Wade Elephare Cothran

From Abbeville County, he was a student at the South Carolina Medical College in Charleston at the start of the war. He mustered as 2nd Lieutenant, Company C, 7th South Carolina Infantry in April 1861 and was promoted to Captain in May 1862.

He was wounded by a gunshot through both thighs in action on Maryland Heights, MD near Harpers Ferry on 13 September 1862. He was "left for dead" on the field but found by his 16 year old brother-in-law Benjamin Chiles (1846-1905) and taken to medical care.

He was disabled by his wounds and resigned his commission in July 1863.

He was a cotton planter on the family's 2000 acre plantation "Millway", near Bradley, SC, which he had inherited on his father's death in 1860, and he ran his wife's family place "Chiles' Crossroads" - another 1000 acres nearby. He was appointed the first US Postmaster there in 1882 and was elected County Probate Judge in 1897 when it became part of the new Greenwood County. He served to his death at age 62 in 1899.

His service from the Rolls.1 Personal details from family genealogists, a sketch of his son Thomas in Snowden's History of South Carolina (Vol. 5, 1920), and his obituary in the Augusta Chronicle 0f 21 November 1899. Further information from Wade C. Alexander's thesis Value Based Design of Former Southeastern Plantations using Millway Plantation as a Research Site (U of Georgia, 2019) [pdf]. His gravesite is on Findagrave, source also of a post-war photograph.

He married Sarah Elizabeth Chiles (1840-1892) in February 1861 and they had 13 or 14 children.

02/06/1837; Mill Way plantation, Abbeville County, SC

11/19/1899; burial in Horeb Baptist Church Cemetery, Troy, SC