Woman of the Century/Sarah L. Twiggs

TWIGGS, Mrs. Sarah L., poet, born in Barnwell county, S. C., 29th March, 1839. Her life from earliest infancy to womanhood was passed in one of the beautiful southern homesteads that lie along the Savannah river border, near Augusta. Ga. SARAH L. TWIGGS. Her great-grandfather, Gen. John Twiggs, figured as one of the Revolutionary heroes. Her ancestors were Swedish Norsemen. The first of the name came to this country in company with Gen. Oglethorpe, bearing a large grant of land from George III. Gen. David E. Twiggs, of Mexican War fame, was hergreat-uncle, and she is a sister of Judge H. D. D. Twiggs, the distinguished Georgia barrister. Her father was a successful southern punter, who cared more for blooded horses and well-trained pointers than for literary pursuits. Her literary tastes were inherited from her mother, who was a woman of ability and culture. She is the only daughter in a family of five children. From a life of southern ease and affluence, on which were built the airy castles of a poetic temperament, she was awakened by the rude shock of war, in which her fortunes sank. Then followed the sorrow of an unhappy marriage and a succession of sad family bereavements. In 1885 she found herself, with two small children, in the national capital. There she succeeded in achieving a comfortable independence. The sterner phases of her altered life closed for her, in a measure, the literary avenues which were more in accordance with her taste, yet out of the shadow she occasionally sent flashes of a lamp not wholly extinguished. One of her poems, "Nostri Mortui," and several idyls, which appeared in southern journals, elicited flattering mention. She is now writing a book, which will be published in the near future.