Samuel W . Ferguson Samuel Wragg Ferguson ( November 3 , 1834 – February 3 , 1917 ) was a career United States Army officer , a cavalryman , and a graduate of West Point . He is best known as being a Confederate brigadier general during the Civil War . Early life and career . Ferguson went to West Point and graduated in 1857 . Before he graduated though , he joined General Albert Johnson ' s Utah War expedition to fight the Mormons . He then went to St . Louis to join his regiment . After the expedition Ferguson was assigned to Fort Walla Walla in the Washington Territory , where he stayed from 1859 to 1860 . This all changed when he received the results of the 1860 presidential election . Hearing of the election of Abraham Lincoln , he immediately resigned and left for Charleston . Civil War service . In March 1861 Ferguson joined the provisional army of South Carolina , receiving the rank of captain . He was then appointed as an aide - de - camp to General P . G . T . Beauregard . He was one of those who received the formal surrender of Maj . Robert Anderson at Fort Sumter , raised the first Confederate flag , and posted the first guards at Fort Sumter . After the battle at Fort Sumter Ferguson was sent to deliver the first Confederate standard flown that was struck by an enemy shot to the Provisional Confederate Congress in Montgomery . He was still on Beauregard ' s staff during the Battle of Shiloh , where he was given his first command of a small brigade . During the Battle of Farmington , he was a lieutenant colonel in the 28th Mississippi Cavalry regiment . He also commanded this unit while defending Vicksburg , Mississippi , and helped stop the attacks made by William T . Sherman and Admiral David Dixon Porter . In 1863 Ferguson was promoted to brigadier general . Subsequently , he was suggested for promotion to major general , but Maj . Gen . Joseph Wheeler quickly objected . During Sherman ' s March to the Sea , Ferguson and his cavalrymen harassed the flank of the Union army . When Sherman got close to Savannah Ferguson ' s men left their horses and covered the Confederate retreat . He was then ordered to Danville , Virginia , but before arriving was ordered to go to Charlotte , North Carolina . From Charlotte he escorted Jefferson Davis into Georgia where his unit was disbanded . Postbellum career . After the war Ferguson moved to Mississippi where he opened up practice in law . He was the husband of Catherine Lee , daughter of Henry William and Eleanor Percy Lee who was a cousin of Robert E . Lee . In 1876 he was appointed as President of the United States Board of Mississippi River Commissioners . He was also Secretary and Treasurer of the Mississippi Levee Board . In the early 1890s Ferguson moved back to his hometown of Charleston , South Carolina and worked as a civil engineer . At the outbreak of the Spanish – American War Ferguson tried to join the war effort ; he was turned down . On February 3 , 1917 died in Jackson , Mississippi where he is buried also at the Greenwood Cemetery along with other famous Confederate generals . Mississippi Levee Board Scandal . In 1894 twenty thousand to forty thousand dollars mysteriously disappeared from the Mississippi Levee Board , of which Ferguson was both secretary and treasurer . Later that year he suddenly left and moved to Charleston . After staying in Charleston , Samuel moved to Ecuador . It would be many years before he returned .