Giant In Gray: A Biography Of Wade Hampton Of South Carolina

Book excerpt: At last Wade Hampton—Grand Seigneur, Southern planter of vast acres, Confederate general, superb cavalry commander, Governor and United States Senator—reaches his full stature in an authoritative, life-size biography. Manly Wade Wellman has found a many-sided subject for his first venture into the field of biographical writing. As Confederate soldier, Hampton was a man of tremendous attributes—great of body, great of heart, indomitable in spirit. When The War Between The States called him from his aristocratic life as a landed proprietor, he was already in his forties, a man who had no professional military training and who abhorred war. However he soon showed himself a born soldier, stalwart in command, with knightly qualities of selflessness and courage. When the fighting ended he had been wounded three times, but he had saved many a situation, and he was still an unassailable tower of strength in the Southern cause. Wade Hampton’s military career is an inspiring record, but it is in his account of the post-war years that Mr. Wellman brings out the full greatness of the man. After ten years in private life, salvaging what he could from the ruin of his estate, Wade Hampton was called to public life to fight the corruption that was overwhelming his native State. His terms as Governor of South Carolina and as United States Senator showed him to have been a true Southern liberal, honestly desirous of justice to all men regardless of party or color-an honest American of good will who rose above claims of party and region. In his biography, Mr. Wellman has been able to draw on new sources for facts and their interpretation, and his illustrations represent the pick of all the existing Hampton photographs.-Print ed.