Thomas Drayton Thomas Fenwick Drayton ( August 24 , 1809 – February 18 , 1891 ) was a plantation owner , politician , railroad president , and military officer from Charleston , South Carolina . He served in the United States Army and then as a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War . Early life and career . Drayton was a native of South Carolina , most likely born in Charleston . He was the son of William Drayton , a prominent lawyer , soldier , and US Representative . 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 . Thomas ' grandfather , William Drayton , Sr . , was a judge for the Province of East Florida ( 1763 - 1780 ) and appointed as the first Federal judge of the new United States District Court of South Carolina . 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 commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 6th U . S . Infantry . Four years later , Drayton resigned from the US Army and became a civil engineer for railroad construction in Charleston , Louisville , and Cincinnati for two years before he returned to plantation life . He was a captain in the state militia for five years . Drayton was elected to the South Carolina state legislature and was an outspoken supporter of states rights and slavery . He eventually owned 102 slaves at Fish Hill Plantation , which his wife had brought to their marriage . While a state senator , Drayton also was President of the Charleston & Savannah Railroad from 1853 until 1856 . Marriage and family . In 1832 Drayton married Catherine Pope of a wealthy planter family in Edisto , South Carolina . Her family owned Fish Hall Plantation on Hilton Head Island . The Draytons had several children . Two of their sons served with him during the Civil War . Civil War . With the coming of war , Jefferson Davis , the new President of the Confederate States of America , appointed Drayton as a brigadier general in September 1861 and placed him in command of the military district at Port Royal , South Carolina . Drayton subsequently used " Fish Hall Plantation " , which his wife owned , as headquarters in the defense of Hilton Head Island until 1861 . Drayton assigned many of his own 102 slaves on the island to construct defenses and do other work to support the Confederates . At the Battle of Port Royal later that year , troops under his command at Fort Beauregard and Fort Walker came under attack by ships of the Union Navy , including the USS " Pocahontas " , commanded by his brother , Percival Drayton . Thomas Drayton ' s son , Lieutenant William Drayton , also fought with the Confederates in defense of the forts . After a lengthy bombardment , both forts fell to the Union attackers , who subsequently occupied much of the region . They gained their first deepwater port in coastal Carolina . In 1862 , Drayton was assigned command of an infantry brigade composed of the 15th South Carolina Infantry , the 3d Battalion S . C . Inf . and three Georgia infantry regiments , the 50th and 51st and Phillips ' Georgia Legion , which became part of the Right Wing of the Army of Northern Virginia under Lt . Gen . James Longstreet . Drayton ' s Brigade fought at the Second Battle of Manassas . Defending Fox ' s Gap at the Battle of South Mountain , Drayton suffered high casualties . His much - depleted brigade also saw considerable action at Sharpsburg . His tactical abilities were at times questioned by his superiors , and he was finally removed from command . He was transferred to the Western Theater to command a brigade in Sterling Price ' s army in August 1863 . 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 . Postbellum activities . Following the surrender of Confederate forces in the spring of 1865 , Drayton moved to Dooly County , Georgia , where he managed a plantation . Destitute and unable to reclaim his confiscated property in South Carolina , in 1871 , he moved to Charlotte , North Carolina , where he sold insurance for a living . Drayton was president of the South Carolina Immigrant Society until shortly before his death in Florence , South Carolina , at the age of 81 . He was buried in Elmwood Cemetery in Charlotte . Drayton is commemorated by a historical marker erected in 1985 by the state of South Carolina near Hilton Head in Beaufort County .