Milledge Luke Bonham

Milledge Bonham
1860s portrait of Bonham, by Mathew Brady
Member of the South Carolina House of Representatives from Edgefield County
In office
November 27, 1865 – April 16, 1868
70th Governor of South Carolina
In office
December 18, 1862 – December 18, 1864
LieutenantPlowden Weston
Preceded byFrancis Wilkinson Pickens
Succeeded byAndrew Gordon Magrath
Member of the Confederate House of Representatives
from South Carolina's 4th District
In office
February 18, 1862 – January 17, 1863
Preceded byPosition established
Succeeded byWilliam Dunlap Simpson
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from South Carolina's 4th district
In office
March 4, 1857 – December 21, 1860
Preceded byPreston S. Brooks
Succeeded byJames H. Goss (1868)
Member of the South Carolina House of Representatives
from Edgefield district
In office
November 23, 1840 – November 25, 1844
Personal details
Born(1813-12-25)December 25, 1813
Redbank, South Carolina, US
DiedAugust 27, 1890(1890-08-27) (aged 76)
White Sulphur Springs, North Carolina, US
Military service
AllegianceUnited States
Confederate States
Branch/serviceUS Army
Confederate States Army
Years of service1836, 1847–1848 (USA)
1861–1862, 1865 (CSA)
RankColonel (USA)
Major General (Militia)
Brigadier General (CSA)
Commands12th U.S. Infantry
1st Brigade, Confederate
Army of the Potomac
Bonham's Cavalry Brigade
Battles/wars

Milledge Luke Bonham (December 25, 1813 – August 27, 1890) was an American politician and U.S. representative. He was later the 70th governor of South Carolina from 1862 until 1864, and a Confederate General during the American Civil War.

Early life and career

Bonham was born near Redbank (now Saluda), South Carolina, the son of Maryland native Capt. James Bonham and Sophie Smith Bonham, the niece of Capt. James Butler, who was the head of an illustrious South Carolina family. Milledge was a 1st cousin once removed to Andrew Pickens Butler. He was a descendant of an Englishman named Thomas Butler, who arrived to the American colonies in the 1600s.[1]

He attended private schools in the Edgefield District and at Abbeville.[2] Bonham graduated with honors from South Carolina College at Columbia in 1834, and served as Captain and adjutant general of the South Carolina Brigade in the Seminole War in Florida in 1836.[2] That same year, his older brother James Butler Bonham died at the Battle of the Alamo.[3]

Bonham studied law and was admitted to the bar, in 1837, and commenced practice in Edgefield.[3] During the Mexican–American War, he was lieutenant colonel (from March 1847) and colonel (from August 1847) of the 12th US Infantry Regiment. Two other members of his regiment, Major Maxcy Gregg and Captain Abner Monroe Perrin, would also become generals in the Civil War. After he returned home, Bonham was the major general of the South Carolina Militia. Entering politics, he served in the state house of representatives from 1840 to 1844.[3] He married Ann Patience Griffin on November 13, 1845.

Bonham was solicitor of the southern circuit of South Carolina from 1848 to 1857, and was then elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-fifth United States Congress (succeeding his cousin, Preston Smith Brooks) and the Thirty-sixth United States Congress, and served from March 4, 1857, until withdrawing on December 21, 1860 following South Carolina's secession from the Union.[3][2]

Gen. Milledge Luke Bonham

Civil War

Like many of his fellow South Carolina slaveholders,[4] Burt supported the secession of South Carolina from the United States following the election of Abraham Lincoln as US President in 1860.[2] South Carolina was the first state to secede, and it joined with other slaveholding states to form the Confederate States of America in February 1861.

Bonham was appointed major general and commander of the Army of South Carolina by Gov. Francis W. Pickens in February 1861.[2] He was then appointed brigadier general in the Confederate Army on April 19, 1861, and commanded the First Brigade of the Confederate "Army of the Potomac" under P.G.T. Beauregard. He fought in the First Battle of Manassas, leading his brigade as well as two artillery batteries and six companies of cavalry in the defense of Mitchell's Ford on Bull Run.[5][6]

He resigned his army commission January 27, 1862, to enter the Confederate Congress, representing South Carolina from February 18 until he was elected governor later that year.[2] In Congress, Bonham focused on military matters and tried to reserve the ability of states to maintain more control over their own manpower.[2] This was a major issue for South Carolina and other Confederate states, as supplying most of their men to the army left their home front dangerously exposed.[3]

Governor of South Carolina

On December 17, 1862, the South Carolina General Assembly elected Bonham as governor (unlike most states, South Carolina's governor was not popularly elected at that time).[3] He left Congress and took up his new office on December 18. At this time military manpower was a major issue. General P.G.T. Beauregard, tasked with the defense of the state, estimated that 30,000 troops would be needed to guard South Carolina against Union forces, but only 10,000 were available in the area.[3] Most of South Carolina's volunteer forces were away fighting in other states, and the age range of younger and older men who would normally be part of the state's militia force were now subject to conscription into the Confederate Army.[3] Union forces began capturing South Carolina's sea islands, and made an attempt to retake Fort Sumter in September, 1863. When the attack on the fort in Charleston harbor failed, Union gunboats shelled the city, continuing the bombardment into the following year.[3]

During his term, the General Assembly enacted a prohibition against distilling to save grains for food, and Bonham urged that more land be used to grow crops instead of cotton to increase the supply of food in the state.[3] Governor Bonham also faced problems from slaveholders who resented the state government and the Confederate military impressing slaves to provide forced labor for building fortifications.[3]

By late 1864, it was becoming obvious that South Carolina would be vulnerable to invasion by land following Union General William T. Sherman's successes in neighboring Georgia. In his final message to the state legislature, Bonham warned of the impending threat and urged every citizen in the state to contribute to the war effort.[3]

His term of office expired in December, 1864, and Bonham rejoined the Confederate Army as brigadier general of cavalry. He saw action during the Carolinas Campaign in early 1865 before Confederate forces in the Carolinas surrendered in April, 1865.[2]

Postbellum activities

Bonham resumed the practice of law in Edgefield and engaged in planting after the war.[2] He owned an insurance business in Edgefield and in Atlanta, Georgia, from 1865 to 1878. Returning to politics, Bonham was again a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1865 to 1867 and a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1868.[2] In the 1870s, Bonham took part in Red Shirt activities which used terror and intimidation tactics to restore Democratic rule in South Carolina.[2] As a reward, he was appointed state railroad commissioner in 1878 and served until his death in 1890 at White Sulphur Springs, North Carolina. He was buried in Elmwood Cemetery in Columbia.[7]

Dates of rank

  • Major General (South Carolina Militia), February 10, 1861
  • Brigadier General, April 23, 1861
  • Brigadier General, February 20, 1865

See also

  • List of American Civil War Generals (Confederate)
  • Bonham House
  • Milledge Lipscomb Bonham, his son

References

  1. ^ The Descendants of Thomas Pincerna, Progenitor of the Butler Family. 1997.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Warner, Ezra J.; Yearns, W. Buck (1975). Biographical Register of the Confederate Congress. Louisiana State University Press. pp. 24–26. Retrieved April 20, 2026.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Yearns, W. Buck, ed. (1985). The Confederate Governors. University of Georgia Press. p. 173—180.
  4. ^ Weil, Julie Zauzmer (January 10, 2022). "More than 1,800 congressmen once enslaved Black people. This is who they were, and how they shaped the nation". Washington Post. Retrieved May 5, 2024. Database at "Congress slaveowners", The Washington Post, January 13, 2022, retrieved April 29, 2024
  5. ^ United States War Department (1895). The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Volume 5, Serial 5. Washington DC: Government Printing Office. p. 825.
  6. ^ United States War Department (1895). The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Volume 2, Serial 2. Washington DC: Government Printing Office. p. 487.
  7. ^ "BONHAM, Milledge Luke 1813–1890". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved August 30, 2024.
  • Eicher, John H., and David J. Eicher, Civil War High Commands. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. ISBN 978-0-8047-3641-1.
  • Sifakis, Stewart. Who Was Who in the Civil War. New York: Facts On File, 1988. ISBN 978-0-8160-1055-4.
  • Warner, Ezra J. Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959. ISBN 978-0-8071-0823-9.
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