 
From floor-to-floor more easily to move the food around

A ballroom on the fourth floor had an observatory atop
The rigors of a civil war threatened to bring it to a stop
It came to be used by rebs and yanks, so it did survive
And the family who owned it managed to stay alive

The mansion become a social center for the entire state
Invited guests arrived early, partied and the stayed late
But, in 1890 to Windsor the greatest disaster then befell
A guest left a lighted cigar on the balcony and it then fell

After the fire, only the thirty-foot-high columns did stand
And an architectural treasure disappeared from the land
The magnificent ruins remind of the South’s glorious past
And that no civilization built on human suffering can last

If a glimpse into the way planters lived you wish to see,
Go only a few miles from Port Gibson and there it will be
The ruins will remind us of some ancient Grecian temple
But built at the expense of slaves kept uneducated & simple

For pictures of the mansion go to http://www.scribd.com/doc/57710764/The-Finest-
Antebellum-Mansion-in-the-South

The picture of the ruins was taken years ago by the noted
writer Eudora Welty of Jackson, Mississippi.  Some of the 
English faculty at my college actually knew Eudora and had
studied under her at various workshops.
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