Hugh Middleton Quarles

His father died in 1844 when Hugh was about 2, and he was living on his new step-father R.M. Fuller's considerable cotton plantation at Longmires, Edgefield District by 1850. He was a 19 year old farmer on the plantation when he enlisted on 15 April 1861 as Private, Company K, 7th South Carolina Infantry. He was absent, sick, in September 1861 and again in March and July 1862.

He was killed in action on Maryland Heights near Harpers Ferry on 13 September 1862 after two previous color bearers, Sgt. Burress and Pvt Adams, had been struck down:

Before the colors hit the ground, Private Hugh Middleton Quarles snatched them up and whirled them defiantly over his head. He fell dead when a bullet slammed into his heart. Only one other man of the color guard remained unhurt, so [Colonel] Aiken left the flag where it lay, "a temporary winding sheet for poor Quarles."

He was originally buried on the field near where he fell. His remains may have been returned home at a later date.

His service from Swain,1 source also of the quote above, citing a Colonel Aiken letter of 21 December 1862. He's seen as H.M. and H. Middleton Quarles in his Compiled Service Records. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census for 1850 and 1860, which noted his personal worth at $9,000 - equivalent of more than a quarter of a million in 2020 dollars.

The US War Department provided a headstone for him in 1936, on the application of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC).

His brother James Richard Quarles (b. 1836) was also in Company K, but died of pneumonia in a Richmond, VA hospital in April 1862. His brother-in-law Joseph L. Talbert, First Lieutenant, Company K, was mortally wounded on Maryland Heights.

His step-father Ralsa Moody Fuller (b. 1814) also died in 1862.

See an excellent discussion about Richard Quarls, a family slave who accompanied Hugh in the army as a body servant and was with him at his death, from Andy Hall's Dead Confederates.

02/11/1842; Edgefield District, SC

09/13/1862; Maryland Heights, MD; burial in Fuller Cemetery, McCormick, SC