James Drayton Nance

In 1860 he was a successful 22 year old lawyer in Newberry, SC and he enrolled on 14 April 1861 as the Captain of Company E of the 3rd South Carolina Infantry, two days after the start of the bombardment of Fort Sumter. After service at First Manassas in July he returned home ill, but he returned to his unit and was elected Colonel during the regiment's reorganization on 13 May 1862.

He led the regiment as they captured Maryland Heights overlooking Harpers Ferry on 13 September 1862, and in the severe combat in and around the West Woods with the rest of Kershaw's Brigade on 17 September at Sharpsburg.

He was wounded at Fredericksburg in December 1862, but returned to command at Gettysburg in July 1863. He was at Chickamauga, GA in September 1863 and part of General Longstreet's campaign in the West through April 1864.

On 6 May 1864, from Chancellorsville, William D. Rutherford dispatched a telegram to announce "that Col. Nance fell in battle today - - pierced by five balls."

His service and personal details from his Personal Papers in the Collection of the University of South Carolina and a fine biography posted by the Catawba Wateree Genealogical Society. His gravesite is on Findagrave. His photo above is from D. Augustus Dickert's History of Kershaw's Brigade (1899).

10/10/1837; Newberry, SC

05/06/1864; the Wilderness, VA; burial in Rosemont Cemetery, Newberry, SC