Personal commentary: April 5

During the next two weeks, the General Assembly is on furlough. WR will do its best to fill the time with stories, commentaries and analyses that are a little out of the norm.

This past Sunday, April 5, is a date that figures in my life in a strange way. I was supposed to be born on April 5, 1982, as predicted by the Italian co-owner of a deli my parents regularly visited in Birmingham’s Ensley neighborhood. She said I would be an Easter baby. Well, my birthday has fallen on Easter twice (1990, 2001), but not that year.

My paternal grandfather, an uncle and the Civil War veteran I am directly descended from were all born on April 5. Some sort of cosmic strangeness that I will never understand. And, it has become a day when I reflect over my family’s history here in South Carolina and in Alabama.

My grandfather, who passed away at the end of my first Spring semester at Carolina, was a person I never got to know very well, though I did spend a decent amount of time around him as I was a child. He was named Hampton, as was his father before him, and one of his grandchildren. Hampton has been a family name since a relative of mine was named after Wade Hampton II, when the Wolfes still ran a plantation in what was then called the southern part of Lexington District.

He attended Ensley High School, was involved in the art club there (which was bizarre to me when I learned of it) and was, for a time in his life, a postal inspector. He also served in the Pacific Theater of World War II. I never heard him talk much about the war, but my father told me of one time that my grandfather was tear-assing through where he was stationed (a base in the Philippines, I believe) and damn near ran over Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

The other story that usually comes to mind is of Alexander Hamilton Wolfe, who, with brothers Wade Hampton Wolfe (nicknamed Hampie) and James Wolfe left their home on the Congaree to enlist for South Carolina in the Civil War. Beforehand, both A.H. and Hampie had enrolled at Wofford, then transferred to Virginia, but did not have a chance to enjoy college life before the war.

As men of relative means, they brought their horses to the conflict and eventually found themselves in the Seventh South Carolina Cavalry, Co. B, under future S.C. governor and U.S. senator Wade Hampton III. James was an officer, while A.H. and Hampie served as NCOs. They served at places like the Siege of Fredericksburg, Cold Harbor and a number of other battles in the Old Dominion. A.H. was a part of the force that abandoned Richmond, escaping over the Manchester Bridge. A modern bridge over the James River stands near the same location. A.H. also was at the Battle of Williamsburg, a largely forgettable skirmish, except for the fact his horse got shot out from under him. While traipsing across Virginia, I managed to see a copy of the payment receipt from the Confederate government to him for his horse.

After the war, my family, unlike others in the Lowcountry, were not able to hang onto its ill-gotten wealth, but that did not mean they were not going to join the rest of the white aristocratic establishment and reassert the old guard. A.H. joined up with the Red Shirts, a paramilitary organization of which Wade Hampton III was one of the leaders. They rallied their partisans, harassed election rallies of free blacks, and were the foot soldiers of a movement that led to the highly contentious, and most would say corrupt, election of 1876 that restored the old guard and put Wade Hampton III as governor. As such, South Carolina was the only state that voted out Reconstruction before the Federal government ended it.

Perhaps A.H.’s lasting legacy is the fact he was a leader in the creation of Calhoun County. I guess our family and the others in the area (Stablers, Wannamakers, Geigers, Zeiglers, Otts, &c.) were tired of their decisions being made in Lexington and decided to put their power base, as much as it was, in St. Matthews.

When he died, his obituary, as was understandable, was printed in The State. The obit mentioned a number of things, and included a quote from notorious S.C. governor and U.S. senator Ben Tillman. Pitchfork Ben had a number of nice things to say about A.H., including calling him, and I am paraphrasing, a great cornfield lawyer.

If you think that, after lo these many years, getting the Wolfes back involved in S.C. politics after over 130 years, I am slightly conflicted about my family’s legacy in this state, as limited as it might have been, you would be right.

But, this happens every year.

On April 5.