When they saw the Buick station wagon pull to the curb, both “Mother” Banning and her daughter-in-law, “Luddy,” rose from the rocking chairs in which they had been sitting. Mother Banning folded her hands on her stomach. Luddy Banning clapped hers together, producing a sound like a pistol shot, and then, a moment later, a dignified, gray-haired black man in a gray cotton jacket appeared from inside the house.
“Ma’am?”
“Stanley, our guests have arrived,” Luddy Banning said. “Please inform the colonel, and send someone to take care of their car and luggage.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Mother Banning and Luddy Banning were the mother and the wife, respectively, of Colonel Edward J. Banning, USMC, who was both commanding officer of Marine Barracks, Charleston, and Adjunct Professor of Naval Science at his alma mater, officially the Military College of South Carolina, but far better known as the Citadel.
Colonel Banning was a graduate of the Citadel, (’26) as his father (’05), grandfather (’80), and great-grandfather (’55) had been. On April 12, 1861, Great-Grandfather Matthew Banning had stood where Mother and Luddy Banning now stood on the piazza and watched as the first shots of the War of the Secession were fired on Fort Sumter.
He had then gone off as a twenty-five-year-old major to command the 2nd Squadron of the 2nd South Carolina Dragoons. When released from Union captivity in 1865, the conditions of his release required him to swear fealty to the United States of America, and to remove the insignia of a major general from his gray Confederate uniform. For the rest of his life, however, he was addressed as General Banning, and referred to by his friends as “The General.”
Grandfather Matthew Banning, Jr., had answered the call of his friend Theodore Roosevelt and gone off to the Spanish American War as a major with the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry. Family legend held that Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Banning had been one of the only two First Volunteer Cavalry officers actually to be astride a horse during the charge up Kettle and San Juan Hills. There was a large oil painting of that engagement in the living room of the house on the Battery, showing Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Banning and Colonel Theodore Roosevelt leading the charge. For the rest of his life, he was addressed as Colonel and referred to by his friends as “The Colonel.”
Matthew Banning III elected to accept a commission in the Cavalry of the Regular Army of the United States on his graduation from the Citadel in June 1905, the alternative being going to work for his father in one or another of the Banning family businesses. He had been a first lieutenant for twelve years when the United States entered World War I in 1917. When the Armistice was signed the next year, the silver eagles of a full colonel of the Tank Corps were on the epaulets of his tunic, and a Silver Star and two Purple Hearts were on the chest.
With The Colonel still running the family businesses, Colonel Banning III remained in service after the war, even though it meant accepting a reduction from colonel to major. By 1926, he had been repromoted to colonel, and on the parade ground at the Citadel had sworn his son, Edward J. Banning, into the United States Marine Corps as a second lieutenant upon his graduation from the Citadel.
Like his father before him, Matthew Banning III had been addressed as Colonel for the rest of his life, and referred to by his friends as “The Colonel.”
The Colonel lived long enough (1946) to see his first grandson, and his son—with the eagles of a Marine colonel on his epaulets—assigned as a Professor of Military Science at the Citadel.
For a while, the likelihood of either thing happening had seemed remote. For one thing, Edward Banning had not married as the next step after graduating from the Citadel, as had all his antecedents.
He was thirty-six, a captain serving with the 4th Marines in Shanghai, before he marched to the altar, and that only days before he went to the Philippines with the 4th Marines, leaving his White Russian bride in Shanghai at the mercy—if that word applied at all—of the Japanese.
Captain Banning was blinded by Japanese artillery in the Philippines and evacuated by submarine. His sight returned, and he was given duties he would not talk about, but which The Colonel understood meant Intelligence with a capital I.
Once, on the piazza of the house on the Battery, just before he went—for the