John Richard B. Best

Known as Richard, he was a law student living on his family's large plantation in Allendale in 1860. On 7 September 1861 he enlisted as 2nd Corporal, Company G, First South Carolina Infantry at Fort Johnson in the Barnwell District. He was appointed 5th Sergeant by April 1862 and commissioned First Lieutenant of Company E to date from 1 September 1862.

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

He was detached to arrest deserters from 27 May 1863 to at least the end of the year, and was in a hospital in Richmond for a leg ulcer in July 1863. He was himself arrested on 9 June 1864, charge not given, but was released and returned to duty on 9 August. He was wounded again, on 30 September 1864 at Forts Harrison near Petersburg, VA by a gunshot which took off two of his toes and another which lodged in his hip. He was in Richmond hospitals to 23 October and furloughed home, disabled for the rest of the war.

He was a planter in Barnwell County, SC.

His service from his Compiled Service Records, online from fold3, with details from his bio sketch in the History.1 Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census for 1860. His memorial is on Findagrave.

He married Clio Legard Bignon (1844-1885) in March 1862 and they had 8 children.

07/19/1840; Allendale, SC

1903; burial in Swallow Savannah Cemetery, Allendale, SC