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.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXXII

From Cold Harbor to Petersburg.

The field in the front at Cold Harbor where those deadly assaults
had been made beggars description. Men lay in places like hogs in a
pen--some side by side, across each other, some two deep, while others
with their legs lying across the head and body of their dead comrades.
Calls all night long could