John Henry Huiet

An 18 year old student at South Carolina College, from Oakland, Edgefield District, he enlisted as Private, Company E, 7th South Carolina Infantry on 15 April 1861. He reenlisted, as First Sergeant, in Company M on 11 February 1862.

He was wounded in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862.

He was in a hospital in Richmond, VA into October then furloughed to 1 December 1862, when he was elected 3rd Lieutenant. He was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant on 27 May 1863 and on detail as an enrolling officer in Edgefield from August 1863 to January 1864. He was wounded again, by a gunshot in the groin at Spotsylvania Court House, VA on 8 May 1864 and was treated in hospitals in Richmond, Charlottesville, and Lynchburg, VA to about October 1864. He may have served as Adjutant of the regiment before the end of the war, and he was surrendered on 26 April 1865 and paroled at Greensboro, NC on 2 May 1865.

By 1872 he was living in Batesburg, Lexington County, SC and was a successful merchant there in 1880. In 1890 he was a founder of the Globe Phosphate Company, a mining operation and fertilizer manufacturer, and was President of the Farmers & Mechanics Bank in Columbia by 1892. In 1910 he was a wholesale sugar merchant with the Franklin Sugar Refining Company, living with his son and his family in Charleston, SC.

His service from Swain.1 Personal details from family genealogists, banking and industry trade journals, and the 1880 and 1910 US Census. His gravesite is on Findagrave, source also of his picture, from a photograph of unknown provenance contributed by Debbie Allmon.

His brother Jacob was in Company M and also wounded at Sharpsburg.

He married Katherine Frances "Kate" Bouknight (1846-1891) and they had a son Caleb Bouknight Huiet (1872-1916); unfortunately, he outlived both of them.

His son Caleb, heavily in debt and probably having misappropriated Franklin Sugar funds, apparently killed himself in April 1916 at age 44. In July 1916 John became a defendant in a suit contending insurance fraud by his son, himself and his company, Franklin Sugar. The case was dismissed and he was not found guilty of any fraud, but the decision was handed down only 4 months before he himself died. The case law and background are online from the Harvard Law Caselaw Access Project. It's a very sad story about Caleb.

03/22/1843; Saluda, Edgefield District, SC

04/07/1917; Charleston, SC; burial in Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, SC