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"C" is for Chamberlain, Daniel Henry [1835-1907]

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"C" is for Chamberlain, Daniel Henry [1835-1907]. Governor. Chamberlain was an officer in the Fifth Massachusetts Cavalry, a black regiment. In 1866 he came to South Carolina to tend to the affairs of a deceased Yale College classmate. He entered politics in 1868 as a delegate from Berkeley County to the state constitutional convention. From 1868 to 1872 he was Attorney General. In 1871, he joined Democrats in organizing a taxpayers’ convention to press for government reform. In 1874 he was the Republican candidate for governor and won the general election. The 1876 gubernatorial election between Chamberlain and Wade Hampton was hotly contested and disputed. It was finally decided when President Rutherford B. Hayes supported Hampton’s election and withdrew federal troops from South Carolina. Daniel Henry Chamberlain left the state and became a successful Wall Street lawyer.

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Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.