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Original hand drawn illustration in ink, colored pencil, and watercolor, 8 1/2 x 11 3/4 inches, framed within a doubled lined black border, on a slightly larger sheet. An unidentified amateur artist has drawn a calendar with the date of Hampton's death, April 11, 1902, blacked out, in memoriam to him. The calendar is framed by a scythe on one side; cattails and wheat stalks on the other. Matted, the illustration attached to the matting board on the verso with paper tape along edges of the sheet (scattered foxing to paper, staining along edges of matting board, extending onto the lower left, blank corner of the drawing, upper left corner of the mat chipped away. Wade Hampton (1818-1902) was born into a wealthy family in Charleston, South Carolina. By the time of the outbreak of the Civil War, he was one of the largest slaveholders in the Southeast. He served the Confederacy as a cavalry officer, attaining the rank of Lieutenant General. After the war he served as Governor of South Carolina, 1876-1879, and then as a U.S. Senator from the state, 1879-1891. His brief biography in the DAB states that "Hampton's greatest contribution toward the restoration of white supremacy in South Carolina was his influence in avoiding a general armed conflict, particularly between the election and the withdrawal of the United States troops [following the end of Reconstruction in 1877]." Further research indicates that, though he may not have personally advocated the use of force, his election as Governor was aided by a group of supporters, the Red Shirts, whose tactics toward newly enfranchised blacks included voter suppression, intimidation and violence [see: Fritz Hamer's essay "Wade Hampton: Conflicted Leader of the Conservative Democracy?" inProceedings of the South Carolina Historical Association, 2007, pp. 27-40)].
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