First Lieutenant of the Camden company, known as the DeKalb Rifle Guards.  Struck down by fever contracted while in the service, he returned home a physical wreck, to be tenderly nursed back to health by his wife, Lucretia Douglass, whom he had married in 1844.  Upon the recovery of his health, the war being over, he resumed the practice of law in Camden.  But it was not long before his services were demanded in the State Legislature, which he entered as a member of the lower house in 1852.  From this time on until the opening of hostilities in the war between the States, he practiced his profession with eminent success, and served also in the Legislature several terms, being handsomely re-elected when he stood for the place.  He took a deep interest in the struggle then impending, and was a member of the Secession Convention from his native district.  As it became more and more evident that there would be war, he ran for and was elected to the office of Colonel of the militia regiment composed of companies from Kershaw and adjacent districts, which, early in 1861, by command of Governor Pickens, he mobilized and led to Charleston and thence to Morris’ Island, where the regiment remained until it volunteered and was called to go to Virginia to enter the service of the Confederacy.  Several of the companies then in his regiment consented to go.  These were supplemented by other companies which offered their services, and the new regiment, now known as the Second South Carolina Volunteers, proceeded to Richmond, thence to Manassas.

From this time until 1864 it is unnecessary to trace his personal history in this place, because the history of the brigade, to the command of which he was elected at the reorganization in 1862, and of its commander cannot be separated.  In May, 1864, he was promoted to the rank of Major General and assigned to the command of a division, of which his brigade formed a part.  His was the First Brigade of the First Division of the First Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia.  On the retreat from Richmond his division, with other troops, numbering in all about 6,000 men, was surrounded and captured at the battle of Sailor’s Creek, April 6th, 1865.  In this disastrous battle Lieutenant General Ewell, Major Generals Kershaw and Custis Lee, Brigadier Generals D.M.  DuBose, Semmes, Hunter, and Corse, and Commodores Hunter and Tucker, of the Confederate States’ Navy, ranking on shore duty as Brigadiers, were captured, together with their respective commands, almost to a man, after a desperate and sanguinary struggle against immense odds.  Those officers were all sent to Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, where they remained in prison until some time in August, 1865, when they were allowed to return to their respective homes.