Thomas Fenwick Drayton (August 24, 1809 – February 18, 1891) was an American planter, politician, railroad president, slave owner and military officer from Charleston, South Carolina.

In 1833, William Drayton took all the family but Thomas, who chose to stay in the South, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania following the Nullification Crisis, as he was a unionist.

[1] Drayton graduated in 1828 from the United States Military Academy, where he was a classmate of Jefferson Davis, who became his lifelong friend.

Drayton was appointed a Brigadier General in September 1861 and placed in command of the military district at Port Royal, South Carolina.

[3] Drayton subsequently used "Fish Haul Plantation", which his wife owned, as headquarters in the defense of Hilton Head Island.

Drayton had failed to get his brigade into action at Second Bull Run, and it was then driven from the field in panic at both South Mountain and Antietam.

During the final two years of the war, he mainly performed administrative duties in the Trans-Mississippi Theater, although he did briefly command a division in early 1864.

[10] Drayton is commemorated by a historical marker erected in 1985 by the state of South Carolina near Hilton Head in Beaufort County.