Symposium 2006 - Wade Hampton III

Briefly... Wade Hampton III was influenced by his grandfather Wade I during his early years. He learned how to ride a pony at age four. Wade III loved to hunt and fish, was physically strong and especially adept with a pistol and knife. In 1832 he entered South Carolina College at age 14. When Wade I died in 1835, he left his revolutionary sword to Wade III. After graduation from college, Wade read law, but never practiced. His Aunt Caroline and her husband, Colonel John Preston, returned from Virginia to reside in the Columbia Hampton Town House. In 1838 Wade married Colonel Preston’s sister Margaret. Wade bought three plantations in the next few years including Wildwoods in Washington County, Mississippi. He traveled frequently to England with the Prestons. His wife Margaret died in 1852 at age 34 of unknown cause. Wade III was elected to the South Carolina legislature in 1855. In 1855, he purchased 14.5 acres in Cashiers Valley for $72.00 and built a large hunting lodge. In 1858 his father Wade II died. Shortly after settling his father’s accounts, he married Mary Singleton McDuffie. He inherited Walnut Ridge with 2,500 acres in Mississippi. He expanded his holdings in Mississippi owning over 10,000 acres in five plantations. Wade was elected to the South Carolina Senate in 1858 and served until 1861. Opposed to slavery as an institution, he also opposed secession and was termed a Union Democrat. Brother Frank Hampton was in charge of the old Woodlands Plantation. By February of 1861 Wade had been made a colonel and formed Hampton’s Legion of 1,000 men.

Children: Wade Hampton II (m. Ann Fitzsimons) Caroline Hampton (m. John S. Preston) Mary Hampton (m. Thomas Player) Susan Hampton (m. John L. Manning) Frank Hampton Harriet Hampton Louise Hampton Alfred Hampton

Family moved to Spartanburg Co., South Carolina in 1774. In June 1776, both parents and brother Preston were massacred by Indians and Tones. (Afterwards a great slaughter of the Cherokees by the five Hampton brothers, Pickens and Sumter). Wade had always loved horses and traded and raced stallions.

1777 - Wade promoted to Captain; bought 150 acre plantation on the Broad River in Fairfield County. Later bought three other plantations and sold grain to the Army. Developed a lucrative trading business with brother Richard at Granby.

1780 - Joined General Thomas Sumter. Taken prisoner by Tarleton at Fishing Creek. Later in 1781 escaped and rejoined Sumter. Promoted to Lt. Colonel.

1782 - Married Martha Howell who had inherited a 550 acre plantation. Wade made it his headquarters. (She died in 1784.)

1786 - Columbia became the new State Capital. Married to Harriet Flud (met at the Jockey Club ball). Built plantation Woodlands in Richland County.

1791 - Wade II born. President Washington visited Columbia. Wade became the first to plant cotton in the Midlands.

1794 - Harriet died. Wade took sides with the Jeffersonians vs. the Federalists.

1795 - Elected to U.S. Congress. "Yazoo Scandal". Wade bought 550,000 acres in north Mississippi.

1803 - Elected again to Congress. Won Silver Cup at the Washington Jockey Club race.

1808 - Moved to Charleston for one year to command the military districts there.

1809 - Promoted to General and sent to New Orleans. Bought two new plantations in Mississippi and Louisiana (Houmas).

1813 - Wade promoted to Major General (War of 1812) and put in charge efforts in Charleston Harbor. Later ordered to Lake Champlain. Conflict with General Wilkinson. Wade became a large contributor to Trinity Episcopal Church in 1812.

1814 - Wade went to Louisiana to establish Houmas and concentrate on sugar in Louisiana rather than cotton in Mississippi.

1827 - Wade and Mary to White Sulfur Springs, Virginia. General Hampton considered the wealthiest man in the South and in U.S. at death in 1835, age 83. Owned over 1,000 slaves. John and Caroline Preston moved to the Columbia townhouse better known as Hampton-Preston Mansion. Later moved to Houmas in 1840.

Children: Wade Hampton III (m. Margaret Preston, Mary Singleton McDuffie) Christopher F. ("Kit") Hampton (m. Mary E. McCord) Harriet Hampton Catherine P. Hampton Ann M. Hampton Caroline L. Hampton Frank Hampton (m. Sally Baxter) Mary Fisher Hampton

Wade II lived in the antebellum period of the Old South when great wealth created a planter aristocracy. He was a gentleman, a superb horseman, and hunter, and a renowned agriculturist and turfman. He learned the art of politics from his father and many of the nation's leaders were entertained at Woodlands.

1809 - Left college to handle some of the plantation business with his father's factor, Christopher Fitzsimons from Charleston.

1815 - Volunteered his services to General Andrew Jackson in the Battle of New Orleans vs. the British. Captain Hampton ordered by Jackson to take the victory news to President Madison. Rode one horse 750 miles in 10 days.

1817 - Attended horse races in Charleston and was attracted to Ann Fitzsimons and later married that year. Wade I gave Wade II the Mill Tract across from Woodlands and built Millwood.

1820 - Wade II bought a plantation, Walnut Ridge, 2,500 acres in Issaqueena County, Mississippi, near the Mississippi River.

Wade II served as aide to Governor Manning and was elected to the South Carolina senate. Promoted to Colonel.

1829 - Revived the Columbia Jockey Club along with Colonel Richard Singleton. Wade and Ann went to the White Sulfur Springs in Virginia with the Singletons. (Sister Caroline met John Preston there and married him in 1830.

1835 - Wade I died. Wade II took the Carolina plantations, and mother Mary H. Cantey and sisters Caroline H. Preston and Susan Hampton inherited Houmas in Louisiana. Wade gave more attention to the stables and bought many horses (Argyle, Monarch), especially from Hampton Court.

1838 - Colonel Hampton and Colonel Singleton introduced the Greek Revival style to White Sulfur Springs, Virginia. The Colonnade Complex. Wade II excelled in bird and deer hunting. Also experimented with fertilizers and crop rotation at Woodlands. The first to diversify crops. The Millwood-Woodlands complex was a model plantation.

1839 - Invested heavily in railroads (LC & C). Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun visited frequently at Millwood. (Most of South Carolina's Governors were chosen at Millwood's dinner table.)

1840 - Wade had become the most extensive breeder of thoroughbred horses in South Carolina.

1846 -Trinity Church renovated to Gothic style. The Hamptons contributed greatly.

1850's - National debate on slavery and secession. The Hamptons favored Union though, they were the largest slaveholders in the South (3000).

Colonel Hampton's vast expenditures were catching up with him. The plantations were heavily mortgaged, etc. Died in 1858 in Mississippi with debts of $500,000.

Wade III was "born to the manor" and like his father was the epitome of the Southern gentleman and even surpassed him as an equestrian, sportsman, and military and political leader.

He opposed the institution of slavery (even though he and his family owned more slaves than anyone else in the South). He opposed secession yet he became a great Confederate leader. He led his state out of Reconstruction as Governor, and back into the Union as Senator. He was the most revered man in the history of South Carolina and yet he died an old man in near poverty.

Wade learned how to ride a pony at age four. (Doting grandfather Wade I taught him). He became a superb rider. There was no horse he could not conquer. He was said to be the finest rider in America.

Wade entered the freshman class at South Carolina College at age 14. His father taught him how to hunt and fish. He became an expert shot. When Wade I died in 1835, he left his Revolutionary sword to Wade III.

His Aunt Caroline and her husband. Colonel John Preston returned from Virginia to reside in the Hampton Town House in Columbia and there began a lifetime relationship between Wade and John Preston.

1838 - Wade married Colonel Preston's sister Margaret. After graduation from college. Wade read law, but never practiced. Wade bought three plantations in Mississippi (Wild-wood, Bayou Place and Richland). He later bought land in Cashiers in 1845.

Wade traveled to England with the Prestons and later invited a group of titled Englishmen to Wildwoods for a visit. (No one could equal Wade with a gun or on a horse.)

1852 - Wife Margaret died at age 34 of unknown cause. Wade III elected to South Carolina legislature.

1853 - Wade expanded his holdings in Mississippi and owned 10,000 acres in five plantations. (40-50% of the slaves died of malaria.)

1855 - Wade purchased 700 acres from Col. John Zachary in Cashiers, North Carolina, now High Hampton Inn. (See documentation in Jane Nardy's paper.)^[1]

1858 - Married Mary Singleton McDuffie. Father Wade II died. Wade III inherited Walnut Ridge. Wade elected to South Carolina Senate. Opposed slavery as an institution. Also opposed secession and was termed a Union Democrat. Wade began building a new mansion called Diamond Hill. (Later the finest private library in the South.)

Brother Frank Hampton was in charge of the old Woodlands Plantation. Frank was also a great horseman.

1860 - The Hamptons were moderates and opposed secession. South Carolina voted to secede in December 1860 in Charleston.

1861 - Six other states seceded and the Confederacy formed in Montgomery in February. President Jefferson Davis sent General PGT Beauregard to command the troops at Charleston (former Governor John Manning (Col.), Colonel John S. Preston, Wade Hampton IV and General Gonzales.) Frank Hampton's cavalry company was called to defend the coast. On April 13^th, Major Anderson was asked to evacuate Fort Sumter and when he refused, Beauregard fired his cannon and the next day, Anderson surrendered.

Wade, who was made Colonel by President Davis, forms Hampton's Legion of 1,000 men. Arrived in Richmond, July 4, 1861 attached to General Joseph E. Johnston's Army.

Mississippi (Wild-wood, Bayou Place and Richland). He later bought land in Cashiers in 1845.

Wade traveled to England with the Prestons and later invited a group of titled Englishmen to Wildwoods for a visit. (No one could equal Wade with a gun or on a horse.)

1852 - Wife Margaret died at age 34 of unknown cause. Wade III elected to South Carolina legislature.

1853 - Wade expanded his holdings in Mississippi and owned 10,000 acres in five plantations. (40-50% of the slaves died of malaria.)

1858 - Married Mary Singleton McDuffie. Father Wade II died. Wade III inherited Walnut Ridge.

Wade elected to South Carolina Senate. Opposed slavery as an institution. Also opposed secession and was termed a Union Democrat. Wade began building a new mansion called Diamond Hill. (Later the finest private library in the South.)

Brother Frank Hampton was in charge of the old Woodlands Plantation. Frank was also a great horseman.

1860 - The Hamptons were moderates and opposed secession. South Carolina voted to secede in December 1860 in Charleston.

Wade, who was made Colonel by President Davis, forms Hampton's Legion of 1,000 men. Arrived in Richmond, July 4, 1861 attached to General Joseph E. Johnston's Army.

July 21 - Battle of First Manassas. Wade wounded. Both Wade's sons, Wade IV and Preston were privates in the Legion.

May -Wade promoted to Brigadier General. Later wounded at Battle of Seven Pines.

June - Seven Days Battle; Army of Northern Virginia reorganized. J.E.B. Stuart was in command of all cavalry with Wade as his Senior Brigadier. Wade formed the 2^nd South Carolina Cavalry Brigade. (Conflict with J.E.B. Stuart.)

1864 January - Sally, Wade's daughter engaged to Colonel John Haskell, an artillery commander.

March - Battle of the Wilderness. Hampton and Fitzhugh Lee stopped Sheridan and Custer. J.E.B. Stuart was killed. Wade wounded in six places.

October - Burgess Mill. Grant attacked. Preston Hampton was killed and Wade IV was shot in the back as he leaned over his brother, but recovered.

December - The war in the South was a lost cause. Sherman was poised in Savannah to strike at South Carolina.

1865 February 17 - Sherman burns Columbia. (Controversy over burning of cotton. Three Hampton family mansions

1866 - 14^th Amendment passed by Congress. (Wade endorsed Negro suffrage but advocated educational qualifications for all voters.)

1867 - Reconstruction Act passed by Congress. Divided the South into military districts and liquidated the state governments. Scalawags and Carpetbaggers. The Negro militia made up of former slaves, was most galling of all to whites. Reconstruction was characterized by eight years of crime and corruption.

1868 - Wade was a delegate to the Democratic National convention in New York City. (Grant was elected later.) Wade refused to join the Ku Klux Klan and pleaded for conciliation between the North and the South. Wade filed for bankruptcy in Jackson, Mississippi in December 1868 after developing a huge debt in his Mississippi plantations.

1869 - Wade founded the Southern Life Insurance Company in Atlanta along with General John B. Gordon and Benjamin H. Hill. Jefferson Davis became the president of the company.

1876 - Wade was nominated to run for governor. Democratic supporters wore red shirts. The election was the most exciting race in South Carolina history.

Wade won by 1,100 votes. The incumbent Governor Chamberlain refused to vacate the State House. The Hunky Dory Club clashed with the Red Shirts but Wade made a great speech, pleading for peace and to avoid bloodshed. Finally, after four months, President Rutherford B. Hayes intervened. Governor Chamberlain was forced to leave and Federal troops were withdrawn. Reconstruction was over at last in April 1877 and Wade became the most revered man in South Carolina history.

As Governor, Wade's top aides included M.C. Butler, Johnson Hagood, and Joseph Kerslaw. All had been Confederate generals. Wade attributed his victory to 17,000 Negro voters, and as promised, appointed over 80 blacks to office.

1878 - November 6 - Wade won re-election easily. The next day, he went on a deer hunt but fell and sustained a compound fracture of the ankle in two places. He developed severe pain and high fever and was critically ill. After below knee amputation he recovered dramatically.

December - The legislature elected Wade U.S. Senator to take office March 1879. Served for 12 years.

1881 - Sherman rekindled the old feud by accusing Wade of being connected with the KKK.

1890 - Wade's niece Caroline, 39, married the noted surgeon Dr. William S. Halsted of Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. (Caroline had studied nursing in New York City and had become head surgical nurse at Hopkins under Halsted. He designed for her the first pair of rubber gloves worn in an operating room.) The Halsteds honeymooned in Cashiers Valley and he liked it so much that he later bought the property from her aunts.

1889-90 - Opposition to the Hampton regime began to rise among small farmers. "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman, the leader of the Rednecks, was elected governor over Wade's candidate. The "Farmer's Legislature" refused to elect Wade to another term as Senator. A by-product of the Tillman election was the arrival in Columbia of N.G. Gonzales, formerly editor of the Charleston News and Courier, to launch The State newspapers in Columbia to fight Tillman and his policies.

1893 - Wade appointed Railroad Commissioner by President Grover Cleveland and went on a transcontinental trip in a private railroad car. Later became a director of two railroads.

1895 - Frank Hampton Jr., age 39, married Gertrude Gonzales, sister of The State editor N.G. Gonzales and daughter of General Ambrosio Jose Gonzales.

Tillman tried to deny Negro suffrage. The State commended Wade Hampton for his moderate stand on the Negro question.

1899 - Southern Cross and the house at Millwood were burned by arsonists. Only his Civil War swords and family silver were saved. The people of Columbia raised funds throughout the state to build a residence for him at the corner of Barnwell and Senate streets.

1901-2 - Wade became more ill and Dr. Watt Taylor diagnosed a "heart condition complicated by old age". The children and sisters gathered at his bedside and he spoke his final words "God bless all my people, black and white".

1902 - Wade died on April 11, 1902 exactly 25 years to the day after he became governor. Over 20,000 people lined the streets at his funeral, said to be the largest in South Carolina.

Wade left all of his real estate in South Carolina to his daughter Daisy, who had been his caretaker. Son McDuffie received three silver racing cups and the remainder of his silver was divided among the three children.

Parks, schools, buildings, roads, (and children especially) have been named in honor of Wade III. He is the subject of numerous biographies and his statue in the U.S. Capitol occupies one of two niches allotted to South Carolina. (The other is John C. Calhoun.) His equestrian statue is on the State House grounds in Columbia.

1903 - N.G. Gonzales, editor of The State, was shot down in the street by Lt. Governor James Tillman, gubernatorial candidate and nephew of Senator Ben Tillman. (Tillman was later acquitted.)

1916 - Miss Kate Hampton died in 1916 at age 92. She left the Millwood homestead to her great nephew Frank Hampton III and to her niece Caroline Hampton Halsted. Also, she left 150 acres adjoining Millwood to the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Cashiers, North Carolina.

The controlling interest in The State was acquired during the years by the Hampton family.

The Hampton-Preston mansion was restored in the 1960's by Historic Columbia Foundation. Houmas House in Louisiana is now a museum.

Five columns still stand at Millwood. Now crumbled and covered with vines, they serve as a ghostly reminder of those towering figures in South Carolina history, the three Wade Hamptons.

2. Battle of First Manassas, July 1861. Bullet grazed his scalp resulting in a slight wound, but he had the wound bandaged and resumed command.

3. Battle of the Seven Pines, May 1862. Severely wounded but refused to leave the field. While Hampton sat on his horse during heavy fire, a surgeon extracted a ball from his foot. His boot was put on his wounded foot and he returned to battle. The next day the boot had to be cut away as the foot had become very swollen and inflamed. He was sent home to Columbia on crutches but returned in less than a month.

4. Gettysburg, July 2, 1863. A bullet grazed his chest but he received a saber wound in the scalp. The gash was plastered shut and he remained on duty. The next day he received two saber cuts on his head, which opened the prior wound and left a long gaping wound. A plaster was put on the head wound and he continued in battle until a piece of shrapnel penetrated his right hip so that he was unable to ride. It took him several months to recuperate before he returned to duty in November.

5. November 1878. Fall while hunting resulted in compound fracture of the right leg. Developed infection and an amputation was required one month later.

1] Jane Gibson Nardy; Wade Hampton III in Cashiers, Wade Hampton Symposium

In the course of my research on Wade Hampton, I discovered some facts that challenge our conventional view of the man, as well as facets of his character that had simply been neglected. Today I would like to point out a few of these discoveries - things that you may not know about Wade Hampton.

The first is that he was a secessionist in 1860. This will not come as a surprise to those familiar with the political climate in South Carolina in that critical year. The legend was that Hampton opposed secession, but stood loyally by his state. That describes Robert E. Lee, and a tiny minority of South Carolinians, but certainly not Hampton. It is true that, for at least a decade, Hampton had been known as a conservative, opposing what he called the “ultra party,” those pioneer proponents of disunionism. He took a strong stand against secession at mid-century, when his state first considered that course. Yet even then Hampton, along with virtually all South Carolinians, believed in the right of a state to secede - that having entered the Union of her own free will, South Carolina should be able to leave in the same manner.

Hampton spoke out in 1859 against reopening the foreign slave trade, was himself a benevolent and paternalistic slave master, but he did not question the morality of the institution. (And before we pass judgment on Southerners of Hampton’s generation, we ought to remind ourselves of slavery’s long history - that it existed in every ancient civilization, was regulated in Old Testament days, tolerated by the New Testament church, defended by philosophers, practiced by America’s Founding Fathers, and legal in all thirteen original colonies.) Margaret Coit, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of John C. Calhoun, described the dilemma then faced by Southerners.

Hampton was alarmed by the rise of the abolitionist movement in the North and horrified at its hostile spirit, concluding that unless it were suppressed, “I do not see how the Union can be or should be preserved.” The triumph of Republican Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 election was seen by Hampton - and nearly everyone else in the Palmetto State - as a precursor of revolution, a virtual repeal of the Constitution. No longer would the Federal government be neutral on the issue of slavery, and South Carolinians were unwilling to await an overt act of aggression by their avowed enemies. In October he said that if Lincoln were elected, the state should call a secession convention. On November 24 nearly a month prior to South Carolina’s officially leaving the Union - Hampton made his position abundantly clear by joining the Columbia chapter of the Minute Men for the Defense of Southern Rights, a semi-secret, paramilitary group dedicated to the state’s immediate and unilateral secession. The press reported him as declaring then that “it was time for the State to move - for us to go out of the Union; and he pledged his life, his fortune, and his honor to stand by her and maintain her rights.” Thus Hampton was very much in the political mainstream in the fall of 1860 - regretting that secession had become necessary, but taking that stand determined and unafraid.

During the post-war years Hampton diplomatically distanced himself from South Carolina’s original disunionists, emphasizing his own reluctance to embrace secession. Whether to bolster his credibility with Northerners, or to promote sectional reconciliation, in this matter he often conveyed more tact than candor. As the decades passed, fading memory and wishful thinking - on the part too of men like Matthew Butler, Edward Wells, and Benjamin Perry - fostered a faulty understanding of the secession movement and Hampton’s place in it. Even the notion that Hampton had pre-war doubts about slavery can be traced to nothing more reliable than the words of a grandson, spoken in 1929.

Hampton accepted the verdict of battle and became again a loyal American, serving his state and nation as United States Senator, and later Railroad Commissioner by presidential appointment. Still, in a sense he forever remained “a citizen of two countries.” Confederates, said Hampton, “were inspired by as just a cause as ever fired the hearts or nerved the arms of patriots.” Though the fight for Southern independence had ended in defeat, he warned against the assumption that might makes right. “The sword has never, nor will it ever, decide a principle or establish a truth,” he reminded fellow veterans. “A noble cause, upheld heroically by honor, courage and patriotism, may die along with its supporters. A great truth never dies.” When Hampton spoke on Confederate Memorial Day 1892, even those who in former days had been the most reluctant to abandon the Union might now recognize his sentiments as their own:

It is generally conceded that Hampton was ahead of his time on the question of civil rights. But you may not realize that his Red Shirt campaign ousted the corrupt Reconstruction regime with the active support of many blacks. For a decade prior to the pivotal election of 1876, Hampton had advocated suffrage without regard to race, though he did want a literacy and small property-owning requirement applied to all. During his campaign for governor that year he sought the support of African-Americans everywhere he spoke, and winning them over became his passion. A significant number of black voters, genuinely concerned about restoring good government to their state, were willing to listen to his message and consider change. Some former Hampton slaves endorsed his candidacy. “You have, ever since emancipation, been slaves to your political masters,” he told blacks at one rally. “In coming to us, you are only coming to your own people. You do not desert your true friends, but you are coming to them.” African-American Red Shirts campaigned for Hampton in Columbia, Charleston, Abbeville, Sumter, Florence, Walhalla, and many other locations; despite threats and violence directed against them by Radicals. Considering the dangers they faced, arguably the most courageous men in South Carolina that year were those blacks who broke ranks to publicly support Hampton. There were Democratic campaign clubs made up of African-American voters organized across the state. Black musical bands and choral groups serenaded at his rallies. The “mounted black cadre,” recruited from black Confederate veterans, accompanied the candidate to campaign stops. On the eve of the election, Hampton predicted that “we will owe this victory in great part to the colored man.” Out of 182,707 votes cast, Hampton received about 10,000 from blacks. He won the election by a margin of 1,134.

Backed by Federal bayonets, literally barricaded in the State House, the Republican incumbent refused to concede defeat. The political maneuvering that followed climaxed one of the most dramatic stories in American history, as Hampton’s legendary leadership finally ensured victory without violence. Once in office, his administration was evenhanded, economical, and honest. He was applauded by black leaders, even Congressman Robert Smalls of Beaufort speaking of the “just and liberal course of the Governor which had recommended him to the confidence of the people.” Hampton spoke plainly to African-Americans. “You must stand on your own footing … We propose to protect you and give you all your rights; but while we do this you cannot expect that we should discriminate in your favor.” And he sternly warned white Democrats against turning their backs on black voters by denying them a voice in the party or by resorting to electoral fraud to retain power. Should such a betrayal occur, or should they imagine he might acquiesce in it, “then I am sadly mistaken in the people of South Carolina and the people are mistaken in me,” said Hampton, “because I can carry out no such policy as that. I stand where you put me in 1876. I have not deviated one iota.” In 1878 he was returned to office without opposition, the election that year more a triumphant procession than a political campaign. It was not the fault of Hampton that in years to come his would be “the road not taken.”

I was surprised to learn what a witty character Hampton could be! Let me give a few examples.

In early 1857 the widower Hampton was courting Mary McDuffie, daughter of the late Sen. George McDuffie. Apparently things were not going well, for on Valentine’s Day he wrote her a poem that speaks little of romance, but more than hints at a rocky relationship.

On a hot June morning in 1862, toward the end of his furlough after being wounded at the battle of Seven Pines, Hampton and James Chesnut, Jr., attended worship services together in Columbia. Sitting in the pew in front of them was a young girl wearing gold earrings shaped like tiny ladders. During the service Hampton improvised and jotted down a doggerel composition. (And you thought only teenagers wrote notes in church!)

In October 1876 Hampton and James Conner were riding side-by-side on horseback in a campaign procession through one town. Conner observed that the candidate “was in capital spirits, enjoying the whole thing and keeping up a running fire of comment on every thing.” Hampton recounted that at a recent rally “a very pretty woman wishing to tell him the time, pulled her watch from her breast and said, ‘Oh, my watch has stopped!’ ‘That is very natural,’ replied the general, ‘for I am sure had I been in the watch’s place, I would have stopped too.’”

Once, in old age, a cavalry veteran asked Hampton how many Yankees he had personally dispatched in hand-to-hand combat during the war. The old man remembered eleven, “two with my sword and nine with my pistol.”

“How about the two at Trevilian Station?” he replied, trying to jog the old soldier’s memory.

Finally, you may not know, but it is important to understand, that Hampton was a man of religious faith -- a firm Christian believer. Even before he entered middle age, Hampton had become the man to whom his extended family turned for spiritual encouragement and support. Though seriously wounded on three occasions during the war, in letters home Hampton consistently gave God the thanks and credit for sparing his life. In the spring of 1865 Confederate defeat was imminent, though Hampton continued to command his men in the field, and faced death daily. In the midst of his troubles and responsibilities he received a letter from Mary Fisher Hampton, his youngest sister, expressing fears for his safety. On March 31st he took time from his duties to answer her in an extraordinary letter.

Hampton’s faith was tested many times, and grew stronger. Let me mention just two incidents that further illustrate his spiritual journey.

In November 1878, two days after his re-election as governor, he shattered his right leg in a hunting accident. The injury did not get well, infection spread, and finally the leg had to be amputated. For days he was near death, indifferent to whether he lived or died. Prayers went up from across the state, in homes and churches, around the clock, for his recovery. Hampton related afterwards that at his lowest point he had a vivid dream - a vision - during which “a grave personage” told him of those prayers and urged him to make an effort to live. “I never realized anything like it before,” he said, describing the experience with deep emotion in his voice. “I woke the next morning feeling the life blood creeping through my veins, and I told my family the crisis was passed and I would get better.” Hampton could only conclude that God had more for him to do, some duties yet to perform.

Hampton learned also to be content in every condition. Before the war he had been one of the wealthiest men in the South, owning by his own estimation some 900 slaves and 12,000 acres in three states. Sherman’s devastation, the emancipation of his work force, and huge debts eventually led to bankruptcy; reducing him to very modest means. In 1899, at the age of eighty-one, Hampton had but a humble cottage on the outskirts of Columbia. One May morning that year he awoke to see what he thought at first was light from the morning sun under the door of his room, only to realize that the house was on fire. He and daughter Daisy escaped, but his home and most of his personal possessions were lost. The next morning a reporter from the State newspaper found him by the ruins “chatting pleasantly,” and observed that the old man’s mustache, eyebrows, and hair had been burned in a futile attempt to save a puppy from the flames. “Well, I have had many hard knocks in my life,” Hampton told the newsman, “and I do not know any one better able to stand it than I am.” Friends were of course concerned about him. “I have saved some clothes, my gun, and fishing tackle,” he told one. “If I had only saved my tent, I would be all right.” Though he was reluctant to accept charity, the people of South Carolina rallied to his aid, quickly raising funds to buy a comfortable home in Columbia, near his church, where Hampton spent the remaining years of his life.

In conclusion, let me remind you of Hampton’s triumphant cause. That was, in his words, the “political contest of '76 in my judgment the most memorable ever waged on this continent, for home rule, for personal liberty and States’ rights,” concluding that “nothing can ever deprive me of the honest pride I feel that I contributed, in part, to the glorious victory won then by the people of my State.” No other South Carolinian possessed the temperament, wisdom, and moral authority essential to direct such a crusade. Leading his people out of Reconstruction was - in my opinion - Wade Hampton’s providential purpose, and certainly his greatest achievement.

In war, as in romance, opposites often attract. A case in point is the Civil War relationship of Wade Hampton and his immediate superior, General James Ewell Brown Stuart, commander of the cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia. The two men were opposites in many respects--age, physique, personality, prewar background, military attitudes, and leadership style. Even so, from July 1862 (when Hampton joined the Cavalry Division, A.N.V.) until May 1864 (when Stuart was mortally wounded in battle), they complemented each other to a remarkable degree.

Both men were so well equipped to lead—so effective in directing and inspiring their troops—that a debate continues to rage: which was the abler strategist and tactician? Which made better use of finite resources? Which inspired greater respect and confidence among officers and troopers? And which more closely fit the image of the quintessential Confederate cavalry leader?

While most of those questions remain unanswered (perhaps they’re unanswerable), many students of the Army of Northern Virginia would claim the latter distinction for Stuart, who has come down to us as the “Last Cavalier,” the “Knight-Errant of the Confederacy,” the embodiment of Southern chivalry.

Stuart worked hard to fit the cavalier image. He was born in 1833 into a respectable but unprosperous family in Patrick County, Virginia. He was graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1854, ranking 13th in his 46-man class. Upon graduation, he was posted to the army’s single regiment of mounted riflemen, and later to the 1st United Sates Cavalry. With the 1st Cavalry he took part in several engagements on the western frontier. During one, against the Sioux in the Kansas Territory, he was severely wounded.

Fighting on horseback against Native Americans--the finest light cavalry this country ever produced—was usually a losing proposition. Stuart, however, took his cue from his regimental commander, Colonel Edwin Sumner, who believed that a mounted attack could succeed even against Indians—and proved it more than once. Early on, Stuart took note of the shock value of the mounted charge –a product of the unstoppable momentum of horsemen riding knee-to-knee, sabers and pistols upraised—a tactic that could defeat an enemy psychologically as well as physically. He came to believe that mounted troops were only effective when used as an offensive weapon—not to take and hold ground, but to overthrow and demoralize a less mobile, less enterprising opponent.

The mounted attack helped fill a need in Stuart. He always professed (no doubt sincerely) that he abhorred the violence and bloodshed of war. But from his earliest days, he was enamored of the color and glamour of soldiering. For this reason he came to rely on what we might regard as “props”— gaudy affectations such as golden spurs, crimson-lined capes, ostrich-plumed hats, and personal banjoists playing songs like “Jine the Cavalry.” Stuart was also attracted to the thrill of battle, a thrill enhanced by the pulse-quickening evolutions of the saber charge.

He brought that mindset to his civil war service. As a loyal son of Virginia, he resigned his United States army commission in May 1861 and offered his services to his state. He was sent to Harpers Ferry to organize, and later to command, the 1st Virginia Cavalry. In mid-July he led his regiment, along with the rest of General Joseph Johnston’s Army of the Shenandoah, to augment Confederate forces in northeastern Virginia.

During the first major battle of the conflict, First Bull Run (or First Manassas), Lieutenant Colonel Stuart led a detachment of his regiment in a hell-for-leather charge that routed Union troops attempting to outflank the infantry brigade of Thomas Jonathan (“Stonewall”) Jackson. The action, which secured Jackson’s position on Henry House Hill, was one of the turning points of the battle, which ended in the enemy’s retreat to the defenses of Washington, D. C.

Stuart’s feat helped him win promotion to colonel and then to brigadier general in command of all the cavalry in Johnston’s army. By the autumn of 1861, he led four regiments of Virginia and North Carolina horsemen, supported by the Stuart Horse Artillery, the most famous horse artillery unit of the war—eventually comprising five batteries under the celebrated Major John Pelham.

Stuart’s fame soared in a series of triumphant engagements along the “Alexandria Line,” south and west of Washington. His good fortune was to be opposed by less talented and energetic commanders, whose inexperienced troopers—erstwhile mechanics and store clerks—proved no match for Stuart’s troopers, most of whom had been born to the saddle and had a long working knowledge of firearms.

Not surprisingly, for the first two years of the war, the Confederate cavalry in Virginia consistently outperformed—and often embarrassed—its adversary. Union officials, including the commander of the Army of the Potomac, Major General George McClellan, began to fear that their horsemen would never stand up to those led by the general who was already becoming known, on both sides of the lines, as “the Beau Sabreur of the Confederacy.”

Stuart was adept not only in combat but also at reconnaissance. He proved as much during the Peninsula Campaign of spring/summer 1862, when he led his brigade on a circuit of McClellan’s army astride the Chickahominy River. The daring feat enabled Stuart to bring Robert E. Lee (Joe Johnston’s successor) critical intelligence about the enemy’s position south of Richmond. In turn, Lee was enabled to attack and drive the invaders from the doorstep of the Confederate capital.

In the aftermath of the campaign, Lee reorganized his army. He realized that Stuart now had enough manpower (more than 5,000 officers and men) to give the army a second brigade of cavalry. Stuart would command the resulting division with the rank of major general. One brigade would be entrusted to Stuart’s ranking subordinate and close friend, Brigadier General Fitzhugh Lee, nephew of the army commander. Robert E. Lee approved Fitz’s selection, but he reserved the right to appoint the commander of the other brigade. In the end he chose an officer not only unknown to Stuart, but also one lacking in cavalry experience—Wade Hampton III.

By this point in the war, Stuart’s reputation had been well established—so had his personality and his habits of command. In his dealings with others—superiors and subordinates alike—he was open, frank, and candid, neither egotistical nor pompous. He had a strong sense of humor--fond of playing jokes on others; he laughed just as loudly when the joke was on him. Such qualities endeared him to his troops--he won not only their respect and admiration but, in many cases, their affection.

Simple virtues—honor, honesty, loyalty, courtesy, devotion to cause and region—meant a great deal to him. He was a shrewd judge of people, and was capable of sober and mature reflection. Many who served under Stuart considered him businesslike, polished, and professional.

On the debit side—while he often acted in a mature, calculated manner, he could behave immaturely just as often. He had a kind of man-child quality that showed in his fondness for those colorful adornments I mentioned earlier. He was susceptible to the flattery of powerful men and to the charms of pretty women—the latter trait gained him a host of female admirers while no doubt upsetting his faithful and long-suffering wife, Flora. And although he had a guileless nature, in his reports of military operations he showed a chronic inability to admit failure—even the hint of failure—as if to suggest otherwise was to reveal a crippling weakness.

Stuart had a penchant for risk-taking, one shared by many of his officers but not necessarily by his enlisted force. He loved the thrill of slipping into and out of dangerous situations with little or no outside assistance. Often he set off on a mission with a minimum of men and guns, even when operating deep behind enemy lines. On more than a few occasions he placed his men needlessly in harm’s way. And his preference for horsemanship over marksmanship—his reliance on the mounted charge in almost every tactical situation—further exposed his command to potential damage.

Wade Hampton III was cut from different cloth. He was too old; too mature, to see war--as Stuart sometimes did--as a grand pageant, a genteel tournament, a defining test of manhood. Like many another Southerner, Hampton had grown up on the tales of Thomas Mallory and Walter Scott—but to him they were light fiction, not guides to right living.

At age 44, walking with a slight limp from a wound received in infantry service on the Peninsula, Hampton saw war for what it was—a grim and dirty business, to be won and done with as quickly as possible. It was true that he was a nonprofessional soldier, without military experience or education. But he had been born to leadership—had become the master of five plantations in three states, worked by many hundreds of slaves.

Thus, even before he entered Confederate service, he knew what it was like to be responsible for the lives of others. And therefore he was not impressed by what he saw when he reported for duty at Stuart’s headquarters at Hanover Court House, Virginia, on July 28, 1862. The exuberant, devil-may-care attitude of Stuart’s subordinates—many of whom were young enough to be Hampton’s sons—confirmed Hampton’s preconceived notion that the cavalry was the province of pampered youth playing at the business of war.

He was a part of it only by necessity. The leadership and valor he had displayed at First Manassas and on the Peninsula had secured his promotion to brigadier general. But Hampton had lost his command when apart from the army; recuperating from the wound he had received in the June 1 fighting at Seven Pines. Returning from convalescent leave, he found that in his absence his brigade had been reorganized and assigned to a more senior commander. Confederate President Jefferson Davis, a close acquaintance of Hampton’s, offered him an opportunity to retain his rank by transferring to the cavalry. Hampton had agreed to the posting but only until a suitable berth in the infantry opened up.

Hampton met all the qualifications for cavalry service—he was an expert horseman, a master swordsman, and a crack shot with pistol and rifle. Even so, there was nothing of the cavalier about him. He dressed plainly, made no show of his prowess with horses and firearms, and cared nothing for pomp and pageantry. One of Stuart’s staff officers, the novelist John Eaten Cooke, caught the essence of the new subordinate, describing him as “Encased in a plain gray sack coat of civilian cut, with the collar turned down; cavalry boots, large and serviceable, with brass spurs; a brown felt hat, without star or feather; the rest of the dress plain gray. . . . What impressed all who saw him was the attractive union of dignity end simplicity in his bearing—a certain grave and simple courtesy which indicated the highest breeding. He was evidently an honest gentleman who disdained all pretence or artifice. It was plain that he thought nothing of personal decorations or military show, and never dreamed of ‘producing an impression’ upon any one . . . . After being in his presence for ten minutes, you saw that he was a man for hard work, and not for display.”

For his part, Hampton formed a mixed opinion of his new superior. He found Stuart to be personable and approachable as well as courteous, dignified, and correct in his military habits. He did not form so high an impression of some of Stuart’s other lieutenants, especially Fitzhugh Lee, whom Hampton sized up as vain, pompous, and condescending. Fitz’s manner was typical of the well-bred Virginian—a manner that made Hampton deeply conscious of the fact that, as a South Carolinian, he was an outsider. It was obvious that native-born Virginians ruled the cavalry of an army that was, after all, named for their state.

Then, too, despite his family’s wealth and prominence, early on Hampton got the impression that Fitz Lee and other F.F.V.s (although not Stuart himself) looked down on him as nouveau riche. The fact that Hampton was one of the largest slaveholders in the South also worked to his disadvantage among colleagues who seemed to be ambivalent toward, and even defensive about, the “peculiar institution.”

Then there was the fact that, because he had won his wreathed stars before Fitz Lee, Hampton immediately became Stuart’s second-in-command. His place at Stuart’s right hand stirred jealousy in Fitz as well as in some of Stuart’s regimental commanders such as Colonel Thomas Grosser.

Three incidents early in Hampton's tenure in the cavalry created friction between him and Stuart. When Stuart divvied up his regiments, he placed almost all the Virginia outfits in Fitz Lee’s brigade, while Hampton was given command of all non-Virginia units, including the 1st North Carolina, 1st South Carolina, and the Mississippians, Georgians, and Alabamians of the Jeff Davis Legion and the Cobb Legion. Hampton didn’t mind Stuart’s preference for geographical segregation—in fact, he preferred leading Deep South units. But he got the impression that Stuart favored the regiments from his own state, and gave them most of his attention and support, while conferring on the other units a kind of second-class status.

Then, too, when Stuart formally organized his new command, he attempted to designate Fitz Lee’s as the First Brigade, Cavalry Division, Army of Northern Virginia, while making Hampton’s the Second Brigade. It may seem a minor distinction, but by doing this Stuart was implying that Fitz was his senior brigadier. Perhaps because Hampton complained, Robert E. Lee forced Stuart to renumber the brigades.

Then, when Stuart retook the field for active campaigning, he led Fitz’s brigade westward, in company with the main army. Having cowed McClellan into immobility, Robert E. Lee now turned against the newly formed army of Major General John Pope, then operating between the Rapidan and Rappahannock Rivers. The result was the campaign of Second Bull Run (or Second Manassas), which, like the first, ended in Union defeat and retreat to the Washington defenses.

But Hampton was not allowed to join in the victory; his brigade was left behind on the Peninsula, ostensibly to watch McClellan and ensure he did not make another attempt against Richmond. Stuart knew this was unlikely, but he also knew that Hampton lacked cavalry experience—he was not ready to tackle a major field assignment. Undoubtedly Stuart was correct, but his action rankled Hampton and hurt his pride.

Hampton got his chance for active command during the Antietam (or Sharpsburg) Campaign, that September. He performed with quiet competence throughout his army’s sojourn north of the Potomac, winning Stuart’s approval and the grudging respect of other Virginians. However, Hampton studiously avoided social obligations that he considered out of place during a field campaign. He refused to attend the gala ball that Stuart staged on September 8 at his headquarters near Poolesville, Maryland, and to which he invited the Southern-sympathizing gentlemen of the area and their ladies fair.

Stuart’s horsemen saw relatively little action in the September 17 fighting outside Sharpsburg, the bloodiest day in American history. But afterward Hampton did an effective job of covering the army’s retreat to Virginia. In October, he turned in another able performance, this time during the raid that carried Stuart’s division as far north as Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. When he entered the city, Stuart demonstrated his confidence in Hampton by appointing him military governor of Chambersburg for as long as the confederates lingered in the area, confiscating rations, forage, and livestock.

By the winter of 1862-63, Hampton was sure enough of his own abilities as a cavalryman, and felt comfortable enough in Stuart’s ranks, that he passed up an opportunity he had once longed for—command of an infantry brigade, whose leader had been mortally wounded during the December battle of Fredericksburg.

Even so, by now Hampton had come to harbor some misgivings about his superior’s leadership. While he admired Stuart’s ability as an intelligence-gatherer, he disliked the man’s preference for long-distance raiding. Hampton believed that cavalry’s primary mission was close support of the main army, not independent operations. In modern terms, he advocated a tactical role for cavalry rather than a strategic one.

Then, too, he questioned some of Stuart’s operational decisions. On yet another raid that winter—during which Stuart’s people penetrated to the suburbs of Washington—Hampton had detached a brigade under his ranking subordinate and close friend, Colonel Matthew Calbraith Butler. Although Butler encountered a much larger force of Yankee troopers, Stuart ordered Hampton to press north, leaving Butler to his fate. The colonel and his men barely avoided mass capture—an outcome that infuriated both Butler and Hampton.

Hampton continued to resent the favoritism Stuart showed toward his Virginians. In letters to his family in South Carolina, he charged Stuart with overworking and neglecting his Deep South units. On occasion, he complained personally to Robert E. Lee. This did Hampton more harm than good, for Lee thought highly of Stuart and abhorred intra-command squabbling.

Early in 1863 Hampton got into trouble by going over Lee’s head to Jefferson Davis with a demand that his worn-down brigade be sent to North Carolina to secure recruits and remounts. Hampton won the right to refurbish his command in a section of Virginia not picked over by the armies. But in doing so he incurred Lee’s temper. The famous diarist Mary Boykin Chestnut claimed that on a later occasion, when Hampton sought permission to go home on furlough, the army leader replied: “I would not care if you went back to South Carolina with your whole brigade.”

Because Hampton was allowed to graze his horses far from the army, he was not available to assist Stuart during the Chancellorsville Campaign of April-May 1863. Thus he failed to share in the glory won by Stuart and Fitz Lee, who on May 2 located the vulnerable right flank of the enemy army west of Fredericksburg—a coup that led to the crushing defeat of the Federals under their latest commander, Major General Joseph Hooker.

Hampton was on hand to take part in the next major campaign—the one that culminated at Gettysburg—but it was a painful period for him in more ways than one. However, it got off to a good start—on June 9, during day-long fighting at Brandy Station, Virginia, he helped Stuart salvage a draw against the suddenly energetic and confident union cavalry. But then he accompanied Stuart on his controversial ride around the flank and across the rear of Hooker’s army—a ride that deprived Robert E. Lee of his “eyes and ears” as he groped his way toward south-central Pennsylvania.

Just being involved in this ill-starred operation was enough to sully Hampton’s reputation. But on July 2, outside Hunterstown, Pennsylvania, his command suffered needlessly when its leader copied Stuart’s tactics by charging a force of dismounted Federals backed by artillery. The following day—the decisive third day at Gettysburg—Hampton lost control of his brigade, which on two separate occasions attacked the enemy’s cavalry without orders.

On both days, Hampton was severely wounded by saber slashes to the head—the first time, when struck from the blind side by an unchivalrous assailant, the second time when surrounded by 10 or 12 Union swordsmen. On July 3, he was also struck in the thigh by a piece of shell.

When Lee’s army retreated from Pennsylvania, Hampton reached Virginia aboard an ambulance. His recuperation lasted four months, but upon his return he was greeted by a long chorus of shouts from the various regiments of his brigade. Reportedly, Stuart was miffed by the display of welcome—perhaps because his own reputation had taken a hit at Gettysburg and in subsequent encounters with his much-improved enemy. One of Stuart’s subordinates, Thomas Rosser, claimed that the fighting that had preceded Hampton’s return “put the finishing stroke to Stuart's declining reputation.”

In Hampton’s absence, Stuart’s command had been upgraded to the status of a corps. Hampton and Fitz Lee were duly promoted to major general to command the two divisions it comprised. Stuart retained overall command, but he was denied elevation to lieutenant general, the usual rank of a corps leader. Some observers believed that Stuart deeply resented his failure to move up, and worked hard to persuade Robert E. Lee to reverse his decision.

Perhaps as a result, his relationship with Hampton deteriorated. During the Mine Run Campaign of November December ‘63 the two charged each other with various sins of commission and omission. They worked these criticisms into their after-action reports—the first time they had traded verbal barbs in official correspondence.

As the winter wore on, Hampton’s resentment at Stuart’s treatment of his command increased markedly. In letters to family and friends, he claimed that Stuart was allowing his division to fall into such disrepair that when active operations resumed it would prove no match for the fast-improving Yankee cavalry. “In that event,” he told one of his sisters, “I shall ask to be transferred to some other army, or I will resign. I am thoroughly disgusted with the way things are managed here. . . .”

Hampton’s anger peaked when, on the eve of the spring 1864 campaign, Stuart ordered him to give up one of his brigades to help form a third division, to be led by William Henry Fitzhugh (“Rooney”) Lee, the army leader’s son and Fitz Lee’s cousin. Hampton accused Stuart (though not to his face) of currying favor with the elder Lee in an effort to win the promotion that had been denied him thus far.

It seems a shame that only a few months before Stuart’s death his relations with his ranking subordinate should have declined so steeply. When Stuart fell at Yellow Tavern on May 11, a chastened Hampton praised him in addresses read to the troops and offered sincere condolences to Flora Stuart and her children.

Upon Stuart’s passing, Hampton, by virtue of his seniority, appeared certain to succeed to command of the corps. But Robert E. Lee refused to confer the title on him until August of that year. By then, his nephew Fitz (who considered himself the rightful heir to Stuart’s mantle) had been detached from the army to take a command in the Shenandoah Valley. During those three months, whenever the two served together, Fitz subordinated himself to Hampton, but when they served apart—which Fitz contrived to do as often as possible—they reported separately to army headquarters. The arrangement was not to Hampton’s liking. But, in contrast to his former habit of complaining to Robert E. Lee, he kept his dissatisfaction to himself.

His new attitude, and the ability he displayed in command of the corps during the all-cavalry engagements at Haw’s Shop (May 28) and Trevilian Station (June 11th and 12th) raised his stature in the eyes of Robert E. Lee. So did the response of Hampton’s officers and men to his brand of leadership. After Haw’s Shop one Virginian perceived “a vast difference between the old order and the new.” The troopers began to refer to themselves, with pride, as “riding infantry,” and to brag of their ability to “hold a line of battle as well as veteran infantry.” Such sentiments would never have been expressed were Stuart still in charge.

The troopers were especially impressed by the noticeable shift from a reliance on saber charges to an emphasis on dismounted fighting with rifles and carbines. “We understood the art of shooting,” one enlisted man remarked after Haw’s Shop, “and we shot to kill, and did kill lots of them. . . .” A Virginian noted two results of this cultural change: “While under Stuart, stampedes were frequent—with Hampton they were unknown, and the men of his corps soon had the same unwavering confidence in him that the ‘Stonewall Brigade’ entertained for their general.” The men also applauded Hampton’s practice, whenever operating apart from the main army, of taking along as many men and cannons as higher authority would permit.

This new order of things prompted Robert E. Lee to reevaluate Wade Hampton, whom he had feared was too old to win the respect and confidence of the army’s mounted arm. When Lee finally named Hampton to corps command, their sometimes-rocky relationship began to smooth over. Through the remainder of the 1864 campaign, Lee heaped praise on the South Carolinian for his capable service at Petersburg—especially for his spectacularly successful raid in September on the Union army’s cattle herd, which resulted in the capture of almost 2,500 beeves. Before the year was out, Hampton and his commander had forged a warm friendship, one that would continue until Lee’s death in 1870.

Perhaps the greatest compliment Lee gave his “aged” cavalry leader occurred after the war, when he looked back on the chain of events that had led to Hampton’s detaching from the Petersburg front in order to defend his home state against William T. Sherman’s invaders. Lee called Hampton’s absence from Virginia “the cause of our immediate disaster” at Appomattox.

Hampton savored the compliment to the end of his years. Among other things, it told him that, his troubles and grievances notwithstanding, he had made a success of his transfer to an arm of the service he had once derided and distrusted. In so doing he had stepped out of the shadow cast by his predecessor, having fully replaced Jeb Stuart in the hearts and minds of the officers and men of the Cavalry, Army of Northern Virginia.

Here I am on Wade Hampton’s old property, with two Hampton biographers and some Hampton descendants in the room, preparing to try to say something different and enlightening about Wade Hampton. Some folks would say that takes quite a bit of nerve.

They would be wrong. For comparison, here are some things that require a lot of nerve:

Pursuing a desperate, full-grown black bear through the thickets of a Mississippi swamp, finding him cornered by your pack of hunting dogs, and leaving your hunting rifle in its saddle scabbard – instead sliding off of your horse, wading into the dog-bear melee and killing the bear with an oversized hunting knife. That takes nerve.

Yet variations of this scenario played out at least 40 times. An eyewitness who called himself “Greybeard”, on one of these occasions, described it thus: “…with a motion as quick as a flash, he threw the other arm over the body, and clutching the knife, drove it deep into the heart of the brute….after a short convulsive spasm, the monster lay dead….the General recovered his feet without a scratch; gathered his gun; wiped the bloody knife in the dark fur; sheathed it in an every-day sort of fashion…”[i]

Hampton explained his primitive hunting style with this piece of advice: “Whatever you do, protect the dogs.”

A few years later, in Fayetteville, North Carolina, a Lieutenant General learns from a scout that a sizeable enemy force threatens to gain a tactically advantageous position not far away. The campaign is lost anyway, and the army in full retreat. The General responds by calling the nearest five mounted men, and leading them personally to rout the enemy in a pistol and hand-to-hand fight. That takes nerve – not to mention a very different understanding of the proper role of a Lieutenant General than current sensibilities suggest.

Finally, in 1876, in a region devastated by recent war and broken into armed ethnic factions ,where the only laws are those of a corrupt occupation government’s bayonets or vigilante shotguns, the strongest, best-armed faction gives its total loyalty to a former Army officer who has suffered the violent loss of his home and numerous members of his family. And this man, with the power to exact revenge, and with, many would say, nothing left to lose, chooses instead to use all of his authority to restrain the mounting violence. At the height of the tension and in a climate where assassination has been almost normalized as a political tactic, it’s remarked by newspaper reporter Alfred Williams that Wade Hampton is perhaps the only man in the state who deliberately goes about unarmed. [ii]

Now those are some things that require nerve. You have a notion of Wade Hampton III, by now, as a general, as a statesman, and as a man who made quite an impact on the “big picture” of history. I propose for the next little while to re-introduce him at a more personal range – specifically, at 37 3/8”, the length of his cavalry sword.

I have come to think of Wade Hampton as the last swordsman. Today the sword remains a symbol of military might and honor, but for literally thousands of years before our great war in the 1860’s it had been a decisive battlefield weapon, especially as used by cavalry. Afterwards, its obsolescence was certain. Of course sword enthusiasts remained, and the skills of the sword can still be acquired, but the battlefield swordsman is no more.

At this point I’d like to introduce you very briefly to the classic cavalryman’s closest companion. The sabre is a heavy, slashing sword, meant for mounted use. Sword and horse together made a tremendous shock weapon, and had since the invention of the stirrup. It was true that by the 1860’s the revolver had provided extra firepower for the horseman, but reloading a cap-and-ball revolver on horseback was an extremely awkward proposition. The revolver was still considered a secondary weapon. For visual proof of this look at the US Army holster of the era; it puts your pistol butt-forward on your right hip, just right for a left-hand cross draw – your right had to be kept free for your sword!

Remember that the prewar cavalryman was trained to consider the sabre his primary weapon, and that included many South Carolinians, including Wade Hampton, who drilled with mounted militia organizations. South Carolina had a particular affection for the cavalry heroes of the Revolution, including Wade Hampton I as well as “Light Horse Harry” Lee and Francis Marion. In fact, his grandfather’s sabre hung prominently in Wade Hampton’s childhood home, a reminder of his heritage.

Might his first sword lessons have come from that grandfather, Wade Hampton I? It certainly seems likely, and he grew to manhood in a milieu where the culture of the horse and the sword flourished. The South Carolinian of his time was a rider, and his horse was status symbol, transportation, business equipment, recreational vehicle and fitness program all in one.

A sword master named M’Auley, formerly the West Point instructor, published a saber manual for South Carolina cavalry that was issued at least twice; you can see a copies of both editions at the Caroliniana Library on campus. [iii] The swordsman was drilled in seven cuts and three thrusts; the number of parries varied and they were interpreted differently. The great matter, though, was to land your blade on the other guy’s head, with as much force as possible.

Many sabers went unsharpened during the war, oddly enough. Debate continues on exactly why, but certainly Hampton did not carry an unsharpened weapon nor condone them. In May of 1863, he wrote his sister Mary Fisher: “My first order to the men is to have all the sabers sharpened, so we are preparing for work.”

For information on Hampton’s own wartime sword, you could always consult Edward Boykin’s book “The Great Beefsteak Raid”:

In the Confederate Museum at Richmond there is a twelve-pound, double-edged, straight sword, a hefty weapon, forged for the man who wielded it prodigiously. With this blade and a small, pearl-handled colt, Hampton became as fierce a front-fighter as any who wore the gray. 12 pounds? With all due respect…horsefeathers! The Confederate Museum in Richmond does still own the weapon in question, currently on loan to the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Museum. A Prussian heavy dragoon blade was imported to Columbia and fashioned by Kraft, Goldschmidt and Kraft into a very serviceable weapon, with a four-branch brass cavalry hilt. It weighs in at just under five pounds. The average Medieval sword, by the way, was somewhere between two and four pounds, so five’s still pretty hefty – appropriate for a tall, physically powerful man like Hampton.

He bought at least four of these weapons for personal use; two were eventually presented two as gifts, to M. C. Butler and Bradley Johnson. He used one, and he kept a spare – a wise move on his part, considering the wear and tear he put on his arms. In fact, the marks of combat remain on the blade despite its numerous re-sharpenings, and the three-branch brass handguard has apparently suffered impacts – and likely suffered less than what it impacted.

Inside the handguard is a leather finger-loop, for superior blade control, and the portion of the guard corresponding to the thumb position has been deliberately bent forward, either for a similar reason or in order to “catch” an opponents blade – and wear on the weapon just above the hilt suggests blade-to-blade grappling.

Hampton’s sabre says more about him than most officers’ sidearms would, since it was a deliberate purchase. If you visit the SC State Museum – and let me point out, that if you do that without coming to OUR museum in the very same building, you’re VERY,VERY WRONG – but if you visit there, you’ll see a prewar militia saber from the Hampton family, possibly one he used to drill his swordsmanship according to M’Auley’s manual. Interestingly, when he faced a situation where he might actually have to USE a sabre in action, he chose a far different design.

Rather than extreme curvature, the KGK blade is straight; rather than a pure slashing blade, the KGK is closer to a medieval cut-and-thrust. Its hilt is much more protective, and the double-edge allows much more versatility to the swordsman. In fact, it looks much more “Scottish broadsword” than cavalry saber. It has several features in common with the Army saber redesigned by George Patton in the early 20th century. There’s more room for using skill with such a weapon, and Hampton’s skill was soon employed and noticed.

A Richmond newspaper would, in fact, speculate that Hampton was probably a trained fencer[iv] – I think this unlikely or, at best, irrelevant. More significant were his militia experience and the bear hunting I referred to earlier. Scholars of close combat would assert that developing the mentality to confront a desperate predator and take its life with cold steel would be far more difficult than learning the mere physical skills of sword-handling, and probably much more predictive of success.

By the way, in case skeptics among you might be quietly doubting the bear hunting stories which seem more in line with Davy Crockett tall tales than legitimate history….shame on you. Future President Theodore Roosevelt was among the many witnesses to Hampton’s bear hunting, and asserts that he killed over forty bears that way over his lifetime.

This was the formidable ability Hampton brought to the war, and when he went into action he certainly fulfilled his potential. As John Esten Cooke wrote, “He was not only the commander, but the sabreur too”. [v] He sent his sister Mary this account of an action he fought in December of 1862:

It so happens that I was in front when this charge was ordered and as I knew the ground I led the men. The Yankees stood at first and I rode into the midst of them. They fired at me all around, but the two first blows I struck brought down a man each, and the others scattered. The first poor devil had his skull frightfully fractured….while t he other was badly cut. Another was about to shoot me, but I scared him out of it by demanding his surrender. I was not touched, and I am again called on to thank God for his mercy in sparing me. I have been in forty-three fights and yet the hand of God has saved me in all of them. The prayers of those who love me must have been my guard…..I am sick of the horror of war. My heart has been hardened and the fall of a man now affects me no more than the death of an animal formerly did. Blood is on my sabre yet for I never thought to wipe it off. All this is horrid; but such are the horrors of war.” [vi]

At the time of that writing, Hampton had a lot of war left to endure. The most famous of his saber-fights would come that summer, at Gettysburg. Even during the 1876 election season, the memories of that day would pursue him.

As Hampton was leaving the stand many men crowded about, as always was the case, to shake hands with him. Among them was a small, modest man, making his way forward rather diffidently. The General caught sight of him and promptly pulled him out of the press, exclaiming, “Well! Here’s the boy who saved my life at Gettysburg!”

The two had not met since the surrender, but Hampton said he never could forget the face of his old soldier, put a hand affectionately over his shoulder and introduced him to those near by as David Flenniken, a business man of Winnsboro, who, he said, “saved my life while he was a boy in his teens.”

Remarking that meeting Mr. Flenniken gave him more pleasure than all the demonstrations of the day, he narrated briefly the incident of Gettysburg. He was receiving a report from Flenniken, who was one of his best scouts and couriers, when the latter exclaimed suddenly, “Look to your right!” The General looked just in time to see a Federal soldier deliberately aiming at him with a rifle at short range and instantly rode the man down and sabered him. [vii]

That was only a warm-up, though. Details vary in accounts of Hampton’s wounding at Gettysburg, so I’ll start with what’s probably the best-known account, from Edward Wells…

“…seeing one of his men hard-pressed, Hampton dashed to his assistance, when the trooper escaped, but the Federal, a good swordsman, turned upon his new adversary. The blood from the (previous) wound in the head interfered somewhat with the General’s vision, which enabled the Federal to cut under his guard, inflicting a bad wound in the head; but it was the man’s last stroke, for Hampton’s saber cleft his head down to the chin, a feat which novels and newspapers airily ascribe to their heroes, but which is rarely performed, and never, except by a stalwart arm and skillful hand.” [viii]

And this is how veteran trooper Ulysses R. Brooks, of Columbia, remembered Gettysburg:

On the 3rd of July, 1863, at Huntersdown, near Gettysburg, General Hampton, cool, with noble eye flashing fire, sang out: “ Charge them, my brave boys; charge them!”

The whole Yankee cavalry came down upon us with all its energy and fury. Still the line bore the received shock. Each of the whole line seemed to be striving with his man, and more of the enemy pressed on. Two dashed at the gallant Hampton, but paid the price before his dextrous arm. Another fresh squad rushed from the line and bore upon him. The flashes from the muzzle of his pistol kept them at a moment’s bay, while two Mississippians, Privates Moore and Dunlap, of the Jeff Davis Legion, fearlessly rushed to his rescue with sabers lifted high into the air, bringing them down upon the heads of the pressing assailants; but sadly they went down beneath the angry tread. Gleaming sabers from several arms were playing over his head, already spurting with gore; but his unerring pistol sent another reeling from his saddle. Frantic with rage, they pressed him against the fence, and just as the column was being borne back two brave men, Sergt. Nat Price of Company A, 1ST North Carolina, and Private Jackson, of Company B, Cobb’s Legion, descrying the awful dilemna of their beloved commander, recklessly dashed into the unequal contest. A sure shot from the pistol of the former went though the nearest one just as he was repeating a blow upon the General’s bleeding head. Throwing themselves between him and the pressing antagonists still chafing for their victim, the former earnestly shouted: “General, they are too many for us. For God’s sake leap your horse over the fence. I’ll die before they shall have you.” The spur was suited to his suggestion. His noble steed cleared the fence amid a shower of balls that shred the air, one severely wounding him in the side. The party furiously dashed after the deliverers just as they too were wheeling to follow the uplifted saber. One came down on Price; another barrel sent him reeling from his saddle. The next in van raises his vengeful arm to cleave him down; his uplifted arm received the blow, and before another was raised to finish the work his faithful steed followed in the leap and safely bore him alongside his companion on the other side of the fence. [ix]

He was carried to Dr. “Watt” Taylor, who was usually the one to patch him up. Hampton’s own remarks on the affair, in a letter to his sister a couple of weeks later, were typically modest and humorous… My head is well, externally, but seems tender inside; perhaps it is only weak. The penitentiary style in which my hair is cut, half the head being shaven, is striking, if not beautiful. It suits all kinds of weather, as one side of my head is sure to be just right, either for cool, or for hot weather. But the flies play the mischief, as they wander over to the bald side. When I get home, I will shave my whole head, to be uniform at least. Don’t you feel mortified that any Yankee should be able, on horse back, to split my head open? It shows how old I am growing, and how worthless.

He was understating the case to his sister, because he wrote Senator Louis Wigfall: …I have been handled pretty roughly, having received two sabre cuts on the head – one of which cut

through the table of my skull – and a shrapnel shot in my body, which is there yet. But I am doing well and hope in a few days to go home.” [x]

Of course the sabre’s suitability for warfare was nearing an end, and pistol prowess was more militarily significant. And I certainly don’t want to give you the impression that Wade Hampton III was the sort of soldier who would deliberately choose to take a knife to a gunfight. The time had come for tactical change, and the Chieftain certainly knew that the cavalry could not rely on the sabre as it previously had. The sabre charge by this time in history was a “haymaker punch”, a totally committed attack which, if it impacted, could easily end a battle – but if it were not launched at precisely the right time, left the cavalry open for terrible punishment. In close combat, the sabre could keep you alive and let you continue pressing your attack until there was an opportunity to reload. Wade Hampton’s own brother Frank fell victim to the tactical changes; while sabre fighting with one Yankee, he was shot to death from another direction by a second.

Veteran U.R. Brooks related discussing a related matter with Hampton, perhaps using an old soldier’s privilege to ask a highly impertinent question.

I asked him one day in May, 1901, how many of the enemy he had killed during the war. He said eleven, two with the sword and nine with a pistol. I said, “How about the two at Trevilians Station?” His reply was: “O, I didn’t count them; they were running.”

Now, the last thing I want to do is reduce our evaluation of the man to simple scalp-counting. However, lacking in taste though it may be, I’m going to note one salient fact about this tally. Wyatt Earp, according to the best authorities, shot maybe six men – and some of THEM seem to have been “running “. Wade Hampton likely lowballed his figure, but even if he only fatally shot down nine foemen in close combat, nine armed adversaries looking him in the eye at the time, he outscored nearly all of the legendary desperadoes or lawmen of the Old West. As for the two swordfights, there were at least two occasions where Hampton was reported by witnesses to have cleft a man’s head clear through.

I wonder, by the way, how Hampton sounded as he responded to Brook’s impertinent question. There may well have been a tone of satisfaction to his answer; the proprieties of his age were very different. Still, it seems to me that he was accepting responsibility, here, for the lives he took personally in the performance of his duty. And I think those eleven men, as well as the many “brave boys” lost under Hampton’s command, were honored in memory when the Chieftain served as peacemaker at the end of Reconstruction. He did not take violence lightly, which is especially important in a man who is very, very good at it.

Late in the war, you might think the saber would have been reduced to complete anachronism. After all, J.S. Mosby famously wrote that his men gave no more heed to sabers than to cornstalks, and Hampton himself often employed his cavalry as more mounted infantry as time went on, relying on marksmanship with long Enfields and, when possible, on prepared defensive positions. However, the saber still promoted the esprit de corps of the vaunted SC cavalry, and for a force chronically short of revolvers it still provided a formidable close-combat option. In March of 1865, Hampton would lead a surprise attack at dawn on the camp of despised foe Judson Kilpatrick. Joseph Wheeler was overheard asking permission to dismount the men to attack, but Hampton said “as a cavalryman, I prefer making this capture on horseback,” and trooper Charles Calhoun of the 6th, near him in the assault, said he fought “as though a private that day”. [xi]

The fight at Fayetteville, North Carolina, was a classic instance, and perhaps the last one, of Hampton’s man-to-man fighting prowess. This was a month after the burning of Columbia, and by this time the Yankees ranged virtually at will across the dying South; it’s hard at this distance to fathom the spirit that could keep men fighting under those hopeless conditions. But let me report this, too, in the words of the men who were there to see it:

On the 11th of March, 1865, we went into the town of Fayetteville, NC. I was riding with General Hampton at the head of Wheeler’s Cavalry…I rode on down to the Cape Fear Bridge, and General Hampton was trying to rally the men, but he could not do so. I galloped up to him and said, “General, there are not over ten or fifteen Yankees here. Give me four or five men, and I will whip them out of town…”

He said to me, “Scott, where are they?” I told him to the left of the market house. As we turned the corner they commenced firing on us, and we on them. General Hampton said, “Charge them.” We charged them and shoved our pistols right in their faces and got them started on the run, up one street and down another, consequently some of them who had gone towards the bridge got behind us. After we had killed or captured most of this squad we were after, I looked and saw some behind us, and I yelled, “General here they are behind us.” General Hampton said: “Men, sit still and pick them off one by one as they come down.” They came down as hard as they could, and we picked them off. I saw General Hampton cut down two with his sabre that morning…we killed thirteen and captured twelve. .General Hampton had with him in this affair Privates Wells, Bellinger and Fishburne of the Charleston Light Dragoons, Scott and one member of Wheeler’s command.” [xii]

“One of them had no better sense than to come at General Hampton with his sabre,” remembered U.R. Brooks of that day, “and when he got near enough General Hampton straightened in his stirrups and with one slash of his sword split the poor devil’s head down to his body." [xiii]

Captain FF Eve , a Georgia cavalry veteran, read these accounts and responded that “I have heard General Hampton, with snapping eyes, tell of this little affair…. The old General’s saber stood him in good stead that day.” [xiv]

I should add before I close, that Hampton’s men were at one with him in their lingering affection for the outdated knightly steel. Captain James Moore of the 2nd SC Cavalry noted that “there was nothing Hampton’s men liked so well in a fight as a chance to use their sabres.” [xv] Later he related seeing “about 50 captured Federals…most of them with sabre cuts in their heads.

Charles Calhoun of the 6th SC relates another anecdote, from February of 1865, in the waning days of the war and long past the abandonment of the sabre by many cavalry commands. Calhoun says that when Joe Wheeler’s Confederate cavalry met Hampton’s, one of Wheeler’s troopers lightheartedly asked a South Carolina trooper what the metal “thing” was hanging from his saddle. The SC cavalryman told him that it was a saber and that he should have kept his own, since Hampton’s command still used them. [xvi]

Finally, in the closing days of the war, Captain Rawlings Lowndes had occasion to talk to Yankee General Kilpatrick under a flag of truce. Kilpatrick had recently been humiliated by that surprise attack, and he had suggested that he and his men would have done better against Hampton under “fair” conditions. Lowndes replied,

Well, General, I make you the following proposition, and I will pledge myself that General Hampton will carry it out in every respect. You, with your staff, take 1500 men, and General Hampton, with his staff, will meet you with 1,000 men, all to be armed with the sabre alone. The two parties will be drawn up mounted in …formation opposite to each other, and , at a signal to be agreed upon, will charge. That will settle the question which are the best men.” They all laughed, but did not accept the proposal, and said they would consider it. [xvii]

I’m going to leave you tonight with a few words from the Chieftain. The following incident is again, related by an eyewitness:

“When a battle was just begun one day in Virginia, a certain colonel rode up to General Hampton and said: “General, I am not equal to the task. I have turned my regiment over to the next in command.” He was shaking like an aspen leaf. General Hampton calmly said to him: “Colonel, you are a gentleman, and you have heavy responsibilities. Now, return to your command and be what Almighty God has made you – a man.” The very presence of General Hampton seemed to inspire him, and he returned at once to his command and fought gallantly through the remainder of the war.” [xviii]

Gentleman, we all have our own heavy responsibilities. Amidst them, though, let’s remember to be what Almighty God made us. Thanks -

[i]Greybeard (psuedonymn), “My Bear Hunt With General Wade Hampton”, The Columbia Phoenix, October 1, 1872. (Relates a hunt from the 1850’s.) Also see Schullery, Paul, The Bear Hunters Century: Profiles from the Golden Age, (Harrisburg: Stackpole Books, 1988) , pp. 63- 87.

[ii] Alfred Williams, Hampton and His Red Shirts: South Carolina’s Deliverance in 1876 (Charleston: Walker, Evans, and Cogswell, c.1935), p.288.

[iii] James M’Auley: The New and Improved Broad Sword Exercise, as Recently Taught In the U.S Military Academy at West Point (Columbia: Printed at the Telescope Office, 1838).

[iv] Manley Wade Wellman, Giant in Grey (New York; Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1949), p.89.

[v] John Esten Cooke: Wearing of the Gray (New York: E.B. Treat and Company, 1867), p.66.

[vi] Wade Hampton to Mary Fisher Hampton, 2 January 1863. Hampton Family Papers, South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC.

[vii] Williams, p. 288.

[viii] Edward L. Well, Hampton and His Cavalry in ’64 (Richmond, 1899): p. 75.

[ix] Ulysses Robert Brooks, “Memories of Battles” (Confederate Veteran, Sept. 1914) p.408-409.

[x] Wade Hampton to Louis T. Wigfall, 15 July 1863, quoted by Brian Cisco: Wade Hampton: Confederate Warrior, Conservative Statesman (Washington: Brassey’s, Inc, 2004): p.121.

[xi] Charles M. Calhoun, Liberty Dethroned (Greeneville, 1903): p. 181.

[xii] Ulysses Brooks, Butler and His Cavalry in the War of Secession, 1861-1865 (Columbia: The State Company, 1909): pp. 112-113.

[xiii] UR Brooks, “Memories of Battles” (Confederate Veteran, Sept. 1914): p.409.

[xiv] Captain F. F. Eve, “Honor to Private John Hammond” ( Confederate Veteran, February 1905): p.90.

[xv] Brooks, Butler and His Cavalry: p. 178.

[xvi] C. .M.Calhoun, Liberty Dethroned (Greeneville, 1903): p.178.

[xvii] Wells, Hampton and His Cavalry, p.423.

[xviii] Brooks, Butler and His Cavalry: p. 223.

Wade Hampton rode again on October 7, 1876. Flanked by the rifle clubs, the paramilitary, insurgent arm of South Carolina’s Democratic Party, Hampton entered the town square of Sumter, SC. In the town center, a figure bound in chains and wearing a deathly black shroud, waited in the center of a growing crowd of farmers and townspeople. Hampton dismounted from his horse and assumed his position on the platform. As he did so, the black robed figure flung off its chains ands its black shroud to reveal a beautiful young white woman, dressed in diaphanous robes. A ribbon encircled her and on it was stitched the words, “South Carolina.” This is a brief description of the so-called “Hampton Days,” public celebrations or the Lost Cause and of Wade Hampton as a symbol of the Lost Cause that inaugurated his successful and controversial campaign for governor. [i]

Today I want to describe the role that Wade Hampton played in the creation of the Lost Cause celebration in South Carolina. This is something of a look behind the veil of the myth but not with the goal of deconstructing that myth. Instead, it's an effort toward thinking about the significance of that myth for late nineteenth century South Carolina and in some sense for modern South Carolina. Wade Hampton became the center of the Lost Cause movement in both symbolic and real ways. Why and how did that happen? I also want to note how the Lost Cause movement changed during Hampton’s lifetime, changed in some ways that often surprise those who have only a passing familiarity with the era. These changes have had long-term consequences and even play into the politics of southern memory and memorialization today.

Hampton played a central role in Confederate memorialization from the beginning. Wade Hampton served as the keynote speaker at the first gathering of Confederate veterans in South Carolina following the war in late 1866. Held in the upcountry, in Walhalla, South Carolina, the gathering gave Hampton the opportunity to scold the Federal army for its continued occupation of the South, as well as to assure his audience that their former slaves, now freedmen, would remain loyal to the values of the Old South. These became common themes for Hampton in the year following the end of the civil war. Speaking to the Anderson County Soldier’s Aide society, Hampton warned veterans that they could “expect nothing from the government of the United States” except to be treated, “as rebels, outlaws and traitors.” [ii]

There are several things that I think are especially interesting about these early efforts at memorializing the Confederate war effort and Hampton’s role in it. First, this is very soon after the close of the conflict. Some descriptions of the celebration of the Lost Cause suggest that it came relatively late in the nineteenth century, really emerging in a significant way after white southerners had dealt with the issues of Reconstruction and could, with Federal troops out of the way, more publicly celebrate their Cause and its meaning. Here we have at least two examples, and there are more, of white South Carolinians seeking to commemorate their Confederate experience a little over a year after the firing of the last shots. Wade Hampton stood at the center of that celebration, lent it legitimacy and the mantle of his authority.

Second, the commemoration of the Lost Cause that Hampton took such a significant part in clearly had political implications. “Radical” Reconstruction had not even come yet in 1866 and, in fact, the white South had just completed an experiment in self-Reconstruction under the velvet hand of the Johnson administration. Pardons were almost literally being given away to former Confederates who requested them and South Carolina had been allowed to write its own new constitution with delegates elected by white voters. Yet still, Hampton gave a speech that breathed out rebellion and a profound distrust of the United States government.

Walhalla was, in fact, an interesting place to choose to hold the first important veteran’s reunion given its recent history. In late 1865, what can only be described as postwar Confederate insurgency had been waged by guerrilla fighters unhappy with the outcome of the war (Confederate defeat) and its results (emancipation). An officer of the 33rd USCT had been assassinated in Walhalla and Federal troops their faced constant harassment. [iii]

I think the above is notable given that some scholars of the Lost Cause have insisted that, at least in each 19th century phase, the commemoration of the Lost Cause had no real political overtones, that it primarily represented a series of public act of nostalgia and remembrance of the dead. My good friend, the great scholar of the Lost Cause Gaines M. Foster holds this view. Still, I think that the origin of the Lost Cause in South Carolina teaches a different lesson. Wade Hampton had been so committed to the triumph of the Confederacy that he had offered to provide Jefferson Davis with a contingent of troopers to get him to Texas and maybe to Mexico so that the unsuccessful war could continue to be waged by other means. He, and most of the men who followed him, didn’t give up on that idea so easily after Appomattox. [iv]

Hampton understood the Lost Cause celebration as a political act. The truth of this becomes clearer over time but it is significant to note that, even at this early stage, Federal occupation forces also saw this as a political act. A detachment of Federal cavalry entered Walhalla soon after Hampton’s speech at the Confederate Survivors Association meeting, asking a lot of questions about alleged “traitorous and seditious speeches” that had recently been given in the mountain hamlet. [v]

Hampton himself was out of the state of South Carolina for much of Radical Reconstruction. The Lost Cause itself did not cease to have strongly political overtones as the story of the Ku Klux Klan in the state during the late 1860s clearly shows. Former Confederate leaders, perhaps hardened by violence earlier in the decade, viewed violence as a political solution. Republican legislators would be assassinated; freedpeople with a growing political consciousness would be terrorized. The Klan terror of the South Carolina upcountry did not come to an end until late 1871, early 1872 when the Grant administration declared nine upcountry counties in rebellion and Federal authorities made over six hundred arrests. [vi]

Hampton’s return to South Carolina coincided with the end of the Klan terror and a renewal of white resistance to Reconstruction through the founding of the famous Redshirt Rifle clubs that other and I have written about at length. The choice of Hampton to run as governor in 1876 obviously drew on the symbolic capital Hampton represented as the Grand Old Man of South Carolina Confederates. Martin W. Gary, who comes across as a kind of Mayor of the Palace in the planning of the campaign and had profound disagreements with Hampton with regard to efforts to attract black voters to the Democratic ticket. He nevertheless understood that Hampton could unite the white populace of South Carolina firmly against Reconstruction. It turned out he was right.

The degree if unity created by the “Hampton Days” is perhaps not surprising. We have to remember, however, that there is evidence that whites had withdrawn into their private worlds in many respects after the civil war. Having suffered a humiliating defeat, made more humiliating by the certainty they had had of victory in 1860-61, many white South Carolinians turned away in revulsion from the world of politics and, in particular, the new world created by emancipation. This perhaps explains the outpouring of emotion that greeted the Lost Cause-drenched Hampton Day celebrations. At the aforementioned Hampton Day celebration in Sumter, one account has it that emotion overcame the crowds at the appearance of Hampton and that former Confederates rode throughout the night crying “Hampton or Hell!”

Indeed, even religious minorities within the state looked to Hampton as a kind of savior, a redeemer almost in a theological as well as a political sense. In the heat of the election, Mother Baptista Lynch’s Ursuline sisters in Columbia prayed, like their white protestant neighbors, for Hampton’s triumph. “We are saying the Litany of saints daily,” Mother Baptista wrote, “begging God’s blessing on the cause of honesty truth and humanity which he and his confreres represent.” In the outcome of the election, of course, it would appear that the Sister’s prayers had been answered, leading Mother Baptista to exclaim “How worthy of all praise is Governor Hampton! What beautiful self-government and fortitude….He ought to be a Catholic.”[vii]

Hampton’s triumph meant the end of Reconstruction in South Carolina. The politics of the contested 1877 presidential election, the changing shape of public opinion in the north, the subsequent withdrawal of Federal troops from the South all insured the collapse of Reconstruction and the end of South Carolina’s first real experiment in Democracy. Hampton would go on to become a US Senator and former Confederates would hold almost every political office in South Carolina for the next ten years. The Lost Cause seemed not so lost after all.

Yet, in a little over a decade, the “Bourbon” regime of South Carolina would collapse in the face of an onslaught by someone who had not served in the Confederate army and who had only a tenuous connection to the Lost Cause through his participation in some of the violence of 1876. Benjamin Ryan Tillman sought the Democratic nomination for Governor in 1890, wrathfully declaring that the Palmetto state had too long been ruled by a planter oligarchy. He snarled that Hampton was “the grand mogul” and Hampton, who had returned to South Carolina to campaign for Bourbon candidates, has rightly been described as “stunned” by the rough treatment and lack of respect that he received. [viii]

Looking back from our perspective, the Tillman revolution looks somewhat inevitable. Throughout the South in the late 19th century, the economic effects of the civil war, the worldwide downturn in prices fore agricultural commodities and a younger generation more concerned with their status as tenant farmers than with the memory of the civil war created all kinds of “farmers revolts” and “rural revolts.” Tillmanism shaped twentieth century South Carolina politics in so many ways. Olin Johnston, Cole Blease and certainly Strom Thurmond represented different aspects of the Tillman movement. Moreover, the state labored under the shortcomings of the 1895 Constitution, Tillman’s constitution.

Looking from the perspective of the immediate postbellum era, however, the political earthquake that destroyed the world Hampton helped shape seems utterly shocking. In Tillman, you had someone who not only had a limited attachment to the Lost Cause, but who actively mocked Hampton and his colleague’s fascination with it. Some of Hampton’s supporters targeted this aspect of Tillman but with very little effect. Leroy Youmans, in 1892, attacked Tillman for being “flat on his back” while the great issues of the 1860s were being decided and noted that Tillman had only heightened his crime by “casting discredit” on Confederate heroism and suggesting that “the followers of Lee and Jackson should be retired to the rear.” [ix]

Tillman had been very successfully suggesting just that. The 1890 election, as I’m sure we will hear more about this afternoon, affected a sea change in South Carolina’s political history. From one perspective it unseated ruling elite that, aside the brief interregnum of Reconstruction, had held the reigns of power in the state since about 1719, maybe before. In March of 1890, Hampton stepped down from his Senate seat and was replaced in 1891 by JLM Irby, a Tillman supporter described by Stephen Kantrowitz as descending into a state of “alcoholic confusion and paranoia” in the early 1890s. Tillman himself would go to the Senate in 1894 and serve into the First World War. Wade Hampton, as Edward Longacre notes, would spend the 1890s filling a Federal sinecure and traveling to California and Texas to fish. [x]

What became of the Lost Cause with the destruction of the Bourbon regime? Charles Holden has noted that, ironically, even as Hampton passed from the political scene in the 1890s, the process of his “canonization” among the growing number of Lost Cause organizations began. In 1895, Charleston celebrated a kind of “Hampton Day” as the old general came to serve as the orator for the Confederate Memorial Day celebrations of the South Carolina SCV and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. A parade down Meeting Street that then wended its way around the Battery was greeted with cheers. Hampton apparently spent much of the day receiving gifts, including a floral arrangement embannered with his name. [xi]

In my work, I’ve been especially intrigued with how Hampton’s death was greeted by South Carolinians and the meanings given to it. It's clearing one of those book-end moments that brings an end to an era. Politically and culturally, South Carolina had entered the “New South” (and all that meant, fair and foul) by the beginning of the 1900s. Independent farmers had been replaced by one-mule tenants, the sound of the morning whistle in the textile village increasingly called former farmers to work amidst the mechanical whir of the spinning room. Freedpeople had replaced slaves but the bright hopes of a democratic future had disappeared with the end of Reconstruction and Jim Crow, de facto and de jure, spread through every aspect of South Carolina’s public life.

Then came the death of Hampton in April of 1902. What did this event mean for South Carolinians? We get some hint in the Confederate Memorial Day celebrations of 1903. A brief passage from Never Surrender highlights some of the complications and ironies of that day.

The death of Hampton marked a profound change in the Lost Cause, a change that had been a long time coming. Evident in this passage is the role that consumerism, for example, played and would increasingly play in how the Lost Cause was celebrated. This is the same era that the raising of monuments to Confederate soldiers are less likely to occur because of an outpouring of funds to private fundraisers and more likely to be monuments to specific benefactors, or even arrangements made between marble companies and chapters of the UDC. [xii]

Moreover, the Lost Cause during the early part of the twentieth century increasingly became a much more elite celebration than it had in the early years. The preservation of Confederate memory had happened mainly in the work of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and thus had a clear class location. Confederate symbols during these years, as John Coski has noted, became “staid symbol(s) of the social order.” Only in the 1940s and Strom Thurmond’s “Dixiecrat” campaign and into the 1950s and 60s with the advent of “massive resistance” did the open and rowdy display of Confederate symbolism regain its political content and, at the same time, spread more diffusely throughout the world of white southerners, without reference to class and social identity. [xiii]

What has become of the memory of Wade Hampton in more modern celebrations of the Lost Cause? Outside of the fairly small group of those who ponder the larger meaning of the war, who attend things like Wade Hampton symposiums, I’m afraid that his memory means very little. I think there is a very good reason for this. The truth is, Hampton as an image and a memory is much too big to fit in most modern agendas, especially agendas connected to modern efforts to memorialize the Confederacy. His political evolution, as we will hear from Dr. Hamer, was very complicated. His attitudes about race and the role that African Americans should play in postbellum society were equally complex. The meaning of the riderless, unsaddled white horse, bringing up the rear of the parade, is well worth pondering.

[i] “October ’76 critical for Carolina,” Alfred Brockenbrough Williams “Eyewtiness Reporter on the Events of 1876” scrapbook, South Caroliniana Library.

[ii] “From Walhalla,” Anderson Intelligencer, November 25, 1866.

[iii] Charles Trowbridge, Reminiscences, 7-9.

[iv] Gaines Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press,), 50.

[v] “from Walhalla”

[vi] Richard Zuczek, State of Rebellion, (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1996), 99.

[vii] David T. Gleeson, “No Disruption of Union: The Catholic Church in the South and Reconstruction” in Vale of Tears: New Essays on Religion and Reconstruction ed. By Edward Blum and W. Scott Poole (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2005), 185; Richard C. Madden, Catholics in South Carolina (Lanham; University Press of America, 1985), 118.

[viii] Charles J. Holden, “Is Our Love for Wade Hampton foolishness?”: South Carolina and the Lost Cause” in The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, ed Gary Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan (Bloomington, IN;Indiana University Press, 2000), 69.

[ix] W. Scott Poole, Never Surrender (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2000), 173.

[x] Stephen Kantrowitz, Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 185; Edward Longacre, Gentleman and Soldier: The Extraordinary life of General Wade Hampton (Nashville, TN: Rutledge Hill Press, 2003 ), 274.

[xi] Holden, “Is Our Love…” , 72.

[xii] W. Scott Poole, Never Surrender (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2004), 188.

[xiii] W. Scott Poole, “Lincoln in Hell”: Class and Confederate Symbols in the American South in National Symbols, Fractured Identities ed by Michael Geisler (Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 2004), 121-148.

When I was assigned the subject of “Wade Hampton III in Cashiers,” I thought it would be easy to put together a 20 minute presentation – only a matter of gathering and verifying the many scattered pieces of evidence that told of the great man’s visits to his beloved “Valley.” How could I ever cut it all down to a mere 20 minutes? What I found was that Wade Hampton III could be compared to Elvis after death – he was seen everywhere but no one could prove it.

Let’s start with what I found in print about the time of Hampton’s land ownership in Cashiers Valley. This is what is said in The Venturers, in the chapter on Hampton Plantations and Houses. This has been repeated, oftentimes word for word, in the books I studied:

It Continues: The Valley was a hunting and fishing preserve in the mountains of Western North Carolina owned jointly with undivided interests by Wade Hampton II and his sons, Wade III and Christopher, who built a lodge there. It was used by family members as a summer vacation retreat. A part interest (probably Wade II’s and Christopher’s) passed to the Misses Hampton, who sold it ca. 1892 to Dr. William and Caroline (Hampton) Halsted. It was sold by their heirs in 1922.” To get to the source of this Hampton land ownership, I first traced back footnotes and endnotes listed in the books I studied, but never found a definitive source.

I then turned to the land deeds and grants of Macon and Jackson Counties, North Carolina. In 1845, when the Hamptons were said to have purchased their mountain land, Cashiers Valley was still a part of Macon County. Jackson County was not formed until 1851. Both counties have complete, extant deeds and indexes to the deeds. I quickly learned that the Hamptons had not bought any land in Cashiers while it was part of Macon County. Advancing on to Jackson County records, I found that Wade Hampton III together with two other men had jointly purchased Cashiers Valley property in 1855.

On 24 September 1855, two parcels of property were sold to JOHN S. PRESTON, WADE HAMPTON, and C. F. HAMPTON. First, 14 ½ acres were sold by ALEXANDER ZACHARY to them for the price of $72.50. That parcel was described as being in Cashiers Valley, starting at a corner of William Norton’s land and the deed was witnessed by WOODFORD ZACHARY, and MORDECAI ZACHARY, builder and first occupant of today’s Zachary-Tolbert House. Note that Alexander, Mordecai and Woodford were brothers.

On that same September day in 1855, WILLIAM NORTON, brother-in-law of the Zachary brothers, received $116.25 from the sale of 23 ¼ acres in Cashiers Valley to JOHN S. PRESTON, WADE HAMPTON, and C. F. HAMPTON. All three of the buyers, in both deeds, were listed as residents of Richland District, South Carolina. This land was described as adjoining others lands of WILLIAM NORTON AND ALEXANDER ZACHARY. The witnesses to this deed were Alexander Zachary and Woodford Zachary.

A little less than 2 months later, the same trio from Richland District, South Carolina purchased for $2,000, 364 acres in Cashiers Valley from WOODFORD Zachary. This acreage was described as adjoining the lands of Alexander Zachary, William Norton, A.D. McKinney and others.

The three land sales added up to a total of a little over 400 acres at an average cost per acre of $5.25. No other deeds were found in Jackson County, North Carolina that indicated that our General Wade Hampton ever purchased additional land in Cashiers Valley.

1. The earliest land ownership of land in Cashiers Valley by Wade Hampton III was 1855. [Not 1845]

2. He owned a 1/3 undivided interest in only 400 acres in Cashiers Valley. [Not 2, 300 acres – The hunting preserve was not named High Hampton nor was more land bought to increase the preserve until the 1890s when Dr. William S. Halsted and his wife, Caroline Hampton became owners of the properties.]

3. Our Wade Hampton’s father, Wade Hampton II, did NOT buy the Cashiers Valley land with his sons. [It was General John S. Preston, the brother-in-law of Wade III and brother Christopher F. Hampton, who was the third partner in the land deal.]

And who was John S. Preston? He was the brother-in-law of Wade III and Christopher Hampton as well as being their great-uncle. [But I assure you he was not his own Grandpa!] General John Smith Preston was a renowned figure in South Carolina and closely connected by blood and by interests to the Hampton family. He was about ten years older than Wade and served as his mentor and close friend until Preston’s death in 1881. In one of his biographies he is listed as a lawyer, planter, politician, orator, soldier and banker.

So, Wade Hampton didn’t own land in Cashiers Valley until 1855, but did he pay earlier visits here to fish, hunt and enjoy the vigorous manly pursuits of an outdoor man of the day? I checked three sources.

1. The still unpublished Alexander Zachary’s Cashiers Store Account Book dated in the 1840s and 50s. It has a loose alphabetical index, and under the letter “H,” the name of Hampton is not listed.

2. The Fogy Days and Now, published in 1891 and written by David U. Sloan, has a chapter entitled “Cashier’s Valley, N. C.” which tells about tourists in this area’s early days. He mentions the hunting of game, and fishing for speckled trout which made this section the resort of some of the best citizens of South Carolina. “It was here in Cashier’s and Fairfield Valleys that the noble Hampton loved to come out of the summer’s heat to chase the deer and catch the mountain trout; and, long before the war, the Hamptons, Prestons, Calhouns, Haskells, and Sloans spent their summers here”.

3. I turned to an oral history source – that of James Cannon, a great-grandson of Mordecai Zachary. Cannon spent his Jackson County childhood near his grandmother, Flora Jane Zachary Watkins, who was born in Cashiers Valley in 1856 and lived here until she was 17 years old. She passed on to her grandson the stories of the valley and the love of its history. One of these stories makes the claim that Wade Hampton, III lent Mordecai Zachary money to build his boarding house in return for Mordecai letting Hampton board free in Mordecai’s new house while Hampton’s hunting lodge was being built by Mordecai. This scenario is possible but not documented.

The Family Letters of the Three Wade Hamptons, 1782-1901 has but a few references to “The Valley”and all of them are after the land purchase date of 1855. In August of 1857, Wade writes to his sister, Mary Fisher, that he had just returned to Millwood, his home in Columbia. The editor of the book footnotes, “Hampton seems to have been returning to Columbia from the Hampton Cottage in Cashier’s Valley.” And, a passage in The Venturers states that Wade III “spent the summer at The Valley with his children, father and sisters.” Remember that in 1857, Wade III’s first wife, Margaret Preston, had been dead for 5 years.

In a June 1859 letter to sister Mary Fisher, Wade, then at Wild Woods in Mississippi, “You must get ready very soon to go up to the Valley and we can have a nice quiet time there this summer. We can take up some good horses and you must make M. Mc. ride with us. [The M. Mc. refers to his 2^nd wife, Mary McDuffie who was new to riding.]

After these brief references to The Valley in 1857 and 1859, I found no more evidence of the Hamptons in Cashiers until after the end of the Civil War. No doubt the General was overwhelmingly busy during the war years and Cashiers Valley was not a safe place to be – neither for men of the Confederacy nor for a Union sympathizer. Bushwhackers were always a constant threat, suddenly appearing to steal horses which would be branded U. S. A. before being driven out of town. Then the Confederate Home Guard were on the lookout for the outliers – Confederate soldiers who had deserted to come home and help their families survive. Sometimes they hid in caves during the daylight hours and came down at nightfall to plow the fields. And let’s not forget that Union soldiers who had escaped from prisoner of war stockades in SC and would often make their way to the mountains to hire local guides to lead them to the Union lines in Knoxville. No, Cashiers Valley was not a vacation destination between 1861 and 1865.

A passage in The Venturers says that the Hampton family spent the summer of 1865 at Cashier’s Valley since their SC homes had been destroyed and their new houses were under construction in Columbia. After the war, for quite a few years, this valley would have been a much more pleasant place to be than almost anyplace in SC.

The next year, 1866 in May, Hampton writes to his sister from Mississippi, “My Dear Fisher, …. What are you all going to do this summer? I do not know where the girls can go, except to the Valley.” Less than a month later, on the 3rd June, Hampton, still at Wild Woods, he writes again to his sister, about the favorable Mississippi weather. “The weather has been remarkably cool. Only one might ago we slept under a blanket with a fire burning constantly. It is a finer climate than Cashiers Valley and I think that we had better stay here all summer.”

Flora Jane Zachary Watkins, mentioned earlier, wrote a memoir about her early life in Cashiers Valley. “Many families of the southern aristocracy came to this Valley for the summer season, and many of them boarded in our home. Among those were the Hamptons (General Wade), the Prestons and the Calhouns. We had a handsome croquet yard and I played croquet there with the sons of the General by his second marriage. One Sunday the carriage of the General was driven up to the church. The General alighted, with the baby in his arms, and assisted his wife to the ground. Then he offered her the babe to hold while he helped the negro nurse down. Mrs. Hampton drew herself up with great hauteur and refused.”

This is the most detailed, first-hand account of Wade Hampton III in Cashiers that I have read. I think we can pin-point this small event at about 1867 or 68 since Mary and Gen. Hampton’s youngest child, Catherine Fisher, was born in 1867. None of the other children would have been “a babe in arms.”

Late in the year of 1868, Wade Hampton, finding himself in debt to the tune of one million dollars, filed for bankruptcy which was approved a year later , freeing him from all debts and claims. In his lists of assets, he included his North Carolina land.

In an 1874 letter to his sister-in-law, Anna Preston, Hampton writes “As soon as we get to the Valley, I hope that the climate will give me back my strength.” Then in May of 1875, he again writes to Anna Preston, “Why not go to the Valley? In a few hours you can reach Walhalla and a good road there takes you over the mountains. We can live very cheaply there and you will come back in the fall stout, as you will live on venison, pheasants and trout.” In Hampton and Reconstruction, by Edward L Wells we find, “in Hampton’s time in Cashiers Valley, his favorite home in summer, there was good hunting for large game, as well as pheasants”

Cashiers resident and neighbor to Hampton, Alexander Zachary, wrote something very similar to his son, T. R. Zachary, in the same time period. “ We are all in good health and doing very well. We have plenty here to live on. I could support you and your family and never miss it as we have plenty of every thing that we want. We have 23 head of cattle, plenty to make our milk and beef. We have 50 or 60 chickens ready for the pot – we can’t eat them all without help, so come ahead and help us eat them.”

In July of 1875, Hampton writes to Anna Preston from Columbia. “I will write to you from the Valley and if you can get up there, I shall be delighted to see you.” A year later, in the Spring of 1876, Anna received a letter from Hampton who was at his estate in Mississippi, “I have made no plans for the summer but I would like to go to the mountains. It would do Daisy much good for she could take regular exercise” Daisy was his daughter who was then aged 16.

1876 proved to be a banner year for sightings of Wade Hampton at his Valley home. One account says he received a message at Cashiers, delivered by a black man riding a mule. The next morning the two departed together. Hampton had been invited to join a deer hunt in the mountains of Oconee County SC, between Cashiers and Walhalla. When the hunting party returned to camp, lace coffee was served – an upcountry concoction of strong coffee, sugar, and corn whiskey, served hot. Hampton had never heard of it but declared the beverage “Gilt-edged.”

Author, Edward L. Wells, praised the mountains, which were “swept by health-bearing breezes with clear, cool streams rushing among the mossy rocks creating a paradise from which Hampton, who, with heart and mind and hand charged full and braced with pure vigor of the everlasting hills, came forth to redeem his people in 1876.”

That redemption was, of course, his election to the position of Governor of South Carolina. When it was suggested that the Democratic party needed him to be their gubernatorial candidate in the fall election, Hampton sought advice from his brother Kit and they rode to the Valley where they hunted and talked politics. Later in 1876, Hampton was supposedly in Cashiers’s Valley when he received the word, from a messenger on horseback, that he had won the election, but there is some local controversy about which porch he was sitting on when the news came. All normal sources have Hampton sitting on the porch of his hunting lodge but the descendants of Mordecai Zachary, builder and first resident of the Zachary-Tolbert House, swear that the General was sitting on the porch of that house, visiting his good friend, Armistead Burt, who was the second owner of the ZT House.

The latter scenario is not far fetched. Armistead Burt had been a friend and mentor of Wade Hampton IIIs for many years. Hampton often went to Burt for advice which is reflected in letters between the two. Both men were forced to declare bankruptcy a few years after the war ended. In 1873, when Mordecai Zachary decided to move his family from Cashiers Valley to northern Jackson County, it was likely Wade Hampton who suggested that Burt buy the house so they could be mountain neighbors.

In November of 1878, just after his election to his second term as Governor, Hampton joined friends on a deer hunt in Richland County. He arrived after his friends had already left on the hunt. He looked around for a horse but ended up mounting a saddled mule which he rode through the woods to find his friends. He suddenly saw a deer, which he shot on the spot, but as he attempted to dismount the mule started bucking which resulted in a fall that broke the Governor’s leg in two places. He laid there alone for several hours with the sharp broken bones piercing his ankle and his calf. A little over a month later, physicians were forced to amputate his leg below the knee.

Wade Hampton did not die from the results of this accident but it did cause a near fatal blow to his pursuits of fishing and hunting and his long, wonderful days at his Valley home dwindled to a few.

In summary, I’d like to give you a few of my conclusions and theories on Wade Hampton in Cashiers, developed from my research.

The time periods that Hampton stayed in Cashiers were: the last half of the 1850s when he was in his thirties. He would have been overseeing the initial establishment of his hunting preserve. The first few years after the Civil War, he needed the Valley as never before or after. His lodge was virtually untouched by the war and it must have been a relief for him not to have to see the Reconstruction Union Troops every day. He continued his Cashiers visits through most of the 1870s and it wasn’t just General Hampton and a few hunting friends at the Valley. His immediate family, his extended family, and many of his close associates frequently came and stayed at the Valley and of course there were servants too.

Why are there so many accounts of Hampton being in Cashiers Valley well before he purchased land in 1855, when there is so little proof? I have a theory for that. A book published in 1992, entitled “The German Invasion of Western North Carolina” by Jacqueline Painter, tells of a Hampton Cottage in Warm Springs, North Carolina – that place is now named Hot Springs, where, starting in the 1830s and continuing for over 100 years, the Wade Hampton families visited. The surroundings were mountainous and brimming with game. From the date of 1828, there was a turnpike that went from Greenville, SC to Hot Springs NC, making it relatively easy travel for the Hamptons. Could this have been the North Carolina mountains where Wade Hampton III wrestled the bears in his youth? I think it’s quite possible.

Authors Note: The following is a guide or list of the slides I will be showing. As a rule I do not use a script when I make this presentation. (Which is usually twice as long as the one presented here.) I speak from memory with some ad-libbing that is appropriate to the group I am presenting this to. Thus what follows is not necessarily an exact word-for-word copy of my presentation, but it does convey the main ideas that I will be expressing.

On Christmas Day, 1864, Gen. William T. Sherman presented U.S. President Abraham Lincoln with a Christmas gift of Savannah, Ga. With the completion of his “march to the sea “, South Carolinians knew that they were next.

Sadly, Confederate officials in Richmond and Columbia did little to prepare the state for an invasion by Sherman’s 60,000+ army. In fact, just days before Sherman entered the city, military and government leaders were issuing proclamations that the city was in no danger from the Federal army. Many were convinced that the numerous swollen rivers and swamps that Sherman would be forced to cross would force him to turn back since South Carolina and Georgia were experiencing the wettest winter in two decades, which delayed Sherman’s invasion plans by two weeks.

But Confederate officials underestimated Sherman, one of the most brilliant strategists of the war and a master motivator of men. In less than three weeks, he moved his army from Savannah to Columbia, moving at a rate of 10-12 miles a day. An impressive rate since his army had to put logs on the ground so his wagons could travel on the muddy roads.

During this time, Sherman’s men faced only two serious attempts at stopping them, one at Rivers Bridge and the other in Aiken. While both the North and the South felt that Columbia would not fall without a fight, there were only 20,000 badly scattered Confederate troops in South Carolina.

Sherman split his army in two. The Left wing, or The Army of Georgia, commanded by Maj. Gen. Henry Slocum, crossed the Savannah River, north of Savannah, Ga. at Sister’s Ferry. They would feint towards Augusta and then move on to Columbia. The Right wing, or the Army of the Tennessee (named after the river and not the state) would travel by boat from Savannah to Beaufort and feint towards Charleston, then head to Columbia.

Sherman felt that Columbia, then a major manufacturing center, was more vital to the Confederate cause than Richmond. By taking out Columbia, he would also be taking out Augusta as well, home of the large Confederate powder works, since the rail line between Augusta and Richmond went through Columbia, though all rail lines would be a major target of Sherman’s men.

It is a little known fact that Sherman was very intimate with the South Carolina low country. He served at Fort Moultrie in Charleston in the 1840s, a time considered the happiest of his pre-war days. He made numerous friends down there, many of who took him hunting and fishing, giving him invaluable first hand knowledge that would come in handy in 1865.

Howard was Sherman’s second in command and commander of the Army of the Tennessee. Nicknamed the “Christian warrior” because of his strong Religious beliefs, Howard once issued an order banning swearing; it was not well obeyed.

Nicknamed “Black Jack’ for his long dark hair, Logan commanded the XVth Army Corps under Howard. An Illinois Congressman before the war with no military experience, Logan would end the war as one of the North’s best corps commanders.

By rights, Logan should have had Howard’s job for successfully leading the Army of the Tennessee during the Battle of Atlanta in July 1864, after its commander, Maj. Gen. James McPherson was killed early in the fight. However, Logan was passed over for permanent command due to his lack of a West Point degree. This led to lifetime grudge against the West Point clique that Logan would take back with him to Washington. After the war he became one of the most powerful politicians in the country.

Confederate forces in South Carolina were under the command of Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, the hero of Fort Sumter. Unfortunately, Beauregard was physically and possibly emotionally, ill at the time (Mary Chesnut in her famous diary wrote that Beauregard was suffering from “melancholy”) and did little to prepare the city defenses, spending most of his time, instead, time trying to get the Charleston garrison to evacuate! Though both Lee and Sherman expected a major battle for Columbia, Beauregard developed a defeatists attitude and did very little, if anything to stop Sherman in S.C and would soon be replaced by Gen. Joseph Johnston.

Lt. Gen. Wade Hampton III was Robert E. Lee’s Chief of Cavalry, but had been sent to South Carolina along with some cavalry units to help bolster morale in the state. Hampton suggested that Sherman’s wings and/or corps be attacked one by one, a move that most historians agree was the best response that the Confederates could have had. Though Hampton would claim that everyone agreed with his ideas, they were never carried out for reasons that Hampton admitted he did not understand. Years later Butler would argue that had Hampton been put in charge that Columbia would have been defended.

There were 2-5 thousand Confederate cavalrymen in the Columbia area. About half were under the command of Maj. Gen. Matthew Butler, who enjoyed a close personal and professional relationship with Hampton

The other half was under the command of Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler. Wheeler had become the ranking cavalry officer in the entire Confederate army after the death of Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart. Though Wheeler was respected for his talents in the field, his men had a reputation that was just as bad as Sherman’s “bummers.” On top of that, Hampton had no desire to take orders from someone young enough to be his son. Happily for Hampton, Beauregard was so fed up with the complaints against Wheeler that he had Hampton promoted over Wheeler. Though Wheeler took the news in stride, his men didn’t. They threaten mutiny and one even pulled a pistol on Hampton.

Observing the threat to his state was Gov. Magrath. Magrath had been a federal judge before the war and held a similar position in the Confederate government. A firm believer in “States rights” he struck down as unconstitutional a number of bills that Jefferson Davis supported, earning the Confederate leader’s animosity.

Magrath was elected governor in December 1864. It was only the second elective office he had ever held, and some have speculated that he ran for it out of fear of losing his judgeship. Upon being elected he was shocked to discover that nothing was being done to prepare Columbia for a possible invasion. Magrath ordered plans for the city’s defense drawn up, while asking Lee if he could send his army to SC to defend the state against Sherman. Lee wrote back saying that if he came to SC, Grant would follow him and the state would have to deal with two federal armies instead of one.

Congaree Creek is a small tributary that feeds into the Congaree River where archaeological evidence shows that humans have lived in this area almost continuously for 13,000 years. It is in this area that scholars believe the Congaree Indians, for whom the creek and river are named after, once lived.

Going through the area is the “State Road” the first highway in South Carolina to link the mountains to the coast. It was this road that the Federal troops took as they neared Columbia.

On February 15, 1865, Confederate troops under the command of Butler fought the First Division of Logan’s XVth Corps in the only major resistance to Sherman’s army in the Columbia area. The division was led by Maj. Gen. Charles Woods who had one of the most unusual nicknames of the entire war-“Susan”!

Butler’s men defended the creek from earthen works that were up to twelve feet in height. They were part of a system of defenses designed by John Niernsee, State House architect, who served in the Confederate army as a major in the engineering corps. However Niernsee was handicapped by a lack of men and materials and was only able to complete 100 yards of lines. Even worse, the bridge over the creek was not fully destroyed and the defenses on the road itself were poor. After a spirited engagement the Federals out flanked the Confederates and proceeded onto Columbia.

The battle did have one interesting effect. Many of the XVth Corps were upset that Gen. Henry’s Slocum’s Army of Georgia did nothing to help in the fight, especially since the Confederates were between Logan’s and Slocum’s forces, and could have been trapped and destroyed. Sherman may have been upset as well. Although Slocum’s men were closer to Columbia, Sherman decided that the Army of the Tennessee and not the Army of Georgia would have the honor of capturing Columbia.

Not too far from this site, Sherman’s men camped for the night. They did not get much rest though, as the Confederates shelled them from the opposite side of the river. Sherman was angry about this and mentioned in his memoirs that he considered destroying the city in retaliation, but kept this thought to himself, and later changed his mind.

The present bridge is the third one erected on this site. The Confederates destroyed the first one, built in 1827, to prevent its use by Sherman’s army. It was not rebuilt until 1870. The current one was built in 1927.

Above the bridge Capt. Francis DeGress set up two artillery batteries that shelled the city. It is probably from this site that the cannon balls that struck the State House were fired.

Sherman in his Memoirs said that DeGress had started firing because he had seen some cavalrymen and had a strange idea that there were some infantry hiding in the city ready to ambush the Federal forces when they entered the city.

Sherman would write that he knew no such force existed, and ordered DeGress not to fire into the town anymore, except for a few shells at the depot. This was to stop the looting, as Sherman needed the grain for his army. DeGress was also allowed three shots at the new State House, which sustained seven exterior and ten interior hits. A boy in his early teens, John T. Seibles, saw the building struck. He would recall the sound was "a horrible shrieking" followed by the sound of the impact.

Afterwards, DeGress was to cease all firing. Sherman stood by while these shots were fired and then took off after all the shelling was done. Sherman would later claim that for all the shelling his cannons had done, he had never heard of anyone killed by it, though a local witness claimed two people were killed.

A number of Federal soldiers claimed that around this time Logan gave them permission to burn Columbia and that he joined them in the singing of a new song:

In 1855, John R. Niernsee of Baltimore was hired to design and build the present Sate House. Work started in 1856 and by 1865, the exterior walls were all but finished, though the building still lacked a roof or any interiors. (Ironically, a roof was considered a fire hazard.)

The current State House was not destroyed, although rumors flew that Sherman's men wanted to blow it up. However, Sherman, thought the structure was “handsome,” and decided to spare it. (He was not alone, almost all of the Federal soldiers who commented on the building spoke highly of its appearance.)

However, the building was not unscathed. The west and south sides bear six stars marking where cannonballs found their target. Also on the west side some of the trim was damaged by the flames of the burning wooden State House.

Columns waiting to be erected were damaged and destroyed. So were forty Italian marble Corinthian capitals, designed for the two large porticoes of the edifice. Also damaged or destroyed were a large quantity of wrought iron, finished and unfinished granite and marble. The loss of materials has been estimated from $700,000 to $1,000,000 in 1860's prices. Statues and busts, intended for the new structure were also destroyed; two monuments were damaged.

In the 1870’s, a temporary roof was put on the building, but it was not until 1903, that the building was proclaimed, “finished,” thanks in part to politics and/or inadequate funding. However, by 1907 there were already calls to replace or expand the structure; it was deemed too small to meet the needs of government.

The building as it appears to day differs in many ways from the way from the architect’s vision, most notably a dome, instead of a tower over the structure. Since its “completion,” the State House has under gone a number of renovations over the century. The most recent and intensive lasted from 1995 to 1998, when the entire inside of the building was renovated to bring the structure into the twenty-first century, while giving the interior a more unified, nineteenth century look. Because all the plans to the building were destroyed in 1865, this project finished six months late and millions of dollars over budget. During the renovations, several unexploded cannonballs were found in the building.

The congregation was organized in 1795. They moved the old Lexington County Courthouse to this location, which had been the public burial grounds. In 1853, the present structure, an early English Gothic style structure was built.

The church’s spire was the tallest structure in Columbia until the erection of the Barringer Building in 1903. Because of this, Federal artillerymen used it for target practice as they fired their cannons from across the Congaree River. Luckily, the church managed to avoid serious damage from the shelling.

The First Presbyterian Church, by a “miracle,” escaped destruction during the fire, though everything else around it was destroyed. Because of this, many frighten civilians camped in its cemetery during the fire for safety and protection.

On this site some 1300 to 1400 miserable Federal Officers were detained in a five-acre open field from October to December 1864. (It was common practice in both armies to separate enlisted men from officers in the belief that it would discourage escapes.) It was not the most secured P.O.W. camp in the C.S.A. Confederate officials would complain that some 373 prisoners, almost a third of the prison population, had escaped due to the poor quality of the guards. Mary Chesnut wrote in November 1864 that "squads of Yankee prisoners escape every night." The guards were mostly raw recruits, often teenagers and elderly men, and despite the qualms about their "quality," under the circumstances they were only ones available.

The prisoners here had originally been in Georgia, but when Sherman’s army overran that state, they were sent to Charleston. However, officials in Charleston had no place for them and fearing yellow fever, the prisoners were shipped to Columbia with no notice or authorization, Local officials scouted the countryside to find an adequate place for the camp, deciding on this one. Two factors that probably went into the decision to locate here were the presence of a stream and a belief that they Saluda and Congaree rivers would prevent escapes. On this last point, they were wrong, one fourth to one third of all prisoners here escaped in two months!

There were never any permanent buildings erected, and the camp had only about twenty tents. Most of the men stayed in covered holes in the ground called she-bangs.

In December 1864, the remaining P.O.W. s were moved to the insane asylum, the present day South Carolina State Hospital, on the northern boundary of the city. It was something of an improvement for both the prisoners and their guards. The prisoners were in better shelter, while being kept behind a strong brick wall. When Sherman neared Columbia, the remaining prisoners were transferred to Charlotte.

When the XVth Corps headed to the Saluda River, their route took them by the site of Camp Sorghum. The sight of the camp proved to have a powerful effect on the corps members. The burrows that the prisoners had dug for shelter, and living quarters were still very visible, and this led to anger over the sufferings their brother soldiers had endured. It would be later claimed by many that the suffering Columbia would endure was in retaliation for Camp Sorghum. What few structures that were on the site were burned by the corps.

Ironically, one of the prisoners here would later return to Columbia to run the local prisons!

A local tradition holds that Sherman spent the night of February 16, 1865 under this large bolder. Often called "Sherman's Rock" because its placement resembles a very tiny cave. Sherman himself gave merit to this belief stating in his memoirs "I camped near an old prison bivouac." Until this area was sealed off by the Zoo, this rock was for many years a popular place for picnics by Columbians.

This was once one of the largest textile mills in the world, and one of the oldest in South Carolina. In 1834, the Saluda Manufacturing Company, owned by a group of twelve investors, was chartered by the General Assembly. The investors built a four-story granite structure, with a dam that covered the Saluda River. Sadly, financial problems forced the owners to sell the mill in 1839.

The mill would undergo a series of ownership changes through the years until 1855 when Col. James G. Gibbes acquired the property. Gibbes renamed the factory The Columbia Cotton Mill (though the name Saluda Factory seems to have stuck by then) and made several improvements on the site. Eighty looms and thousands of spindles were worked by a force that was up to a thousand people during the war years, with 18 feet diameter wheels generating the power to move the machinery. Originally most of the labor was furnished by slaves, but during the war years, hired helped, mostly female, did the work. In all, an estimated 50,000 Confederate uniforms were made here.

Gibbes continued to own the mill until 1862 when he sold the place for half-price because he was tired of “unjust, unkind and un-Christian attacks” he was getting for the high prices the mill charged for goods during that time. While getting only half of one’s investment back might not seem like good business sense it proved to be a most fortunate move in the end.

As it happened, the XVth Corps literally came to the door of the mill on February 16. Despite the danger they faced, a number of the 250 women who worked there were in the mill trying to save and salvage as much of the cloth in it as possible for their own personal use. When informed that they would have to leave because the building was about to be torched, the women became rather angry, and protested the action because it would leave them unemployed. Their pleas fell on deaf ears as the building was burned and the dam destroyed. Before it was burned, sharpshooters were posted in all the windows to deal with any potential snipers while the XVth Corps crossed the Saluda River.

The factory was rebuilt in 1874, though it was not very profitable. When it burned for a second time in 1886, it was not rebuilt and in time, the picturesque ruins became a popular picnic spot for Columbians. In 1898, the ruins were bought by the Columbia Water Power Company who sold them to South Carolina Electric & Gas in 1911. In the early 1970’s, SCE&G leased the land to the zoo for 99 years at a cost of one dollar a year. In 1995 the site was developed as a park and opened to the public.

Those islands in the river are the ruins of the State Road Bridge that crossed this river. The bridge was destroyed by the Confederates to delay Sherman’s men. Gen. Logan’s XVth Corps laid a pontoon bridge over the river and crossed without much incident late in the afternoon of February 16, 1865.

Near or on this spot is where the XVth Corps crossed the Broad River and the Columbia Canal. During the early morning hours of the seventeenth, a Federal brigade had made a pontoon raft and crossed the river about at this point. That brigade chased away some pickets and protected the Federal Army’s engineers as they built a pontoon bridge for the rest of the corps to cross.

While Sherman waited for the pontoon bridges to be built, he amused himself by whittling on a stick while sitting on a log with Gen. Howard. It is while he was sitting here that he received word that the city was surrendered. Sherman’s only reaction to the news was to remind Howard of Special Orders 26 which read in part:

General Howard will cross the Saluda and Broad Rivers as near their mouths as possible, occupy Columbia, destroy the public buildings, railroad property, manufacturing and machine shops, but will spare libraries and asylums and private dwellings

A map of 1865 Columbia is shown here to trace Sherman’s route into the city. Copies will be provided for participants.

When Gov. Magrath evacuated the city, Mayor Thomas Jefferson Goodwyn, a planter and physician had the unenviable honor of being the ranking Confederate government official in Columbia. On the night of February 16, he conferred with Beauregard and Hampton as to the fate of the city.

There were two serious issues. One was the matter of hundreds of cotton bales lying in the streets. They had been ordered out of the city by Beauregard to be destroyed, but the order was never fully carried out due to a lack of wagons and animals to pull them. Immediately an order was issued not to burn the cotton.

The second issue regarded the large amounts of alcoholic beverages that were in the city. Thanks to a form of prohibition passed by the Confederate Congress in 1862, the cost of cheap Whiskey had jumped from 25 cents a jug to $25. For this reason, many Charlestonians, thinking Sherman was after them, sent their booze to Columbia because it was more valuable than gold. Hampton and Beauregard refused to do anything about the spirits since it was private property.

This boulder marks the spot where Mayor Thomas Goodwyn formally surrendered the city to Col. George A. Stone, commander of the 25th Iowa regiment, and commander of the Third Brigade of the First division of the XVth Corps around 10 am on February 17. Goodwyn asked for terms but was told the city would have to be surrendered unconditionally.

The Confederate forces having evacuated Columbia, I deem it my duty, as Mayor and representative of the city, to ask for its citizens the treatment accorded by the usages of civilized warfare. I therefore respectfully request that you will send a sufficient guard in advance of the army to maintain order in the city and protect the persons and property of the citizens.

Stone quickly sent a messenger to inform Sherman that the city was surrendered and to ask if there any orders. The letter from the mayor was also passed on. Sherman was with Howard when the message arrived. Sherman would recall, "I simply remarked to General Howard that he had his orders, to let Col. Stone go on into the city, and that we would follow as soon as the bridge was ready." Sherman gave no written acknowledgment of having received the mayor's letter.

The note still exists and is a part of the University of South Carolina’s manuscript collection.

Built in 1818 by Columbia merchant Ainsley Hall, tradition states that Robert Mills was the house’s designer. In 1823, Hall sold his house to Gen. Wade Hampton I, a hero of the American Revolution and the War of 1812. Hall supposedly was not interested in selling it, but he eventually gave in to Hampton (who could have met any price Hall wanted since the general was described as the wealthiest man in America.).

After Hampton’s death in 1835, his daughter Caroline and her husband John S. Preston moved in. For 13 years, they traveled between here and other family properties in the U.S. and Europe before settling down in this home in 1848. After that, it became a center of social life in Columbia. Its gardens, accented with sculptures from Europe were world-renowned for their beauty and grace

Preston, a personal friend of Jefferson Davis, was active in state and regional politics. Davis appointed him Superintendent of the Bureau of Conscript in 1863 with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel; he held that post until the end of the war and was promoted to brigadier general in 1864.

From here Butler’s men evacuated Columbia on the morning of February 17. They left a city whose pre-war population of 8000 had swollen to 20,000 with a female to male ratio of 40-1. Though there had been some talk about fighting from house to house, Beauregard vetoed the idea over concerns for the civilian population.

Witnesses reported that the cavalrymen left with their heads down and women crying to them, “Don’t leave us! Who will protect us now?”

This illustration was made by a Harper’s Weekly artist who accompanied Sherman entering the city around noon. Notice the spire of First Presbyterian in the background. You will also notice the white flakes in the air. These are from the cotton bales. The winds were of gale force that day several soldiers said the flying cotton reminded them of a snowstorm.

At the bottom corner you will see some soldiers having fun because they are drunk. As Union troops entered the city, people started handing out alcoholic beverages to them. Now the consumption of alcohol on duty was legal, but getting drunk wasn’t. Still it was not wise since the soldiers had neither slept nor ate in 18 hours.

Dr. Thomas Lowry, an expert on Union Military Court Martials has found that there were 64 recognizable levels of drunkenness, and all of them were in Columbia. Consequently, all day Woods would be bringing in men to guard the city, only to have to relieve them for drunkenness.

Whether or not the cotton was on fire remains a subject of controversy. Almost all Confederates agree that it was not on fire and even most Union witnesses say that the fires were not bad and easy to put. Oddly enough, Sherman asked the mayor about the city’s firefighting equipment and was told it was good shape. Shortly there after, the hoses on the fire trucks were bayoneted.

Just Before lunchtime, the U.S. flag was hoisted over the current state house building.

This was the second South Carolina State House. The first one was in Charleston. The second one was the first State House built for the general assembly, and according to tradition, Charleston architect James Hoban, the architect of the White House, designed it. It had a brick raised basement, which contained offices, and one floor above where the Senate and the House each had their own chambers.

However, it was cheaply made and was in a constant need of repair. A Federal soldier who saw it before its destruction called it “dingy and forbidding.” Supposedly, goats even roamed in the basement! Not surprisingly, the state quickly outgrew the building; storage space for records was an especially serious problem. Also concerns that the building was a fire hazard led to the construction of the current State House.

To raise funds for the war effort the great bazaar of January 1865. Booths from all of the Confederate States were present, though some booths were set up and manned by Columbians as Union occupation prevented representatives of these states from being present. Reflecting the inflation in the Confederacy at the time, items were sold at rather staggering prices. A slice of cake for two dollars and a small cake fetched $75. Imported wax dolls were raffled from $500 to $2000. Originally, it was to be held for two weeks, but the approach of the Federal army closed it after only a few days. Despite all the hardships, organizers raised an impressive 350,000 dollars.

When Federal troops broke into the old State House, they vandalized the interior. A portrait of Jefferson Davis was shot at. A mock session of the legislature was held in the Senate chambers where delegates passed a vote of censure against John C. Calhoun. They also took shots at a bust of him with spittoons and inkstands. The “senate” also voted to repeal the Ordinance of Secession, and after a rousing version of “John Brown” voted to adjourn and reassemble in Raleigh, North Carolina.

The building burned after midnight. A member of the XVth Corps, Thomas Ford claimed that he was the one to burn it, saying “It made a nice fire.”

Lost in the destruction of this building was the State Library. In it were architectural plans and drawings of the new State House, papers and artifacts of John C. Calhoun, as well as a bust of President Andrew Jackson and Calhoun. Records from the colonial era were also lost as well as 25,000 “choice volumes” of books.

This is one of six bronze casts made from the original statue made by Antoine Houdon for the state of Virginia in 1796. It is said to be the only statue that George Washington ever posed for. South Carolina purchased their copy in 1858.

During Sherman’s occupation of Columbia, Federal soldiers threw stones, rocks and other objects at the statue and broke off the lower portion of the walking stick. After the war it was repaired, but was taken off by some local citizens who wanted to show the Yankees in their “true light.” The lower portion is now on display at the Confederate Relic Room.

The two story, townhouse looking building sits on the site where Sherman had his headquarters, a two story framed house, owned by Blanton Duncan of Kentucky. Duncan had fled the city with the Confederate troops because he had a contract to print Confederate money. Duncan’s home featured a large wine cellar, which at first was mistaken by Federal troops as a slave dungeon.

It was here that Sherman first learned that the city was on fire. According to his memoirs, he ran from the house to help direct efforts to put out the blaze. The morning after the fire, Sherman was so besieged by requests that he and several of his officers complained that they could not get any work done because the army was busy trying to answer all the requests for protection. During most of Sherman’s occupation, women seeking guards to protect their houses and belongings hounded him.

The house survived the fire and was later remodeled. Duncan offered to sell his home to the state as a governor’s mansion. However, the lack of funds in the state’s treasury made state officials choose another building the state already owned. Unfortunately, the house could not survive “progress” and was torn down in the 1960’s to make room for a hotel which has undergone numerous ownership changes since.

Howard set up his headquarters in this house that would be a rather busy place during the occupation of Columbia. Here Howard first learned that the city was on fire. He left the house and headed in the streets to direct what efforts there were to restore order and control the flames.

On the nineteenth, a group of civic leaders went to Sherman to request food, medicines and guns to keep order in the town when the army left. Sherman sent them to Howard, telling them “Howard runs the religion of this army…He will treat you better than one of your own generals.” Howard agreed to leave some supplies, but what he gave left much to be desired.

Logan used the Hampton-Preston house as his headquarters. According to tradition, he chose this house as “payback” to General Preston’s brother, William C. Preston, a former U.S. Congressman and Senator who once called Logan an “Indian half-breed.” Logan was not a nice guest. Nude statues had clothes painted on them and mustaches were added to the paintings. Soldiers also took numerous leaves and plants from the gardens.

Mounting debts and taxes forced the Preston family to sell the house in 1873. Reconstruction governor, F. J. Moss used it for his residence, later the Ursaline Convent moved back in from 1887-1890. In 1890, it became the College for Women, a school founded by the Presbyterian Church. In 1915, Chicora College for Women moved from Greenville, S.C. to the house and occupied it until 1930.

For much of the time afterwards, the house was used as a boarding home. The lot was subdivided and a car dealership replaced the fine, formal gardens. In the late 1960’s, the State of South Carolina acquired the block for the state’s tricentennial celebration in 1970. The home was restored at that tine and when the tricentennial ended, it was given to the Historic Columbia Foundation.

Today the house is restored to its prewar appearance, and furnished with many pieces belonging to the Hampton and Preston families. An ongoing project has been the restoration of the once elaborate gardens.

This site is where the XVth Corps’ First Division commander, Maj. Gen. Charles “Susan” Woods made his headquarters. Ironically, this is also the site of Confederate General Wade Hampton III last home, which was given to Hampton in 1899 by South Carolinians who took up a donation for him when his home “Southern Cross” burned to the ground. He lived here until his death in 1902. Sadly, Hampton’s home was later destroyed to make way for the apartment building currently on the site.

This is another Harper’s Weekly Illustration. Around seven or eight pm three rockets were seen in the night sky. This was standard military procedure for the rockets allowed each corps to see where it was in relationship to the other. Either by accident or design, they seemed to have served as a signal, for most accounts agree that the fire began shortly after the rockets were seen.

Though some say that fires started everywhere, three locations have generally been cited as where the fire began. The first was the northern boundary of the city, and area called “Cotton Town” where several major cotton warehouses were located. Sherman himself said it started near the courthouse (which this scene depicts) while a soldier claimed it started in the city’s red-light district over differences regarding “services rendered.”

In this illustration, you can see the courthouse, city hall and State house. You will also notice how high the flames are shooting. Witnesses claimed that they could see the glow of the fire from as far away as Rock Hill, about 60 miles from Columbia! You will also notice the soldiers in the bottom corner dancing and getting drunker.

This was the pre-war home of Lt. Gen. Wade Hampton III. It was described as a Greek revival house with a two-room library, and sat on a 108-acre site. Sadly, no photographs or illustrations of the home are known to exist.

According to several eyewitness accounts, Hampton’s home was one of the first things torched by the Yankees on the night of February 17. Since it is several miles from downtown Columbia, there can be no mistake that its destruction was intentional.

According to local legend, Gen. Phil Sheridan had asked his friend and comrade in arms, Sherman, to make it a point to burn Hampton’s houses.

Sheridan had tangled with Hampton in Virginia at Trevilian Station. There on June 11,1864, Sheridan had Gen. George Custer attack the forces under Hampton's command in an attempt to establish a link between the Federal forces at Charlottesville, Va. and Grant's Army outside of Richmond. Two days of fighting ensued, but Sheridan's attacks met with no success despite 1700 combined casualties.

According to the legend, "Little Phil" was personally humiliated by his failure to defeat Hampton, whom Sheridan looked upon as a mere "farm boy." According to the tale Sheridan told Sherman, "When you get to Columbia, be sure to burn that damn Hampton's House."

A letter from Sherman to Grant dated April 8 1865 from Goldsboro, NC, gives some weight to the legend. In it, Sherman told Grant to tell Sheridan, " I make him a free gift of all of the blooded [horse] stock of South Carolina including Wade Hampton's whose pedigree and stud are of high repute."

After the war, Hampton moved into his overseer’s cabin on the property and built a second home on the site, called Southern Cross because of its shape. A photograph of the home shows a small, modest single story framed house with high gables and a small porch. However, Hampton’s post-war financial woes (he had gone from being one of the richest men in America to one the poorest) forced him to put it for public auction in 1868 to cover his debts. Luckily, no one had the heart to leave the general homeless, so he was able to purchase his home and lands for 100 dollars.

Bad fortune continued in 1899 when Southern Cross was burned, probably by political opponents, only two weeks before he was to attend a United Confederate Veterans Convention in Charleston. All he could save were his swords, family silver and the clothes on his back. Once again, he moved into his overseer’s cottage. Because he was too poor to rebuild, the people of South Carolina took up a collection and built him an even finer home on Senate Street in 1901.

Millwood was the premiere mansion in the Columbia area during the ante-bellum era. Wade Hampton I as a wedding present built the original house in 1817 for his son Wade Hampton II. He also gave him15, 000 acres of land. In 1838, the younger Hampton started expanding his house, a project that would take five years. When the renovations were finished, the four-room house had become a brick mansion that was about 100 feet long. From the new porch that surrounded the house, it was said one could see for 25 miles. The Hampton’s were renowned for their hospitality and their famous guests. Contrary to popular belief, it was not later owned by Gen. Wade Hampton III but by his sisters who were affectionately referred to as the “Aunites.”

The mansion was destroyed by Federal troops. Given how far away it is from downtown Columbia, about 15-20 minutes by car, there can be no doubt that the burning of this home was intentional. The family did manage to save its silver and china by wrapping them in curtains and sending them to some family property in York County.

All that remains of the original home are six columns, a wine house and a smoke house. In the 1960’s the Historic Columbia Foundation stabilized the columns and restored the out buildings. The Hampton family, who still owns the site of the house (but only 500 of the original 15,000 acres), built two post-war frame houses, but they also burned. The current frame house was built in 1922. About two miles west of this site was another Hampton plantation, Woodlands. Built before 1800 by Gen. Wade Hampton I, grandfather of the Confederate general, it too was destroyed by Federal troops. No trace of it remains today and sadly, very little is known about it.

One of two pre-war outbuildings that stand on the property today. The wooden grate at the back on the building has char marks that are said to have come from the 1865 fire.

The Ursaline Convent was located in what had once been a 70-room hotel. It could house 200 students, and even as late as 1865, still had a number of girls in its charge. Tuition was $220 per month, which included room and board, washing, lights, fuel and English instruction. Extra fees were charged for foreign languages, singing, piano, harp and guitar lessons, as well for art and embroidery classes.

As Sherman neared the city, many girls were sent there for safety, as it was common knowledge that Sherman was married to a Catholic, and therefore tried to spare Catholic Churches and their properties. Even after Sherman arrived, it seemed that girls were still being sent there for safety.

Sherman did receive a note from, the Mother Superior of the Ursuline Convent, Sister Baptista Lynch. The sister taught at a convent in Ohio when Sherman’s daughter, Minnie, was a student there. Sister Baptista therefore asked for special protection for her school and pupils.

William T. Sherman feared few things in life, but the wrath of his wife, Ellen, was one of them. She was a devout Catholic, thus one of the easiest ways to raise her ire was to offend her Catholic sensibilities. Although Sherman and his men swept down

like a plague of locus everywhere they went, Sherman tried to see that no harm befell Catholic property. Happily for him that had not been a big problem since until now there were few Catholic Churches in his path.

Still, Sherman apparently had no desired to risk his wife's anger even at this point. He sent a message back to the Mother Superior informing her that both he and his army "contemplated no destruction of any private property in Columbia at all." Just to be on the safe side, he instructed his inspector general, Col. Charles Ewing, Ellen Sherman's brother, to deliver the message in person. This was one of the most extraordinary acts performed by Sherman to any one individual during the march.

The Mother Superior quickly learned that Sherman either could not and/or did not keep his promise regarding the safety of her school. At 11:00 a.m. that day she had been warned by a Catholic major from Detroit, "that she would need all the guard he had brought, as Columbia is a doomed city!" He had brought eight to ten guards, none of them Catholic to her dismay. When the fire broke out that evening they engaged in looting and pillaging the school. Soon the school itself was on fire. Among the school property destroyed were some paintings, a harp and seventeen pianos. There was also quite a bit of private property in there that was lost as well. Many residents had felt that since it was a female religious school, the property was safe, and would be spared from harm.

Realizing her plight, the Mother Superior had the girls gather up warm clothing and whatever possessions they could carry and marched them to St. Peter's Catholic Church. Rev. Lawrence P. O'Connell and some others helped the Mother Superior lead her students to safety. At the church they were assisted by two Irish Catholic Union officers, Col. Corley and a Dr. Galaghan, who helped in keeping watch over the church and the young girls.

It was a good thing they did too, for a number of soldiers had followed them and were trying repeatedly to burn down St. Peters. It became such a serious problem that the girls were taken to the church cemetery, and spent a cold, terrifying night in the cemetery. Miraculously, the church survived.

The next morning, Sherman had to deal with one very angry Mother Superior. When he visited her the she accused him of deliberately breaking his promise to her. To get her off his back (if not avoid to the wrath of Mrs. Sherman as well) Sherman told her she could choose any house in town she wanted.

The Mother Superior was quick in choosing. She chose the Preston Mansion, Gen. Logan's headquarters, and the home of supporters of the convent's school. Logan was on the verge of setting the house on fire, he had bales of straw all around the house, when the nun went straight to him and told him Sherman said she could have this house. Logan at first did not believe her, and then she showed him the orders and even the title that Sherman had issued for it. A rather angry Logan ordered the combustibles removed, and uttered that he had wished that Gen. Preston had been there for he would have "hang him as high as Haman." After the war, the house and the ownership papers were given back to the Prestons.

The Ursaline Convent would reopen and its legacy continues into the 21st century, as the convent eventually became Cardinal Newman High School in Forest Acres. In the 1920’s and 30s, U.S. Senator Cole Blease from South Carolina would try three times to get Congress to pay the school $112,538 in damages ($60,000 of which went for the cost of the building) citing Sherman's "broken promise.” He never succeeded.

This is an excellent example of the small cottage that was the most common style home in the city in the 1860s. Called a “Columbia Cottage” these homes were one and a half stories tall over a raised basement. Remarkably, around a dozen pre-war examples still remain.

This one was built circa 1850 and bought by a most remarkable woman, Celia Mann (1799-1867). Mann was a Charleston slave who bought her freedom, then walked all the way to Columbia to claim her home. Mann’s situation was unusual, but not unique. Six percent of all Blacks in Columbia in 1850 were free. Mann however, was a well known and successful mid-wife. At the time of her death, her estate was valued at $1500 and her obituary described her as having been “present at the birth of many of our citizens.”

The census of 1850 shows that Mann not only owned this house but also a 71-year-old female slave, who according to legend, was Mann’s mother. She also had four daughters, one of them, Agnes Jackson, stayed in Columbia and married musician Bill Simmons. Through them, descendants of Cecilia Mann still live in the city.

Mann was active in the Black community in the city, organizing two churches in the basement of this home. For over a hundred years, this residence remained in Mann’s family until the Historic Columbia Foundation took over it in the late 1970s and opened it as an African-American cultural museum.

Family legend states that during the fire, Mann hid several families in her tiny basement. The families felt that her house would be safe because she was Black. Legend also states she hid the silver and valuables of many families in her house and yard.

This is one of the most unusual houses in Columbia. The entrance to this 1838 Federal style townhouse is flanked by two glass columns, with shelves, which were used to display rare and exotic plants. These plants were collected by the original owner, John Crawford, a prominent banker, whose descendants still own the house.

There are several colorful tales surrounding this house during the Federal occupation. One involves Crawford's attempt to save his favorite horse, a white stallion. Crawford took the beast inside and led up him up the steps to the second floor. (keep in mind he was putting it inside a wooden building, surrounded by buildings that were on fire.) Crawford also managed to save his silver and that of the First Presbyterian Church by burying it.

There are also two legends as to how the house was saved. One is that John’s unmarried sister, Margaret Crawford personally met an officer of the Federal army as it entered the city and begged for the house to be saved. Moved by her courage, the officer provided a guard. (It is an established fact that the family did have a guard.) The other legend states that a loyal slave met some soldiers at the door and begged them to save the house as it had just been given to him.

Though the house was saved, it was ransacked. Federal troops put a bayonet through a secretary desk to make sure that no Confederates were hiding in it. Despite the presence of a guard, the family braved the fire in the cemetery of First Presbyterian Church. All they brought with them was a copper teakettle; in which they made tea to keep them warm during the cold night.

Sherman’s troops left a lasting impression on one slave, called “Mauma,” who had been a nursemaid to the Crawfords. She remained with the family after the war. Three decades later, when soldiers about to go fight in the Spanish-American War came to pay a call, wearing their blue uniforms, Mauma chased them down the steps with a broom shouting “Yankees, Yankees!”

The congregation of this church was organized in 1809. The Rev. Jonathan Maxcy, first president of South Carolina College, was its first pastor. Two years later it met in a wooden frame building on the corner of Hampton and Marion. In 1859, the second chapel was completed. On December 17, 1860 the Secession Convention first met here. However, due to a report of a small pox outbreak at a house across the street, the convention moved to adjourn to Charleston.

By far, the most famous and popular legend about destruction in Columbia involves a failed attempt to destroy this church. There are several versions and variations of the tale, but the basic story goes like this:

A group of Federal troops (in some accounts led by Sherman himself) were trying to find the First Baptist Church and burn it to the ground since it had hosted the Secession Convention. However, they seemed to be unable to find it, although they were standing right in front of it. They then asked a passerby, supposedly a Black man named Holland Mitchell, “Where is the Baptist Church.” Mitchell, who was the Sexton of the Baptist Church, pointed to a spot and said “There!” In some accounts of the story, “there” was the First Methodist Church across the street. In other versions, it was the old, original wooden Baptist sanctuary, that was replaced by the brick structure that the Federal troops were looking for.” Perhaps the Federals were confused as to where he pointed as both buildings were destroyed, while the brick Baptist church building survived that fateful night.

There are many who dispute the accuracy of this tale. Sherman was one of them. Allegedly he argued that he was in Columbia for three days and could have found and destroyed the Baptist Church easily if he had desired it. Mayor Goodwyn in an 1866 letter admitted that he had heard the tale but could vouch for it. True or not, the second sanctuary continued to serve the members of the First Baptist Church until the 1980’s. Then it was replaced by a new, larger facility, built next door, on the site of the sanctuary destroyed in the 1865 blaze.

The first church built on the site was erected between 1803 and 1805. In 1832, it was replaced by another structure that was still standing when the Federals occupied Columbia. It was burned during the night of February 17, and whether the burning was deliberate or a case of confusion between this and the First Baptist Church is still a minor debate.

Church members gathered and salvaged as many of the bricks of the burned church as they could and with clay for mortar, built a small chapel soon after the war ended. This temporary structure was in use until 1872 when the Victorian gothic style building was erected.

Sen. Blease also tried to get Congress to compensate the church 20-30 thousand dollars for the destruction of its property, citing the legend of Sherman’s burning this church because he thought it was the First Baptist. This effort also proved to be unsuccessful.

Author’s note: I have been told by several members of Washington Street Methodist that they are still mad at the Baptists!

One of three downtown churches to survive the fire, the congregation was first organized in 1812. A frame church was built in 1814, according to tradition where a large oak now stands in the cemetery. The present Gothic Revival structure dates from 1846 and is a replica of Yorkminister Cathedral in York, England.

During the war, the iron spires on the top of the church were melted to make cannon balls for the Confederate army. Prior to the arrival of the Federals, the church windows were taken out, hidden and ultimately saved. The chapel escaped serious damage, but the parsonage and Sunday school buildings were destroyed along with parish records. Tradition holds that the church erected paper mache’ crosses to disguise it as a Catholic Church.

Inside the chapel are furnishings donated to the church by the Hampton and Preston families. A plaque on the wall is dedicated to all the members of the church who died for the Confederacy. It is worth noting that the oldest person on the list was only 34.

The cemetery is one of the most historic in the state. Under the large oak tree, called “Governor’s Oak” lies the remains of five South Carolina Governors and three Confederate generals, Wade Hampton III, Ellison Capers and the man with perhaps the most unusual name of all Confederate generals, States Rights Gist. (Yes, “States“ was his given first name.) Also buried on the site is Henry Timord, “Poet Laureate of the Confederacy.”

This is the grave of Gen. Hampton, located next to his father’s and his brother’s Frank grave at Trinity. When the Chieftain was laid to rest, at least 10,000 mourners came to pay their respects.

In 1820, Abram Blanding started construction of the city’s first water plant on this site. Two natural springs were on the site and they were tapped to feed the water lines. In 1826 at the cost of $75,000, almost all of it financed by Blanding, the plant was finished. Blanding had hoped to re-coup his costs by selling the water to the public, but, while the plant was hailed as a model of modern engineering, it was not a profitable operation. In 1835, Blanding was forced to sell it to the city for $24,000. In 1855, the water plant was relocated to its present location along the Columbia Canal.

In the meantime, Algernon Sidney Johnston, the brother of future Confederate general Joseph Johnston and a local newspaper editor and publisher turned politician, started promoting the idea of turning the site into a park. In 1850, the city not only appropriated funds for the park, but used several of Johnston’s ideas as well. A painting of the park made before the war shows several water fountains and many green areas. A year later, the park opened to the public. It was one of the most popular places in the city with concerts, and political meetings being quite common here.

Sadly, Johnston did not get to enjoy his creation very long, since he died in 1852. A year later the city voted to name the park after him though for some unknown reason decided to use his middle name, rather than his surname for the name of the park. Adding to the confusion is that sometimes the park named is spelled “Sydney” though Johnston spelled his middle name with an “i” and not at “y.”

On the night of February 17, 1865, frighten citizens fled to the park to escape the flames, thinking that the wide, six-block area, would be safe. Many of them were destitute, having just seen their homes and possessions go up in flames. Some Federal accounts in fact, suggest a scene that is not much different from the refugee camps we see on television. After Sherman left, people used the park to graze animals until the city council banned the practice in May of 1865.

The park survived the war and remained in existence until 1899 when the Seaboard Air Line Railroad talked the city into selling the property for a passenger station and freight depot that was relocated four years later. From then until the 1960’s, the area was an industrial area, though talk would surface from time to time to restoring the park. In 1960, the railroad gave the property back to the city to build a new Post Office on the Assembly Street side. This led to renewed interest by city planners in restoring the area to a park. Those plans came to fruition in 1990 when Sidney Park was rededicated. In 1994 it was renamed Finlay Park after the late mayor Kirkman Finlay, who was instrumental in the return of the park.

Local Merchant Ainsley Hall commissioned Robert Mills to design this house in 1823, after he sold his house across the street to Gen. Wade Hampton I. Mills (1781-1855) was a native of Charleston who studied architecture under Thomas Jefferson and James Hoban, and became Architect of the United States under seven presidents. Among his most famous works are the U.S. Treasury Building and the Washington Monument. He also did some work for the U.S. Capital building, and designed numerous public buildings around Columbia and across South Carolina, many of which still stand.

Mills, however, designed very few houses, so this structure is a rarity. Unfortunately for Hall, though, he died before he could occupy it, forcing his wife to sell it. It was bought by Presbyterian Synod of South Carolina and Georgia, who in 1831 established the Columbia Theological Seminary on the site. The mansion was used for offices and classrooms while two large dormitories flanked the building. The carriage house on Henderson Street was used as a chapel.

Because of the spacious grounds around the building, many Columbians fled to the yard of the school during the burning of Columbia to escape the flames. Perhaps because of this, there is no know account of Federal troops trying to burn the house or doing any damage to it. (Then too, it was across the street from Logan’s headquarters and may have been spared out of fear of harming or inconveniencing Logan and his staff.) However, federal troops did play a cruel prank on those staying in the buildings, telling them not to fall asleep for when everyone was sleeping, they were going to set the buildings on fire.

The school reopened after the war. One of its post-war faculty members was the Rev. Joseph R. Wilson, father of future U.S. president, Woodrow Wilson. In the carriage house Winthrop Training School, the forerunner of modern-day Winthrop College was founded in 1886.

In 1925, the seminary was relocated to Decatur, Georgia. Columbia Bible College took over the site and stayed there until the 1950’s. In the 1960’s, after the house came close to being destroyed (by someone who wanted to make the area a parking lot), it was purchased and restored by the newly formed Historic Columbia Foundation.

Today only the original house remains. The dormitories were torn down in the 1960’s, while the carriage house was moved to Rock Hill in 1936 and placed on the modern campus of Winthrop College. The interior of the house is decorated to reflect the style of the 19th century.

Until recently, this was the oldest state mental hospital in continuous use. The horseshoe shaped Greek revival building is the original building built circa 1827 and designed by Robert Mills. It was a revolutionary design, featuring large corridors, patient’s rooms with windows, facing the sunnier south side of the building. It also featured an unique central heating system. Like most of Mills’ buildings, it was fireproof.

From December 1864 until February 1865, the Asylum was the home for Federal POWs who had been kept at Camp Sorghum. Days prior to Federal occupation most were transported by rail to Charlotte.

During the night of the fire, many families went to the spacious lawn of the complex to avoid the flames. Afterwards, the XVIIth Corps, who Sherman called into Columbia to help maintain order after the fire, also used the grounds for a camp. Exactly where Blair made his headquarters is uncertain, but it was in a house near this site.

According to David Conyngham, a reporter from the New York Herald, a number of survivors of the fire were admitted as patients to the hospital; the shock of the events of the night of February 17 had caused them to lose their minds. Conyngham also recalled seeing many people roaming aimlessly through the streets of the city.

Founded in 1801, South Carolina College was one of the nation’s premiere colleges in the antebellum era. Wade Hampton was a graduate of the school. When the war broke out, the then all-male student body formed a cadet corps with arms provided by the state. Eventually, the entire student body would leave to serve in the Confederate Army.

As efforts to keep the school open were unsuccessful, the school closed in 1862. The facilities were leased to the Confederate government for use as a hospital. Unfortunately, the CSA government was not a good tenant. The school and Confederate officials in Richmond spent two years haggling over how much rent was to be paid to the school and terms and conditions of the lease. Finally, in September 1864 the two parties agreed to have Richmond pay the college $60,660 for use of the campus. However, by December 1864, the school had still not received the first payment from the Confederate government. At the time, Richmond officials promised to pay as soon as money was available in Columbia. However, the war would end with the Confederate States still owing the school the full amount.

The school would prove to be a rather busy hospital. Over three thousand soldiers received treatment here and it was said that every table and bench on campus was used for operating tables. Despite the volume, it was considered one of the best confederate military hospitals.

During the night of February 17, 1865, it took a major effort to save the campus from burning. The school buildings at the time housed both Confederate and Federal patients. A detachment of guards had been assigned to the campus. Although the campus would be spared from the molestation that most of the city endured, sparks from the inferno were carried by the strong winds to the rooftops of the campus buildings. Thanks to a joint effort of both the guards and the hospital staff, they were able to contain the flames before any serious damage was done. But it was a constant battle with the flames until the winds died down around four a.m.

While the fires were being fought, the patients were in an awkward position of having to fend for themselves. Many of them panicked at the thought of being burned alive and literally crawled their bodies out of the buildings and onto the grounds of the campus. On the grounds, they were joined, by many local residents who were trying to find relative safety that night. About twenty patients died from exposure while lying outside in the cold night air.

But there was little rest for the weary on the morning of the eighteenth. Between six and eight a.m., about 150 "drunken cavalry" assailed the gates of campus, threatening to burn the school. The officer in charges of the guard became worried that his men would be overwhelmed by the mob at the gate. A surgeon and two professors, hurried to see Gen. Howard whose headquarters was next to the campus. Howard was receptive to their plea for help and ordered Col. George Stone to go immediately to the college and defuse the situation. With a revolver in his hand, Col. Stone went to the gates and had the would-be arsonists disbanded.

The campus reopened in 1865, but financial and political instability would plague the school for many years, resulting in the school closing in 1877. It reopened in 1880 and has been in operation ever since. Today, eleven of the original twelve campus buildings make up an area called “The Horseshoe.” The twelfth building was the President’s House. Behind it a number of soldiers were buried. They were later re-buried at Elmwood Cemetery. This structure was torn down in the 1930’s to make way for what is now the McKissick Museum.

This unusual shaped house, built circa 1850, was the home of Dr. George Howe, a minister who taught at the Presbyterian Seminary. Dr. Howe married the sister of Martha Roosevelt, the mother of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. It survived destruction due to the family’s northern ties.

During his administration (1901-1909), President Roosevelt ordered the War Department to return all captured Confederate Battle flags returned to the state from which they originated. This act helped heal some of the lingering wounds from the war. Roosevelt also offered Hampton the job of Postmaster for Columbia if he would join the Republican Party. Hampton refused the offer saying his name was not for sale.

One of the most beautiful Episcopal churches in South Carolina was built on this site in 1860. It was quite large, stretching half the length of the block on both sides.

Several accounts state that the church was one of the last, if not the last building set on fire that terrible night. A picture of its ruins is one of the most famous and graphic photographs of Sherman’s devastation. Though the walls remained for some time, it was never rebuilt. It became a popular place for Columbians to visit on moonlit nights, because it was said that one could see “strange apparitions” hovering over the ruins. Many felt these were angels because they were seen over the place where the altar once stood. Today no trace of the church remains.

One of the most famous images of the War Between the States is this one taken from the State House of Main street facing north. The whole street is desolate and the image compares to the scenes of the bombed out cities of Europe in World War II.

Most accounts agree that the fire stopped between 3 or 4 in the morning. The winds shifted carrying the flames over areas already burned. Some witness claimed that the fires and the looting stopped after a bugler rode down Main Street. About a third of the city was destroyed and as many as 200 were killed.

Over the years Sherman has been criticized for not doing more to stop the fire, though his defenders point out with the strong winds and thousands of drunken soldiers in the city, nothing could be done until order was restored.

A prewar illustration of Columbia’s city hall compared to an 1865 photoof its ruins.

An 1865 photo showing the destruction to the grounds on the south side of the State House.

In 1842, the South Carolina state legislature created the Arsenal Academy in Columbia and the Citadel College in Charleston to train officers for the state militia. The Arsenal was a prep school, where students attended classes for one or two years before going to the Citadel.

When it opened in 1843, The Arsenal featured two multi-purpose rectangular buildings on the highest point in the original city. In time this area became known as Arsenal Hill, a name that is still used to this day.

Nine years later, a large three-story brick building, which stretched along most of the Laurel Street side of the block was built. In 1856, what is now the Governor’s Mansion was built to house the faculty of the school. They would serve as officer’s quarters throughout the rest of the school’s brief history.

In 1861, The Citadel and The Arsenal were merged into the South Carolina Military Academy and the cadets became The Battalion of State cadets. At first, they were used to guard buildings and forts, but by 1864, the cadets were engaged in actual combat along the South Carolina coast. Later they were assigned to artillery batteries along the banks of the Congaree and Broad River, and guard duty at Camp Sorghum. They also did some minor skirmishing with Sherman’s troops. When Gov. Andrew Magrath evacuated the city, they served as an armed escort for him.

The school probably survived the burning of the city during the night of February 17, but the dormitories were destroyed on the eighteenth when Sherman’s men destroyed the few public buildings that had survived the disaster. Why the officer’s quarters were spared is unclear.

On May 9, 1865, Gov. Magrath disbanded the Arsenal Cadets, because there was no place to house them. With this action, the short, but proud saga of the Arsenal Academy, came to a close.

Evans & Cogswell, a respected and distinguished Charleston printing firm who relocated to Columbia for safety built this building around 1863. The printers held a contract from the Confederate government to print money, postage stamps and bonds. Women called "Treasury Girls" did most of the labor for the plant, and, in what was a failed attempt to deter counterfeiting, signed the increasingly worthless Confederate currency themselves.

Before Sherman’s entry into Columbia, the female workers were evacuated by rail, while the plates for printing the stamps and currency were thrown into the Columbia Canal. Only one has been recovered. Still, there were millions of dollars in Confederate currency in the building, which, according to Sherman,“our men spent and gambled with in the most lavish manner."

The building was partially destroyed by Sherman’s men. After the war it was rebuilt and purchased by the state of South Carolina for use as a warehouse for the State Dispensary from 1895-1907. It would remain in use as a warehouse until the 1970’s. Today it is a Publix grocery store.

This white brick building, originally a sixty-four foot, three-story tall building was built about 1850 by arms manufacturers Benjamin Flagg and James Boatwright. Shortly afterwards, they went into partnership with William Glaze, a successful and renowned Columbia jeweler, silversmith and gunsmith. With Glaze as the senior and controlling partner, they turned it in to the Palmetto Armory at a cost of $35,000.

In 1851 they received a state contract to make 6000 muskets with bayonets, 1000 rifles, 1000 pairs of pistols, 1000 cavalry sabers and 1000 artillery swords. When there was no other state contracts for weapons, the armory became the Palmetto Iron Works. Glaze began making iron and brass farm and mill machines such as boilers and steam engines. This proved to be a very successful venture, in 1860 it produced 500 tons of goods.

When South Carolina left the Union, Glaze offered his facilities to the state to help build it’ defense. After getting several rejections, Glaze received a contract in January 1861, and began casting shells the next month. He later produced guns, bayonets, cartridges, sabers and rifle balls. These were sent to South Carolina regiments. Glaze also produced cannons, as well as continuing to make farm goods, during the war years.

Although Glaze’s building escaped destruction during the fire of the seventeenth, Sherman ordered it and its equipment destroyed on the eighteenth.

After the war, Glaze had the building partially rebuilt and went up North to buy new equipment. He took George Shields, his foreman, as a partner. Shields would become the senior partner, and consequently, the building was sometimes refereed to as “Shields’ Foundry” though Palmetto Iron Works was retained as the official name. However, Glaze could not revive his business and by 1868, he had to file for bankruptcy. Shields then became the sole partner and continued to run the iron works while Glaze returned to jewelry making.

The building would remain in use as a foundry into the 20th century. In 1942 the city of Columbia acquired the building and turned it into a community center, which it still is today. The weapons that the armory put out are now considered some of the most desired and valuable by collectors of War Between the States memorabilia.

This is one of three monuments designed and executed by Frederick W. Ruckstull that adorn the grounds of the State House. Ruckstull, one of the most famous sculptors of his day, won numerous awards and honors for his work in the U.S. and Europe. He was a cofounder of the prestigious National Sculpture Society, and some of his work is on display in the New York Metropolitan Museum. His 1909 7’2” marble statute of Sen. John C. Calhoun, commissioned by South Carolina, stands in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capital.

The origins of the monument can be traced back to 1902. Within a week of the death of General Wade Hampton III, the Wade Hampton Camp of the United Confederate Veterans started an initiative to honor former general, governor and U.S. Senator. Soon their effort received the support of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. In 1903 legislation was approved that would give $20,000 towards a statute providing the people of South Carolina raised $10,000 themselves. In 1904 the Wade Hampton Monument Commission was created and appointed by the legislature. That same year they chose Ruckstull without consideration any other sculptors.

The monument was unveiled on November 20, 1906. Crowd estimates for the unveiling range from 10-20 thousand people. Maj. Gen. Matthew Butler, Hampton’s long time friend and lieutenant gave a one-hour address on the life of his friend. Originally, the monument was located on the east side of the building, between the Senate chambers and Sumter Street. In 1969, it was relocated to its present location in front of the Wade Hampton office building.

The bronze statute is the only equestrian monument in South Carolina. It stands 15 and a half feet tall and sits on a thirteen-foot base of granite from South Carolina and France. The statute itself was cast in Paris, and Ruckstull accompanied it from the French capital to the South Carolina capital via boat and rail. The monument deliberately faces the north so that Hampton might gazed upon the route Sherman entered the city. Its total cost was $30,000. Nationally, critics, including ones from The New York Times, gave it high praise as a work of art. Ruckstull himself was rather pleased with his work and called it his finest work.

It would not be the last time that Ruckstull would create a likeness of Hampton. He would later be commissioned to carve a marble 7’2” statute of the South Carolina leader that was placed in the U. S. Capital building in 1929.

Sherman left Columbia on February 21, 1865. He left behind for the citizen’s relief 500 head of cattle described as "extremely poor," "starving" and "dying of exhaustion at the rate of fifteen to twenty head per diem." One local leader complained that Sherman "gave us nothing to feed them, and a hundred and sixty of them died of starvation before they could be killed." They were also alleged to have been stolen from farms and plantations that Sherman's bummers had raided en route to Columbia. Still it was better than nothing, and local officials were soon issuing rations of food to the civilian population of the city. These cattle were kept within the bricked-in walls of South Carolina College, as there was no other place to pen them within the city.

As for the rest of supplies, the medicine " beside a pint of castor oil, is said to have been only enough to fill a large cigar box." Howard also left behind one hundred old muskets that had to be repaired before they could be used.

Sherman was rather pleased with what he and his men had done. He later wrote, "From the moment my army passed Columbia S.C. the war was ended." He later told Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, “Columbia!-pretty much all burned; and burned good!”

Now a note on the controversy over the fire. During the fire, a number of witnesses overheard Sherman admitting that the cause of the blaze was his drunken soldiers, but he blamed the citizens for giving his men the spirits. Before he left, Sherman then tried to turn the blame on Hampton and the cotton, a charge he admitted he made up in his 1875 Memoirs.

No other official report of the fire, except Howard’s, which was filed after Sherman’s, makes any mention of Confederates or cotton and places the blame solely on alcohol. More importantly, a significant number of diaries and other first hand accounts from enlisted men show that not only did they take credit for the fire, but they were quite proud of it too.

Perhaps the best comment on the whole issue was said by Mark Coburn in his 1993 book Terrible Innocence: General Sherman at War, “The whole antiqued controversy seems absurd, when the mass of evidence leads to an obvious judgment: Had there been no cotton, Columbia would have still burned.”

In April 1877 Wade Hampton, III, Confederate military hero and, now political “savior” declared to a Columbia crowd on his return from Washington that they should “…forget we are Democrats or Republicans, white or colored, and

remember only that we are South Carolinians.” Although Hampton may have used some political hyperbole to soothe a fractious electorate, the now undisputed governor of the Palmetto State, wanted to convince the white Democracy that blacks, most of them former slaves, should be allowed to participate in the political process. Of course the litmus test for this to happen had to be that African Americans repudiate the Republican party. This party, which in the minds of most South Carolina whites had corrupted and nearly ruined the state since 1868, had championed the rights of the former slaves. While white Democrats appeared united in their hatred of the Radical Republican regimes of Reconstruction, their rule had ended in 1877 and now Hampton offered an olive branch, of sorts, to those whom he had reviled barely a decade before. And most of Hampton’s Democratic allies supported the former general’s overtures. But some allies of the Hampton in 1876 disagreed. Thus former Confederate officers, Matthew C. Butler and Martin Gary, had no patience for reconciliation with blacks. The battle for the state government, for the very integrity of a white South Carolina, in their minds, was to eliminate all opponents, white or black, making sure that the reviled Republicans, but most particularly political participation of all non-whites. Did Hampton believe his prestige and personal qualities strong enough that he could overcome such powerful hatreds or was his Columbia rhetoric just that, something to offer the opposition until he and his lieutenants could eliminate them completely from the political arena? This paper will review his motives and relations with people up to the election of 1876 and argue that perhaps there was a little of both. But in the final analysis Hampton represented white resurgence and retrenchment, and while he may have believed that some former slaves could be a part of the political process, it had to be his terms. To Hampton only whites had the ability, indeed the very right, to govern the state. But to find out what led Hampton to his redeemer leadership role in the crucial election of 1876, one must first review his background.1

Until secession, Hampton had little to suggest that he would be embroiled in contentious political activities. Both his grandfather and father had held prestigious military posts, but the family focus was to attain land, slaves and wealth. By the time Wade, III, was born in 1818 he became part of one of the most privileged families in the American South. The Hampton family already controlled vast acreage in the South Carolina Midlands, owned hundreds of slaves, and made millions dollars from growing cotton. They had few social or economic peers. Wade Hampton, III, was not just a wealthy son of a prominent family, but well educated and traveled, having attained a degree from South Carolina College and traveled extensively in Europe and the Northeast during his young adult life. Nonetheless his most important station in life was to become a successful plantation manager who would direct a vast estate of cotton lands from which great wealth would continue to be derived. In 1843 he began to manage the family plantation in Mississippi that included 12,000 acres and nearly one thousand enslaved workers. Between these holdings and those in the Midlands of South Carolina, Hampton traveled regularly between the two to manage both. Like his father and grandfather, Wade, III, viewed politics as a secondary role in society that he seemed reluctant to assume. In 1852, for the first time, he was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives and, before the end of the decade elevated to the State Senate. In neither did he take a leading role.2

Such modest political ambitions began to change, as the rift between North and South grew more intense at the end of the 1850s. Hampton spoke out against John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry in fall, 1859, warning that if the North did not condemn the radical abolitionist the Union could not survive. Although he did not lead the debate after Abraham Lincoln became the Republican presidential nominee, the South Carolina planter supported plans for a secession convention if the Illinois lawyer were elected. When the state seceded, Hampton immediately offered his services to defend the newly independent "nation." But in the midst of the crisis, as South Carolina faced off against the federal government over the status of Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, Hampton saw fit to leave the state in March, 1861, to check his holdings in Mississippi. It was after his return to the Palmetto State two weeks after Sumter surrendered, that Hampton began to organize his now famous Legion. Not only its founder, the planter turned soldier became the Legions financier, using his vast wealth to pay for its soldiers’ uniforms, equipment, and firearms. By late spring the Confederate high command ordered Hampton’s Legion north to defend the newly anointed capitol in Richmond, Virginia.3

Hampton’s many exploits as a military leader, first of his legendary Hampton Legion and then as cavalry commander, are well known. After the Confederate armies reorganized in spring, 1862, the Legion was split up and its commander became a subordinate under the renowned cavalry general, Jeb Stuart. Upon this legendary figure's death in May, 1864, Hampton's distinguished service and abilities led to his appointment as Stuart's successor. In the last months of the war Hampton went home in a doomed attempt to stop William T. Sherman’s march through the Carolinas. Loyal and determined to war's end, Hampton’s resilience seems more tragic because of his own personal losses. First his brother, Frank, fell mortally wounded at Brandy Station in June, 1863. Then more than a year later, one of his sons, Preston, was killed in an engagement near Petersburg. To compound these tragic deaths, at the war's end Hampton's family home at Millwood, just outside Columbia, was burned to the ground by Sherman’s troops. Likewise his holdings in Mississippi were decimated. Perhaps Hampton’s greatest capital loss, however, was the more than one-thousand enslaved workers who now were free. The state’s most distinguished Confederate military commander, in spite of all his dedication to the Southern cause, found himself virtually destitute financially, if not emotionally.4 Despite his best efforts Hampton could only recover a small portion of his holdings following his declared bankruptcy in 1868.

In the midst of such personal and capital losses Hampton was slow to accept the new social and political order dawning on post-war South Carolina. Although he rejected immigration to South America or Europe that some former Confederates did, he was slow to reconcile himself to the Confederacy's demise. In summer, 1866, he told his former commander in chief, Robert Lee, that, “I am not reconstructed yet…” and declared to his former commander-in-chief that, “Time will prove that you have not fought in vain.” While such attitudes are understandable it is clear that Hampton would not easily concede that four years of bloodshed and personal loss had been a national and personal waste.5

As the defeated Confederate tried to cope with his own personal loss, the political and economic changes occurring within his state became more alarming. For a brief period it appeared that former Confederates would be able resume the reigns of power with the blessings of President Andrew Johnson. But a Republican Congress soon refused to accept Johnson's lenient terms for the former Confederacy and reversed Presidential Reconstruction with a series of laws in 1866. Instead they imposed severe restrictions on most of the old leadership and required the Southern States to accept former slaves as equals on the political and social arenas for the first time. This was an affront, and worse, to most whites such as Hampton. And they soon showed their opposition.

Hampton expressed this bitterness to President Andrew Johnson in greater detail. He denounced what he perceived as a vindictive Congress, led by Radical Republicans, usurping their authority and ignored the constitution by forcing the Southern states to adopt the 13th and 14th amendments without due deliberation of its respected leaders. To Hampton the amendments were forced upon the South illegally. Somehow Hampton could not accept that Congress responded to thwack the South Carolina legislature who the previous year passed a series of “Black Codes” that severely restricted the movement of freedmen and, essentially, returned them to a life of servitude, which they had recently left. Nor could Hampton see the purpose of what he called a corrupt Freedmen’s Bureau and “a horde of barbarians- your brutal negro troops” that imposed law and order in the South. Such organizations were an effrontery to whites, but especially to former slaveholders who had had virtual life and death mastery over blacks barely a year before. Hampton’s response was typical of his class. For those sons of planters had grown up believing that only they had the ability, the right, to govern the affairs of their state. Now that slaves were free men who Congress had now given the right to political participation, Hampton and his contemporaries could not fathom such a monolithic switch in social position, even if his beloved South was defeated.6

His bitterness slowly waned in the following months but Hampton remained true to his upbringing as a planter and former slaveholder. Even though he advocated limited political rights for freedmen he advised his white friends that they could still control the state legislature by controlling the black vote. In a sense former slaveholders believed, metaphorically, that freedmen could not escape their subordinate role as slaves. Without whites such as Hampton to instruct and lead them they would inevitably fail and cause harm both to themselves and the others around them. Such a conclusion came from a paternalistic, racist assumption that blacks were unable to think for themselves or realize their own best interest. By 1867 he told James Connor, a fellow Confederate veteran of South Carolina, that it was the duty of "every Southern man" to secure the "good will and confidence of the negro." But it was acceptable to send blacks to Congress since Hampton considered that they could be trusted more than "renegade[s] or Yankees." In conclusion he advised that "respectable negroes" should be recruited. Presumably this meant freedmen that whites could influence because of family loyalties from the past or through bribery and/ or intimidation to serve Southern whites.7

The assumptions of Hampton and his associates were sorely tested during the following decade as the battle with Republican rule in the state ebbed and flowed. First, most white voters tried to even forestall the election of delegates to the state constitution convention mandated by Congress. Since the federal body ruled that a majority of the state registered electorate had to ratify the call of such a convention, the large number of white voters that registered never caste their ballots on election day in November 1867. Despite this unity, the vast majority of registered black voters (85%), who voted for such a body, were enough to validate the elections for the Constitutional convention that met two months later. Not surprisingly its majority of black delegates drafted a new constitution that ushered in tax and land reform, the first formal public education system and more. Nonetheless the former cavalry leader continued to believe that whites could influence enough freedmen so that Democratic conservatives could control the legislature, if not win it outright, when the next round of fall elections occurred. But Hampton's assumptions proved false. The Radical Republicans won a significant majority and began to implement their reform agenda- raising taxes, implementing land redistribution, and installing a grass roots public education system among other changes.

These bold moves threatened white conservatives who feared losing control of black labor and political control to a Republican party with majority black support. It was the intention of most whites leaders that they had to prevent this and take back the reigns of power to forestall political and social chaos. Although some whites, even Hampton for a time, advocated some peaceful accommodation with the Republicans, most believed that only intimidation and violence against the other side could resurrect white control. Former Confederates such as Martin Gary and Mathew C. Butler argued the dire nature of this new struggle as an attempt to place the “negro over the white man” in which Republicans were “at war with the noblest instincts of our [white] race.” To whites, who tried to reach an accommodation by political means with former slaves, conservative radicals such as Butler believed they were badly misled, if not traitors to their race. Butler and his supporters, who would become known as “straight outs,” began a campaign of intimidation and violence to attain victory for conservative Democrats. Such violence ranged from beatings to murder, one of the more extreme cases being the assassination of a black leader, Benjamin Randolph. In October 1868, while campaigning for a seat in the legislature in Abbeville, several shots rang out in the local train station killing him instantly. Yet even in this violent atmosphere blacks and their white allies went to the polls the following month and elected a radical ticket.8

Hampton could not legally run for political office because Congress barred high ranking Confederate officers from public service, yet his work behind the scenes was not impeded by the Republican victory. Since his prediction that whites could control the black vote failed he seemed to discard his hope in that arena. Instead Hampton tacitly supported the Klan violence that accelerated in the wake of the 1868 elections. Primarily in the upstate bands of vigilantes, often clad in frightening regalia, intimidated and attacked Republican supporters, white and black, with impunity. Unable to end the violence, the Republican governor, Robert K. Scott, appealed to the President and Congress for federal troops to help stem the carnage. When the President invoked the Third Enforcement Act, commonly known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, in April 1871, Federal troops soon arrested several hundred-suspected Klansman. Even though Hampton publicly spoke out against the violence, he nonetheless led a subscription effort on behalf of the accused for their legal defense as the violence subsided. Although hundreds were incarcerated the federal authorities had so many suspects that the courts and jails could not process the huge backlog that it created in the justice system. This, coupled with the expert defenses that the accused received through the moral support and the financial backing of people such as Hampton and Mathew C. Butler, only a token number of accused Klansmen received convictions. And those that did generally received light prison sentences. Even though the violence came to an end, it proved only temporary. As the elections of fall, 1876, began in earnest white conservative elements re-ignited their campaign of intimidation and violence. And this time Hampton led the effort by running as the Democratic candidate for governor.9

Although former Confederates at all levels were given amnesty by Congress in 1872 Hampton had remained too preoccupied with personal family issues and his poor finances to take a leadership role in the fight against the Radical Republicans. His efforts to improve his finances collapsed when the insurance company he joined went into bankruptcy less than a year after his appointment to its board. Nevertheless he still had a keen interest in the political future of his home state. Thus when old Confederate leaders approached him in June 1876 to be the Democratic Party's nomination for governor he accepted.10

Hampton’s social position and heroic role as a Confederate cavalry leader a decade before made him the best standard bearer for the conservative Democrats. With Congress’ 1872 amnesty allowing former Confederates to run for political office, the South Carolinian could accept his party’s unanimous nomination in August. The soldier-turned-politician then started a campaign across the state, from the upcountry to the lowcountry, defending the virtues of his party and castigating the corrupt and spendthrift ways of the Radical Republicans. But Hampton's speeches and his obvious public appeal as a hero of the defeated Confederacy was possible largely because of the political army- mounted Red Shirts- that bolstered his appeal and protected him in every community he took his campaign. From Anderson, Sumter, Winnsboro and Yorkville during the fall campaign Hampton was met by an impressive entourage of local dignitaries, admiring young ladies and scores, sometimes hundreds, of mounted Red Shirts. For one campaign rally in Winnsboro on 16 October 1876, an elaborate itinerary was created and fliers posted throughout the community. It outlined where the local Democratic dignitaries were to stand, the place of "colored clubs" and how the "mounted men" arraigned themselves so that "colored people of both parties" could be admitted in front of them. In Yorkville a grand parade met Hampton at the train station and turned out for the Democratic nominee’s stump speech where he appealed not only to whites but also blacks. After castigating the corrupt Republicans in Columbia and their governor, Daniel Chamberlain, for the umpteenth time he appealed for black support. Ironically Hampton claimed that blacks had become “slaves to your political masters” and that to be “freemen they must leave the Loyal League” and join with him to bring “free speech, free ballot, a free press.” And yet just a decade before most blacks had been slaves for life to Hampton and his class devoid of any rights. Fear prevented most minority voters from openly disagreeing with Red Shirts in their midst. It was only in lowcountry counties where blacks outnumbered whites, that Hampton received any vocal opposition.11

In spite of Hampton’s appeals on the stump and his professed opposition to campaign violence, his Red Shirt supporters ruthlessly used intimidation and violence throughout the upstate to suppress Republican opposition. One Laurens County Republican group appealed to Governor Chamberlain for protection because no one “dares to speak nor act with respect of his franchise privileges without being in extreme danger.” Individual acts of violence sometimes expanded into major battles that led to injury and death on a large scale. Just as the campaign began in earnest, the Ellenton riots of September 1876 saw black militia carry on a running battle with Red Shirt companies for almost two days before federal troops intervened to end the carnage. At least 50 blacks and one white Red Shirt lay dead at its conclusion. Similarly at Cainhoy, in the low country, blacks and whites faced off again. Here the black militia got better of the action but still whites inflicted nearly as many casualties on the Republicans before they fled. With such brutal violence going on all around him Hampton seemed to remain above the fray, arguing before black audiences why they should support his election. Through an alliance with the whites, he argued, "who owned the land . . . pay the taxes . . ." blacks could redeem the state “together." But, he warned, if they continued with their "carpet-bag friends (the Republicans)" they would lose aid or support when needed, presumably from whites.12

Some former slaves seem to have taken Hampton’s words to heart because as Edmund Drago shows in his recent study, the white Red Shirt clubs had black allies. According to this historian there were at least eighteen black Democratic Clubs organized during the 1876 political campaign. How many of these clubs actually were formed by political coercion from whites or from genuine disillusionment with the Republican leadership is difficult to determine. Evidence gathered by Drago suggest that these black organizations had members that joined from a variety of reasons, some from conviction, others out of necessity. [i]

Even though Black Red Shirts did exist it is clear that most African Americans remained loyal to the Republican party despite the growing divisions within its ranks during the election campaign. And for those minority voters that switched their allegiance most faced severe rebuke from fellow blacks, including their wives. Within most black communities such betrayal often led to expulsion from their household, and sometimes, even physical assaults. Nonetheless white intimidation by the Red Shirts and their allies was far greater. Even so the results at the polls were very close when the November ballots were tallied. Although the conservative Democrats had a lead of just over one thousand votes across the state, this was initially nullified by the vote count in Laurens and Edgefield Counties. In these two districts county commissioners reported voter fraud where Democrats received more votes than actual voters available. This began the long stalemate over which party was the actual winner. For the next several months both sides claimed victory.13

In spite of this stalemate Hampton declared himself the winner. He demanded that his Republican opponent step down. Backed by Federal troops Chamberlain refused, almost leading to a bloody riot during the last days of November 1876 as both Republican and Democratic legislators declared victory for themselves and proceeded to occupy the same chamber in the South Carolina State House. A tense atmosphere continued for four days with both sides refusing to leave the chamber. But after Federal troops surrounded the State House, on the morning of the fourth day the Democrats reluctantly voted to leave voluntarily when the troops outside seemed poised to remove them by force. However, as this occurred, disgruntled whites had begun to arrive in Columbia from many areas of the state to gather around the still unfinished State House, seemingly bent on throwing out the Republican members regardless of the federal troops. Before violence could break out Hampton showed his true leadership qualities. Going before the mob he persuaded the mob disperse. As they did so the authority of Hampton appeared to supercede the claims of his Republican rival.14

Yet while Chamberlain tried to hang on with the aid of federal troops and Congressional backing, Hampton, although he lacked legal authority, still had enough public support to have himself inaugurated governor. In December 1876 Hampton declared in his acceptance speech that he owed much of his success to black voters who “rose above prejudice of race and honest enough to throw off the shackles of party.” Although it is difficult to say how many blacks actually voted Democratic across the state one historian estimates that probably no more than 100 blacks in each county voted for Hampton and his party.15

Nonetheless, even without substantial black support Hampton eventually forced his Republican rival to resign. As he and Chamberlain disputed each other's legitimacy into the spring of 1877, the hopes of Republicans that somehow the Radical ticket could still win grew ever dimmer. Hampton and his Red Shirts advised its supporters to pay taxes to the Democracy, not Columbia, so that the Republican regime found itself unable to operate the government. In fact, the power of the conservative democracy had grown so that just before Chamberlain resigned his office in April 1877 Hampton reputedly claimed that if the former governor had not given up his office he would have had every tax collector in the state hanged. But the final chapter in Republican rule only ended after Hampton visited the President in Washington. There, after he assured the newly inaugurated Rutherford B. Hayes that he would guarantee political rights and protection to blacks as well as whites, regardless of party, the President agreed to pull out all remaining federal troops from the state. With federal protection now gone Chamberlain had no other recourse but resign his office and leave the state.16

With Hampton and the Democrats finally undisputed victors the former cavalry hero continued to claim that he regarded both races as equals before the law and that African Americans should enjoy the same political rights and protections as whites. Perhaps the Redeemer governor truly believed this but some, if not most, of his lieutenants did not. Men such as Matthew C. Butler and Martin Gary, just as they had directed the Red Shirt campaign, proclaimed the elections of 1876 as a campaign in which “Southern Society . . . will not have these people [blacks] rule over us.” Or as another Red shirt leader and future governor of the state, Ben Tillman, put it when looking back at that pivotal year- it was a battle between “civilization” (white) and “barbarism” (black).17

Whether Hampton considered that racial dominance was the essence of the struggle or not, it’s obvious that he viewed blacks as second-class citizens who could only participate in politics under white supervision. Old Confederates such as MC Butler were determined to eradicate black political participation, regardless of who might supervise black voters. Although Butler’s extreme position to remove African Americans from the State House, and eradicate those in local offices as well, failed in the early post- Reconstruction era, over time black political participation was steadily eroded. And it started within months of Hampton assuming undisputed office. In Richland County Senator Beverly Nash and State Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Wright were forced to resign their offices by the fall of 1877 after trumped up charges of corruption and drunkenness were brought against them. By the early 1880s most black politicians resigned even if they weren’t directly threatened. By the 1890s white supremacy was complete and remained so for the next eight decades.18

As for Hampton his political leadership held command through the 1878 election. He worked to improve funding for the budding public education system created by the Republicans and expenditures per pupil continued to rise for both blacks and whites through the decade of the 1880s under those who succeeded the leader of Redemption. But while Hampton’s legacy for equal education appeared genuine, that for equality in the political process never did. Constitutional offices during the Hampton years became all white. With legal means that excluded more African American voters from exercising their rights at the ballot box, the former general’s party lieutenants found ways to stuff ballots and restricted minority voters through literacy tests and grandfather clauses in 1878. The few that gained local offices did not keep them long after Hampton left the governor’s office to become US Senator in 1879.19

Although Hampton was re-elected to a second term as governor plans were already afoot to send him to Washington where his influence on state politics would be minimized. Now over sixty Hampton’s age was probably affecting his ability while there were younger leaders, and some former Confederates, who were ready to take over the reigns of real political control. Furthermore, in late 1878, Hampton’s very survival seemed almost doomed following a serious hunting accident that resulted in his loss of a leg. Although Hampton had some political control through most of the 1880s this became more dubious as Ben Tillman’s star began to rise at the same time. The respected redeemer leader that ended Reconstruction continued his political career in Washington for another decade but more as a symbol of the old guard than as a dynamic, forceful leader. While respected by most of his colleagues in the US Congress the Hampton’s tenure had little significance for the state or the nation. He rarely spoke to the assembled body and often missed sessions because of illness or infirmity. Then, when his re-election to the Senate came before the State Senate in December 1890 the young Turks, led by Tillman, voted the venerable old soldier out of office.20

The definitive end of Hampton’s political influence came with the re-election campaign of Tillman in summer, 1892. The former governor used all his influence to support the opposing candidate and former governor, John C. Sheppard. Despite significant support from several newspapers across the state, Hampton’s prestige had little impact as Tillman won in a landslide. For the remaining decade of his life the former planter tried struggled to support his family while attending Confederate Reunions inside and outside the state when his health permitted. When he died in April 1902 he was praised for his determination and bravery as a soldier. There is no denying that he was one of the last of the old cavaliers who fought ferociously for his state, but his political leadership during and after Reconstruction is not so clear. While Hampton continued to fight for his state he did so from the perspective of an old guard trying to return the state to some semblance of its pre-war days. Steeped in the old white planter class, Hampton envisioned an ordered world, as he perceived it had been before secession. Although he publicly opposed violence after Appomattox, he still acquiesced in the Red Shirt campaign of 1876. Even though he continued to claim that he had garnered a significant number of black votes to win back the state in 1876, most of those who had supported his election later admitted that Hampton was mislead. According Ben Tillman, reflecting on these events years later, despite Hampton's claim that he had won 16,000 votes from black constituents in 1876, “… every active worker in the cause knew that in this he was woefully mistaken.” A noble soldier, Wade Hampton was at best a resolute but reactionary politician. Even though he claimed to accept blacks in the political arena during and after his gubernatorial campaigns it could only be on white terms. In his last years he even seemed to renounce this, claiming that while blacks still had the right to vote most showed no interest in doing so. Despite his rhetoric to the contrary, Hampton accepted white methods of intimidation and violence to save the state from what he and other white leaders considered chaos under a black dominated Republican Party. He, like most whites, believed that the best option was a paternalistic society that controlled the economic and political course of the state. Equitable distribution of political power and economic freedom for recently freed slaves was a recipe for disaster.21

1 Walter Brian Cisco, Wade Hampton, Confederate Warrior, Conservative Statesman, (Washington, D.C.: Brassey's, Inc., 2004), 266.

2 Ibid., 10-12, 17, 23, 29, 31, 46; Hampton to E. Ham January 1, 1877, Hampton Family Papers, Manuscripts Division, South Caroliniana Library, USC, (hereafter HFP); N. Louise Bailey, Mary L. Morgan, Carolyn R. Taylor, Biographical Directory of SC Senate, 1776-1985, (Columbia: USC Press, 1986), I, 656-659.

3 Cisco, Hampton, (2004) 51-52.

4 Ibid. 55- 163; Charles E. Cauthen, (ed.) Family Letters of the Three Wade Hamptons, 1782- 1901, (Columbia: USC Press, 1953), 113-114 hereafter The Three Hamptons; Hampton to E. Ham January 1, 1877, HFP.

5 Hampton to R.E. Lee, July 21, 1866, HFP.

6 Cauthen, The Three Hamptons, 126-141.

7 Hampton to John Connor, April 9, 1868, HFP. For the general attitude towards blacks by most whites in the state after 1865 one of the best overviews is in Stephen Kantrowitz, Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy, (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2000), 41, 44.

8 For the failed effort to forestall the election of delegates to the state constitution in November 1867, see Walter Edgar, South Carolina: A History, (Columbia: USC Press, 1998), 385-386. For the division among whites in 1868 and the violent plan led by people like Gary see Richard Zuczek, State of Rebellion: Reconstruction in South Carolina, (Columbia: USC Press, 1996), 51-52.

9 For the support Hampton gave the Klansmen indicted see Zuczek, State of Rebellion, (1996), 100 and for the violence perpetrated by the organization see ibid., 94-100 and Cisco, Wade Hampton (2004), 204-206. Also see Lou Falkner Williams, The Great SC Ku Klux Klan Trials, 1871-1872, (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996), 53.
10 O n Congressional amnesty for former Confederates see Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, (New York: Harper and Row, 1988), 504. For Hampton’s tragic personal and financial problems in this period see Cisco, Wade Hampton, (2004), 198-200, 201-201, 210- 211. And for his reluctant acceptance of the Democratic nomination for governor see typescript of narration dated July 25, 1876, HFP and Walter Allen, Chamberlain’s Administration in South Carolina (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1888), 400.

11 For details about the Hampton political rallies see Handbill entitled “Celebration in Honor of General Wade Hampton at Winnsboro,” October 16, 1876, HFP and Yorkville Enquirer, October 19, 1876; the author wishes to thank Debra Franklin, Museum researcher, for taking extensive notes of the latter for this study.

12 Zuczek, State of Rebellion, (1996), 176, 177-178. Dewitt Grant Jones, “Wade Hampton and the Rheotic of Race: A Study of the Speaking of Wade Hampton on the Race Issue in South Carolina, 1865-1878,” (LSU Ph.D. dissertation, 1988), 144-145.

13 See Edmund L. Drago, Hurrah for Hampton: Black Red Shirts in South Carolina during Reconstruction, Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, (1998), particularly 16, 22-34.

13 For review of the vote tallies and the stalemate that ensued see Zuczek, State of Rebellion, (1996) 193. For black attempts to switch to the Democratic side and how insignificant this actually was see Joel Williamson, After Slavery: The Negro in South Carolina During Reconstruction, 1861-1877, (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1965), 408- 412. Nevertheless, Cisco tries to claim that many blacks did switch to the Democrats, see Wade Hampton (2004), 232-234.

14 For an account of the stalemate in the State House after the election see Cisco, Wade Hampton, (2004), 250-252.

15 For an account Hampton's inaugural address and its contents see Charleston News and Courier "extra" December 14, 1876, HFP and Cisco, Wade Hampton, (2004), 256-258. For estimates on the number of black voters that supported Hampton see Williamson, After Slavery, (1965), 411.

16 On the claim by Hampton see Cisco, Wade Hampton, (2004), 267. For the end of Chamberlain's tenure see ibid. 266-269.

17 Kantrowitz, Ben Tillman, (2000), 53; also see William Cooper, The Conservative Regime: South Carolina, 1877-1890, (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1968),

18 On Wright’s removal from office see James Lowell Underwood and W. Lewis Burke, Jr. (ed.) At Freedom’s Door: African American Founding Fathers and Lawyers in Reconstruction SC, (Columbia: USC Press, 2000), 64-67. On Beverly Nash removal see John H. Moore, Columbia and Richland County: A SC Community, 1740-1990, (Columbia: USC Press, 1993), 265-266. For the general campaign used by Hampton and his allies to remove most blacks from office see ibid. 267. For a comprehensive examination of the removal of blacks from politics in the 1880s see Cooper, The Conservative Regime, (1968), 90- 107.

19 On Hampton’s short tenure as governor and his modest success in carrying out his election promises to blacks see Kantrowitz, Ben Tillman, (2000), 78-79; Williamson, After Slavery, (1965), 412-417 and Williams, The Conservative Regime (1968), 90, 96, 111-112.

20 On Hampton’s health and waning influence see Cisco, Wade Hampton, (2004), 270- 324 and Kantrowitz, Ben Tillman, (2000), 92-94, 185.

21 Kantrowitz, Ben Tillman, 78-79. Kantrowitz argues persuasively that Hampton’s paternalistic view of race was really little different from the violence which Ben Tillman and MC Butler advocated in 1876. In the end both sides believed that the only proper order of society was for whites to dominate blacks because that was the only conceivable way.

1. Virginia G. Meynard, author of The Venturers, the Hamptons, Harrison and Earle Families of Virginia, South Carolina and Texas, published by Southern Historical Press, copyright 1981 Virginia G. Meynard

	Dr. S. Robert Lathan - Symposium Chair, Wade Hampton Scholar: *Introduction – The 3 Wade Hamptons*
	Mr. Walter Brian Cisco - author: Wade Hampton; Confederate Warrior and Conservative Statesman: *What You May Not Know About Wade Hampton*
	Mr. Edward G.. Longacre - author: Wade Hampton - Gentleman and Soldier; 19 other Civil War books: *Wade Hampton vs. Jeb Stuart*
	Mr. Joe Long - Curator, Relic Room SC Museum: *Wade Hampton, The Last Swordsman*
	Dr. W. Scott P Poole - Assist. Professor of History, College of Charleston: *Wade Hampton and the Lost Cause*
	Ms. Jane Gibson Nardy - registered Genealogist, past president of the Cashiers Historical Society and Zachary descendant: *Wade Hampton in Cashiers*
	Mr. Tom Elmore - Historian: *The Burning of Columbia*
	Dr. Fritz Hamer - Chief Curator of History, SC State Museum: *Wade Hampton’s Evolving Political Views (1850-1890)*
	Mr. Hampton Morris - Wade Hampton Descendant: *Hampton Descendants*
	Dr. S. Robert Lathan - Symposium Chair: *Dr. William Halsted at High Hampton*