James Chesnut Jr.

Chesnut, a lawyer prominent in South Carolina state politics, served as a Democratic senator in 1858–60, where he proved moderate on the slavery question.

But on Lincoln's election in 1860, Chesnut resigned from the U.S. Senate and took part in the South Carolina secession convention, later helping to draft the Confederate States Constitution.

Chesnut Sr. was one of the wealthiest planters in the South, who owned 448 slaves and many large plantations totaling nearly five square miles before the outbreak of the Civil War.

Chesnut Jr. graduated from the law department of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1835, and initially rose to prominence in South Carolina state politics.

Although a defender of slavery and states' rights, Chesnut opposed the re-opening of the African slave trade and was not as staunch a secessionist as most of the South Carolinian politicians.

Chesnut participated in the South Carolina secession convention in December 1860 and was subsequently elected to the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States.

Believing that the United States would not resist southern secession, Chesnut famously boasted that he would drink all of the blood which would be spilled in the subsequent Civil War.

As military department chief, Chesnut oversaw impressment of slaves for South Carolina's war effort.

Between March and July, Chesnut authorized the use of impressed slaves for Charleston's defenses and for Colonel Arthur Manigault's use at Winyah Bay.

[8] On August 22, 1862 he wrote to the Charleston Mercury that slaveholders had "a real substantial objection" to impressment, in the form of their properties' human needs being neglected, and promised to appoint "an officer of character... to watch over and protect the negroes."

However, the Charleston Daily Courier later described the state appointed overseers as even more "raw... unaccustomed" than usual, and "not seem[ing] to care" for slaves' basic needs.

The Chesnuts' marriage was at times stormy due to difference in temperament (she was hot-tempered and passionate and came occasionally to regard her husband as cool and reserved).

James Chesnut was "regarded as an amiable, modest gentleman of decent parts [gifts]",[13] who performed his duties with ability and dignity both in political and military life.

Col. James Chesnut, c. 1862