About this time our brigade was reinforced by the Twentieth South Carolina Regiment, one of the finest bodies of men that South Carolina had furnished during the war.  It was between one thousand and one thousand two hundred strong, led by the “silver-tongued orator,” Lawrence M. Keitt.  It was quite an acceptable acquisition to our brigade, since our ranks had been depleted by near one thousand since the 6th of May.  They were as healthy, well clad, and well fed body of troops as anybody would wish to see, and much good-humored badgering was indulged in at their expense by Kershaw’s “web feet.”  From their enormous strength in numbers, in comparison to our “corporal guards” of companies, the old soldiers called them “The Twentieth Army Corps.”  I here give a short sketch of the regiment prior to its connection with the brigade.

The Twentieth Regiment was organized under the call for twelve thousand additional troops from South Carolina, in 1862, along with the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth, Holcomb Legion, and other regiments.  The companies composing the Twentieth assembled at the race course, in Charleston, S.C., in the fall of 1862.  The companies had already organized in the respective counties, and elected officers, and after assembling in Charleston and organizing the regiment, elected the following field officers: 

    Colonel——­L.M.  Keitt. 
    Lieutenant Colonel——­O.M.  Dansler. 
    Major——­S.M.  Boykin. 
    Adjutant——­John Wilson. 
    Quartermaster——­John P. Kinard. 
    Commissary——­Brock. 
    Surgeon——­Dr. Salley. 
    Assistant Surgeon——­Dr. Barton. 
    Chaplain——­Rev. W.W.  Duncan.

    Company A, Anderson and Pickens——­Captain Partlow. 
    Company B, Orangeburg——­Captain McMichael. 
    Company C, Lexington——­Captain Leaphart. 
    Company D, Orangeburg——­Captain Danley. 
    Company E, Laurens——­Captain Cowen. 
    Company F, Newberry——­Captain Kinard. 
    Company G, Sumter——­Captain Moseley. 
    Company H, Orangeburg and Lexington——­Captain Ruff. 
    Company I, Orangeburg and Lexington——­Captain Gunter. 
    Company K, Lexington——­Captain Harmon.

Captain Jno.  P. Kinard, of Company F, was made Quartermaster, and First Lieutenant Jno.  M. Kinard was promoted to Captain.

A singularity of one of the companies, I, was that it had twenty-eight members by the name of Gunter.  The Captain and all three Lieutenants and seven non-commissioned officers were of the name of Gunter, and it is needless to add that it was called the Gunter Company.

Colonel Keitt, acting as Brigadier General while in Charleston, the entire management of the regiment was left to Lieutenant Colonel Dansler.  He was a fine officer, a good tactician, and thorough disciplinarian.  A courteous gentleman, kind and sociable to all, he was greatly beloved by officers and men, and it was with feelings of universal regret the regiment was forced to give him up, he having resigned in the spring of 1864, to accept the position of Colonel of the Twenty-Second Regiment.