In honor of the General's birthday today a couple of my favorite quotes spoken by him...

"I want you to try to teach to your children and to your children's children that ours was not a lost cause. I want you to tell them that we were fighting for the right ..." (Columbia, SC, 1900)

If we were wrong in our contest, then the Declaration of Independence of 1776 was a grave mistake and the revolution to which it led was a crime. If Washington was a patriot; Lee cannot have been a rebel.

Throughout his lifetime, Wade Hampton III held a number of important offices and positions: planter, plantation owner, businessman, legislator, community leader, soldier, governor and senator. Although he won national renown as a post-war governor and a leader of the movement to end Reconstruction in the South, it was his actions as a superb general officer in the Confederate Army that defines the essence of the man.