Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/749

Rh permitting his return to Kentucky. In 1881 he was elected governor of Kentucky, having resumed his residence in that State, and after the expiration of his term and the conclusion of his labors in the re-assembled constitutional convention, he again made his home in his native county. In 1896, at the age of seventy-three, he was nominated for Vice-President of the United States by that branch of his party popularly known as "Gold Democrats and in the political campaign which ensued he was an active participant.

Lieutenant-General Wade Hampton is the third of his family to bear that name, his grandfather having served with distinction in the Revolutionary war under Marion and Sumter. He was born at Columbia, S. C., in 1818, was graduated at the University of South Carolina, and afterward studied law, but without the intention of practicing that profession. He served in the State legislature in early life, and was recognized as one of the prominent men of the State, though he devoted him self not so much to public affairs as to his plantation in terests in South Carolina and Mississippi and to the activities of a man of fortune. When his State decided upon her withdrawal from the Union, he promptly offered his services for her military defense in the humble station of a private, but was soon authorized to organize a command of infantry, artillery and cavalry, which became known as the Hampton Legion, and under that title achieved great distinction. He was commissioned colonel of this command in July, 1861, and very promptly won renown on the plains of Manassas. In the battle of July 2ist, with six hundred of his infantry he held for some time the Warrenton road against Keyes corps, and was sustaining General Lee when Jackson came to their aid. In the Peninsular campaign the command was again distinguished, and at Seven Pines lost half its number, and Hampton himself received a painful wound in the