James Chesnut , Jr . James Chesnut , Jr . ( January 18 , 1815 – February 1 , 1885 ) was a signatory of the Constitution of the Confederate States of America , and a Confederate States Army general . A lawyer , prominent in South Carolina state politics , he 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 and took part in the South Carolina secession convention , later helping to draft the Confederate Constitution . As aide to General P . G . T . Beauregard , he ordered the firing on Fort Sumter , and served at First Manassas . Later he was aide to Jefferson Davis , and promoted Brigadier - General , returning to law practice after the war . His wife was Mary Boykin Chesnut , whose published diaries reflect their busy social life and prominent friends such as John Bell Hood , Louis T . Wigfall and Wade Hampton III , as well as Jefferson Davis . Early life and education . Chesnut was born the youngest of fourteen children and the only ( surviving ) son of James Chesnut , Sr . ( 1775 – 1866 ) and his wife , Mary Cox ( 1777 – 1864 ) on Mulberry Plantation near Camden , South Carolina . 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 . Antebellum career . Admitted to the bar in 1837 , Chesnut , Jr . commenced practice that year in Camden . He was later elected as a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives ( 1840 – 52 ) and the South Carolina Senate ( 1852 – 58 , serving as its president 1856 – 58 ) . He was a delegate to the southern convention at Nashville , Tennessee , in 1850 . In 1858 Chesnut was elected by the South Carolina Legislature to the U . S . Senate as a Democrat to replace Josiah J . Evans . He served there for two years alongside Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina . 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 . Moderate in his political views , he believed in preserving slavery and the southern way of life within the Union . But the political atmosphere tightened towards the Presidential Election of 1860 , since the Republican Party and its presidential candidate , Abraham Lincoln , opposed slavery . After the results of the election came through , Chesnut decided that he could no longer stay in his office in the Senate . Shortly after Lincoln ' s election , he was the first Southern senator to withdraw from the Senate , on November 10 , 1860 . ( He was expelled " in absentia " from the Senate the next year . ) Civil War . Chesnut participated in the South Carolina secession convention in December 1860 and was subsequently elected to the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America . He was a member of the committee which drafted the Constitution of the Confederacy . In the spring of 1861 , he served as an aide - de - camp to General P . G . T . Beauregard and was sent by the general to demand the surrender of Fort Sumter in Charleston . After the commander of the fort , Major Robert Anderson of the U . S . Army declined to surrender , Chesnut gave orders to the nearby Fort Johnson to open fire on Fort Sumter . In consequence the first shots of the Civil War were fired , on April 12 , 1861 . In the summer of 1861 Chesnut also took part in the First Battle of Manassas as an aide - de - camp to Beauregard . In 1862 Chesnut served as a member of the South Carolina ' s Executive Council and the Chief of the Department of the Military of South Carolina . Later in the war he served the Confederate Army as a colonel and an aide to Confederate President Jefferson Davis . In 1864 he was promoted to brigadier general and given command of South Carolina reserve forces until the end of the war . After the war , he returned to the practice of law in Camden and formed the Conservative Party of South Carolina . Marriage , family and death . Although James Chesnut , Jr . was the only son , his father had given him little of his extensive property . Because his father lived to the age of 90 and gave his son but a small allowance , the son James had to live mainly on his law practice . The Chesnut fortune declined in the course of the war and thus , after his father died in 1866 , Chesnut inherited little more than the extensive debts that encumbered the Mulberry and Sandy Hill plantations . Chesnut married seventeen - year - old Mary Boykin Miller ( 1823 – 86 ) , on April 23 , 1840 . She later became well known for her book on life during the Civil War , published as a diary but revised extensively from 1881 to 1886 . The daughter of U . S . Senator Stephen Decatur Miller ( 1788 – 1838 ) and Mary Boykin ( 1804 – 85 ) , she was well - educated and intelligent and took part in her husband ' s career . 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 ) . Their companionship was mostly warm and affectionate but they had no children . As Mary Chesnut described in depth in her diary , the Chesnuts had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances in the society of the South and the Confederacy . Among their friends were , for example , Confederate general John Bell Hood , ex - Governor John L . Manning , Confederate general and politician John S . Preston and his wife Caroline , Confederate general and politician Wade Hampton III , Confederate politician Clement C . Clay and his wife Virginia , and Confederate general and politician Louis T . Wigfall and his wife Charlotte . The Chesnuts were intimate family friends of President Jefferson Davis and his wife Varina Howell . James Chesnut was also a first cousin of fellow Confederate general Zachariah C . Deas . James Chesnut was " regarded as an amiable , modest gentleman of decent parts [ gifts ] " , who performed his duties with ability and dignity both in political and military life . He died at home in Camden in 1885 ; interment was in Knights Hill Cemetery , near Camden .