Samuel W. Ferguson

{{short description|Confederate States Army general (1834–1917)}}

{{Infobox military person

|name = Samuel W. Ferguson

|image = Brigadier General Samuel Wragg Ferguson.jpg

|caption = Ferguson in uniform, {{circa|1862|lk=yes}}

|birth_name = Samuel Wragg Ferguson

|birth_date = {{birth date|1834|11|3}}

|birth_place = Charleston, South Carolina, U.S.

|death_date = {{Death date and age|1917|2|3|1834|11|3}}

|death_place = Jackson, Mississippi, U.S.

|placeofburial = Greenwood Cemetery, Jackson, Mississippi, U.S.

|placeofburial_coordinates = {{coord|32|18|29.5|N|90|11|02.3|W|region:US-MS_type:landmark|display=inline,title}}

|allegiance = {{unbulleted list|United States|Confederate States}}

|branch = {{unbulleted list|United States Army|Confederate States Army}}

|branch_label = Branch

|serviceyears = {{unbulleted list|1857–1861 (U.S.)|1861–1865 (C.S.)}}

|rank = {{unbulleted list|Second Lieutenant (U.S.)|Brigadier-General (C.S.)}}

|commands = {{unbulleted list|5th South Carolina Cavalry|28th Mississippi Cavalry|Ferguson's Cavalry Brigade}}

|battles = {{tree list}}

|battles_label = Battles

|alma_mater = United States Military Academy

|spouse = {{marriage|Catherine Sarah Lee|October 25, 1862}}

|children = 4

}}

Brigadier-General Samuel Wragg Ferguson (November 3, 1834 – February 3, 1917) was a senior officer of the Confederate States Army who commanded cavalry in the Western Theater of the American Civil War. After the civil war, Ferguson served as a member of the Mississippi River Commission.{{cite news|author=|title=The Cavalry Reunion|work=Weekly Democrat-Times|volume=20|number=31|location=Greenville, Miss.|date=February 18, 1888|page=1}}

Early life and education

Samuel Wragg Ferguson was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on November 3, 1834, to James, a planter, and Abby Ann (née Barker) Ferguson. Educated at a private school in Charleston, he entered the United States Military Academy in 1852 and graduated in 1857.{{cite encyclopedia |last=Losson |first=Christopher T. |title=Samuel Wragg Ferguson |url=http://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/samuel-wragg-ferguson/ |encyclopedia=Mississippi Encyclopedia |date=2017 |publisher=Center for Study of Southern Culture |access-date=May 19, 2020}} Before graduation, he joined Colonel Albert Sidney Johnson's Utah Expedition. He then went to St. Louis to join his regiment. After the expedition, he was assigned to Fort Walla Walla in the Washington Territory, where he stayed from 1859 to 1860. This all changed when he received the results of the 1860 presidential election. Hearing of the election of Abraham Lincoln, he immediately resigned and left for Charleston, South Carolina.Kansas State Historical Society's Collections of the Kansas State Historical Society (1912) pg. 303.

American Civil War

In March 1861, Ferguson was commissioned a captain in the South Carolina militia, afterwards being appointed Lieutenant and aide-de-camp to C.S. Army Brigadier-General P. G. T. Beauregard. He was one of the officers who received the formal surrender of U.S. Army Major Robert Anderson at Fort Sumter, raised the first Confederate States flag, and posted the first guards at Fort Sumter. After the siege, he was sent to present the first Confederate flag struck by enemy shot to the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States. He was a lieutenant-colonel and aide-de-camp to General Beauregard during the Battle of Shiloh. During the Battle of Farmington, he was in the 28th Mississippi Cavalry Regiment. He commanded the unit while defending Vicksburg, and helped stop attacks made by U.S. Major-General William T. Sherman and U.S. Commodore David Porter.

On July 28, 1863, Ferguson was promoted to brigadier-general. He was subsequently recommended for promotion to Major-General, but Joseph Wheeler quickly objected.Warner, Ezra J. Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959, p. 89, {{ISBN|978-0-8071-0823-9}}. During Sherman's March to the Sea, Ferguson and his cavalrymen harassed the flank of the United States Army. When Sherman got close to Savannah, Ferguson's men left their horses and covered the Confederate retreat. He was then ordered to Danville, Virginia, but before arriving was ordered to go to Charlotte, North Carolina. From Charlotte he escorted Jefferson Davis into Georgia, where his unit was disbanded.Wyatt-Brown, Betram, The Literary Percys: Family History, Gender & the Southern Imagination (1994) pg. 107.

Later life

After the war Ferguson moved to Greenville, Mississippi, where he practiced law. He married Catherine Sarah Lee, daughter of Henry William and Eleanor Percy Lee who was a cousin of Robert Edward Lee. In 1876, he was appointed as president of the United States Board of Mississippi River Commissioners. He was also secretary and treasurer of the Mississippi Levee Board. In 1894, twenty thousandBlack, Patti Carr and Marion Barnwell, Touring Literary Mississippi (2002) pg. 9–10. to forty thousand dollarsWyatt-Brown, Betram, The Literary Percys: Family History, Gender & the Southern Imagination (1994) pg. 46–47. mysteriously disappeared from the Mississippi Levee Board, of which Ferguson was both secretary and treasurer. Later that year, he suddenly left and moved to his hometown of Charleston where worked as a civil engineer. After staying in Charleston, Ferguson moved to Ecuador. It would be many years before he returned. At the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, he tried to join the war effort but he was turned down. On February 3, 1917, Ferguson died in Jackson, Mississippi, where he is buried at the Greenwood Cemetery along with other famous Confederate generals.

Selected works

Personal Memoirs of S. W. Ferguson (1900)

==See also==

References

External links

; Official

[http://lcdl.library.cofc.edu/content/heyward-and-ferguson-family-papers-1806-1923 Heyward and Ferguson Family Papers] at the College of Charleston
[http://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/02754/ Heyward and Ferguson Family Papers] at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
[http://www.lib.lsu.edu/sites/default/files/sc/findaid/1416m.pdf Samuel Wragg Ferguson Papers] at the Louisiana State University

; General information