Lewis & Clark College

Hampton, Wade

Wade Hampton III was a Confederate cavalry leader during the American Civil War and afterward a Democratic Party politician from South Carolina. Near the end of the Reconstruction, he was elected as 77th Governor of South Carolina, serving 1876-1879, and later was elected as a U.S. Senator. His election as governor was marked by extensive violence by the Red Shirts, a paramilitary group that served the Democratic Party to work to disrupt elections and suppress black voting in the state. They contributed to the Democrats regaining control of the state government. Hampton grew up in a wealthy planter family, receiving private instruction. He had four younger sisters. His was an active outdoor life; he rode horses and hunted, especially at his family's North Carolina summer retreat, High Hampton. The youth was known for taking hunting trips alone into the woods, hunting American black bears with only a knife. Some accounts credit him with killing as many as 80 bears. In 1836 Hampton graduated from South Carolina Colleg and was trained for the law, although he never practiced. His father assigned certain plantations to him for his management in South Carolina and Mississippi.

Politicians

1877

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Nineteenth Century Political Party Photograph Collection