Joseph B. Kershaw

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Joseph Brevard Kershaw

Born	January 5, 1822 Camden, South Carolina, USA
Died	April 13, 1894 Camden, South Carolina, USA

Joseph Brevard Kershaw (January 5, 1822 – April 13, 1894) was a lawyer, judge, and a Confederate general in the American Civil War.

Kershaw was born at Camden, South Carolina, admitted to the bar in 1843, and was a member of the South Carolina Senate from 1852 to 1856. At the start of the Civil War he commanded the 2nd South Carolina Volunteer Infantry regiment and took part in the First Battle of Bull Run. He was commissioned brigadier general on February 13, 1862, and commanded a brigade in Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia during the Peninsula Campaign, at the close of which he continued with Lee and took part in the Northern Virginia Campaign and Maryland Campaign. Towards the end of the Battle of Fredericksburg, he succeeded General T. R. R. Cobb, upon the latter's death, and repulsed the last two attacks made by the Federals on Marye's Heights. The next year he was engaged in the Battle of Gettysburg and then was transferred with James Longstreet's corps to the West, where he took part in the charge that destroyed the Federal right wing at Chickamauga. After the relief of Knoxville and Longstreet's retreat to Virginia, he commanded a division in the battles of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, and Cold Harbor, and was engaged in the Shenandoah campaign of 1864 against Philip Sheridan. After the evacuation of Richmond, his troops formed part of Richard S. Ewell's corps, which was captured at the Battle of Sayler's Creek, April 6, 1865. At the close of the war he returned to South Carolina and in 1865 was chosen president of the State Senate. He was judge of the Circuit Court from 1877 to 1893. In 1894 he was appointed postmaster of Camden, an office which he held until his death in the same year.