Peter Fayssoux Stevens (22 June 1830-9 January 1910) was a Confederate States Army Colonel who commanded the Holcombe Legion during the American Civil War and served as the Episcopalian of Charleston from 1879 to 1909.
Biography[]
Peter Fayssoux Stevens was born in Tallahassee, Florida on 22 June 1830, the brother of Clement H. Stevens, and he was raised in Pendleton, South Carolina. He graduated from The Citadel in 1849, and he served as its superintendent from 1859 to 1861 and also became an ordained Episcopalian minister. In October 1861, he resigned from The Citadel to serve as a Confederate States Army colonel and serve as the commander of South Carolina's Holcombe Legion. He commanded it as part of the Army of Northern Virginia, fighting at the Second Battle of Bull Run, the Battle of South Mountain, and the Battle of Antietam, where he was wounded before resigning from the military and returning to the priesthood. He went on to serve as the Reformed Episcopal Bishop of Charleston from 1879 to 1909, and he oversaw the reopening of The Citadel in 1882. While a former Confederate, Stevens opened a seminary for African-Americans in 1876 and became a professor at the all-Black Claflin University in 1890. He died in Charleston in 1910 at the age of 79.