William Dunlap Simpson

After a year at Harvard he studied the law in Laurens and was admitted to the bar in 1846. He served in the State legislature and was a State Senator when South Carolina seceded in December 1860. He was a volunteer aide to General Milledge L. Bonham from the siege of Fort Sumter in April to the battle of First Manassas in July 1861, then went home and helped organize the 14th South Carolina Infantry, of which he was appointed Lieutenant Colonel in September 1861.

He commanded the regiment in Maryland.

In 1863 he was elected to the Confederate Congress to take Governor Bonham's former seat, and he served there to the end of the war.

He returned to his law practice. He was elected US Congressman in 1868, but was not seated as a former Confederate officer. He was elected Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina (with Wade Hampton, Governor) in 1876, reelected in 1878, and succeeded Hampton - elected to the US Senate - as Governor in 1879. He was appointed Chief Justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court and resigned as Governor in 1880 to take the bench. He was reelected in 1886 and was in office at his death at age 67 in 1890.

His service and other details from a bio sketch in the Confederate Military History.1 His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Jane Elizabeth Young (1829-1902) in 1847 and they had 8 children.

10/23/1823; Laurens District, SC

12/26/1890; Columbia, SC; burial in Laurens City Cemetery, Laurens, SC