Wade Hampton I

Wade Hampton I
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina's 4th district
In office March 4, 1803 – March 4, 1805
Preceded by	Richard Winn
Succeeded by	O'Brien Smith
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina's 2nd district
In office March 4, 1795 – March 3, 1797
Preceded by	John Hunter
Succeeded by	John Rutledge, Jr.
Personal details
Born	1752
Died	February 4, 1835
Political party	Democratic-Republican
Profession	planter, soldier, politician
Military service
Allegiance	United States of America
Service/branch	Continental Army  United States Army
Years of service	1777 - 1781; 1808 - 1814
Rank	Major general
Battles/wars	American Revolutionary War 1811 German Coast Uprising War of 1812

Wade Hampton (1752 – February 4, 1835) was a South Carolina soldier, politician, two-term U.S. Congressman, and may have been the wealthiest planter and one of the largest slave holders in the U.S. at the time of his demise. He was the scion of the politically important Hampton family, which was influential in state politics almost into the 20th century. His second great-grandfather Thomas Hampton (1623–1690) was born in England and settled in the Virginia Colony.

Hampton served in the American Revolutionary War as a lieutenant colonel in a South Carolina volunteer cavalry regiment. He was a Democratic-Republican member of Congress for South Carolina from 1795 to 1797 and from 1803 to 1805, and a presidential elector in 1801.

He was appointed to the US Army as Colonel of Regiment of Light Dragoons in October 1808, and was promoted to Brigadier General in February 1809, appointed as the top military officer in the Territory of Orleans.^[1]

He used the U.S. military presence in New Orleans to suppress the 1811 German Coast Uprising, a slave revolt which he believed was a Spanish plot. In the same year, he purchased The Houmas, a sugar plantation in Ascension Parish, Louisiana. This may have been a gift for his daughter and son-in-law, as the son-in-law was managing the plantation by 1825.

During the War of 1812, Hampton commanded the American forces in the Battle of the Chateauguay in 1813, leading thousands of U.S. soldiers to defeat at the hands of a little over a thousand colonial Canadian militia and 180 Mohawk warriors, then getting his army lost in the woods. On April 6, 1814, he resigned his commission and returned to South Carolina.

Thereafter, he acquired a large fortune through land speculation. At his death in the 1830s, it was said that he was the wealthiest planter in the U.S. and possessed some 3,000 slaves amongst his holdings.^[2] Hampton had a mansion, now known as the Hampton-Preston House, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, in Columbia, South Carolina.

His son Wade Hampton II and grandson Wade Hampton III also became prominent in South Carolina social and political circles. The younger man served as the state's first Democratic Party governor after the American Civil War and then was elected to the United States Senate. During the war, he had a distinguished career as a general in the Confederate army.

Wade Hampton I is interred in the churchyard at Trinity Episcopal Church in Columbia, South Carolina's capital city.

See also

• List of slave owners

Notes

References

• Heitman, Francis B. (1903). "Historical register and dictionary of the United States Army". War Department. Retrieved 19 October 2014. 
• "HAMPTON, Wade, (1752 - 1835)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved 20 October 2014. 

External links

• Wade Hampton in the Louisiana Historical Association's Dictionary of Louisiana Biography
• Wade Hampton I at Find a Grave