Samuel Leroy Campbell

Age 31, from the York District, he enrolled as 2nd Lieutenant of Company H, 18th South Carolina Infantry, date not given, and was promoted to First Lieutenant in January 1862.

He was wounded by a gunshot through his eye and out the other side of his head in action at Turner's Gap on South Mountain on 14 September 1862. He was left for dead.

He was found alive on the field two days later by local people and tended nearby. He was completely blind. He was captured by Federal troops, paroled, and in a field hospital in Middletown, MD by 10 October. He was exchanged at Aiken's Landing, VA on 8 November 1862 then in a hospital in Richmond and probably furloughed home. He was discharged for disability in August 1864.

In 1870 he was living on his brother David's farm near Yorkville, SC. He "raised a large family, supporting them by pumping water at the railroad tank" (from about 1878). In 1894

Blind Sam Campbell, the old Confederate veteran who got his eyes shot out in the war, is still supplying the Narrow Gauge engines with water at Clover, but he is not pumping by hand now. Of late he has come to the conclusion that the work is getting too hard for his advancing years, and he has procured a windmill. Now he sits about, whittles out puzzles and other objects that his ingenuity enables him to fashion from wood, talks with his friends, and makes it certain that the wind mill properly discharges the duty that he has imposed upon it. The old fellow seems to be getting quite feeble now, but continues to go about his daily duties with that cheerful patience that has always characterized bis daily walks ...

His service from the Roll 1 and the index to his Compiled Service Records via the Historical Data Systems database. Wound details from a piece in the Anderson Intelligencer of 10 December 1902. Personal information from family genealogists, the US Census of 1870, and the Yorkville Enquirer of 2 October 1895 [clipping]. The quote above from the Enquirer of 30 May 1894 [online]. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Margaret Rebecca Wallace (1825-1894) in about 1859 and they had 5 children.

08/26/1829; York, SC

06/16/1898; York County, SC; burial in Woodside Cemetery, Clover, SC