The Finest Antebellum Mansion in the South

Its magnificient ruins are all that remain.

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