U.S. Civil War (1861-1865)

Hoping to give a voice to the conservative wing of the Democratic Party after Ben Tillman’s election to the governorship, Gonzales joined with his brother Ambrose to found the State Publishing Company in January 1891, with the financial backing of conservative Democrats.

After some initial teething, the company quickly proved highly prosperous, producing shirting and sheeting that sold well in markets as far away as Philadelphia and New York. Graniteville was also unusual in that it employed the labor of free white laborers, mostly women and teenaged children, at a time when most southern manufacturers used the labor of black slaves.

Grayson is best remembered for his proslavery verse, The Hireling and the Slave (1854), a rejoinder (structured in heroic couplets) to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s depiction of slavery in Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

In 1870 Greener graduated with honors, earning the distinction of being the first African American to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard.

Gregg's scholarly interests included botany, ornithology, and astronomy. In 1847 he was appointed major in Milledge L. Bonham’s regiment of volunteers for the Mexican War, but this unit failed to reach Mexico in time to participate in any major battles. He was a member of the Southern Rights Convention of 1852, and in the late 1850s he advocated reopening the African slave trade.

Putting his industrial gospel into practice, Gregg and several partners secured a charter from the South Carolina General Assembly in December 1845 to establish the Graniteville Manufacturing Company. The Graniteville factory commenced operations in 1849 and quickly became one of the most successful textile factories in the entire South.

Working as her father’s assistant and as mill bookkeeper, Gridley mastered the daily operations of management and administration. Following her father’s death in 1890, she assumed the position of mill president, the first woman mill president in South Carolina.

From 1903 to 1919, he served as president of the American Negro Academy, the leading intellectual organization for African Americans. After 1913 he devoted himself to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), serving until 1923 on its national board. Through 1924 he also served as president of the District of Columbia branch, becoming a key figure in the NAACP’s efforts to oppose racial discrimination at the federal level.

With familial ties to many of the lowcountry elite, the Grimké family was among the upper echelon of antebellum Charleston society. However, Sarah and Angelina rejected a privileged lifestyle rooted in a slave economy and became nationally known abolitionists no longer welcome in South Carolina.

In July 1863 the siege of Charleston began when U.S. forces moved onto Morris Island. Confederate general P. G. T. Beauregard had the H. L. Hunley brought to Charleston to operate against the U.S. Navy blockading squadron.

Hammett was one of the first postwar mill presidents in South Carolina to adopt the large-scale New England model of factory production.

As a congressman, Hammond joined the charmed circle of planter-politicians that composed the state’s leadership.

When her husband reluctantly joined the state militia in late 1862, Emily maintained his journal in his absence. Her entries tell much about the struggles endured by Southern farm women in the midst of war.

In 1876 Haskell helped organize the aggressive Red Shirt campaign that brought a narrow victory for Wade Hampton in the race for governor; he was also a prominent business leader in the state for several decades.

In April 1863 she joined her husband at the newly established hospital for people of color in Beaufort where she both nursed and taught her patients, who included the wounded of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry after their assault on Fort Wagner.

He represented Marion County in the state Senate from 1868 to 1872, and as South Carolina’s secretary of state from 1872 to 1877. He was also the first black student in the history of the University of South Carolina and inaugurated the institution’s first attempt at integration.

Hayne corresponded with the best writers in the nation and in Europe and was, as one of few in the post-Reconstruction South, respected in academia as a refined poet and cultured man of letters.

Education was his top priority, particularly the encouragement of white children to take advantage of educational opportunities. Despite some success in education, most of Heyward’s progressive agenda was frustrated by state legislators.

At South Mountain (September 14, 1864) an important order addressed to Hill fell into federal hands, but he was probably not at fault. His division lost more than sixty percent of its strength at Sharpsburg (September 17, 1862), and Hill had three horses shot from under him.

Especially interested in comparative anatomy, Holbrook developed a desire to study reptiles and amphibians, and by the mid-1820s he had begun a book describing all of the known snakes, lizards, turtles, frogs, and toads in the United States.