“C” is for Chesnut, James, Jr. [1815-1885]. US Senator. Soldier. A Princeton graduate, Chesnut read for the law law and opened a practice in Camden. He represented Kershaw County in the South Carolina House of
Representatives and state Senate. In 1858 he was elected to the U.S. Senate. Chesnut was a cooperationist in his views on secession, but also a strong defender of slavery and states’ rights. Following Lincoln’s election, he resigned from the Senate. As a delegate to the Confederate Provisional Congress, he served on the committee that wrote the Confederate Constitution. In 1862 Jefferson Davis commissioned him as an aide-de-camp with the rank of colonel. In 1864 James Chesnut, Jr., was promoted to brigadier general and assigned to command reserve troops in South Carolina—a position he held until the end of the war.