Martin Witherspoon Gary

He practiced law in Edgefield, SC, and was elected to the state House of Representatives in 1860. On 12 June 1861 he enrolled in Columbia, SC and was elected Captain of Company B, Hampton's Legion.

At First Manassas the command of the legion devolved upon him after Colonel Hampton was wounded, Lieutenant-Colonel Johnson killed and Captain Conner disabled. After the Army reorganization, in June 1862, he was elected Lieutenant-Colonel of the Infantry of the Legion, a battalion of eight companies.

He commanded the regiment in Maryland.

The battalion was filled to regimental strength and he was promoted to Colonel on 12 December 1862 (to date from 25 August). On 19 May 1864 was appointed Brigadier General and took command of a cavalry brigade in the defense of Richmond. At Appomattox in April 1865, he refused to surrender. With some two hundred members of his command, he escaped and joined Jefferson Davis and his cabinet at Greensboro, North Carolina. Gary escorted the party as far as his mother's home in Cokesbury, where he turned over his command and ended his career as a Confederate soldier.

He resumed his law practice in Edgefield, began cotton planting, and undertook a series of business and speculative ventures. He was also active in politics.

His service from the Confederate Military History 1 and his Compiled Service Records,2 online from fold3. His picture from a photograph in the William Emerson Strong Photograph Album, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

See a provocative bio sketch at SC Encyclopedia, from which much of the above is quoted.

3/25/1831; Cokesbury, SC

4/9/1881; Edgefield, SC; burial in Tabernacle Cemetery, near Cokesbury, SC