Wade Hampton III (26 March 1818-11 April 1902) was a Confederate cavalry general who later served as Governor of South Carolina from 14 December 1876 to 26 February 1879 (succeeding Daniel Henry Chamberlain and preceding William Dunlap Simpson) and a US Senator from 4 March 1879 to 3 March 1891 (succeeding John J. Patterson and preceding John L.M. Irby).
Biography[]
Wade Hampton III was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1818, the eldest son of Wade Hampton II, and the nephew of James Henry Hammond. He grew up in a wealthy planter family, and he managed plantations in South Carolina and Mississippi and also became active in Democratic state politics. He was elected to the South Carolina General Assembly in 1852 and served as a State Senator from 1858 to 1861. While he was conservative on the issues of secession and slavery, he opposed the division of the Union until his state seceded. He organized Hampton's Legion, which consisted of six infantry companies, four cavalry companies, and an artillery battery, and he was given the rank of Colonel in the Confederate States Army.
American Civil War[]
A mural of Hampton
Hampton's first combat came at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861, during which he was wounded for the first of five times during the American Civil War. In the winter of 1862, he led several cavalry raids behind Union lines without any casualties, earning a commendation from General Robert E. Lee. He was detached for raids at the time of the battles at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, but he was present at the Battle of Brandy's Station, at which he was wounded and his brother was killed. He also fought at the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, during which he was wounded twice; he was promoted to Major-General on 3 August 1863 and given command of a cavalry division. He escorted Lee's withdrawal to Richmond during the Overland Campaign in 1864, and he lost no cavalry battles for the rest of the war, He became a Lieutenant-General on 14 February 1865, and he was forced to surrender to the Union in North Carolina alongside Joseph E. Johnston.
Politics[]
Hampton as a politican
Following the war's end, he and Jubal Early promoted the Lost Cause movement, and he strongly resented the federal government's use of black soldiers in the occupation of South Carolina during Reconstruction. In 1868, he became chair of the Democratic State Committee, and he ran for Governor in 1876. During the gubernatorial campaign, the white supremacist paramilitary "Red Shirts" murdered 150 African-Americans and suppressed black Republicans voting. Hampton became the first Democratic governor in South Carolina since the end of the Civil War in 1865. Hampton was nicknamed "the Savior of South Carolina", and he was elected to the US Senate in 1879, the same day his right leg was amputated due to injuries sustained when he fell from a mule. Hampton appealed to some freedmen and was affiliated with the Bourbon Democrats. He left office in 1891 and served as US Railroad Commissioner from 1893 to 1897, and he died in 1902.