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“B” is for Bamberg County

South Carolina From A to Z
SC Public Radio

“B” is for Bamberg County (393 square miles; 2020 population: 13,654). Bamberg County, located in the inner coastal plain in south-central South Carolina, was formed from the southeastern section of Barnwell County in 1897. It was named for Francis Marion Bamberg, the grandson of John Bamberg who arrived in the area in 1798. The town of Bamberg is the county seat. The South Carolina Railroad traversed the area in 1833 connecting it with Charleston. During the Civil War, Confederate forces lost a skirmish to General Sherman’s forces at Rivers Bridge. By the 1890s cotton fed the region’s economy, aided by such enterprises as the Bamberg Cotton Oil Mill. In the first decades of the twenty-first century, despite a declining agricultural economy, Bamberg County remained a heavy producer of corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and sorghum.

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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.