In his thirteenth year he entered Mt.  Zion College at Winnsboro, Fairfield County, where he spent one year in preparation for the South Carolina College, which he entered in his fourteenth year, graduating third in his class.  He read law in Attorney General Bailey’s office in Charleston, S.C., and was admitted to the bar as soon as he was of legal age.  He opened a law office at Orangeburg, the county seat.

At the first vacancy he was elected a member to the Lower House of the General Assembly of the State, in which body he served until his election to the Lower House of Congress in 1853.  He served in that body until December, 1860, when he resigned his seat and returned to South Carolina on the eve of the secession of his State from the Union.  He was a leading Secessionist and was elected a member of the Secession Convention.  That body after passing the Ordinance of Secession elected him a delegate to the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States, which met at Montgomery, Ala.  He was a very active member.  On the adjournment of the Provisional Government of the Confederate States he returned to South Carolina and raised the Twentieth Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers and went into the Confederate Army.  His command was ordered to Charleston.  He served with his command on James’ Island, Sullivan’s Island, Morris’ Island, and in Charleston in all the important engagements.  He was in command of Morris’ Island twenty-seven days and nights during its awful bombardment.  When ordered to evacuate the island he did so, bringing off everything without the loss of a man.  He was the last person to leave the island.  General Beauregard in his report to the War Department said it was one of the greatest retreats in the annals of warfare.

The latter part of May, 1864, he left Charleston with his command and joined General Lee’s Army thirteen miles from Richmond.  He carried about sixteen hundred men in his regiment to Virginia.  It was called the “Twentieth Army Corps.”  He was assigned to Kershaw’s Brigade and put in command of the brigade.  On the first day of June, 1864, while leading the brigade, mounted on a grey horse, against a powerful force of the enemy he was shot through the liver and fell mortally wounded.  He died on the 2d of June, 1864.  By his request his remains were brought to South Carolina and laid by the side of his father in the graveyard at Tabernacle Church.  Thus passed away one of South Carolina’s brightest jewels.

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CHAPTER XXXII

From Cold Harbor to Petersburg.